Why lakhs of Indians celebrate the British victory over the Maratha Peshwas every New Year

[Swastika]

bravo brahmin warriors peshwas !

 

[PRC]

I agree with you to an extent but I don't agree with many of your point, if the mahars had fought the Britishers and achieved what ever they could they would have been worshipped by all as our great martyrs, by doing that they would have shown their valour, for example alluri sitha ramaraju, of andhra belonged to the tribal community of billavas, he fought against the dutch and English, he is worshipped by all we are proud of them, and birsa munda the gond legend, these are the hero's for me and many tribals fought for the country I bow to them with respect, I believe British used them as expandables that pitching two countrymen against other and see the tamasha, the mahars who fought with the Marathas may be great with mahars but what about the others, by the way mahars were first of all were given recognition by shivaji, mahars fought along with shivaji.
As for jhats, they were the true defenders from the invasions, even though they were politically and militarily not up to the mark, and by farming lands guarding them ferociously, it is said that even though Mohammed gori attacked somnath and carried their treasure to Afghanistan by the time they reached Afghanistan they had lost all their treasures, reason for this is that jhats raided their convoys and looted their illgotten wealth. And jhats in the south are known as khapu or khaps, and as for Sikhs, it is an amalgamation of all Hindu communities, a Hindu will give his daughter in marriage to a Sikh, and sikhism was formed for the defence of our lands, with out Sikhs we Hindus would have suffered irreparable damage, they have a lot of respect among Hindus, only now who don't like the relationship between Hindus and Sikhs want to drive wedge between us, and for a Hindu we don't have any hesitation to visit a gurudwara, and for Sikhs a rare information is that gurunanaks son who is said to be had built a mutt in Bangalore who was protected by Hindu paleygars from invaders.

The examples that you gave of Alluri Sitha and Birsa Munda does not draw any parallel with Mahars. Do not get me wrong, but just because they were from lower caste ( and tribal) you are trying to equate them with Mahars. In todays world that would be seen as casteist outlook. They both were directly confronted by foreign invaders and therefore they had no option but to confront. The Mahars on the other hand were given the option of a soldier. It was big thing for so called lower caste people because they were not considered to be fit for any job other than menial. It is said that the British Indian Army before 1870s were mainly consisted of lower caste people. It is this army of lower caste people who actually help them colonize India. The things that we should ask ourselves is this that how come Britishers were able to identify which group among the local population needs to be recruited as mercenary. How come their recruitment drive become such a great success?
Now coming to my question of Jats, there is a reason I asked that. Now if I consider what you are saying about Jats that they looted Ghori then that will present them as the looters and plunderers of Somnath. Because instead of defending Somanth what they did was they looted the same wealth from the original looter. Did they return the loot ? I dont think so, which means they were not Hindu enough to perceive that an attack on Somnath is actually an attack on their religion.
But my point on Jats is little different. In the third war of Panipat between Marathas and Abdali, the Marathas could have easily won if any of the local community would have helped them. Did you ever think that why not a single local community helped Marathas during that war ? The Jats were the dominant community in that region and it is documented fact that when the Battle between Marathas and Abdali was being fought, the local farmers(jats) just 10 miles away were busy in tilling their land. It did not mattered to them as they never thought that it was their war. Why did Abdali attacked India in the first place? He came on the invitation of rulers of Delhi who were Muslims, so in a sense there was a sense of belonging in Muslims across different region that a Non Muslim is making one of them weak and hence they need to act against it. Can we say the same thing about Hindus ? And if we cannot then why blame the Mahars alone. The Jats chose not to side with Hindu Marathas which means the Hindu identity was subservient to their local identity. Being Jat was a bigger identity than being a Hindu and this is where the original problem lies. The same identity issue based on Caste is again playing against us in present India in the form of vote bank politics.

Coming to Sikhs, I have a great respect for them but can anyone tell me their role in 1857 ? 1857 in my opinion is the only time in India were Hindus and Muslims became united for a common cause. It was the first time that the Britishers were challenged in an unparalleled way. The Britishers had an agreement with the Maharaja of Patiala where his forces which primarily consisted of Sikhs were extensively used to crush the 1857 movement. Now does that make Sikhs unpatriotic ?

Having said that, I see both Jats and Sikhs as patriotic Indians and their contribution is second to none. But we should think about the fault-lines that were exploited by the invaders. It is because of these fault lines that our country was colonized and unfortunately they are present even today.

 

[vayuputhra]

if there is no sense of belonging there is no sense of nationalism as well...if there is no sense of nationalism then an enemy's enemy is a friend...no?? Actually this caste system has simply made ancient India weak and no doubt we paid the price for being a slave country for centuries...the so called "sone ki chidiya" became a rag tag nation...

I don't know about the north, but the south Indian rulers did not discriminate, there was no animosity between castes, the vijayanagara emperor sri krishnadevaraya was himself belonged to the kapu community he became a Kshatriya by his deeds, he employed able tribal leaders as his commanders, gave titles to them as nayakas, famous among them was venkatappa nayaka(he was the first to make prostethic hand in India and fought wars with that hand and climbed forts), bramappa nayaka, the nayaka rulers of chitra durga, the nayakas of tamilnadu, and many more they fought shoulder to shoulder with other communities in wars, even vijayanagar emperors employed tribal women archers as body guards and to guard valuable assets, vijayanagar emperors ruled for years because of their inclusive policy, even though vijayanagar was established by brahmins they selected their heirs only through ability test and kings from many communities had become kings. This is what happens when our history is twisted and presented in a bad light by commi writers and this was the dream of Machiavelli to destroy our history and language.

 

[ganesh623]

May be mahars are celebratng only fact that them being the army of so small in number were able to defeat strong hold of peshwas.
Have to give it to the birtshers though, they knew how to use our own people to defeat our own people/kings.

An what to say about our people and history, today we can all laugh on it, about how foolish were we as a nation.

 

[vayuputhra]

The examples that you gave of Alluri Sitha and Birsa Munda does not draw any parallel with Mahars. Do not get me wrong, but just because they were from lower caste ( and tribal) you are trying to equate them with Mahars. In todays world that would be seen as casteist outlook. They both were directly confronted by foreign invaders and therefore they had no option but to confront. The Mahars on the other hand were given the option of a soldier. It was big thing for so called lower caste people because they were not considered to be fit for any job other than menial. It is said that the British Indian Army before 1870s were mainly consisted of lower caste people. It is this army of lower caste people who actually help them colonize India. The things that we should ask ourselves is this that how come Britishers were able to identify which group among the local population needs to be recruited as mercenary. How come their recruitment drive become such a great success?
Now coming to my question of Jats, there is a reason I asked that. Now if I consider what you are saying about Jats that they looted Ghori then that will present them as the looters and plunderers of Somnath. Because instead of defending Somanth what they did was they looted the same wealth from the original looter. Did they return the loot ? I dont think so, which means they were not Hindu enough to perceive that an attack on Somnath is actually an attack on their religion.
But my point on Jats is little different. In the third war of Panipat between Marathas and Abdali, the Marathas could have easily won if any of the local community would have helped them. Did you ever think that why not a single local community helped Marathas during that war ? The Jats were the dominant community in that region and it is documented fact that when the Battle between Marathas and Abdali was being fought, the local farmers(jats) just 10 miles away were busy in tilling their land. It did not mattered to them as they never thought that it was their war. Why did Abdali attacked India in the first place? He came on the invitation of rulers of Delhi who were Muslims, so in a sense there was a sense of belonging in Muslims across different region that a Non Muslim is making one of them weak and hence they need to act against it. Can we say the same thing about Hindus ? And if we cannot then why blame the Mahars alone. The Jats chose not to side with Hindu Marathas which means the Hindu identity was subservient to their local identity. Being Jat was a bigger identity than being a Hindu and this is where the original problem lies. The same identity issue based on Caste is again playing against us in present India in the form of vote bank politics.

Coming to Sikhs, I have a great respect for them but can anyone tell me their role in 1857 ? 1857 in my opinion is the only time in India were Hindus and Muslims became united for a common cause. It was the first time that the Britishers were challenged in an unparalleled way. The Britishers had an agreement with the Maharaja of Patiala where his forces which primarily consisted of Sikhs were extensively used to crush the 1857 movement. Now does that make Sikhs unpatriotic ?

Having said that, I see both Jats and Sikhs as patriotic Indians and their contribution is second to none. But we should think about the fault-lines that were exploited by the invaders. It is because of these fault lines that our country was colonized and unfortunately they are present even today.

You are correct to an extent, but the rural jhats never knew where ghori bought all this wealth, they thought he was a robber and had robbed someone's wealth, there was no information on anything, there was no concept of Hindu unity in those times, they would think Marathas as some alien people from the south who didn't speak their language, and Marathas also were very conservative about their language, and moghuls always sent rajpuths to fight the Marathas, even though rajpuths were Hindus they fought with the Marathas this is the reason that I say there was no concept of all India Hindu unity, this Hindu unity was first bought by the vijayanagara kings many small kings and leaders even tribals and downtrodden joined him in expelling the invaders but their resources were limited to spread to the north as they ruled large swathes of territory, maratha empire raised again from this foundation.

sure out of 300 or more kings some will be good other not so... but even those progressive kings you talk of, are during raj... more or less competing with raj to provide a better infra. They belong to a relatively stable era in which they dont constantly need to fight.
Even now, most places in India that was ruled directly by british are progressive and better infra, better education than those ruled by kings, few exception here and there.

The point is we are looking at things from today's point of view, and judging action of people of that time. We need to go back in time to understand their action.

You are false my brother that all the developments happened during British raj, why do you think they built the infrastructure? If a robber built a grand tunnel to rob a house, can we say that the robber was a great architect, the same way Britishers wanted and did loot as fast and as much as possible using this infrastructure to build their own country england, we fools just helped the looters that's all.
The grand anekattu (dam) was built by rajaraja chola 1500 years ago even now its working, so many lakes, canals were built by the local kings before even the invaders came, these are the only water sources worked ng even now, neither the British nor independent India built anything new for common man they only do patch work.

Vedas could have been written in any languages. They should have been at the front to translate them.
Even in TN, its just recent High court gave permission to say rituals in Tamils with strong opposition coming from Brahmins. They wanted to keep that knowledge to themselves exploiting them. Tenali Raman, inspite of being a brahmin, did well to expose other brahmins. The initial social reformers later were also from that community. And They are also the ones who formed the backbone of British administration.
They are a mixed kinda people

You are correct brahmins are a kind of mixed type a lot, they are the opposer's and suppoters, people who wrote Vedas knew only Sanskrit which was their mother tongue, as the holy quoran is written in Arabic, they could have written in any other language, or bible which was written in Hebrew, and roman why did they not write in any other language, Vedas was written in the mountains of Afghanistan, and it spread to other regions.
Doing rituals in Tamil has been going on in Tamil for over 25 years already, what the high court ruled was that it was not the sole prerogative of brahmins to worship in temples, any Hindu who who follows the tredition and can recite our scriptures and manthrashas and has studied them and also who has studied the agamas (rules of worship ) can perform pooja at temples.

 

[third eye]

I find it amusing to read people political opinions on a military forum on a subject that is purely military.

 

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

@Joe Shearer

Your comments, is this a case of successful British Propaganda against Marathas?

 

[vayuputhra]

ThaTE="Rajaraja Chola, post: 8052734, member: 31855"]The moment power was transerred from the Chakravarthi to his Brahmin Peshwas, though the initial peshwas were good, the successors became caste oriented again.
The Dalits could have stayed neutral atleast. But Peshwas Brahmins brought back caste discrimination again.[/QUOTE]
The initial brahmins were humble and gradually as their power raised they became more aristocratic and selfish.
But the same thing is happening now the elite daliths have become arrogant and aristocratic.
So this is the magic of power.

 

[PRC]

You are correct to an extent, but the rural jhats never knew where ghori bought all this wealth, they thought he was a robber and had robbed someone's wealth, there was no information on anything, there was no concept of Hindu unity in those times, they would think Marathas as some alien people from the south who didn't speak their language, and Marathas also were very conservative about their language, and moghuls always sent rajpuths to fight the Marathas, even though rajpuths were Hindus they fought with the Marathas this is the reason that I say there was no concept of all India Hindu unity, this Hindu unity was first bought by the vijayanagara kings many small kings and leaders even tribals and downtrodden joined him in expelling the invaders but their resources were limited to spread to the north as they ruled large swathes of territory, maratha empire raised again from this foundation.

I am afraid those are some twisted facts. You seem to be very naive and unaware of your own history. I am not going to educate you but will briefly explain my POV based on my understanding of history which I believe is based on historical facts.
1. There is no documented fact where it was proven that Jats looted Ghori.
2. The Jats very well knew who the Marathas were and were cognizant of their Hindu lineage
3. Moghuls did not always sent Rajputs, most of the Marathas and in particular Shivaji wars were against Muslims.
4. Vijayanagar kings influence was limited to South and they had no impact on North of India (or even central India). The VijayNagara kingdom even at its zenith was not comparable to other Hindu great empires like Gutpas or Mauryas. Thus the so called hindu unity promoted by Vijaynagara kings was therefore of no consequence. Infact you got the timeframe wrong. VijayNagara empire and Maratha empire was not in the same timeframe.


P.S Please stop calling Jats as "Jhats". Your habit of adding additional 'H' is adding insult to them. If you do not know then Jhats in hindi means pubic hair. These are some of the ways of addressing them in English language: Jats, Jaats, Jatt,

 

[vayuputhra]

I am afraid those are some twisted facts. You seem to be very naive and unaware of your own history. I am not going to educate you but will briefly explain my POV based on my understanding of history which I believe is based on historical facts.
1. There is no documented fact where it was proven that Jats looted Ghori.
2. The Jats very well knew who the Marathas were and were cognizant of their Hindl ineagelineagee
3. Moghuls did not always sent Rajputs, most of the Marathas and in particular Shivaji wars were against Muslims.
4. Vijayanagar kings influence was limited to South and they had no impact on North of India (or even central India). The VijayNagara kingdom even at its zenith was not comparable to other Hindu great empires like Gutpas or Mauryas. Thus the so called hindu unity promoted by Vijaynagara kings was therefore of no consequence. Infact you got the timeframe wrong. VijayNagara empire and Maratha empire was not in the same timeframe.


P.S Please stop calling Jats as "Jhats". Your habit of adding additional 'H' is adding insult to them. If you do not know then Jhats in hindi means pubic hair. These are some of the ways of addressing them in English language: Jats, Jaats, Jatt,

It is foolishness to just believe in the written history,
1) there is no written history that ghori looted somnath, he may have looted some small temple and bragged about his achievement, any how he was a large scale robber.
2) maybe jats of higher strata knew but I doubt common jats who were busy farming knew any thing about them, and people of those times were neive.
3) and rajpuths were representing Islamic rule, and moghuls so they were in a way representing Muslims when they came to war with Marathas.
4) mouryas and Chandra Gupta ruled before even Jesus was born or even Islam was born so you are taking history too behind.
Where vijayanagara kings ruled in the 12th and 15th century AD their empire was formed in revolt against Islamic rule, the whole parts of Karnataka, andhra, tamilnadu, Kerala, srilanka, large parts of Maharashtra gujaraat and Orissa and even half of srilanka so do you think it was a small area? You should go to chattisgarh and see the influence of teluguTelugu.
I never said vijayanagar and Marathas ruled at the same time, they were centuries apart but you should know that there was many chieftains and leaders who were the desendands of the vijaynagar empire, who were seething for revenge on the invaders, they all helped Marathas a lot, if you know large number of maratha army consisted of Marathi speaking Kannada people whose mother tongue was Kannada.
And as for jats English can be interpreted any way, and we south Indians don't go in to such minute details, any way I did not know about the meaning, thats why I always wondered why north Indians used this word while using vulgar words, its so similar in sounding, and it feels as if always jats are insulted, good that you said it to me, here in the south we call pubic hair as( lavde ka baal ) in hindi, so this is the first time I am hearing this meaning, thank you for the information.

 

[asad71]

It is foolishness to just believe in the written history,
1) there is no written history that ghori looted somnath, he may have looted some small temple and bragged about his achievement, any how he was a large scale robber.
2) maybe jats of higher strata knew but I doubt common jats who were busy farming knew any thing about them, and people of those times were neive.
3) and rajpuths were representing Islamic rule, and moghuls so they were in a way representing Muslims when they came to war with Marathas.
4) mouryas and Chandra Gupta ruled before even Jesus was born or even Islam was born so you are taking history too behind.
Where vijayanagara kings ruled in the 12th and 15th century AD their empire was formed in revolt against Islamic rule, the whole parts of Karnataka, andhra, tamilnadu, Kerala, srilanka, large parts of Maharashtra gujaraat and Orissa and even half of srilanka so do you think it was a small area? You should go to chattisgarh and see the influence of teluguTelugu.
I never said vijayanagar and Marathas ruled at the same time, they were centuries apart but you should know that there was many chieftains and leaders who were the desendands of the vijaynagar empire, who were seething for revenge on the invaders, they all helped Marathas a lot, if you know large number of maratha army consisted of Marathi speaking Kannada people whose mother tongue was Kannada.
And as for jats English can be interpreted any way, and we south Indians don't go in to such minute details, any way I did not know about the meaning, thats why I always wondered why north Indians used this word while using vulgar words, its so similar in sounding, and it feels as if always jats are insulted, good that you said it to me, here in the south we call pubic hair as( lavde ka baal ) in hindi, so this is the first time I am hearing this meaning, thank you for the information.

Mahmud Ghaznavi ( 970-1030). He is the one who had been invited by the local rulers to ransack Somnath (1025) because the priests had gotten out of control.

Mohammad Gor ( 1149 - 1206)

 

[Joe Shearer]

@Joe Shearer

Your comments, is this a case of successful British Propaganda against Marathas?

Please write to me off-line.

No, this is not a case of successful British propaganda against the Marathas. But some accounts of the battle as presented are gross exaggerations. The facts are simple, and should be presented as they are; a small force of the Bombay Native Infantry, sitting across a dry nullah from a heavily-armed force nearly ten times their number, were attacked by detachments from that larger force. Their credit lies in holding out, not in winning, and they did that with great tenacity (never mind the occasional flutters at the outset, before their spines were stiffened by a warning from their CO about the nasty habits of the Arabs who attacked them). They survived. And it was gallantry in doing so against huge odds (even the three detachments sent against them outnumbered them).

I really don't want to be called in. My e-mail id is in my signature.