A twist of fate
The story of Ahilya begins thus. On his way back to his capital Indore in 1733, Malhar Rao, the Maratha ruler of Indore, spent the night in a small village. There he saw Ahilya, eight-year-old daughter of the village chief. Struck by her intelligence and her regal bearing, Malhar Rao decided to get her married to his only son, ten-year-old Khande Rao.
Malhar Rao gave Ahilya the education of a prince – not only in religious and secular texts, but also in the practice of arms, accounting, statecraft, strategy and administration. He was seldom in Indore as he ranged far and wide, raiding and conquering territories for the Marathas. He relied heavily on Ahilya for local administration. Ahilya was a workaholic, and soon gained a reputation for being extremely competent and fair.
When her husband died, Ahilya was held back from committing Sati by her father-in-law. After Malhar Rao’s death, Ahilya’s son Male Rao became the ruler but died within a year.
Checkmating raghoba
After Male Rao’s death, Ahilya, who had been the real ruler for years, decided to make it official. Horrified at the idea of a woman ruler, Raghoba, the uncle of the teenaged Peshwa and the de facto regent, decided to take back Indore directly under the rule of the Peshwa and moved towards it with 50,000 troops. He camped near Ujjain on the banks of the Shipra River. (A Peshwa is Prime Minister of the Maratha Empire.)
Ahilya decided to fight back on many fronts. She wrote to all the major Maratha Sardars like the Scindias and Gaikwads, reminding them of the favours they owed Malhar Rao. She wrote to Peshwa Madhav Rao. She readied her own troops.
Then she played a masterstroke. To paint Raghoba as an oppressor of widows, she got together about 500 women and formed a small army contigent, giving them some elementary battle training. She herself had her favourite elephant publicly readied for battle, with quivers of arrows placed on all four corners of the howdah.
Ahilya then wrote a letter to Raghoba, announcing her intention of fighting him with her contingent of women, and saying that he could only gain infamy battling with women; to win would be a dishonor, and to lose a still greater one.
Raghoba realized that he had bitten off more than he could chew. Instead of the cowed woman he had expected, he was facing armed women, Holkar troops, and a bombardment of letters from the Peshwa and Maratha Sardars asking him to desist! In an attempt to save face, he sent a message to Ahilya that he had only come to Indore to offer his condolences on the death of Male Rao. Ahilya then graciously invited him to Indore (sans his troops, of course) and he was royally entertained for a month.
Rebuilding India
An extreamly unusual aspect of Ahilya’s rule was her pan-India perspective. Ahilya took the crores of personal wealth accumulated by Malhar Rao, and formally dedicated it with a sankalp to the welfare of people across the country. She funded renovations, temples, ghats, dharamshalas and education centres at all the major Hindu pilgrimage sites across India, including in other kingdoms!
A fairy tale princess
Ahilya often solved problems in novel ways. For instance, the areas surrounding Indore were beset with dacoits who made travel unsafe. In a quixotic gesture straight out of a folk tale, Ahilya declared that she would give the hand in marriage of her daughter, the princess Muktabai, to the brave young man who would rid her kingdom of the menace of dacoits. As in all folk tales, a poor but brave young man, Yashwantrao Phanse, took up the challenge, and with troops and funds offered by her, made the kingdom safe and duly won the hand of the princess. With her characteristic magnanimity, Ahilya made the dacoits guardians of the highway, instead of executing them, and gave them the right to collect a highway toll!
Picture Credit : Google