#TheMarathaCentury - Shivneri To Panipat

Online Masterclass by Dr Uday S Kulkarni

In 1646, a young Raja Shivaji captured his first fort, laying the seed of the mighty Maratha empire. At our Online Masterclass #TheMarathaCentury, historian and author Dr Uday S Kulkarni takes us through roughly through the first hundres years of the Maratha Empire, their relevance in Indian history and the difference they made to present day India. He starts from its turbulent beginnings to a stable empire extending from the Chambal to the Yamuna, ending with the Battle of Panipat in 1761. This period of just over a hundred years deals with the rule of the first three kings or Chhatrapati of the Marathas, the quarter century of war with Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, the reign of Chhatrapati Shahu and the rise of the Peshwas under Balaji Vishwanath and Bajirao Ballal.

About the speaker

Dr Uday S. Kulkarni, a surgeon by training and a historian by passion, is the author of six non fiction books on 18th-century Indian history. He joined the Indian Navy in 1979 and served in the defence forces for sixteen years, taking voluntary retirement in 1995 in the rank of Surgeon Commander. He began practicing as a surgeon in Pune and while continuing his surgical practice, he returned to his love of history in 2010 to write ‘The Solstice at Panipat’, an account of the third battle of Panipat. His latest book is ‘The Maratha Century - Vignettes and Anecdotes of the Maratha Empire’.