BAJIRAO THE GREAT

History has witnessed the coming and going of many great civilisations. it has also produced a long line of heroes and warriors to rise up and protect their motherland from the fate of every other ancient civilisation. Bajirao Peshwa was one of the greatest warriors and protectors of Hindu Dharma in the History of Bharat in the 18th century

BAJIRAO  portrayed by RANVEER SINGH

Baji was born on August 18, 1700, as the eldest son of Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath Rao who had taken the ‘Peshwaship’ to a new height. He belonged to the reputed, traditional Chit-Pawan Brahmin family of Konkan.

On April 2, 1719, Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath breathed his last. The Satara royal court, nay, different Maratha power agglomerations were humming with only one question-would Bajirao the son of the deceased Peshwa, just 19, devoid of experience, be suitable for the supreme post ? There was criticism against deciding on a person so young.

BAJIRAO becomes THE PESHWA

Bajirao soon realised that the feudalistic forces had a tendency towards segmentation and that the honour of the kingship required determined deterrence to the centrifugal forces. Then alone the expansion of the Hindu Pad Padshahi could be ascertained. Bajirao’s realistic insight was phenomenal. He was quite aware of his inimical surroundings. Nizam, the governor of Mughal Sultan, the vexatious terrorist Siddi of Janjira and the bugbear Portuguese along with internal rivals demanded his immediate commanding performance for the sake of the security of the Hindu Kingdom on which was based the volume of expansion of Hindu Pad Padshahi across the Vindhyas in the north.

BAJIRAO targeted The Mughals

Standing tall, poised and confident before Shahu Maharaj and his court, the young new Peshwa Bajirao is said to have thundered, “Let us transcend the barren Deccan and conquer central India. The Mughals have become weak, insolent, womanizers and opium-addicts. The accumulated wealth of centuries in the vaults of the north, can be ours. It is time to drive from the holy land of Bharatvarsha the outcastes and the barbarians. Let us throw them back over the Himalayas, back to where they came from. The saffron flag must fly from the Krishna to the Indus. Hindustan is ours”.

  The members of the court (Pratinidhi) opposed the idea and suggested that they should first consolidate in the Deccan but Bajirao insisted on his original plan.

He fixed his piercing gaze on Shahu Maharaj and said, “Strike, strike at the trunk and the branches will fall off themselves. Listen but to my counsel and I shall plant the saffron flag on the walls of Attock”.

Chatrapati Shahu was deeply impressed and exclaimed, “By heaven, you shall plant it on the Himalayas” and permitted the warrior Peshwa to lead the armies and launch forth.                  

In April 1740, when Bajirao was in the village of RawarKhedi in his Jagir in Khargaon preparing to march out with his army, he fell ill and passed away on April 28, 1740 on the banks of the Narmada.

 At his death after twenty years in A.D 1740, the Marathas had conquered a large part of Western and Central India and were dominating the South of India up to the peninsula.
 Though Bajirao died unable to plant the Maratha flag on the Himalayas as promised, his son Raghunath Rao in A.D.1757 planted the Saffron flag on the fort of Attock and across the Indus river.