Orissa passes to the Marathas

01The bargi years

From 1742 Raghuji Bhonsle sent his horse into Bengal year after year to claim chauth. In 1744 Alivardi had his general Bhaskar Pant and his officers murdered at a parley, and the raids grew fiercer. The Marathas took Barabati fort at Cuttack in 1745 and held most of Orissa. Alivardi won battles and retook Cuttack in 1749, but each time his army left, the horsemen came back. West Bengal’s villages suffered terribly, and the cradle song about the bargis coming is still sung.

02The settlement of 1751

Old and tired of war, Alivardi made terms in 1751 with Raghuji’s envoys. He agreed to pay twelve lakh rupees a year as chauth for Bengal, according to Ghulam Husain’s Siyar, and Orissa was left under Mir Habib as deputy for the Bhonsles, its revenues going to them. The Marathas agreed not to cross the Subarnarekha. After Mir Habib’s murder in 1752 Orissa came wholly under Nagpur’s officers and stayed so until the British took it in 1803.

Dynasty · c. 1739–1853 CEBhonsles of NagpurRaghuji Bhonsle, a kinsman of the Chhatrapatis’ clan, was sent to Berar by Shahu and made Nagpur the seat of the largest Maratha state in central India. His armies took Odisha from the Nawab of Bengal, and the house ruled until the British annexed Nagpur in 1853.Read →