Baji Rao-The Warrior Peshwa

Peshwa Baji Rao, the great Maratha general and statesman, changed the map of India in the mid-eighteenth century. His military campaigns were classic examples of his genius. In the mayhem of the religious intolerance continued by the tottering Mughals after Aurangzeb, Baji Rao stood out as the champion of Hinduism. He conquered Gujarat and most of central India and even shook the foundations of the Mughal empire by attacking imperial Delhi. Though he had sworn to plant his flag on the Indus, death robbed him of this honour. His sons, however, fulfilled their father’s pledge. After driving the Afghans out of the Punjab, they raised the swallow-tailed flag not just on the walls of Attock, but even beyond. Baji Rao also played on Shahu’s religious fervour, ‘it is time to drive from the holy land of Bharatvarsha the outcaste and the barbarian. It is time to throw them back over the Himalayas, back to where they came from. The Maratha flag in your reign must fly from the Krishna to the Indus. I jest not, Hindustan lies in fragments, the Emperor cannot think beyond the skirts of his concubines and his blood is sluggish with opium. The Mughal nobles and generals are men of straw and the army is defeatist. The Rajputs, the sword arm of the Mughals, are disaffected and can be won over. This is the opportunity of the century, of two centuries. Let us not miss it. Hindustan is ours.’