BATTLE OF PANIPAT- A TRIBUTE TO MY ANCESTORS

14th January, 1761
A historical day for Indians, and today after 250 years it’s memorized for a lesson, pride, a battle – Panipat.
Panipat was the largest battle fought in 18th century; it was a synonym of disaster. The battle pitted the French-supplied artillery and cavalry of the Marathas against the heavy cavalry and mounted artillery (zamburak and jizail) of the Afghans led by Ahmad Shah Durrani, an ethnic Pashtun, also known as Ahmad Shah Abdali.
The decline of the Mughal Empire had led to territorial gains for the Maratha Confederacy because the Mughal Empire didn’t had the capacity to fight back their enemy and therefore had to take the support of Maratha Army. Ahmad Shah Abdali, amongst others, was unwilling to allow the Maratha’s gains to go unchecked. In 1759, he raised an army from the Pashtun tribes and made several gains against the smaller garrisons. The Marathas, under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau, responded by gathering an army of between 100,000-150,000 people with which they ransacked the Mughal capital of Delhi. There followed a series of skirmishes along the banks of the river Yamuna at Karnal and Kunjpura which eventually turned into a two-month-long siege led by Abdali against the Marathas.
The specific site of the battle itself is disputed by historians but most consider it to have occurred somewhere near modern day Kaalaa Aamb and Sanauli Road. The battle lasted for several days and involved over 225,000 men. Protracted skirmishes occurred, with losses and gains on both sides. The forces led by Ahmad Shah Durrani came out victorious after destroying several Maratha flanks. The extent of the losses on both sides is heavily disputed by historians, but it is believed that between 100,000+ were killed in fighting, while numbers of the injured and prisoners taken vary considerably. The main generals Sadashivrao Bhau and Vishwasrao Peshwa and 27 other officers were also killed .The result of the battle was the halting of the Maratha advances in the North. The people who were injured or were not willing to come back to their native place, stayed in Panipat and now are called RHODE MARATHAS.
These warriors are discriminated because they lost the battle, but the main thing is they fought, died, never showed their back to the coming terror of death. History is written by the winners, and the winners of this battle wrote that the Maratha warriors fought very bravely.
The reason why I am writing this is, in that battle at least one man from each house from a whole state [ Maharashtra] died, many of my ancestors also lost their lives in this battle and I am proud to pay a tribute to them.