Picture this: it's 1741, and somewhere in rural Bengal, a mother is singing a haunting lullaby to her child. *"খোকা ঘুমালো, পাড়া জুড়ালো, বর্গী এলো দেশে"* - "Sleep, my child, the neighborhood sleeps, the Bargis have come to our land." What sounds like a gentle bedtime song actually carries the terror of one of Bengal's most forgotten yet traumatic chapters.
Here's the thing about Bengali history - we remember the British, we remember the Mughals, but somehow the decade-long Maratha invasions that devastated Bengal have almost vanished from popular memory. Yet for ten brutal years, from 1741 to 1751, Bengali mothers sang their children to sleep with songs about the approaching terror of the Bargis.
The story begins not in Bengal, but in distant Nagpur, where Raghoji Bhonsle ruled as the Maratha chief. Initiated by Peshwa Baji Rao I, the Marathas sought to expand their dominance, with Raghuji Bhonsle targeting Bengal for its wealth and lack of Maratha tribute. What this really means is that Bengal, with its legendary prosperity, had become too tempting a prize to ignore. In 1741, political chaos in Bengal provided the perfect opportunity. The cavalry of Raghoji Bhosle, the Maratha ruler of Nagpur, started to pillage western Bengal under the command of Bhaskar Pandit. Bengalis called these Marathas "Bargis" which is a corruption of the Marathi word, "bargir" (etymology: Persian) which means "light cavalry".
But here's what makes this particularly fascinating - these weren't just military campaigns. From 1741 to 1751, the Marathas under Raghuji Bhonsle invaded Bengal six times. The first one in 1741, as also the third in 1744, were led by Raghuji's general Pandit Bhaskar Ram Kolhatkar or Bhaskar Pandit. The second in 1742 and the fourth in 1745 were led by Raghuji himself. The fifth in 1747 and the sixth in 1748 were undertaken by Janoji and Sabaji respectively. This wasn't conquest; this was systematic extraction of wealth through terror. The pattern was chillingly consistent: Maratha invasions took place almost as an annual event for 10 years. Each spring, Bengali villages would brace themselves for the sound of approaching hooves. A Maratha army from Nagpur invaded Burdwan district in early April 1742. Nawab Alivardi Khan arrived at Burdwan from Cuttack on 15 April 1742. This timing wasn't coincidental - the Marathas struck during harvest season, when Bengal's wealth was most visible and accessible.
The man who led the first wave of devastation was Bhaskar Ram Kolhatkar, known to history as Bhaskar Pandit. Think of him as the architect of terror in Bengal. The first one in 1741, as also the third in 1744, were led by Raghuji's general Pandit Bhaskar Ram Kolhatkar or Bhaskar Pandit.What made the Bargi raids so devastating wasn't just their military efficiency - it was their systematic nature. During that period of invasion by the Marathas, mercenaries called as "bargis", perpetrated atrocities against the local population, against Bengali Hindus and Biharis. This challenges a common narrative we've inherited about medieval Indian history. These weren't Hindu-Muslim conflicts - they were purely about power and wealth. Bengali Hindus suffered just as much as Bengali Muslims under the Maratha cavalry.
The year 1743 marked a particularly dark chapter when Bengal faced simultaneous attacks. In 1743 two Maratha armies invaded - one belonged to Raghuji Bhosle, the other to Balaji Rao. This wasn't coordination - it was competition. Two separate Maratha powers racing to extract maximum tribute from the same territory. Alivardi Khan was obliged to pay a subsidy and promise to pay him chauth (tax) in the future. The double invasion revealed the systematic nature of Maratha strategy. They weren't just raiding - they were establishing a tributary system that would guarantee ongoing wealth extraction. The chauth was a revolutionary concept: one-fourth of the revenue was to be paid to the Marathas as protection money. What this really means is that Bengal was being forced into a protection racket on a massive scale.
Here's where Bengali history gets truly cinematic. Alivardi Khan, the Nawab of Bengal, realized he couldn't defeat the Marathas through conventional warfare. So he resorted to what we might call medieval espionage.Alivardi Khan invited Bhaskar and other Maratha leaders to entertainment at Mankara, near Katwa in a large tent. On entering the tent, assassins hidden behind the screens massacred Bhaskar Pandit and 21 of his captains, and all the Maratha detachment vacated Bengal and Orissa. This incident, known as the "Feast of Mankara," gave Bengal fifteen months of peace. But what's remarkable is how this story has been almost entirely erased from popular Bengali consciousness, despite its dramatic nature and historical significance.
Here's where the story gets even more complex. When Alivardi broke his promise to make his general Ghulam Mustafa Khan governor of Bihar for having murdered Bhaskar, Mustafa Khan rebelled and assaulted Patna, inviting Raghuji to invade. This betrayal within Alivardi's own ranks shows how the Maratha pressure created internal fractures in the Bengali administration. The assassination at Mankara wasn't just a clever diplomatic move - it had dangerous consequences that prolonged the conflict.After the assassination at Mankara, the invasions didn't end - they evolved. The fifth invasion in 1747 was led by Janoji, and the sixth in 1748 by Sabaji, both representing the next generation of Maratha commanders. These later invasions lacked the brutal efficiency of Bhaskar Pandit but maintained the same extractive purpose.
The Battle of Burdwan in 1747 marked one of Alivardi Khan's rare victories against the Marathas. After the dismissal of Mir Jafar by Alivardi Khan, an army was amassed to defend against the invading Maratha forces of Janoji Bhonsle at Orissa. Alivardi Khan managed to heavily repulse and defeat the Maratha forces. Yet even this victory couldn't stop the cycle of invasion and tribute.
The human cost was enormous. The repeated invasions exercised a highly pernicious influence on trade, industries, currency, and agriculture in Bengal causing economic distress. Between 1742 and 1751 Bengal was repeatedly invaded and, in 1751, the Bengal Nawab had to cede Orissa to the Marathas. This wasn't just territorial loss - it represented the failure of the traditional Bengali defense system to protect its people. The atrocities devastated Bengal's economy, as many of the people killed in the Bargi raids included merchants, textile weavers, silk winders, and mulberry cultivators. What this really means is that the Marathas weren't just extracting wealth - they were systematically destroying Bengal's capacity to generate wealth in the future.
The final resolution came not through military victory but through exhaustion and pragmatic compromise. In 1751, the Marathas signed a peace treaty with the Nawab of Bengal, according to which Mir Habib (a former courtier of Alivardi Khan, who had defected to the Marathas) was made provincial governor of Orissa. The treaty was particularly galling for Bengali pride. Mir Habib, a Bengali who had defected to the Marathas, was now governing Orissa on behalf of Maratha interests. This wasn't just political betrayal - it was a symbol of how the decade of invasions had fundamentally altered the power balance in Eastern India.
What this really means is that the Maratha invasions left deeper scars on Bengali culture than any textbook will tell you. The word "Bargi" itself became synonymous with terror in Bengali folklore. Those lullabies weren't just songs - they were cultural memories passed down through generations.The invasions fundamentally changed how Bengalis saw themselves and their security. For the first time in centuries, the heartland of Bengal - not just its borders - faced systematic devastation. The resurgent Maratha Confederacy launched brutal raids against the prosperous Bengali state in the 18th century, which further added to the decline of the Nawabs of Bengal.
Here's something that should make us pause and think. For medieval India history, incidents that don't fit into an overarching Hindu versus Muslim narrative tend to be removed from popular discourse. The 1741 Maratha invasion of Bengal is one such example.The Maratha invasions don't fit neatly into the communal narratives that later historians preferred. They complicate the story of Hindu-Muslim conflict that became so central to how we understand Indian history. Bengali Hindus and Muslims both suffered under Hindu Maratha cavalry - it doesn't fit the template. But there's another reason this history disappeared: it challenges the narrative of Maratha resistance to Mughal rule. The Marathas in Bengal weren't freedom fighters resisting foreign oppression - they were extractors of wealth from fellow Indians. This doesn't align with the heroic narratives that emerged around Maratha history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Contemporary accounts don't mince words about what happened. The Bargi atrocities were corroborated by contemporary Dutch and British accounts. European observers, who had no stake in communal narratives, consistently described the Maratha raids as devastating attacks on civilian populations regardless of religion.
What can we learn from this forgotten decade? First, that Bengali prosperity has always made it a target. Second, that cultural memory often preserves what official history forgets - those lullabies about Bargis carried more historical truth than many chronicles.Most importantly, the Maratha invasions remind us that medieval Bengal wasn't the peaceful, prosperous paradise we sometimes imagine. It was a society that had to develop sophisticated strategies - military, diplomatic, and even psychological - to survive in a violent world.
The decade of 1741-1751 didn't just mark the end of Bengal's medieval golden age - it marked the beginning of a new awareness of vulnerability that would shape Bengali consciousness for centuries to come. When the British arrived later that century, they weren't conquering a secure, confident society. They were taking over a region that had already learned, through brutal experience, how quickly safety could disappear.
The mothers who sang those lullabies about Bargis were doing more than putting their children to sleep. They were teaching them that the world was dangerous, that prosperity attracted predators, and that survival required eternal vigilance. In many ways, that lesson has never stopped being relevant to Bengal's story.