Battle of Bhima- Koregaon: 1818

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

The authors of this article

1. ZEESHAN SHAIKH, January 4, 2018: The Indian Express

2. Shreya Biswas, January 2, 2018: India Today

3. January 3, 2018: The Economic Times

The battle: January 1, 1818

It was the last battle of the Anglo-Maratha war fought at Koregaon on the banks of Bhima river, hence the name Bhima Koregaon battle, on January 1, 1818 between the British East India Company and the Peshwa faction of the Maratha Confederacy. Peshwa Baji Rao II, defeated in the Battle of Khadki near Pune on 5 November 1817, hotly pursued by the Company forces, turned towards Pune. On his way, he ran into an 800-strong Company force. The Peshwa sent around 2,000 soldiers to attack the Company forces, turned towards Pune. On his way, he ran into an 800-strong Company force.

The Peshwa sent around 2,000 soldiers to attack the Company force led by Captain Francis Staunton. The Company troops fought for the whole day, forcing Peshwa's troops to withdrew because they feared Company reinforcements.

A brief history

The Battle of Koregaon (aka Koregaon-Bhima battle, or Bhima-Koregaon battle) was fought between the British East India Company and the Peshwas army at Koregaon Bhima on January 1, 1818.

Legend has it that about 500 Mahar soldiers under the East India Company clashed with a 25,000-strong army of Peshwa Bajirao II.

Mahars, at this point, were considered an Untouchable community, and were not recruited in the army by the Peshwas.

Despite this, as per the Dalit version of the Koregaon-Bhima battle, Mahars approached Peshwa Bajirao II to let them join his army against the British. Their offer was turned down. That is when the Mahars approached the British, who welcomed them into their army.

The Battle of Koregaon ended with the British-led Mahar soldiers defeating the Peshwas. The victory was not just of a battle for the Mahars, but a win against caste-based discrimination and oppression itself.

In 1851, the British erected a memorial pillar at Koregaon-Bhima to honour the soldiers -- mostly Mahars -- who had died in this battle. On January 1, 1927, Bhimrao Ambedkar started the ritual of holding a commemoration at the site of this pillar, one that is repe