स्वराज्याची झोळी

Shivaji's growing independent power in the Maval country galled the Adilshah of Bijapur. To bring him under control, the Adilshah appointed his formidable commander Afzal Khan to administer the province of Wai. Khan remained there some four or five years, but for all his efforts he could not manage to rein Shivaji in. Even so, during those years he put the time to use: he gathered detailed intelligence about the Maval region and its leading men, and won over to his own side several of the local deshmukhs, among them the Mores and the Khopdes. This earned those deshmukhs Shivaji's lasting displeasure; he came to regard them as traitors both to the nation and to their faith.

कल्याण प्रांतावर छापा - स्वराज्याची झोळी

Just as Wai lay to the east in the folds of the Sahyadri, so Kalyan province, down in the Konkan, was likewise a rich source of Bijapur's revenue. Every year Kalyan's tax collections were sent up to Bijapur, cart-loads and pack-animals laden with treasure. Getting advance word of the shipment, Shivaji struck suddenly near Purandar and carried off the entire treasury. He declared this was no unjust plunder but "swarajya's alms" — since the Muslims were destroying our dharma, this was simply the religious toll that we were now openly demanding in this begging-bag. Today such a begging-bag was sorely needed to meet the expenses of running the new kingdom. For this reason foreign historians have branded Shivaji a mere robber, but it is fairer, Sardesai insists, to understand the true purpose of this looting as nothing other than the gathering of the sinews of swarajya — the very "jholi" (bag) that gives this chapter its name. About a year after the affair with the Mores, Kalyan province passed fully into Shivaji's hands, and from that time onward the whole of the Konkan and the western coastline progressively came under his sway.

कल्याणच्या सुभेदाराची सून - शिवाजीचे चारित्र्य

During the Kalyan campaign, soldiers came upon the beautiful young daughter-in-law of the local Muslim subhedar and brought her before Shivaji. This act displeased him greatly. He rejected outright the reasoning that since Muslims had seized Hindu women, the Marathas should retaliate in kind by abducting Muslim women — this he would not countenance. Instead he condemned the deed, treated the young woman with due respect, and had her escorted safely back to her husband under his own guard. Through this episode, word of Shivaji's blameless and honourable conduct spread widely among the people, further burnishing his reputation.

बाळाजी आवजी, मोरोपंत पिंगळे, बहिर्जी नाईक

It was during this same Konkan campaign that Shivaji came to know the capable Balaji Avji, whom he entrusted with the charge of the state's chitnisi, its office of correspondence and secretarial affairs. Shyamraj, who then held the post of Pradhan, was not managing that office well, so Shivaji replaced him with Moropant Pingle as chief Pradhan — a change whose wisdom soon showed itself, for Moropant's ability proved of enormous value to the kingdom. Another man of comparable talent was Bahirji Naik, unrivalled in his skill at gathering useful intelligence from every quarter through cunning and disguise. Moving among the enemy and adopting whatever guise the occasion demanded, he and his associates kept Shivaji informed of enemy movements, hidden treasuries, moneylenders' hoards, the secret routes into forts, and much else besides. It was on such intelligence that many of Shivaji's most remarkable feats were founded, and because of it his enterprise spread with extraordinary speed; failure, it is said, never once came to him.

विजापुरातील राजकीय उलथापालथ

As Shivaji's power kept growing, word reached him of fresh dangers gathering against him. Bahirji Naik and his fellow secret agents brought news from Bijapur. Bahirji reported: the Bijapur sultan, Muhammad Adilshah, who had lain bedridden for years, had finally died on 4 November 1656. His son Ali, being still a minor, had succeeded him, but the real business of government was in the hands of his mother, the queen Badi Sahiba. She had turned decidedly hostile toward Shivaji and was hatching great conspiracies against him, holding secret councils day and night; Afzal Khan had become her right-hand man in this effort. It was this same Khan who had once had Shahaji Raje seized and placed in grave danger, a scheme Shivaji had cleverly managed to foil. Khan possessed thorough knowledge of the Sahyadri Maval country and had suborned many of its people. At the battle of Kanakgiri, it was Afzal Khan who had engineered the very plot that claimed the life of Shivaji's brother, Sambhaji Raje — a fact known to Jijabai herself. He had given every support to the Mores of Jawali, and it was he, too, who had arranged the murder of Bijapur's shrewd minister, Khan Muhammad, on 11 November 1657, thereby making himself the chief power behind the throne.

बडीसाहेबिणीचा गुप्त दरबार व अफजलखानाची शपथ

Recently, Bahirji continued, Badi Sahiba had convened a secret durbar at Bijapur and proclaimed a wager: whoever brought this "boy of the Bhosales" before her, alive or beheaded, would be granted the kingdom's foremost nobility, together with all the troops and equipment he might require. On hearing the queen's words, Afzal Khan stepped forward, took up the token of the wager, and vowed that he would accomplish the task and that she might set her mind at ease. The queen further gave him a secret counsel: "Shivaji is exceedingly cunning and will never stand and face you in open battle. Lure him by some extraordinary bait to a secret meeting; if he can be taken alive, seize him — if not, finish him off. Accomplish this and you will have won us a whole province." Khan thereupon raised ten thousand hand-picked troops, with his sons and retainers all lending their support. Lacking funds for the expense, he was advised by the queen on how to raise money: "Sack the wealthy temples of Tuljapur and Pandharpur, and the trading towns as well — plunder them freely and let that be our answer to Shivaji's own looting. Whatever deshmukhs of the Maval, or anyone else, stand against you, put every one of them to the sword without mercy. The whole honour of this Muslim kingdom now rests in your hands." So saying, the queen placed her hand upon Khan's head in blessing and gave him leave to depart. "This news is certain," Bahirji concluded to Shivaji, "you will soon see it proven true — I have come running straight to you with it."