Society has no awareness of Hindu Samrajya Divas; this is also a historical event that should be celebrated. Festivals awaken our thoughts, feelings and philosophies. Three hundred fifty years ago, a coronation changed the whole situation at that time. At that time, the situation of Hindu society was very unfavourable. Even great scholars and brave men could not imagine changing this situation. Due to this situation for many years, Hindus had lost the will to change. The idea was deeply embedded in the society’s mentality that ruling was not the job of Hindus; only servants could remain. Shivaji Maharaj’s most outstanding achievement was eradicating this feeling from the roots. A review of the situation before Chhatrapati Shivaji Raya:
The first attack was made by King Dahir of Sindh in 800. The defeat was due to the people’s deception.
- In 1000 AD, Mohammed Ghazni’s attack killed three hundred thousand Hindus in Gujarat alone, fifty thousand he took with him as slaves, men and women. Somnath temple demolished.
- In 1300, Genghis Khan wreaked havoc in Punjab.
- In 1400, Alauddin Khilji ended the Yadav kingdom. During this time, Taimur Lang destroyed Delhi, killed millions of Hindus and made Delhi the capital of invaders.
- In 1600, the rule of the Babur dynasty began, which destroyed the Ram temple in Ayodhya. There was no limit to the injustice, torture, murder and looting of the aggressors. What the Hindu society endured for about 700-800 years cannot be compared anywhere in the history of the world.
After the invasions of the Hindu kingdoms of Indraprastha (Delhi), Karnavati, Devagiri, Ujjain and Vijayanagar, India did not have an independent Hindu emperor for a few centuries. Many Hindu princes were forced to accept the sovereignty of Mughal or local Muslim rulers. Before the reign of Shiva Raya, the Hindu state of Vijayanagara in Karnataka was the most civilised, prosperous and glorious state in the world. The kingdom flourished when it was founded by two brothers, Harihararai and Bukkarai. The Muslim Sultans, Adilshah, Nizamshah, Beridshah, and Qutubshah destroyed this empire. Millions of Sultanate soldiers attacked Vijayanagara. Raja Ram Rai got trapped in the maze of sultans.
Vijayanagar was defeated. Our warriors died by the thousands! Nizamshah beheaded Ram Rai, and his head was hanged on a spear. Ali Adil Shah of Bijapur placed Ram Raya’s head at the mouth of a dirty cesspit in Bijapur so that sewage would flow out of Ram Raya’s mouth. The entire Deccan was sinking under the tyranny of the Sultans.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was born on 19 February 1630 at Shivneri Fort. At that time, the most valiant Hindu Rajputs were in the service of the Mughals, while the Marathas were in the service of the Nizamshahi, the Qutbshahi or the Adilshahi. Despite the presence of these powerful chieftains, the Muslims kidnapped and raped Hindu women, looted houses, and destroyed temples. Still, despite all this, the Hindus felt no resentment, anger or revenge towards these invading Muslims.
The Hindu society of that time was plagued with an inferiority complex and self-loathing, and the upper class of the society was corrupt and confused on moral and intellectual levels by discrimination, mutual conspiracies and anti-national activities.
The culmination was that the Hindu community accepted this would happen in the Kali Yuga, and now there could be no Hindu king. The king who sits on the throne of Delhi is God to us. Hindu society was disillusioned with the idea of ’Dillishwaroba Jagadishwaroba’.
In such a situation, it was not easy to remove this intellectual confusion from the minds of the Hindu community and awaken a sense of patriotism. It seemed impossible at the time. Of course, there was opposition from strangers, but our people were also against this work.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had no army, weapons, or money. All he had was Mata Jijau’s blessings, Guru Samarth Ramdas Swami’s guidance, Bhagavad Gita knowledge, ethics from Ramayana, Mahabharata, Dharma, life skills, and his strong will. Shivaji Maharaj’s vision of Hindu Swarajya was nationwide. He knew this would not happen in his lifetime, but he gave that vision to society.
In the future, Bajirao Peshwa waved saffron from Atak to Cuttack, and the Maratha army went to Panipat. It challenged Ahmad Shah Abdali, and attempts were made to stop the attacks on the country from the northwest. When the Marathas did all this, the seeds planted by Shivaji Maharaj were behind it. In Hindu culture, every work is supported by Dharma. Even so, Chhatrapati Shivaji’s goal of establishing a Hindu empire was “It is the will of God that a Hindu empire should be established.” India is a promising, holy land where even gods want to be born and blessed by God. Chhatrapati Shivaji taught the idea of working for it in the minds of common people. To carry out this divine task, Chhatrapati Shivaraya organised all castes, communities, traders, farmers, labourers, etc. and created dutiful individuals from all classes who provided competent leadership.
Many texts cover the brutality and cunning of Adilshahi and the bravery and prowess of Chhatrapati Shivaraya. Afzal Khan, the leader of a large army, well-armed, rich and well-equipped, was killed near Jawli near Pratapgarh. He was assassinated on November 10 1659. Margashirsha Shukla Saptami showed great patience, efficient planning, strategy, diplomacy, unparalleled courage and bravery in the forest. It was a very important event in Hindu history. This event instilled confidence in Hindu society by establishing that the Mughals were not invincible. We can kill them, defeat them.
How the coronation brought about change
The importance of Shivaraya’s coronation is why we recognise the world’s ancient and sophisticated Hindu culture. The goals of the state established by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj were largely achieved. His mission was to protect the Hindu community while overthrowing the Islamic rulers. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj worked diligently to restore the glory of Hindu society. He set an example for the coming generations in which any difficulty his generation faced, even if impossible, could be brought into the realm of possibility. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s Hindu Swarajya or Shivshahi means “Nothing is impossible”. Shivshahi reversed the history of Islamisation of India. There is no other example like this in the history of the world. This historical lesson will be valuable for us in the future. We see the national struggle, cultural upheaval, enlightenment and transformation in Shivshahi during the British rule.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s coronation sent the entire Hindu nation a message that this was the path to victory. Let’s move ahead with this path again. This was the objective of Maharaj’s coronation. This was the aim of all Maharaj’s activities. They were not fighting for themselves. Maharaja did not use his position of power to gain personal fame and respect. This was not his attitude. On returning from meeting Qutub Shah in the south, he visited Srishaila Mallikarjuna. According to the story, he became so engrossed and devoted after going there that he prepared to cut off his head to offer to Pindi. But at that time, his bodyguard and Amatya were with him; they saved Maharaj that day. Far from selfishness, it is seen that Maharaj had no interest in his life for personal goals.
If there was a selfish motive, he would have taken Chhatrasal in his tribe, who came to serve the king, but the Maharaja did not do so. The Raje asked, “Is it your destiny to become a servant? Will you serve other kings? You are born in the Kshatriya clan; create your kingdom.” Maharaj was the real inspiration for Chhatrasal. The struggle continued till the death of Father Champat Rai. After seeing the Maharaja’s style of work, he left Chhatrasal and finally won the victory and established an empire of Swadharma there.
All the Rajput kings of Rajasthan abandoned their enmity and formed their own war strategy under the leadership of Durgadas Rathore. Within a few years of Shivaji Maharaj’s coronation, he created such a situation that all foreign invaders were forced to leave the kingdom.
King Chakradhwaj Singh of Assam said, ‘I will not allow any invader to do injustice to this land of Assam because His inspiration Shivaji Raje did not allow the invaders there when Chakradhwaj Singh said that we would follow Maharaja’s policy and drive out the Mughals After this King Rudra Singh of Cooch-Bihar waged war and that war was also successful.
Was Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj pseudo Secular?
Hindu temple restoration
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj preserved the self-respect and culture of Hindus. When foreign invaders came to our land, they tried to destroy the society and culture by destroying monasteries and temples. Examples of such destruction include Babur’s destruction of the Sri Ramjanmabhoomi temple to build a mosque and Aurangzeb’s destruction of the Kashi Vishwanath and Mathura temples. The constructions made by the Muslim invaders in place of these temples are very offensive and humiliating to us. Arnold Toynbee, a noted historian, said in a lecture in Delhi in 1960, “You have preserved the mosques built by Aurangzeb in your country, forgetting the humiliation of those incidents.” When the Russians conquered Poland in the early nineteenth century, they built a Russian Orthodox church in the centre of Warsaw to commemorate their victory. When Poland gained independence during World War I, one of the first things it did was to demolish Russian-built churches and remove the memory of Russian domination. Because the Church was a constant reminder of their humiliation at the hands of the Russians, it was for this reason that nationalist organisations in India started the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi movement.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had already started this work. Maharaja restored temples at Saptakoteshwar in Goa, Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh and Samudrathirperumal in Tamil Nadu.
“If you destroy our temples, insult our culture and insult our self-respect, we will rebuild them” was the message given by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to the Muslim invaders through his actions.
Shivaji Maharaj’s mosque demolition at Kalyan-Bhiwandi is also mentioned in Kavindra Parmanand Govind Nevaskar’s book Shivabharata (Chapter 18, Verse 52).
In a letter dated 1678, Jesuit priest Andre Fair, in the Historical Miscellany issued by BISM, Pune (1928, p. 113), states that Shivaji Maharaj destroyed Muslim mosques.
Dharma and culture cannot be taken away from any country, and self-respect can never be taken away. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj taught us that if foreign aggressors attack our self-respect, we should restore our dignity by erasing the traces of slavery and giving a befitting reply.
Did Doctor Babasaheb Ambedkar respect Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj?
In the Constitution of India, the great leader Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar has given Shivraya a prominent place. Shri Namdev Rao Jadhav, in his book “Shivaji Maharaj and MBA”, has mentioned reference to Elections (Soul of Democracy in the Union State) at the beginning of the chapter Maharaj’s photo and Red Fort in the original constitution. Dr Babasaheb would have meant that there should be a government like Shivaji Maharaj’s Hindu Swaraj in this country that upholds ethics, harmony, and culture. This shows how much love, affection and faith was there for Maharaj.
Was Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s army 57 per cent Muslim?
In a letter to his step-brother Maharaj Ekoji Bhonsale of Thanjavur State, Shivaji Maharaj writes:
“Did you (yourself) think that I am blessed by Sri Mahadev and Bhavani Devi. I kill the evil Turks. How can I win if I have Turks in my army?”
Source: Shivakaleen-Patrasara_Collection Vol. 2, column 2332.
From 1656, Chhatrapati Shivaji practically declared war on the Adilshahi Sultanate. Very few Muslim officers are seen in Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s service.
We can see the list of about 200 officers in the Shivakaline-Patrasara-Samgraha volume. Volume 3, page 211.
See Shivaji -His life and Times pages—203 – 226, 402 – 404, footnote 2057.
Shivaji Maharaj employed 200 government servants, none of whom were Muslims.
According to Shivbharata, only 1 out of 10 bodyguards was a Muslim. There was only 1 Muslim in the list of 29 cavalry commanders but none among 36 infantry commanders. Thus, the total number of Muslims is less than 1 per cent.
Many communist Indian and foreign writers tried to defame the great Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj out of hunger for money and fame and wrong ideology. A hero who saved lakhs of people from brutal foreign invaders and returned to “Ramrajya” to save the glorious civilisation. A quiet yet dynamic, alert, understated leadership is characteristic of Maharaja, which every youth should adopt to develop individual and national character. As the Amrit Parva of India’s Independence continues, Shiva Raya’s coronation on the previous Jyeshtha Shukla Trayodashi, i.e. June 2, 2023, Shake 350, has begun. This is an event that is historical in Indian history. Let us participate in this holy festival to rekindle patriotism across Bharat and spread the glorious and inspiring legacy of Shiva Raya. On this 351st “Hindu Samrajya Divas”, let us all salute this great Hindu king and warrior.
