Shivaji The Grand Rebel

by Dennis Kincaid

Baji had only a few hundred hillmen to defend the pass with. He made them pile up a barricade of stones across the mouth of the defile. Behind this they awaited the Muhammadan attack. All day the heavy cavalry of Bijapur dashed against the band of hillmen who, falling one by one, never retreated by one step from the position Shivaji had ordered them to hold. Their commander, Baji, was desperately wounded; but even as he lay in agony he cried out continual encouragement to his men. Towards evening when there seemed no hope of further resistance, they heard the distant boom of a gun that told them Shivaji was safe. Bearing their dying commander on a rude stretcher, the Marathas fell back from the defile, not even molested in their retreat by the exhausted enemy. The defence of Rangana has become legendary in Western India. The action is remarkable as an example of the spirit which Shivaji’s leadership had infused into his followers. A band of despised hillmen, of Hindus hitherto resigned to submission, had stood up to the attack of vastly superior forces in the manner of Spartiates.