Shivaji's plunder of Surat (6-10th January 1664)
Surat fortress was impregnable for a cavalry force. But the city adjacent to it was entirely undefended. There was not even so much as a wall by way of a defensive structure. The Mughal empire was at the peak of its power at the time, and it was not imagined that some group of brigands could dare to mount a raid on its principal port.
Early in the morning of Tuesday, 5th January 1664, Surat city administration received the alarming news that Shivaji was encamped with a cavalry force 28 miles to the south of Surat and seemed poised to advance over the city.
Panic spread throughout the city. The poor were seen moving across the Tapti River with their valuables, women and children, while the rich bribed the fort commandant and took shelter inside the fort.
Inayat Khan, the governor of the city sent out an agent to negotiate a ransom sum with Shivaji. However, Shivaji seemed determined to assault the city. The news was received that the agent had been detained and Shivaji was advancing upon the city with all speed.
Inayat Khan was a cowardly man with little heart for a fight. When he realized that Shivaji was in no mood to negotiate, he retreated into the fort and shut himself; leaving the sprawling port city at the mercy of Shivaji and his brigands. Inayat Khan held a post that required him to maintain a cavalry force of 500. But, he had been drawing the money for a long time without maintaining the requisite force.
The city folks themselves had no resources to put up a fight. Consisting mostly of rich Muslim, Jain and Baniya merchants who were accustomed to looking towards the ruler of the day to provide protection. The richest among them were among the most powerful men of the time- some of them served as bankers to the royal treasury and princes. But they were not military men.
The only people, willing to put up a real fight, were the British and Dutch factors settled at Surat through a royal charter. Unlike city-based merchants, they were well armed and had ships waiting at sea, to which they could retreat in the case of a defeat. Sir George Oxenden had managed to muster a force of 200 armed sailors and six small guns mostly mustered from ships. Having prepared a rudimentary defensive line, Oxenden marched through the city with drums and trumpets, declaring that he intended to put up a fight. Taking the lead of the English, the Dutch, Armenian and Turkish merchants too organized a hurried defense of their factories.
Shivaji had begun his assault with just 4000 chosen cavalrymen. But by the time he reached Surat, zamindars of Jawhar, Ramnagar, and Thane, and two more Rajas of unknown provenance had joined forces with him in the hope of sharing the plunder. Now the size of Shivaji's army was close to 10000.
Shivaji entered the city at around 11 o’clock and camped in a garden inside the city. The night before he had sent messengers to the governor and the richest merchants of the city- commanding them to wait on him personally and make terms, failing which he threatened to condemn the city to fire and sword.
Since no answer had been received, Shivaji's horsemen began to plunder houses and set fire to them. Shivaji had planted a contingent of musketeers to maintain a constant fire upon the fortress and prevent soldiers from sallying forth from it. The fortress responded with cannon fire, most of which ended up damaging the city itself, instead of hurting the assailants in any serious manner.
Shivaji had a free run throughout Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Every day new fires were raised, and some new buildings were razed. By the time Shivaji's brigands were done, two-thirds of the city lay in dust and ash. An English chaplain wrote, “Thursday and Friday’s nights were the most terrible nights for fire. The fire turned the night into day, as before the smoke in the day-time had turned day into night, rising so thick that it darkened the sun like a great cloud.”
Baharji Borah's grand mansion stood outside the Dutch factory. He was among the richest merchants in the world. The Marathas plundered it at leisure day and night till Friday evening, when having ransacked it and dug up its floor, they set fire to it. From this house, they took 28 seers of large pearls and an incredible amount of money.
Another very rich merchant, Haji Syed Beg's mansion was being protected by armed English soldiers. In an initial skirmish, one Maratha trooper had been injured. Angered by this Shivaji sent a message to the English, calling them to pay him three lakh rupees and let his men free access to Haji's house, and threatening that in case they refused to do either he would come in person, kill every soul in the English factory, and raze their buildings to the ground. President Oxenden wrote back the next morning, that Shivaji should come one prahar sooner than he intended and that he was ready and waiting for him. To this challenge, Shivaji did not respond. He had won a lot of loot and it did not seem wise to make an ego-driven raid on a well-fortified position defended with artillery and guns.
The cowardly governor Inayat Khan sent a negotiating party, apparently to discuss terms with Shivaji, but secretly instructed to murder Shivaji through treachery. The assassination attempt failed, and all assailants were captured. Shivaji forbade the massacre of all of them; instead, he chopped the heads of four of them, and the hands of twenty-four others. The rest were spared.
The plunder of Surat had yielded Shivaji a crore of rupees. Having arrived at Surat, Shivaji had publicly declared that he had come not to hurt the merchants of the city and the English. But the English factor thought money was his sole aim. An old merchant who had brought 40 cartloads of cloth from Agra but sold none tried to satisfy Shivaji by offering it to him. But on answering that he had no ready cash, his right hand was cut, and his clothes burnt.
A Jewish ruby merchant wrote, “Mr. Smith was present when he cut off more than 26 hands in one day, and as many heads; whoever was brought before him and could not redeem himself, lost either his hand or head. His manner was to first plunder and then ask the owner of the house to pay him something over and above to keep his house from being burnt, and yet that perfidious villain would fire it afterwards.”
At ten o'clock in the morning of Sunday, the 10th Shivaji suddenly departed from Surat with his army, on hearing that an imperial army was approaching to relieve the city.
But the imperial army could reach only by the 17th, and then the cowardly governor emerged from within the fort. People hooted at him and flung dirt on him, for which his son shot dead a poor innocent Hindu trader
The emperor excused the customs duties of city merchants for one year, and he rewarded the valor of the English and Dutch traders by granting them a reduction of one-half per cent from the normal import duties in future.
Bibliography:
'Shivaji and His Times' Sir Jadunath Sarkar, MC Sarkar and Sons Pvt. Ltd. Calcutta, 1961
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