पुणेरी मिसळ: Why the Mughals could never really capture the Deccan.

Saturday, 19 January 2019

Why the Mughals could never really capture the Deccan.

I had written this as one of my Facebook posts a few years back. Today, on the insistence of my photographer par excellence friend Kapil, I'm sharing this write-up as a blog post. I have independently written a more detailed answer on Quora which can be accessed here[1]. Additionally, I have written on the importance of forts, and their role in the 27 Year war of independence, which can be found here[2].

This article, and the articles on the two links I shared are my humble offerings to Shri Ninadrao Bedekar, the person who painted in great detail the life, times, policies, and a new perspective on Shivaji,the Marathas, and the indomitable spirit of the Sahyadris. In memory of the great historian who enthralled and inspired so many of us.

Why Aurangzeb could never quite capture the Deccan despite possessing the worlds biggest and best equipped army of the time, was mainly due to the underestimation of both- the terrain here as well as the brilliant tactics of Marathas. Even though he did not wholeheartedly support it, Aurangzeb had to split his army in two and open two fronts- one in the Deccan where he attempted to capture important and strategic forts such as Raigad, Panhala, Rajgad, Vishalgad, Sinvhagad, Torna, Satara, Sajjangad(Parali) whereas the second division of his army, under the command of the brilliant general Zulfikar Khan was sent south to capture Jinji, which was now the capital of Marathas. Rajaram Maharaj had successfully evaded the Mughal forces first at Raigad then Panhala, Vishalgad and had finally reached Jinji, from where he fought Zulfikar Khan for 7 years. This was a huge stretch to the Mughal Supply lines, and brilliant Maratha generals such as Santaji Ghorpade and Dhanaji Jadhav ruthlessly cut off these already stretched lines. The movement of these two were so lightening that it was impossible to predict where they would turn up.

Jinji burnt a huge unsustainable hole in the Mughal treasury and did its job. In Maharashtra he managed to reduce the tactically important forts mentioned above, but needed months of siege. Once the marathas thought that their positions on these forts (all of which rise atleast 1000-2000 feet from surrounding areas and are extremely difficult to climb) was untenable-if they were out of food or ammunition, they would take money from the mughals and surrender the fort- but applied a scorched earth policy wherein all food and ammunition was burnt. When the Mughals received the empty fort, they used to stack it up with grain and ammunition and do whatever repairs were needed to strengthen it. Once all this was done, the Marathas would surprize attack the forts and retake it without much losses. In the end, they ended up retaining the fort in a better position than which they had left it in. This "business" continued for 27 years and Mughals went bankrupt.

The other decisive factor was the full manipulation of the season. Winter was usually the time for war and campaigns and generally these campaigns lasted till the summer. Marathas held on to their positions till the rains arrived and opened negotiations with the Mughals once it started raining. Most of the important forts overlook a river valley, and as such, any besieging Mughal force was camped along the banks of these rivers- which were prone to flash flooding. As soon as it started raining heavily enough, Marathas opened talks so that Mughals would have to shift their bases to these valleys, and as a result, were prone to the attacks by the natural elements. The story of Urmodi river devastating the mughal camp at the foothills of Sajjangad is quite famous.

The legacy of Shivaji Maharaj had lived on through to the Marathas. In a bakhar, there is a quote attributed to Ch.Shivaji, which roughly translates as: "Today, we control 350 forts. One day will come when Alamgir(Aurangzeb) will come to deccan. I will fight each of my fort for atleast a year against him. That Alamgir will need a lifetime of 350 years to capture deccan." When Aurangzeb finally came to deccan in 1682, he started his war by capturing a small hillfort called Ramsej near Nasik. An army of 50,000 was sent to reduce the fort under the command of a high ranking official- Shahbuddin Khan Gaziuddin Firoz Jung. Ramsej is a small fort which can hold not more than 500 people. We dont know who was incharge of the fort. But this anonymous killedar not only defended the fort- he with his 500 men defended it for five and a half years. How was the Alamgir then supposed to win the deccan in his lifetime?

Finally the most important factor was an unseen one. Mughals possessed the finest generals of the time- Zulfikar Khan, Ikhlas Khan, Mukarrab Khan, Feroze Jung etc. Marathas had Santaji, Dhanaji, Ramchandrapant, Shankarji Narayan, etc. but they also had the invisible General Sahyadri on their side. The above mentioned Maratha generals enlisted the help of General Sahyadri in each and every campaign and he assisted them everytime, thereby creating a havoc in mughal camps. If it is said that the Russian General Winter defeated Napoleon and Hitler, then most definitely General Sahyadri not only defeated Aurangzeb, but decimated his forces, and crumbled his empire.

Some photos of General Sahyadri- the heartland of Maratha country.