The following article is a wikipedia article on the Maratha invasion.
This was a major tragedy as well as a crowning moment for bengal as
it defeated what was then the undoubted regional superpower and had
come to conquer practically the whole of north India with the
exception of Bengal. It was a war which united the bengali people
against a common adversary under the able leadership of nawab
alivardi khan.
The state of Bengal, during the 18th century was raided by maratha
raiders. The bengali lullby created to make child sleep shows how
much impact these bargi had on bengali social life.
"Chhele ghumalo para juralo Bargi elo deshe Bulbulite dhan kheyechhe
khajna debo kise?"
'Hushed the child sleeps and quiet is the neighbourhood now, for the
Bargis (Maratha raiders) have descended on our land; the bulbulis
have eaten away our crops, how shall we pay our land tax?'
Maratha Raids a scourge in eighteenth-century Bengal, were a sequel
to Maratha rivalry with the Mughals. aurangzeb, the last of the
great Mughals, had started operations for the annexation of the
entire Deccan and his ever extending warfare affected the Marathas.
His attempt to win the Maratha chiefs by grant of mansabs ultimately
proved a failure. Some Maratha chiefs = were won over, but others
took their place in building new fortunes by ravagin Mughal
districts. The name (Bargi) by which these Maratha raiders are known
in Bengal is a corruption of bargir, meaning the lowest clans of
Maratha common soldiers whose arms and horses were supplied by the
state, as contrasted with soldiers who owned their own horses and
equipment. The Marathas ravaged the country and brought untold
miseries to the people.
During the period of the later Mughals, the most important challenge
to their power came from the Marathas, whose armies overran the whole
of India under the Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao (1740-1761). Between 1742
and 1751 Bengal was repeatedly invaded and, in 1751, the Bengal Nawab
had to cede Orissa to the Marathas.
A Maratha army from Nagpur invaded Burdwan district in early April
1742. Nawab alivardi khan arrived at Burdwan from Cuttack on 15 April
1742. The Marathas under Bhaskar Pandit cut off his grain supply, and
another group plundered the country for forty miles around. Alivardi
broke through the cordon after a desperate attempt and reached Katwa
on 26 April. Mir Habib, a Persian peer of the nawab betrayed him and
joined the Marathas at this time. He guided their operations with all
his local knowledge. His extraordinary ability and implacable enmity
towards Alivardi Khan gave to the Maratha incursion into Bengal its
long-drawn and murderous character.
During the nawab's stay at Katwa, Mir Habib lured Bhaskar Pandit
with the prospect of boundless plunder, to make a sudden dash to his
capital during his absence. On 6 May 1742 Bhaskar Pandit's Maratha
raiders reached Dahipara, a suburb of murshidabad, burnt its bazars,
and then crossing over to Murshidabad itself plundered it, taking
three lakhs of rupees from the house of the banker jagat sheth alone.
Alivardi arrived to save his capital in the morning of 7 May. The
raiders retreated to Katwa, and a line of burning villages marked
their track. From the month of June Katwa became the headquarters of
a Maratha army of occupation. Mir Habib acted as their chief adviser
and agent. Early in July he managed with the help of his friends in
Hughli to imprison the drunken faujdar of the district, Muhammad
Reza, and a Maratha garrison under Shesh Rao was stationed there.
Thus, the districts west of the Ganges, from rajmahal to Medinipur
and Jessore, passed into the hands of Maratha invaders, and Shesh
Rao was installed as their governor. Mir Habib acted as the diwan of
Bengal on behalf of the Marathas, and summoned the zamindars to pay
chauth to the = Maratha administration. Many people abandoned their
homes and migrated to the eastern side of the Ganges in order to
save the honour of their women.
The nawab's rule in the area east of the Ganges was also threatened
by occasional Maratha raids. Roving Maratha bands committed wanton
destruction and unspeakable outrage in territories from which the
Nawab's authority had disappeared. Due to Maratha plundering
merchants and weavers fled away from Birbhum. Maratha devastation in
other areas scared away the weavers of = silk=20 products. The adangs
(silk and cloth factories and emporia) were deserted; food grains
became scarce, trade laboured under every disadvantage.
Alivardi decided to attack the Marathas before the drying of the
roads (during the monsoon recess) which might provide the light
Deccani horse its natural advantage. Early in the morning of 27
September 1742 the nawab's troops made a surprise charge upon the
sleeping Maratha camp of Bhaskar Pandit at Katwa; the Marathas fled,
leaving behind all their camp and baggage. Bhaskar recalled his
troops from all their outposts in Bengal and led the fugitives into
Medinipur district where he looted and burnt Radhanagar, a famous
silk-rearing centre, and took up position at Narayangarh. Alivardi
marched in person and recovered Cuttack, driving the Marathas beyond
Chilka Lake in December 1742. He returned to Murshidabad in triumph
on 9 February 1743.
Due to his declining authority, the Mughal emperor was compelled to
agree to pay chauth for Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to Raja Shahu who,
it is said, had assigned it to Raghuji Bhonsle, the raja of Nagpur.
But, in the meantime, the Mughal emperor had appealed for help to
Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao, the rival and personal enemy of Raghuji. The
peshwa had agreed in November 1742 to eject Raghuji from Bengal by
force. Raghuji, however, was bent upon exacting the chauth and in
early March 1743 he arrived at Katwa along with Bhaskar=20 Pandit.
The peshwa entered Bihar with a strong force from the south in early
= February=20 1743. From Benares he traversed the plains, hills and
jungles of Bihar = and took=20 the road to Murshidabad. After
exchanging oaths of friendship, the = peshwa and=20 the nawab agreed
on 30 March 1743 that the nawab would pay the chauth = for Bengal=20
to Raja Shahu, and also Rs. 22 lakh to the peshwa for the expenses of
= his army,=20 while Shahu undertook to effect a final settlement
with Raghuji, who = would not=20 trouble Bengal in future.
Raghuji on hearing of these two allies advancing together against
him decamped from Katwa to Birbhum. The peshwa made a rapid cavalry
dash, leaving the slow Bengal army behind, overtook Raghuji on 10
April 1743, drove him away into the western hills with heavy loss of
men and baggage. Raghuji took the road to Sambalpur and then returned
to Puna. The nine months from June 1743 to February 1744 passed in
peace. The Maratha invasions of the past two years doubled Alivardi's
army expenses, while his coffers had been exhausted as a result of
the subsidy exacted from him by the peshwa. The nawab had paid him 22
lakhs of rupees for ensuring protection against all the Bargi raids.
But in return, Nawab Alivardi did not get the assured peace. He was
utterly bewildered by the revival of the Maratha menace at the
beginning of March 1744, when Bhaskar Pandit again invaded Bengal by
way of Orissa and Medinipur. The two Maratha chiefs, the peshwa and
Raghuji settled their differences through the mediation of Shahu on
31 October 1743. By this arrangement the portion of Bihar lying west
of Patna and including Shahabad and Tikari, yielding 12 lakhs of
rupees a year, was assigned to the peshwa. Raghuji Bhonsle was to
enjoy Bengal, Orissa, and the portion of Bihar east of Patna.
Alivardi Khan now indulged in a treacherous tactics to scare away
the Maratha invaders. He invited Bhaskar Pandit and his captains to
an interview = with him for making a peaceful settlement of the
question of chauth of Bengal. The meeting was to take place in a
huge tent set up at Mankara on 31 March 1744. On entering the tent,
assassins hidden behind the screens massacred Bhaskar Pandit and 21
of his captains, and all the Maratha detachment vacated Bengal and
Orissa. This incident gave the three eastern provinces peace and
prosperity for fifteen months.
Alivardi's campaign for the recovery of Orissa from Mir Habib
started towards the end of 1746. His general mir jafar defeated
Habib's lieutenant Sayyid Nur in a decisive battle near Medinipur
town. But Mir Habib came up from the south of Balasore and was soon
afterwards joined by the Maratha force under Janoji Bhonsle (son of
Raghuji). At the news of this turn of events, Mir Jafar fled to
Burdwan, abandoning Medinipur district. Alivardi defeated Janoji in
a severely contested battle near Burdwan in March 1747. The baffled
Maratha raiders fled back to Medinipur. Murshidabad and Burdwan
districts were cleared of = them. The nawab returned to his capital
and stayed there during the rainy season. During the whole of 1748,
the Marathas remained in undisturbed possession of Orissa and the
territory up to Medinipur. In March 1749 Alivardi set out to
reconquer Orissa. Fighting a few skirmishes the Marathas constantly
fled further and further. By the middle of June 1749 the reconquest
of Orissa was = completed. But only a week after Alivardi had marched
out of Cuttack in June 1749, the Marathas under Mir Habib defeated
and captured Alivardi's agent. The old and exhausted Alivardi
returned to Medinipur to close the path of Maratha raids from Orissa
into Bengal.
At the end of February 1750 the Marathas resumed their raids into
Bengal. On 6 March 1750 Mir Habib arrived near Murshidabad and
plundered the country around. So Alivardi quickly fell back from
Medinipur to Burdwan. The raiders disappeared into the jungles and
the nawab returned to Medinipur (April 1750) to guard that frontier
post. Mir Habib had gained nothing from the barren province of
Orissa in these years and his raids into Bengal had always failed
due to Alivardi's vigilance and vigour. He, therefore, entered into
a peace treaty with Alivardi according to which Mir Habib would
become a servant of Alivardi and act as a naib-nazim (deputy
governor) of Orissa on his behalf. Alivardi was to pay 12 lakhs of
rupees as chauth for Orissa and the surplus revenue of the province
to Raghuji. The Maratha government agreed not to set foot in
Alivardi's domains again. But with Mir Habib's assassination by the
Maratha troops on 24 August 1752, Alivardi lost his control over
Orissa once again, and the province came under Maratha occupation.
The repeated Maratha raids proved disastrous for Bengal. The untold
miseries of the people were so severe that the incident came to be
referred to in a popular lullaby. The repeated failure of crops added
to the miseries of the people. The burning of villages by Maratha
raiders struck terror in the minds of the people, which in turn led
to large-scale migration to the districts east of the Ganges, where
the density of population increased, causing various economic
problems. The economic effects sapped the financial strength of the
Bengal nawab, which in turn led to the disaster which was to befall
his successor in the near future.
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