Today is Death Anniversary of
Nana Phadnavis (also Fadanvis and abbreviated as Phadnis) (February 12, 1742– March 13, 1800), born Balaji Janardan Bhanu, was an influential minister and statesman of the Maratha Empire during the Peshwa administration in Pune, India. James Grant Duff states that he was called “the Maratha Machiavelli” by the Europeans.

Yesterday it was 325 years since Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj was put to a very cruel death at the age of 32 by Aurangazeb on 11 March 1689. Sambhaji Maharaj preferred a very torturous death. He is given the title “Dharmaveer”. Tributes to the brave Sambhaji Maharaj.

Mughal accounts state that Sambhaji was asked to surrender his forts, treasures, and names of Mughal collaborators with the Marathas, and that he sealed his fate by insulting both the emperor and the Islamic prophet Muhammad during interrogation, and was executed for having killed Muslims. Maratha accounts instead state that he was ordered to bow before Auguranzeb and convert to Islam, and it was his refusal to do so that lead to his death, lending a religious martyrdom to the narrative.By doing so he earned the title of Dharmaveer (“protector of dharma”). Aurangzeb ordered Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash to be tortured to death; the process took over a fortnight and included plucking out their eyes and tongue, pulling out their nails, and removing their skin. Sambhaji was finally killed on 11 March 1689, reportedly by tearing him apart from the front and back with wagh nakhe (metal “tiger claws”) and beheading with an axe at Tulapur on the banks of the Bhima river, near Pune.

Some accounts state that Sambhaji’s body was cut into pieces and thrown into the river, or that the body or portions were recaptured and cremated at the confluence of rivers at Tulapur. The inspiring sacrifice of Chhatrapati Sambhaji yielded him the honour of “Dharmaveer”, meaning, Brave man sacrificing for religion. The assassination of Sambhaji made marathas to come togather. They rebuilt their army and ultimately defeated Mughals.

Our respects..…Jai Shivaji Maharaj…Jai Hind…Jai Hindu…_/_

An Untold Story of a “Ibrahim Gardi”- another name for loyality.
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Ibrahim Khan “Gardi” (died 1761) was a Dakhani Muslim general in the 18th century India. An expert in artillery, he initially served the Nizam of Hyderabad, before working for the Peshwa of the Maratha Empire. As a general of the Maratha Empire, he commanded a force of 10,000 men, infantry and artillery. He was captured,tortured mercilessly and killed by the Afghans during the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761.

Ibrahim Khan Gardi, an ambitious soldier of fortune or military general, was an expert in artillery and was in service of Nizam of Hyderabad.Ibrahim Khan was in the services of Nizam Ali and was highly attached to him and had participated in the battle of Sindakhed against the Marathas in which the Marathas won.
Ibrahim Khan Gardi was won over by the Peshwa and he soon joined the services of the Peshwa to command a battalion. This was windfall for Ibrahim Khan Gardi and he was the first Gardi Muslim person to reach the highest level of becoming deputy commander-in-chief as well as artillery in charge of one of the most powerful armies in the world at that time.
He was a close confidant of the Peshwa as well as his cousin’s brother Sadashivrao Bhau, the commander-in-chief of the Maratha army during the Panipat military expedition.

Sadashivrao Bhau along with Ibrahim Khan Gardi had planned and were executing a foolproof battle strategy to pulverize the enemy formations with cannon fire and not to employ his cavalry until the Afghans were thoroughly softened up. With the Afghans now broken, he’d move camp in a defensive formation towards Delhi, where they were assured supplies but jealous of the exploits of their artillery chief the envious Maratha generals overacted while some left battlefield leaving their defenses open resulting in the defeat of the Marathas.

It was Ibrahim Khan Gardi’s battalion which faced & repulsed the Afghan onslaught during the battle. All of the Afghan attacks failed to dislodge Ibrahim Khan Gardi’s battalion from its defensive positions. About 12,000 Afghan cavalry and infantrymen lost their lives in this opening stage of the battle. Around 45,000 men from the Durrani army of Ahmad Shah Durrani lost their lives due to salvos fired at point blank range into the Afghan ranks.
Even when the news of the death of Vishwasrao, the Peshwa’s son, reached Ibrahim Khan Gardi’s battalion it kept defending its position against a numerically stronger Afghan army as, one by one, Gardi musketeers fell and the remaining members escaped from the battlefield using the darkness as cover on the night of 14 January 1761.

Ibrahim Khan Gardi was caught by Afghans while performing last rites of his master Sadashivrao Bhau and Vishwasrao. Ibrahim Khan Gardi was tortured cruelly with burning oil,hot iron rods and disembowelment to death by Najib-ud-daula and his Rohilla men as revenge for serving the Marathas being a Muslim.
Ibrahim Khan Gardi’s loyalty to his master as well as courage to stand upfront against invadere distinguishes him from others and makes him memorable in folklore and songs in the Deccan region.

Trained to the French discipline as commandant de la qarde to Bussy, Ibrahim Gardi bore the title, or nickname, of “Khan,” a souvenir of his professional origin or title. Originally part of the Hyderabad Nizam’s army, consisting of a number of Telegus. His troops’ military prowess and artillery tactics were considered a great advantage in various campaigns. Captured in the Third Battle of Panipat, he is alleged to have been tortured horribly before his death by his Afghan captors. His extreme sense of loyalty to his master Sadashivrao Bhau even when some of the Maratha generals deserted Sadashivrao Bhau’s army during the thick of battle and escaped unhurt to their Jahagirs in Deccan, Ibrahim Khan Gardi fought to his end and was captured only when all his famed Maratha Gardi musketeers laid down their lives, one by one, or simply vanished during the night of 14 January 1761 when darkness fell on the battlefield. Some of Ibrahim Khan Gardi’s artillery detachment with infantry and musketeers kept on fighting while defending their positions until sunset to escape in the darkness of night. To this date, some of the Pardhi communities’ folklore have various songs in praise of Ibrahim Khan Gardi as well as Suleiman Khan Gardhi.
Gardis kept on serving Peshwas as personal guards as well as musketeers until the end of the Peshwa rule in 1818. After end of the Peshwa’s rule, his private army was disbanded and some Gardis along with others from the Maratha jatis joined services of the East India Company as sepoys, musketeers, cavalrymen in infantry and artillery units — especially in The Poona Horse in 1818, Bombay Sappers, Madras Sappers, and Maratha Light Infantry.

MEDIEVAL ERA MILITIA-(part I)

Delhi Sultanate

The Delhi Sultanate, under the Khilji dynasty, repelled several invasions by the Mongol Empire. Zafar Khan, a general serving Alauddin Khilji, defeated the Mongols near Jalandhar in 1297. In 1299, Zafar Khan fought back a Mongol army of 200,000 soldiers but was killed in the process. Its last sultan, Ibrahim Lodi, died fighting the forces of Babur in the first battle of Panipat in 1526, ending the sultanate and paving the way for the foundation of the Mughal Empire.
The sultanate was military dictatorship; it owed its genesis to the military victory of the Turks over the Indian rulers in the 12th and 13th centuries and its strength and stability depended primarily on its strong and efficient army. The army organization of the sultans was based on feudal principles which carried all the inherent defects of the system with it.

The Rajputs

Handcoloured engravings by Frederic Shoberl from his work ‘The World in Miniature: Hindoostan’. London: R. Ackerman, 1820’s.“
After Babur’s victory over Ibrahim Lodi, the Mewar ruler Rana Sanga led a combined Rajput army of 20,000 intending to defeat Babur and capture Delhi. The Mughals had superior artillery, which prevailed against the Rajput cavalry. A Tomar general betrayed Rana Sanga, resulting in his defeat by Babur at the Battle of Khanua (16 March 1527). During the reign Rana Sanga’s son Rana Udai Singh II, Babur’s grandson Akbar conquered Chittor, the capital of Mewar.

In the Battle of Haldighati (21 June 1576) between Akbar and Rana Pratap Singh, the Mughal army of 80,000 was headed by a Rajput, Raja Man Singh, and Akbar’s son Salim. The Rajput army’s strength was 20,000. After a four-hour battle in which most of his soldiers were either killed or captured, Rana Pratap escaped with the help of his estranged brother Sakta Singh. His legendary horse Chetak was killed in the battle. Later, Rana Pratap organized a small army of Bhil tribals funded by a businessman called Bhamashah and started a guerrilla war against Akbar. He retook large parts of Mewar but could not retake Chittorgarh.

Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire began in 1526 with the overthrow of Ibrahim Lodi and encompassed most of South Asia by the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Allied with the Maharaja, it extended from Bengal in the east to Balochistan in the west, Kashmir in the north to the Kaveri basin in the south, a territory of over 4 million km2 at its height.

The art of Mughal warfare brought about a complete change in the way wars were fought in the Indian subcontinent. The Muslim armies that invaded India in the 11th and 12th centuries were small yet the art of their warfare made them invincible. They brought with them techniques and instruments of warfare that were hitherto unheard of in the sub-continent. The soldiers were protected from physical attack by means of a complete shield of armour from head to foot, their daggers and swords were made of superior alloys, and they brought with them the use of gunfire in warfare. That is why despite the courage and valour of the Indian armies a small group of warriors was able to overtake them and lay the foundation for the Mughal Empire.

The Mughals had an all-encompassing outfit for war that would secure maximum protection. Every part of the body had a corresponding unit for protection-head, torso and limbs.

The Mughals used various sophisticated weapons for warfare which was the prime reason for their triumph in the sub-continent. A major development in war was made by the introduction of gunpowder in Indian battle, a feat never accomplished before. Among the commonly used weapons are the sword and dagger, guns and cannon, archery and the extensive use of cavalry and infantry during war.

Men from military families who provided their own horses were recruited as cavalrymen. Initially they were mainly Muslim recruits. However as the Empire grew stronger in India, a number of Hindu warriors from the Kshatriya and warring castes were recruited. This is particularly true of the Rajputs in Rajasthan. These Hindu warriors were allowed to train and function under their own respective Kings and Rajahs. The army was divided into infantry, artillery and cavalry of which cavalry was the most important.

Maratha Empire

The Maratha Empire is credited with laying the foundation of the Indian Navy and bringing about considerable changes in naval warfare by introducing a blue-water navy.  From its inception in 1674, the Marathas established a Naval force, consisting of cannons mounted on ships.The dominance of the Maratha Navy started with the ascent of Kanhoji Angre as the Darya-Saranga by the Maratha chief of Satara. Under that authority, he was admiral of the Western coast of India from Mumbai to Vingoria (now Vengurla) in the present day state of Maharashtra, except for Janjira which was affiliated with the Mughal Empire. Until his death in 1729, he repeatedly attacked the colonial powers of Britain and Portugal, capturing numerous vessels of the British East India Company and extracting ransom for their return.

On 29 November 1721, a joint attempt by the Portuguese Viceroy Francisco José de Sampaio e Castro and the British General Robert Cowan to humble Kanhoji failed miserably. Their combined fleet consisted of 6,000 soldiers in no less than four Man-of-war besides other ships led by Captain Thomas Mathews of the Bombay Marine failed miserably. Aided by Maratha naval commanders Mendhaji Bhatkar and Mainak Bhandari, Kanhoji continued to harass and plunder the European ships until his death in 1729.
The ‘Pal’ was a three masted Maratha man-of-war with guns peeping on the broadsides.

There is no doubt that the single most important power to emerge in the long twilight of the Mughal dynasty was the Maratha confederacy. The Maratha Empire of India, also called the Maratha Confederacy, was founded by Chatrapati Shivaji in 1674, when he carved an independent Maratha zone around Pune, Maharshtra, from the Bijapur Sultanate. At its peak, the empire covered much of South Asia, encompassing a territory of over 2.8 million km². Shivaji established an effective civil and military administration. He made it a state policy never to desecrate a mosque or seize women after military raids. After a lifetime of conquest and guerrilla warfare with the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, Shivaji died in 1680, leaving behind a kingdom of great but ill-defined extent. This was followed by a period of instability ending with Aurangzeb’s death.
Shivaji was the second king in Indian history to maintain an active navy. Kanhoji Angre, the first Maratha naval chief under Shivaji’s grandson Shahuji, controlled illegal entries into the Maratha Empire by Dutch, English and Portuguese commercial ships on the Western coast of India in the early 18th century. He remained undefeated until his death in 1729.

Although the descendants of Shivaji continued to rule, the office of the Peshwa, or the Prime Minister, became the focus of Maratha power and patronage. The Peshwas were the effective rulers of the Maratha state and oversaw the period of greatest Maratha expansion, brought to an end by the Maratha’s defeat by an Afghan army at the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761. The Marathas recovered their position as the dominant power in India by 1772 until the last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, was defeated by the British in the Third Anglo-Maratha War.

part II follows….