peshwa, the office of chief minister among the Maratha people of India. The peshwa, also known as the mukhya pradhan, originally headed the advisory council of the raja Shivaji (reigned c. 1659–80). After Shivaji’s death the council broke up and the office lost its primacy, but it was revived when Shivaji’s grandson Shahu appointed Balaji Vishvanath Bhat, a Chitpavan Brahman, as peshwa in 1714. Balaji’s son Baji Rao I secured the hereditary succession to the peshwa-ship.
From Shahu’s death, in 1749, the peshwa Balaji Baji Rao was the virtual ruler of Maharashtra. He hoped to succeed the Mughals in Delhi, but, after a disastrous defeat of his army at Panipat (1761), he became the head of a confederacy comprising himself and four northern chiefs. Succession disputes from 1772 weakened the peshwa’s authority. Defeat by Holkars—the Maratha rulers of Indore—led Baji Rao II to seek British protection by the Treaty of Bassein (1802). Baji Rao was deposed after attacking the British in 1818; he died in 1853.