Military organisation: army, forts, navy

Detail

The three wings of the armed forces

• The Maratha armed forces had three wings: infantry, cavalry and navy. No single wing worked alone — hill infantry took forts, cavalry raided the plains, the navy guarded the Konkan coast.
• Cavalry was the striking arm. It was split into two kinds by who paid for the horse and gear:
• Bargirs — the state gave the horse and equipment. The soldier only brought himself. So the state kept direct control over these men.

• Shiledars — the soldiers themselves paid for horse and equipment. They came with their own kit, so they were costlier to the state in pay but cheaper in upkeep, and harder to control.

• Why this matters: a state-paid cavalry means a standing army loyal to the ruler, not to a local chief. Shivaji leaned on this to stop soldiers becoming private followers of nobles.

Weapons and firepower

• Swords and lances were preferred. Maratha horsemen fought light and fast, so short-range hand weapons suited them.
• Guns were used in sizable numbers too — the Marathas were not a sword-only force.
• Rockets were used from Shivaji's own days (mid-17th century). By 1770, metal-tube rockets were in use. A metal tube instead of a bamboo or paper tube holds higher pressure, so the rocket flies further and straighter.
• 18th century shift — European-style forces. The Marathas raised disciplined troops and artillery trained in the European manner (drill, volley fire, formed infantry lines).
• Mahadji Shinde kept a large European-style army. This was the Maratha answer to the new kind of warfare the English and French had brought to India.
• Trade-off: such an army was expensive and slow-moving. It pulled the Marathas away from the fast raiding style that first made them strong.

Forts — "the core of the state"

• Forts were the first mainstay of Maratha power. Shivaji built and controlled a considerable number of them.
• Two jobs the forts did:
• Command the routes — a fort on a pass or ridge controls who moves through the valley below.

• Shelter the army during guerrilla warfare — the troops struck, then pulled back into hills the enemy could not besiege easily.

• Ramachandrapant Amatya, Shivaji's finance minister, wrote the Adnyapatra ('The Royal Edict') in 1715. It says plainly:

• "Forts are the core of the state… This kingdom was created by the late great master from forts alone…"

• "it was due to forts that the state survived despite decades of onslaught" — the onslaught being that of Aurangzeb, who had already conquered Bijapur and Bhaganagar (Golconda/Hyderabad).

• Modern recognition of this fort system: UNESCO inscribed the "Maratha Military Landscapes of India" on the World Heritage List at the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris, making it India's 44th World Heritage property [4][5].

• The property has twelve forts — eleven in Maharashtra and one in Tamil Nadu: Salher, Shivneri, Lohgad, Khanderi, Raigad, Rajgad, Pratapgad, Suvarnadurg, Panhala, Vijaydurg, Sindhudurg, and Gingee (Senji) in Tamil Nadu [4][5].
• They are grouped by terrain: hill forts — Salher, Shivneri, Lohgad, Raigad, Rajgad, Gingee; hill-forest fort — Pratapgad; hill-plateau fort — Panhala; coastal fort — Vijaydurg; island forts — Khanderi, Suvarnadurg, Sindhudurg [4].
• These works were built, adapted or expanded by the Marathas between the late 17th and early 19th centuries — which matches the 1630–1818 span of this section [4][5].
• UNESCO's point is the same as the Adnyapatra's: the forts were not separate buildings but one connected defence system shaped to the land, used for military control, trade protection and holding territory [4].

Warning against the "hat-wearers"

• The Adnyapatra also warns about the European trading companies — the Portuguese, English, Dutch, French and Danes — called the "hat-wearers".
• Its words: they are "not like other merchants… fully intent on entering this land, increasing their territory and propagating their religion".
• It names their strength exactly: "Navy and gunpowder are their chief weapons."
• Its policy advice, in two parts:
• Control their traffic (their trade and movement).

• Do not allow them to build strong buildings — that is, no stone forts or fortified factories on the coast.

• This is a rare early Indian text that saw trade and empire as one thing, sixty years before Plassey's effects were clear.

The navy

• Kanhoji Angre (18th century) won many naval battles. His ships were technologically inferior to European ones, but he beat them through clever use of geography and tactics — shallow creeks, monsoon timing, island bases, and swarming light vessels against heavier ships that could not follow into shallow water.

• The Angre (Angria) family ran a fleet based at Kolaba and other centres on the west coast [3].

• The pass system — turned around.

• Europeans forced Indian ships to buy a naval trade pass — the cartaz (a Portuguese word). A ship at sea without one was confiscated.
• The Marathas turned the system back on the Europeans: they demanded passes from European ships.

• The Europeans, frustrated at being made to obey their own rule, branded Angre a 'pirate'. The label was political, not legal — he was an admiral of a recognised state.

• The 1665 Muscat episode — proof of how big the fleet already was under Shivaji:

• Four of Shivaji's ships reached Muscat and were seized; the crews were arrested.
• The ruler of Oman prepared to attack Shivaji's coast.

• He then heard the Maratha navy had more than a hundred ships — and retreated into his harbour instead.

• Sindhudurg, near the Maharashtra–Goa border, was the key naval fortification.

• It was built in 1660 by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and is classed as an island fort [2][4].
• It is about 550 km from Mumbai and about 135 km from the naval station at Goa — showing how far south Maratha sea power reached, right up against Portuguese Goa [2].
• Navy Day 2023 was marked at Sindhudurg, where a statue of Shivaji Maharaj was unveiled at Rajkot Fort — the modern Indian Navy traces its inspiration to Shivaji's fleet [2].

Prelims Hooks

• Bargirs — cavalry whose horse and equipment were paid for by the state; shiledars — cavalry who paid for their own horse and equipment.
• The Adnyapatra ('The Royal Edict') was written in 1715 by Ramachandrapant Amatya, Shivaji's finance minister; it calls forts "the core of the state".
• Cartaz — the Portuguese naval trade pass; Indian ships without one were confiscated. The Marathas later demanded passes from the Europeans.
• Kanhoji Angre — 18th-century Maratha naval commander branded a 'pirate' by the Europeans; Angre fleet based at Kolaba [3].
• 1665 Muscat episode — four of Shivaji's ships seized at Muscat; the ruler of Oman backed off on hearing the Maratha navy had over one hundred ships.
• Sindhudurg — island fort near the Maharashtra–Goa border, built in 1660 by Shivaji; ~550 km from Mumbai, ~135 km from Goa [2][4].
• Metal-tube rockets were in Maratha use by 1770; rockets had been used since Shivaji's own days.
• Mahadji Shinde maintained a large European-style army with disciplined infantry and artillery.
• "Hat-wearers" in the Adnyapatra = Portuguese, English, Dutch, French, Danes; their chief weapons named as navy and gunpowder.
• Maratha Military Landscapes of India — UNESCO World Heritage property (India's 44th), 12 forts: 11 in Maharashtra + Gingee in Tamil Nadu; only Vijaydurg is classed a coastal fort, while Khanderi, Suvarnadurg, Sindhudurg are island forts [4][5].

Mains Points

• Forts, not field battles, explain Maratha survival. The Adnyapatra (1715) states this directly — the state lived through decades of Aurangzeb's attacks because forts could not all be taken at once. Use this to argue that Maratha strategy was defensive-attritional at its base and offensive-raiding at its edge, a combination Mughal siege warfare was not built to defeat.
• The Maratha navy is the one serious Indian challenge to European sea power before 1800. Turning the cartaz system back on the Europeans shows an Indian state claiming maritime sovereignty, not just coastal defence. The 'pirate' label given to Kanhoji Angre is a good example of how European records name a rival power as a criminal.
• The Adnyapatra's warning is a strong quote for "why India lost to the Company". It correctly identifies the danger (territory + religion behind trade) and the method (navy + gunpowder + fortified buildings). That the warning existed in 1715 and was not acted on is the debating point: awareness without a unified Indian response.
• 18th-century Europeanisation was both adaptation and weakness. Mahadji Shinde's disciplined infantry and artillery let the Marathas fight set-piece battles, but heavy armies cost more and moved slower, eroding the mobile guerrilla advantage of Shivaji's time — a useful line for questions on Maratha decline by 1818.