Shivaji and the Mughals: The relationship was complicated

This week, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath decided to rename an under-construction Mughal museum in Agra after Chhatrapati Shivaji with the claim that “Mughals cannot be our heroes” and Shivaji instils nationalist pride. As a corollary to that decision, the museum will now be on Braj culture and not the

Mughals

.


Today, Shivaji is projected as a Hindu hero who warred against evil Muslim forces. But the historical record doesn’t lend itself to such simplistic depictions.


The historical Shivaji lived in a Persianate world in which Muslims were rulers and, as US academic James Laine tells us, “commanded a certain obedience and respect”. Shivaji’s mother Jijabai’s family were allies of the Mughals. His father Bijapur general Shahaji Bhosale also served the Mughals at one point. In 1648, when Shahaji was arrested by the Adil Shahi state for insubordination and imprisoned, his son turned to Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. For this, Shivaji even offered to accept Mughal service though that did not happen as two Muslim noblemen from Bijapur interceded on Shahaji’s behalf and got him freed.



The earliest known ballad in Marathi, Afzal Khan Vadh (The Killing of Afzal Khan), written in a heavily Persianised language in 1659, makes Shivaji appear as someone who is at ease with the Persianate system, sending his salaam to his father as well as Lord Shiva and goddess Bhavani. Shivaji is lionised, quite literally, with the Persian honorific Sarja or “the lion”, Laine informs in his book, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India.

Professor Ali Nadeem Rezavi, former chairman of the history department of Aligarh Muslim University, says this ahistorical positioning of Shivaji was made during the 19th century. “The image of Shivaji as the Hindu saviour who tried to throw out the foreign Mughals was created by certain leaders of the Congress in Maharashtra during the Freedom Struggle to drive home the point that the British were foreigners too who needed to be thrown out just like Shivaji did. The policy of divide and rule of the colonial state further strengthened it. Gradually, by the 20th century, Shivaji in popular mythology emerged as a Hindu king,” Rezavi says.

Even when Shivaji declared himself a sovereign and took the title of Chhatrapati – a title also used for Emperor Akbar in ‘Hindu’ sources – and replaced many Persian terms of administration with

Sanskrit

, the idiom of his kingship was still Islamic in many ways. His court biographers called him both Raja and Badshah.

Professor Anirudh Deshpande of Delhi University, who wrote the introduction of the English translation of the late Govind Pansare’s book ‘Who Was Shivaji?’, says the Maratha king was “more in sync with political and cultural practices of the Deccan Sultanates like the Adil Shahi and Nizam Shahi states”. “And these practices were syncretic in nature. In fact, the northern Mughals themselves were outsiders in the Deccan and the Deccan Sultanates resisted their encroachment on the area. So, what we actually have is a varied picture of Deccan politics in the 17th century.”

Indeed, the Mughal-Maratha rivalry was a rivalry of the core and periphery: the Mughal hegemony was opposed not by a Hindu kingdom, but by the Deccan region which had Muslims and Hindus both.

“Impartial research on Shivaji has shown that the Maratha leader might have had regional aspirations but never communal. He did have his rivalries with Bijapur and Golconda, but he was one with them when it came to the Mughals. Mughals too understood this,” Rezavi says.

Deshpande points out that Shivaji’s ancestors were military commanders and jagirdars of the Nizam Shahi and Adil Shahi sultanates. “They worshipped Hindu saints and Sufi pirs simultaneously, a practice carried forward by Shivaji.” Shivaji’s father Shahaji was named after Sufi saint Shah Sharif.

The Maratha ruler tried several times to get recognition from the Mughals. “Shivaji certainly wanted recognition and a substantial mansab from the Mughal Badshah and that is what led to his brief sojourn in Agra after he submitted to Mirza Raja Jai Singh at Purandar in 1665. Becoming a big mansabdar with claims to a large jagir in the Deccan would have strengthened his position vis-a-vis the Sultanates,” Deshpande explains.



Even after Shivaji escaped from Agra, he continued to write to the emperor. As a result of these overtures, Aurangzeb recognised Shivaji as ‘Raja’ and accepted his son Sambhaji into Mughal service with a mansab of 5,000. All this was before he became the sovereign. “Long after Shivaji died, the Marathas in the 18th century continued to seek and operate under a political legitimacy sought from Delhi,” Deshpande says.