State any two achievements of Sambhaji.
Answers
The 1687 Battle of Wai saw the Maratha forces badly weakened by the Mughals. The key Maratha commander Hambirao Mohite was killed and troops began to desert the Maratha armies. Sambhaji's positions were spied upon by his own relations, the Shirke family, who had defected to the Mughals. Sambhaji and 25 of his advisors were captured by the Mughal forces of Muqarrab Khan in a skirmish at Sangameshwar in February 1689.[5]:47
Accounts of Sambhaji's confrontation with the Mughal ruler and following torture, execution and disposal of his body, vary widely depending on the source, though generally all agree that he was tortured and executed on the emperor's orders.[5]:50
The captured Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash were taken to Bahadurgad in present-day Ahmednagar district, where Aurangzeb humiliated them by parading them wearing clown's clothes and they were subjected to insults by Mughal soldiers. Accounts vary as to the reasons for what came next: Mughal accounts state that Sambhaji was asked to surrender his forts, treasures and names of Mughal collaborators with the Marathas and that he sealed his fate by insulting both the emperor and the Islamic prophet Muhammad during interrogation and was executed for having killed Muslims.[31] The ulema of the Mughal Empire sentenced Sambhaji to death for the atrocities his troops perpetrated against Muslims in Burhanpur, including plunder, killing, rape, and torture.[16]
Maratha accounts instead state that he was ordered to bow before Aurangzeb and convert to Islam and it was his refusal to do so, by saying that he would accept Islam on the day the emperor presented him his daughter's hand, that led to his death.[32] By doing so he earned the title of Dharmaveer ("protector of dharma").[33] Aurangzeb ordered Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash to be tortured to death; the process took over a fortnight and included plucking out their eyes and tongue, pulling out their nails and removing their skin. Sambhaji was finally killed on 11 March 1689,[34] reportedly by tearing him apart from the front and back with wagh nakhe (metal "tiger claws") and beheading with an axe at Tulapur on the banks of the Bhima river near Pune.[5]:50
Other accounts state that Sambhaji challenged Aurangzeb in open court and refused to convert to Islam. Dennis Kincaid writes, "He (Sambhaji) was ordered by the Emperor to embrace Islam. He refused and was made to run the gauntlet of the whole Imperial army. Tattered and bleeding he was brought before the Emperor and repeated his refusal. His tongue was torn and again the question was put. He called for writing material and wrote 'Not even if the emperor bribed me with his daughter!' So then he was put to death by torture".[33]
Some accounts state that Sambhaji's body was cut into pieces and thrown into the river or that the body or portions were recaptured and cremated at the confluence of rivers at Tulapur.[35][36] Other accounts state that Sambhaji's remains were fed to the dogs.[37]