3rd Battle of Panipat I 1761

[dexter]

The historical documentary series on the historical battles continues with a coverage of the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, which was fought between the Maratha led alliance led by Sadashiv Rao on one side and the Afghan Durrani alliance led by Ahmad Shah Durrani on the other. As the Mughal empire started weakening, the Maratha and the Durrani rose in power and wrestled for control of North India.

 

[INS_Vikrant]

In modern times the significance of this battle has been highly exaggerated, portraying it as the end of Marathas and start of British rule in India. Yes battle was huge loss and Marathas influence in Delhi was temporarily gone but in a just a decade long time they had mostly recovered and captured delhi again placing Shah Alam 2 on mughal throne who had been deposed and blinded by rohillas. Marathas even defeated British in the first Anglo Maratha war. It was however decentralization and infighting amoung various maratha sardars that led to their downfall and not this battle.

 

[paritosh]

In modern times the significance of this battle has been highly exaggerated, portraying it as the end of Marathas and start of British rule in India. Yes battle was huge loss and Marathas influence in Delhi was temporarily gone but in a just a decade long time they had mostly recovered and captured delhi again placing Shah Alam 2 on mughal throne who had been deposed and blinded by rohillas. Marathas even defeated British in the first Anglo Maratha war. It was however decentralization and infighting amoung various maratha sardars that led to their downfall and not this battle.

I think the significance was that till this battle, the Maratha confederacy was more unified under the Peshwa, and was on the cusp of unifying their territories politically. Abdali pushed that back by decades, ensuring the loss of momentum and the creation of a vacuum that the British could exploit.

 

[masterchief_mirza]

In modern times the significance of this battle has been highly exaggerated, portraying it as the end of Marathas and start of British rule in India. Yes battle was huge loss and Marathas influence in Delhi was temporarily gone but in a just a decade long time they had mostly recovered and captured delhi again placing Shah Alam 2 on mughal throne who had been deposed and blinded by rohillas. Marathas even defeated British in the first Anglo Maratha war. It was however decentralization and infighting amoung various maratha sardars that led to their downfall and not this battle.

The video I just watched showed the marathas being decisively defeated at Panipat by an Afghan /Mughal/Lucknow alliance.

Prior to that, the same video shows how Aurangzeb's Mughalistan surpassed Qing China as the world's foremost manufacturing driven economy.

I can see the case for Mughal rule having a downfall and Afghan supremacy having a downfall. Even the British had a downfall from a position of supreme power.

Are you honestly saying the downfall of the marathas came some time after this decisive defeat? Where did they win against their Afghan rivals or decisively vanquish the Mughal base, that the marathas might be regarded as being sat upon a pedestal from whence this "downfall" occurred? Hyderabad wasn't even decisively occupied by the marathas so where is this notion of marathas being some dominant force who could even undergo a "downfall" to begin with?

Without Afghans weakening their Mughal enemies, or the British weakening their Mysorean enemies, what exactly did the maratha "empire" achieve beyond selectively looting some Hindu temples under Tipu's protection and massacring bengalis?

 

[letsrock]

Maratha empire lost its mojo long time back when brahmin peshwas occupied an empire built by oppressed caste marathas.