SHIVAJI – FROM MORTAL HERO TO POLITICAL ICON

Irate Shiv Sainiks had violently protested a book by James Laine called `Shivaji - Hindu King in Islamic India’ - and had it banned. The agitators were outraged that the book had dared to say that there had been some speculation suggesting that a certain Dadoji may have been Shivaji’s biological father and had vandalized the prestigious Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune. It is most unlikely that the Shiv Sainiks would have read the little book though the agitation gave unexpected fame to a small scholarly work that would otherwise have faded into oblivion.

Shivaji, who was the first Hindu ruler to successfully challenge the Mughal Empire, had become an iconic love and hate figure for most Hindus and Indian Muslims. Those who do plough through the text will however find that it very objectively records the great differences between the accounts written by Hindu and Mughal sources during Shivaji’s lifetime in the 17^th century and the later glorified accounts in Maharashtra. The book extols Shivaji’s heroic feats about the killing and beheading of Afzal Khan, the daring raid on Shaista Khan’s fortified camp, the loot of Surat, Shivaji’s escape from Agra and the conquest of Simhagad etc. Shivaji’s audacious courage in daring to humble the hitherto invincible Mughals instantly made him a great Hindu hero at a time when Hindu’s had no hero role models to emulate except for those of mythology.  

The contemporary accounts however contain several inconvenient facts that do not fit in with later accounts that sought to glorify Shivaji’s life notably that Shivaji’s father Maloji loyally served as a Jagirdar of Muslim Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar and was a devotee of a Sufi saint after whom he named his two sons Shah and Sharif. His tomb at Ellora looks like a Muslim tomb.

Shivaji began his career as an Adil Shahi jagirdar of Pune and like his father and grandfather before him served, allied or opposed the Muslim rulers of Ahmadnagar, Berar, Golconda, Bijapur and Agra as and when it was expedient. Shivaji had gone to Agra in the hope of being made a Mughal Amir but rebelled when the emperor Aurangzeb did not give him the rank that he felt he deserved. Shivaji’s sons Sambhaji and Rajaram both married their daughters to Mughal nobles. Marathas fought in Muslim armies and there were many Muslims in the Maratha armies. These clearly show that Maratha opposition to the Mughals was political and not at all religious.

Shivaji was born in February 1639 at the hill fort of Shivneri, and hardly knew his father Shahji who abandoned his mother Jijabai soon after he was born. Shahji was in the service of Adil Shah of Bijapur including a long stint as governor at Bangalore. Jijabai named him Shivaji after the local goddess Shivai and not the Hindu deity Shiva as many assume. Jijabai, of the Jadhav clan, was also of a better caste than her husband who was a Bhonsle of a farming caste that is not listed among the ninety-six high caste Maratha families. Shahji sent his trusted lieutenant Dadoji Konndev Kulkarni, a Brahmin, to look after Jijabai and Shivaji. He was a warrior and swordsman and was Shivaji’s guardian, teacher and mentor.

Shivaji’s rise did not have the support of all Marathi speakers and there was no concept of a Maratha nation. His main supporters, the Mavlis, were simple hill people opposed by the aristocratic Maratha sardars like the Nimbalkars, Deshpande’s, Ghorpandes, Moreys who he had to kill before he could establish his kingdom. Shivaji however needed a high caste that the heads of other Maratha clans could respect. The local Brahmins refused to perform the rites of kingship on a non Kshatriya so he imported two Brahmins from Benares who dutifully organized a huge ceremony in June 1674. Marathi was not yet widely known as a written language and most accounts were in the state language of Persian. The early Marathi accounts were also so Persianised as to make them difficult to understand today.

Contemporary records show that Shivaji was a Shaivite and a devotee of the goddess Bhavani who like Durga and Kali needed constant blood sacrifices of buffaloes, goats and fowl. He was a follower of the non Brahmin Tukaram and records also show that he also went to the tombs of several Sufi Pirs. After Shivaji’s death the rule of his sons did not last very long and his son Sambhaji wrested the throne from Shivaji’s second wife (out of seven) named Soyarabai, regent for the ten year old Rajaram. Sambhaji had no compunctions about killing Soyarabai and several important Maratha supporters. Sambhaji however ruled for just nine years and the Maratha Empire passed into the hands of their Brahmin prime ministers who moved the capital from Raigadh, near Mahableshwar, to Satara.

Many Brahmin priests and scribes were now patronized who, while glorifying Shivaji’s memory, began to alter and Brahminise the eventful records of his life. The legends about Shivaji were now made to resemble the mythical heroes like Ram and Krishna. Parmananda’s popular Sivabharata even alludes to his conception through a visit to his mother Jijabai by the god Vishnu. 

The early accounts of Shivaji’s escape from Agra record that he dressed as a sadhu and went to Benares before quickly returning to his kingdom. In the Brahminised later accounts he reverentially travels to other the holy places like Hardwar, Prayag, Ayodhya and Gaya as well. The killing of Afzal khan was glorified as a fight between good and evil and the battle becomes a narrative of a growing Hindu identity in opposition to oppressive Islam. Afzal Khan was portrayed as the stereotyped evil Muslim who kills cows, destroys temples and disrespects Brahmins and Hindu deities. Brahmins like Mahapati and Chitnis begin to now spread the idea that Shivaji was an ardent devotee of Rama, Vishnu and Marut (Hanuman) and was a vegetarian according to a new devotional cult of Vithoba of Pandharpur.

The 19^th century was marked by the arrival of the British who installed a puppet raja at Satara in 1818 and assumed sovereign control in 1848. Grant Duff wrote his `History of the Marathas’ that portrayed Shivaji as a plunderer and freebooter. It was to stir most Maharashtrians to condemn it. They began to call Shivaji `Father of the Nation’. Shivaji’s story was now portrayed as a Hindu, and later an Indian, rebellion against foreigners whether Muslim or Christian.

Liberal British education however also resulted in an internal rebellion with some socialist writers attacking the Brahmin domination of religion and customs during the earlier century. He rejoiced in Shivaji’s low caste origins claiming that he was descended from India’s original warriors who had been suppressed turn by turn by Aryan (Brahmin), Turk and European usurpers. They claimed that all Shudra and groups labelled as low caste were really members of a great pre Aryan nobility.

Gangadhar Tilak sought to reject all British efforts to intrude into Hindu life. He started the Ganesh Chaturti festival in 1903 to compete with the Muslim Muharram processions. It was hugely successful quickly making a minor elephant headed deity Ganesh into a popular icon in every Indian home. These festivals were seen as being both anti Muslim and anti British and Tilak was twice imprisoned for sedition. The theme with many variations was then taken up by Annie Besant, Gokhle, Lajpat Rai and others and there was now a babble of voices of many writers  notably Tagore, Rajwade, Mandal and others who used the icon of Shivaji to promote their views on Indian nationalism and a Maharashtrian sub nationalism. Veer Savarkar’s book `Hindutva’ was to add a virulent note to the debate.

Many inconvenient facts were however suppressed. Few know that Shivaji had seven wives or that he had an unhappy family life. There is little evidence that he was interested in religion or was a follower of Bhakti saints nor any evidence that he was hostile to Muslims even if he had fought against many Muslim political enemies. He was clearly determined to build his own kingdom but the idea of creating a Hindu or Maratha nation does not seem to have been his mission.

Over the centuries, several hundred writers manipulated the traditions about the heroic Shivaji to illuminate their own points of view. The historic non Brahmin military hero became, turn by turn, a virtuous spiritual model according to Brahmin standards, an enemy of Islam, a ruthless freebooter according to the British, a low caste hero among socialist thinkers and then the maker of a Maharashtrian and later a pan Indian identity. Each political agenda developed their own virtual scriptures and generated heated anger against anyone who dared to blaspheme their strongly held beliefs. They wanted to believe that the story of Shivaji was immutable and unchanging and their beliefs became almost as rigid as religious dogma. But the record shows how the facts of Shivaji’s life were manipulated over time.

AKBAR AND ALEXANDER

The lavish film Jodha Akbar had stirred considerable interest in the historic Akbar but it unfortunately mostly showed his softer romantic side and rather little of his tougher character as a ferocious and sometimes brutal warrior. But we find the same paradox with Alexander and there are many other astonishing parallels between their characters as soldiers as rulers and as human beings.

Both Akbar and Alexander shared the ability to grab opportunities by taking immediate action even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. In 1573 AD Akbar faced revolt from the Mughal governor of Ahmedabad. Without a moments hesitation he set forth from Fatehpur Sikri in the heat of August with 3,000 soldiers on female camels, which could travel long distances through the Rajasthan desert without water, and reached Ahmedabad in an amazing eleven days. 1,908 years earlier, in 335 BC, Alexander similarly reacted to the rebellion of the Greek city of Thebes and marched a punitive strike force on foot for 500 kilometres over mountains and big rivers to get to Thebes in twelve days.

Both Emperors also led from the front and sometimes almost recklessly risked their lives in personal combat seeming to believe in the maxim…`attack, attack, always attack’. It was a policy of sudden, immediate and unrelenting attack to energise their own followers and to confuse and demoralize their enemies. When Akbar’s small force hesitated before the 20,000 hastily mustered defenders of Ahmedabad, Akbar charged in `like a tiger’. After crossing the river before the town his soldiers groaned when his horse went down but cheered lustily when he mounted another steed to continue the determined charge.  It was a moment that decides a battle and the defenders turned and ran.

Akbar celebrated his victory with the gory Mongol custom of making a pyramid of 2,000 enemy skulls. Equally drastic was Alexander’s burning the proud city of Thebes to the ground. Brutal measures were often necessary in brutal times and such dramatic exploits fostered the myth of their invincibility and served notice of a terrible retribution awaiting any who dared to defy them.

Alexander’s first battle against Darius III was at Grancius in present day Turkey. Despite a fast flowing river with steep banks between his army and a much larger Persian force he did not hesitate to immediately plunge in. He was furiously attacked by two seasoned Persian soldiers. One got a spear into a joint in his breastplate while the other hit his helmet with an axe. Luckily one of Alexander’s companions speared one just in the nick of time enabling Alexander to dispatch the other.  Both examples show how bold and charismatic leaders can motivate their soldiers, raise the morale of their followers and demoralize their enemies who also began to believe in their invincibility.

Both the rulers were however surprisingly compassionate and accommodating to their vanquished enemies. They usually reinstated their defeated opponents on their former thrones as honored vassals in honorable treaties that often involved matrimonial alliances. They also encouraged their soldiers to openly and proudly take local wives even if this sometimes upset the orthodox Mongols and Macedonians. Rajput princes were held in high honor in Mughal courts while Persian nobles held high office under Alexander.

Both emperors were proud and impatient and the worst side of their natures came out in the protracted sieges that took a huge toll on the attacking soldiers and weakened their morale. Akbar faced staunch resistance from the brave defenders of the impregnable fortress of Chittor in 1567 despite the fact that the reigning ruler Udai Singh fled leaving the defense to the brave Jaimall Rathor. It eventually fell after many months with the death of many hundred attackers including many in a huge mine explosion. The furious Akbar had the entire Chittor garrison massacred even though he honoured the valiant Jaimall by having a statue of him and a young prince Patta installed in Delhi. Alexander had been similarly furious at the terrible seven month siege of the impregnable island fortress of Tyre and vented his wrath after the hard victory by crucifying 2,000 defenders to make an example to any who dared to resist him.

They were both of medium height and were compact bundles of dynamic energy. Though commanding with men they were both equally masterful with animals. Alexander’s was able to almost immediately tame the fiery and untrainable horse Bucephalas that remained his constant companion in every battle until it died in the battle against Porus on the Jhelum. Akbar not only had a similar relationship with a horse called Hairan but also a way with elephants. He terrified his friends by being able to easily mount an angry elephant that had just killed its mahout and savaged others. Then when riding it to fight another beast he leapt from one beast to other when its mahout lost control. 

A strong spiritual streak was another common trait. Akbar would sometimes go alone into the wilderness to seek divine guidance and his deep respect for Salim Chisti, an ascetic living among the rocks near Agra, was to lead to his founding Fatehpur Sikri. Alexander took time off from his campaign through Palestine to visit the oracle of Ammon at Siwah in Egypt. He also built many temples for the goddess Athena. Both believed in their divine destinies and refused to submit to the demands of the priests who tried to control them.

Both were also proud builders. If Fatehpur Sikri was a magnificent tribute to Akbar’s self aggrandizement, the numerous Alexandria’s founded in Egypt, Caucasus, Sogdania and western India were nothing less. But in the end they both died sick and broken. Akbar saddened by his rebellious son Salim and Alexander after the revolt of his Macedonians and the agonising retreat from India.

Both emperors were given power as young teenagers but they enthusiastically seized the opportunities to become the children of destiny. There were several differences but in so many ways they were twins separated by centuries.

 

THE RIVER OF SORROW

The name Tons is a rather insulting and inadequate anglicisation of the name of a great and very beautiful river. As this tributary generates more water than the Yamuna at its confluence at Kalsi, near Ashoka's stone inscription, it surely deserves to be the mother of the Yamuna.

According to the local inhabitants who I met on a recent trek to Har Ki Dun, the river unfortunately rose in the land of the Kauravas and after their defeat by the Pandavas was given the humiliating name of Tamsa, after Tamas or sorrow. The elders assert that the authors of the Mahabharata has been unjust to them for they had won the game of dice fair and square and it had been the failure of the Pandavas to honour their commitments that had caused the tortuous trail of epic tragedy.

Their land was also one of remote and densely forested hills bordering Himachal and Tibet that had been virtually inaccessible till fairly recent times. The source of the Tons was in glaciers above the Har Ki Dun, or the valley of the Gods, overlooked by the still unclimbed snowy peaks of Swargarohini, meaning the road to heaven. Unclimbed, except in legend, for Yudishtara and his dog had ascended it on their way to heaven. The other Pandavas had not been worthy. The mountain is series of five steep ice encrusted peaks rising in giant steps to 21,300 feet. The waters of the Tons have a translucent greenish blue quality unlike the dull gray waters of the Yamuna tributary.

Elaborately carved wooden Duryodana temples command the wood and stone villages for he is still revered here as the ruling deity. Their pantheon of four deities include a small image of Buddha. Many small shrines of the Bhumi deotas, or the deities of the land, attract offerings of flowers, scraps of coloured cloth and a little food. There are also blood sacrifices and shamanistic dances at times of hardship. The villagers lead hard and fragile lives and the intervention of the gods are constantly invoked for blessings or the averting of drought, cold or sickness. Today priests from the lowlands are trying to establish new temples of Shiva. Tribals welcome all gods as they dare not provoke the anger of any but the half hearted response at these new Hindu temples indicate that these new deities have yet to prove that they have power equal to that of the venerated old ones. 

The victorious Pandavas, who allegedly ruled in the upper Ganges and the eastern Yamuna area, chose to name the more approachable lesser tributary the Yamuna after Yamani the sister of Yama, the ruler of the dead. They made it a sacred river and its source at Yamnotri that is now a place of pilgrimage.

The Tons, however, had a greater history before the period of the Mahabharata. It had probably been the source of the legendary Saraswati, the sacred river of the Rigveda. This, the earliest account of a tribe who called themselves Arya, speaks of a great snow fed river that rose in the mountains and thundered south west through Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat to empty into the Arabian Sea.

Today the Yamuna gushes out of the hills near Yamunanagar and turns eastwards towards Delhi. The level of its bed is just a few feet below the surrounding plains. It is postulated that this is a recent course and that the earlier course had flowed past Kurukshetra, Sirsa and Ratangarh to empty into the bed of the river Luni flowing south of Jodhpur into the western Sea. Earth quakes, seismic movement or siltation may have caused a slight rise in the plain to make the river change its course.

Satellite mapping shows that the old river's underground aquifiers still flow to the sea under the dry to desert surface. The ruins of numerous ancient habitations also show that there must have once been the abundant waters of a perennial river to sustain so large a population. It is also evident that there had been no great perennial river near Delhi in ancient times because it was only in the 10^th century AD that the Tomar Rajputs had erected the first big settlement at Kila Rai Pitora near the Qutab Minar. The Indraprastra, or Indrapat, of ancient times, like Tilpat, Panipat and Bagpat had just been small pre urban settlements.

As the site of Delhi with the Aravali hills to the south and the Yamuna to the north made it the only easily defensible location on the northern plains it should have certainly been the site of a great urban habitation very much earlier. Provided there had been enough clean water around the year to sustain it.      

Today the murky almost black waters checked by the Okhla barrage near Delhi, carry the excrement, fertilisers, chemicals and filth of the northern plains along with rotting carcasses, garbage, misshapen plastic bags and the nearly rigid blocks of detergent foam. These have made it an ugly, toxic and lifeless river. Perhaps the Tons has had its revenge for now the Yamuna that has truly become the river of sorrow.

FEMALE DRIVERS - MALE DRIVERS

Even if one discounts the fact that about 90% of drivers are men, men account for over 99.8% of Delhi’s traffic accidents. Women, therefore, obviously do not deserve the widely held opinion that they are dangers on the road...although some people might quibble that many of the accidents by men were actually triggered by the distraction of lady drivers.

Ian Fleming was perhaps closer to the mark when he had James Bond saying that women were much more careful drivers than men when they were driving alone... but not when they had company. He explained that women needed eye contact for affirmation of all that they were talking about. Women drivers were, therefore, much more dangerous if there was another lady sitting beside the driver... and positively hazardous if there were ladies sitting in the back seat of the car. 

On the whole, women are much more cautious and do not take the daring risks that their macho male counterparts seem to so enjoy. They hate the prospect of accidents and the agony of the subsequent street-side arguments, police reports, etc. Few women are really very interested in cars and driving and these few can be excellent fast drivers.

Women are terrified when their men start accelerating behind a lumbering truck, watching a fast approaching bus and then close their eyes as they whizz through a small gap in traffic with just inches to spare. Shrieks, complaints, mockery and angry words are sure to follow.

Men, similarly, find it very irritating that women drivers, while overtaking, will wait ages till the road ahead is absolutely clear and will then leave a wide space of at least a metre between them and the vehicle being overtaken. Needless to say, they usually make several abortive tries before succeeding. The mounting frustration of the male passenger, furiously pressing imaginary accelerators and brakes, often also ends in mockery and anger.

In these days of power steering driving does not require strength and women are just as capable as men. Fast driving does, however, require intense concentration. Sterling Moss, one of the world’s greatest race drivers, was a very slow and cautious driver off the racing circuit. He always drove in a defensive cocoon of total concentration fully aware of the risks in every direction. Most women are just not that interested in driving. They have many other priorities with families, home, romance, social life, clothes, vanity, etc. Few have that male ability to forget everything else and focus exclusively upon a dirty old road. A man can, however, be so focused upon the road that he forgets the exact route to the destination. If he is an egotist, he may rudely refuse advice or even deign to ask someone on the roadside for directions, and end up many miles away from his intended destination. Women, though evidently uninterested, sometimes have a most uncanny sense of direction. 

Women can, however, be shameless frauds. Many, who are absolutely capable of the dirty chore of changing a tyre, will brilliantly play act the role of a helpless and incompetent female until some male sucker arrives to manfully save the damsel in distress. The male myth, therefore, has the woman driver as an indecisive, fickle, giddy and unpredictable chick while they are fast, sure, confident and decisive. Conversely the female myth has men being rough, pushy, dangerous, insensitive and foolish while they are cool and careful.

For many men their car is an extension of his manhood. The car model is a public statement of his life-style aspirations and the driving is an extension of his ego. Overtaking is an assertion of his mastery and dominance and being overtaken is tantamount to being defeated. Of all his possessions, the car alone allows a man a few moments to dream that he is a James Bond, Rambo or the solitary hero of his dreams. For most women, a car is just a useful set of wheels. For a man it is a part of his personality. No wonder, many women consider their husband’s car as his second wife. Under their breaths, many men mutter that this is one wife who does not mock, complain or talk back to them.          

Women must however always have the last word. When cornered on any point of technicality concerning their driving, they seem to have a marvelous ability to dredge up long forgotten memories of their man’s past driving mistakes or his knack of getting lost of feign total disinterest. If these does not work women are masters at finding many other ingenious ways to puncture the male ego.

THE MIGHTY MINI GOES TO HAMPI

I was very privileged to take a Mini Cooper S last year on perhaps the most pleasurable 1200 KM test drive I can remember from Goa to the magnificent ruins of Hampi in Karnataka and back over lovely twisty `ghat’ roads with some good stretches of highway. The Mini is a small car, roughly the size of the Maruti Swift, but there is no comparison for acceleration, road grip, ride ,handling and sheer luxury.

As the usual route from Goa to Hampi was in bad shape so we headed north on NH 17 towards Mumbai and then west on a lovely winding road via the minor hill station of Amboli to get to Hubli from where NH 63 got us straight to Hospet close to Hampi. In a fast and nimble car the 450 Km journey took just nine effortless hours and we arrived fresh and exhilarated by the drive. The Mini could instantly overtake anything on the road and was capable of much faster speeds than the 150 Kmph that we sometimes hit. We stayed at a very comfortable resort run by the Kishkinda Trust that is located on the western side of the rock strewn Tungabadra River. A small coracle took us to across the river to see some wonderful rock carvings scattered among the rocks. Many pilgrims also come to Hampi as legend has it that this area ruled by Hanuman was the legendary launching pad for Ram’s final attack on Lanka in the epic Ramayana.

Hampi is a truly magical place. The ruins of the sixteenth century capital of the Vijayanagar Empire built with huge granite blocks, pillars and beams is set among a most dramatic pile of tumbled rocks. One needs to use a coracle to cross the beautiful Tungabadra River.European visitors used to describe it as the most magnificent city in the world during its heyday. The fortifications set among the huge rocks would have been unassailable but the rulers foolishly challenged the coalition of Adilshahi rulers on the open plains and were routed. The attackers then utterly destroyed the city.

We returned via the port of Karwar south of Goa on another wonderful hilly road. The little 2-door car was great in the two front seats but was distinctly cramped in the rear. The peppy 184 HP engine was very docile at low revs but pumped out instant acceleration when the pedal was pushed. The six-speed automatic also made it effortless to drive but there were also paddle shifts for those who like the feel of gears. Our average fuel consumption was also a very acceptable 15 KMPL on the 1200 KM journey.

The Mini Cooper is quite one of the most exciting cars to drive and the Mini Cooper S is the ultimate in fun cars. When the original Mini was launched way back in 1957 it was immediately popular except that it was designed as a small `Peoples Car’. A joke was told of a girl in the passenger seat fending off her boy friend’s advances with the words… “What sort of girl do you think I am... a contortionist?”

The standard Mini delivers a peppy 120 HP from a 1600 cc petrol engine while the souped up Mini S has been tuned to pump out a huge 184 HP from the same engine. No car gives such a sense of speed as a small car which is why few cars can match the driving pleasure of a Mini. And, since it has come into the BMW stable it now offers every conceivable feature for comfort and pleasure. Luxury is never cheap and the Mini does cost a bomb but is a real jewel of a car.