Causes of the Downfall of the Marathas
Thus was foiled the last attempt of the Marathas to build up their political supremacy in India on the ruins of the Mughul Empire. The fabriel of the Maratha Empire, -which the genius and military ability of Shivaji I Great had brought into existence, and which, after a short period of decline, was revived by Baji Rao I, and competed with the English for political supremacy for about forty years, now collapsed most ignominiously.
This was primarily due to certain inherent defects in the character of the Maratha State, particularly during -the eighteenth century, though there ‘were other factors which accelerated it. In the Maratha State, “there was”, Sir J. N. Sarkar asserts, “no attempt at well-thought-out organized communal improvement, spread of education, or unification of the people, either under Shivaji or under the Peshwas. The cohesion of the peoples of the Maratha State was not organic but artificial, accidental and therefore pre. carious”. Another drawback of the Maratha State was its lack of a sound economic policy and satisfactory financial arrangements, without which the political development of a nation becomes impossible. The sterile soil of Maharashtra held out no prospects for flourishing agriculture, trade and industries, and the Maratha State had to depend on uncertain and precarious sources of income like chauth, which again cost them the sincere co-operation of the other indigenous powers. Further, the revival of the jagir system after the death of Shivaji introduced a highly disintegrating force into the State; the Maratha jagirdars, blind to all but their personal interests, ruined the national cause by plunging their country into intrigues and quarrels. With some exceptions Eke Shivaji, Baji Rao I, Madhava Rao I, Malhar Rao Holkar, Mahadaji Sindhia and Nanan Fadnavis, the Maratha chiefs, particularly those of later times, indulged more in fin or intrigue than well. calculated statesmanlike action, which produced a disastrous re. action on the destiny of their State, especially when they were confronted with superior British diplomacy during the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. Lastly, the Marathas of the eighteenth century, while discarding their old tactics of war, could not develop, even under Mahadaji Sindhia and Nana Fadnavis, a military system organized on the scientific lines of the West. Opposed to them were the English, possessed of an efficient military Organisation, based on up-to-date methods and varied experience of European wars. It is indeed a pity that the Marathas depended upon foreign adventurers “for a most vital means of self-protection”, and thus ultimately lost their independence.
Anglo-Mysore Relations
The Fourth Anglo-Mysore War
Lord Cornwallis optimistically estimated the results of the war with Tipu in his time by saying:. “We have effectively crippled our enemy, without making our friends too formidable.” But the hope of a lasting peace was soon belied. A man like Tipu could never accept for long the humiliation that he had suffered at the hands of the English, against whom he nursed a deep resentment. “Instead of sinking under his misfortunes, be exerted,” writes Malcolm, “all his activity to repair the ravages of war. He began to add to the fortifications. of his capital-to remount his cavalry-to recruit and discipline his infantry -to punish his refractory tributaries, and to encourage the cultivation of his country, which was soon restored to its former prosperity.” France was then involved in a deadly war with England in Europe; &nd as an astute diplomat, Tipu tried to secure the alliance of france against the English in India. He enlisted himself as a member of the Jacobin Club and permitted nine Frenchmen in his service to elect “citizen Ripaud “, a Lieutenant in the French navy, as their President, to hoist the flag of the recently established French Republic and to plant a Tree of Liberty at Seringapatam. With a view to securing allies for himself in the contemplated conflict, Tipu also sent emissaries to Arabia, Kabul, Constantinople, Versailles and Mauritius. The French governor of the Isle of France, Monsieur Malartic, welcomed the envoys and proposals of Tipu, and published a proclamation inviting volunteers to come forward to help Tipu in expelling the English from India. As a result of this, some Frenchmen landed at Mangalore in April, 1798.
Lord Wellesley on his arrival at Madras on the 26th April, 1798, quickly realized the hostile intentions of Tipu and at once determined to wage war on him, overruling the timid suggestions of the Madras Council. He held in his Minute of 12th August, 1798, that “the act of Tippo’s ambassadors, ratified by himself, and accompanied by the landing of a French force in his country is a public, unqualified and unambiguous declaration of war; aggravated by an avowal, that the object of the war is neither expansion, reparation, nor security, but the total destruction of the British Government in India. To attempt to misunderstand an insult and injury of such a complexion would argue a consciousness either of weakness or of fear.’ Besides other preparations for the war, Wellesley tried to revive the Triple Alliance of 1790. The Nizam at once concluded a subsidiary alliance with the English on the Ist September, 1798, but the Marathas gave rather vague replies to the Governor-General’s overtures. Nevertheless, to show the “disinterestedness of the British Government to every branch of the Triple Alliance”, Wellesley engaged to give the Peshwa, a share in the conquests of the war.
This war against Tipu was of a very short duration, but quite decisive. He was defeated by Stuart at Sedaseer, forty-five miles west of Seringapatam, on the 5th March, 1799, and again on the 27th March by General Harris at Malvelly, thirty miles east of Seringapatam. Tipu then retired to Seringapatam, which was captured by the English on the 4th May. The Mysore Sultin died while gallantly defending his metropolis, which was, however, plundered by the English troops. Thus fell a leading Indian power and one of the most inveterate and dreadful foes of the English. Mysore. was at the disposal of the English. The members of Tipu a family were interned at Vellore. They were suspected of being involved in the abortive mutiny of the sepoys at Vellore in 1806 and were deported to Calcutta. As a sort of diplomatic move, Wellesley offered the districts of Soonda and Harponelly, lying in the north-west of the Mysore kingdom, to the Marathas, who, however, refused to accept these. To the Nizam was given the territory to the north-east near his dominion, that is, the districts of Gooty and Gurramkonda and a part of the district of Chiteldrug except its fort. The English took for themselves Kanara on the west; Wynaad in the south-east, the districts of Coimbatore and Daraporam; two tracts on the east; and the town and island of ‘Seringapatam. A boy of the old Hindu reigning, dynasty of Mysore was given the rest of the kingdom. This new State of Mysore became virtually a dependency of the English. A subsidiary treaty, which the minor ruler had to accept, provided for the maintenance of a protecting British force within the kingdom. A subsidy was to be paid by. its ruler which could be increased by the Governor-General in time of war; and the Governor-General was further empowered to take over the entire internal administration of the country ff he was dissatisfied on any account with its government. This arrangement, Wellesley hoped, would enable him “to command the whole resources of the Raja’s territory”. The Governor-General “acted wisely”, in Thornton’s opinion, “in not making Mysore ostensibly a British possession. He acted no less wisely in making it substantially so”. Because of misgovernment, Lord William Bentinck brought Mysore under the direct administration of the Company, and it remained so till 1881, when Lord Ripon restored the royal family to power.
