Bharat Ek Khoj | Episode-37 | Shivaji, Part I

Bharat Ek Khoj—The Discovery of India
A Production of Doordarshan, the Government of India’s Public Service Broadcaster
Episode 37: Shivaji, Part I

With Naseeruddin Shah as Shivaji, Achyut Potdar as Shahfi, Anang Desai as Dadoji Konddeo, Sunila Pradhan as Jiiabai, Mahendra Raghuvanshi as Bajirao, Chandrakant Kale as Shridhar Pant, and Ravindra Sathe as Sampat Rao. Playback by Ravindra Sathe, Chandrakant Kale, and Madhuri Purandhare. Script by Govind P. Deshpande.

Nehru notes that during the declining years of the Mughal Empire, there was a ferment of revivalist sentiment, which was a mixture of religion and nationalism. When a great empire was breaking up and many adventurers, Indian and foreign, were trying to carve out principalities for themselves, it was not nationalism at all in its present sense. An equally important factor was the cracking up of the economic structure and repeated peasant uprisings, some of them on a big scale. The Marathas, especially, had a wider conception, a principle of national attachment which united their chiefs as in one common cause. In the growth and consolidation of the new Maratha power, Shivaji, born in 1627, became the symbol of a resurgent Hindu nationalism.

The scene opens with a dialogue between a fort-keeper beholden to his task and a fellow storyteller who recounts the glory, valour and inspirational leadership evinced by Shivaji. The folk-poet Srivallabh’s balladic songs re-create the halcyon days of Shivaji. Bereaved son of Shahuji and brought up by Dadaji Konde, he has begun collecting complaints in his Jagir from the oppressed peasants, harassed by the marauding soldiers of both Mughals and Adilshahi kingdom of Bijapur. Shivaji has the highest regard for his widowed-motherjijabai and takes oath, under her guidance, at the hill- top temple of ‘Mata Bhavani’, to revive Hindu kingship at a time of awesome and orthodox Muslim supremacy.

The ballads relate how Shivaji pines to break away from the shackles of the Bijapur thralldom and chalks out a daring strategy to capture forts in the Western Ghats and along the adjacent Konkan coast. To start with, it is ‘assault’, not ‘conflict’ of Purandhar fort, as a test case. He appeals to a rival Chieftain Shankaraji to use his energy and courage, and become the fort-keeper. The ploy succeeds and an ally is born. There is a round of thanks-giving prayers at the Bhavani temple.

Nehru comments that while the empire was rent by strife and revolt, the new Maratha power thus began growing in western India. As an ideal guerrilla leader of hardened mountaineers whose cavalry could go far and wide, Shivaji drew inspiration from the classics and traditions to build up the Marathas as a strong fighting group, gave them a nationalist background, and made them into a formidable fighting force.

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