The Moth Versus the Fire
After its prime minister signed the Maratha Confederacy over to the East India Company, the member states rose up in a body.
1802-1805
King George III 1760-1820
After its prime minister signed the Maratha Confederacy over to the East India Company, the member states rose up in a body.
1802-1805
King George III 1760-1820
In 1796, Baji Rao II became Peshwa (prime Minister) of the Maratha Confederacy. When Holkar, Maharajah of Indore, one of the Confederacy’s four kingdoms, learnt that Baji Rao was behind the murder of a relative, he thrashed him at the Battle of Poona in 1802; but Baji Rao exacted spectacular retribution by signing the whole Maratha territory over to the East India Company. Holkar did not leave it there.
WHEN, in the year 1803, the British overcame the Mahrattas,* and took possession of their territories, Ranjit Singh was prudent enough to acknowledge ostensibly the supremacy of the British;* but in the following year, on the occasion of the march of the united force of the Mahratta chiefs, Daulat Rao Sindhia* and Jaswant Rao Holkar,* against the British, he joined the Mahrattas, in gratitude for their former good will and regard for him. When, in the latter part of the year, the British, after reducing, through the wisdom of their policy and sagacity, the strong forts of Dig and Kishangarh, gallantly determined to take the fort of Bharatpur, he with a valiant body of Jats* marched boldly to resist them.
It is said that these Jats, in spite of the superior strength of the British, fell upon them regardless of life as moths [are] of fire, committed great slaughter, and thus displayed their valour to the admiration of all who witnessed or heard of the fact.*
* The Mahratta or Maratha Confederacy was an alliance of four senior princedoms: they were ruled by Anand Rao Gaekwad of Baroda, Daulat Rao of Gwalior, Jaswant Rao Holkar of Indore, and Raghoji II Bhonsle of Nagpur, and collectively administered by the Peshwa (Prime Minister) Baji Rao II at the capital city of Poona (Pune). Baji Rao signed the Confederacy’s territories over to the East India Company by the Treaty of Bassein in 1802, with Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, signing on behalf of the Company.
* Not the famous Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) known as the Lion of the Punjab, but Ranjit Singh of Bharatpur, who died in 1806. “At the commencement of the Mahratta war in 1803” the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India confirmed in 1892 “the British Government concluded a Treaty (No. XCVIII) with Ranjit Singh, and in October 1803 conferred upon him the districts of Kishangarh, Kattawa, Rewari, Ookul, and Sahar.”
* Daulat Rao Sindhia (1779-1827), who on September 11th 1803 was defeated by Gerard Lake at Delhi, and on September 23rd by Arthur Wellesley at Assaye. That November, Lake defeated Sindiha once again at Laswari, and Wellesley overcame Raghoji II Bhonsle at Argaon (Adgaon).
* Jaswant Rao Holkar (1776-1811), Maharajah of Indore. He was defeated by Lake at the Battle of Farrukhabad on November 14th, 1804, and despite holding out in the Siege of Bharatpur for almost two months was at last yielded up by Ranjit Singh, and obliged to sign the Treaty of Rajghat on December 24th, 1805. To Lake’s dismay, the acting Governor-General, Sir George Barlow, granted Holkar considerable sovereign independence and an enlarged kingdom, which he nevertheless used as a base for further resistance to the Company, though he died before he could put his plans into effect.
* The Jats are a people of Pakistan and northern India, historically mostly herders and peasants. They put up fierce resistance to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1669, and also to the British.
* Even the British were impressed. “The fort was besieged” they recalled. “Ranjit Singh made a memorable defence and repelled four assaults with a loss to the besiegers of 3,000 men.” The siege lasted from January 2nd to February 22nd, 1805.