Sepoy feels that while William Dalrymple’s book The Last Mughal makes for a readable book on history, many of the points he makes there are contestable. See especially the long discussion in the comments.
Linked by bhupinder. Join Blogbharti facebook group.There are more significant problems with making religion the over-determinant cause behind the Rebellion - even as a corrective to historiography. This mono-causal view may help Dalrymple’s argument that there was a transition from a more tolerant epoch of Colonialism to a religiously contentious one [with Zafar, the sad patriarch overseeing the demise of tolerance]. But this comes at the expense of various other, equally significant factors that went into the Rebellion.
My first reaction on reading few chapters of the book was :
I went thru bibliography and could not find reference to “Panipat 1761? by T S Shejwalkar -one of the few great books available in both English and Marathi. It is a great pity that some of the best historical work in Marathi is not translated in English. (e.g. Sardesai, Vasudevshastri Khare, Shejwalkar’s other work, Rajwade etc.)
I read and re-read that book. Panipat 1761 is still so relevant in many of its aspects. In the context of your book, the most important reason that battle was fought was to save Mughal dynasty. At some level, it was a great sacrifice by Marathas for the cause of Taimur’s successors. Shejwalkar argues that if Nehru had shown willingness for such a sacrifice, India may not have been divided.
According to Shejwalkar, perhaps it was a mistake-fighting for Muslim leadership of India - dilution of principles on which Shivaji’s kingdom was found. But I think it was first great POLITICAL act to lay the foundation of modern, secular India.
By the way- Abdali was impressed and shaken by Maratha’s valour in the battle. That valour was mainly due to Ibrahim Gardi’s division. It was manned by ‘Telangi’. (page 17 of your book) who according to Shejwalkar were forerunners of modern British/ Indian army
aniruddha,
interesting that you should have addressed the comments here.. but i can shed a little light on the term ‘telangi’ that you mention - the general in question was called ’sri ramulu’ and is believed to have been from the telangana region of present day andhra pradesh. i believe quite a few ‘telanganis/telangis’ fought alonside the marathas- in particular, in the battle you mention.