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SHIVAJI.
[CH. XVI.
by engaging Gaga Rhatta who "made Shivaji a pure Kshatriya." The high-priest showed his gratitude to Balaji for his heavy retainer by writing a tract [or rather two] in which the Kayastha caste was
glorified, but without convincing his contemporary Brahmans.*[1]
There was no attempt at well-thought-out organised communal improvement, spread of education, or unification of the people, either under Shivaji or under the Peshwas. The cohesion of the peoples in the Maratha State was not organic but artificial, accidental, and therefore precarious. It was solely dependent on the ruler's extraordinary personality and disappeared when the country ceased to produce supermen.
- ↑ * Nor has he succeeded in convincing posterity. Only two years ago, Mr. Rajwade, a Brahman writer of Puna, published a slashing attack on the Kayasthas (Chaturtha Sam. Britta), on the plea of editing this tract. He has provoked replies, one of which, Rajwade 8 Gaga Bhatta by K. T. Gupte, makes some attempt at reasoning and the use of evidence, while another, The Twanging of the Bow by K. S. Thakre, belongs to the same class as Milton's Tetrachordon or Against Salmasius ! This is happening in the 20th century, and yet Mr. Rajwade and Prof.Bijapurkar (who called Shivaji's descendant at Kolhapur a Shudra) are nationalists, even Chauvinists. It was with a house so divided against itself that the Puna Brahmans of the 18th century hoped to found an all- Indian Maratha empire, and there are Puna Brahmans in the 20th century who believe that the hope failed only through the superior luck and cunning of the English !
