पान:आंग्ल प्रभा.djvu/7

Կ} ignoring the usefulness of the Raj-Mandal, and substituting in its placs the subordinate purely civil-officials, Fadnis, Mujumdar, and others, who under the old arrangements, were attached to. departments, and helped the ministers or district commanders. Of the Dark lars, only two, Fadnis and Mujumdar, appear to have been retained by the Brahmin Government at Poona, and the rest, the Dewan, Karkhannis, Potnis and Jamdar, seem to havd been dropped, and the Peishwa's Fadnis superseded his superior the Mujumdar, and became virtually what Pant Pratinidhi was under Shahu's rule. This dimunition of the power of the Raj-Mandal, while it helped to strengthen the ascendency of the Peish was over the whole kingdom, naturally led, in course of time, to the alienation of the great Commanders who had helped in Shahu's reign to extend the power of the Marathas over Gujarath, Malwa, Bundelkhand, Rajputana, Delhi, Bengal, Orissa and Nagpur. The Peishwa's own model served as an example to the several commanders who established themselves in DOWer at Baroda, Indore, Gwalior, Dhar, Nagpur, and other places. The common bond of union which, in Shahu's time, held all the chiefs together, ceased to be operative, and in its place, each great commander, like the Peishw al strove to be chief master in his territories, and only helped the common cause on occasions of great emergencies. Even the Peishwa's favourite commanders, Scindia, Holkar, and the Powars, followed the traditions of independence, which the Gaikwads, the Dabhades, and the Bhosles of Nagpur, who claimed to hold their possessions under Shahu's Sanads, had begun to cherish, as the equals of the Peish was, in their own dominions. The later additions of Brahmin Sardars represented by the Patwardlians, the Fadkes and the Rastes in the South, the Winchurkars and the Rajelahadars, the Bundeles, the Purandares, and the Bhuskutes in the North of the Deccan, naturally followed the same example, and by the time the first period ends with the battle of Paniput, where the whole nation was represented by its leaders, small and great, the bond of union became virtually dissolved; and though they joined together, on great occasions, such as at Kharda, and in the wars with the English, Hyder, and Tippu, the old solidarity of interest became a thing of the past. The constitution, which had served such great purposes under Sivaji, Rajaram and Shahu, in holding the nation together for a hundred years, gave place to a mere government by single chiefs, assisted by subordinates instead of equals, and naturally faile to evoke that spirit of patriotic co-operation which had achieved such wonderful results. In the forty years of rule enjoyed by Shahu, he was not merely a titular head of the Maratha Government; but he directed all