Bajirao II

Bajirao II was the last Peshwa, signed the treaty that made the Maratha state a British protectorate, and lived out thirty years on a pension near Kanpur. He was Raghunathrao and Anandibai's son, born while his parents were fugitives, and grew up in confinement under the council that had refused his father the office. He got it in 1795 after Madhavrao II's death, imprisoned Nana Fadnavis, and spent his reign playing the Maratha houses against each other rather than holding them together. In 1802 Yashwantrao Holkar defeated him outside Pune and he fled to the British, signing the Treaty of Bassein - subsidiary alliance, a Company garrison, foreign policy surrendered - which bought him his throne back and cost the confederacy its independence. Shinde and Bhonsle went to war against the Company rather than accept it, and lost. He rose one last time in 1817, was defeated at Khadki and Koregaon, and surrendered in 1818; the Peshwa office was abolished and the territory annexed. He was pensioned at eight hundred thousand rupees a year and settled at Bithur, where he lived until 1851 in considerable comfort. His adopted son Nana Sahib, refused the pension by the Company, became a leader of the rising of 1857. Koregaon, where a small Company force including many Mahar soldiers held off his army in 1818, is commemorated annually and has become a focus of Dalit politics in Maharashtra. His pension was larger than the revenue of several princely states. He kept a court at Bithur and adopted several sons.

• Lived: 1775 CE – 1851 CE
• Nationality: Indian
• Roles: politician