Shivaji IV - Alleged Madness, "The Kolhapur Affair"

Alleged Madness, "The Kolhapur Affair"

By 1882, Sir Shivaji IV had become insane - at least, so it was strongly asserted - and was placed under the "protection" of the British Government, with a Regent appointed for the state, the Karbhari Madhav Barve.

This aroused a considerable controversy. British officials and doctors reiterated that Shivaji IV was suffering from an incurable ‘madness’. This official version received support from English newspapers such as the Times of India and the Bombay Gazette.

However, this was strongly disputed by some Indian-owned newspapers such as Induprakash, Mahratta and Kesari - the later two, in English and Marathi respectively, founded shortly before by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a prominent leader of the Indian Independence movement.

In the Kesari there was a public questioning of the diagnosis, treatment and mental state of the Chhatrapati. The Kesari, then under the editorship of Agarkar, and the Mahratta under Tilak, argued that Shivaji IV was not ‘mad’ and the little instability in his mental state was caused by the maltreatment given to him by the servants and officials appointed to take care of him.

They especially accused Madhav Barve, the British-appointed Regent of Kolhapur, of complicity in a conspiracy to make Shivaji IV mad. Letters published in the Kesari and Mahratta, allegedly written by Madhav Barve to his subordinate officials, indicated his involvement along with some British officials and native servants in a plot to poison Shivaji IV.

To clear himself of the charges, Madhav Barve filed a defamation case against Tilak and Agarkar. The trial which followed brought into the public sphere the private life of Shivaji IV and the ill treatment meted out to him by British officials .

The Kesari published the verbatim account of the High Court trial drama, which in its editors' opinion exposed to public scrutiny the barbarous attitude of the British officers towards Shivaji IV. On 16 July 1882 the jury found Tilak and Agarkar guilty on the charge of slander against Madhav Barve and sentenced them to four months’ imprisonment at the Dongri jail in Bombay.

Even during the trial, Kesari published articles which questioned the physical control of British officers over the body of Shivaji IV and expressed fears regarding danger to Shivaji IV’s life from officers appointed to protect him. In spite of such accusations the British Government did not remove Shivaji IV from the custody of these officers.