Current Day Monument
Lal Mahal is currently represented by a small 2 storey building, red in color, which stands just besides Shaniwar Wada Premises.
This building was constructed by the Pune Municipal Corporation in mid-80s.
The Premises of Lal Mahal have a handful of life size images of Maratha warriors, a scaled down replica of Raigad and a statue of Shivaji with his mother Jijabai, ploughing the land of Pune.
The first floor of this building has a pictorial gallery of Shivaji’s Life story. This gallery is called Shiv Chitra Shrusti. There are paintings depicting important events in Shivaji’s life on the walls of the hall, which include Shivaji’s fight with AfjhalKhan, his fight with Shaistekhan, the Purandar Treaty, the Coronation of Shivaji, etc.
It’s a good and quick way to know about greatness of Shivaji within a time span of 10-15 minutes.
This hall has a big map of Maharashtra, carved in the center.
It’s a good place to spend around 40 minutes of your time, if you are looking for a location within Pune City premises.
History as I know it
Shahji Raje, father of Shivaji, had great ambitions and dreams. He was a visionary, whose legacy was then inherited and successfully implemented by his son.
As his power as a Maratha war-Lord was increasing, the Adilshahi sultanate adopted the most commonly known trick to control him – Divide and Rule.
Shahaji was conferred an additional estate, not in the current Karnataka region, where he was originally stationed and ruling as a warlord, but in Pune – a city which was miles away from Bangalore.
Essentially, Shahaji Raje needed to split his attention and resources in two parts to maintain both these estates.
He decided to keep his elder son Sambhaji with him and move his wife Jijabai and his younger son Shivaji to Pune.
This granting of a faraway estate was a strategic measure adopted by Adilshah to contain Shahaji. History, however finds its way to proceed.
This same move helped Jijabai and Shahaji to raise and train their son, far from the influence of the sultanantes, and create a king out of him.
When Jijabai and Shivaji reached Pune, it was a ravaged estate, looted and destroyed by raiders, before including it in Adilshahi rule.
The Bhosales decided to rebuild their estate and make a prosperous, self-sufficient and strong regime out of it.
At this point, I would like to divert from the topic under discussion a bit.
Just wanted to bring to notice of all readers one amazing fact – on his conquest for Swarajya, Shahaji raje created two capitals of his empire. One was Bangalore and other was Pune. We would eventually discuss about all of this in subsequent posts, but think of it this way – after all these years, these two cities have grown to be the centers of excellence in education, industry and prosperity for India. Shahaji’s vision has been eventually realized.
OK, back to history of Lal Mahal – so, to reform Pune, Jijabai got herself a big, strong house constructed. This house is the same Lal Mahal we are currently discussing.
One of the other popular acts which Shivaji and Jijabai performed to symbolize the beginning of a new age and a prosperous rule was to plough the lands of Pune with a Golden plough.
This same act is represented outside the current Lal Mahal building, as I mentioned earlier.
Lal Mahal saw the training of Shivaji in warfare, religion, justice and leadership.
It was this place where Shivaji grew from son of a warlord to the creator of a Kingdom.
History books talk about Shivaji being in Lal Mahal almost till the time he conquered his first fort Torna.
Thus, Lal Mahal can rightfully be called as the Cradle of Hindavi Swarajya – a place where the Swarajya was envisioned, planned, given birth to and raised in it’s early age.
Another historical significance associated with Lal Mahal is that this place suffered a raid by Shivaji on ShaisteKhan.
Raid on one’s own house!! Yes, let me explain.
In one of the attempts to contain Shivaji’s advances, Aurangzeb the then Moghul emperor, sent his maternal uncle Shaistekhan to Pune. Shaistekan walked in Pune with more than a hundred thousand soldiers.
There was no way Shivaji could fight him – not with the handful of soldiers that he had managed to gather till that point of time.
So, only was way to make way for Shaistekhan to occupy Pune and wait for a suitable chance to strike back.
Shaistekhan stayed in Pune for almost 3 years and had destroyed everything that Shivaji had created as Maratha regime and all this while he was staying in Lal Mahal.
In the month of Ramadan, when the moghuls fasted all day long, Shivaji secretly entered Pune with around 300 men. He also managed to enter the Lal Mahal premises with a handful of men and in the darkness of night, these men went on a killing rampage.
Being Shivaji’s home from childhood, Shivaji and his friends knew every nook and corner of Lal Mahal, and this helped them get in and out of the building very swiftly and secretly.
In the bloodshed that occurred in Lal Mahal that night, Shaistekhan lost some of his wives, his son, son-in-law and his daughter, a few servants, gaurds and a couple of his fingers.
This was a severe blow to Shaistekha!!
Funny thing is that this panic and ego-challenge that Shivaji presented to Shaistekhan was just a beginning of a campaign. Having diverted Shaistekahn’s attention towards himself, Shivaji could use his troops for penetrating the entire coast of Konkan. The grand finale of this all – Shivaji personally raided and looted Surat, to have his payback.
Not a history which people would call righteous, but definitely something which was daring and courageous and essential.
Anyways, the next reference of Lal Mahal then occurs only twice in major historical events – Once when Peshwas started construction of Shaniwar Wada – they used the sand from walls of Lal Mahal, as a good omen.
The other time, one of the Peshwas wedding-dinner was hosted in Lal Mahal. Soon after British took over though, this building must have turned into ruins.
At Parvati hill Peshwe Museum, there is an old photograph of Shaniwar Wada premises, where British had constructed a revenue department office and this only shows the New English School around.
What I wish to imply with this is that during this time, the Lal Mahal was also an already-destroyed-palace, just like Shaniwar Wada.
Anyways, in mid-1980s the Pune Municipal Corporation has rebuilt a representation of Lal Mahal as I mentioned earlier, and it’s a good place to remember the legend of the great Shivaji!!
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