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Unit 1: British Expansion

The total absence of first rate personalities was an important cause of the fall of the Marathas. Notes
Unfortunately most of the eminent leaders died towards the end of the eighteenth century. Mahadaji
Sindhia in February 1794, Haripant Phadke in June 1794, Ahalya Bai Holkar in August 1795,
Peshwa Madhav Rao II in October 1795, Tukoji Holkar in August 1797 and Nana Fadnavis in
March 1800, succeeded by weaklings and imbeciles like Baji Rao II, Daulat Rao Sindhia, Jaswant
Rao Holkar and the lot. On the other hand, the East India Company was lucky in having the
services of able persons like Elphinstone, John Malcolm Colonel Colins, Jonathan Ducan, Arthur
Wellesley (later on the conqueror of Napoleon), Lord Lake and above all Richard Wellesley.
2. Inherent Defects of Maratha State: Jadunath Sarkar contends that there were inherent defect in
the character of the Maratha state and at no tyme any concerted attempt had been made at well-
thought-out organised communal improvement, spread of education or unification of the people
either under Shivaji or under the Peshwas. The cohesion of the peoples of Maratha state, argues
Sarkar, was not organic, but artificial, accidental and therefore precarious. The religio-national
movement which had worked in the destruction of the Mughal Empire in the seventeenth century
had spent itself in the process of expansion of the Maratha Empire. The defects of the Maratha
state though very evident in the heydays of the Empire became glaring in the nineteenth century
when they had to contend With a European power organised on the best pattern of the West.
3. Absence of Stable Economic Policy: The economic policy of the Maratha state was hardly
conducive to a stable political set-up. During the long wars against Aurangzeb, the Maratha people
had been uprooted, the peasants had given up cultivation and joined the profession of the soldier.
Even after the withdrawal of the Mughals from Maharashtra, the Maratha people tried to live on
the sword, now fighting and plundering the Mughals in their provinces of Gujarat, Malwa,
Bundelkhand etc. Under the early Peshwas the wars of the state were financed by the plunder of
the territories conquered and by collection of chauth and sardeshmukhi from dependent territories.
Thus, the Maratha Empire subsisted not on the resources of Maharashtra, but on the tribute levied
from newly acquired territories. When the Maratha Empire reached its optimum point of expansion
such new sources of income dried up, while it cost the state the co-operation of the princes from
whom the tribute was exacted. The later Maratha leaders made the matters worse by civil wars,
thereby ruining the economy of Maharashtra. Wellesley wrote, “They have not left a stick standing
at the distance of 150 miles from Poona; they have eaten the forage and the grain, have pulled
down the houses and have used the material as firewood and the inhabitants are fled with their
cattle.” A terrible famine visited the Deccan in 1804 taking a very heavy toll of life. The Maratha
chiefs were reduced to such straits that they had to mortgage most of their territories to bankers.
Thus the Maratha leadership failed to evolve a stable economic policy to suit the changing needs
of time. In the absence of any industry or foreign trade openings, fighting was the only lucrative
opening for the youth. War became the ‘national industry’ of the Marathas and recoiled on the
economy of the state.
4. Weakness of Maratha Political Set-up: Even in its heydays, the Maratha Empire was a loose
confederation under the leadership of the Chhatrapati and later the Peshwa. Just as the Peshwa
usurped the power of the Chhatrapati, the subordinate ‘war lords’ usurped the authority of the
Peshwa. Powerful chiefs like the Gaikwar, the Holkar, the Sindhia and the Bhonsle carved out
semi-independent kingdoms for themselves and paid lip-service to the authority of the Peshwa.
When the Poona Government weakened after the disaster of Panipat, the feudal units fell apart
and even weakened each other by internal conflicts. Malet wrote about the Maratha confederacy,
“The seeds, however, of domestic dissensions are thickly and deeply sown in the Maratha system
(if system it may be called) and it is perhaps as good a security as any that their neighbours can
have that the whole of its parts composed as it now is, cannot be brought into cordial coalition.”
There was irreconcilable hostility between the Holkar arid the Sindhia, while the Bhonsle Raja of
Nagpur claimed the kingship of the Maratha Empire. Not unoften the Maratha chief took sides
against each other, much to the detriment of the nation and the state. In the war of succession
(1743-50) between Madho Singh and Ishwari Singh for the gaddi of Jaipur after the death of their
father Raja Singh, the Sindhia and the Holkar took opposite sides. Mutual jealousies prevented
the Maratha sirdars from offering a united front to the East India Company. In 1803 when the

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