Anglo-Maratha Wars

1. The Maratha confederacy and the background to conflict

The Marathas remained a major force after their defeat at the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761. Under Peshwa Madhavrao I, they recovered considerable territory and influence. However, Madhavrao’s death in 1772 reopened succession disputes. These disputes gave the East India Company opportunities to intervene through rival claimants, treaties and military assistance rather than through immediate conquest of the entire Maratha dominion.

The Maratha polity was a confederacy rather than a uniformly administered state. Its leading centres were the Peshwa at Poona, the Scindia or Shinde house in the Gwalior region, the Holkars at Indore, the Bhonsles at Nagpur and the Gaekwads at Baroda. The Peshwa exercised a leading position, but powerful chiefs maintained their own armies, revenues and diplomatic interests. Their rivalries repeatedly prevented coordinated resistance to Company expansion.

British interests included securing Bombay, gaining strategic coastal possessions, protecting trade and excluding European rivals from Indian courts. Nevertheless, neither British policy nor Maratha responses were entirely uniform. The Bombay government and the Governor-General’s government in Bengal differed over the initial intervention. Maratha chiefs likewise alternated between cooperation, resistance and accommodation according to changing political circumstances.

• Distinguish the Maratha Chhatrapati’s royal authority from the Peshwa’s executive leadership.
• Do not treat the five principal Maratha houses as a permanently united military alliance.

2. First Anglo-Maratha War, 1775–1782

The immediate cause was the struggle following the murder of Peshwa Narayanrao in 1773. His uncle Raghunathrao claimed the Peshwaship, but a group of Maratha ministers, prominently Nana Phadnavis, supported Narayanrao’s posthumous son, Madhavrao II. Raghunathrao sought British assistance. By the Treaty of Surat in March 1775, the Bombay government agreed to support him in return for territorial and revenue concessions, including Salsette and Bassein.

The Bengal government opposed Bombay’s arrangement. Its envoy negotiated the Treaty of Purandar in 1776, abandoning British support for Raghunathrao in return for a settlement that allowed the Company to retain Salsette. The compromise did not endure. Renewed intervention led to a British reverse near Poona and the Convention of Wadgaon in January 1779, under which the Bombay force accepted humiliating terms.

Warren Hastings rejected the Wadgaon settlement and continued the war. British forces subsequently captured Ahmedabad, Bassein and Gwalior in separate operations. The Treaty of Salbai, concluded in 1782 through Mahadji Scindia’s mediation, recognised Madhavrao II as Peshwa and provided a pension for Raghunathrao. The British retained Salsette, while most other wartime acquisitions were restored. Salbai established roughly two decades of peace between the Company and the Peshwa.

• Treaty sequence: Surat, Purandar, Wadgaon, Salbai.
• Wadgaon was a Maratha success, not the final settlement of the war.
• Salbai belongs to Warren Hastings’s period, not Lord Hastings’s.

3. Bassein and the Second Anglo-Maratha War, 1803–1805

A renewed struggle between the Peshwa, Scindia and Holkar precipitated the Second War. In October 1802, Yashwantrao Holkar defeated the forces of Peshwa Baji Rao II and Scindia near Poona. The Peshwa fled and accepted British protection through the Treaty of Bassein on 31 December 1802. This placed the head of the confederacy within Lord Wellesley’s subsidiary alliance system.

The Peshwa accepted a subsidiary force of about 6,000 infantry with artillery, assigned territory yielding approximately Rs 26 lakh annually for its maintenance and accepted restrictions on independent diplomacy and the employment of Europeans hostile to the British. The treaty was not an annexation of all Maratha territory. Its importance lay in subordinating the Peshwa’s external relations and enabling a permanent British military presence close to the confederacy’s political centre.

Daulat Rao Scindia and Raghuji II Bhonsle resisted the resulting British ascendancy. In 1803, Arthur Wellesley defeated their forces at Assaye and Argaon, while General Lake won victories in northern India, including Delhi and Laswari. British occupation of Delhi brought the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II under Company protection. The Treaty of Deogaon with the Bhonsle and Surji-Anjangaon with Scindia imposed extensive territorial and diplomatic concessions.

Holkar fought separately from 1804. His resistance, Colonel Monson’s disastrous retreat and unsuccessful British assaults on Bharatpur demonstrated that Company victory was not effortless. A less expansionist policy followed Wellesley’s departure. Peace with Holkar at Rajghat in December 1805 concluded this phase of conflict.

• Deogaon: Raghuji II Bhonsle; major losses included Cuttack and Balasore.
• Surji-Anjangaon: Daulat Rao Scindia; major losses included territories in the Ganga–Yamuna Doab.
• Bassein was the political trigger; Assaye and Laswari were battles of the ensuing war.

4. Third Anglo-Maratha War, 1817–1818

The Third War developed alongside Lord Hastings’s campaign against the Pindaris, mobile plundering bands operating mainly in central India. Some Pindari groups had connections with Maratha chiefs, but they were not simply a regular army of the confederacy. British military mobilisation against them also enabled Hastings to isolate potential Maratha opponents and impose tighter political controls.

Peshwa Baji Rao II, resentful of British restrictions and the humiliating Treaty of Poona of June 1817, attacked the British Residency in November. His forces were defeated at Khadki near Poona. Fighting also broke out with Appa Sahib of Nagpur and the Holkar forces. The British prevailed at Sitabuldi near Nagpur in November 1817 and Mahidpur in December. The Treaty of Mandsaur in January 1818 subordinated the Holkar state to British power.

The Peshwa’s campaign continued through engagements including Koregaon and Ashti. He surrendered in June 1818, received a pension and was sent to Bithur near Kanpur. The Peshwaship was abolished and much of his territory entered the Bombay Presidency. A smaller kingdom of Satara was established under Pratap Singh, a descendant of Shivaji. Scindia remained outside the main fighting after the Treaty of Gwalior of November 1817.

• Satara was not annexed in 1818; its annexation came in 1848 under the Doctrine of Lapse.
• Nagpur was subordinated after the war but was annexed only in 1853.
• Third War identification: Lord Hastings, Pindaris, Khadki, Sitabuldi and Mahidpur.

5. Causes of British success and historical significance

British success resulted from the interaction of diplomatic isolation, military organisation and access to substantial revenues and credit. The Company could sustain campaigns across distant theatres and use treaties to detach one chief while fighting another. Maratha rivalry was therefore a strategic disadvantage. However, explanations based only on supposedly backward Maratha armies are misleading: Scindia maintained European-trained infantry and powerful artillery.

The wars produced a differentiated political order. Some territories were directly annexed, while several Maratha dynasties survived as subordinate princely states. Residents, subsidiary forces and restrictions on diplomacy reduced their practical sovereignty. By 1818, the Company had eliminated the Maratha confederacy as the principal large-scale challenger to its supremacy in much of India, although other independent powers, notably the Sikh kingdom, remained.

For examination purposes, distinguish three outcomes: Salbai restored a balance after an inconclusive struggle; the Second War dismantled much of Maratha strategic independence; and the Third established decisive British paramountcy. British expansion here preceded Dalhousie’s Doctrine of Lapse and cannot be explained through that later annexation policy.

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