Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Jayanti
Rajesh Pathak
First foreign invasion to affect country’s geographical unity was mounted by Mir Qasim in 638 A.D. on Sindh, when King Dahir Sen ruled it. Taking sea-rout when the military of Mir Qasim landed on the dessert adjoining the sea, the ministers of Dahir advised him to cut the supply of food and water to enemy. So that they wouldhave already be dead due to hunger and thirst before engaging themselves into war. But this was the time when deceptive tactics in the Indian art of warfare was held in contempt. To Dahir this advice seemed to be in contravention of ‘Kshatra-dharma’ (ethics of warfare) and therefore he declined. With his military Qasim consequently got to reach as close as to the fort of Deval near Karachi. And, as oppose to Dahir, kshatra-dharma being alien to him and his lot, first thing Qasim did was to mastermind the kidnapping of three children of chief guard of the gate of the fort. Without wait Qasim got the head of one of the children chopped off, sending the message what could be done with two other children if his order was not followed. Helpless, Chief guard yielded, and opened the secret gate of the fort .Subsequently, in fierce battle Dahir got defeated, and thus Sindh went in the hand of foreigners. Later, the next invasion that country witnessed was in 980 AD. This time the way the foreigners chose passage through Upganistan (today’s Afghanistan), and their commander was Subuktgin, the sultan of Gazni. Getting hint from the spies that in Indian tradition war was not fought in the night, he sent an emissary and first got it settled with Indian king, Jaipal Shaiya, that war would be initiated next morning, and then violating the agreement he unleashed the attack upon the Indian soldiers in the dead of the night, when in deep slumber and unarmed they were! Defeated in this one-sided battle, Jaipal had to shift his capital from Kuba (Kabul) to first at Udabandpur, and then finally at Lavkushpur (Lahore). Fury of invasions did not come to close even though. Where subkutgin ended the battle, his more barbaric and cunning son, Mehmood Gazni, took it forward from there. Using his ancestor’s most reliable weapon of ‘deception’ he dealt defeat on Jaipal Shaiya’s descendant Anandpal and then Triclocahanpal Shaiya, breaking Afghanistan and Punjab away from India and, subsequently, merging them into his empire.
Attacking not the fleeing enemy from his back; granting pardon to the enemy fallen in the hand; not raising the arm on an unarmed adversary; not backtracking from the promise once given, come what may; unconcerned to victory or defeat in the battlefield, holding self-sacrifice in the battle as a matter of glory – such was the exclusivist outlook to the human virtues which Indian kings could not part with even onward course of history, and made country suffer the ignominy of slavery and of secession of its territories one by one. But during this period for the first time one that in true sense discerned the deceptive tactics of invaders and left them behind in their own game and successfully founded the downfall of Mughals he was great Maratha Hindu king Chhatrapati Shivaji. It was the time when Hindu kings and vassals had the lone priority of somehow saving their respective territories by appeasing the foreign invaders. Launching first attack on them was such a thing they couldn’t even think of. But as Shivaji laid the foundation of Maratha power he opened the war-front against Mughals by launching fierce attacks, tearing into their military capabilities and empire as a whole. Utterly inferior since he had been before Mughals in strength and resources both, the strategy he adopted earned the glory in the anal of history as ‘Gurilla-warfare’. Using dexterously the mazes of terrains of Sahyadri mountain, forming a force of its tribal inhabitants, Mavlays, he dealt one after other setback to the enemies. Gradually he gained upper hand; and as his strength increased he began to attack openly on Mughals. And with the shattering defeats dealt upon Mughals led by Aurangzeb in the open battle of Salher in 1972, Maratha warriors even forced the opponents to adopt defensive stance! Away from the capital for 1 ½ years, Shivaji then successfully fulfilled the famous ‘Karnataka-mission’. With his able administration and planned strategy he won one after other battles, and founded a separate sovereign Maratha state on a region of south-eastern Maharashtra. Emulating the ways shown by Shivaji, later Maratha grew so formidable a force that Aurangzeb, frustrated, even had to propose a truce with them. But as of now it was too late; his proposal met with outright rejection by Maratha power. And from this shock of contempt, which could never been expected by him, he could gain redemption only when death embraced him. And, especially after 1740, when Mughals got weakened during the reign of Mohammad Shah the real power of the country had shrunk into the hands of Maratha. During 1755-1756 under Raghunath Rao and Malhar Rao Holkar they dealt decisive defeat to Rohillas and Afghans and succeeded in liberating Punjab after 800 years from foreigners. And later when the downfall of Marathas began, Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh, filling the voids thus created, took the mission of rejuvenation of Indian sovereignty in his hands and established Indian rule in Punjab. Breaking the foreign dominance, army of Mahahraja led by Harisingh Nalwa even entered deep inside the Kabul and earned the glory of bringing after centuries the jewel studded gate of Somnath-which Mehmood Gaznavi looted to carry with him in 11th century- back to India and laid it again where it once stood tall. Likewise Harimandir Sahib Gurdwara of Amritsar, which was burnt down by Ahmad Shah Abdali, was renovated and as well as embedded with the gold, giving it the form of today’s ‘Swaran Mandir’. Cow-slaughter so also was prohibited in the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Thus, the territories of Punjab and Afghanistan came back into the fold of India politically. In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru-‘The Marathas and Sikhs were the spearheads of the Hindu revival, and the Mughal Empire was finally overthrown by them, not by the British’.