The Assassination of Narayan Rao occurred on 30 August 1773, when the 18 year old Peshwa of the Maratha Confederacy Narayan Rao, was assassinated. This plot was carried out During the Ganesh Chaturthi Festival that took place from 21 to 31 August. This was plotted by his uncle Raghunath Rao and his wife Anandibai. They used members of the Kalbelia tribe as assassins. Raghunath Rao was the next in line for the throne, at the time of Narayan Rao's death. Narayan Rao and his servant Chapaji Tilekar were both killed. A total of eleven people had been killed in the palace, seven of them were Brahmins, two servants, two maids. One cow was also killed.
Background
Reign of Narayan Rao Narayanrao Bhat was born 10 August 1755. He was the third and youngest son of Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao (also known as Nana Saheb) and his wife Gopikabai. He received a conventional education in reading, writing, and arithmetic and possessed a functional understanding of Sanskrit scriptures. He was married to Gangabai Sathe on 18 April 1763 before his eighth birthday. He was very close to Parvatibai, the widow of Sadashivrao, who took him under her care to lessen her sorrows after her husband's death. His eldest brother Vishwasrao, heir to the title of the Peshwa, died in the Battle of Panipat in 1761 along with Sadashivrao. His father died a few months later and his elder brother Madhavrao took over as Peshwa. Before his death, Peshwa Madhavrao conducted a court session in which the issue of ascension was discussed at length and at the end of which, in the presence of the family deity, he nominated his younger brother Narayanrao as the next Peshwa. He counselled Naraynrao to conduct his administration by the advice of Sakharam Bapu and Nana Padnavis. Raghunathrao, the uncle of both Madhavrao and Narayanrao, didn't have the courage to openly oppose the nomination of Narayanrao in front of the dying Peshwa and so he apparently acquiesced to the arrangement. The Peshwa had also ordered in writing that Raghunathrao was to continue his confinement so as to prevent him from engaging in mischief. Raghunathrao attempted an escape shortly before the Peshwa's death but was immediately caught and put back into confinement.
Confinement of Raghunathrao
First attempt to escape Narayanrao's relationship with his uncle Raghunathrao was cordial at the beginning. When Raghunathrao's daughter Durgabai was about to get married, Narayanrao made the arrangements for the marriage which took place on 7 February 1773. But later when Narayanrao was at Nashik, Raghunathrao tried to take advantage of the Peshwa's absence and plotted his escape. Raghunathrao began to enlist his own troops and wrote to Haidar Ali for support. Naro Appaji, the Maratha officer in charge of law and order in Pune, heightened the security around Raghunathrao by placing guards to watch all the exits of the palace and the city. Raghunathrao pitched his tents outside and declared that he was going on an expedition.
As soon as this news reached Narayanrao he returned to Pune and found Raghunathrao in his tents. He brought him back to the palace on 11 April 1773 and placed additional guards to prevent his escape. This further strained the relationship between Narayanrao and Raghunathrao. In July 1773, Raghunathrao become so exasperated with the restrictions imposed on him that he threatened to starve himself, his wife and his adopted son to death. Narayanrao failed to sooth things over by compromise. He had no advisors whom he could trust at this point.
Second attempt to escape Two agents from Nagpur had been dispatched to Pune to request the Peshwa's confirmation for making Raghuji Bhonsle, the son of Mudhoji Bhonsle, the ruler of Nagpur in order to put the succession dispute between Mudhoji and his brother Sabaji to an end. But when the two agents arrived at Pune in the summer of 1773 and discovered the tensions between Narayanrao and Raghunathrao, they realised they had much to benefit from the chaos. At the same time Narayanrao continued supporting the claim of Sabaji and sent armed reinforcements under Khanderao Darekar to support him against his brother. This caught the ire of Mudhoji who vaguely told his agents to do whatever they deemed necessary for accomplishing their mission by supporting Raghunathrao's power.
But the agents needed to have a discussion with Raghunathrao before they could formulate a plan. Raghunathrao was in strict confinement at the time and so they approached Sakharam Hari Gupte, a strong partisan of Raghunathrao who had also been incensed by the Peshwa's decision to reduce the caste status of his community. They manage to obtain a secret meeting with Raghunathrao in which they hatch a plan which involved seizing Narayanrao and placing Raghunathrao on the throne. This would require Raghunathrao to be free and organise an armed force. In August 1773, during nighttime, Raghunathrao tried to escape using the help of Lakshman Kashi. But Raghunathrao was caught and taken into custody while Lakshman Kashi managed to escape and fled from Pune.
When news of Raghunathrao's attempted escape reached Narayanrao he made the terms of his uncle's confinement harsher. Raghunathrao was no longer allowed to leave his room, all his essentials were delivered to him and his lavish lifestyle was curtailed. As part of his prayer, Raghunathrao would stand in the open and gaze at the sun, but he was now barred from performing it which made him furious. Although the relationship between Madhavrao and Raghunathrao, the former carefully avoided exasperating his uncle beyond a certain limit and skillfully employed his uncle's partisans so as to prevent any action against him. But Narayanrao lacked his elder brother's foresight and so his dissidents were able to find a common goal in supporting his uncle.
Third attempt to escape Raghunathrao was also able to find the sympathy of Appaji Ram, the ambassador of Haidar Ali at Pune, who managed to persuade his ruler to support Raghunathrao's cause. When Narayan found out about his uncle's plan to escape by enlisting the support Haidar Ali, he confined him in his palace and allowed neither his friends to visit him nor his servants to attend to him. His uncle, whether through exasperation or shrewdness, declared that he would starve himself to death so that his murder would be attributed to his nephew. For the next eighteen days, he consumed nothing except two ounces of deer milk each day. When he was finally exhausted due to pangs of hunger, his nephew somewhat relented by promising him a district and five castles and a jagir of Rs. 12 lakh per annum, provided some of the great chieftains would become surety for his future conduct.
Preparations The period between 16 and 30 August witnessed an unprecedented number of secret talks and concealed discussions taking place among the various partisans of Raghunathrao, but as this had been a regular occurrence at the palace, no responsible official paid any serious attention to them. Since Raghunathrao could not leave his confinement, the preparations for the plot were carried out by Tujali Pawar, an influential personal servant of Raghunathrao and his wife Anandibai. Tujali additionally felt he had been wronged by Narayanrao and possibly Madhavrao, and regardless of whether this supposed offense was real or not, it motivated him to play an integral part in the plot. While the previous plan involved simply capturing Narayanrao, the new plan involved his murder and was partly based on the assumption that Sakharam Bapu would remain neutral with regards to the plot.
The Ganapati festival was held for a period of ten days between 21 and 31 August. The festival was a holiday for the administration and all the officials and staff were occupied with various aspects of the festival such as the worship in the morning and evening, Vedic recitation, music, dance, durbars, feasts and processions. Tulaji met with the Gardi leaders during the Ganesh festival to inform them of the plot being hatched. Since he was an old servant he couldn't be abruptly dismissed even if suspected of a conspiracy and had ready access to his master and his wife in order to plan out various parts of the plot. Sumersinh was the Gardi officer who had been appointed by Narayanrao to be incharge of his uncle and hence had free access to him. He was won over by Tulaji, along with Muhammad Yusuf, Kharagsinh and Bahadur Khan, each of them had about a thousand soldiers working under them. They were promised to be given a cash reward of Rs. 3 lakh if they successfully executed the plot. A written order was produced by Raghunathrao for these four chiefs, ordering them to "seize" the Peshwa. The written order might have been altered before being delivered to the Gardi chiefs and the word "seize" might've been replaced with the word "slay" but the identity of the person who did this has remained a mystery. Meanwhile, the Gardis chiefs were aware that the Peshwa could be slain if he were to offer armed resistance. When they conveyed these thoughts to Raghunathrao, he absolved them of any responsibility for the possible murder.
Assassination
Raghuji Angre of Kolaba had arrived in Pune to meet with the Peshwa and asked him to make a return visit on 30 August. And so Narayanrao along with Haripant Phadke went to Angre's residence at around ten in the morning. Raghuji told Narayanrao during their conversational about the troubling rumours he had heard and warned him to be on his guard against danger to his life. After the meeting with Raghuji, Narayanrao and Phadke went to the Parvati temple to have their breakfast along with some guests who had been invited there. After the meal, the Peshwa and Haripant went back to the palace. Narayanrao told Haripant what he had heard from Raghuji and asked him to take the necessary steps to prevent any mischief. Haripant assured him that he would take care of the matter but first he had to attend to a mid-day meal with a friend. The Peshwa retired to his room in the palace. Meanwhile, Tujali found out that the plot had been leaked and told the Gardi chiefs to immediately execute the plan or else everything could be ruined.
At around one o'clock in the afternoon, five hundred soldiers led by the Gardi chiefs cut down the men guarding the hind gate and immediately rushed into the palace. They demanded payment of their long delayed salaries. The clerks and servants admonished the soldiers for the commotion and told them that their grievances would be listened to in the office. The soldiers responded by attacking the clerks; when one of them took shelter behind a cow, that used to be on the premises at all times for fresh milk, the soldiers cut down the animal and the man hiding behind it. They closed the front gate and proceeded to the Peshwa's room upstairs with their swords drawn and deafening shouts. The palace was packed with cries of horror and grief by the inmates but there was nothing they could do to stop the attack.