Madhavrao I

Madhavrao I became Peshwa at sixteen months after Panipat, rebuilt Maratha power in eleven years, and died of tuberculosis at twenty-seven. He was Balaji Bajirao's third son and inherited a state that had lost an army, a generation of commanders, his own elder brother Vishwasrao and his father within a year. His uncle Raghunathrao acted as regent and then as rival for the whole of his reign; Madhavrao was actually defeated and briefly imprisoned by him in 1762, and had to take the state back by negotiation and by outlasting him. What followed is the recovery. He broke the Nizam at Rakshasbhuvan in 1763, campaigned repeatedly against Hyder Ali of Mysore and forced him to terms three times, re-established Maratha authority in Malwa and Bundelkhand, and in 1771 sent an army north that retook Delhi and restored the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II to his throne as a Maratha dependent - ten years after Panipat, in the same city. He also reformed the revenue administration and was known for personally hearing complaints against his own officials. He contracted tuberculosis and died at Theur in 1772. Grant Duff, the first British historian of the Marathas, wrote that the state never recovered from his death, and the succession struggle that followed brought the English in. His widow Ramabai committed sati at his cremation, which was recorded in detail by witnesses and is among the best-documented instances. His brother Narayanrao succeeded him and was murdered within a year in a palace conspiracy involving Raghunathrao. That killing led directly to the First Anglo-Maratha War.

• Lived: 1745 CE – 1772 CE
• Nationality: Indian
• Roles: politician