An original letter describing how five to seven hundred men were 'burnt to death' when Lala Brij Lal, a chief of the yavana (Nizam Ali) attacked and burnt a village in Karnataka.
Even late medieval wars were bloody and cruel. People suffered from wars, were terrorised by armies.
Even late medieval wars were bloody and cruel. People suffered from wars, were terrorised by armies.
Mah puran, a poem by Gangaram(4) has many references of plunder, fear, people fleeing their homes by the thousands.(pic 1&2) There r other references. One is looting in a field where women were also raped. 'Bargis did many bestial things'.(3). After Alivardi's attack at Dainhat..
..one finds an angry sardar (probably Bhaskar Ram) give an order to kill.. 'Vaishnavas, Brahmins, sanyasins, cows, women were slaughtered by the hundreds'. Goddess Parvati was angry. Siva ordered the sinners should be killed. This then leads to the murder of Bhaskar in the poem.
The Siyar mutakherin, tells us of the Peshwa's campaign in Bengal 'to help Alivardi' and his act of giving gifts and security to a defiant lady. He then chased Raghuji Bhonsle out of Bengal. The Siyar does not mention massacres. It does mention plunder.
From 1741, when the Nizam sent Raghuji into Bengal and proceeded to win back his own lost territory around Trichy, to 1751, the battle with the 'usurper' Alivardi Khan was over a chauth of 12 lakh rupees annually. This was agreed in 1751 and the Maratha raids stopped.
'Scorched earth' is a mode of warfare where an army is denied food, fodder, even water. The granaries were burnt and all Alivardi's army got was 'burnt rice'. The Maratha attacks in Bengal used this strategy & almost brought Alivardi to surrender due to the siege he was placed in
Of course, these attacks are no match for the barbarism of Nadir Shah or Abdali or Babar who Guru Nanak called Yama, the God of Death...all of which are well documented.
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