Raghoji II Bhonsle

Raghoji II Bhonsle was the Maratha ruler of the Kingdom of Nagpur in Central India from 1788 to 1816.

Raghoji was adopted as an infant by his uncle Janoji to be his chosen heir. Janoji died in 1772, and his brothers fought for succession, until Mudhoji until shot the other on the battlefield of Panchgaon, six miles south of Nagpur, and succeeded to the regency on behalf of Raghoji.

The Nagpur Kingdom reached its greatest extent in the first half of Raghoji's reign. In 1785 Mudhoji added Mandla and the upper Narmada valley to the Nagpur Kingdom through a with the Peshwa, chief ruler of the Maratha Confederacy. Mudhoji had courted the favor of the British, and this policy was continued for some time by Raghoji II, who acquired Hoshangabad and the lower Narmada valley.

In 1803 Ragoji united with Daulat Rao Sindhia of Gwalior against the British East India Company in the Second Anglo-Maratha War. The two Maratha rulers were decisively defeated at Assaye and Argaon, and by the Treaty of Deogaon of that year Raghoji ceded Cuttack, southern Berar, and Sambalpur to the British, although Sambalpur was not relinquished until 1806.

To the close of the 18th century the Maratha administration had been on the whole good, and the country had prospered. The first four of the Bhonsles were military chiefs with the habits of rough soldiers, connected by blood and by constant familiar interaction with all their principal officers. Descended from a class of cultivators, they favored and fostered that order. They were rapacious, but seldom cruel to the lower castes. Up to 1792 their territories were seldom the theater of hostilities, and the area of cultivation and revenue continued to increase under a fairly equitable and extremely simple system of government. After the Treaty of Deogaon, however, all this had changed. Raghoji II was deprived of a third of his territories, and he attempted to make up the loss of revenue from the remainder. The villages were mercilessly rack-rented, and many new taxes imposed. The pay of the troops was in arrears, and they maintained themselves by plundering the cultivators, while at the same time commenced the raids of the Pindaris, who became so bold that in 1811 they advanced to Nagpur and burnt the suburbs. It was at this time that most of the numerous village forts were built, to which on the approach of these marauders the peasant retired and fought for bare life, all he possessed outside the walls being already lost to him.

Raghoji died in 1816.

References

* Hunter, William Wilson, Sir, et al (1908). "Imperial Gazetteer of India", Volume 17. 1908-1931; Clarendon Press, Oxford.