MARATHA MONETARY MASTERY

The Maratha over lordship in the Deccan was based less upon its superior military might than upon the qualities of the Maratha elite that grew up under the peshwas and Shahu in the years before 1740. (At the same time, the former imperial Mughal ruling class was being scattered among provincial and minor courts.) Talented and ambitious peasant Marathas found openings to fortune even as those of the older elite of deshmukh families fell, and Brahmans rose with the same tide. Their scribal abilities were at a premium as conquests were followed by the establishment of civil rule. The peshwa’s Chitpavans kinsmen were the special recipients of honours and office, not merely as bureaucrats, but as soldiers in the manner of Bajirao himself. Other Brahmans became bankers, joining those from traditional banking groups who were being drawn into state service. Financial knowledge and institutions were mobilized to realize the prompt transmission of tribute from an increasingly extensive empire, and Bajirao adopted the policy of centralizing all fiscal functions in Pune by 1740.

The northern frontiers of the Maratha state were rapidly pushed into Rajasthan, Delhi and the Punjab; to the east, the Marathas launched raids from Nagpur against Bihar, Bengal and Orissa; and the older area of Maratha influence to the south – Karnataka and the Tamil and Telugu areas eastwards – experienced a Maratha over lordship now invigorated by its sub-continental dominance. Between 1745 and 1751 plundering expeditions were launched yearly by the Maratha chieftain Raghuji Bhonsle and vigorously opposed by Alivardi Khan in Bengal, now more or less independent of Delhi. Raghuji nevertheless forced a settlement which placed Orissa under a governor chosen by the Marathas, making it a Maratha province in effect, and in addition a very large tribute was forthcoming from Bengal. The conflict between Marathas and the Nizam continued over Karnataka, on the southeastern frontier of the Marathas, becoming a stalemate in which Karnataka was shared between both.

Periodic raiding gave way to more permanent administrative milking by the 1750s, which saw a new element added to the complex politics of the Deccan when a French - led army of mercenaries acting for the Nizam fought against Maratha soldiers and provided impressive evidence of a newer European military technology. This was based upon well drilled infantry formations backed by rapid - fi ring, precision - cast artillery pieces, both of which diminished the advantages previously enjoyed by Maratha light cavalry.

Further to the north, in Rajasthan, Maratha influence took another form; there territorial aggrandizement was eschewed in favor of the enforcement of a tribute system over numerous large and small lordships. A lucrative sideline of the Rajasthan policy was the hiring out of Maratha squadrons to minor chiefs who were engaged in fighting each other for some territorial advantage. In time, the Maratha tributary regime extended itself to within fifty miles of Delhi, where, in a narrow tract, the remnant of the great Mughal Empire gasped its last.