Which historian said, “The Third Battle of Panipat was a decisive battle. The crown jewel of the Maratha army fell there and after this battle, the Marathas’ dream of an all-India empire was shattered”?
Sir Jadunath Sarkar, a renowned historian of the Mughal and Maratha eras, made this observation regarding the impact of the 1761 defeat. He argued that while the Marathas recovered territorially, they lost the psychological and political unity required to rule India. The slaughter of their best leaders and soldiers allowed the British to rise virtually unopposed. ANSWER: (C) Jadunath Sarkar
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Jadunath Sarkar emphasized that Panipat was a turning point because it destroyed the “flower of the Maratha nobility.” He noted that although the Marathas regained North India under Madhavrao I, the centralized authority of the Peshwa never fully recovered. The battle did not just kill soldiers; it killed the vision of a unified Maratha-led India. According to Sarkar, the primary beneficiaries of this defeat were the British, who no longer faced a single, consolidated Indian power. The political fragmentation following the battle eventually led to the internal rivalries that the East India Company successfully exploited to conquer India.