Who was Shivaji? Part - 2

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By the time Justice Ranade’s nationalist submission on Maratha history was published posthumously (after death) in 1900, 3 distinct perspectives on Shivaji has risen to prominence.

1. The colonial official narrative portrayed him as an opportunist Hindu warrior who flourished in the 17th century more because of the weakness of his enemies than anything else.

2. Indian nationalist historians saw Shivaji as the founder of the Maratha, and thereby Indian nation – the Hindutva interpretation of Shivaji is essentially derived from this position

3. Lower caste reformer-intellectuals of Maharashtra like Mahatma Jotirao Phule who portrayed Shivaji as a ruler dedicated to the uplift of the shudras in contradistinction to his appropriation as a nationalist by the Brahman scholars

After 1826 the name of Shivaji entered the pedagogy (education) in India designed to promote the “divide and rule” policy of the British. The invention of Shivaji as a Hindu warrior-ruler who had developed a deep-seated hatred for the Muslims in his early life must be credited to the Orientalist colonial imagination of Grant Duff.

In 1869 Jotirao Phule inserted a discordant (Disagreeing) note in the Brahmanical interpretation of Shivaji’s achievements by writing a powada (Marathi Ballad) on Shivaji’s achievements by writing powada on Shivaji which celebrated his achievements as a Kshatriya Raja in the tradition of a Marathi shahir.

Part - 3 Coming soon...