Salher

Do you remember Day 9, when Afzal Khan tried to tempt Shivaji down onto the open plains, where a big army always wins? Shivaji refused, and fought from his hills instead. For years after that, the Marathas mostly fought by surprise, by night, and from the mountains. Tonight, thirteen years later, something new happens: Shivaji's army meets the Mughals face to face, on open ground — and wins.

Far to the north of Shivaji's home country, near the edge of Gujarat, rises a tall, steep mountain fort called Salher. It is one of the very highest forts in all of Maharashtra; from its summit you can look out over hills and plains for miles and miles. It guarded the roads that ran between the Deccan and the rich lands of the north.

After Shivaji's men captured Salher, the Mughals were determined to take it back. In 1672 a large Mughal army marched up and camped all around the foot of the mountain, under a commander named Ikhlas Khan, to besiege it. The Maratha soldiers inside could see the enemy tents spread out below them.

How had Shivaji's army grown strong enough to dream of beating the Mughals in the open? Partly through careful organisation. Shivaji paid his soldiers regular wages from his treasury, instead of handing out land, so that they stayed loyal to the kingdom rather than to some local chief. And his army had strict rules: Sabhasad's chronicle records that soldiers were paid in cash and had to hand over whatever they captured, and in one of his own letters Shivaji ordered his officers that the soldiers must never trample or take the farmers' crops. A paid, disciplined army that the villagers did not fear: that was something new.

Shivaji could have let the fort fend for itself. Instead, he made a bold plan: he would send two whole armies, from two different directions, to strike the besiegers. One came under Moropant Pingle — the same Moropant who, years before, had built Pratapgad for Shivaji. The other came under the dashing cavalry commander Prataprao Gujar.

Prataprao's horsemen reached the Mughals first and charged. The Mughal army was big and strong, and for a while Prataprao had to pull back. The Mughals must have thought they had won. But then Moropant's soldiers arrived from the other side, and the two Maratha forces closed in together, like two arms of a great pincer.

Imagine being one of the defenders, high on Salher's walls, looking down. For weeks you have seen nothing but enemy tents. And then, far off across the plain, a cloud of dust appears — and another, from a different direction — and you begin to make out saffron banners. Help is coming. Your hands grip the wall, and you watch.

And then came a real battle, out in the open: horsemen against horsemen, foot-soldiers against foot-soldiers, elephants, banners and drums. The fighting went on for a long, hard day. The dust kicked up by thousands of hooves and feet rose into the sky until the sun turned dim.

By the end of the day, the Mughal army had broken and fled. Ikhlas Khan himself was wounded and captured. The Marathas took a huge haul of spoils: thousands of horses, camels and many elephants, and the whole Mughal camp with all its supplies. Soon afterwards the nearby fort of Mulher fell to the Marathas as well.

Why does Salher matter so much? Because for the first time, Shivaji's army had beaten a great Mughal army not with a trick, not by night, not in a narrow pass, but in an open-field battle — the very kind of fight Afzal Khan had wanted all those years ago. The news shook the empire. The Marathas were no longer just clever raiders of the hills; they were a real army that could face anyone, anywhere.

Now for the honest part. The accounts agree that Salher was a decisive Maratha victory, early in 1672, and that Ikhlas Khan was captured. They do not agree on all the numbers — how many soldiers fought on each side, how many fell, exactly how many horses and elephants were taken — or on the exact month. So we keep to what all of them share.

And there is one more story for tonight, because it closes a circle. Do you remember Panhala, where Shivaji was trapped on Day 11, and which he had to give up after his escape? For thirteen years it stayed out of his hands. Then, the Maratha accounts say, on the night of the 6th of March, 1673, a daring officer named Kondaji Farzand led a small band up its walls in the dark, surprised the garrison, and took the fort back.

Tradition says Kondaji's band was tiny — only a few dozen men against a garrison many times larger. (One great historian, Jadunath Sarkar, thought the fort was actually won by bribing its defenders — so how it was won is debated.) Whatever the method, Panhala, the fort of Shiva Kashid and Baji Prabhu, was swarajya's again. Shiva Kashid's sacrifice and Baji Prabhu's stand had not been in vain.

So tonight leaves us with a picture of a kingdom grown up. It could strike by night and vanish into the hills — and now it could also stand on an open plain and win. With every fort won back, the day was coming closer when this kingdom would need a proper crown.

Goodnight — tonight's badge: maidan, "the open field" — the day the Marathas showed they could win not only in the hills, but anywhere.