Nana Fadnavis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (May 2008) |
Nana Fadnavis (also Nana Phadanvis, February 12, 1742[citation needed] - March 13, 1800) (originally Balaji Janardhan Bhanu) was a minister of the Maratha Empire during the Peshwa administration in Pune, India.
James Grant Duff states that he was called as "the Mahratta Machiavelli" by the Europeans.[1]
Balaji Janardhan Bhanu was born in a Chitpavan Brahman family in Satara in 1742. He was nicknamed 'Nana' and rose to be the Phadnavis or the finance minister of the Peshwa ruler.
In 1761, Nana escaped from the Third Battle of Panipat to Pune and rose to becoming the leading personage directing the affairs of the Maratha Confederacy, though never a soldier. This was a period when one Peshwa was rapidly succeeded by another, and there were many disputed successions. It was the endeavour of Nana Phadnavis to hold together the confederacy in the teeth of both internal dissension and the growing power of the British.
Peshwa Madhavrao II (1773-1795), managed the affairs of state with the help of a 12 member regency council (Barbhai council), of which Nana Phadnis was a prominent member. Other members of the council were Haripant Phadke, Moroba Phadnis, Sakarambapu Bokil, Trimbakraomama Pethe, Mahadji Shinde, Tukojirao Holkar, Phaltankar, Bhagwanrao Pratinidhi, Maloji Ghorpade, Raste and Babuji Naik.
Nana died at Pune on the 13th of March 1800, just before Peshwa Baji Rao II placed himself in the hands of the British, provoking the Second Anglo-Maratha War that began the break up the Maratha confederacy. In an extant letter to the Peshwa, the Marquess Wellesley describes[2] him thus: "The able minister of your state, whose upright principles and honourable views and whose zeal for the welfare and prosperity both of the dominions of his own immediate superiors and of other powers were so justly celebrated."
Nana Phadnavis has been depicted in Vijay Tendulkar's Marathi play, Ghashiram Kotwal.
[edit] External links
[edit] Notes
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
