Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : Shivaji had to face opposition from the big Deshmukhs. Reason (R) : These Deshmukhs were not in favour of an independent Maratha State and wanted to remain as feudal lords of Bijapur. Select the correct answer from the codes given below :
- (a)Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).
- (b)(A) is false, but (R) is true.
- (c)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).
- (d)(A) is true, but (R) is false.
Correct — A, Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). The Assertion is true: Shivaji's hardest early fighting was not against the Mughals but against fellow Marathas. The great deshmukh houses of the Deccan — the Mores of Javli, the Ghorpades of Mudhol, the Nimbalkars of Phaltan, the Sawants of Sawantwadi, the Shirkes, Manes and Mohites — held hereditary deshmukhi rights and repeatedly stood against him; in 1656 Shivaji had Chandrarao More, described in the sources as a fellow Maratha feudatory of Bijapur, killed and seized the valley of Javli. The Reason is true as well, and it is precisely why the opposition happened. A deshmukh's authority was a watan — a hereditary lease over a pargana carrying a share of its revenue plus policing and magisterial duties — and those watans had been granted and confirmed by the Deccan sultanates, Bijapur above all. Under the Adil Shahi the deshmukh was in practice the little ruler of his own tract; under a sovereign Maratha kingdom, whose offices (the Ashtapradhan and its subordinates) were appointive, transferable and not hereditary, he would have been reduced to one servant among many. Their loyalty to Bijapur was therefore a defence of their own hereditary standing, which makes (R) a genuine explanation of (A) rather than an unrelated true statement.
- (b)(A) is false, but (R) is true. — The Assertion is not false. Shivaji's campaigns against the Mores of Javli (1656), the Ghorpades of Mudhol and other watandar families are among the best-attested episodes of his early career, and his standard methods against them — force, marital alliance, or dealing directly with the village patils so as to bypass the deshmukh altogether — only make sense because that opposition was real.
- (c)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). — This is the trap option in every assertion-reason set: it concedes both facts but denies the causal link. Here the link is direct. The deshmukhs opposed Shivaji *because* an independent Maratha state threatened the hereditary watan they held from Bijapur; the Reason states the motive behind the Assertion, so it does explain it.
- (d)(A) is true, but (R) is false. — The Reason is well documented, not false. Families such as the Sawants of Sawantwadi, the Ghorpades of Mudhol, the Nimbalkars of Phaltan, the Shirkes and the Mohites served the Adil Shahi of Bijapur, many of them with deshmukhi rights, and it was that position they were defending against Shivaji's new state.
A deshmukh was the hereditary chief of a pargana in the Deccan — originally a revenue collector, later carrying magisterial and policing duties as well, and entitled to a fixed share of the revenue he gathered. Over time such an assignment hardened into a watan, a hereditary lease that the family regarded as property, and the Deccan sultanates (Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, Golconda) granted and confirmed these watans in return for service and troops. The big Maratha deshmukhs were therefore not free-floating patriots but stakeholders in the Adil Shahi order, with forts, retainers and revenue rights to lose.
Reason your way through the option list by asking what the deshmukh actually stood to lose. Shivaji's kingdom was built on the opposite principle to a watan: ministers of the Ashtapradhan were appointed and could be moved, offices were not hereditary, forts were placed under more than one officer so that no single family could own them, and service was paid for rather than granted away in perpetuity. That is a direct assault on the watandar's world. The irony worth remembering is that Shivaji came from inside this system — the Bhonsles held the Pune-Supe jagir from Bijapur through his father Shahji — which is exactly why he understood how dangerous entrenched watandars were and refused to build his own state on them. Note also the exam-craft point: in an assertion-reason item, once you can state the Assertion's cause in your own words and find it written in the Reason, option (c) is eliminated.
- Deshmukh = hereditary head of a pargana; his rights formed a watan (a hereditary lease) carrying a share of the revenue plus police and magisterial duties. Deshmukhis were granted by the Deccan sultanates, and later by the Mughals, the Nizams and the Marathas.
- Maratha families that served the Adil Shahi of Bijapur, many of them with deshmukhi rights, include the Sawants of Sawantwadi, the Ghorpades of Mudhol, the Nimbalkars of Phaltan, the Shirkes, the Manes and the Mohites.
- In 1656 Shivaji had Chandrarao More — a fellow Maratha feudatory of Bijapur — killed and annexed the valley of Javli, which opened the route into the Konkan and gave him the Javli hills where Pratapgad stands.
- Shivaji's three standard techniques against the watandars were force, marital alliance, and dealing directly with the village patils so as to bypass the deshmukh.
- It was at Pratapgad, on 10 November 1659, that Shivaji killed the Bijapuri commander Afzal Khan — the clearest sign that Bijapur, not Delhi, was his first antagonist.
- Shivaji's own administration was deliberately anti-watan: the eight ministers of the Ashtapradhan held appointive, transferable, non-hereditary offices, and he preferred to pay in cash rather than alienate revenue permanently.
- Assuming that 'Maratha' automatically meant pro-Shivaji. Many of the biggest Maratha families fought for Bijapur or for the Mughals against him.
- Confusing the deshmukh (hereditary chief of a whole pargana) with the patil (headman of a single village). Shivaji's tactic of negotiating directly with patils only works as a strategy because the two are different levels.
- In assertion-reason questions, marking (c) 'both true but not the explanation' out of caution when the Reason actually states the motive behind the Assertion.
UPPSC likes this area as an assertion-reason or statement pair on the character of Shivaji's state; UPSC prefers institution-identification (Ashtapradhan portfolios, chauth and sardeshmukhi, mokasa) and match-the-term items.
Ashtapradhan was a Council of Ministers
- (a) in the Gupta Administration
- (b) in the Chola Administration
- (c) in the Vijayanagar Administration
- (d) in the Maratha Administration
Answer(d) in the Maratha Administration
The other half of the same idea: the Ashtapradhan was the appointive, non-hereditary bureaucracy Shivaji built precisely so that his state would not rest on hereditary watandars like the big deshmukhs.
Match List I with List II and select the correct answer using the codes given below the Lists: List I I. Iqta II. Jagir III. Amaram IV. Mokasa List II A) Marathas B) Delhi Sultans C) Mughals D) Vijayanagara Codes:
- (a) I-C, II-B, III-A, IV-D
- (b) I-B, II-C, III-D, IV-A
- (c) I-B, II-C, III-A, IV-D
- (d) I-C, II-B, III-D, IV-A
Answer(b) I-B, II-C, III-D, IV-A
Tests the same institution family — revenue assignments made in return for service. Mokasa is the Maratha term, and the tension in the UPPSC question is exactly between such assignments and the older hereditary watan of the deshmukh.
Consider the reign of following Peshwas and arrange them in chronological order - (I) Balaji Viswanath (II) Bajirao I (III) Narayan Rao (IV) Madhav Rao I Select the correct answer using the code given below -
- (a) II, I, IV, III
- (b) I, II, IV, III
- (c) I, III, II, IV
- (d) I, II, III, IV
Answer(b) I, II, IV, III
The later life of the same state. The Peshwa was one of Shivaji's eight appointed ministers; the fact that the office became hereditary in Balaji Vishwanath's family shows the watan principle Shivaji resisted reasserting itself after him.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In 1656 Shivaji annexed the valley of Javli after overthrowing which Maratha family that held it as a feudatory of Bijapur?
- (a)The Mores
- (b)The Ghorpades of Mudhol
- (c)The Nimbalkars of Phaltan
- (d)The Sawants of Sawantwadi
Answer(a) The Mores — Chandrarao More, described in the sources as a fellow Maratha feudatory of Bijapur, was killed in 1656 and Javli was taken, opening Shivaji's route into the Konkan.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the Deccan of the seventeenth century, the term 'watan' as held by a deshmukh essentially meant:
- (a)A hereditary right over a pargana carrying a share of its revenue and local authority
- (b)A cash salary paid monthly from the royal treasury
- (c)A temporary military command over a fort, revocable at will
- (d)A tax-free grant of land made to religious scholars
Answer(a) A hereditary right over a pargana carrying a share of its revenue and local authority — precisely the standing that made the big deshmukhs resist a new sovereign Maratha state.