STATECRAFT AND STRATEGY OF SHIVAJI MAHARAJ IN BUILDING A PROGRESSIVE AND SUSTAINABLE EMPIRE

Introduction

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was born in April 1627, the 6th or 10th being accepted as the actual date. There are also some narratives that give the year of his birth as 1630. The slight discrepancies in the date and the year are immaterial to the broader analysis of the great king’s life and achievements.

Shivaji’s early childhood was turbulent. His parents were estranged, and he grew up without direct contact with his father during his early years. Further, in childhood, his mother and guardians were constantly on the move to protect the young prince from being captured and imprisoned by the Mughal forces who were campaigning against his father. In February 1637, around the age of 10, his mother settled down in Pune, the ancestral jagir of the Bhonsle clan, under the tutelage of Dadaji Kondadev. Shivaji’s father had deputed Dadaji to supervise the administration of his jagir and to undertake the education and training of his son, while also protecting him from harm.

The Bhonsle jagir was not extensive by the measure of the time. It was a narrow strip of land that ran along the Western Ghats from the north for about 90 miles, varying in depth between 12 and 24 miles, generally called the Mavals or the Sunset Lands. The land consisted of an extremely rugged series of tablelands cut on all sides by deep winding valleys — the hillsides had dense growth of trees mixed with thick undergrowth. The people of the Mavals, the Mavle, were hardy but poor subsistence farmers who were almost perennially destitute.

Training and Education

Shivaji had a tough early childhood and, even when some amount of stability in terms of length of stay was achieved in Pune, the circumstances were far from cushy. This somewhat rough childhood made the young prince resilient and naturally drawn to being self-reliant when faced with challenges. Since he was brought up by his mother, Jijabai, her influence on Shivaji’s character development was immense. Jijabai was the epitome of a medieval Kshatriya princess. She was fearless and resourceful, well educated for her time, deeply religious and knowledgeable in the concepts and theories of Hindu religion.

Even though she suffered deprivations, especially after separating from her husband, she remained defiant and courageous. Jijabai was determined that her son would grow up to be a great warrior chief and oriented his upbringing accordingly. Considering the turbulent times in which she was bringing up her son, Jijabai had a clear understanding of the need for the local people to fight the ongoing Muslim invasions of the Deccan Plateau. This identification of the fundamental need of the hour by the mother was passed on in full to the son.

Unlike many Maratha chieftains of the time, Shivaji was educated and literate. Not surprisingly, like his mother, Shivaji was religious by nature and visited temples regularly. In fact, his earliest administrative efforts at improving the condition of the people in his jagir were oriented towards ensuring the upkeep of temples in his lands. Subsequently, as a chief and then king, he respected places of worship of all faiths. (It may be added here that as a chief and king he forbade the destruction of places of worship of all faiths.) As befitting a prince, he was well trained in all aspects of military operations; he excelled in riding and was a particularly good archer.

Even though life had become reasonably stable in Pune, Shivaji continued to lead a semi-secluded life, mainly because of the fear of Mughal attacks and capture. As he grew into early adulthood, he took to wandering around his craggy and bleak lands, gradually making friends with the local Mavles, which with time would become deep bonds. Shivaji started to form informal militia groups of his ‘subjects,’ the Mavles, and to lead them in small-scale raids on targets of opportunity. Initially these raids were designed purely to increase personal profit, for himself and his followers. The concept of carrying out raids with the ulterior and altruistic motive of ‘patriotism’ would come at a much later stage in his life.

Shivaji’s yearning for true independence could be said to have been ignited during these years of young-adulthood wanderings with his band of equally young followers. The ability to roam ‘free’ in his territory, combined with a deep religious ethos, started to make him think about the political and religious situation prevailing in the region at that time.

Pune and the surrounding areas (essentially the core of the Bhonsle jagir) had no central administration. Possession of one’s land and hereditary official positions were the most important status symbols of the time. Dadaji Kondadev, deputed by Shahji Bhonsle to look after his son and wife, took over the administration of the till-now derelict jagir. He started to tour the region, delivering impartial justice wherever required. Kondadev took young Shivaji with him in his travels across the Bhonsle lands, delivering the first lessons in the practical aspects of administration and the delivery of justice at the grassroots level. At the same time, Kondadev was careful to project Shivaji as the heir apparent to the ruler of the region, filling a void that the common people had long felt.

After Dadaji Kondadev’s death in 1647, Shivaji personally took over the administration of his territory, basing his actions and decisions on the lessons he had learned from him. Shivaji had started his journey to becoming the ‘people’s hero’ for a populace starved of effective leadership and started to deliver justice to his people with absolute impartiality and a firm, demonstrated support for the weak. He established the basics of a transparent and honest administration, which the common people of the region had never experienced. The fundamental goodness and transparency of Shivaji’s methods made more villages opt to come under his administrative control, expanding and consolidating his rule and early popularity. Simultaneously, his militia was also growing. Shivaji ensured that upward mobility within his militia was based on merit and not discriminatory, a policy that endeared him to the soldiers and assured their implicit loyalty.

Shivaji’s initial steps in binding the people together and donning the mantle of the ‘people’s hero’ were intended to unite the so-far disparate subjects into a ‘Maratha’ nation in ethos and character. Two factors aided Shivaji in his somewhat unplanned move to unite the people into a coherent entity: one, a glorious idea of creating a kingdom headed by a Hindu chieftain in the Deccan, which had not happened for a few centuries; and two, the concept of confronting oppression and tyranny by the Deccan sultans and the Mughals while retaining an all-encompassing society that included followers of Islam as well. To achieve this, the first steps would require the creation of a visible entity.

Creating a Kingdom

From around 1647, Shivaji started to conquer, annex and consolidate his holdings, while creating a core around which to build his government machinery. That the well-being of the common people was the highest priority of his administration is evident from his seal and motto that he created in 1645, which states, ‘This seal of Shiva, son of Shah, shined forth for the good (of the people). It is daily to increase like the first phase of the moon and is going to be respected by the universe.’

Creating an independent kingdom from a small jagir was not an easy task. His lands were surrounded by Islamic states (the four Shahi kingdoms) and, by the time he started out on his conquests, the Mughals, with their formidable military, were in full flow assaulting the Deccan kingdoms. It was inevitable that Shivaji clashed with the Mughals and the remaining Shahi kingdoms. In the battles and skirmishes against the Mughals and the sultans of the Deccan, his personal fights and victories over Afzal Khan and Shaista Khan are well recounted in both history and folklore. A certain amount of embellishment in the retelling and recounting of Shivaji’s personal valour is to be expected. The oppressed population was at that time starving for a hero to rise from the ashes of old chivalry, and Shivaji proved to be the man. So, who was this man who set out to create a kingdom where none had existed before?

Personality

Physically, Shivaji was not an imposing man — he was handsome, short and slightly built, weighing only 64 kilograms at his coronation in 1674. Even his contemporary detractors agreed that he had an unmistakable aura of power; his intelligence and force of character were palpable; he also was an excellent judge of people. He led an austere, simple life, preferring to spend time with his troops in their camps rather than in the opulence of the palace. He ensured that officials and his troops all were respectful towards women; defaulters were severely punished. There are many stories, both authentic and folklore, that demonstrate his respect for women, in an era where a conquest or victory in battle meant that the enemies’ women were considered chattels of the victor.

Religion

An abiding faith in the Hindu religion was an article of loyalty and constancy for Shivaji throughout his life. His mother had instilled in him an intense religious faith, which never faltered through all the troubles and tribulations of his tempestuous life. He is said to have been greatly influenced by the discourses of the saint Tukaram and had accepted the sage Ramdas as his spiritual guide. His spiritual evolution was heavily influenced by the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and created a sense of heroic purpose in Shivaji from a very young age. As he grew in stature as a military commander, he had the war chapters of both the epics read out to his troops regularly to instil in them appreciation of the valour and sagacity required to win battles and wars. In a sense, this effort by Shivaji could be considered an early manifestation of the current additions in the curricula in Indian professional military education.

There is in fact a critical feature of Shivaji’s religious faith that is almost never emphasised or even narrated: despite his intense religious faith and commitment, he was never a bigot. This was remarkable during times when religious bigotry was at its height, with Aurangzeb spearheading religious persecution across the subcontinent, and especially in the Deccan. In a harsh, and often brutal, religious environment in which tolerance was rare, Shivaji’s religious sensitivity stands out as an extreme rarity. This aspect of his character is all the more remarkable since he ruled a Hindu-majority kingdom and therefore had no need to appease other religions. This fundamental attitude was scripted as a policy of his rule while also creating a Hindu empire. This amazing facet of his personality that set the fundamental tone of his rule has not been given sufficient importance in most narratives.

The Maratha Kingdom

By the early 1660s Shivaji controlled extensive territories and commanded a cavalry force in excess of 10,000 horsemen and commensurate infantry. The Maratha kingdom, with its own administrative machinery and military forces, with defined borders, had been established in all but name. Through the next decade, Shivaji had many ups and downs and had time to reflect on the geopolitical and religious state of affairs. The ongoing onslaught by the Mughals, not only against the Marathas but also against the remnants of the Shahi kingdoms, had a salutary impact on his efforts at consolidating his territorial holdings and being accepted as a kingdom.

In his quest to stabilise his territory, Shivaji became acutely aware that only the establishment of a ‘legitimate’ kingdom would permit him to further pursue his ideal of creating a politically viable Swarajya. There were tangible catalysts for the development of this idea. One, the Mughals and the Shahi sultans continued to treat Shivaji as a jagirdar, although by now Shivaji controlled and ruled over very large tracts of land that he had conquered. Two, the Maratha nobles, especially the older and established families, considered the Bhonsle clan to be upstarts with a lesser pedigree than any of them. They followed Shivaji and supported him at their convenience only when there would be personal gain for them. Shivaji’s de facto independence was always being questioned both by the Muslim nobility and his own Maratha contemporaries.

Shivaji thus concluded that, in the eyes of the world, independent status for his territories and himself would only be achieved if he was crowned as a legitimate king. There were two distinct advantages to making his territory a legal kingdom: one, the legitimacy that attaches to a crowned king would increase and cement the loyalty of the people to him personally and to the Bhonsle clan and dynasty in general. Two, and perhaps more importantly, after he was crowned and the kingdom legitimised, all conquered lands would be lawfully part of the Maratha kingdom, because the territories that were annexed remained contested lands with the local chiefs and zamindars. A king would be above the petty squabbles of minor chiefs, zamindars and jagirdars. By the mid-1660s Shivaji knew that being crowned, anointed and validated as a king was a practical necessity if he was to move forward his concept of a ‘Hindu Rashtra,’ in which other faiths continued to be protected.

While Shivaji was continuing his struggle to create a Maratha kingdom, he faced many challenges. In May 1666, he visited Agra at the insistence of the Rajput commander of the Mughal forces to celebrate Aurangzeb’s fiftieth birthday. There he was slighted by the Mughal and, on protesting, was imprisoned. His imprisonment and subsequent escape from Agra in August are also the topics of folklore.

He continued to improve domestic administration for the next few years. His decisive victory in 1672 helped establish the conditions enabling his coronation. By now Shivaji had clearly articulated his desire to be recognised as a Hindu monarch and to push back on the spread of the political, cultural and proselytising influence of Islam in the Deccan. After making the necessary religious arrangements to sanctify the ceremonies, Shivaji was installed as ‘Chhatrapati’ (paramount sovereign of the universal umbrella) on 6 June 1674. After the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire this was the first Hindu kingdom to take shape and be established in the subcontinent.

Shivaji, now Maharaj, continued his conquests and annexations within southern India, astutely avoiding direct confrontation with the large Mughal army still campaigning in the Deccan. However, he succumbed to a brief illness and died on 3 April 1680 at the relatively young age of 53. In the brief narrative above, the focus has been on the developments that led to the creation of the Maratha kingdom. Therefore, Shivaji’s military activities and achievements are not discussed in detail, as being peripheral to the main thrust of this paper, which is his statecraft.

Building a Countervailing Hindu Empire and Righting a Contradiction

Having established a Maratha kingdom and been crowned the Maharaj, Shivaji turned to building the foundations of a Hindu empire. Before analysing the steps that Shivaji initiated towards his dream, it is necessary to set right earlier narratives about him. First, just the list of his military achievements establishes him as a genius in military-strategic and operational matters. However, to support a narrative pursued by the British in India — that the Mughals were the greatest rulers India had ever seen and that the British were the natural successors to them, outsiders come to rule India — Shivaji remained a most under-appreciated and maligned king in Indian history. Misinformation about his rule and of the Maratha epoch in general was rampant in the British writings of the time.

It is not surprising that later-day British historians and European Indophiles like James Grant Duff propagated biased material and manipulated facts to malign Shivaji — the British could not afford to accept that a local king was laying the foundation of a Swarajya to succeed the Mughals. Such a development would have neutralised their arguments that the Indian subcontinent could only be governed by ‘outsiders,’ the British being the natural successors to a diminishing and fractured Mughal dynasty. The British used a different yardstick to judge Shivaji and his achievements as compared to what they used for the Muslim rulers of the time, the Mughals and the Shahis in the Deccan.

Even though awareness of Shivaji’s achievements and the greatness of his ideals and rule is growing, especially within the country, gaps need to be filled. Indigenous chronicles of the time, wilfully ignored by the British analysts, were actually more to the point and unbiased in their reports. Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901) — judge, scholar, author and social reformer — was one of the most vociferous propagators of Shivaji’s achievements, refuting the false images created by a series of racially biased, even hypocritical, English historians. Irrespective of the standards used to judge him, Chhatrapati Shivaji was a man of many virtues; an upright person of towering character; chivalrous to a fault; a king of immense individual ability in multifarious disciplines; a man of unwavering religious convictions, yet not bigoted; and a great leader on and off the battlefield.

Pillars of an Empire

In general, there have been five time-tested pillars of an empire or state for it to be considered viable. These are: defined territorial borders; the executive; a viable political system; a judiciary; and an efficient military force. The wealth of a nation and its diplomatic power, including deterrence, is created using an optimum mix of the pillars of the state.

Defined Territory and Its Integrity

Early in his youthful wanderings Shivaji realised that territorial integrity and its security were paramount to create a kingdom. Further, he reasoned that achieving these objectives was the responsibility of the executive — in medieval times, the king. All his subsequent actions were oriented towards achieving these two interrelated goals. His conquests were carefully added to his administrative machinery to bring the new territories within the fold of his ‘kingdom.’

In Hindu kingdoms, traditional feudal lords held or ‘owned’ their land and thus were an inherent threat to central authority. A feudatory with an expansive land holding could rise to question the authority of the king himself if the king was found to be weak. Shivaji recognised this intrinsic threat to the integrity of the kingdom and instituted two measures to contain it. First, he prohibited feudal chiefs from fortifying their holdings or palaces. All forts within the kingdom belonged to the king and were commanded and manned by the Maharaja’s officers and forces. Second, Shivaji made no further land grants to nobles for services rendered. Gradually, such land holdings of the feudal chiefs diminished and were not a threat to central authority.

The kingdom was governed through agents on a central payroll of the king and therefore directly responsible to him, through the aegis of a central administration. Further, Shivaji focused on fortifying existing forts and building new ones where necessary, in pursuance of his belief that border fortifications were the greatest strength in ensuring the integrity of the kingdom. All forts were commanded and controlled by Maratha officers. The havaldar, normally the commander of the fort, and another two officials in charge of the finances and supplies respectively, were jointly responsible for the well-being and defence of the fort. This joint responsibility ensured that a single person could not surrender the fort to an adversary either when defeated or through bribery and personal corruption.

Executive

In medieval times, all power was vested in the king and, as a corollary, all power flowed from the king — the hallmark of a fully centralised rule with an accent on indigenous and Hindu tradition that had been discarded over the previous few centuries. Among these were a reversion to more active political discourse, reintroduction of earlier court conventions and basic customs in terms of greetings, and so on. Shivaji banned Persian in his court and in administrative work, and Marathi was made the official language of the kingdom. For a few centuries, Persian was the ‘official’ language in much of India. Neither did it have any roots in India nor was it the language of even the Muslim rulers; it simply was considered more sophisticated than local languages. For Shivaji, the welfare of his subjects was the highest priority and the paramount objective of the king and his court. This was a departure from the norms of the time, where Muslim rulers had considered their subjects, especially non-Muslims, as not really worthy of much consideration, and oppression was common. Shivaji righted this historic wrong within his kingdom.

Administration

It is in creating a viable pyramidal administrative machinery, where none had existed before, that Shivaji demonstrated his innate brilliance. The lowest administrative unit remained the village, with the chief, the mukadam, being an almost independent administrator. This arrangement remained constant with the Muslim administration spread across the Deccan for the past few centuries. From the province and district level, Shivaji reinstituted traditional indigenous governance processes. At the province level, there was a council of six to eight persons that doubled as administrative and judicial institutions.

The Ashta-Pradhan

At the centre, Shivaji created a council of eight ministers, the Ashta-Pradhan, that subsequently came to be referred to as the Rajmandal (like a state council). Each of the eight ministers looked after one major aspect of administration, and the council was headed by a Peshwa, who could be equated to a modern-day prime minister. Shivaji declared that none of the positions would be hereditary, a wise precaution to avoid nepotism and complacency. Unfortunately, the policy was not carried forward by his successors, to the detriment of administrative efficiency in the long term.

Land Reforms

Shivaji instituted land reforms by measuring personal holdings and then laying down the tax to be paid based on productivity, a novel concept for the time. The taxes were also proportionate to the total yield of a village. He ordered that there would be no more random collection of taxes or harrying of the peasants. In order to increase agricultural produce and also territorial holdings in the larger sense, Shivaji encouraged reclamation and cultivation of wasteland at the periphery of the borders of the kingdom, and this system was subsidised to encourage farmers.

Political System

Once he was assured of territorial integrity, Shivaji turned to the creation of a viable political system. The system was based on control and taxation, to enable welfare as well as territorial expansion. The political system could be explained on the basis of three concentric circles. At the core, the inner circle, was Swarajya, or self-rule, under one’s own king. This was the ‘kingdom’ — essentially a welfare state — where the rule was benevolent, taxes were minimal and the people were not harassed.

The next circle encompassed the regions contiguous to Swarajya over which Shivaji claimed suzerainty but did not rule or govern directly. These territories paid chauth and sardeshmukhi to Shivaji and were never plundered or pillaged by the king or his forces. Contrary to popular belief, both these taxes were not Shivaji’s invention; they had been in existence for a long time before in many other Hindu kingdoms. However, he enforced them rigidly. The third circle, spread far and wide, denoted the country that was open to plunder. Pillaging raids into these territories were purely to gather treasure, and were without any religious bias. These raids on the outer circle continued even after Shivaji’s coronation.

Each circle was open to outward expansion, particularly the middle circle, whose inner edges were gradually assimilated into Swarajya as the kingdom stabilised and grew. This ensured that the central treasury always had an assured income. Based on requirements in terms of planned campaigns and other exigencies, raids on the outer circle were conducted. This concept continued to be adopted by the Maratha rulers, especially under the Peshwas at the height of their power and the spread of the Maratha Empire.

Judiciary

Justice was delivered at the lowest level by the majlis, based on the ancient tradition of the region. This was an informal council, consisting of members of the public and a few officials. They made joint decisions which were strictly enforced. A somewhat similar arrangement was via the diwansubah, at the provincial or subah level; it formed part of the larger administrative council of the subah. The highest court in the land was the Ashta-Pradhan, who doubled as both the administrative and judicial apex bodies for the kingdom. The judicial system was simple, efficient and adhered to the basics of Hindu tenets in terms of crime and punishment. It delivered justice expeditiously but suffered somewhat from its extreme simplicity. Since Shivaji’s kingdom was relatively small, the system sufficed.

Building the Maratha Military Machine

Shivaji’s greatest achievement was creating a victorious army from scratch, where none had existed before. True enough, Maratha captains had been successful and considered good fighters in the armies of the Bahmani kings and then the Shahi sultans, but they at best led a Maratha contingent that was amalgamated within the predominantly Muslim army. The historical juncture at which Shivaji achieved the feat makes it all the more impressive. Further, the fact that he created a primarily Hindu army with recruits from the ‘hillmen,’ the Mavles, of the Western Ghats, who were ignorant of battle tactics, is even more laudable and praiseworthy. The Maratha military force that he built was the foundation of Shivaji’s strength, power, influence and status.

In starting the build-up of a military machine without even the smallest kernel of a core element, Shivaji displayed enormous self-belief and confidence in his people. He was able to demonstrate that indigenously raised armies, led by their own commanders, could effectively counter and defeat any army that it met on the field, including the vaunted mighty Mughal army that had so far been considered invincible.

It is obvious that Shivaji studied and thought about military strategy and tactics. He analysed and determined that victory in battle depended on three factors: being on the offensive, achieving surprise and retaining the initiative. All the reforms that he instituted in the military forces stemmed from ensuring these three intangibles. He looked back at history and carefully examined older battles, coming to the conclusion that it was always advantageous to fight in enemy territory. Traditionally Hindu kings had always defended their kingdoms from aggression, which meant that the battles were fought on their territory. They seldom took the offensive. In these circumstances, even if the invaders were beaten off, the damage suffered by the defending country was considerable. Shivaji realised that being on the offensive and fighting battles in enemy territory were the first step towards avoiding defeat.

Organisation

Shivaji instinctively knew that efficient organisation of the army was one of the foundational requirements to create a victorious army and therefore paid minute, personal attention to it. In the early days, his army operated from strongholds in the hilly and rugged terrain of the Western Ghats and therefore was built around the infantry. As campaigns started to extend to the plains and the need for speed in attack and getaway became a deciding factor, the focus shifted to cavalry. Gradually the cavalry element grew in importance and size and became the core of the army, so much so that the famed and feared arm of the Maratha army was their cavalry.

The basic infantry unit consisted of 1,000 soldiers, commanded by a hazari, and was the equivalent of a modern infantry battalion. The battalion was divided into ten companies of 100, called a jumla, under a jumladar; a jumla was further divided into two platoons, each under a havildar, and then into five sections of ten under naiks. Seven such battalions formed a brigade under a sarnobat. The basic cavalry unit consisted of 1,250 bargis, horsemen or troopers, divided into ten jumlas of 125 each. They were further divided into five havalas of 25 troopers, each with its own farrier. Five such regiments formed a brigade under a panch hazari.

Intelligence Apparatus

Even though the famous treatise the Arthashastra has explained in detail the need for military intelligence gathering, this was an aspect that medieval Hindu kings had come to ignore. From his early days as a minor chief in the hills, Shivaji developed and deployed an intelligence system within his military that subsequently formed the core for expansion within his kingdom. Intelligence was the foundation from which he almost always achieved ‘surprise’ and managed to retain the offensive. By leveraging actionable intelligence, he was able to carry the battle to the adversary, choosing the time and place to his own advantage. While intelligence was critical to the success of hit-and-run tactics that he adopted and perfected, intelligence was also necessary to ensure that each raid aligned with the broader strategic objectives that he had set.

Asymmetric Tactics

From the beginning of his military career, Shivaji faced adversaries with overwhelming numerical superiority, who were more heavily armed than his own light horsemen. It was not difficult for him to visualise that he could never win pitched battles of attrition against these armies. To mitigate these, Shivaji studied, devised, developed and perfected the art of asymmetric warfare. He became adept at concealing his real intent and objectives through carrying out secondary attacks that confused the enemy regarding the place and time of the main attack, combined with other deception tactics to confuse the enemy’s intelligence apparatus.

Through indirect attacks, hit and run, and tactical manoeuvring, the Marathas baffled the adversary, retaining the initiative and minimising his own casualties. He avoided pitched battles at all costs, till the very end of his military career and, within the first few years of embarking on a conquering spree, embedded classical guerrilla warfare strategy and tactics into the doctrine of the Maratha army. Shivaji put out three dicta that were to underline the planning and execution of campaigns, battles and skirmishes — minimal but efficient effort, and maximum results with minimum casualties for his side.

Altering the Character of War

Although the Mughal, and later English, chroniclers attempted to put out the idea that Shivaji was ‘uneducated,’ this was not the case. He was an astute student of history and warfare, imbibing the strategy and tactics of all contemporary warlords while consciously studying earlier wars that Hindu kings had fought. Traditionally, Hindu kings and soldiers alike, especially the Rajputs, had glorified the concept of fighting and dying to save the honour of the kingdom, clan and family. Honour was synonymous with fighting to the death even if the person was alone. Shivaji altered this concept of ‘fight to the death’ by adopting a different attitude to war and battle. He adopted guerrilla and asymmetric tactics to avoid, especially, direct confrontation with adversaries who were superior in capabilities and numbers. This also meant that nobody fought to the death.

Second, he moved aside the traditional Hindu concept of ‘chivalry’ in battle and introduced the more pragmatic focus on victory based on perseverance, enemy attrition and self-preservation at all costs. Being numerically inferior to the adversary in all encounters, Shivaji could ill afford to randomly lose any of his soldiers. By instilling the concept of staying alive to fight another day into his forces, Shivaji conclusively changed the character of war as had been traditionally practised by indigenous armies. It is interesting that, much later in the 20th century, Patton, a celebrated US Army general, immortalised this concept in his own acerbic manner.

Redefining Victory

Hindu kings brought up and tutored in the concepts of dharma — righteousness — were prone to forgive their adversaries after defeating them in battle. There are many instances of Hindu kings not only pardoning the enemy but restoring their lands after comprehensively defeating them in battle. Further, generally medieval kings were not prone to invading other countries or attacking them for loot and pillage. This attitude permitted the adversaries to retire to their holdings, recoup and prepare for battle again. This went through fundamental changes with Islamic invasions and intrusions into India from the 11th century, which were categorised by greater ruthlessness that brought increased depredations to the vanquished in comparison. A defeat by a Muslim invader was normally catastrophic for a Hindu kingdom. The ‘vanquished’ were subjected to grave depredations — pillage, loot and rape — and, more importantly, the destruction of the physical embodiments of their religion, the temples, and virtually the basis of their belief.

Shivaji instituted measures to counter and solve this dichotomy. First, he ensured that every victory added some amount of territory to his gradually increasing holdings, which obviously meant that the adversary felt deprived. Second, he was careful to ensure that in case of a setback in a battle or skirmish his forces suffered minimum casualties. Therefore, Shivaji did not have any qualms about retreating from battle if it was not going his way, resorting to rapid tactical withdrawals when necessary, in contrast to earlier predominantly Hindu armies who had battled under the mistaken belief that withdrawal was dishonourable and therefore had willingly sacrificed their lives in futile attempts to salvage their honour. Shivaji laid down the absolute fundamental objective for his army: gain maximum territory and treasure without having to absorb heavy casualties. The concept of victory was redefined to mean ‘not being defeated,’ irrespective of whether the enemy was defeated or not. This classic redefinition of victory was adopted and adapted by latter-day guerrilla forces who continue to operate in pursuance of this concept. Shivaji was perhaps one of the first military commanders to understand this nuanced definition of victory.

Unique Aspects of Shivaji’s Kingdom

There are some unique aspects that stand out regarding the kingdom that Shivaji created. The first is that he created a kingdom where none had existed before. Most of the earlier kingdoms of the subcontinent, irrespective of their socio-religious make-up, had been founded from existing kingdoms, large and small. The new kingdom was either hived off from an existing one through a strong vassal declaring independence or by dethroning an existing but weak king. Therefore, the kingdoms so created were not fresh but old ones coming under the rule of a new dynasty under another strongman. This was an age-old process. The founders of such kingdoms inherited three entities that were the absolute basic requirements of a kingdom: a territorially defined geographic area; an existing administrative system, even if it was dysfunctional; and a constituted military force, irrespective of its effectiveness. Shivaji did not inherit any of the three essential attributes.

The second is that from the very beginning Shivaji faced the might of the Mughal Empire at the height of its powers, as well as that of the Shahi sultanates, especially Bijapur and Golconda. He did not have the power or the wherewithal to confront them directly, even one-on-one, let alone simultaneously most of the time. His adoption of asymmetric tactics was a stroke of genius that levelled the field somewhat, both on the battlefield and in statecraft and diplomacy. All of Shivaji’s actions have to be viewed through this prism to understand the importance of asymmetry.

At the end of 29 years of continuous struggle, Shivaji left behind a well-defined core of a Swarajya kingdom that respected everyone. This was a stupendous achievement, considering that no Hindu kingdom had existed in the Deccan after the founding of the Bahmani kingdom in 1367. The Vijayanagara Empire was established further south, below the Deccan, around the same time. He had in mind a Swarajya with freedoms and equality for all denominations.

Five Inflection Points in Shivaji’s Progress from Princeling to Chhatrapati

When Shivaji’s life is looked at holistically, it can be noticed that there is a definitive intellectual development from a young chief wandering his lands to create a kingdom; a military genius who rallied his people to the cause of Swarajya. The thread of this development, from viewing the world locally to becoming a far-thinking visionary with an exalted goal, can be joined together in five inflection points that can be traced through his life. They are:

• In his early days roaming his jagir, he realised that owning territory was the first and fundamental requirement to be considered even a chief, let alone a king.
• As conflict started to become inevitable, he studied war and adopted asymmetric tactics for his forces, while ensuring that the tactics were carefully aligned to strategic objectives.
• Analysing his numerical inferiority, he redefined the concept of victory that had so far prevailed and had made ‘dying in battle’ a virtue.
• Recognising the need to legitimise the sovereignty of his kingdom through his own coronation as a Maharaj.
• Clearly understanding the role of the king — the executive — in maintaining the territorial integrity of the kingdom and delivering impartial and efficient administration.

Conclusion

Chhatrapati Shivaji was an exemplary and accomplished military leader and statesman whose modest and self-critical approach made him an extraordinary personality of the time. Although he embodied and demonstrated all the qualities that Chanakya described as essential for a monarch to possess, he was not built in the classical pattern of the indigenous monarch of the time. His military career and activities deserve special mention in any discussion about his rule. He commanded undiluted loyalty from his officers and soldiers, of several backgrounds and multiple faiths, many of whom died in battle to achieve the goals that he had laid down. These deaths, especially in the higher echelons of the force, cannot be classified purely as death in battle. Yes, most of them were extraordinary acts of bravery; but more importantly the sacrifice of life was aimed at achieving a cause which their king had envisioned. The soldiers and people of his kingdom fervently believed that Shivaji would deliver a better future for them, and they were willing to die to achieve this aim.

He managed to transcend limiting circumstances — political, religious, cultural and even in terms of resources — creating his own opportunities, and gathered the Maratha energies onto himself, becoming the core of an Indian renaissance underscored by his faith, and yet broad-minded. He single-handedly gave the Maratha people a critical role in the history of India from medieval times onwards, spinning the fibres and threads from which the post-Mughal history of the subcontinent would be woven for posterity.

Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore put the feelings of the Indian people in perspective when he wrote: