User:Rajesh of Raigad

• Who was Shivaji?

R. R. Desai writes,

"Shivaji was the founder of the Maratha kingdom. The kingdom’s security was based on religious toleration and on the functional integration of the Brahmans, Marathas, and Prabhus.

"Shivaji breathed new life into a moribund race that for centuries had resigned itself to abject serfdom and led them against Aurangzeb, a powerful Mughal ruler. Above all, in a place and age stained by religious savagery, he was one of few rulers who practiced true religious tolerance."

"Shivaji found the Muslim oppression and religious persecution of the Hindus so intolerable that, by the time he was 16, he convinced himself that he was the divinely appointed instrument of the cause of Hindu freedom—a conviction that was to sustain him throughout his life."

"All the same, his daring and military skill, combined with his sternness toward the oppressors of the Hindus, won him much admiration"

"Overnight, Shivaji had become a formidable warlord, possessing the horses, the guns, and the ammunition of the Bijapur army."

"The man that British politician and author Thomas Babington Macaulay (later Baron Macaulay of Rothley) called 'the Great Shivaji' died after an illness in April 1680, in the mountain stronghold of Rajgarh"