Battle of Surat, also known as the Sack of Surat, was a land battle that took place on January 5, 1664, near the city of

Surat Surat is a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The word Surat literally means ''face'' in Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of the river Tapti near its confluence with the Arabian Sea, it used to be a large seaport. It is ...

, in present-day

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

; between

Maratha The Marathi people ( Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed a ...

ruler

Shivaji Shivaji Bhonsale I (; 19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680), also referred to as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was an Indian ruler and a member of the Bhonsle Maratha clan. Shivaji carved out his own independent kingdom from the declining Adil ...

and Inayat Khan, a Mughal captain. The Marathas defeated the Mughal force, and

ransack Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

ed the city of Surat for six days. According to James Grant Duff, a captain in the British India Regiment,

was attacked by Shivaji on 5 January 1664. Surat was a wealthy port city in the Mughal Empire and was useful for the Mughals as it was used for the sea trade of the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channe ...

. The city was well populated mostly by Hindus and a few Muslims, especially the officials in the Mughal administration of the city. The attack was so sudden that the population had no chance to flee. The plunder was continued for six days and two-thirds of the city was burnt down. The loot was then transferred to

Rajgad fort Rajgad (literal meaning ''Ruling Fort'') is a Hill region fort situated in the Pune district of Maharashtra, India. Formerly known as ''Murumdev'', the fort was the first capital of the Maratha Empire under the rule of Chhatrapati Shivaji for ...

Background

Shaista Khan Mirza Abu Talib (22 November 1600 – 1694), better known as Shaista Khan, was a general and the subahdar of Mughal Bengal. A maternal uncle to the emperor Aurangzeb, he acted as a key figure during his reign. Shaista Khan initially governed ...

, the Mughal governor, was in

Deccan The large Deccan Plateau in southern India is located between the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, and is loosely defined as the peninsular region between these ranges that is south of the Narmada river. To the north, it is bounded by the ...

for more than three years fighting the Marathas, the financial condition of the Maratha Kingdom was dire. So to improve his finances,

planned to attack Surat, a key Mughal power centre, and a wealthy port town that generated a million rupees in taxes. His aim was to capture and loot the wealthy port city and bring all the loot to his main residence, the Raigad Fort.

Battle

Composition of forces

Local

Subedar Subedar is a rank of junior commissioned officer in the Indian Army; a senior non-commissioned officer in the Pakistan Army, and formerly a Viceroy's commissioned officer in the British Indian Army. History ''Subedar'' or ''subadar'' was t ...

, Inayat Khan who was appointed by

Aurangzeb Muhi al-Din Muhammad (; – 3 March 1707), commonly known as ( fa, , lit=Ornament of the Throne) and by his regnal title Alamgir ( fa, , translit=ʿĀlamgīr, lit=Conqueror of the World), was the sixth emperor of the Mughal Empire, ruling ...

, had only one thousand men at his command. After sacking the Mughal garrison, Shivaji attacked the Port of Surat and set the local shipping industry ablaze. Shivaji was assisted by commanders along with a cavalry of 10000.

Movement and clash of forces

Shivaji attacked Surat after demand for the tribute was rejected. The Mughal Sardar was very surprised by the suddenness of the attack, unwilling to face the Maratha forces, he hid himself in the Fort of Surat. Surat was under attack for nearly three days, in which the Maratha army looted all possible wealth from traders of the Mughul Guzerat subah and others such as the Portuguese trading centers. The Maratha soldiers took away cash, gold, silver, pearls, rubies, diamonds& emeralds from the houses of rich merchants such as Virji Vora, Haji Zahid Beg, Haji Kasim and others. The business of Mohandas Parekh, the deceased broker of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

, was spared as he was reputed as a

charitable The practice of charity is the voluntary giving of help to those in need, as a humanitarian act, unmotivated by self-interest. There are a number of philosophies about charity, often associated with religion. Etymology The word ''charity'' or ...

man. Similarly, Chhatrapati Shivaji did not plunder the houses of the foreign missionaries. The French traveller Francois Bernier wrote this in his ''Travels in Mughal India'': Shivaji had to complete the sacking of Surat before the

Mughal empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

at Delhi was alerted, and he could not afford to spend much time attacking the

English East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

. Thus, Sir George Oxenden was able to successfully defend the Surat factory, a fortified warehouse-counting house-hostel.

Casualties

One Englishman named Anthony Smith, was captured by the

s, and funds were demanded from him. Smith wrote an account of him witnessing Shivaji ordering the cutting off of the heads and hands of those who concealed their wealth. Vincent Arthur Smith (1919)
''The Oxford History of India''

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

, page 435 However, when Shivaji realised that Smith was poor, he freed him. When the

Mughal Army The Army of the Mughal Empire was the force by which the Mughal emperors established their empire in the 15th century and expanded it to its greatest extent at the beginning of the 18th century. Although its origins, like the Mughals themselves, ...

finally approached on the fourth fateful day, Shivaji and his Maratha soldiers had already started to return southwards into the

Aftermath

All this loot was transported to the

before the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

was informed of the sacking of Surat. This wealth later was used for developing and strengthening the Maratha state. This event enraged the Mughal Emperor,

. The revenue of the Mughal Empire was reduced as trade did not flourish as much after Shivaji's raid on the Port of Surat.

References

Bibliography

* James Grant Duff - ''History of Marathas'' * S.D.Samant - ''Vedh Mahamanvacha'' *

Babasaheb Purandare Balwant Moreshwar Purandare (29 July 1922 – 15 November 2021), popularly known as Babasaheb Purandare, was an Indian historian and theatre personality from Maharashtra, India. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's highest second-civil ...

- ''Raja ShivChhatrapati'' {{coord, 21, 10, N, 72, 50, E, display=title 1664 in India Surat 1664 History of Surat

Looting