Editing Openai/691ef1a1-976c-800d-bd1d-06358880de2a (section)

==== Several 18th-century Maratha military expeditions involved large-scale violence against civilians.  Most famously, the “Bargi” invasions of Bengal (1741–1751) saw Maratha cavalry raid villages in present-day West Bengal and Bihar.  Contemporary accounts describe them looting, burning villages, raping and mutilating villagers.  One estimate notes that these raids “perhaps 400,000” Bengali and Bihari civilians died overallen.wikipedia.org<ref>{{cite web|title=en.wikipedia.org|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_invasions_of_Bengal#:~:text=There%20were%20a%20total%20of,report%20mass%20%20128%20and|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-11-20}}</ref>.  In numeric terms, Wikipedia’s war-death lists record ~0.4 million deaths in the Maratha–Bengal conflict (1741–1751)en.wikipedia.org<ref>{{cite web|title=en.wikipedia.org|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll#:~:text=Maratha%20invasions%20of%20Bengal%20,458%20%20South%20America|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-11-20}}</ref> – a vast toll over about a decade.  (This implies roughly 40,000 deaths per year during that period.)  Another source emphasizes that Bargi brigands “stripped bare” the land, committing “atrocities such as kidnapping, rape, and disembowelling”en.wikipedia.org<ref>{{cite web|title=en.wikipedia.org|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_invasions_of_Bengal#:~:text=There%20were%20a%20total%20of,report%20mass%20%20128%20and|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-11-20}}</ref>. ====

Other Maratha campaigns also show brutality.  In Mysore and south India, Maratha armies (especially under Peshwa Madhavrao and Scindia) repeatedly ravaged towns and temples.  19th-century British records (e.g. Buchanan’s travels) detail entire villages burned and thousands starved in the wake of Maratha incursions.  For example, one Kannada village (“Chinya”) was described as a “poor ruinous place” after being “destroyed by the Marattah army” in the 1770shistoryofmysuru.blogspot.com<ref>{{cite web|title=historyofmysuru.blogspot.com|url=https://historyofmysuru.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-kannadiga-victims-of-maratha-empire.html#:~:text=Destruction%20by%20Peshwa%20Madhava%20Rao%27s,men%20in%201770s|publisher=historyofmysuru.blogspot.com|access-date=2025-11-20}}</ref>.  Temple-chariots and idols were hauled away for scrap metal, and Brahmins fled the sacred town of Melukote in terrorhistoryofmysuru.blogspot.com<ref>{{cite web|title=historyofmysuru.blogspot.com|url=https://historyofmysuru.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-kannadiga-victims-of-maratha-empire.html#:~:text=Destruction%20by%20Peshwa%20Madhava%20Rao%27s,men%20in%201770s|publisher=historyofmysuru.blogspot.com|access-date=2025-11-20}}</ref>.  In one case a famine killed hundreds of families after Maratha plunderhistoryofmysuru.blogspot.com<ref>{{cite web|title=historyofmysuru.blogspot.com|url=https://historyofmysuru.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-kannadiga-victims-of-maratha-empire.html#:~:text=Chamarajanagara%20District%3A%205,and%20Hanur%20towns%2C%20was%20%27destroyed|publisher=historyofmysuru.blogspot.com|access-date=2025-11-20}}</ref>. (These illustrations show Marathas’ high-intensity violence on local scales, though precise casualty counts beyond Bengal are harder to quantify.)