Maharani Tarabai : Maratha Lioness Who Challenged Aurangzeb

‘Rainha dos Marathas’ (Queen of the Marathas) was the clepe given to Maharani Tarabai Bhonsle, daughter-in-law of Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj, by the Portuguese in conceding her bravery against the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the founder of the Maratha Empire, did not live to see its glory. Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, who later took over the rule, continued resisting the Mughals and sacrificed his life after a struggle of nine years. His resistance included enduring capture and torture at the hands of Aurangzeb, yet he remained unbroken until the very end.

Maharani Tarabai Bhonsle Gave Aurangzeb A Tough Time

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• ‘Rainha dos Marathas’ (Queen of the Marathas) was the clepe given to Maharani Tarabai Bhonsle, daughter-in-law of Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj, by the Portuguese in conceding her bravery against the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the founder of the Maratha Empire, did not live to see its glory.

• Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, who later took over the rule, continued resisting the Mughals and sacrificed his life after a struggle of nine years. His resistance included enduring capture and torture at the hands of Aurangzeb, yet he remained unbroken until the very end.

Queen Of The Marathas

• The conflict against Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal Emperor, raged on for decades and did not end even after Rajaram Maharaj’s (half brother of Chhatrapati Shambhaji Maharaj and subsequent son of Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj) death in 1700.

• He left behind the young Shivaji II and Maharani Tarabai Bhonsle, who never missed an opportunity to circumvent the Mughals until Aurangzeb’s death. This struggle was not just led by Maratha kings who sacrificed everything — from their lives to their forts — but also by a Maratha queen, Maharani Tarabai Bhonsle, who made aberrant contributions to keeping the dream of ‘Swarajya’ alive. She refused to accept Mughal atrocities and continued resisting.

• Maharani Tarabai, through her strength of will, joined the ranks of legendary queens like Rani Padmavati and Karnavati of Mewar, Rani Rudramma Devi of Warangal, who fiercely resisted the Delhi Sultanate and sultans. As Jadunath Sarkar said, “During the period between 1700 and1707, the directing power in Maharashtra was not any minister but the dowager queen Tarabai.
• Her administrative abilities and strength of character rescued the country in that ghastly crisis.” JN Sarkar, in his writings on the Mughals, noted that had Tarabai not been there to safeguard the empire, history might have taken a different course.

Maharani Tarabai Bhonsle

• Tarabai was born in 1675 into the influential Bhonsle clan and was wedded to Rajaram Maharaj at the age of 8.
• At the time of Rajaram Maharaj’s death due to a lung disease, Tarabai was 25 years old. It was from this moment that she emerged as the regent for her infant son, Shivaji II.
• Instead of withdrawing into grief, she immediately took charge of the dream of a sovereign Maratha state and the establishment of Swarajya.

• Tarabai was skilled in cavalry movements, a skill she had learnt from her father, Hambirrao Mohite, who served as the Commander-in-Chief under Shivaji.
• In several battles against the Mughals, she personally led the Maratha troops. Unlike most rulers who governed from behind palace walls, Tarabai led from the front. She moved from fort to fort, conducted war councils.

Maratha Resistance Against The Mughals After 1700

• When rumors of a woman commanding the Marathas reached the Mughal army, they jeered, thinking that victory was theirs. But as the battle hit the ground, they began to doubt it, and eventually, they found that they had seriously underestimated the Maratha warrior queen.

• The guerrilla warfare tactics introduced by Shivaji Maharaj had given the Marathas the advantage over the vast Mughal army.
• In his work, A Social History of the Deccan, historian Richard Eaton cites the following couplets by Khafi Khan (Mughal court chronicler and author of Muntkhab al-Lubab):

• “The Mughals believed that it would be no easy task to vanquish two young children and a helpless woman. They believed their foe to be weak, contemptible and helpless; but Tara Bai, who was so termed as the wife of Ram Raja, exercised very great powers of command and government, and day by day the war extended and the Marathas’ power grew.”

• During her reign, the Maratha forces conquered southern Karnataka and raided several prosperous towns along the west coast, including Burhanpur, Surat, and Bharuch.
• One of Tarabai’s most looked to strategies was turning the Mughal system against itself. She adopted Aurangzeb’s own method of bribing commanders, securing crucial defections that weakened the imperial forces.
• Under her command, Maratha forces advanced deep into Mughal-held territories, raiding cities like Malwa and Gujarat.

• They even established their own revenue collectors, known as kamaishdars, in these regions. Though Aurangzeb, old and exhausted, was repeatedly unable to extinguish the Maratha revolt, he died on March 2, 1707, after his death the Mughals came up with a new plan of freeing Shahu ji Maharaj, Sambhaji Maharaj’s son and Tarabai’s nephew, with the hope of splitting the Maratha leadership by providing a rival claimant to the throne.
• Their plan worked. Shahu challenged Tarabai and Shivaji II for control of the Maratha Confederacy. Tarabai, afraid of Shahu’s influence of Mughals and their impact on leadership, refused to give in. This political conflict soon escalated into war.
• The backdrop to this was Tarabai presenting Rajaram II, as her grandson, whom she claimed was a direct descendant of Shivaji Maharaj.
• Never one to accept defeat, Tarabai established a competing court at Kolhapur the next year. She was a short-time ruler, though.
• She was overthrown when Shahu joined forces with Rajasabai, second wife of Rajaram, to make Rajasabai’s son, Sambhaji II, king of Kolhapur.

• Even after being sidelined in later years due to political shifts within the empire, Tarabai remained a significant force in Maratha politics.
• She remained actively involved in state affairs well into her advanced age, giving orders and exercising influence. Tarabai passed away in 1761, just months after the Marathas suffered defeat at the Third Battle of Panipat. Without her steadfast leadership in the early 18th century, the Maratha Empire might not have survived long enough to reach that battle.