They were ill-equipped and short of finances, horses and gunpowder, and dependent on loot and local resources to sustain themselves in their northward march. The rest were non-combatants and women and children. It seemed like a large, impressive army, but of the nearly 60,000 men in it, only 30,000 were trained soldiers. In March 1760, a large army under the Peshwa’s cousin Sadashiv Bhau marched northwards from Udgir in the Deccan to counter him. The Rohilla Afghan chiefs of north India, led by Najib–ud-Daulah, invited Abdali, to come to India and wage a ‘jehad’ against the Marathas-an offer sweetened with a promise of Rs 50,000 per day of his stay in India and further plunder to follow.Ībdali’s presence in India was a threat the Marathas could not ignore. Its rise was a direct threat to Abdali and created resentment among the local rulers of north India, especially because of their imposition of the levies of ‘ chauth’ and ‘sardeshmukhi’. The Marathas had arrived at their zenith by 1760, reaching as far in Attock in the west and Calcutta in the east. It was actually a political war between the two powers of the time-the Marathas and the Afghans. The battle between the Marathas under Sadashiv Bhau and the Afghans under Ahmad Shah Abdali is often painted as a religious battle. It was a day that changed the course of Indian history and shaped its contours irrevocably. January 14, 1761, is known as the ‘the blackest day in Indian history'-a day when more than 40,000 Maratha warriors fell on the field of Panipat, and more than 20,000 others, mostly women and children, were taken as prisoners.
0 kommentar(er)
