Thread by @prathgodbole

Dalrymple's Anarchy has so many false claims I don't know if anyone involved in publishing even did a google search for most of the claims.

The real anarchy is the extent of factual accuracy in the book.

Few examples

Haider was never sultan. His position was Dalvai or army chief. Tipu was the first and last sultan.

Regardless, Shivaji is described as "war leader" despite a coronation as king.

Aurangzeb's campaign in the Deccan was apparently against the Deccan sultans PRIMARILY and totally not against the Marathas who had granted asylum to his rebel son.

apparently Marathas came into existence from the void AFTER the deccan sultanates were gone, Shivaji Raje even attacking them in 1680s when had already passed away.

how did mughal hq of deccan end up in Pune? lol

Avoided pitched battles - Battles of salher, dindori, pratapgad apparently didnt happen at all.

The 1719 revolution, treaty isn't even mentioned, so obviously its implications or consequences are lost entirely.

"Swift moving warband". Remember its illegal to say its an army with generals, officers and soldiers. Yet somehow "warbands" keep defeating armies.

technical error- jazayerchis were foot musketeers with wall guns. swivel guns were "jezails", or "zamburaks". these werent anything new, and in use even at the battle of salher in 1671.

Amount of plunder inflated 10x from 8m gbp (80m rupees) to 87 to shift the attribution for Mughal decline from Bajirao's campaigns to Nadir Shah.

Marathas were collecting 10mil rupees from Malwa not 1m. another 7m from gujarat, 10m chauth from deccan EACH year.

Why do these 'inaccuracies' matter?

If your book is based on a specific narrative, that of anarchy across the subcontinent, it has to be accurate.

If your chain of causality of events/numbers are false or jumbled, so is the narrative.

Mughal army at the battle of Buxar was supposedly 150,000. Contemporary Maratha dispatches put it at 15k, while other sources say ~20k.

Feeds into the myth of few supermen defeating armies 10-100x their size. Similar numbers inflated for Plassey.

Balwantrao Mehendale was slain by a bullet when he led a cavalry charge during a skirmish. Same for Govindpant, who died over 100+ miles distant from Panipat during a raid. Neither were hit by artillery nor were they together.

apparently no one before Haider Ali used large trains of bullocks to carry army supplies, LOL.

This is a logical explanation if youve already declared Marathas or other states as "raiders" and pretended their records for logistics dont exist.

BajiraoII never promised to send any 25,000 troops against Mysore except perhaps some verbal discussion with the English envoy.

On the contrary only reason Tipu was not destroyed in 1792 was because both Marathas+Nizam wanted him as a buffer state tying down EIC forces.

The Treaty of Bassein, where BajiraoII agreed to seek English help was signed AFTER not before the battle of Pune. His defeat in this battle and loss of armies is why he needed the treaty in the first place.

Mahadji's revenue from Malwa was 5 million, not 2, and that formed only a small part of his total of 40 million.

Since the 8 year long civil war has been ignored, anything else that doesnt fit the narrative is also ignored. irrelevant data pts mixed in.

I'll end the thread here but there are many other mistakes that i skipped over in the interest of major ones.

overall its a book that forcefits history into a predefined narrative. ignores or skips the bits that dont add up, at other places invents new ones.

EIC wasn't Amazon, it was the equivalent of a PSU with a global monopoly. The Parliament, nobility and crown controlled it. It had monopolies on a country's trade. It got officers and expertise from the army and navy. It was an exstenion of the state, not independent.

This is precisely the opposite of what happened. It is the British govt that used the EIC to expand - which every other state also did at the time. They just got lucky w. circumstances.

Nor was it a century of anarchy unless you were in Delhi or Calcutta in a few select years.