The Military System of the Marathas

The 18th Century Indian politics were gunpowder military states ruled by the feudal elites which replaced the Mughal nobility in many parts of the Indian sub-continent. The Maratha state with imperial ambitions was also essentially a military organization supported by its civil administrative apparatus. It is no secret that the military and civil aspects of the Maratha state in the 17th and 18th Century were two sides of the same coin; military force underpinned the collection of revenue and the capacity for revenue collection shored up the military strength of the Maratha state. Since every state is an organic unit, even a cursory examination of its character demands an inquiry into the nature of its component parts. S.N. Sen researched both the component parts of the Maratha state, military and civil, to produce his famous classic works. This was never an easy task given the paucity of theoretical and philosophical material on their military craft left behind by the Marathas. The Marathi bakhars, for instance, are descriptions of events and processes which tell us precious little about the strategic thinking of the Maratha commanders. The Marathas did not develop military institutions like those developed by European rulers like Fredrick of Prussia during the 18th Century even though they modernised their armies with the aid of European expertise after the disaster at Panipat (1761). The sources consciously produced by the military institutions in some countries during the early modern period of European history are qualitatively different from the military literature produced by the Indian politics of the 18th Century. These handicaps did not deter Sen who wrote a fine history of the military system of the Marathas several tenets of which have stood the test of time. Besides Marathi records, the Sen went through contemporary English, Portuguese, French and Dutch records to write a masterly account of the Maratha military system with its strengths and weaknesses.