title: Kargil War

text: As the operation was fully underway, about 250 artillery guns were brought in to clear the infiltrators in the posts that were in the line-of-sight. The Bofors FH-77B field howitzer played a vital role, with Indian gunners making maximum use of the terrain. However, its success was limited elsewhere due to the lack of space and depth to deploy it.


title: Kargil War

text: The Indian Air Force was tasked to act jointly with ground troops on 25 May. The code name assigned to their role was Operation Safed Sagar It was in this type of terrain that aerial attacks were used, initially with limited effectiveness. On 27 May 1999, the IAF lost a MiG-27 strike aircraft piloted by Flt. Lt. Nachiketa, which it attributed to an engine failure, and a MiG-21 fighter piloted by Sqn Ldr Ajay Ahuja which was shot down by the Pakistani army, both over Batalik sector.; initially Pakistan said it shot down both jets after they crossed into its territory. According to reports, Ahuja had bailed out of his stricken plane safely but was apparently killed by his captors as his body was returned riddled with bullet wounds. One Indian Mi-8 helicopter was also lost due to Stinger SAMs. French made Mirage 2000H of the IAF were tasked to drop laser-guided bombs to destroy well-entrenched positions of the Pakistani forces and flew its first sortie on 30 May. The effects of the pinpoint non-stop bombing by the Mirage-2000, by day and by night, became evident with almost immediate effect.


title: Kargil War

text: In many vital points, neither artillery nor air power could dislodge the outposts manned by the Pakistani soldiers, who were out of visible range. The Indian Army mounted some direct frontal ground assaults which were slow and took a heavy toll given the steep ascent that had to be made on peaks as high as . Since any daylight attack would be suicidal, all the advances had to be made under the cover of darkness, escalating the risk of freezing. Accounting for the wind chill factor, the temperatures were often as low as near the mountain tops. Based on military tactics, much of the costly frontal assaults by the Indians could have been avoided if the Indian Military had chosen to blockade the supply route of the opposing force, creating a siege. Such a move would have involved the Indian troops crossing the LOC as well as initiating aerial attacks on Pakistani soil, however, a manoeuvre India was not willing to exercise due to the likely expansion of the theatre of war and reduced international support for its cause.


title: Kargil War

text: Two months into the conflict, Indian troops had slowly retaken most of the ridges that were encroached upon by the infiltrators; according to the official count, an estimated 75–80% of the intruded area and nearly all the high ground were back under Indian control.


title: Kargil War

text: Following the outbreak of armed fighting, Pakistan sought American help in de-escalating the conflict. Bruce Riedel, who was then an aide to President Bill Clinton, reported that US intelligence had imaged Pakistani movements of nuclear weapons to forward deployments for fear of the Kargil hostilities escalating into a wider conflict. However, President Clinton refused to intervene until Pakistan had removed all forces from the Indian side of the LOC.


title: Kargil War

text: Following the Washington accord of 4 July 1999, when Sharif agreed to withdraw Pakistani troops, most of the fighting came to a gradual halt, but some Pakistani forces remained in positions on the Indian side of the LoC. In addition, the United Jihad Council (an umbrella for extremist groups) rejected Pakistan's plan for a climb-down, instead deciding to fight on.


title: Kargil War

text: The Indian army launched its final attacks in the last week of July in co-ordination with relentless attacks by the IAF, both by day and night, in their totally successful Operation Safed Sagar; as soon as the Drass subsector had been cleared of Pakistani forces, the fighting ceased on 26 July. The day has since been marked as "Kargil Vijay Diwas" (Kargil Victory Day) in India. In the wake of its successive military defeats in Kargil, diplomatic isolation in the international arena, its precarious economic situation, and the mounting international pressure, the Pakistani establishment was compelled to negotiate a face saving withdrawal from the residual areas on the Indian side of the LoC, thereby restoring the sanctity of the LoC, as was established in July 1972 as per the Simla Agreement.


title: Kargil War

text: Pakistan was heavily criticised by other countries for instigating the war, as its paramilitary forces and insurgents had crossed the LOC (Line of Control). Pakistan's primary diplomatic response, one of plausible deniability linking the incursion to what it officially termed as "Kashmiri freedom fighters", was in the end not successful. Veteran analysts argued that the battle was fought at heights where only seasoned troops could survive, so poorly equipped "freedom fighters" would neither have the ability nor the wherewithal to seize land and defend it. Moreover, while the army had initially denied the involvement of its troops in the intrusion, two soldiers were awarded the Nishan-E-Haider (Pakistan's highest military honour). Another 90 soldiers were also given gallantry awards, most of them posthumously, confirming Pakistan's role in the episode. India also released taped phone conversations between the Army Chief and a senior Pakistani general where the latter is recorded saying: "the scruff of [the militants] necks is in our hands", although Pakistan dismissed it as a "total fabrication". Concurrently, Pakistan made several contradicting statements, confirming its role in Kargil, when it defended the incursions saying that the LOC itself was disputed. Pakistan also attempted to internationalise the Kashmir issue, by linking the crisis in Kargil to the larger Kashmir conflict, but such a diplomatic stance found few backers on the world stage.


title: Kargil War

text: As the Indian counter-attacks picked up momentum, Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif flew to meet US President Bill Clinton on 4 July to obtain support from the United States. Clinton rebuked Sharif, however, and asked him to use his contacts to rein in the militants and withdraw Pakistani soldiers from Indian territory. Clinton would later reveal in his autobiography that "Sharif's moves were perplexing" since the Indian Prime Minister had travelled to Lahore to promote bilateral talks aimed at resolving the Kashmir problem and "by crossing the Line of Control, Pakistan had wrecked the [bilateral] talks". On the other hand, he applauded Indian restraint for not crossing the LOC and escalating the conflict into an all-out war.


title: Kargil War

text: G8 nations supported India and condemned the Pakistani violation of the LOC at the Cologne summit. The European Union also opposed Pakistan's violation of the LOC. China, a long-time ally of Pakistan, insisted on a pullout of forces to the pre-conflict positions along the LOC and settling border issues peacefully. Other organisations like the ASEAN Regional Forum too supported India's stand on the inviolability of the LOC.


title: Kargil War

text: Faced with growing international pressure, Sharif managed to pull back the remaining soldiers from Indian territory. The joint statement issued by Clinton and Sharif conveyed the need to respect the LOC and resume bilateral talks as the best forum to resolve all disputes.


title: Kargil War

text: A number of Indian soldiers earned awards for gallantry. Four Param Vir Chakras and 11 Maha Vir Chakras were awarded.


title: Kargil War

text: The Kargil War was significant for the impact and influence of the mass media on public opinion in both nations. Coming at a time of exploding growth in electronic journalism in India, the Kargil news stories and war footage were often telecast live on TV, and many websites provided in-depth analysis of the war. The conflict became the first "live" war in South Asia and it was given such detailed media coverage that one effect was the drumming up of jingoistic feelings.


title: Kargil War

text: The conflict soon turned into a news propaganda war, in which press briefings given by government officials of each nation produced conflicting claims and counterclaims. The Indian government placed a temporary News Embargo on information from Pakistan, banning the telecast of the state-run Pakistani channel PTV and blocking access to online editions of the "Dawn" newspaper. The Pakistani media criticised this apparent curbing of freedom of the press in India, while India media claimed it was in the interest of national security. The Indian government ran advertisements in foreign publications including "The Times" and "The Washington Post" detailing Pakistan's role in supporting extremists in Kashmir in an attempt to garner political support for its position.


title: Kargil War

text: As the war progressed, media coverage of the conflict was more intense in India than in Pakistan. Many Indian channels showed images from the battle zone in a style reminiscent of CNN's coverage of the Gulf War (one of the shells fired by Pakistan troops even hit a Doordarshan transmission centre in Kargil; coverage continued, however). Reasons for India's increased coverage included the greater number of privately owned electronic media in India compared to Pakistan and relatively greater transparency in the Indian media. At a seminar in Karachi, Pakistani journalists agreed that while the Indian government had taken the press and the people into its confidence, Pakistan had not.


title: Kargil War

text: The print media in India and abroad was largely sympathetic to the Indian cause, with editorials in newspapers based in the west and other neutral countries observing that Pakistan was largely responsible for the conflict. Some analysts believe that Indian media, which was both larger in number and more credible, may have acted as a force multiplier for the Indian military operation in Kargil and served as a morale booster. As the fighting intensified, the Pakistani version of events found little backing on the world stage. This helped India gain valuable diplomatic recognition for its position.


title: Kargil War

text: Since Pakistan and India each had weapons of mass destruction, many in the international community were concerned that if the Kargil conflict intensified, it could lead to nuclear war. Both countries had tested their nuclear capability in 1998 (India conducted its first test in 1974 while it was Pakistan's first-ever nuclear test). Many pundits believed the tests to be an indication of the escalating stakes in the scenario in South Asia. When the Kargil conflict started just a year after the nuclear tests, many nations desired to end it before it intensified.


title: Kargil War

text: International concerns increased when Pakistani foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmad made a statement on 31 May warning that an escalation of the limited conflict could lead Pakistan to use "any weapon" in its arsenal. This was immediately interpreted as a threat of nuclear retaliation by Pakistan in the event of an extended war, and the belief was reinforced when the leader of Pakistan's senate noted, "The purpose


title: Kargil War

text: of developing weapons becomes meaningless if they are not used when they are needed". Many such ambiguous statements from officials of both countries were viewed as warnings of an impending nuclear crisis where the combatants would consider use of their limited nuclear arsenals in "tactical" nuclear warfare in the belief that it would not have ended in mutual assured destruction, as could have occurred in a nuclear conflict between the United States and the USSR. Some experts believe that following nuclear tests in 1998, the Pakistani military was emboldened by its nuclear deterrent to markedly increase coercion against India.


title: Kargil War

text: The nature of the India-Pakistan conflict took a more sinister turn when the United States received intelligence that Pakistani nuclear warheads were being moved towards the border. Bill Clinton tried to dissuade Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif from nuclear brinkmanship, even threatening Pakistan of dire consequences. According to a White House official, Sharif seemed to be genuinely surprised by this supposed missile movement and responded that India was probably planning the same. In an article published in a defence journal in 2000, Sanjay Badri-Maharaj, a security expert, claimed while quoting another expert that India too had readied at least five nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.


title: Kargil War

text: Sensing a deteriorating military scenario, diplomatic isolation, and the risks of a larger conventional and nuclear war, Sharif ordered the Pakistani army to vacate the Kargil heights. He later claimed in his official biography that General Pervez Musharraf had moved nuclear warheads without informing him. Recently however, Pervez Musharraf revealed in his memoirs that Pakistan's nuclear delivery system was not operational during the Kargil war; something that would have put Pakistan under serious disadvantage if the conflict went nuclear.


title: Kargil War

text: The threat of WMD included chemical and even biological weapons. Pakistan accused India of using chemical weapons and incendiary weapons such as napalm against the Kashmiri fighters. India, on the other hand, showcased a cache of gas masks as proof that Pakistan may have been prepared to use non-conventional weapons. US official and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons determined that Pakistani allegations of India using banned chemicals in its bombs were unfounded.


title: Kargil War

text: From the end of the war until February 2000, the Indian stock market rose by more than 30%. The next Indian national budget included major increases in military spending.


title: Kargil War

text: There was a surge in patriotism, with many celebrities expressing their support for the Kargil cause. Indians were angered by media reports of the death of pilot Ajay Ahuja, especially after Indian authorities reported that Ahuja had been murdered and his body mutilated by Pakistani troops. The war had produced higher than expected fatalities for the Indian military, with a sizeable percentage of them including newly commissioned officers. One month after conclusion of the Kargil War, the Atlantique Incident, in which a Pakistan Navy plane was shot down by India, briefly reignited fears of a conflict between the two countries.


title: Kargil War

text: After the war, the Indian government severed ties with Pakistan and increased defence preparedness. India increased its defence budget as it sought to acquire more state of the art equipment. Media reported about military procurement irregularities and criticism of intelligence agencies like Research and Analysis Wing, which failed to predict the intrusions or the identity/number of infiltrators during the war. An internal assessment report by the armed forces, published in an Indian magazine, showed several other failings, including "a sense of complacency" and being "unprepared for a conventional war" on the presumption that nuclearism would sustain peace. It also highlighted the lapses in command and control, the insufficient troop levels and the dearth of large-calibre guns like the Bofors. In 2006, retired Air Chief Marshal, A. Y. Tipnis, alleged that the Indian Army did not fully inform the government about the intrusions, adding that the army chief Ved Prakash Malik, was initially reluctant to use the full strike capability of the Indian Air Force, instead requesting only helicopter gunship support. Soon after the conflict, India also decided to complete the project, previously stalled by Pakistan, to fence the entire LOC.


title: Kargil War

text: The end of the Kargil conflict was followed by the 13th Indian General Elections to the Lok Sabha, which gave a decisive mandate to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. It was re-elected to power in September–October 1999 with a majority of 303 seats out of 545 in the Lok Sabha. On the diplomatic front, Indo-US relations improved, as the United States appreciated Indian attempts to restrict the conflict to a limited geographic area. Relations with Israel—which had discreetly aided India with ordnance supply and matériel such as unmanned aerial vehicles, laser-guided bombs, and satellite imagery—also were bolstered.


title: Kargil War

text: Soon after the war the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government set up an inquiry into its causes and to analyse perceived Indian intelligence failures. The high-powered committee was chaired by eminent strategic affairs analyst K. Subrahmanyam and given powers to interview anyone with current or past associations with Indian security, including former Prime Ministers. The committee's final report (also referred to as the "Subrahmanyam Report") led to a large-scale restructuring of Indian Intelligence. It, however, came in for heavy criticism in the Indian media for its perceived avoidance of assigning specific responsibility for failures over detecting the Kargil intrusions. The committee was also embroiled in controversy for indicting Brigadier Surinder Singh of the Indian Army for his failure to report enemy intrusions in time, and for his subsequent conduct. Many press reports questioned or contradicted this finding and claimed that Singh had in fact issued early warnings that were ignored by senior Indian Army commanders and, ultimately, higher government functionaries.


title: Kargil War

text: In a departure from the norm the final report was published and made publicly available. Some chapters and all annexures, however, were deemed to contain classified information by the government and not released. K. Subrahmanyam later wrote that the annexures contained information on the development of India's nuclear weapons program and the roles played by Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi, P. V. Narasimha Rao and V. P. Singh.


title: Kargil War

text: Shortly after declaring itself a nuclear weapons state, Pakistan had been humiliated diplomatically and militarily. Faced with the possibility of international isolation, the already fragile Pakistan economy was weakened further. The morale of Pakistan forces after the withdrawal declined as many units of the Northern Light Infantry suffered heavy casualties. The government refused to accept the dead bodies of many officers, an issue that provoked outrage and protests in the Northern Areas. Pakistan initially did not acknowledge many of its casualties, but Sharif later said that over 4,000 Pakistani troops were killed in the operation. Responding to this, Pervez Musharraf said, "It hurts me when an ex-premier undermines his own forces", and claimed that Indian casualties were more than that of Pakistan. The legacy of Kargil war still continues to be debated on Pakistan's news channels and television political correspondents, which Musharraf repeatedly appeared to justify.


title: Kargil War

text: Many in Pakistan had expected a victory over the Indian military based on Pakistani official reports on the war, but were dismayed by the turn of events and questioned the eventual retreat. The military leadership is believed to have felt let down by the prime minister's decision to withdraw the remaining fighters. However, some authors, including Musharraf's close friend and former American CENTCOM Commander General Anthony Zinni, and former Prime minister Nawaz Sharif, state that it was General Musharraf who requested Sharif to withdraw the Pakistani troops. In 2012, Musharraf's senior officer and retired major-general Abdul Majeed Malik maintained that Kargil was a "total disaster" and bitterly criticised General Musharraf. Pointing out the fact that Pakistan was in no position to fight India in that area; the Nawaz Sharif government initiated the diplomatic process by involving the US President Bill Clinton and got Pakistan out of the difficult scenario. Malik maintained that soldiers were not "Mujaheddin" but active-duty serving officers and soldiers of the Pakistan Army.


title: Kargil War

text: In a national security meeting with Prime minister Nawaz Sharif at the Joint Headquarters, General Musharraf became heavily involved with serious altercations with Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Fasih Bokhari who ultimately called for a court-martial against General Musharraf. With Sharif placing the onus of the Kargil attacks squarely on the army chief Pervez Musharraf, there was an atmosphere of uneasiness between the two. On 12 October 1999, General Musharraf staged a bloodless "coup d'état", ousting Nawaz Sharif.


title: Kargil War

text: Benazir Bhutto, an opposition leader in the parliament and former prime minister, called the Kargil War "Pakistan's greatest blunder". Many ex-officials of the military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistan's principal intelligence agency) also believed that "Kargil was a waste of time" and "could not have resulted in any advantage" on the larger issue of Kashmir.


title: Kargil War

text: A retired Pakistan Army's Lieutenant-General Ali Kuli Khan, lambasted the war as "a disaster bigger than the East Pakistan tragedy", adding that the plan was "flawed in terms of its conception, tactical planning and execution" that ended in "sacrificing so many soldiers". The Pakistani media criticised the whole plan and the eventual climbdown from the Kargil heights since there were no gains to show for the loss of lives and it only resulted in international condemnation.


title: Kargil War

text: Despite calls by many, no public commission of inquiry was set up in Pakistan to investigate the people responsible for initiating the conflict. The Pakistan Muslim League (PML(N)) published a white paper in 2006, which stated that Nawaz Sharif constituted an inquiry committee that recommended a court martial for General Pervez Musharraf, but Musharraf "stole the report" after toppling the government, to save himself. The report also claims that India knew about the plan 11 months before its launch, enabling a complete victory for India on military, diplomatic and economic fronts. A statement in June 2008 by a former X Corps commander and Director-General of Military Intelligence (M.I.) that time, Lieutenant-General (retired) Jamshed Gulzar Kiani said that: "As Prime minister, Nawaz Sharif "was never briefed by the army" on the Kargil attack, reignited the demand for a probe of the episode by legal and political groups.


title: Kargil War

text: Though the Kargil conflict had brought the Kashmir dispute into international focus, which was one of Pakistan's aims, it had done so in negative circumstances that eroded its credibility, since the infiltration came just after a peace process between the two countries had been concluded. The sanctity of the LOC too received international recognition. President Clinton's move to ask Islamabad to withdraw hundreds of armed militants from Indian-administered Kashmir was viewed by many in Pakistan as indicative of a clear shift in US policy against Pakistan.


title: Kargil War

text: After the war, a few changes were made to the Pakistan armed forces. In recognition of the Northern Light Infantry's performance in the war, which even drew praise from a retired Indian Lt. General, the regiment was incorporated into the regular army. The war showed that despite a tactically sound plan that had the element of surprise, little groundwork had been done to gauge the political ramifications. And like previous unsuccessful infiltrations attempts, such as "Operation Gibraltar", which sparked the 1965 war, there was little co-ordination or information sharing among the branches of the Pakistani Armed Forces. One US Intelligence study is reported to have stated that Kargil was yet another example of Pakistan's (lack of) grand strategy, repeating the follies of the previous wars. In 2013, General Musharraf's close collaborator and confidential subordinate Lieutenant General (retired) Shahid Aziz revealed to Pakistan's news televisions and electronic media, that "[Kargil] adventure' was India's intelligence failure and Pakistan's miscalculated move, the Kargil operation was known only to General Parvez Musharraf and four of his close collaborators".


title: Kargil War

text: Pakistan army losses have been difficult to determine. Pakistan confirmed that 453 soldiers were killed. The US Department of State had made an early, partial estimate of close to 700 fatalities. According to numbers stated by Nawaz Sharif there were over 4,000 fatalities. His PML (N) party in its "white paper" on the war mentioned that more than 3,000 Mujahideens, officers and soldiers were killed. Another major Pakistani political party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, also says that "thousands" of soldiers and irregulars died. Indian estimates stand at 1,042 Pakistani soldiers killed. Musharraf, in his Hindi version of his memoirs, titled "Agnipath", differs from all the estimates stating that 357 troops were killed with a further 665 wounded. Apart from General Musharraf's figure on the number of Pakistanis wounded, the number of people injured in the Pakistan camp is not yet fully known although they are at least more than 400 according to Pakistan army's website. One Indian pilot was officially captured during the fighting, while there were eight Pakistani soldiers who were captured during the fighting, and were repatriated on 13 August 1999.


title: Kargil War

text: The Kargil War memorial, built by the Indian Army, is located in Dras, in the foothills of the Tololing Hill. The memorial, located about 5 km from the city centre across the Tiger Hill, commemorates the martyrs of the Kargil War. A poem "Pushp Kii Abhilasha" (Wish of a Flower) by Makhanlal Chaturvedi, a renowned 20th century neo-romantic Hindi poet, is inscribed on the gateway of the memorial greets visitors. The names of the soldiers who lost their lives in the War are inscribed on the Memorial Wall and can be read by visitors. A museum attached to the Kargil War Memorial, which was established to celebrate the victory of Operation Vijay, houses pictures of Indian soldiers, archives of important war documents and recordings, Pakistani war equipments and gear, and official emblems of the Army from the Kargil war.


title: Kargil War

text: A giant national flag, weighing 15 kg was hoisted at the Kargil war memorial on Kargil Vijay Diwas to commemorate the 13th anniversary of India's victory in the war.


title: Kargil War

text: The brief conflict provided considerable dramatic material for filmmakers and authors in India. Some documentaries which were shot on the subject were used by the ruling party coalition, led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in furthering its election campaign that immediately followed the war. The following is a list of the major films and dramas on the subject.


title: Kargil War

text: The impact of the war in the sporting arena was visible during the India-Pakistan clash in the 1999 Cricket World Cup, which coincided with the Kargil timeline. The game witnessed heightened passions and was one of the most viewed matches in the tournament.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Maratha Empire, later referred as Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian empire that came to dominate much of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of Shivaji of the Bhonsle Dynasty as the "Chhatrapati" (Marathi: "The title "Chhatrapati" was created by Shivaji upon his coronation"). Although Shivaji came from the Maratha caste, the Maratha empire also included warriors, administrators and other notables from Maratha and several other castes from Maharashtra.


title: Maratha Empire

text: They are largely credited for ending the Mughal control over the Indian subcontinent and establishing the Maratha Empire. The religious attitude of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb estranged non-Muslims, and his inability to finish the resulting Maratha uprising after a 27-year war at a great cost to his men and treasure, eventually ensued Maratha ascendency and control over sizeable portions of former Mughal lands in the north or about 1/3 of the subcontinent by 1757. Maratha rule officially ended in 1818 with the defeat of Peshwa Bajirao II at the hands of the English East India Company in Third Anglo-Maratha War.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Marathas were a Marathi-speaking warrior group from the western Deccan Plateau (present-day Maharashtra) who rose to prominence by establishing Hindavi Swarajya (meaning "self-rule of Hindus"). The Marathas became prominent in the 17th century under the leadership of Shivaji, who revolted against the Adil Shahi dynasty, and the Mughals to carve out a kingdom with Raigad as his capital.


title: Maratha Empire

text: His father, Shahaji, had earlier conquered Thanjavur which Shivaji's half-brother, Venkoji Rao (alias Ekoji) inherited. This kingdom was known as the Thanjavur Maratha kingdom. Bangalore which was established in 1537 by a vassal of the Vijayanagara Empire, Kempe Gowda I who declared independence, was captured in 1638 by a large Adil Shahi Bijapur army led by Ranadulla Khan who, accompanied by his second in command Shahaji, defeated Kempe Gowda III. As a result, Bangalore was given to Shahaji as a "jagir" (feudal estate). Known for their mobility, the Marathas were able to consolidate their territory during the Mughal–Maratha Wars and later controlled a large part of the Indian subcontinent.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Upon his release from Mughal captivity, Shahu became the Maratha ruler after a brief struggle with his aunt Tarabai, with the help of Balaji Vishwanath. Pleased by his help, Shahu appointed Balaji and later, his descendants, as the Peshwas or prime ministers of the empire. Balaji and his descendants played a key role in the expansion of Maratha rule. The empire at its peak stretched from Tamil Nadu in the south, to Peshawar (modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan) in the north, and Orissa & West Bengal up to the Hooghly River, in the east. The Marathas discussed abolishing the Mughal throne and placing Vishwas Rao on it in Delhi.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In 1761, the Maratha Army lost the Third Battle of Panipat, which halted their imperial expansion into Afghanistan. Ten years after Panipat, the young Peshwa Madhav Rao I's Maratha Resurrection reinstated Maratha authority over North India.


title: Maratha Empire

text: To effectively manage the large empire, Madhav Rao gave semi-autonomy to the strongest of the knights, creating a confederacy of Maratha states. These leaders became known as the Gaekwads of Baroda, the Holkars of Indore and Malwa, the Scindias of Gwalior and Ujjain, the Bhonsales of Nagpur, the Jadhavs of Vidarbha, the Dabhades of Gujarat, the Puars of Dhar and Dewas. In 1775, the East India Company intervened in a Peshwa family succession struggle in Pune, which led to the First Anglo-Maratha War in which the Marathas emerged victorious. The Marathas remained the pre-eminent power in India until their defeat in the Second and Third Anglo-Maratha Wars (1805–1818), which resulted in the East India Company seizing control of most of the Indian subcontinent and The Maratha Empire came to an end in 1818 and its last Peshwa was Baji Rao ii and last chhatrapati was Pratap Singh.


title: Maratha Empire

text: A large portion of the Maratha empire was coastline, which had been secured by the potent Maratha Navy under commanders such as Kanhoji Angre. He successfully kept foreign naval ships at bay, particularly those of the Portuguese and British. Securing the coastal areas and building land-based fortifications were crucial aspects of the Maratha's defensive strategy and regional military history.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Maratha Empire is also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy. The historian Barbara Ramusack says that the former is a designation preferred by Indian nationalists, while the latter was that used by British historians. She notes, "neither term is fully accurate since one implies a substantial degree of centralisation and the other signifies some surrender of power to a central government and a longstanding core of political administrators".


title: Maratha Empire

text: Although at present, the word Maratha refers to a particular caste of warriors and peasants, in the past the word has been used to describe all Marathi people.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The empire had its head in the Chhatrapati as "de jure", but the "de facto" governance was in the hands of the Peshwas after Chhatrapati Shahu I's reign. After the death of Peshwa Madhavrao I, various chiefs played the role of the "de facto" rulers in their regions.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Shivaji (1630–1680) was a Maratha aristocrat of the Bhosale clan who is the founder of the Maratha empire. Shivaji led a resistance to free the people from the Sultanate of Bijapur in 1645 by winning the fort Torna, followed by many more forts, placing the area under his control and establishing Hindavi Swarajya (self-rule of Hindu people). He created an independent Maratha kingdom with Raigad as its capital and successfully fought against the Mughals to defend his kingdom. He was crowned as Chhatrapati (sovereign) of the new Maratha kingdom in 1674.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Maratha dominion under him comprised about 4.1% of the subcontinent, but it was spread over large tracts. At the time of his death, it was reinforced with about 300 forts, and defended by about 40,000 cavalries, and 50,000 soldiers, as well as naval establishments along the west coast. Over time, the kingdom would increase in size and heterogeneity; by the time of his grandson's rule, and later under the Peshwas in the early 18th century, it was a full-fledged empire.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Shivaji had two sons: Sambhaji and Rajaram, who had different mothers and were half-brothers. In 1681, Sambhaji succeeded to the crown after his father's death and resumed his expansionist policies. Sambhaji had earlier defeated the Portuguese and Chikka Deva Raya of Mysore. To nullify the alliance between his rebel son, Akbar, and the Marathas, Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb headed south in 1681. With his entire imperial court, administration and an army of about 500,000 troops, he proceeded to expand the Mughal empire, gaining territories such as the sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda. During the eight years that followed, Sambhaji led the Marathas successfully against the Mughals.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In early 1689, Sambhaji called his commanders for a strategic meeting at Sangameshwar to consider an onslaught on the Mughal forces. In a meticulously planned operation, Ganoji and Aurangzeb's commander, Mukarrab Khan, attacked Sangameshwar when Sambhaji was accompanied by just a few men. Sambhaji was ambushed and captured by the Mughal troops on 1 February 1689. He and his advisor, Kavi Kalash, were taken to Bahadurgad by the imperial army, where they were executed by the Mughals on 21 March 1689. Aurangzeb had charged Sambhaji with attacks by Maratha forces on Burhanpur.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Upon Sambhaji's death, his half-brother Rajaram ascended the throne. The Mughal siege of Raigad continued, and he had to flee to Vishalgad and then to Gingee for safety. From there, the Marathas raided Mughal territory, and many forts were recaptured by Maratha commanders such as Santaji Ghorpade, Dhanaji Jadhav, Parshuram Pant Pratinidhi, Shankaraji Narayan Sacheev and Melgiri Pandit. In 1697, Rajaram offered a truce but this was rejected by Aurangzeb. Rajaram died in 1700 at Sinhagad. His widow, Tarabai, assumed control in the name of her son, Ramaraja (Shivaji II).


title: Maratha Empire

text: After Aurangzeb died in 1707, Shahu, the son of Sambhaji (and grandson of Shivaji), was released by Bahadur Shah I, the new Mughal emperor. However, his mother was kept a hostage of the Mughals to ensure that Shahu adhered to the release conditions. Upon release, Shahu immediately claimed the Maratha throne and challenged his aunt Tarabai and her son. The spluttering Mughal-Maratha war became a three-cornered affair. This resulted in two rival seats of government being set up in 1707 at Satara and Kolhapur by Shahu and Tarabai respectively. Shahu appointed Balaji Vishwanath as his Peshwa. The Peshwa was instrumental in securing Mughal recognition of Shahu as the rightful heir of Shivaji and the Chhatrapati of the Marathas. Balaji also gained the release of Shahu's mother, Yesubai, from Mughal captivity in 1719.


title: Maratha Empire

text: During Shahu's reign, Raghoji Bhosale expanded the empire Eastwards, reaching present-day Bengal. Khanderao Dabhade and later his son, Triambakrao, expanded it Westwards into Gujarat. Peshwa Bajirao and his three chiefs, Pawar (Dhar), Holkar (Indore), and Scindia (Gwalior), expanded it northwards up to Peshawar. He also expanded it up to Kaveri river.


title: Maratha Empire

text: During this era, Peshwas belonging to the Bhat family controlled the Maratha Army and later became de facto rulers of the Maratha Empire till 1772. In due course of time, the Maratha Empire dominated most of the Indian subcontinent.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Shahu appointed Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath in 1713. From his time, the office of Peshwa became supreme while Shahu became a figurehead. His first major achievement was the conclusion of the "Treaty of Lonavala" in 1714 with Kanhoji Angre, the most powerful naval chief on the Western Coast. He later accepted Shahu as Chhatrapati. In 1719, Marathas marched to Delhi after defeating Sayyid Hussain Ali, the Mughal governor of Deccan, and deposed the Mughal emperor. The Mughal Emperors became puppets in the hands of their Maratha overlords from this point on.


title: Maratha Empire

text: After Balaji Vishwanath's death in April 1720, his son, Baji Rao I, was appointed Peshwa by Shahu. Bajirao is credited with expanding the Maratha Empire tenfold from 3% to 30% of the modern Indian landscape during 1720–1740. He fought over 41 battles before his death in April 1740 and is reputed to have never lost any. The Battle of Palkhed was a land battle that took place on 28 February 1728 at the village of Palkhed, near the city of Nashik, Maharashtra, India between Baji Rao I and Qamar-ud-din Khan, Asaf Jah I of Hyderabad. The Marathas defeated the Nizam. The battle is considered an example of the brilliant execution of military strategy. In 1737, Marathas under Bajirao I raided the suburbs of Delhi in a blitzkrieg in the Battle of Delhi (1737). The Nizam set out from the Deccan to rescue the Mughals from the invasion of the Marathas, but was defeated decisively in the Battle of Bhopal. The Marathas extracted a large tribute from the Mughals and signed a treaty which ceded Malwa to the Marathas. The Battle of Vasai was fought between the Marathas and the Portuguese rulers of Vasai, a village lying on the northern shore of Vasai creek, 50 km north of Mumbai. The Marathas were led by Chimaji Appa, brother of Baji Rao. The Maratha victory in this war was a major achievement of Baji Rao's time in office.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Baji Rao's son, Balaji Bajirao (Nanasaheb), was appointed as the next Peshwa by Shahu despite the opposition of other chiefs. In 1740, the Maratha forces, under Raghoji Bhosale, came down upon Arcot and defeated the Nawab of Arcot, Dost Ali, in the pass at Damalcherry. In the war that followed, Dost Ali, one of his sons Hasan Ali, and a number of other prominent persons lost their lives. This initial success at once enhanced Maratha prestige in the south. From Damalcherry, the Marathas proceeded to Arcot, which surrendered to them without much resistance. Then, Raghuji invaded Trichinopoly in December 1740. Unable to resist, Chanda Sahib surrendered the fort to Raghuji on 14 March 1741. Chanda Saheb and his son were arrested and sent to Nagpur. Rajputana also came under Maratha domination during this time. In June 1756 Luís Mascarenhas, Count of Alva (Conde de Alva), the Portuguese Viceroy was killed in action by the Maratha Army in Goa.


title: Maratha Empire

text: After the successful campaign of Karnataka and the Trichinopolly, Raghuji returned from Karnataka. He undertook six expeditions into Bengal from 1741 to 1748. The resurgent Maratha Empire launched brutal raids against the prosperous Bengali state in the 18th century, which further added to the decline of the Nawabs of Bengal. During their invasions and occupation of Bihar and western Bengal up to the Hooghly River, During their occupation of western Bengal, the Marathas perpetrated atrocities against the local population. The Maratha atrocities were recorded by both Bengali and European sources, which reported that the Marathas demanded payments, and tortured or killed anyone who couldn't pay.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Raghuji was able to annex Odisha to his kingdom permanently as he successfully exploited the chaotic conditions prevailing in Bengal after the death of its governor Murshid Quli Khan in 1727. Constantly harassed by the Bhonsles, Odisha, Bengal and parts of Bihar were economically ruined. Alivardi Khan, the Nawab of Bengal made peace with Raghuji in 1751 ceding Cuttack (Odisha) up to the river Subarnarekha, and agreeing to pay Rs. 1.2 million annually as the Chauth for Bengal and Bihar.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Balaji Bajirao encouraged agriculture, protected the villagers and brought about a marked improvement in the state of the territory. Raghunath Rao, brother of Nanasaheb, pushed into the wake of the Afghan withdrawal after Ahmed Shah Abdali's plunder of Delhi in 1756. Delhi was captured by the Maratha army under Raghunath Rao in August 1757, defeating the Afghan garrison in the Battle of Delhi. This laid the foundation for the Maratha conquest of North-west India. In Lahore, as in Delhi, the Marathas were now major players. After the 1758 Battle of Attock, the Marathas captured Peshawar defeating the Afghan troops in the Battle of Peshawar on 8 May 1758.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Just prior to the battle of Panipat in 1761, the Marathas looted "Diwan-i-Khas" or "Hall of Private Audiences" in the Red Fort of Delhi, which was the place where the Mughal emperors used to receive courtiers and state guests, in one of their expeditions to Delhi.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In 1760, the Marathas under Sadashivrao Bhau (referred to as the Bhau or Bhao in sources) responded to the news of the Afghans' return to North India by sending a large army north. Bhau's force was bolstered by some Maratha forces under Holkar, Scindia, Gaikwad and Govind Pant Bundele with Suraj Mal. The combined army of over 50,000 regular troops re-captured the former Mughal capital, Delhi, from an Afghan garrison in August 1760.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Delhi had been reduced to ashes many times due to previous invasions, and there was an acute shortage of supplies in the Maratha camp. Bhau ordered the sacking of the already depopulated city. He is said to have planned to place his nephew and the Peshwa's son, Vishwasrao, on the Mughal throne. By 1760, with defeat of the Nizam in the Deccan, Maratha power had reached its zenith with a territory of over .


title: Maratha Empire

text: Ahmad Shah Durrani called on the Rohillas and the Nawab of Oudh to assist him in driving out the Marathas from Delhi. Huge armies of Muslim forces and Marathas collided with each other on 14 January 1761 in the Third Battle of Panipat. The Maratha Army lost the battle, which halted their imperial expansion. The Jats and Rajputs did not support the Marathas. Historians have criticised the Maratha treatment of fellow Hindu groups. Kaushik Roy says "The treatment of Marathas with their co-religionist fellows – Jats and Rajputs was definitely unfair and ultimately they had to pay its price in Panipat where Muslim forces had united in the name of religion." After the battle, Malhar Rao Holkar attacked the Rajputs and defeated them at the battle of Mangrol. This largely restored Maratha power in Rajasthan.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Marathas had antagonised the Jats and Rajputs by taxing them heavily, punishing them after defeating the Mughals and interfering in their internal affairs. The Marathas were abandoned by Raja Suraj Mal of Bharatpur, who quit the Maratha alliance at Agra before the start of the great battle and withdrew their troops as Maratha general Sadashivrao Bhau did not heed the advice to leave soldier's families (women and children) and pilgrims at Agra and not take them to the battle field with the soldiers, rejected their co-operation. Their supply chains (earlier assured by Raja Suraj Mal) did not exist.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Peshwa Madhavrao I was the fourth Peshwa of the Maratha Empire. It was during his tenure that the Maratha Resurrection took place. He worked as a unifying force in the Maratha Empire and moved to the south to subdue Mysore and the Nizam of Hyderabad to assert Maratha power. He sent generals such as Bhonsle, Scindia and Holkar to the north, where they re-established Maratha authority by the early 1770s. Madhav Rao I crossed the Krishna River in 1767 and defeated Hyder Ali in the battles of Sira and Madgiri. He also rescued the last queen of the Keladi Nayaka Kingdom, who had been kept in confinement by Hyder Ali in the fort of Madgiri.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In early 1771, ten years after the collapse of Maratha authority over North India following the Third Battle of Panipat, Mahadji recaptured Delhi and installed Shah Alam II as a puppet ruler on the Mughal throne receiving in return the title of deputy "Vakil-ul-Mutlak" or vice-regent of the Empire and that of "Vakil-ul-Mutlak" being at his request conferred on the Peshwa. The Mughals also gave him the title of "Amir-ul-Amara" (head of the amirs). After taking control of Delhi, the Marathas sent a large army in 1772 to punish Afghan Rohillas for their involvement in Panipat. Their army devastated Rohilkhand by looting and plundering as well as taking members of the royal family as captives.Madhav Rao died in 1772, at the age of 27. His death is considered to be a fatal blow to the Maratha Empire and from that time Maratha power started to move on a downward trajectory, less an empire than a confederacy.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In a bid to effectively manage the large empire, Madhavrao Peshwa gave semi-autonomy to the strongest of the aristocracy. After the death of Peshwa Madhavrao I, various chiefs and jagirdars became "de facto" rulers and regents for the infant Peshwa Madhavrao II. Under the leadership of Mahadji Shinde, the ruler of the state of Gwalior in central India, the Marathas defeated the Jats, the Rohilla Afghans and took Delhi which remained under Maratha control for the next three decades. His forces conquered modern day Haryana. Shinde was instrumental in resurrecting Maratha power after the débâcle of the Third Battle of Panipat, and in this he was assisted by Benoît de Boigne.


title: Maratha Empire

text: After the growth in power of feudal lords like Malwa sardars, landlords of Bundelkhand and Rajput kingdoms of Rajasthan, they refused to pay tribute to Mahadji, so he sent his army to conquer the states such as Bhopal, Datiya, Chanderi, Narwar, Salbai and Gohad. However, he launched an unsuccessful expedition against the Raja of Jaipur, but withdrew after the inconclusive Battle of Lalsot in 1787. The Battle of Gajendragad was fought between the Marathas under the command of Tukojirao Holkar (the adopted son of Malharrao Holkar) and Tipu Sultan from March 1786 to March 1787 in which Tipu Sultan was defeated by the Marathas. By the victory in this battle, the border of the Maratha territory extended till Tungabhadra river. The strong fort of Gwalior was then in the hands of Chhatar Singh, the Jat ruler of Gohad. In 1783, Mahadji besieged the fort of Gwalior and conquered it. He delegated the administration of Gwalior to Khanderao Hari Bhalerao. After celebrating the conquest of Gwalior, Mahadji Shinde turned his attention to Delhi again.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In 1788, Mahadji's armies defeated Ismail Beg, a Mughal noble who resisted the Marathas. The Rohilla chief Ghulam Kadir, Ismail Beg's ally, took over Delhi, capital of the Mughal dynasty and deposed and blinded the king Shah Alam II, placing a puppet on the Delhi throne. Mahadji intervened and killed him, taking possession of Delhi on 2 October restoring Shah Alam II to the throne and acting as his protector. Jaipur and Jodhpur, the two most powerful Rajput states, were still out of direct Maratha domination. So, Mahadji sent his general Benoît de Boigne to crush the forces of Jaipur and Jodhpur at the Battle of Patan. Marwar was also captured on 10 September 1790. Another achievement of the Marathas was their victories over the Nizam of Hyderabad's armies including in the Battle of Kharda.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Marathas came into conflict with Tipu Sultan and his Kingdom of Mysore, leading to the Maratha–Mysore War in 1785. The war ended in 1787 with the Tipu Sultan being defeated by Marathas. The Maratha-Mysore war ended in April 1787, following the finalizing of the "treaty of Gajendragad", as per which, Tipu Sultan of Mysore was obligated to pay 4.8 million rupees as a war cost to the Marathas, and an annual tribute of 1.2 million rupees, in addition to returning all the territory captured by Hyder Ali, In 1791–92, large areas of the Maratha Confederacy suffered massive population loss due to the Doji bara famine.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In 1791, irregulars like "lamaans" and pindaris of the Maratha army raided and looted the temple of Sringeri "Shankaracharya", killing and wounding many people including Brahmins, plundering the monastery of all its valuable possessions, and desecrating the temple by displacing the image of goddess Sāradā. The incumbent "Shankaracharya" petitioned Tipu Sultan for help. A bunch of about 30 letters written in Kannada, which were exchanged between Tipu Sultan's court and the Sringeri Shankaracharya were discovered in 1916 by the Director of Archaeology in Mysore. Tipu Sultan expressed his indignation and grief at the news of the raid:


title: Maratha Empire

text: Tipu Sultan immediately ordered the Asaf of Bednur to supply the Swami with 200 "rahati"s ("fanam"s) in cash and other gifts and articles. Tipu Sultan's interest in the Sringeri temple continued for many years, and he was still writing to the Swami in the 1790s.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Maratha Empire soon allied with the British East India Company (based in the Bengal Presidency) against Mysore in the Anglo-Mysore Wars. After the British had suffered defeat against Mysore in the first two Anglo-Mysore Wars, the Maratha cavalry assisted the British in the last two Anglo-Mysore Wars from 1790 onwards, eventually helping the British conquer Mysore in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799. After the British conquest, however, the Marathas launched frequent raids in Mysore to plunder the region, which they justified as compensation for past losses to Tipu Sultan.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In 1775, the British East India Company, from its base in Bombay, intervened in a succession struggle in Pune, on behalf of Raghunathrao (also called Raghobadada), who wanted to become Peshwa of the empire. Marathas forces under Tukojirao Holkar and Mahadaji Shinde defeated a British expeditionary force at the Battle of Wadgaon, but the heavy surrender terms, which included the return of annexed territory and a share of revenues, were disavowed by the British authorities at Bengal and fighting continued. What became known as the First Anglo-Maratha War ended in 1782 with a restoration of the pre-war "status quo" and the East India Company's abandonment of Raghunathrao's cause.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In 1799, Yashwantrao Holkar was crowned King of the Holkars and he captured Ujjain. He started campaigning towards the north to expand his empire in that region. Yashwant Rao rebelled against the policies of Peshwa Baji Rao II. In May 1802, he marched towards Pune the seat of the Peshwa. This gave rise to the Battle of Poona in which the Peshwa was defeated. After the Battle of Poona, the flight of the Peshwa left the government of the Maratha state in the hands of Yashwantrao Holkar. He appointed Amrutrao as the Peshwa and went to Indore on 13 March 1803. All except Gaikwad, chief of Baroda, who had already accepted British protection by a separate treaty on 26 July 1802, supported the new regime. He made a treaty with the British. Also, Yashwant Rao successfully resolved the disputes with Scindia and the Peshwa. He tried to unite the Maratha Confederacy but to no avail. In 1802, the British intervened in Baroda to support the heir to the throne against rival claimants and they signed a treaty with the new Maharaja recognising his independence from the Maratha Empire in return for his acknowledgment of British paramountcy. Before the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805), the Peshwa Baji Rao II signed a similar treaty. The defeat in Battle of Delhi, 1803 during the Second Anglo-Maratha War resulted in the loss of the city of Delhi for the Marathas.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Second Anglo-Maratha War represents the military high-water mark of the Marathas who posed the last serious opposition to the formation of the British Raj. The real contest for India was never a single decisive battle for the subcontinent. Rather, it turned on a complex social and political struggle for the control of the South Asian military economy. The victory in 1803 hinged as much on finance, diplomacy, politics and intelligence as it did on battlefield maneuver and war itself.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Ultimately, the Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817–1818) resulted in the loss of Maratha independence. It left the British in control of most of the Indian subcontinent. The Peshwa was exiled to Bithoor (Marat, near Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh) as a pensioner of the British. The Maratha heartland of Desh, including Pune, came under direct British rule, with the exception of the states of Kolhapur and Satara, which retained local Maratha rulers (descendants of Shivaji and Sambhaji II ruled over Kolhapur). The Maratha-ruled states of Gwalior, Indore, and Nagpur all lost territory and came under subordinate alliances with the British Raj as princely states that retained internal sovereignty under British paramountcy. Other small princely states of Maratha knights were retained under the British Raj as well.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Third Anglo-Maratha War was fought by Maratha warlords separately instead of forming a common front and they surrendered one by one. Shinde and the Pashtun Amir Khan were subdued by the use of diplomacy and pressure, which resulted in the Treaty of Gwalior on 5 November 1817. All other Maratha chiefs like Holkars, Bhonsles and the Peshwa gave up arms by 1818. British historian Percival Spear describes 1818 as a watershed year in the history of India, saying that by that year "the British dominion in India became the British dominion of India".


title: Maratha Empire

text: The war left the British, under the auspices of the British East India Company, in control of virtually all of present-day India south of the Sutlej River. The famed Nassak Diamond was looted by the company as part of the spoils of the war. The British acquired large chunks of territory from the Maratha Empire and in effect put an end to their most dynamic opposition. The terms of surrender Major-general John Malcolm offered to the Peshwa were controversial amongst the British for being too liberal: The Peshwa was offered a luxurious life near Kanpur and given a pension of about 80,000 pounds.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In 1760, the peace of Peshwa government was broken by a rising of Kolis under their Naik Javji Bamble. Javji with drew to the hills and organised a series of gang robberies, causing widespread terror and misery throughout the country. For twenty years he held out bravely, defeating and killing the generals of the Peshwa's Government sent against him. At last he was so hotly pursued that, on the advice of Dhondo Gopal, the Peshwa's governor at Nasik, he surrendered all his forts to Tukoji Holkar and, through Holkar's influence, was pardoned and placed in military and police charge of a district of sixty villages with powers of life and death outlaws. In 1798, a fresh disturbance took place among the Kolis. The leader of this outbreak was Ramji Naik Bhangria, who was an abler and more daring man than his prede cessors, and succeeded in baffling all the efforts of the Government officers to seize him. As force seemed hopeless, the Government offered Ramji a pardon and gave him an important police post.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In 1763, the Peshwa Raghunathrao had appointed Abha Purandare who was an anti koli as Sarnaik, due to which the Chivhe Kolis revolted against the Peshwa and captured Purandar and Sinhagad forts because the Kolis did not like Abha Purandare, so Abha removed the Kolis from the fortification and posted new Kiledars, due to which the Kolis attacked and captured the forts on 7 May 1764. Five days later, Rudramal fort was also captured and presented a challenge to the Prime Minister of the Maratha Empire, Peshwa Raghunathrao. A few days later the Peshwa came to the fort to worship the deity inside the Purandar fort but the Peshwa got caught up by the Kolis. The Kolis looted all the belongings and weapons of the Peshwa and took him prisoner but released after some time. After this the Kolis started collecting revenue from the surrounding area. After this, the chief of the Kolis, Kondaji Chivhe, sent a letter to the Peshwa, in which it was written 'What now sir, what is the condition, how is the government doing, be in fun'. After reading this letter, the Peshwa felt a bit humiliated and in a fit of rage ordered the Maratha army to attack but the army could not do anything because the Kolis himselves were Subedar and had fortified the forts well and the Peshwa faced failure. the humiliated Peshwa started taking the Kolis of Chivhe clan as captive. All those Chivhe kolis who were living in the territory of Peshwa were declared as rebels and started making captives. After this the Chivhe Kolis sent a letter to Madhavrao and explained whole matter, after this the Kolis handed over the forts to Madhavrao and the Chivahe Kolis were again handed over the fortifications.


title: Maratha Empire

text: In the year 1776, a large number of the Shelkande Kolis of Otur village, raised against Peshwa because of their hereditary land rights and as the Peshwa refused to do them. Kolis assembled a revolutionary army of Shelkande and Kokate Kolis and commenced plundering the surrounding villages and doing other violent activities in the hope of obtaining redress. In response, The Peshwa sent Maratha troops from Pune against rebel kolis and surprised them, killed and wounded many of them. The Koli leaders were consequently forced to disperse the rebels. The government officers learned that Sattu Shelkande, chief of the insurgents, was hiding in the neighboring jungle. The better to ensure this, they obliged him to enter into the Sunkli zamin or chain security (one Patil going security for two or three cultivators, another Patil for five or six poorer Patils, and a Deshmukh for a number of the Patils). Hearing of the measures the government officers were adopting, moved off to another place; this was partly for their own safety, and partly to save their friends from being harassed and punished for not fulfilling their promise of apprehending them. After the troops retired from the jungles, the Kolis recommenced their operations. Several seasons were passed in this way; however when Javji Bamble was appointed as Mansabdar of Rajur he was ordered by Peshwa to prevent the rebellious activities by rebels. Kolis did not wish to fight with Bumble because he was also a Koli by caste. Kolis remained quiet for of four years but Kolis went again to the jungles because his hereditary rights have not been fulfilled. The troops employed against the Shelkande Kolis and again forced them to disperse and the chiefs went to Aurangabad. Kolis had taken an oath that they would cut off the head of Patil of Otur, unless Peshwa afforded them redress. Nana Phadnavis who was minister in Maratha Empire declared that he would not pardon the Kolis again, as they were such a turbulent race and as no faith could be reposed in them. Nana Fadnavis detached few Brahmins disguised as Gusai, who gained information of the hiding place of Kolis and a detachment that marched to apprehend them was so fortunate as to bring them all prisoners to Junnar, where the five Kolis were executed. Balwantrao, brother-in-law to Nana Fadnavis, was subedar of the district at the time, and it is asserted Balwantrao became very unhappy after the execution of these kolis. Therefore, in the hope of reestablishing the happiness that he had enjoyed, he erected a temple near river in Junnar, in which was placed as the object of worship a Punah Lingh, or five stones representing the five Kolis who were executed.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Maratha Empire, at its peak, encompassed a large area of the Indian sub-continent. The Maratha Empire at its zenith, expanded from Afghanistan in the north to Thanjavur in the south, Sindh in the west to Bengal in the east. It bordered Nepal and Afghanistan in the north. Apart from capturing various regions, the Marathas maintained a large number of tributaries who were bounded by agreements to pay a certain amount of regular tax, known as Chauth. The empire defeated the Sultanate of Mysore under Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, the Nawab of Oudh, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Nawab of Bengal, Nawab of Sindh and the Nawab of Arcot as well as the Polygar kingdoms of South India. They extracted "chauth" from the rulers in Delhi, Oudh, Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Punjab, Kumaon, Garhwal, Hyderabad, Mysore, Uttar Pradesh, Sindh and Rajputana. They built up the largest Hindu empire in India after the fall of the Gupta Empire on the 6th century.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Marathas were requested by Safdarjung, the Nawab of Oudh, in 1752 to help him defeat the Afghani Rohillas. The Maratha force set out from Pune and defeated the Afghan Rohillas in 1752, capturing the whole of Rohilkhand (present-day northwestern Uttar Pradesh). In 1752, the Marathas entered into an agreement with the Mughal emperor, through his "wazir", Safdarjung, and the Mughals gave the Marathas the "chauth" of Punjab, Sindh and Doab in addition to the "Subahdari" of Ajmer and Agra. In 1758, Marathas started their north-west conquest and expanded their boundary till Afghanistan. They defeated Afghan forces of Ahmed Shah Abdali, in what is now Pakistan, including Pakistani Punjab Province and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Afghans were numbered around 25,000–30,000 and were led by Timur Shah, the son of Ahmad Shah Durrani. The Marathas massacred and looted thousands of Afghan soldiers and captured Lahore, Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Attock, Peshawar in the Punjab region and Kashmir. They also made sporadic raids in Afghanistan.


title: Maratha Empire

text: During the confederacy era, Mahadji Shinde resurrected the Maratha domination on much of North India, which was lost after the Third battle of Panipat including the cis-Sutlej states (south of Sutlej) like Kaithal, Patiala, Jind, Thanesar, Maler Kotla and Faridkot. Delhi and much of Uttar Pradesh were under the suzerainty of the Scindhias of the Maratha Empire, but following the Second Anglo-Maratha War of 1803–1805, the Marathas lost these territories to the British East India Company. The empire even after the defeat at Panipat expanded from Punjab in the north to Karnataka in the south.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Ashtapradhan ("The Council of Eight") was a council of eight ministers that administered the Maratha empire. This system was formed by Shivaji. Ministerial designations were drawn from the Sanskrit language and comprised:


title: Maratha Empire

text: With the notable exception of the priestly "Panditrao" and the judicial "Nyayadisha", the other "pradhans" held full-time military commands and their deputies performed their civil duties in their stead. In the later era of the Maratha Empire, these deputies and their staff constituted the core of the Peshwa's bureaucracy.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Peshwa was the titular equivalent of a modern Prime Minister. Shivaji created the Peshwa designation in order to more effectively delegate administrative duties during the growth of the Maratha Empire. Prior to 1749, Peshwas held office for 8–9 years and controlled the Maratha Army. They later became the "de facto" hereditary administrators of the Maratha Empire from 1749 till its end in 1818.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Under the administration of the Peshwas and with the support of several key generals and diplomats (listed below), the Maratha Empire reached its zenith, ruling most of the Indian subcontinent. It was also under the Peshwas that the Maratha Empire came to its end through its formal annexation into the British Empire by the British East India Company in 1818.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Shivaji was an able administrator who established a government that included modern concepts such as cabinet, foreign policy and internal intelligence. He established an effective civil and military administration. He believed that there was a close bond between the state and the citizens. He is remembered as a just and welfare-minded king. Cosme da Guarda says of him that:


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Marathas carried out a number of sea raids, such as plundering Mughal Naval ships and European trading vessels. European traders described these attacks as piracy, but the Marathas viewed them as legitimate targets because they were trading with, and thus financially supporting, their Mughal and Bijapur enemies. After the representatives of various European powers signed agreements with Shivaji or his successors, the threat of plundering or raids against Europeans began to reduce.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Maratha army under Shivaji was a national army consisting of personnel drawn mainly from Maharashtra. It was a homogeneous body commanded by a regular cadre of officers, who had to obey one supreme commander. With the rise of the Peshwas, however, this national army had to make room for a feudal force provided by different Maratha sardars. This new Maratha army was not homogenous, but employed soldiers of different backgrounds, both locals and foreign mercenaries, including large numbers of Arabs, Sikhs, Rajputs, Sindhis, Rohillas, Abyssinians, Pathans, Topiwalas and Europeans. The army of Nana Fadnavis, for example, included 5,000 Arabs.


title: Maratha Empire

text: Some historians have credited the Maratha Navy for laying the foundation of the Indian Navy and bringing significant changes in naval warfare. A series of sea forts and battleships were built in the 17th century during the reign of Shivaji. It has been noted that vessels built in the dockyards of Konkan were mostly indigenous and constructed without foreign aid. Further, in the 18th century, during the reign of Admiral Kanhoji Angre, a host of dockyard facilities were built along the entire western coastline of present-day Maharashtra. The Marathas fortified the entire coastline with sea fortresses with navigational facilities. Nearly all the hill forts, which dot the landscape of present-day western Maharashtra were built by the Marathas. The renovation of Gingee fortress in Tamil Nadu, has been particularly applauded, according to the contemporary European accounts, the defence fortifications matched the European ones.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Maratha army, especially its infantry, was praised by almost all the enemies of the Maratha Empire, ranging from the Duke of Wellington to Ahmad Shah Abdali. After the Third Battle of Panipat, Abdali was relieved as the Maratha army in the initial stages were almost in the position of destroying the Afghan armies and their Indian Allies, the Nawab of Oudh and Rohillas. The grand wazir of the Durrani Empire, Sardar Shah Wali Khan was shocked when Maratha commander-in-chief Sadashivrao Bhau launched a fierce assault on the centre of Afghan Army, over 10,000 Durrani soldiers were killed alongside Haji Atai Khan, one of the chief commander of Afghan army and nephew of wazir Shah Wali Khan. Such was the fierce assault of the Maratha infantry in hand-to-hand combat that Afghan armies started to flee and the wazir in desperation and rage shouted, "Comrades Whither do you fly, our country is far off". Post battle, Ahmad Shah Abdali in a letter to one Indian ruler claimed that Afghans were able to defeat the Marathas only because of the blessings of almighty and any other army would have been destroyed by the Maratha army on that particular day even though the Maratha army was numerically inferior to the Afghan army and its Indian allies. Though Abdali won the battle, he also had heavy casualties on his side. So, he sought immediate peace with the Marathas. Abdali wrote in his letter to Peshwa on 10 February 1761:


title: Maratha Empire

text: Similarly, the Duke of Wellington, after defeating the Marathas, noted that the Marathas, though poorly led by their Generals, had regular infantry and artillery that matched the level of that of the Europeans and warned other British officers from underestimating the Marathas on the battlefield. He cautioned one British general: "You must never allow Maratha infantry to attack head on or in close hand-to-hand combat as in that your army will cover itself with utter disgrace". Even when Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, became the Prime Minister of Britain, he held the Maratha infantry in utmost respect, claiming it to be one of the best in the world. However, at the same time, he noted the poor leadership of Maratha Generals, who were often responsible for their defeats. Charles Metcalfe, one of the ablest of the British Officials in India and later acting Governor-General, wrote in 1806:


title: Maratha Empire

text: Norman Gash says that the Maratha infantry was equal to that of British infantry. After the Third Anglo-Maratha war in 1818, Britain listed the Marathas as one of the Martial Races to serve in the British Indian Army. The 19th-century diplomat Sir Justin Sheil commented about the British East India Company copying the French Indian army in raising an army of Indians:


title: Maratha Empire

text: From Balaji Vishwanath onwards, the actual power gradually shifted to the Bhat family of Peshwas based in Poona.


title: Maratha Empire

text: The Thanjavur Marathas were the rulers of the Thanjavur Maratha kingdom in present day Tamil Nadu between the 17th and 19th centuries. Their native language was Thanjavur Marathi. Venkoji, Shahaji's son and Shivaji's half-brother, was the founder of the dynasty. They were patrons of fine arts and their reign has been considered the golden period of Tanjore history. Art and culture reached new heights during their rule. They also considered themselves as representatives of Cholas referring themselves as "Cholasimhasanathipathi". They made significant contributions towards Sanskrit and Marathi literature, Bharatanatyam (dance form), and Carnatic music.


title: George Wallace

text: George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and populist views. During his tenure, he promoted "industrial development, low taxes, and trade schools." Wallace sought the United States presidency as a Democrat three times, and once as an American Independent Party candidate, unsuccessfully each time. Wallace opposed desegregation and supported the policies of "Jim Crow" during the Civil Rights Movement, declaring in his 1963 inaugural address that he stood for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever".


title: George Wallace

text: Born in Clio, Alabama, Wallace attended the University of Alabama School of Law, and served in United States Army Air Corps during World War II. After the war, he won election to the Alabama House of Representatives, and served as a state judge. Wallace first sought the Democratic nomination in the 1958 Alabama gubernatorial election. Initially a moderate on racial issues, Wallace adopted a hard-line segregationist stance after losing the 1958 nomination. Wallace ran for governor again in 1962, and won the race. Seeking to stop the racial integration of the University of Alabama, Wallace earned national notoriety by standing in front of the entrance of the University of Alabama, blocking the path of black students. Wallace left office when his first term expired in 1967 due to term limits, but his wife, Lurleen Wallace, won the next election and succeeded him, with him as the "de facto" governor. Lurleen died of cancer in May 1968, ending Wallace's period of influence; her doctor had informed him of the cancer’s diagnosis in 1961, but Wallace did not tell his wife.


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace challenged sitting president Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 Democratic presidential primaries, but Johnson prevailed in the race. In the 1968 presidential election, Wallace ran a third-party campaign in an attempt to force a contingent election in the United States House of Representatives, thereby enhancing the political clout of segregationist Southern leaders. Wallace won five Southern states but failed to force a contingent election. he remains the most recent third-party candidate to receive pledged electoral college votes from any state.


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace won election to the governorship again in 1970, and ran in the 1972 Democratic presidential primaries, having moderated his stance on segregation. His campaign effectively ended when he was shot in Maryland by Arthur Bremer, and Wallace remained paralyzed below the waist for the rest of his life.


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace won re-election as governor in 1974, and he once again unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 1976 Democratic presidential primaries. In the late 1970s, Wallace announced that he became a born-again Christian, and moderated his views on race, renouncing his past support for segregation. Wallace left office in 1979, but re-entered politics and won election to a fourth, and final, term as governor in 1982. Wallace is the third longest-serving governor in U.S. history, having served 5,848 days in office.


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace, the first of four children, was born in Clio in Barbour County in southeastern Alabama, to George Corley Wallace and his wife, Mozelle (Smith). He was the third of five generations to bear the name "George Wallace". Since his parents disliked the designation "Junior", he was called "George C.", to distinguish him from his father, George, and his grandfather, a physician. Wallace's father left college to pursue a life of farming when food prices were high during World War I. When his father died in 1937, his mother had to sell their farmland to pay existing mortgages. Wallace was raised as a Methodist.


title: George Wallace

text: From age ten, Wallace was fascinated with politics. In 1935, he won a contest to serve as a page in the Alabama Senate, and confidently predicted that he would one day be governor. Wallace became a regionally successful boxer in high school, then went directly to law school in 1937 at the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa. He was a member of the Delta Chi fraternity. It was at the University of Alabama that he crossed paths with Frank M. Johnson Jr., who was a much more liberal politician in relation to social issues and issues of race. Wallace also knew Chauncey Sparks, who became a conservative governor. These men had an effect on his personal politics reflecting ideologies of both leaders later during his time in office. He received a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1942.


title: George Wallace

text: Early in 1943, Wallace was accepted for pilot training by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). Soon afterwards Wallace contracted life-threatening spinal meningitis, but prompt medical attention with sulfa drugs saved his life. Left with partial hearing loss and permanent nerve damage, he was instead trained as a flight engineer. During 1945, as a member of a B-29 crew with 468th Bombardment Group, stationed in the Mariana Islands as part of the Twentieth Air Force, Wallace took part in air raids on Japan and reached the rank of staff sergeant. In mid-1945, Wallace received an early discharge on medical grounds, due to "severe anxiety", and a 10% disability pension for "psychoneurosis". (The Twentieth Air Force was commanded by General Curtis LeMay, who was his running mate in the 1968 presidential race).


title: George Wallace

text: For instance, one source on Wallace's career as a judge reports: "every black attorney who argued a case in Wallace's ... courtroom was struck by his fairness ... But no one who knew Wallace well ever took seriously his earnest profession – uttered a thousand times after 1963 – that he was a segregationist, not a racist."


title: George Wallace

text: A reporter covering state politics in 1961 observed that, while other Alabama politicians conversed primarily about women and Alabama football, for Wallace "it was race – race, race, race – and every time that I was closeted alone with him, that's all we talked about."


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace's preoccupation with race was based on his belief that black Americans comprised a separate and inferior race. In a 1963 letter to a social studies teacher, Wallace stated they were inclined to criminality – especially "atrocious acts ... such as rape, assault and murder" – because of a high incidence of venereal disease. Desegregation, he wrote, would lead to "intermarriage ... and eventually our race will be deteriated (sic) to that of the mongrel complexity."


title: George Wallace

text: In 1938, at age 19, Wallace contributed to his grandfather's successful campaign for probate judge. Late in 1945, he was appointed as one of the assistant attorneys general of Alabama, and, in May 1946, he won his first election as a member to the Alabama House of Representatives. At the time, he was considered a moderate on racial issues. As a delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention, he did not join the Dixiecrat walkout at the convention, despite his opposition to U.S. President Harry S. Truman's proposed civil rights program. Wallace considered it an infringement on states' rights. The Dixiecrats carried Alabama in the 1948 general election, having rallied behind Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. In his 1963 inaugural speech as governor, Wallace excused his failure to walk out of the 1948 convention on political grounds.


title: George Wallace

text: In 1952, he became the Circuit Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit in Alabama. Here he became known as "the fighting little judge", a nod to his past boxing association. He gained a reputation for fairness regardless of the race of the plaintiff. It was common practice at the time for judges in the area to refer to black lawyers by their first names, while their white colleagues were addressed formally as "Mister"; black lawyer J. L. Chestnut later said that "Judge George Wallace was the most liberal judge that I had ever practiced law in front of. He was the first judge in Alabama to call me 'Mister' in a courtroom."


title: George Wallace

text: On the other hand, Wallace issued injunctions to prevent the removal of segregation signs in rail terminals, becoming the first Southern judge to do so. Similarly, during efforts by civil rights organizations to expand voter registration of blacks, Wallace blocked federal efforts to review Barbour County voting lists. He was cited for criminal contempt of court in 1959.


title: George Wallace

text: As judge, Wallace granted probation to some blacks, which may have cost him the 1958 gubernatorial election.


title: George Wallace

text: In 1958, Wallace ran in the Democratic primary for governor. Since the 1901 constitution's effective disfranchisement of the state's blacks, and most poor whites as well, the Democratic Party had been virtually the only party in Alabama. For all intents and purposes, the Democratic primary was the real contest at the state level. This was a political crossroads for Wallace. State Representative George C. Hawkins of Gadsden ran, but Wallace's main opponent was state attorney general John Malcolm Patterson, who ran with the support of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization Wallace had spoken against. Wallace was endorsed by the NAACP. Wallace lost the nomination by over 34,400 votes.


title: George Wallace

text: After the election, aide Seymore Trammell recalled Wallace saying, "Seymore, you know why I lost that governor's race? ... I was outniggered by John Patterson. And I'll tell you here and now, I will never be outniggered again."


title: George Wallace

text: In the wake of his defeat, Wallace adopted a hard-line segregationist stance and used this stance to court the white vote in the next gubernatorial election in 1962. When a supporter asked why he started using racist messages, Wallace replied, "You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor."


title: George Wallace

text: In the 1962 Democratic primary, Wallace finished first, ahead of State Senator Ryan DeGraffenried Sr., and taking 35 percent of the vote. In the runoff, Wallace won the nomination with 55 percent of the vote. As no Republican filed to run, this all but assured Wallace of becoming the next governor. He won a crushing victory in the November general election, taking 96 percent of the vote. As noted above, Democratic dominance had been achieved by disenfranchising most blacks and many poor whites in the state for decades, which lasted until years after federal civil rights legislation was passed in 1964 and 1965.


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace took the oath of office on January 14, 1963, standing on the gold star marking the spot where, nearly 102 years earlier, Jefferson Davis was sworn in as provisional president of the Confederate States of America. In his inaugural speech, Wallace said:


title: George Wallace

text: In 1963, President John F. Kennedy's administration ordered the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division from Fort Benning, Georgia to be prepared to enforce the racial integration of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. In a vain attempt to halt the enrollment of black students Vivian Malone and James Hood, Governor Wallace stood in front of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. This became known as the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door".


title: George Wallace

text: In September 1963, Wallace attempted to stop four black students from enrolling in four separate elementary schools in Huntsville. After intervention by a federal court in Birmingham, the four children were allowed to enter on September 9, becoming the first to integrate a primary or secondary school in Alabama.


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace desperately wanted to preserve segregation. In his own words: "The President [John F. Kennedy] wants us to surrender this state to Martin Luther King and his group of pro-communists who have instituted these demonstrations."


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace predicted, during a Milwaukee, Wisconsin speech on September 17, 1964, that the office-holding supporters of a civil rights bill would politically "bite the dust" by 1966 and 1968.


title: George Wallace

text: The "Encyclopædia Britannica" characterized him not so much as a segregationist but more as a "populist" who pandered to the white majority of Alabama voters. It notes that his failed attempt at presidential politics created lessons that later influenced the populist candidacies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Jack Newfield wrote in 1971 that Wallace "recently has been sounding like William Jennings Bryan as he attacked concentrated wealth in his speeches".


title: George Wallace

text: The principal achievement of Wallace's first term was an innovation in Alabama industrial development that several other states later copied: he was the first Southern governor to travel to corporate headquarters in northern states to offer tax abatements and other incentives to companies willing to locate plants in Alabama.


title: George Wallace

text: He also initiated a community college system that has now spread throughout the state, preparing many students to complete four-year degrees at Auburn University, UAB, or the University of Alabama. Wallace Community College (Dothan), is named for his father. Wallace Community College Selma (Selma), and Wallace State Community College (Hanceville) are named for him. Lurleen B. Wallace Community College in Andalusia is named for Wallace's first wife, Lurleen Burns Wallace.


title: George Wallace

text: The University of South Alabama, a new state university in Mobile, was chartered in 1963 during Wallace's first year in office as governor.


title: George Wallace

text: On November 15–20, 1963, in Dallas, Wallace announced his intention to oppose the incumbent president, John F. Kennedy, for the 1964 Democratic presidential nomination. Days later, also in Dallas, Kennedy was assassinated, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded him as president.


title: George Wallace

text: Building upon his notoriety after the University of Alabama controversy, Wallace entered the Democratic primaries in 1964 on the advice of a public relations expert from Wisconsin. Wallace campaigned strongly by expressing his opposition to integration and a tough approach on crime. In Democratic primaries in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maryland, Wallace garnered at least a third of the vote running against three Johnson-designated surrogates.


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace was known for stirring crowds with his oratory. "The Huntsville Times" interviewed Bill Jones, Wallace's first press secretary, who recounted "a particularly fiery speech in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1964 that scared even Wallace, [where he] angrily shouted to a crowd of 1,000 people that 'little Pinkos' were 'running around outside' protesting his visit, and continued, after thunderous applause, saying, 'When you and I start marching and demonstrating and carrying signs, we will close every highway in the country.' The audience leaped to its feet and headed for the exit", Jones said, "It shook Wallace. He quickly moved to calm them down."


title: George Wallace

text: At graduation exercises in the spring of 1964 at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, Wallace received an honorary doctorate. At the commencement, Bob Jones Jr., read the following citation as a tribute to Wallace:


title: George Wallace

text: In 1964, Alabama Republicans stood to benefit from the unintended consequences of two developments: (1) Governor Wallace vacating the race for the Democratic presidential nomination against President Johnson, and (2) the designation of unpledged Democratic electors in Alabama, in effect removing President Johnson from the general election ballot. Prior to the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, Wallace and his aides Bill Jones and Seymore Trammell met in the Jefferson Davis Hotel in Montgomery with Alabama Republican leader James D. Martin, who had narrowly lost the U.S. Senate election in 1962 to J. Lister Hill. Wallace and his aides sought to determine if Barry M. Goldwater, the forthcoming Republican presidential nominee who as a senator from Arizona had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on libertarian and constitutional grounds, would advocate repeal of the law, particularly the public accommodations and equal employment sections. Bill Jones indicated that Wallace agreed with Goldwater's anti-communist stance but opposed the Republican's proposal to make Social Security a voluntary program. Jones stressed that Wallace had sacrificed his own presidential aspirations that year to allow a direct Republican challenge to President Johnson. It was later disclosed that Wallace proposed at the meeting with Martin to switch parties if he could be named as Goldwater's running-mate, a designation later given to U.S. Representative William E. Miller of New York. Goldwater reportedly rejected the overture because he considered Wallace to be a racist.


title: George Wallace

text: The unpledged electors in Alabama included the future U.S. senator, James Allen, then the lieutenant governor, and the subsequent Governor Albert Brewer, then the state House Speaker. National Democrats balked over Johnson's exclusion from the ballot, but most supported the unpledged slate, which competed directly with the Republican electors. As "The Tuscaloosa News" explained, loyalist electors would have offered a clearer choice to voters than did the unpledged slate.


title: George Wallace

text: The 1964 Republican electors were the first since Reconstruction to prevail in Alabama. The Goldwater-Miller slate received 479,085 votes (69.5 percent) to the unpledged electors' 209,848 (30.5 percent). The Republican tide also brought to victory five Republican members of the United States House of Representatives, including William Louis Dickinson, who held the Montgomery-based district seat until 1993, and James D. Martin, the Gadsden oil products dealer who defeated then State Senator George C. Hawkins for the U.S. House seat formerly held by Carl Elliott. Hardly yet sworn into the U.S. House, Martin already had his eyes on Wallace's own position as governor.


title: George Wallace

text: Term limits in the Alabama Constitution prevented Wallace from seeking a second term in 1966. Therefore, Wallace offered his wife, Lurleen Wallace, as a surrogate candidate for governor. In the Democratic primary, she defeated two former governors, Jim Folsom and John M. Patterson, Attorney General Richmond Flowers Sr., and former U.S. Representative Carl Elliott. Largely through the work of Wallace's supporters, the Alabama restriction on gubernatorial succession was later modified to allow two consecutive terms.


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace defended his wife's proxy candidacy. He felt somewhat vindicated when Republicans in Idaho denied renomination in 1966 to Governor Robert E. Smylie, author of the article entitled "Why I Feel Sorry for Lurleen Wallace". In his memoirs, Wallace recounts his wife's ability to "charm crowds" and cast-off invective: "I was immensely proud of her, and it didn't hurt a bit to take a back seat to her in vote-getting ability." Wallace rebuffed critics who claimed that he had "dragooned" his wife into the race. "She loved every minute of being governor the same way ... that Mrs. (Margaret) Smith loves being senator."


title: George Wallace

text: During the 1966 campaign, George Wallace signed state legislation to nullify desegregation guidelines between Alabama cities and counties and the former United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Wallace claimed that the law would thwart the national government from intervening in schools. Critics denounced Wallace's "political trickery" and expressed alarm at the potential forfeiture of federal funds. Republican gubernatorial candidate James D. Martin accused the Democrats of "playing politics with your children" and "neglecting academic excellence".


title: George Wallace

text: Martin also opposed the desegregation guidelines and had sponsored a U.S. House amendment to forbid the placement of students and teachers on the basis of racial quotas. He predicted that Wallace's legislation would propel the issuance of a court order compelling immediate and total desegregation in all public schools. He also compared the new Alabama law to "another two-and-a-half-minute stand in the schoolhouse door".


title: George Wallace

text: Lurleen Wallace defeated Martin in the general election on November 8, 1966. She was inaugurated in January 1967, but on May 7, 1968, she died in office of cancer at the age of 41, amid her husband's ongoing second presidential campaign. On her death, she was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Albert Brewer, who had run without Republican opposition amid the Wallace–Martin races. George Wallace's influence in state government thus subsided until his next bid for election in his own right in 1970. He was "first gentleman" for less than a year and a half.


title: George Wallace

text: Planning for Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign began with a strategy session on the evening of the March 1967 inauguration of Lurleen Wallace. The meeting featured prominent white supremacists and anti-Semites, including: Asa Carter; William Simmons of the White Citizens' Council; Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark; former Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett; Leander Perez, a fervent Louisiana segregationist and anti-Semite; Kent Courtney, a John Bircher; and "a representative sent by Willis Carto, head of the Liberty Lobby and publisher of the anti-Semitic magazine "American Mercury.""


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace ran for president in the 1968 election as the American Independent Party candidate, with Curtis LeMay as his candidate for vice president. Wallace hoped to force the House of Representatives to decide the election with one vote per state if he could obtain sufficient electoral votes to make him a power broker. Wallace hoped that Southern states could use their clout to end federal efforts at desegregation. His platform contained generous increases for beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare. Wallace's foreign policy positions set him apart from the other candidates in the field. "If the Vietnam War was not winnable within 90 days of his taking office, Wallace pledged an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops ... Wallace described foreign aid as money 'poured down a rat hole' and demanded that European and Asian allies pay more for their defense."


title: George Wallace

text: Richard Nixon feared that Wallace might split the conservative vote and allow the Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, to prevail. He mostly attracted the Southern Democrats who were dissatisfied with the 1964 Civil Rights Act , and the 1965 Voting Rights Act that were signed earlier in the decade by President Lyndon B. Johnson. However, some Democrats feared Wallace's appeal to organized blue-collar workers would damage Humphrey in Northern states such as Ohio, New Jersey and Michigan. Wallace ran a "law and order" campaign similar to Nixon's, further worrying Republicans.


title: George Wallace

text: In Wallace's 1998 obituary, "The Huntsville Times" political editor John Anderson summarized the impact from the 1968 campaign: "His startling appeal to millions of alienated white voters was not lost on Richard Nixon and other Republican strategists. First Nixon, then Ronald Reagan, and finally George Herbert Walker Bush successfully adopted toned-down versions of Wallace's anti-busing, anti-federal government platform to pry low- and middle-income whites from the Democratic New Deal coalition." Dan Carter, a professor of history at Emory University in Atlanta, added: "George Wallace laid the foundation for the dominance of the Republican Party in American society through the manipulation of racial and social issues in the 1960s and 1970s. He was the master teacher, and Richard Nixon and the Republican leadership that followed were his students."


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace considered Happy Chandler, the former baseball commissioner, two-term former governor of Kentucky and former Senator from Kentucky, as his running mate in his 1968 campaign as a third-party candidate; as one of Wallace's aides put it, "We have all the nuts in the country; we could get some decent people–-you working one side of the street and he working the other side." Wallace invited Chandler, but when the press published the prospect, Wallace's supporters objected; Chandler had supported the hiring of Jackie Robinson by the Brooklyn Dodgers.


title: George Wallace

text: Wallace retracted the invitation, and (after considering Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Harland Sanders) chose former Air Force General Curtis LeMay of California. LeMay was considered instrumental in the establishment in 1947 of the United States Air Force and an expert in military affairs. His four-star military rank, experience at Strategic Air Command and presence advising President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis were considered foreign-policy assets to the Wallace campaign. By 1968, LeMay had retired and was serving as chairman of the board of an electronics company, but the company threatened to dismiss him if he took a leave of absence to run for vice president. To keep LeMay on the ticket, Wallace backer and Texas oil tycoon H. L. Hunt set up a million-dollar fund to reimburse LeMay for any income lost in the campaign. Campaign aides tried to persuade LeMay to avoid questions relating to nuclear weapons, but when asked if he thought their use was necessary to win the Vietnam War, he first said that America could win in Vietnam without them. However, he alarmed the audience by further commenting, "we [Americans] have a phobia about nuclear weapons. I think there may be times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons." The "politically tone-deaf" LeMay became a drag on Wallace's candidacy for the remainder of the campaign.


title: George Wallace

text: In 1968, Wallace pledged that "If some anarchist lies down in front of my automobile, it will be the last automobile he will ever lie down in front of" and asserted that the only four letter words that hippies did not know were "w-o-r-k" and "s-o-a-p." Responding to criticism of the former comment, Wallace later elaborated that he meant such a protester would be punished under the law, not run over. This type of rhetoric became famous. He accused Humphrey and Nixon of wanting to radically desegregate the South. Wallace said, "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the Republicans and Democrats", a campaign slogan that he had first perfected when Lurleen Wallace defeated James D. Martin.