Okay now here is presenting Baji rao Peshwa
by Rajagopal on Feb 07, 2008 01:50 AM
Bajirao became a Peshwa after joing hands with British in the forst Anglo Maratha war that took place in 1795 and conspired to kill Peshwa Sawai Madhavrao who died ignominiously without heir apparent to his throne in the year 1796.
And with the assistance of Daulatrao Scindia and Nana Phadnavis, Baji Rao became Peshwa, obviously clandestinely.
See what Manohar Moolgaonkar has to say about this: "Only someone perversely gifted could have succeeded in squandering so vast an inheritance in so short time or disgraced a noble name so thoroughly. He was mean, cruel, vindictive, avaricious but surprisingly well-read and shrewd in financial dealings. He was above all a moral and physical coward, the only Peshwa held in contempt by his subjects."
"As a Peshwa he made a deplorable overlord, a man delighted in humiliating his feudatories, seizing their estates on flimsiest of pretexts and what worse, someone imagined that their womenfolk too belonged to him"
