The Third Battle of Panipat- India’s Most Momentous Battle

On January 22, the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) organized a talk on 'The Third Battle of Panipat- India’s most momentous battle' by Col. Ajay Singh (Retd.). He has authored multiple books and over 200 articles in a wide range of genres. His books include ‘The Battles that Shaped Indian History,’ a collection of twelve of India’s major battles; ‘A Spectrum of Modern Warfare’; and ‘India’s Battlefields from Kurukshetra to Balakot,’ which covers 42 of India’s battles; ‘War in Ukraine: The Conflict and its Global Impact’ and ‘Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan… A World at War’. He is the recipient of the Rabindranath Tagore International Award for Art and Literature 2021 and the Bharat Literary Award 2023.

In the introductory remark, VIF Director Dr. Arvind Gupta briefly touched on the impact of the Third Battle of Panipat on the Marathas, who were the dominant political power in the Indian subcontinent in the mid-18th Century. The defeat in the battle led to the stagnation of the Maratha Empire and was one of the prime reasons for their eventual decline.

Col. Ajay Singh’s talk on the Third Battle of Panipat provided a complete outline of the key events starting from the ad hoc arrangements made by the Marathas to gather an army of more than 50,000 soldiers, their slow march towards the north accompanied by 20,000 women and children, the initial encounters and skirmishes with the Afghans, and the final confrontation at Panipat on the auspicious day of Makar Sankranti, 14 January 1761. Col. Singh briefly discussed the importance of Panipat in shaping the political history of India. In the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 CE, Babur came to India with a smaller but technologically advanced army, armed with gunpowder weapons like cannons, muskets and light cavalry. It was because of the use of advanced weaponry that Babur was able to defeat the numerically larger army of Ibrahim Lodi.

In the Second Battle of Panipat in 1556 CE, Col. Singh highlighted the superior military tactics of the Mughals. Bairam Khan, the commander-in-chief of the Mughal Army and regent to Mughal Emperor Akbar, employed brilliant military tactics to secure victory for the Mughal forces against the superior army of Hemu Vikramaditya, Maharaja of Delhi. The Mughal cavalry provided the Mughal forces mobility over the slow-moving elephant-based war tactics of Hemu’s forces. The Mughals created chaos in Hemu’s army by blocking the advance of the war elephants with the clever use of artillery. Bairam Khan also deployed several detachments of archers to specifically target Hemu’s eyes on the battlefield. Eventually, Hemu was struck in the eye by an arrow, causing disarray among his troops, which ultimately resulted in the death of Hemu and the Mughal victory. These two battles at Panipat helped in the establishment of the Mughal Empire in India, which would dominate the subcontinent for the next 200 years.

The Mughal Empire started declining rapidly immediately after the death of Aurangzeb at the beginning of the 18th century. The Marathas were the rising political power in the subcontinent, and they tried to fill the vacuum created by the Mughal decline. The Marathas started expanding their sphere of influence in India. They dominated the Deccan and started sending military expeditions to distant lands as far as Afghanistan and Bengal. The rapid rise of the Marathas brought them into conflict with the Durrani Empire in Afghanistan. The Muslim rulers of Northern India also started seeing the Marathas as a threat to their power and religion. Najib-ud-Daulah of Rohilkhand in present-day western Uttar Pradesh and Shuja-ud-Daulah, Nawab of Awadh, invited Ahmad Shah Abdali to wage Jihad against the Marathas. Jihad against the infidels was not the only motivation for Ahmad Shah Abdali to march with his army to India. He was assured a payment of Rs 2 crores by the Muslim alliance.

In January 1760, Abdali entered India through the Khyber Pass. The Maratha garrisons located in Punjab were swiftly captured. The Afghan army camped in Saharanpur (in Uttar Pradesh) in the kingdom of Najib-ud-Daulah. The Marathas under Peshwa Nanasaheb decided to send an expeditionary force to counter the advance of the Afghans. On 7th March 1760, a large army led by Peshwa’s cousin Sadashivrao Bhau and accompanied by the Peshwa’s teenage son Vishwas Rao was dispatched from Udgir. The Maratha army consisted of about 55,000 troops, which included 40,000 cavalry, 15,000 troops and 200 pieces of artillery. The strength of the Marathas was further bolstered by regional allies like the Holkars of Indore and Scindias of Gwalior, who joined the marching army.

Col. Singh said that even though the Marathas were able to gather a large army in a short span of time, they were ill-equipped and lacked administrative support. The Maratha army faced logistical challenges, such as inadequate supplies. The army was told to live off the land as it advanced, a strategy that led to the looting and pillaging of the countryside over which it advanced and earned it much antagonism in its northward move. The army was also burdened by the presence of around 15-20,000 women and children and camp followers, which slowed the advance of the army. The slow-moving Maratha army took months to reach Delhi. After capturing Delhi in July 1760, the Marathas spent three months consolidating their position. During this time, the Marathas alienated the local populace through looting.

The Marathas were stationed on the west bank of the Yamuna and the Afghan army, and its allies were in Meerut–Saharanpur on the eastern side. There were smaller clashes and skirmishes between the patrols of the two armies almost regularly, but there was no major clash of arms till October. At the end of October, Sadashivbhau led the army out of Delhi and captured Kunjpura, an Afghan supply hub on the west bank of Yamuna, which had a strong Afghan presence of about 10,000 soldiers. The Marathas effectively used the cavalry and the artillery to capture the fort. Abdali and his main army were on the other side of the river but were unable to aid his besieged forces due to a swollen Yamuna River. However, Abdali turned the tide with a strategic masterstroke on the night of October 25, 1760, when he crossed the Yamuna despite treacherous conditions. This manoeuvre cut off the Maratha escape route to Delhi and forced them to encamp at Panipat. Over the next three months, the Marathas faced a siege characterized by starvation, disease, and skirmishes. The Maratha troops were ill-equipped to tackle the cold winters of the northern plains.

The besieged Marathas decided to break the Afghan blockade by attacking them on 14 January 1761, on the auspicious day of Makar Sankranti. One of the heroes of the Marathas in this battle was Ibrahim Khan Gardi, a Muslim chief in the Maratha army. Ibrahim Khan Gardi was in charge of the Maratha artillery. The Marathas under Gardi attacked from the left flank and were able to make slow and steady progress and inflicted significant losses on the Afghan forces. The 20,000-strong Huzarat troops, under Sadashiv Rao Bhau, attacked the Afghans in the center, causing disarray among Abdali’s forces. At this stage, the Marathas appeared to have the upper hand. However, their right flank, commanded by Holkar and Scindia, failed to advance. This critical hesitation allowed Abdali to stabilize his crumbling lines by deploying reinforcements and forcing retreating Afghan soldiers back into battle.

Later in the afternoon, the Marathas’ offensive started losing its effectiveness. Abdali used cavalry and zamburaks (camel-mounted swivel guns) in the Afghan counterattack. The zamburaks were light and extremely mobile on the battlefield. The zamburaks poured a relentless stream of fire on the Marathas, who were gradually being compressed in a tight knot ahead of the Afghan positions. The Maratha troops suffered heavy casualties under relentless Afghan fire. A turning point came when Vishwas Rao, the Peshwa’s son, was struck by a bullet and killed instantly. His death shattered Maratha’s morale, and their troops began fleeing in panic. Abdali’s reserves then attacked from multiple directions, leading to a complete Maratha rout. The Afghans slaughtered the Marathas, with an estimated 30,000–40,000 killed that day alone. The Maratha camp was ransacked, and Afghan soldiers took women and children as slaves. Almost 60,000-70,000 men lost their lives in the Third Battle of Panipat, which is why it is described as the Bloodiest Day of the 18th Century.

Col. Singh concluded his talk by reflecting on the aftermath of the battle, which was nothing less than catastrophic for the Maratha Empire. Of the initial force, only about 15,000 soldiers survived and returned to the Deccan. Abdali left back for Afghanistan soon after the battle, receiving hefty compensation from the Muslim rulers. The Peshwa died of shock upon hearing the news, and the Maratha power, though it revived in subsequent decades, never regained its former dominance. The battle weakened indigenous resistance to foreign domination, paving the way for British colonial rule, which endured for nearly 200 years. An engaging discussion accompanied this, and the session ended with concluding remarks by Dr. Arvind Gupta.