Pacifying the Pindaris: Warfare and state building by the British in India, 1750–1830

Abstract

This article examines the rise and fall of the Pindaris in India between the mid eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The Pindaris started their career as military mercenaries of the Maratha chiefs. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, they became semi-autonomous non-state powers and threatened both their employers as well as the expanding British Empire in India. The Pindari threat became intense in Central and West India. As this article shows, in the first half of the nineteenth century, an amalgam of kinetic and non-kinetic measures helped the East India Company to suppress and pacify the Pindaris.