Dalrymple refers to Shivaji as a “Maratha Hindu warlord,” a label that carries the connotation of a violent, unprincipled strongman—an archetype commonly associated with chaos and personal ambition rather than political legitimacy or moral vision. In stark contrast, Nader Shah is described as a “tough, ruthless, and efficient figure” possessed of “remarkable military talents.” While the former is dismissed with the Mughal epithet of a “desert rat,” the latter is eulogized as a “great king” who entered India at the helm of 80,000 well-disciplined soldiers. The disparity is not merely semantic—it is ideological.
The term “warlord,” as used in historical literature, is typically reserved for those who raise private armies to conquer, plunder, and terrorize. Yet there is no historical evidence—certainly none presented by Dalrymple—that justifies its use for Shivaji. A product of Indian soil, Shivaji waged defensive wars against an imperial force that sought to annihilate indigenous polities and religious traditions. He never set foot beyond the Indian subcontinent as a conqueror, nor did he command his troops to commit atrocities on civilian populations. Indeed, most serious historians agree that Shivaji was a liberator, not a marauder.
Nader Shah, by contrast, epitomized the quintessential plundering invader. In 1737–38, his troops unleashed unspeakable violence in Delhi, massacring between 20,000 to 30,000 civilians and abducting tens of thousands of women and children into slavery. The estimated value of the loot he carried back to Persia—by today’s standards—approaches $120 billion. Yet Dalrymple’s portrayal of this Persian conqueror borders on reverential. Nader’s military prowess is extolled; his savage crimes are glossed over.
The inconsistencies grow more conspicuous when we examine Dalrymple’s treatment of class and social mobility. In an apparent attempt to undermine the Marathas, he quotes a Muslim chronicler who sneers at the humble origins of Shivaji’s soldiers—“husbandmen, carpenters, and shopkeepers.” But Nader Shah’s low birth elicits no such disdain. Instead, Dalrymple favorably cites a French Jesuit who praises Nader’s kingly attributes despite his shepherd ancestry: “Nature had given him all the qualities that make a hero and even some of those that make a great king.” Why, then, is peasant lineage admirable in Persia but contemptible in Maharashtra?
Such double standards permeate the book. Dalrymple routinely cites hostile sources to malign the Marathas, including a passage describing them as “slayers of pregnant women and infants, of Brahmans and the poor.” While no serious historian would deny that the Maratha military campaign in Bengal was destructive—as was nearly every eighteenth-century war—the uncritical use of such invective, especially without contextual counterbalance, suggests an intent to vilify rather than understand.
Meanwhile, Dalrymple lavishes adulation on Tipu Sultan, portraying him not only as a capable ruler and military strategist but as a figure of physical allure. He quotes an English observer who gushes over Tipu’s appearance: “uncommonly well-made… arms large and muscular… large animated black eyes.” It is a strangely romantic description, and one wonders why no Maratha leader is afforded even a modicum of similar admiration.
Tipu Sultan is described as “daring,” “innovative,” and “methodical,” with notable achievements on the battlefield. Yet Dalrymple omits crucial facts: from 1762 to 1787, the Marathas defeated both Tipu and his father Hyder Ali in every major encounter. These defeats were so thorough that Tipu and Hyder were forced to pay regular tribute to the Marathas. On at least five occasions, the Marathas could have executed them but refrained, opting instead for financial settlements—a testament to their restraint, not weakness. Tipu’s final downfall came not at the hands of Indian powers but under the ruthless assault of the British East India Company in 1799.
It is important to note that The Anarchy purports to be a history of the East India Company, not of the Marathas. Yet Dalrymple devotes considerable energy to painting the Marathas as anarchic forces, suggesting that they too contributed to the unraveling of Indian polity. While it is true that the eighteenth century was marked by fractured sovereignties and internecine warfare, Dalrymple’s selective narration is troubling. He treats Islamic rulers with generous nuance and the British with grudging respect, but the Hindu resistance—epitomized by Shivaji and the Marathas—is depicted with unrelenting cynicism.
A glaring feature of this imbalance is Dalrymple’s near-total silence on the civilizational context of Hindu India prior to the Islamic invasions. The rich traditions of Hindu and Buddhist thought, art, governance, and urban life are barely acknowledged. Instead, the book conveys the impression that India was a perpetually fragmented land, over which Islamic and European powers justifiably asserted dominance. This erasure of historical continuity amounts to a historiographical sleight of hand.
Dalrymple, for all his literary flair and archival diligence, is not above the ideological temptations of the present. In The Anarchy, he writes not as a neutral historian, but as a partisan chronicler with a discernible bias against Hindu civilizational narratives. His work echoes the Mughal court historians who exalted imperial power while denigrating local resistance as “banditry” and “rebellion.”
In sum, The Anarchy is a flawed book—not because of its literary shortcomings, but because of its historical selectivity and ideological undertones. Dalrymple’s prose may be elegant, but his interpretation is marred by partiality. A truly honest account of India’s past must rise above inherited prejudices and colonial templates. On that count, The Anarchy falls short.
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