Afghan-Maratha War

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Afghan-Maratha War
Part of the Indian campaign of Ahmad Shah Durrani
Date1758–1761
Location
Punjab and region around Delhi
Result Afghan victory
Belligerents
Afghan Empire
Rohilkhand
Commanders and leaders
 Ahmad Shah Durrani
Timur Shah Durrani
Jahan Khan (WIA)
Karim Shah
Wazirullah Khan
Ahmad Samad Khan (POW) †
Jangbaz khan (POW)
Yakub Ali Khan Surrendered
Najabat Khan (DOW)
Najib ad-Dawlah Surrendered
Mian Qutb Shah Surrendered Executed
Mulla Aman Khan Surrendered

The Afghan-Maratha War was fought between the

Afghan Empire under Ahmad Shah Durrani and the Maratha Empire and the Sikh Confederacy between 1758 and 1761.[1] It took place in north-west India, primarily the region around Delhi and Punjab.[2]

The three year long war ended in a catastrophic defeat for the

Afghan Empire and later Emirate of Afghanistan following Maratha defeat in the Afghan-Maratha War. Delhi under the Mughal dynasty was placed under the occupation of the Kingdom of Rohilkhand
, an Indian kingdom in modern-day western Uttar Pradesh and an ally of the Afghans.

Background

After the death of

Najib Khan. He installed his son Timur Shah Durrani in Multan and went back to Afghanistan.[2]

Battle of Delhi (1757)

The Maratha Peshwa

Shamsher Bahadur, Ramsingha, Gangadhar Tatya, Sakharam Bapu Bokil, Naroshankar Rajebahadur, Sidhojiraje Gharge-Desai-Deshmukh, Mankojiraje Gharge-Desai-Deshmukh, Maujiram Bania and a large army towards Delhi. They were accompanied by Malhar Rao Holkar of Malwa who had much experience in North India and with its rulers. The Marathas captured Delhi in August 1757. They decisively defeated the Rohillas and Afghans near Delhi in 1758. The defeat was so decisive that Najib Khan surrendered to the Marathas and became their prisoner.[2]

Initial campaign and success

Main article: Northern Campaign of Raghunath Rao

In the

Satluj. A concerted attack on the fort of Sirhind was made by the Marathas and the Sikhs on 8 March 1758. Ahmad Samad Khan, with his 15,000 Afghan troops, held out for about two weeks before his capitulation on 21 March. After the victory, the town was thoroughly sacked by the victors. Therefore, the victorious allies marched upto Lahore and the city fell after some initial fighting. Then, the allies forced the Afghans into the Khyber Pass.[3] The captured Uzbek, Pashtun and Khorasani soldiers were brutally tortured and forced to clean up the holy temples desecrated by them.[4]

The Maratha and Sikh forces gave chase to the

Pathans on horseback and were in quick pursuit of them in which they went on to capture Attock and then Peshawar from the Afghans.[5][6][7][8]

Maratha general Bapuji Trimbak was given the charge of guarding Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan from the Afghans.[9]

Adina Beg's sudden death threw Punjab into turmoil. Many of his soldiers, particularly Afghan mercenaries deserted his army camp and added to the number of freebooters, thus creating chaos and anarchy everywhere. Sikhs started again to revolt against Muslim ruling elite, which had caused Punjab to go into political and economic turmoil. Khawaja Mirza who was now the Maratha governor of Haryana-Delhi could not cope with the situation. He sent an express appeal to the Peshwa for reinforcements, alerted all the junior Maratha officers to help him restore law and order in the state and he also recalled Maratha detachments from Peshawar and Attock to safeguard his position in Karnal. Tukojirao Holkar and Narsoji Pandit, the Maratha commanders of Peshawar and Attock had to withdraw their troops from the frontier posts. Sabaji Scindia was now given the charge of Peshawar.[3]

Dattaji Scindia, while Jankoji Scindia was appointed his deputy. They proceeded towards Delhi separately at different times.[3]

A massive army of Marathas under their new commanders, the

Najib-ud-Daula in the Ganges valley. Bapurao Trymbak took the charge of Rohtas Fort, while other officers were appointed on the frontier posts.[3]

Taking advantage of Sabaji's absence from Peshawar post, the Afghans marched to Peshawar. The

Marathas. The combined forces of the Marathas and Sikhs massacred the Afghan garrison in which Jahan Khan lost his son and was himself wounded. The Afghans quickly vacated the forts of Peshawar and Attock and retreated west to Afghanistan. Hence, Peshawar once again fell to the Marathas.[3]

Final defeat of the Marathas

It was unbearable for Abdali to overlook this defeat. Najib-ud-Daulah invited Abdali to avenge his defeat. He, along with his commander Jahan Khan invaded Punjab for the fifth time with a gigantic army of 60,000 men

Abdali in which Dattaji's general, Sardar Bhoite was defeated with a loss of 250 Maratha soldiers after the Mughal contingent fled from the Maratha side.[12] As a consequence of his victory, Abdali managed to join forces with Najib-ud-Daula.[2]

Qutub Shah, the ally of Najib Khan and the religious leader of the Rohillas, killed Dattaji and beheaded him at Burrari Ghat near Delhi in January 1760, in a treacherous ambush.[13] Peshwa Nanasaheb sent his cousin Sadashivrao Bhau to repel Abdali which ultimately culminated in the Third Battle of Panipat where although Abdali won a decisive victory, though at the cost of many troops. Before returning to Afghanistan, Abdali sued for peace with Marathas blaming Najib and others for his entry in India and declared that he despised any rivalry with the Marathas. Abdali re-instated Marathas as the "Protector of the Emperor" at Delhi.[14]

Reasons for decline

"Marathas and Sikhs," by Giulio Ferrario, from 'Il costume antico e moderno', Florence, 1824

The Marathas had failed to befriend the important players in Punjab, particularly the Sikhs, as they had gotten close enough to be aided by Sikh troops in numerous battles. They could not make any formal treaty with Sikhs, who along with Adina Beg had assisted them in their conquest of the northwest. According to an assessment, the Sikhs were ever ready to co-operate with the Marathas, but it goes to the discredit of the Marathas that they could not make a proper confederacy with Sikhs due to their minor stature as a confederacy. Sikhs regency was highly fluid until the Marathas arrived winning for them Sirhind and Lahore.

The Marathas fought successful wars with both the Sultans of Mysore, namely Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, in which both were defeated. The Maratha also fought many wars with the Nizam of Hyderabad and crushed his power. They also fought a war with East India Company in 1775 and defeated them with great difficultly. They were also fighting against the Portuguese near Thane and Surat, moreover their capital was Poona (now Pune) which was too far from Delhi to conduct immediate actions and war play. In brief, the Marathas didn't have peaceful time in their period of supremacy as they always had to face battles after battles in various parts of country, so they didn't get enough time to establish stable administrations in regions which they had conquered in northwest India and Pakistan. They even decided to extend their rule up to Kabul and Kandahar but several Hindu kings feared that the emergence of the Maratha empire would hurt their territorial interests so they invited Abdali to invade India along with Muslim rulers.

Unlike Ahmad Shah Abdali who subsequently raised a cry of jihad, the Marathas couldn't mobilize their resources and make a common cause with the Hindoos in order to pay the Afghan Emperor in his own coin.

Finding the Maratha leadership completely off guard against their political foes, many Afghans who were earlier taken captives by Marathas quickly changed their loyalty towards Adina Beg and were recruited in his army. However, later on, they betrayed him and joined Abdali's forces during his fifth invasion.[3]

The Peshwa was alarmed by the growing

Deccan.[2] When Abdali invaded Punjab for the fifth time, the Marathas didn't try hard enough to save the frontier posts and instead started planning to save Delhi from another invasion.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ Kohn, George C. Dictionary of Wars.
  2. ^ a b c d e War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740-1849
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Advanced Study in the History of Modern India
  4. ^ Kulkarni, Uday S. (21 October 2019). "How the Marathas captured ATTOCK in modern day Pakistan". esamskriti.
  5. ISBN 978-1-59884-337-8
    .
  6. ISBN 9781932705546
    .
  7. ISBN 9781615301225
    .
  8. ISBN 9780803213449
    . The Marathas attacked soon after and, with some help from the Sikhs, managed to capture Attock, Peshawar, and Multan between April and May 1758.
  9. ^
    ISBN 9781932705546
    . Retrieved 22 August 2015.
  10. ^ Shejwalkar, Tryambak Shankar (1946). Panipat: 1761. Pune: Deccan College.
  11. ^ Gupta, Hari Ram (1961). Marathas and Panipat. Chandigarh: Panjab University.
  12. ^ "The Mahrattas' Thread on the Battle of Tarain (1761)".
  13. ^ Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1966). Fall of the Mughal Empire: 1754-1771 (Panipat). M.C. Sarkar.
  14. ^ Sardesai, Govind Sakharam (1946). New History of the Marathas Volume II. Mumbai: Phoenix Publications.
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