Land of the Marathas, Western India, 1641-1660
The Indian sub - continent is ruled by three tyrannical Sultanates... the powerful Mughals in the North, and the Shia rulers - Adilshah and Qutubshah in the South. The native population, suppressed for centuries, is subjected to slavery, bigotry, injustice and even torture. Through generations of subservience, the very idea of freedom has been wiped from their minds.
As incessant battles rage between the Sultanates, the soldiers who fight and die on the battlefields are mostly Marathas, sons of the soil. Villages and crops are repeatedly razed by the invading armies, men killed in both peacetime and war, their women abducted.
Maharashtra, once a prosperous land ruled by competent native rulers and inhabited by peaceful people, has been reduced almost to a wasteland.
In this dark era, the sixteen-year-old son of an Adilshahi jagirdar stands up to declare:
