Santaji Ghorpade

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Santaji Ghorpade was one of Sambhaji's associates and a famous Maratha warrior & Cavalry General.

[edit] Achievements

Santaji Ghorpade's father Senapati Mhaloji Ghorpade of Miraj near Sangli died in the battle of Sangmeshwar while fighting the Mughals alongside Sambhaji. Thereafter, Sambhaji directed Santaji to Raigad to rescue Queen Yesubai and Rajaram from Mughal siege led by Zulfikhar Khan, son of Asad Khan, Mughal Vazir. The gallant and loyal Santaji, true to the words given to his master secured the release of Rajaram by attacking and scattering a section of the encircling Mughal army and breaking through to the Maratha capital, Raigad.

After the tragic death of Sambhaji, Rajaram assumed the Maratha leadership, and moved the capital to safety to the distant fort of Gingee, near Chennai in present day Tamil Nadu. At this time Aurangzeb was obsessed with destruction of the Maratha power as potential threat to Mughal domination of India.

Despite overwhelming superiority in resources, arms and numbers, Aurangzeb's army was constantly harassed by continuous raids by Maratha Generals, Santaji Ghorpade and Dhanaji Jadhav. On one occasion, Santaji along with his crack commando unit of 300 Marathas shiledars crossed the flooded, Bhima river, and attacked the very tent of Aurangzeb, at the very center of the Mughal camp & carried away golden pinnacle of emperor's tent. Aurangzeb who was then praying and reading the holy Koran was spared solely due to the magnanimity of the Marathas who were reluctant to slay one found in midst of prayer and religious activity. Besides, Santaji's intention was to strike terror within the Mughal army (see Santaji’s raid on royal mughal camp at Pedgaon on banks of Bhima river.

Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb decided to punish this daring Maratha commando chief and was drawn deeper in to the 'cat and mouse game with the fast moving Marathas. Santaji Ghorpade, who lead 25,000 strong cavalry along with network of spies spread over Deccan part of peninsular India, made a career of boldly raiding Mughal military camps & cities between Krishna & Cavery. He helped to turn the tide of the 27 year war in favor of the Marathas by inflicting heavy losses on the Mughal forces.

Santaji's cavalry units comprised of mainly Marathas, and some Bhils, Telangis, and Berads - they were skilled at firing muskets from matchlocks while riding on horses galloping at top speeds. The charcoal pictures drawn by Italian traveler Manuchi of these Maratha cavalrymen standing on galloping horses firing matchlocks, shows soldiers with extended right arms and with left hand holding reins or lagam of horse and it is exhibited in Venice museum (Italy). Usually the muskets were procurred from Portuguese, Dutch, French & English trading companies.

Mannuchi, an Italian soldier/merchant was a witness to one of the Santaji’s raid on Mughal camp when he visited Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb’s royal camp in year 1690. He describes the attacks in his memoirs, as being unnerving and ferocious. The fact that Santaji Ghorpade's commando unit had caused great unease and terror in Mughal camps, was also indicated by one of Aurangzeb’s courtesan Saqi Musta’ad Khan in his book written in Persian Maasir-i-Alamgiri about Aurangzeb’s Deccan campaign. The tale was that there was a widespread uneasy belief in Mughal camps that horses were refusing to drink water from rivers or tanks as they were reportedly seeing images of the constantly attacking Santaji’s cavalry units.

Santaji is credited with the defeat of at least three major Mughal Generals. One of them, Kasim Khan was utterly defeated and his units decimated at which point he was forced to commit suicide. By using brilliant guerrilla tactics, Santaji wreaked havoc on the huge and unwieldy Mughal army, from Pune to the Tanjore region of Tamilnadu. Mughal siege of Ginjee was breached number of times by Santaji in his daring raids to enable supply of commodities, matchlocks, muskets and other weapons to reach Maratha garrison holding up in Ginjee fort.

However due to Santaji's unwillingness to fully obey Maratha king Rajaram, his tendency to be a maverick, his bouts of uncontrolled temper, his severely punishing his soldiers for trivial lapses of duty and orders, cruel treatment of captives and prisoners during raids he came under close scrutiny of the Maratha chief Rajaram. Santaji's values and character traits were in direct opposition to Shivaji's legacy and rules of conduct which were adopted and expected by Maratha king Rajaram. Additionally Santaji's unauthorized alliance with European privateers or buccaneers was too much for Chief Rajaram to bear. Rajaram thus decided that his general Santaji Ghorpade had become uncontrollable, insubordinate, and therefore unacceptable in spite of his great success against the Mughals. Thereafter with help of another Maratha general Dhanaji Jadhav who was peer of Santaji, he dismissed Santaji from high command.

After stripping off of Santaji Ghorpade's command of 25,000 strong Maratha light cavalry unit by firman(order) issued by Rajaram from Ginjee, Santaji with handful of followers entered Konkan (Central Indian coastal province) & made Rajapur-Malvan-Colaba-Bhatkal area a base for harassing Siddi of Janjira, chief of Mughal navy. Santaji with land based cavalry units & later helped by koli fishermens from Konkan-Kutch-Malabar as well as few Dutch-Portuguese-French sailors procured two galbats (type of naval ship) mounted with 25 to 30 guns each. He became a privateer himelf and began unauthorized and unsanctioned (by Maratha chief Rajaram) harassment of trading ships in Arabian Sea along west coast of India.

[edit] Death

Aurangzeb had not forgotten about the incidence of the infamous raiding of the royal Mughal camp by Santaji and carrying away of the golden royal pinnacles from the emperor's very tent. Such audacity, and now he was furious that once again Santaji had crossed paths with him, this time partnered up with Thomas Tew, a famous English privateer in carrying out highseas piracy operations in Arabian sea, about five sailing days distance from Surat on twenty five ship, royal Mughal convoy led by Ganj Sawai & Fateh Mohammed.

It is not clearly known whether Santaji had joined English privateer or if he was performing separate operation. This occurred in 1694 as Ganj Sawai led the imperial fleet in the Arabian sea off the coast of Gujarat state.(see encounter with Fateh Muhammed & Ganj I Sawai. An incensed Aurangzeb decided to settle scores immediately and commissioned a special under-cover, assassin squad exclusively to track Santaji. Aurangzeb declared him to be enemy no. 1 of the empire & sent message to Marathas, English, Dutch, French & Portuguese that anyone giving refuge or helping Santaji would suffer swift retribution and be immediadely attacked as an enemy of the Empire.

Santaji was tracked down by Nagoji Mane, a fellow Maratha, who was promised Mughal 'Mansabdari' (high ranking position) in return for killing Santaji. Nagoji Mane was specially instructed to carry out this activity in highly secretive manner with only handful of his trusted men, so that absolute secracy was maintained.

Nagoji Mane who tracked and followed Santaji's trail for eighteen months finally found his quarry bathing in one of the mountain spring in the forest between Rajapur-Sangameshwar without his usual 500 man armed guard detail. Santaji along with two of his attendants was killed while bathing by Nagoji Mane’s men. The severed head of Santaji was presented to Aurangzeb for a reward.( see tracking of Santaji)

After seeing Santaji severed head Aurangzeb exclaimed ‘‘It is possible to escape the cutting of golden pinnacles of emperor’s tent or by looting mughal convoy on high seas, but one cannot live to tell about such deeds to his grandchildren, let this message reach every corner of Mughal empire ”

Such was the tragic end of one of the most accomplished generals of Medieval India. Santaji Ghorpade’s son Yeshoji & Tukoji continued his militaey activities by shifting their base to Sandur near Bellary & Guti in Karnataka. With help of Telangi-Berads, they sided with Tarabai faction of Kolhapur during civil wars fought between Shahu & Tarabai. After Peshwas rose to power granted by Chatrapati’s of Satara in 1749 ,Ghorpades concentrated their activities in Karnataka.

Murarrao Ghorpade grandnephew of Santaji, made an alliance with Muhammed Ali and helped him Muhammed Ali to defeat Chanda Sahib in famous Battle of Arcot fought in 1751. This battle is known in history of English East India Co. as Carnatic wars fought between Robert Clive led forces of English East India Co. v/s Dupleix led French East India co.between 1751 to 1758 also known as 7 years war. English historians tend to highlight & Threat from Nizam of Hyderabad-Hyder Ali-Tipu Sultan kept them engrossed in Karnataka-Tamilnadu away from politics of Pune Darbars. Ghorpades maintained working relationship with English East India Co. in their Karnataka-Tamilnadu operations maturing from the cordial relationship established with Robert Clive during siege of Arcot in 1751. Descendents of Santaji still live in Sandur & Guti, Karnataka