First, the brahmins in his kingdom didnot support him - for multiple reasons.
Having had significant success with victories over Afzal Khan, a powerful commander of the Sultanate of Bijapur, and over Saishtha Khan, a powerful general under Aurangzeb, the Mughal Emperor, he was ready to proclaim himself as the Chatrapati of the Maratha kingdom that he had founded and formed.īut it was not that simple. Soon, he became a force to be reckoned with. So he made friends with simple, sturdy, like-minded boys of the Sahyadri mountains, created an army of his own, and started nibbling into the Sultan's territory by capturing one fort after other. Right from childhood, Shivaji stoked flames of freedom within himself. In such times, in 1630, Shivaji Bhosale was born to Shahaji Bhosale, a principal officer in the Sultanate of Bijapur, and Jijabai. In the 17th century, the whole of India, north of Vindhyas, was ruled by the Mughals, and the south of Vindhyas was dominated by the Sultans of various Sultanates. Why? Because it was believed that Shivaji was a Shudra! It is a truly inspiring account into the character of the man.īut I was stunned to read the chapter where Govindji takes us through the challenges Shivaji faced in getting coronated as Chatrapati.ĭid you know that no brahmin in Maharashtra consented to perform his coronation ceremonies? A brahmin from Kashi was invited to do it. This book is not so much a biography of the great Maratha ruler, but an insight into the kind of ruler he was - his benevolent, caretaking attitude towards his subjects, especially common folk - ryots, the respect he showed to women, his foresight in building an empire constituting each segment of the society - untouchables, lower castes, brahmins and muslims, and his fair and efficient administrative policies. More than 3 lac copies have been sold since. Post his assassination, there was a renewed interest in his book. Till February, 2015, it had sold about 1.4 lac copies. In 1988, Govind Pansare wrote a book in Marathi - Shivaji Kon Hota?, which was subsequently translated into English as Who was Shivaji?, and into other vernacular languages like Urdu, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati and Bengali. But this post is not about him, it is about the bestselling book he authored. Actually, Govind Pansare was a left-wing CPI politician, whose murder is suspected to be a political assassination and is still unsolved. On 20th February, four days later, Govind Pansare died in Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai. On 16th February, 2015, Govind Pansale (then 81 years of age) and his wife, Uma Pansare, were shot by a couple of assailants on a motor bike, while they were taking their morning walk.
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