A map showing the extent of the Maratha empire in 1759 in the new NCERT Class 8 social science textbook has run into a controversy. Chaitanya Raj Singh, scion of the royal family of the erstwhile princely state of Jaisalmer, on Monday (August 4) called the map, which shows Jaisalmer to be a part of the Maratha empire, “historically misleading, factually baseless, and deeply objectionable”.
“In the context of the Jaisalmer princely state, no authentic historical sources mention any Maratha dominance, invasion, taxation, or authority. On the contrary, our royal records clearly state that the Marathas never had any interference in the Jaisalmer princely state,” he posted on X.
On Wednesday, Michel Danino, chairperson of the NCERT’s curricular area group for the new social science textbooks, responded to the objection, stating: “Further research is on to confirm that our map’s boundaries are incorrect; if they are, a revised map will be prepared based on the best information available, and submitted for future editions of the textbook.”
What did Jaisalmer look like in the 18th century? Who were its rulers?
‘Northern expansion’ of the Marathas
In the first half of the 18th century, with the Mughal empire breaking up, the then Peshwa of the Maratha empire, Baji Rao I, “could not resist a Maratha drive” into the north, Stewart Gordon wrote in The Marathas 1600–1818 (1993). By then, the Marathas were already collecting tribute from erstwhile Mughal dominions in the Deccan.
The Marathas then pushed into parts of Rajasthan, the areas around Delhi and Punjab, and Bundelkhand, besides attacking parts of Orissa, Bengal, and Bihar, Gordon wrote. They established control over Malwa after the Battle of Bhopal. The Bengal raids were under Baji Rao’s successors.
The early conquests in this period, Gordon wrote, saw the Marathas make little attempt to displace the local powers. Rather, they let local rulers remain in control, entering agreements with zamindars to collect tribute.
Rahul Magar, Assistant Professor at the History Department at Savitribai Phule Pune University, told The Indian Express that “the Marathas were collecting chauth and sardeshmukhi from the Rajput territories, but does that mean that they had political intervention in those states? No, they did not, in many cases.”
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He added that economic tribute and political authority should be treated as distinct: “These states, like Rajputana and even Orissa and Bengal, were paying financial tribute, but it is not necessary that they politically considered the Peshwa as their overlord.”
Jaisalmer never part Maratha empire
Prof Dilbagh Singh, retired professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University who has worked on Rajasthan in his research, said that the Marathas raided parts of Rajasthan a number of times to claim tribute.
“Once the Marathas consolidated their position in the Deccan, they began their expansion towards the north. Malwa was annexed to the Maratha empire, and Orissa was also under Maratha rule. To start with, they entered Rajasthan on the invitation of the Rajput chieftains, to address their succession disputes… The Rajputs paid tribute to the Marathas,” Prof Singh said, adding that while the Marathas did take control of some territory, no Rajput state was ever annexed to be “directly ruled by the Marathas”.
The Maratha equation was not the same with all rulers of that region.
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Prof Singh said: “The Marathas didn’t raid Jaisalmer and Bikaner. They never went too far. Most of their attacks were confined to Jaipur and Jodhpur.” Jaisalmer was under the Bhati clan of Rajputs.
Other historians agree. Professor B L Bhadani, former Head of the History Department at Aligarh Muslim University, told The Indian Express, “I have gone through the entire text of the said chapter but nowhere I found names of Jaisalmer and Jodhpur. In the map, only the name of Jaipur is mentioned. I can say with full confidence that Jaisalmer was never a tributary state. This map is incorrect.”
The controversial map in NCERT’s Class 8 text book. X/@crsinghbhati
Gordon wrote of a tribute collecting expedition that Baji Rao I led in 1728 through western Malwa and into Rajasthan. “There had been, however, a friendship between Bajirao and Jai Singh (of Jaipur) which lessened the pressure for tribute in the 1730s. After Bajirao’s death, Maratha military contingents invaded Rajasthan almost every year,” he wrote.
Gordon also mentions the succession disputes like those in Bundi and Jodhpur, and the tribute that the Marathas claimed from these regions. “Through the later years of the 1750s, the Peshwa, Shinde, and Holkar sent armies into Rajasthan to collect the arrears of the large promised tribute… but nothing like an administration was in place. As soon as the main-force Maratha army left, the Maratha representatives were thrown out, and no tribute paid.”
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Prof Manisha Choudhary of Delhi University, an expert in medieval Rajasthan, added, “The subordinate state shall pay the tribute regularly, however even Amber-Jaipur was not paying the tribute regularly, forget about any other state located in present territory of Rajasthan.”
She said, “If somebody is not paying you full-fledged revenue but only sending some gifts and nazars occasionally, that doesn’t fit them in the category of subsidiary state… So far, there is no record for Jaisalmer [paying tribute].”
The nature of the Maratha empire
American historian Richard Eaton, in the book India in the Persianate Age (2019), wrote that in the decades of the 1730s to the 1750s, “Maratha rule was patchy and irregular across much of central India”.
Some regions were fully administered by the Peshwa’s men “and others only thinly administered, and populated by recalcitrant zamindars who managed to defy Maratha authority from behind walled strongholds.”
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Scholars have been divided over the nature of the Maratha polity and whether it was a confederacy.
Gordon wrote that writing on the Maratha polity has revolved around three themes: “the Maratha polity as a ‘rising’’of the regional consciousness of Maharashtra; the Maratha polity as Hindu response to oppressive Muslim rule; the Maratha polity as brave attempt to change the nature of Hindu society and better the lot of its poorest members.”
He added: “It is less glamorous and less heroic to see the Maratha polity as one among many in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, not as a proto-nationalist resistance against the foreigner, nor as a Hindu crusade against Islam.”
Professor Pankaj Jha of Lady Shri Ram College offered a broader reflection: “It is true that the dominant clan of the Marathas in the 18th century made a general claim of sovereignty over almost the entire north and north-western parts of India as well as the Deccan. However, their actual control varied enormously. The more critical question is how authority is made, rather than which dynasty or clan proclaimed themselves to be great, and how we must (or must not) take pride in the dynastic possessions of this or that dynasty.”
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‘Open to error correction,’ says NCERT
The new Class 8 social science book features an entire chapter on the Marathas, unlike the old history book which had a section on them.
On Jaisalmer and the map, Danino wrote in a note on Wednesday that the chapter was prepared in consultation with two experts on the Maratha period, nowhere in the chapter (including the map) is Jaisalmer mentioned, the map was drawn on the basis of maps published earlier, and “to the best of our knowledge, no objection was raised against such maps, which have long been in the public domain.”
He added that the maps include not only areas directly under Maratha control, but also states paying tributes/taxes, or at times under some agreement with the Marathas.
“While such maps freeze territories at one point in time, the actual context was of course much more complex, fluid, and fast evolving. A single map cannot encapsulate the whole story of the Maratha empire,” he wrote.
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“The tight timeline given for the preparation of the new textbooks hardly allows for original research in every single relevant primary source; understandably, our contributors at times need to trust and depend on secondary sources considered authentic and scholarly,” he wrote, adding that “we are fully open to error correction.”
He also wrote that while the Grade 7 textbook contained a caveat that the borders on a map are approximate, the team should have used the same caveat for all historical maps in the Grade 8 textbook as well.
Prof Magar also called for nuance in cartographic representation. “Such maps should be made using different shades of colours… One indicating direct control, another for tributary states, one for territories that were captured but did not remain under control, and another indicating influence. This blanket map is not consistent with the truth.”
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The controversial map in NCERT’s Class 8 text book. X/@crsinghbhati
