June 13th is The Hindu Samrajya Diwas

[Jagat Jyoti]

Shivaji blazed the trail of a new victorious Hindu era By H.V.
Seshadri
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IT is on this day—the Jyes-htha Shukla Triodashi of 1674—named
Anandanama Samvat that Shivaji was coronated. The grand function took
place atop the 5,000-ft high Raigadh fort in Maharashtra. He became
thereafter a full-fledged chhatrapati—a Hindu emperor in his own
right.

In Maharashtra, the day is celebrated as Shiva Rajyarohana Utsav—the
day Shivaji was coronated. However, the RSS celebrates it as the Hindu
Samrajya Dinotsav. The reason for this is simple. Shivaji himself, as
a teenager, had taken the pledge to establish Hindavi swaraj and not
his own kingdom. He had also declared that it was the will of God that
the move should succeed. On his royal seal, he had declared that this
auspicious raja mudra of Shivaji, the son of Shahji, would grow like
the moon on the first day of Shukla Paksha and be venerated by the
entire world.

Evidence of the all-Hindu character of the function came in abundance
even at the time of the coronation. Jayaram, a gifted teenaged poet,
came all the way from Tamil Nadu to pay his poetic tributes to
Shivaji. Gaga Bhatta, a Vedic scholar of great repute, arrived from
Kashi and prepared a new scriptural text to install Shivaji as a
sovereign Hindu king. Waters from the seven sacred rivers of the
country were brought for his holy bath.

Even prior to this event, when Shivaji went to meet Aurangzeb at Agra,
people cutting across all barriers of caste, language and religious
customs, thronged throughout the route to pay respects to him.
Evidently, the Hindu population groaning under the inhuman Muslim
reign, looked upon him as their new ray of hope.

When Shivaji went to meet Aurangzeb at Agra, people cutting across all
barriers of caste, language and religious customs, thronged throughout
the route to pay respects to him.

Shivaji had written a long letter to Raja Jaisingh of Rajasthan, who
as a commander of Aurangzeb's army had descended on the south to
subdue the former. In it, Shivaji had appealed to him to take up the
role of freeing Hindusthan from the Muslim yoke while he himself would
join him as his junior partner. But Jaisingh was too strongly yoked to
the Mughals to heed this higher appeal of patriotism.

Later on, Raja Chhatrasal from Bundelkhand (presently in Madhya
Pradesh) came to Shivaji to fight under him for acquiring swaraj. But
Shivaji advised him to go back and build a powerful Hindu force, so
that they could launch a multi-pronged Hindu attack on the Muslims.

More than any other incident, as the successors of Shivaji, the
Peshwas had carried the Hindu (bhagawa) flag right up to Kabul and
ultimately crippled the Mughal seat of power—which had remained
unchallenged for several centuries—never to rise again. They had
rightly grasped the life mission of Chhatrapati Shivaji.

Swami Vivekananda once remarked that Shivaji was an ideal Hindu king
born to establish Dharma on the lines of Shri Ram and Sri Krishna.

Finally, what was the signifance of the elaborate ceremony performed
in the coronation of Shivaji? Firstly, as we have already noted, it
denoted the all-India Hindu character and thrust of the new kingdom.
More importantly, till then many of the Hindu chieftains were rajas—a
mere title conferred upon them by some Muslim emperor. Even Shivaji's
valiant father was one such. None of them except those from Mewar and
Bundelkhand were kings in their own right. Even these two did not have
the vision of establishing an all-India Hindu kingdom.

However, Shivaji's case was totally different. Even as a small raja
under the Bijapur Sultan, he had challenged the Delhi ruler by
attacking the latter's strongholds in the south. He was the first to
recognise the supreme importance of sea warfare and built forts on the
western sea-front meant for plying ships. Recognising the impending
threat of conversion, he warned the English missionaries and beheaded
four of them for disobeying his command. His son Sambhaji and the
later commanders continued with Shivaji's tradition and strove to
dislodge the hold of English and Portuguese missionaries on the
western coast.

More than any other step by Shivaji, the developments following his
passing away and the unbelievably inhuman martyrdom of Sambhaji
denoted the vision and mission that Shivaji had bequeathed to
posterity. Finding that the dreaded Shivaji was no more, Aurangzeb
himself descended on his kindgom and over-ran it forcefully. But soon
enough, the whole area seemed to be on fire. Every house became a fort
and every able-bodied youth a soldier of Hindavi swaraj. New
commanders displaying unparallel heroism and ability in guerilla
warfare rose up to launch fierce attacks on the enemy's force. One,
Dhanaji, pierced right upto Aurangzeb's royal tent, but as luck would
have it, the latter was away, so Dhanaji carried away the golden
insignia on his royal tent! In spite of a four-year long struggle with
a vast army and able war veterans, Aurangzeb succumbed to the attack
to eat the dust of swaraj and was buried at Aurangabad in south, now
named Sambhaji Nagar. Along with him lay forever buried the glory and
power of the mighty Mughals. It also heralded the saffron morning of
the rising sun of swaraj.