Effects Of Maratha India

[Brahman]

The Chhatrapati Shahu -
- he a saint person, who stopped Peshwa from fortification of Maratha ruled land.
-he saves Nizam from Peshwa in 1727 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palkhed, the continued co-rule of Maratha and Nizam give the false sense of security to Peshwa in the latter era and suddenly Nizam was in the enemy camp.
-He died childlessly, the chieftain of Maratha almost all of them were rise in their position in Shahu era never have any inbuilt loyalty to Bhonsle linage only for Shahu or Peshwa, on the otherwise Peshwa had a clear line of succession for three-generation, they command army and purse of the empire.

For this, it seems they need to end the Nizam threat, replace him with a loyal supporter or a family member for the long run

2- Money-
- Maratha second problem arises from the revenue side, they always were in debt of Brahmin banker of Maharashtra.
- when the sap in the revenue closes around 1758, Peshwa went into the crisis after the third battle of Panipat.

Again, this could be solved through reforms as well as expanding the bureaucracy to include non Brahmins as well

4-Mughal noble -
-an ecosystem of Afghan, Turk and Persian nobility built over centuries. It had taken over five hundred years for invaders to totally dominate India’s cow belt region and to reverse the process would take time. The Mughal Empire’s decay had increased the political power of second in command Nawabs, Nizams and landlords, nearly all of them Muslims. Except for the Rajputs, Surajmal and the Bundelas, hardly any Hindu ruler had reaped the harvest of a falling Mughal empire. The administration remained firmly in Afghan or Turkic hands, albeit without the unifying factor of the Mughal.
-Till the latter part of Aurangzeb’s rule, more than seventy per cent of Mughal nobility was Muslim and of these, two-thirds were of foreign origin(North India)!
- this foreign nature of Nobility in Delhi made the always threaten the western border of India, they can ask from Afghan or Persian power to come and help the Mughal emperor.
-it's not about the legitimacy of Mughal rule, it was danger of army from Western border stop Maratha to depose emperor.
- if they defeated Afghan in 1761, they will be independent for 20-30 years from any another invasion from the western border, they will have time to ramp up the bureaucracy in North India.

This was the biggest problem for India during medivial era, due to the people in power being of foreign origin in everything such as culture, religion and language, the locals did not even care about administration as they will never be able to achieve the same position

Best way to fix this is to promote based on meritocracy and the use of locals with local religion and languages as a way to promote marathas and to gradually replace these central asian and persian nobles with Indians

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Didn't the Marathas keep Mughals as puppets in OTL ?

Because they themselves had little legitimacy amongst Rajputs or really any north indians- there was no way they could form a de jure relationship where the emperor was subordinated to the Marathas- at most itd be a Shogun Emperor style situation.

So the existential threat of the Mughal Empire will have to dealt with, or at least brought to such a state that it can no longer destroy the Marathas on a whim.

While a succession struggle is most likely to result in a united empire after a few years, it's possible given that Aurangzeb wanted to partition it anyway following his death that one of his sons could form a splinter state in either Bengal or Punjab while leaving the majority of the empire united, in a Humayun, Mirza Kamran repeat. Perhaps this as well as a stronger safavids drawing Mughal attention northwards would mean they're fine leaving the Deccan to its own developments.

The Panchayat system existed in India from ancient times, so if the marathas adopt it, they would gain legitimacy in the eyes of their rural subjects

Every time I see the phrase existed in India from ancient times, I become suspicious. It stinks of orientalism, and all those ideas about the eternal and unchanging nature of Indian society, which needs to be saved from its stagnation by Western thought. Id question the relevance of a Panchayati system to the early modern context. Nandini Chatterjee recently did an excellent study on how legal disputes actually worked in practice in a part of the mughal empire very close to the Adil Shahis and which would later be taken by the Marathas. Strikingly it bears little resemblance to either Islamic jurisprudence or Sanskrit jurisprudence, and was more or less based on resolving conflict by the mediation of scribes with access to local legal records (which were obviously local men) any mutually recognised religious authority, a local zamindar or local representatives of the central government. Thus conflict is minimised when the representatives of the central government (maratha nobility) are also the local zamindars (they have local power bases). In my mind, the best way for a stable Maratha state to exist is to keep the Mughals entangled in the north and restrict the Marathas to the Adil Shahi domains, which was anyway an Islamic Maratha state in the same way that the Mughals were Islamic Rajputs.

Sikhs would have revolted any way and his massive milllion man strong moving capital in Deccan to hunt Marathas would be really hurtful for the economy like OTL, all it would take is his death in battle or assassination to trigger a succession dispute in Delhi and inevitable revolt from Sikhs

That's a very deterministic way of looking at things- hell had Bahadur Shah been a stronger ruler he himself could have reconciliated the Sikhs and incorporated them into his government. The Sikh community and the Mughal government were in no way on a collision course as evidenced by centuries of cooperation.

Maratha wanted to conquer Delhi after the conquest Deccan,

No they didn't, Delhi was seen as firmly firmly far out of Maratha reach until the 1740s and not even a desirable goal until then because the Maratha ideology was based on Maharashtra dharma, Marathi independence and power to a state centred in Maharashtra which had been born through centuries of dialogue concerning Deccanis versus Westerners at the Adil Shahi and Bahmani courts as well as the rhetoric generated by the pressure of the Mughal government southwards. It was only really extreme weakness of the later Mughals that drew opportunistic Maratha leaders to try their luck in the north, there was never an ideological goal of taking Delhi to drive out the Mughals and replace them.

Marathas would patronise local tradition, languages

We can see that that categorically did not happen otl. The Mughals were fine with local tradition because to them there was no ideological basis in any type of Hinduism and trying to convert people en masse to Islam was never realistic. The Marathas on the other hand were extremely driven to uproot local traditions in order to impose their own Brahmin centric interpretation of Hinduism and in the process policed the livelihood and destroyed local traditions of brahmins. Further, the only local language they patronised in the upper administration was Marathi itself- decidedly not local to Gujarat or Bihar. Sure they might have patronised local languages in literature, but thats no different from earlier rulers. The Thanjavur Marathas do seem to be unique in that they developed traditions of yakshagana that used vernacular languages from regions across India which is fascinating and incredibly deserving of future scholarly attention.

If you really want Chhatrapati Shivaji's ideals to be maintained in governance, until the late 18th century, everything south of the Narmada and probably Southern Gujarat and Malwa; with parts of the extreme South being somewhat autonomous.

This seems like a reasonable estimate- i would imagine the Thanjavur Nayak state remains independent even if allied to the main Maratha government and wouldn't brook interference in its sphere of influence if it could help it, and a well governed state on Shivajis model could possibly invade and hold most of the western regions of the Golconda sultanate.

I tried to write a Maratha wank story with a SI but I've had trouble actually putting down words to the page cus of the quarantine and all the terrible shit that's been going on. Hopefully once things settle down for me I'll be able to write again. The end goal for that story was to write a technologically and culturally advanced, proto-socialist federation of nations which consisted of parts of OTL Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Bangaldesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.

I'll echo others and say that I'm really interested in seeing a finished version of this- I'd love to see your take on this period as it's so rich with possibility and potential.

Most academics take the side of Chitnis since we have muslim sources that agree with Sambhaji being addicted to drugs

Drug addiction was a very common problem amongst persianate high society of the time so I really wouldn't be surprised. However I'd question these Muslim sources as well- they could either be trying to portray him as a sophisticated man of culture or as a drugged wastrel depending on their philosophical leanings. If I've learned one thing about Indo Islamic primary sources it's that they always have a hidden message.

Till the latter part of Aurangzeb’s rule, more than seventy per cent of Mughal nobility was Muslim and of these, two-thirds were of foreign origin(North India)!

Attesting to the cosmopolitan and open atmosphere where merit was more important than being local- nevertheless even your numbers give that the majority of Mughal nobles was in fact Native Indian and of those it was a pretty even split between Hindus and Muslims. 2/3 of 70 percent is 46 percent, meaning 54 percent indians, and of those 24 percent Muslims and the rest Hindus. Not to mention the extensive economy of rich and powerful bankers, scribes, and officials which were almost all Hindus.

this foreign nature of Nobility in Delhi made the always threaten the western border of India, they can ask from Afghan or Persian power to come and help the Mughal emperor.

And the Durranis and Afsharids proved so helpful for the Mughals- no, the dynasty saw itself and it's servants as Indian and saw Afghans and persians more as rivals than as fellow westerners. This discourse was well established in the south and spread into Mughal realms as well- it's the old Deccanis Afaqis split.

it's not about the legitimacy of Mughal rule, it was danger of army from Western border stop Maratha to depose emperor.

Notwithstanding that an army from the western border would be even more likely than the Marathas to depose the emperor and that Rajput legitimacy had by this point become firmly based in rituals centred around service to and recognition by the Mughals who were seen as the ultimate rightful overlords of north India?

 

[Brahman]

Because they themselves had little legitimacy amongst Rajputs or really any north indians- there was no way they could form a de jure relationship where the emperor was subordinated to the Marathas- at most itd be a Shogun Emperor style situation.

Something similiar could develop, they could even marry a Mughal Princess for legitimacy

That's a very deterministic way of looking at things- hell had Bahadur Shah been a stronger ruler he himself could have reconciliated the Sikhs and incorporated them into his government. The Sikh community and the Mughal government were in no way on a collision course as evidenced by centuries of cooperation.

The moment Mughals started killing the Sikh Guru, it sealed the fate of Mughals in Punjab as Sikhs would have revolted

No they didn't, Delhi was seen as firmly firmly far out of Maratha reach until the 1740s and not even a desirable goal until then because the Maratha ideology was based on Maharashtra dharma, Marathi independence and power to a state centred in Maharashtra which had been born through centuries of dialogue concerning Deccanis versus Westerners at the Adil Shahi and Bahmani courts as well as the rhetoric generated by the pressure of the Mughal government southwards. It was only really extreme weakness of the later Mughals that drew opportunistic Maratha leaders to try their luck in the north, there was never an ideological goal of taking Delhi to drive out the Mughals and replace them.

What I meant to say is that Marathas after consolidating their hold over Deccan would look towards North India, If under Mughals, they would be sworn enemies and as such fight, if Mughals collapsed, then there would be utter chaos and as such, they will try to conquer it

We can see that that categorically did not happen otl. The Mughals were fine with local tradition because to them there was no ideological basis in any type of Hinduism and trying to convert people en masse to Islam was never realistic. The Marathas on the other hand were extremely driven to uproot local traditions in order to impose their own Brahmin centric interpretation of Hinduism and in the process policed the livelihood and destroyed local traditions of brahmins. Further, the only local language they patronised in the upper administration was Marathi itself- decidedly not local to Gujarat or Bihar. Sure they might have patronised local languages in literature, but thats no different from earlier rulers. The Thanjavur Marathas do seem to be unique in that they developed traditions of yakshagana that used vernacular languages from regions across India which is fascinating and incredibly deserving of future scholarly attention.

I agree with this, Only Thing reasonably that could happen is Maratha decide to use only Sanskrit instead of Marathi as the Language of the people they conquer, but they are much more gradual and more patient, I think a Shivaji living longer will accomplish this

Attesting to the cosmopolitan and open atmosphere where merit was more important than being local- nevertheless even your numbers give that the majority of Mughal nobles was in fact Native Indian and of those it was a pretty even split between Hindus and Muslims. 2/3 of 70 percent is 46 percent, meaning 54 percent indians, and of those 24 percent Muslims and the rest Hindus. Not to mention the extensive economy of rich and powerful bankers, scribes, and officials which were almost all Hindus.

that still shows that majority or atleast a plurality of nobles were of foreign origin

Notwithstanding that an army from the western border would be even more likely than the Marathas to depose the emperor and that Rajput legitimacy had by this point become firmly based in rituals centred around service to and recognition by the Mughals who were seen as the ultimate rightful overlords of north India?

its not like Mughals were eternal, they had conquered their way to India, why couldnt marathas do the same and get Rajput recognition


How much could you wank Marathas realistically ?

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Something similiar could develop, they could even marry a Mughal Princess for legitimacy

Never- the Mughals had by this point adopted Sanskrit style marriage practices and so marrying a girl into a different family would be giving that other family social superiority. It would be unthinkable.

The moment Mughals started killing the Sikh Guru, it sealed the fate of Mughals in Punjab as Sikhs would have revolted

Potentially butterflied by your pod, but the fact remains that the Mughal system was based on revolts and revolts in fact kept the system fresh and healthy in the right circumstances. I maintain, had Bahadur Shah been stronger or younger when he ascended to the throne, he could have reconciliated the Sikhs.

they would be sworn enemies and as such fight, if Mughals collapsed, then there would be utter chaos and as such, they will try to conquer it

If the Mughals still collapse, there would of course be chaos and the Marathas would opportunistically look to benefit from it but in no way because of anything like being sworn enemies- that concept makes no sense in the political scene of this context which was a lot more pragmatic than you make out. Keeping a centralised well run state on Shivajis model however, requires that they not overextend themselves and thus it's best for the Marathas if the Mughals splinter into two or three states not outright collapse.

, I think a Shivaji living longer will accomplish this

I think the experiment with Sanskrit was always doomed to failure as it's not spoken at all anywhere which makes it a worse choice than a vernacular, but among the transregional languages unlike Persian it provides no benefit in attracting foreign talent or facilitating trade. The brief moment where Sanskrit was attempted was a result of a specific intellectual chain of events and was quickly backpedalled on.

that still shows that majority or atleast a plurality of nobles were of foreign origin

It literally shows that a majority of nobles were of Indian origin, and as I say is only valid for the upper nobility and not the hundreds of thousands of zamindars also employed by and enriching themselves via the Mughal system.

Mughals were eternal, they had conquered their way to India, why couldnt marathas do the same and get Rajput recognition

The Mughals arrived at a more fluid period when Rajput status itself was less valuable. By this point Rajput identity has well and truly been solidified as an exclusive group. Further they had no preassigned status in the caste system, while the Marathas on the other hand had very clearly been mere bhumias and were clearly social parvenus. Furthermore, under the Mughals a sense of being superior to other regions of India had grown, especially the south and east, with Bengalis in particular being associated with poverty and low status.

How much could you wank Marathas realistically ?

The bigger you make it, the less stable it is. The Marathas reached massive amounts of territory and were already incredibly decentralized and unstable, giving no thought to improvement of living standards or economic growth, merely exploitative taxation and raids to fund new conquests. Personally I see the true wank in being a respectably large but not humongous state with a focus on economic prosperity and social progress. I think what would allow them the most long term power, wealth and stability is to restrict conquest to the western Deccan and central India- perhaps conduct short term raids elsewhere but don't seek the incredibly expensive task of ruling and pacifying.

 

[Brahman]

Never- the Mughals had by this point adopted Sanskrit style marriage practices and so marrying a girl into a different family would be giving that other family social superiority. It would be unthinkable.

Isn't that purpose, to give Marathas superiority over Mughals

Potentially butterflied by your pod, but the fact remains that the Mughal system was based on revolts and revolts in fact kept the system fresh and healthy in the right circumstances. I maintain, had Bahadur Shah been stronger or younger when he ascended to the throne, he could have reconciliated the Sikhs.

Thats is true, but Guru Arjan was already executed, as such there will be some level of discontent

If the Mughals still collapse, there would of course be chaos and the Marathas would opportunistically look to benefit from it but in no way because of anything like being sworn enemies- that concept makes no sense in the political scene of this context which was a lot more pragmatic than you make out. Keeping a centralised well run state on Shivajis model however, requires that they not overextend themselves and thus it's best for the Marathas if the Mughals splinter into two or three states not outright collapse.

Mughals will no doubt hate the Marathas for their war that caused the separatism, and it will lead to some discontent as other regions could see to emulate it

I think the experiment with Sanskrit was always doomed to failure as it's not spoken at all anywhere which makes it a worse choice than a vernacular, but among the transregional languages unlike Persian it provides no benefit in attracting foreign talent or facilitating trade. The brief moment where Sanskrit was attempted was a result of a specific intellectual chain of events and was quickly backpedalled on.

I am not saying that all people will speak sanskrit, but the elites will, the commoners will speak their own language, which would undoubtedly influenced by sanskrit, Almost all non Islamic Indian empire used sanskrit as the language of communication amoung the elites, same could happen with Marathas

The Mughals arrived at a more fluid period when Rajput status itself was less valuable. By this point Rajput identity has well and truly been solidified as an exclusive group. Further they had no preassigned status in the caste system, while the Marathas on the other hand had very clearly been mere bhumias and were clearly social parvenus. Furthermore, under the Mughals a sense of being superior to other regions of India had grown, especially the south and east, with Bengalis in particular being associated with poverty and low status

That still doesn't mean that marathas couldnt conquer landes like uttar pradesh, bihar or sindh

It literally shows that a majority of nobles were of Indian origin, and as I say is only valid for the upper nobility and not the hundreds of thousands of zamindars also employed by and enriching themselves via the Mughal system

It shows that the higher you go in administrative chain, the more Afghans and Persians would be present, with some indians present as well



Marathas could probably survive if they had few more victories, they would have conquered most of subcontinent,

 

[Kaushlendra pratap singh]

It literally shows that a majority of nobles were of Indian origin, and as I say is only valid for the upper nobility and not the hundreds of thousands of zamindars also employed by and enriching themselves via the Mughal system.

The Indian Muslim which you pointed out almost 70% of them were two, three, fourth generation migrant from Persia Afghan and Turk they were easily identify themselves as turk Afghan or Persian , had relationship in there origin of country.
Like in Rohilla asked Afghan king Duranni to defeat Maratha in name of Islam and support Mughal emperor.

British can depose Michal easily because they already secured western border of India -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Persian_War .

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Isn't that purpose, to give Marathas superiority over Mughals

When all you have left is rituals and traditions to assert superiority, you cling to those even harder. No single Maratha family had anything like the Mughal prestige even at the height of the Maratha Empire, and with their castism no Brahmin would marry a Muslim girl anyway.

Almost all non Islamic Indian empire used sanskrit as the language of communication amoung the elites

Vijaya Nagar didnt- and sanskrits place as an elite language in politics had been definitively lost to vernaculars for centuries. Elites who couldn't understand each other's vernacular, whether Hindu or Muslim used Persian- as an example Jai Singh and Shivaji.

That still doesn't mean that marathas couldnt conquer landes like uttar pradesh, bihar or sindh

What it means is that most Rajput clans would never see a Maratha clan as their social equal, forget about superior.

Marathas could probably survive if they had few more victories, they would have conquered most of subcontinent

Yes that is true- if they had a few more victories, they would have had the direct fruit of those victories. That doesn't say a word as to how likely those victories are or whether the conquest will last.

 

[Brahman]

When all you have left is rituals and traditions to assert superiority, you cling to those even harder. No single Maratha family had anything like the Mughal prestige even at the height of the Maratha Empire, and with their castism no Brahmin would marry a Muslim girl anyway.

Doesn't mean they cant force it for legitimacy, which would be needed for Marathas

Vijaya Nagar didnt- and sanskrits place as an elite language in politics had been definitively lost to vernaculars for centuries. Elites who couldn't understand each other's vernacular, whether Hindu or Muslim used Persian- as an example Jai Singh and Shivaji.

Vijayanagara did give Sanskrit Patronage and saw it as a language for unifying the elites of different regions

What it means is that most Rajput clans would never see a Maratha clan as their social equal, forget about superior.

An Alliance is still possible, with mutual benefit

Yes that is true- if they had a few more victories, they would have had the direct fruit of those victories. That doesn't say a word as to how likely those victories are or whether the conquest will last.

Still considering how fast Marathas grew despite early mishaps, and how Delhi Sultanate and Mughals conquered India, it is still possible for Marathas to do the same

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Delhi Sultanate and Mughals conquered India,

Neither of those states achieved any lasting power over the entire place.

 

[Brahman]

Neither of those states achieved any lasting power over the entire place.

Mughals did conquer all of India, and both had significant influence in modern day states of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, infact later two only exist due to the empires

 

[Wendell]

The risk is that the Maratha Empire could become too big, and not develop enough institutionally to have staying power.

 

[Brahman]

The risk is that the Maratha Empire could become too big, and not develop enough institutionally to have staying power.

Thats a problem in OTL Marathas well