G B Mehendale, authority on Maratha history, passes away at 78

“I am deeply saddened by the passing away of scholar and historian G B Mehendale. His Shri Raja Shivchhatrapati, published in Marathi and English, is a unique biography based on authentic source materials concerning the life and times of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. No individual or institution has written such a detailed biography of the great king, substantiated with a rich array of primary sources. G B Mehendale will be remembered for his historical scholarship,” said Prof Shraddha Kumbojhkar, Head of the History Department, Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU).

According to Avinash Dharmadhikari, an IAS officer who founded the Chanakya Mandal Pariwar, which trains UPSC and MPSC students, Mehendale was a “great historian who was deeply rooted in the dispassionate discipline of history”. “It is with this critical approach that he studied various subjects, including Shivaji Maharaj. The two volumes of Shri Raja Shivchhatrapati are outstanding. They are not only a biography but also an account of the life and times of Shivaji Maharaj. The books are also in English, thus telling all of India and the world who Shivaji Maharaj was. Personally, we were very close friends. I feel a personal loss but even bigger than that is that we have lost a great erudite figure. As a historian, he was a role model and the best way to offer our ‘shraddhanjali’ to him is to continue his disciplined work in history,” he says.

A prolific author, Mehendale’s works ranged from Shri Raja Shivchhatrapati, Shivaji His Life & Times and Tipu As He Really Was to Islamchi Olakh: Bharatatil Islami Rajvatinche Dharmik Dhoran and Adilshahi Farmane. Mehendale was born in the year of India’s independence. At the age of 24, he became a war correspondent during the Bangladesh war of 1971. Thereafter, he pursued research in history, arduously going through letters and other material to create an evidence-based narrative.

Among those who paid tribute was MNS chief Raj Thackeray. “A historian should have complete neutrality, which Gajananrao had… History is written or told about the victors, but what about the vanquished? History researchers who are aware that there is history hidden in it that can be understood are almost disappearing. Gajanan learned many languages to research history… Because our history or documentation was not written down by our own people, but was mostly written down by other people, Gajanan did a great job of learning their languages and conveying it to us,” Thackeray posted on X.