Bloodshed at Home- The Conspiracy of the Marathas

Saumya Saini

Bloodshed at Home- The Conspiracy of the Marathas

Whether a Pandava or a Peshwa, one could never escape the power-hungry eyes of their family members who desired to clench the arms of the very throne the former sat on. Unfortunately, Peshwa Narayanrao met the same fate of being a victim of his family's conspiracy.....

Peshwa Narayanrao; Image Source- The Indian Portrait

Nana Saheb, the 8th Peshwa of the Maratha Empire, lost all hope when he met with a devasting defeat in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761 and lost his first-born son, the heir to his title. The burden on his shoulders was soon relieved when he died a few months apart from the battle, with his second son Madhavrao succeeding him. Somehow, death knocked early on the doors of his sons, taking away Madhavrao two years after the demise of Nana Saheb, disguised in the form of Tuberculosis.

Without having a choice, Narayanrao, the third son of Nana Saheb was made the 10th Peshwa of the Marathas, at the young age of seventeen.

However, in the background of these events stood Raghunathrao, the uncle of Narayanrao who believed himself to be the rightful ruler of the Marathas and proved to be a huge hindrance in the house of Nana Saheb.

With Jealousy running through his veins, Raghunathrao, in the short tenure of Madhavrao schemed against his nephew, only to be later placed under house arrest. However, luck seemed to be in his favour, as the early passing of Madhavrao and the crowning of the immature teenage boy released him and made him the regent of Narayanrao.

With ambition on one side and naivety on the other, ill-attended advisors chose their sides and further corroded the minds of both against each other, making Raghunathrao even more desperate for the throne. History seemed to repeat itself when his treacherous ways were caught and he was placed under house arrest once again by a son of Nana Saheb.

Even though Raghunathrao was under arrest, his goal was spread further by his wife, Anandibai, the mastermind of most of her husband’s schemes for she too dreamed of being a Peshwa queen and their cunning servant, Tulaji Pawar, who served as a link between the conspiring couple and the sepoys in favour of Raghunathrao.

On 30th August 1773, the last day of the Ganesh festival, Anandibai decided to carefully execute her plot to assassinate her nephew Narayanrao to seize the Maratha throne for her husband and herself.

No one can ever know what truly happened, yet legends say that a letter sent by Raghunathrao to Sumer Singh Gardi, captain of the Gardi guards which stated him to fetch Narayanrao was brilliantly forged by Anandibai. She cleverly changed the Marathi word ‘dhaara’ which means hold to ‘maara’ which means ‘kill’. This intentional miscommunication caused chaos, leading guards who were previously in dispute with Narayanrao and bribed by the conspiring couple to chase Narayanrao, all with eyes motivated to kill. Poor Narayanrao could only think of finding refuge in his uncle’s chambers and rushed to him, with the bells of the festival ringing behind.

Alas! Little did he know that familial bonds meant nothing to Raghunathrao and that he would willingly watch his nephew bleed on the floors of his chamber with Sumer Singh Gardi brutally slashing every inch of his body. A total of eleven people fell victim to this crime and were killed alongside Narayanrao. Another son of Nana Saheb met with death a little too early, only this time not by enemies or disease but by the hands of his own blood.

Ultimately, Raghunathrao and Anandibai did sit on the throne but not for too long, for their sins haunted them, leading Karma to hit them back with Nana Phadnavis, an influential minister, overthrowing them under the “Baarbhaai Conspiracy.” And for Narayanrao, his story did not end as early as previously thought, for rumour has it, that the shrieks of his ghost sounding akin to the day of his assassination can still be heard every full moon at the ruins of Shaniwar Wada.