Maratha and Mewar
The bruising Nadir Shah attack from Feb 1739 coincided with the Maratha war at Vasai to evict the Portuguese. Bajirao was impatient to head for Delhi and in ‘The Era of Bajirao’ I have quoted a letter where it was expected that the Rana of Udaipur would be placed on the throne of Delhi.
Bajirao Peshwa from Burhanpur also wrote a letter (in Sanskrit) to the ‘Dhaybhau’ of the Udaipur Rana,
‘You must have heard what happened at Indraprastha. The time for your primacy has arrived. It is time to ensure that the Diwanji favours the protection of one’s own faith…. you should obtain Sawai Jaisingh’s co-operation and unite the entire army of the Hindus to form an army of one and a quarter lakh men. Then attempt to defeat the enemy. Otherwise, it will be as if the bravery and the Hindus’ own faith is defeated’…
The Marathas were the first pan-Indian indigenous empire after centuries of alien Turko-Persian rule.. and the last before the British took over.