Daulat Rao Scindia (1779 – 21 March 1827) also conferred with the title "The defender of Delhi"[1] was the Maratha Maharaja of Gwalior state in central India from 1794 until his death in 1827.

Daulatrao was recognised and formally installed by the Satara Chhatrapati (Emperor) and Peshwa on 3 March 1794 and was conferred the titles of Naib Vakil-i-Mutlaq (Deputy Regent of the Empire), Amir-al-Umara (Head of the Amirs) from Shah Alam II on 10 May 1794.

Daulatrao's ancestor Ranoji Sindhia had conquered territories in the Malwa and Gird regions from the Mughals, eventually establishing a state which was initially based at Ujjain, but was named after the strategic fortress of Gwalior.

[citation needed] Daulatrao's predecessor Mahadji Scindia had, in the aftermath of Panipat, turned Gwalior into a chief military power of the empire, developing a well-trained modern army under the command of Benoît de Boigne.

In July 1801, Yashwantrao appeared before Sindhia's capital of Ujjain, and after defeating some battalions under John Hessing, extorted a large sum from its inhabitants, but did not ravage the town.

From this time dates the gardi-ka-wakt, or 'period of unrest', as it is still called, during which the whole of central India was overrun by the armies of Sindhia and Holkar and their attendant predatory Pindari bands, under Amir Khan and others.

Benoît de Boigne had retired as commander of Gwalior's army in 1796; and his successor, Pierre Cuillier-Perron, was a man of a very different stamp, whose determined favouritism of French officers, in defiance of all claims to promotion, produced discontent in the regular corps.