Speech delivered by Rahul Nirmal at the Hindu Heritage Day in Houston on February 21, 2015
Dear Hindu brothers and sisters, and elders,
First of all, let me thank the organizers of Hindu Mahasabha of America for giving me this opportunity to speak about Shivaji Mararaj who was a great leader of us Hindus. I have just had this great opportunity to research and learn about this great man. He is also known as Shivaji Bhonsale and Chhatrapati meaning monarch.
Shivaji Bhonsle was born around 1630 and died in 1680. He was an Indian warrior king and a member of the Bhonsle Maratha clan.
Shivaji was descended from a line of prominent nobles. India at that time was under Muslim rule, i.e. the Mughals in the north and the Muslim sultans of Bijapur and Golconda in the south. All three ruled by right of conquest, with no obligations whatsoever toward their subjects.
Shivaji, whose ancestral estates were situated in the realm of the Bijapur sultans, found the Muslim oppression and religious persecution of the Hindus so intolerable that, by the time he was 16, he convinced himself that he was the divinely appointed instrument of the cause of Hindu freedom—a conviction that was to sustain him throughout his life.
Collecting a band of followers, he began about 1655 to seize the weaker Bijapur outposts. In the process, he destroyed a few of his influential Hindus, who had become allies and lackeys of the sultans. All the same, his daring and military skill, combined with his sternness toward the oppressors of the Hindus, won him much admiration. His depredations grew increasingly audacious, and several minor expeditions sent to chastise him proved ineffective.
When the sultan of Bijapur in 1659 sent an army of 20,000 under Afẕal Khan to defeat him, Shivaji, pretending to be intimidated, enticed the enemy deep into difficult mountain terrain and then killed Afẕal Khan at a meeting to which he had lured him by submissive appeals.
Alarmed by Shivaji’s rising strength, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb ordered his viceroy of the south to march against him. Shivaji countered by carrying out a daring midnight raid right within the viceroy’s encampment, in which the viceroy lost the fingers of one hand and his son was killed. Discomfited by this reverse, the viceroy withdrew his force. Shivaji, as though to provoke the Mughals further, attacked the rich coastal town of Surat and took immense booty.
So, as I have said Shivaji carved out an enclave from the declining sultanate of Bijapur that formed the nucleus of the Maratha Empire. This Martaha empire was of great importance for the Hindus because it fought the barbaric Mughal rulers like the hated Aurangjeb. In 1674, Shivaji was formally crowned as the Chhatrapati ( Monarch) of his kindgom at Raigad.
Shivaji established a competent and progressive civil rule with the help of a disciplined military and well-structured administrative organizations. He innovated military tactics, pioneering the guerrilla warfare methods which leveraged strategic factors like geography, speed, and surprise and focused pinpoint attacks to defeat his larger and more powerful enemies. From a small contingent of 2,000 soldiers inherited from his father, Shivaji created a force of 100,000 soldiers; he built and restored strategically located forts both inland and coastal to safeguard his territory. He revived ancient Hindu political traditions and court conventions and promoted the usage of Marathi and Sanskrit, rather than Persian, in court and administration.
Let me tell you another interesting story. In 1666, Aurangzeb invited Shivaji to Agra, along with his nine-year-old son Sambhaji. Aurangzeb’s plan was to send Shivaji to Kandahar, now in Afghanistan, to consolidate the Mughal empire’s northwestern frontier. However, in the court, on 12 May 1666, Aurangzeb made Shivaji stand behind mansabdārs (military commanders) of his court. Shivaji took offence and stormed out of court, but was promptly placed under house arrest under the watch of Faulad Khan, Kotwal of Agra.
Shivaji’s spies informed him that Aurangzeb planned to move Shivaji to Raja Vitthaldas‘ haveli and then to possibly kill him or send him to fight in the Afghan frontier, so Shivaji planned his escape.
Shivaji feigned severe illness and requested to send most of his contingent back to the Deccan, thereby ensuring the safety of his army and deceiving Aurangzeb. Thereafter, on his request, he was allowed to send daily shipments of sweets and gifts to saints, fakirs, and temples in Agra as offerings for his health.
After several days and weeks of sending out boxes containing sweets, Sambhaji, being a child had no restrictions and was sent out of the prison camp and Shivaji, disguised as labourer carrying sweet basket escaped on 17 August 1666, according to the Mughal documents.
Shivaji and his son fled to the Deccan disguised as sadhus. After the escape, rumours of Sambhaji’s death were intentionally spread by Shivaji himself in order to deceive the Mughals and to protect Sambhaji.
Shivaji had acquired extensive lands and wealth through his campaigns, but lacking a formal title was still technically a Mughal zamindar or the son of an Adilshahi jagirdar, with no legal basis to rule his de facto domain. A kingly title could address this, and also prevent any challenges by other Maratha leaders, to whom he was technically equal; it would also provide the Hindu Marathas with a fellow Hindu sovereign in a region otherwise ruled by Muslims.
Shivaji was crowned king of the Marathas in a lavish ceremony at Raigad on 6 June 1674 Pandit Gaga Bhatt officiated, holding a gold vessel filled with the seven sacred waters of the rivers Yamuna, Indus,Ganges, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri over Shivaji’s head, and chanted the coronation mantras. After the ablution, Shivaji bowed before his mother Jijabai and touched her feet. Nearly fifty thousand people gathered at Raigad for the ceremonies. Shivaji was bestowed with the title of Chhatrapati which means “paramount sovereign”.
Shivaji died in 1680, leaving behind a state always at odds with the Mughals. Soon after Shivaji’s death, the Mughals attempted to invade it, but could not subdue the Marathas and it resulted in War of 27 years from 1681 to 1707 ending in the defeat for the Mughals.
Shahu, a grandson of Shivaji was kept prisoner by Aurangzeb during the War of 27 years. After the latter’s death, his successor released Shahu.
The Marathas remained the preeminent power in India until their defeat in the Second and Third Anglo-Maratha wars (1805–1818), which left the British East India Company in control of most of India.
Shivaji’s contemporary, the poet Kavi Bhushan stated: Had not there been Shivaji, Kashi would have lost its culture, Mathura would have been turned into a mosque and all would have been circumcised”.
Nineteenth century Hindu revivalist Swami Vivekanada considered Shivaji a hero and paid glowing tributes to his wisdom.]When Indian Nationalist leader, Lokmanya Tilak organised a festival to mark the birthday celebrations of Shivaji, Vivekananda agreed to preside over the festival in Bengal in 1901.[83] He wrote about Shivaji :
| “ | Shivaji is one of the greatest national saviours who emancipated our society and our Hindu dharma when they were faced with the threat of total destruction. He was a peerless hero, a pious and God-fearing king and verily a manifestation of all the virtues of a born leader of men described in our ancient scriptures. He also embodied the deathless spirit of our land and stood as the light of hope for our future. |
Shivaji’s statues and monuments are found in almost every town and city in Maharashtra, and across different Indian cities outside Maharashtra, such as statues in Bangalore, Vadodara, Surat, a monument in Agra, Arunachal Pradesh, a memorial in Delhi , a statue inside the premises of the National Defence Academy (NDA), Pune, and an equestrian statue inside the Parliament House complex in Delhi.
Thank You,
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Source: WHN Media Network
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