Islamic 'Hordes' Made Their First Appearance
The first Muslim raids in the subcontinent were made by Arabs on the western coast and in Sind during the seventh and eighth centuries, and there had been Muslim trading communities in India at least since that time. The significant and permanent military movement of Muslims into North India, however, dates from the late twelfth century and was carried out by a Turkish dynasty that arose indirectly from the ruins of the Abbasid caliphate. The road to conquest was prepared by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna (modern Ghazni in Afghanistan), who conducted more than 20 raids into North India between 1001 and 1027 and established in the Punjab the easternmost province of his large but short-lived empire. Mahmud's raids, though militarily successful, primarily had as their object the taking of plunder rather than conquest.
The Advent of Mahmud Ghazni
And then it happened. In 1000 BC, as if on cue, the crescent
appeared for the first time over the Indian horizons.
In 1000 A.D., Mahmud of Ghazni (Afghanistan) encroached upon
Indian territories for the first time and then made these invasions
almost an annual feature. What with no strong central power, looting
the wealth of India to replenish the coffers of Ghazni must have
been as easy as finding it. In all, Mahmud invaded India eleven
times and the wealth he looted from here went into funding his
campaigns in central Asia and mosques, libraries and museums in
Ghazni.
Strangely enough, no confederacy appeared to ward off his invasions.
After Mahmud's death in 1030 A.D., any chances of such a mutual
consensus being reached among the rulers fizzled out since the
significance of his raids as forerunners for others to follow was
never quite grasped.
Ascent of Rajput Power
It was what the historians call the 'early medieval' period of
India – about the 11-12th century A.D. – when the much
travelled Rajputs were floating restlessly around looking for a home
before finally finding shelter in the Rajputana area.
Here the strategic location of Delhi came to play – it was the
doorway to both the fertile Punjab, the fabled land of the fiver
rivers, and the fertile Ganges valley.
But first, just who were these Rajputs? We come across the word
'Rajput' for the first time in the 7th century A.D. There is no
previous record or reference of it and it is certainly not a
Sanskrit word. There are as many theories as there are historians
about the origin of the Rajputs, including an opinion that they were
descended from foreigners, from one of the Indo-Parthian,
Indo-Bactrian, Indo-Scythian, Saka, Kushana or Hun
strains that were already present in India for quite some centuries.
In Rajasthan and central India there arose a number of small kingdoms ruled by dynasties that came to be called the Rajputs (from Sanskrit raja-putra: "son of a king"). The name was assumed by royal families that claimed Kshatriya status and linked their lineage either with the Suryavanshi or the Chandravanshi, the royal lineages of the itihasa-purana tradition, or else with the Agnikula (fire lineage) based on a lesser myth in which the eponymous ancestor rises out of the sacrificial fire. The four major Rajput dynasties -- Pratihara, Paramara, Chauhan, and Chalukya -- claimed Agnikula lineage. The references in Rajput genealogies to supernatural ancestry suggest either an obscure origin -- perhaps from semi-Hinduized local tribes who gradually acquired political and economic status -- or else a non-Indian (probably Central Asian) origin.
The time between the fading away of Harsha Vardhana (606-646 A.D.) and with it the Vardhana might and the rise of Islamic power in India was occupied with the ascent of Rajput power. This, however, was a very short-lived period, mainly due to the in-fighting among the fiercely divided Rajputs.
As can be imagined, India under the Rajputs was not exactly what
one could call a single and completely unified unit. Delhi and
Ajmer, under the Chauhans, were the most powerful states of this
period. However, the first Rajputs to hit Delhi were the Tomaras. In
fact, the second city of Delhi, Lal Kot (the Red Fortress)
was built in 1060 A.D. by Raja Anang Pal, one of the earliest Tomara
rulers to settle in Delhi. Their rule was pretty short-lived,
though, and soon the Chauhan Rajputs under the generalship of
Prithviraj Chauhan seized control of Lal Kot in the 12th
century.
There were other states where Rajputs were gaining prominence. Like
Kanauj (in present Uttar Pradesh) where in this period ruled
Jaichand, a Rathore (another Rajput family) ruler, who was a bitter
rival of Prithviraj Chauhan. In Bundelkhand (in
Madhya
Pradesh), the chandravansi (of the moon family) Chandelas
were ruling. Malwa and Gujarat were were under the Paramaras
(the most important ruler was king Bhoj) and Chaulukyas (who
are supposed to descendants of the Chalukyas) respectively.
This was a very troubled time in Indian history. There was no clear
central authority in sight and each petty ruler was daring to dream
the mad dream of ruling all over the country – which at that point
in time meant basically the Gangetic plains and the Deccan. This is
the main reason why no ruler was able to hold Delhi long enough to
establish a kingdom here, and also the principle reason why the
Arabs and Turks didn't exactly have to sweat to the bone to stamp
their authority all over them.
Rajput Hero - Prithviraj
The Rajput clans remained almost constantly and thoroughly at war
among themselves in the 11th and 12th
centuries. It had become a matter of pride to use every supposed
slight as an excuse for war, and the prevailing chivalric code
allowed no place for either long-sightedness, clear thinking or
strategy.
This was around the time that Prithviraj had married the daughter of
the king of Kanauj Jaichand – in true Lochinvar style, by carrying
her away in the middle of her wedding. The pride of the Kanauj had
been stung and had to be avenged.
It so happened that an Afghan ruler Shihab-ud-din Muhammad Ghuri
or Mohammad of Ghur (between Ghazni and Herat) was gathering his
forces at the frontiers of India, this time in preparation for
forcing his way through to Delhi. Even before his forces had rallied
around him, the Afghan was surprised by an invitation from Jaichand
who offered his help in any way possible to rub out Prithviraj
Chauhan from the face of the earth.
However, the Rathore ruler had made one of the grossest
miscalculations of his life – in supposing that Ghuri was just
another invader looking for dipping into India's bottomless pit of
wealth, he erred badly.
Ghuri wanted to establish a kingdom here, and in 1185 A.D. he sent
the Rajputs abuzz by taking Lahore. The rulers of north India then
half-heartedly threw in their lot with the ruler of Delhi Prithviraj
and were able to defeat Ghuri in the Battle of Tarain in 1191 A.D.
Unfortunately, here is where the foolhardiness of the Rajput code of
honour came into play. Prithviraj had Ghuri captured and, when the
latter appealed to his better nature, made the grand gesture of
actually setting him free. If he had thought that Ghuri would go out
and sin no more, he must have been much disappointed for the Afghan
simply sent for reinforcements and launched another attack the very
next year.
The battle of 1192 was fought at Tarain too; this time Ghuri crushed
the Rajputs with one of those clinical and sound defeats that only
the Central Asians knew best how to inflict. And when he had
Prithviraj he didn't do any such fool thing as letting him go.
This difference in the psychological approach to war, more than
anything else, was the undoing of the Indian rulers.
The Afghans and Turks regarded war as a serious business, a matter
of life and death.
But for the Indian princes war seemed to have been a form sport,
with its own rules of gallantry and chivalry, to show off their
bravery and skill. Man to man, no doubt, the Rajputs were better
warriors than the Afghans but, when it came to using their
resources, the latter were superb at making each man count. The
Rajputs failed to understand the crucial distinction between a
battle and a war; strategic retreat, which was the strength of the
Afghans and Turks, would have been scorned by them. On the other
hand the Afghans were a more patient lot, and were willing to lose a
battle to win the war.
Early Muslim Period
Muhammad Ghuri
The conquest of Delhi by Muhammad Ghuri would change the future of Indian history radically. A word here about the much-maligned 'Islamic hordes' who conquered India and 'stamped out' the so-called 'Hindu' culture. With the coming of Ghuri came the long rule of Islamic rulers in the country, and for the first time India saw a succession of proper dynastic rule which it had not really seen up till now.
There were no more gaps in rule anymore. No more hundred years of no central authority, and certainly no chaos like the one India had just witnessed before the Islamic conquest of India – until deep into the 18th century A.D., for a very brief period before the British took over.
Even at their weakest the Islamic rulers were able to provide India with a strongly centralized government. This was largely due to the fact that the Turks stuck together, at first within themselves, and later reluctantly also with the Afghans. And even when the king was weak the Turks saw it as their duty to maintain a strong face and keep the show going.
The Islamic Rule Over The Region
Of course there were bad times, especially when the ruler
suddenly decided to go more Islamic than thou and break temples
(which were remodeled as mosques) built by the Hindus, a term which
started being used around this time. However, this needs to be put
in perspective. Muslims saw idol worship as a blasphemy against
Allah and were shocked that the Hindus would think differently.
Religious tolerance, especially under the Mughals, was practiced
quite actively and even under the infamous Aurangzeb who had lots of
political compulsions forcing him to act the way he did.
Also the 'long rule of oppression' under the Muslims for the Hindus
is largely a myth. First and foremost the Turks and Afghans were
shrewd rulers and even shrewder politicians; they were not really
much bothered with God and godliness when it came to ruling. This is
evinced by a proclamation from Ala-ud-din Khalji, one of the most
powerful rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. He had decreed the state
(i.e., himself) to be above the priesthood, and when the latter
claimed this as un-Islamic and against the Sharia laws, he said, "I
do not know whether this is lawful or unlawful; whatever I think to
be for the good of or suitable for the state, that I decree; and as
for what may happen to me on the Day of Judgement that I do not
know." Clearly he was not losing much sleep over displeasing Allah.
If Qutub-ud-din Aibak and Altamash broke temples to use them in
their own buildings, it was largely because they were rather short
of both time and building material. Also, these rulers urged their
troops on to fighting by raising the banner of jehad (Holy War);
just like the kings of the Middle Ages urged on their armies to loot
the treasures of the Byzantine empire under the cloak of the
Crusades. So they had to give their troops some evidence and
justification for raising the cry of a Holy War.
At least no mass destruction of books, wisdom and ancient treasures
(as occurred in Constantinople, Egypt, the Americas and elsewhere)
happened in India – the Arabs, Afghans and Turks, who were quite a
scholarly and well-read lot themselves, knew when to stop. The
destruction of temples stopped as soon as the Delhi Sultanate
settled down and the sultans had more time and money in their hands,
which in turn let them free to follow styles which suited their own
tastes better.
Anyhow, Delhi and Ajmer passed on to Muhammad of Ghur, who then
returned to his own country after leaving Qutubddin Aibak as his
viceroy in Delhi. In 1206, when Muhammad was assassinated, Aibak
crowned himself Sultan of Delhi, thus laying the foundation for the
so-called Slave dynasty of Delhi (the founder having once been a
slave), or the Delhi Sultanate.
The Regime of Delhi Sultans
The Delhi Sultanate had a much longer reign in Delhi than any
other dynasty that had come before it. In fact, it remained in power
throughout the period between 1190 and 1526. The state's boundaries
kept shifting, and at different times included Afghanistan and the
Deccan, but the central dynasty did not budge till the Mughals
arrived.
For the first some years the Sultanate was largely
individual-driven, and given the rather communal tribal nature of
the Afghan-Turk polity dynastic rule took its time to take hold. The
first to begin the consolidation work the dynasty was Altamash
(1211-1236 A.D.), who was the son-in-law and successor of
Qutub-ud-din Aibak. The Slave Dynasty is also famous for
having given India its first woman king, Raziya Sultan
(1237-1240 A.D.), the daughter and successor of Altamash. She was
followed by a very tough customer, Ghiyas-ud-din Balban
(1266-1286 A.D.) who gave the Delhi Sultanate its character and
finished the consolidation work.
Balban left a strong base for his successors to build upon, and
thankfully, the times got the right rulers. Now the Sultanate saw
the rise of the Khaljis, together with Jala-ud-din Khalji
(1290-1296 A.D.) and Ala-ud-din Khalji (1296-1316 A.D.), who
were its first real dynasty. They were followed by the Tughlaqs
who produced three strong rulers – Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq
(1320-1414 A.D.), Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq (1325-1351 A.D.) and
Feroze Shah Tughlaq (1350-1388 A.D.).
After Feroze Shah’s death, the luck of the Delhi Sultanate ran out
and it was sacked thoroughly and absolutely by Timur the Lame,
the famous Persian ruler. This was however not the first time that
India had been invaded since the Delhi Sultanate took charge. Almost
throughout its history, the Sultanate was troubled by repeated
invasions from the persistent Mongols (see
History of Delhi for more on Mongol invasions). Although the
sultans were able to successfully repel all Mongol advances, these
invasions took their toll especially since entire armies had to
raised and defense budgets allocated for frontier security. To raise
the money to fund these, the sultans had to be almost continuously
in battle with other areas of India.
The Turkish Conquest
By 1186 the Ghurids had destroyed the remnants of Ghaznavid power in the northwest and were in a favourable military position to move against the North Indian Rajput powers. The conquest of the Rajputs was not easy, however. The Chauhans Cahamanasa under Prithviraj defeated Muhammad of Ghur in 1191 at Tarain (Taraori), northwest of Delhi, but his forces returned the following year to defeat and kill the Rajput king on the same battlefield. The victory opened the road to Delhi, which was conquered in 1193 but left in the hands of a tributary Hindu king. Muhammad of Ghur completed his conquests with the occupation of the military outposts of Hansi, Kuhram, Sursuti, and Sirhind and then returned to Ghazna with a large hoard of treasure, leaving his slave and lieutenant, Qutub-ud-Din Aibak, in charge of consolidation and further expansion. Qutub-ud-Din displaced the Chauhan chief and made his headquarters at Delhi in 1193, when he began a campaign of expansion.
The early Turkish sultans
When Qutub-ud-Din Aibak assumed authority over the Ghurid possessions in India, he moved from the neighbourhood of Delhi to Lahore. There he set up guard against another of Muhammad of Ghur's slaves, Taj-ud-Din Yildiz of Ghazna, who also claimed his former master's Indian possessions. In 1208 Qutub-ud-Din defeated his rival and captured Ghazna but soon was driven out again. He died in 1210 in a polo accident, having made no effort to extend his Indian conquests, but he had managed to establish the foundation of an Indian Muslim State.
Qutub-ud-Din was the first ruler in what has become known, perhaps unreasonably, as the Slave dynasty (only he actually attained a freed status after becoming ruler).
The sultans not only kept a close watch over the slave market but also commissioned slave merchants as State agents. Sultan Shams-ud-Din Iltutmish (reigned 1211-36), son-in-law and successor to Aibak, who was himself a mamluk (slave soldier), sent a merchant to Samarkand, Bukhara, and Tirmiz to purchase young slaves on his behalf.
Consolidation of Turkish rule
By 1236, the year Iltutmish died, the sultanate of Delhi was established as clearly the largest and most powerful of a number of competing States in North India. Owing to Iltutmish's able leadership, Delhi was no longer subordinate to Ghazna, nor was it to remain simply a frontier outpost; it was to become, rather, a proud centre of Muslim power and culture in India. Iltutmish made clear, however, to what extent Islam and Islamic law (Shariah) could determine the contour of politics and culture in the overwhelmingly non-Islamic Indian environment. Despite the Islamic proscription against women rulers, Iltutmish nominated his daughter Raziya (Raziyyat-ud-Din) to be his successor. Iltutmish seems to have enjoyed support among his nobles and advisers for his assertion that the legal structure of the State in India should not be based strictly on Islamic law.
The political situation had changed by 1246, when Ghiyas-ud-Din Balban, a junior member of the Forty, had gained enough power to attain a controlling position within the administration of the newest sultan, Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud (reigned 1246-66). Balban, acting first as naib ("deputy") to the sultan and later as sultan (reigned 1266-87), was the most important political figure of his time. The period was characterized by almost continuous struggles to maintain Delhi's position against the revived power of the Hindu chiefs (principally Rajputs) and by vigilance against the strife-ridden but still dangerous Mongols in the west. Even in the central regions of the State, sultanate rule was sometimes challenged by discontented Muslim nobles.
The Khaljis
Balban's immediate successors, however, were unable to manage either the administration or the factional conflicts between the old Turkish nobility and the new forces, led by the Khaljis; after a struggle between the two factions, Jalal-ud-Din Firuz Khalji assumed the sultanate in 1290. During his short reign (1290-96), Jalal-ud-Din suppressed a revolt by some of Balban's officers, led an unsuccessful expedition against Ranthambhor, and defeated a substantial Mongol force on the banks of the Sind River. In 1296 he was assassinated by his ambitious nephew and successor, Ala-ud-Din Khalji.
The Tughluqs
Within five years after Ala-ud-Din's death (1316), the Khaljis lost their power. The succession dispute resulted in the murder of Malik Kafur (Ala-ud-Din's lieutenant) by the palace guards and in the blinding of Ala-ud-Din's six-year-old son by Qutub-ud-Din Mubarak Shah, the sultan's third son, who assumed the sultanate (1316-20). Qutub-ud-Din suppressed revolts in Gujarat and Devagiri and conducted another raid on Telingana. He was murdered by his favourite general, a Hindu convert named Khusraw Khan, who had built substantial support among a group of Hindus outside the traditional nobility. Opposition to Khusraw's rule arose immediately, led by Ghazi Malik, the warden of the western marches at Deopalpur, and Khusraw was defeated and slain after four months.
The reign (1325-51) of Muhammad bin Tughluq marked both the high point of the sultanate and the beginning of its decline. The period from 1296 to 1335 can be seen as one of nearly continuous centralization and expansion. There were few places in the subcontinent where the sultan's authority could be seriously challenged. Muhammad bin Tughluq, however, was unable to maintain the momentum of consolidation. By 1351 South India had been lost and much of the North was in rebellion.
Muhammad bin Tughluq’s successor was his cousin Firuz Shah (reigned 1351-88). Firuz has been noted, in particular, for his conciliatory attitude towards the two main influential Muslim groups of the period – the religious leaders and the nobility. While Ala-ud-Din Khalji had kept religion and religious leaders apart from his political plans and Muhammad bin Tughluq had incurred the enmity of at least some Sufis because of his refusal to give them what they regarded as proper support, Firuz rewarded Sufis and other religious leaders generously and listened to their counsel. He also created charities to aid poor Muslims, built colleges and mosques, and abolished taxes not recognized by Muslim law.
Decline of the Sultanate
By 1388, when Firuz Shah Tughluq died, the decline of the sultanate was imminent; subsequent succession disputes and palace intrigues only accelerated its pace. The sons and grandsons of Firuz, supported by various groups of nobles, began a struggle for the throne that rapidly diminished the authority of Delhi and provided opportunities for Muslim nobles and Hindu chiefs to enhance their autonomy. By 1390 the governor of Gujarat had declared his independence, and between 1391 and 1394 the important Rajput chiefs of Etawah rebelled and were defeated four times. By 1394 there were two sultans, both residing in or near Delhi. The result was bitter civil war for three years; meanwhile, the disastrous invasion of Timur drew nearer.
Timur invaded India in 1398, when he was in possession of a vast empire in the Middle East and Central Asia, and dealt the final blow to the effective power and prestige of the Delhi Sultanate. In a well-executed campaign of four months -- during which many of the disunited Muslim and Hindu forces of North India either were bypassed or submitted peacefully while Rajputs and Muslims fighting together were slaughtered at Bhatnagar -- Timur reached Delhi and, in mid-December, defeated the army of Sultan Mahmud Tughluq and sacked the city. It is said that Timur ordered the execution of at least 50,000 captives before the battle for Delhi and that the sack of the city was so devastating that practically everything of value was removed — including those inhabitants who were not killed.
The Rise of Regional States
During the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, no paramount power enjoyed effective control over most of North India and Bengal. Delhi became merely one of the regional principalities of North India, competing with the emerging Rajput and Muslim States. Gujarat, Malwa, and Jaunpur soon became powerful independent States; old and new Rajput States rapidly emerged; and Lahore, Dipalpur, Multan, and parts of Sind were held by Khizr Khan Sayyid for Timur (and later for himself). Khizr Khan also took over Delhi and a small area surrounding it after the last of the Tughluqs died in 1413, and he founded the dynasty known as the Sayyid. The Sayyids ruled the territory of Delhi until 1451, trying to obtain tribute and recognition of suzerainty from the nearby Rajput rulers and fighting almost continuously against neighbouring States to preserve their kingdom. The last Sayyid ruler, Ala-ud-Din Alam Shah (reigned 1445-51), peacefully surrendered Delhi to his nominal vassal, the Afghan Bahlul Lodi, and retired to Badaun district, which he retained until his death in 1478. Before he moved to Delhi, Bahlul Lodi had already carved out a kingdom in the Punjab that was larger than that of the Sayyid sultans.
The Muslim States of South India, c. 1350-1680
Sultanate rule in most of South India existed for only a few years and was firmly established only in the northern Deccan, with Daulatabad as its centre. The forced withdrawal of the sultanate forces from the Deccan between 1330 and 1347 was partly the result of resistance offered by Hindu chiefs and some Muslim nobles. Members of those two groups established several rebel principalities and the two strongest States of the south -- the Muslim-ruled Bahmani kingdom and the Hindu-ruled Vijayanagar Empire.
Mabar, the first among the rebel States to emerge in South India, was founded at Madurai by the erstwhile Tughluq general Jalal-ud-Din Ahsan Shah in 1335. Lasting barely 45 years, with seven rulers in quick succession, Mabar covered the Tamil region between Nellore and Quilon and contributed to the commercial importance of South India by encouraging Muslim traders from the Middle East and even attempting to sponsor an expedition to the Maldives. The Mabar wars with the Hoysalas of Karnataka took place in the lower Cauvery region and were fought for control over a series of fortified trading stations between the coast and the interior. The Vijayanagar invasion under Prince Kumara Kampana dealt a severe blow to Mabar's commercial importance in 1347; Vijayanagar completed the conquest in 1377-78 under Harihara II.
Several political and cultural tendencies that emerged at this time had significant effects on the development of the Bahmani State and its successors. Although the State had been organized by a group of dissident nobles from the Delhi Sultanate, differences in both the culture and the political affiliation of the nobilities developed, largely because of differences in recruiting patterns. Soon after the foundation of the Bahmani State, large numbers of Arabs, Turks, and particularly Persians began to immigrate to the Deccan, many of them at the invitation of Sultan Muhammad I, and there they had a strong influence on the development of Muslim culture during subsequent generations. The new settlers (afaqis) also had a political effect, as they soon began competing successfully for important positions within the political hierarchy. The original rebels from the Delhi Sultanate and their descendants, who came to be called dakhnis (Deccani -- from the Deccan), thought of themselves as the old nobility and thus resented the success of the newcomers. The situation was comparable to that of the Delhi Sultanate, in which a party of entrenched nobles had tried to protect their privileged position against newcomers who were developing claims to power. Thus, the distribution of high offices among Persian newcomers by Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din (Muhammad II's oldest son, who ruled for about two months) in 1397 was seen as a threat by the old nobles and Turks and was probably a major reason for his assassination. Later, the addition of Hindu converts and Hindus to the nobility complicated the situation further, as it had in the north, but the division between Deccani and afaqis (hereinafter called newcomers) was most significant and contributed to the disintegration of the Bahmani State.
The Vijayanagar Empire, 1336-1646
Founded in 1336 in the wake of the rebellions against Tughluq rule in the Deccan, the Hindu Vijayanagar Empire lasted for more than two centuries as the dominant power in South India. Its history and fortunes were shaped by the increasing militarization of peninsular politics after the Muslim invasions and the commercialization that made South India a major participant in the trade network linking Europe and East Asia. Urbanization and monetization of the economy were the two other significant developments of the period that brought all the peninsular kingdoms into highly competitive political and military activities in the race for supremacy.
Decline of Vijayanagar
It is likely that the sultans of Golconda and Ahamadnagar, who had lost much at the hands of Rama Raya, were primarily responsible for the formation of an alliance that destroyed Vijayanagar's power forever. By 1564 at least four of the five sultans (Berar is questionable) had begun their march on Vijayanagar, which resulted early in 1565 in the disastrous defeat of the Vijayanagar forces in the battle of Talikota (Banihatti) and in the subsequent sack and destruction of much of the city of Vijayanagar. Rama Raya was captured and killed, but his brother Tirumala escaped to the south with the king and much of the royal treasure.
Vijayanagar was the first South Indian State to have encompassed three major linguistic and cultural regions and to have established a high degree of political unity among them. The administration of the kingdom sporadically achieved a relatively high degree of centralization, although centrifugal tendencies regularly appeared. To the original five rajyas (provinces) held by the Sangama brothers, new ones were added as territories were acquired. Within and among these regions, a complex mosaic of great chiefly houses exercised power to varying degrees, though not with the virtual autonomy that some historians have suggested. The central administration had both a revenue and a military side, but the actual business of raising taxes and troops was mostly the responsibility of the provincial governors and their subordinates. The central government maintained a relatively small body of troops, but it assigned a value to the lands held by the provincial governors and determined the number of troops that were to be supplied from the revenues of each province.
Under Vijayanagar rule, temples, which exhibited such singularly imperial features as huge enclosures and entrance gateways (gopuras), emerged as major political arenas. Monastic organizations (mathas) representing various religious traditions also became focal points of local authority, often closely linked with the Nayaka chieftaincies. A fairly elaborate and specialized administrative infrastructure underlay these diverse local and regional religiopolitical forms.
The Last Dynasty of Delhi - Lodis
The ruler in Delhi was Ibrahim Lodi (1517-1526 A.D.), who
was a very unpopular king. Not only was he not in with the people of
Delhi, who often had a mind of their own about who should rule them
and did not shy away from expressing it, he actually fell out very
badly with the Maliks (nobles).
Ibrahim believed in keeping his nobles firmly in their place – which
was, according to him, much beneath the royal throne. In fact, so
horrific were his dealings with those that displeased him in any
way, real or imagined, that in the end his governor in Punjab,
Dilawer Khan, appealed to the latest runaway from Samarkand who was
camping in Kabul at that time for help.
The latter heeded this SOS with an alacrity that showed that such a
campaign had been very much on his mind too. The voice of Dilawar
Khan was strengthened by those of the Rajputs, especially Rana
Sanga, the Rathore ruler of Mewar, who decided to use this new
invader to get rid of the autocratic Ibrahim Lodi.
Arrival Of Mughals
The Mughal Empire at its zenith commanded resources unprecedented in Indian history and covered almost the entire subcontinent. From 1556 to 1707, during the heyday of its fabulous wealth and glory, the Mughal Empire was a fairly efficient and centralized organization, with a vast complex of personnel, money, and information dedicated to the service of the emperor and his nobility.
Much of the empire's expansion during this period was attributable to India's growing commercial and cultural contact with the outside world. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries brought the establishment and expansion of European and non-European trading organizations in the subcontinent, principally for the procurement of Indian goods in demand abroad. Indian regions drew close to each other by means of a dense overland and coastal trading network, significantly augmenting the internal surplus of precious metals. With expanded connections to the wider world came also new ideologies and technologies to challenge and enrich the imperial edifice.
The individual abilities and achievements of the early Mughals -- Babur, Humayun, and later Akbar -- largely charted this course. Babur and Humayun struggled against heavy odds to create the Mughal domain, while Akbar, besides consolidating and expanding its frontiers, provided the theoretical framework for a truly Indian State. Picking up the thread of experimentation from the intervening Sur dynasty (1540-56), Akbar attacked narrow-mindedness and bigotry, absorbed Hindus in the high ranks of the nobility, and encouraged the tradition of ruling through the local Hindu landed elites. This tradition continued until the very end of the Mughal Empire, despite the fact that some of Akbar's successors, notably Aurangzeb (1658-1707), had to concede to contrary forces.
Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur
Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur (1526-1530 A.D.), who had the blood
of the great central Asian families of Chingez Khan from his
mother's side and that of Timur from his father's, had been hunting
for a home to call his own since he was a teenager. He had been
driven out of Samarkand, his home, and forced to set up a kingdom
elsewhere by his cousins and uncles. Babur looked at Kabul in
Afghanistan to start afresh. It was while he was here, building a
kingdom for himself, that the Indian princes got in touch with him
to help him rid of Ibrahim Lodi.
Much to his delight of course, for the ink was, so to speak, still
wet on the pen with which he had written in his autobiography,
Tuzuk-i-Baburi, "From the time I conquered the land of Kabul till
now, I had always been bent on subduing Hindustan." That very year,
in 1526, he crossed over the Indus to reach Panipat, where he
defeated Ibrahim Lodi in one of the most significant battles of
Indian history.
It was curtains now for the Delhi Sultanate. The Mughals had
arrived.
Babur was a military general of formidable credentials and his
troops would follow him everywhere, and indeed did for thoroughly
battle-scarred his tenure. The first person he defeated was Rana
Sanga who was perhaps appalled at Babur's obvious intentions of
getting comfortable and staying on in Delhi. After taking Mewar,
Babur moved on other battlefields, defeating many kingdoms with a
speed which was astonishing.
By the end of it all, Babur had managed to firmly establish the
Mughals as the new order to salute in India. He died in
controversial circumstances. Some say he was poisoned. There is a
more romantic version – apparently, his son and successor Humayun
had taken ill, and Babur appealed to God that He should spare the
son and take his life instead.
Humayun
His son Humayun succeeded him in 1530 A.D., and ruled till 1556
A.D., in between which there was a break of 16 years when Sher Shah
Suri (1540-1556), an Afghan noble, overthrew him. However, after a
long struggle Humayun was able to take back his kingdom when Sher
Shah Suri died. Not for long though, for Humayun died the very same
year by slipping from the staircase of his library. Babur had been a
great man, soldier, poet and writer; his son was a poet and remained
one till the very end, despite the mantle of kingship being thrust
upon him.
Humayun's troubled life, in which he was constantly at pains to
reconcile his erudite scholarly nature with the demands of kingship
(a struggle which in the end resulted in a severe opium addiction),
in the end seemed to justify a couplet which he liked quote:
"Oh Lord, of thine
infinite goodness make me a part;
Make me a partner of the knowledge of thy attributes;
I am broken-hearted from cares and sorrows of life;
O calls to thee thy poor madman and lover;
Grant me my release."
Akbar The Great
With the passing away of Humayun, came to end the teething
problems of the imperial Mughal dynasty for his son was undoubtedly
the greatest ruler India ever produced. Soon after ascending the
throne as a mere kid of 14, Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (1556-1605
A.D.) started to prove why he earned the epithet of Akbar the Great.
When Akbar came to throne all his father had left behind were poor
fragments of military conquests for him to make sense out of. While
Humayun would have given up, Akbar thrived; challenge became him,
whether physical or metaphysical.
Every ruler in India at that time knew that Humayun had just barely
managed to take his kingdom back and all eyes were on young Akbar –
Sikander Sur, Sher Shah Suri's grandson was still around trying to
get the kingdom back; the powerful Rajputs from behind their
invincible fortresses, the states of Gujarat and Malwa; even the
southern kingdoms – they were waiting for his next move.
The Famous Battle of Panipat Took Place
In 1556 A.D. 14-year-old Akbar led his first army to battle in
the famous old battlefield of Panipat which no doubt was a
sentimental moment for him because, like all Mughals, he was
fiercely clannish. The Second battle of Panipat was fought in
between him and Hemu, the Prime Minister of the Sultan of Bengal,
who had set out against Akbar the moment he heard the news about
Humayun's death. This battle was to decide the future of the young
Mughal for Hemu was a formidable antagonist. The Sultan of Bengal,
Muhammad Shah Abdali, was but a cipher in the state of affairs in
Bengal and Hemu was the l'homme principle. On the way to Panipat he
had scared away the Mughal governor in Agra and occupied it. In the
battle with so many odds stacked against him, Akbar managed to
decisively beat Hemu. What helped him was that Hemu got a little
carried away and arrived in battle on an elephant, which made him a
pretty much a sitting duck; Akbar shot him an arrow right into the
eye. As soon as this occurred Hemu's army panicked and ran away, and
Hemu himself was killed by Akbar.
If the first battle of Panipat signalled the arrival of the Mughals,
the second was of greater importance. All the pretensions to
sovereignty which the Afghans had clung on to since the days of Sher
Shah Suri were finally crushed under the advancing Mughal heels.
With this victory Akbar sent a clear signal all over India – he was
undoubtedly the Mughal king and intended to be, and was taken
seriously. Akbar fought battles all over India, and at the end of it
all had an empire that stretched down to the present Karnataka in
the south, touching right upto the Hindukush range in the north, all
of Rajasthan in the west and after taking in Kashmir and Bihar going
on to Bengal in the east.
Akbar ruled the greatest empire that India saw before the British
and ruled it with far more authority. One man sitting in his Red
Fort in Agra ruled this entire empire with an iron hand.
Akbar - A Great Diplomat
Akbar was not only a good military man but he had a great head
for diplomacy and statesmanship as well. He is famous for his Rajput
diplomacy, which included some strategic matrimonial alliances (an
idea he was the first to use), that turned the fiercely independent
Rajputs from his bitter enemies to staunch allies who were ready to
lay down their lives for him. He also made many reforms in
administration and army management, and started many innovations.
Diplomacy apart, Akbar was a great visionary in many other fields –
like art (painters of his court studied styles from far and wide),
philosophy and religion (in 1581 he started a national religion
which was an amalgam of Hindu, Islamic and Zoroastrian tenets called
the Din-i-Illahi or the religion of God), music, literature and so
on. Akbar also held deliberations in religion and philosophy with
Buddhists, Jains and Christians, in particular the Jesuits. His
court was famous for its nauratan (nine gems) or nine experts chosen
over the years from various artistic fields, like Abul Fazl the
historian, Raja Birbal the wit, Mia Tansen the legendary singer and
so on. There are many stories about Akbar and his nine gems; the
ones involving Raja Birbal and him are still popular all over India.
Jahangir
In 1600 A.D., his son and eventual successor, Jahangir rebelled
against Akbar when he away in the Deccan engaged in battle. In the
confusion of events to follow, Abul Fazl was killed, which made the
great Mughal emperor livid with his son. In fact, he started toying
with the idea of making Prince Khusro, his grandson, the heir
apparent.
This Khusro was a big favorite with the army for his valor and also
with the people for his good looks. Realizing his folly Jahangir
threw himself at his father's mercy in Agra. The latter, being in no
mood to forgive and forget, took his time in coming around but
eventually did.
In October 1605 Akbar fell ill and in November that same year that
small boy who had stared so many years ago at the battlefield where
his grandfather had won such a famous victory, died as king-emperor,
the greatest king to have ever ruled India.
Jahangir was crowned emperor by his father when the latter had been
on his deathbed in 1605. He had to face the usual share of revolts
and rebellions. The very first one being from prince Khusro, in
which he was in good company – for Khusro revolted when Jahangir's
son, Shah Jahan, came to the throne as well. The single most
important person in Jahangir's life was his wife, the enigmatic Nur
Jahan, whom he married in 1611.
Nur Jahan - The Queen With Marvelous Talents
Nur Jahan was the real power behind Jahangir. She was a great
queen, and a woman of amazing gifts. She was quite a beauty and set
many trends in designs of clothes, textiles and jewellery. The attar
(perfume) of roses was just one of this great lady's innovations.
She was also a very capable and shrewd administrator. No detail,
however small, escaped the queen's attention. Her ability to keep a
cool head was almost legendary and she amazed even battle-hardy
generals with her calm and poise in the middle of crisis. She has
been accused of nepotism and of giving rise to a class of nobility
which composed entirely of her kith and kin, but that she was
entirely in control is clear from the fact that she rebuked even her
brother when she thought so fit. Jahangir often remarked: "I have
sold my kingdom to my beloved queen for a cup of wine and a bowl of
soup."
However, Nur Jahan was not without failings and her biggest was
ambition, not only for herself but for her child – a daughter from
earlier marriage. She tried her best to keep the king and the
rightful heir Shah Jahan separated and to make her daughter's
husband the king. However, this was one project that Nur Jahan could
not complete with success.
Jahangir was not a mere figurehead in his kingdom. He led his armies
into battle a number of times and extended the frontiers of his
empire further down in the Deccan, although he lost Kandhar. This
loss, however, was not his fault but that of the bitter in-fighting
between Shah Jahan and his stepmother. Nur Jahan ordered Shah Jahan
to move in battle against a rebellion there, but the prince,
suspicious of her motives, refused and revolted against Jahangir
instead. The emperor got so occupied with his family affairs that he
simply forgot about winning Kandhar back, even though it would have
been a matter of just a few days siege.
Things became so bad that Jahangir had to resort to the extreme
measure of kidnapping his own grandchildren away to Kashmir with him
to stop his son. Depsite all this however Shah Jahan, being a huge
favorite with the nobility, safely ascended the throne in 1627, when
Jahangir died.
Shah Jahan
The reign of Shah Jahan has been widely acclaimed as the golden
period of the Mughal dynasty. There are many reasons for this.
Thanks to the firm base left by his grandfather and father, Shah
Jahan's reign was relatively peaceful and hence prosperous. Except
for one drought in 1630 in the areas of Deccan, Gujarat and
Khandesh, the kingdom was secure and free from poverty. The coffers
of the state were brimming with the right stuff. So it's no wonder
that Shah Jahan was the greatest and most assiduous builder of the
Mughal dynasty.
In 1639, he decided to shift his capital to Delhi and construct a
new city there on the banks of the Yamuna, near Ferozabad. It was to
be called Shahjahanabad and the famously spectacular peacock throne
(the one that Nadir Shah took away) was transferred from Agra to the
Red Fort, the new seat of the Mughal rulers, on April 8, 1648.
Military and building genius apart, Shah Jahan's capacity for hard
work was legendary. Within a year of his taking reins, the revenue
of the state had went up in leaps and bounds. However, his greatest
and most memorable of achievements of course was the breathtaking
Taj Mahal, which he built in the memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal,
who died in child birth.
There were downsides too with Shah Jahan as he was a bigoted Muslim
and a confirmed nepotist. He provided for the imperial princes
before anyone else in the matter of administrative and judicial
postings regardless of age, capability and talent. He also started
the practise of conferring the cream of the offices on each prince;
like Dara Shikoh was made the governor of Punjab and Multan,
Aurangzeb was appointed governor of all the four provinces of the
Deccan and so on. This might have been just a clever way to keep
them occupied, but that was not how the nobility viewed it. The
nobles saw this, and rightfully so, as an obstacle in the path of
their promotions.
End Of Shah Jahan
However, the end of Shah Jahan's reign did not live up to the
beginning; it saw one of the messiest battles of succession (also
see History in Delhi) that Indian history ever witnessed. In
September 1657, Shah Jahan fell ill. The prognosis was so
unoptimistic that the rumors had it that the emperor was dead. This
was enough to spark off intense intrigue in the court. All the four
claimants to Shah Jahan's throne were the children of the same
mother – although one would never have guessed that from their
temperaments and their determination to make it to the throne.
In 1657, Dara Shikoh was 43, Shah Shuja 41, Aurangzeb 39 and Murad
33. All of them were governors of various provinces: Dara was the
governor of Punjab, Murad of Gujarat, Aurangzeb of the Deccan and
Shah Shuja of Bengal. Two of them emerged clear frontrunners in the
battle for the throne quite early: Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb.
Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb was with doubt the ablest of Shah Jahan's sons and a
clear favorite for the throne. His credentials both in battle and
administration were legendary. He was also an orthodox Muslim of the
oldest school possible, which made him a hot favorite with the
clergy.
As stated earlier, the actual events which unfolded around Shah
Jahan's illness were confused. Aiding and abetting the confusion
with every word and gesture, for his own aims and purposes, was the
favorite son Dara Shikoh. Aurangzeb did not waste much time. Acting
on Dara Shikoh's behalf, Aurangzeb along with Murad met the Mughal
armies twice in battle, and beat them each time while moving on
relentlessly towards Agra, where Shah Jahan was convalescing.
When Shah Jahan heard of Aurangzeb's advance, he expressed a wish to
meet Aurangzeb and talk to him. It was the emperor's belief that
upon seeing him alive, his son would turn on his heels and go back.
Clearly the old king had been ailing only in body and not in mind,
for certainly the appearance of Shah Jahan himself would have laid
to rest the whole issue of succession. Even the most ardent of
Aurangzeb's supporters would have had second thoughts about defying
the great Mughal's authority openly.
However, Dara Shikoh lacked the potentate's easy confidence in his
son. He was not so convinced that Aurangzeb would meekly go back to
where he had come from once he had been reassured by the king. In
panic he also gave out that he was the heir-apparent.
So with suspicion and rumours ruling the day and power having the
last laugh, Aurangzeb was the most amused of them all. Within a year
he had all his brothers out of the way, father permanently in
custody in the Agra Fort (where he hung on for eight years before
dying in 1666) and was firmly entrenched on the Mughal throne.
If Shah Jahan has been over-romanticised by scholars, his son and
successor Aurangzeb has been unduly denigrated. Aurangzeb, it seems,
could do nothing right. Later writers were to contrast his bigotry
with Akbar's tolerance, his failure against the Marathas rebels with
Akbar's successes against the Rajputs; in fact he has been set up as
the polar opposite of everything that earned one the Akbarian medal
of genius. One writer has said about him, rather tongue-in-cheek,
"His life would have been a blameless one, if he had no father to
depose, no brothers to murder and no Hindu subjects to oppress."
Aurangzeb Ruled India As A Single Largest State
This picture of him has left such an impact on popular
imagination that even today he is regarded as the bad guy of the
Mughal regime, the evil king who slayed all Hindus and Sikhs. Hardly
anyone remembers that he governed India for nearly as long as Akbar
did (over 48 years) and that he left the empire larger than he found
it. In fact, Aurangzeb ruled the single largest state ever in Mughal
history.
Aurangzeb's rise to the throne has been criticised as being
ruthless. However, he was no more cruel than others of his family.
He succeeded not because he was crueller but because he was more
efficient and more skilled in the game of statecraft with its
background of dissimulation; and if it's any consolation, he never
shed unnecessary blood. Once established he showed himself a firm
and capable administrator who retained his grip of power until his
death at the age of 88. True, he lacked the magnetism of his father
and great-grandfather, but commanded an awe of his own. In private
life he was simple and even austere, in sharp contrast to the rest
of the great Mughals. He was an orthodox Sunni Muslim who thought
himself a model Muslim ruler.
Aurangzeb's Reign Divides To Two Portions
The first twenty-three years were largely a continuation of Shah
Jahan's administration with an added footnote of austerity. The
emperor sat in pomp in Delhi or progressed in state to Kashmir for
the summer.
From 1681 he virtually transferred his capital to the Deccan where
he spent the rest of his life in camp, superintending the overthrow
of the two remaining Deccan kingdoms in 1686-1687 and trying
fruitlessly to crush the Maratha rebellion. The assured
administrator of the first period became the embattled, embittered
old man of the second.
Along with the change of occupation came a dramatic metamorphosis of
character. The scheming and subtle politician became an ascetic;
spending long hours in prayer, fasting and copying the Quran, and
pouring out his soul in tortured letters. It was in the second or
the Deccan phase of his career that Aurangzeb began to drift towards
complete intolerance of Hindus.
Earlier his devotion towards Islam had very rarely taken the form of
any religious bigotry. Now all that changed – the very king who had
ordered in February 1659 that "It has been decided according to our
cannon law that long standing temples should not be demolished… our
Royal Command is that you should direct that in future no person
shall in unlawful ways interfere with or disturb the Brahmins and
other Hindu residents in those places" became a total fanatic.
In this zealousness to promote the cause of Islam, Aurangzeb made
many fatal blunders and needless enemies. He alienated the Rajputs,
whose valuable and trusted loyalty had been so hard won by his
predecessors, so totally that they revolted against him. Eventually
he managed to make peace with them, but he could never be easy in
his mind about Rajputana again, a fact that hampered his Deccan
conquest severely. Then, he made bitter enemies in the Sikhs and the
Marathas. Things came to such a head that Guru Teg Bahadur, the 9th
Guru of the Sikhs was at first tortured and then executed by
Aurangzeb for not accepting Islam; a martyrdom which is mourned to
this day by the Sikh community. The 10th Guru of the
Sikhs, Guru Govind Singh then raised an open banner of revolt
against Aurangzeb.
End Of Aurangzeb's Regime
No, Great-grandfather Akbar would certainly not have approved or
been amused. He would have raised his imperial eyebrows at such a
royal mess and sharply rebuked Aurangzeb for squandering away what
he had worked so hard to achieve. Deccan or no Deccan.
Aurangzeb ended his lonely embittered life in Aurangabad in 1707.
Perhaps with relief, but surely with much grief too for surely he
knew that with him set the glorious sun that was the Mughal dynasty.
The gallery of the great Mughals is completed by Aurangzeb's son
Bahadur Shah, commonly neglected because his reign lasted barely
five years. He was an old man (by contemporary standards) of
sixty-three when he acceded, yet his achievements in time would have
done credit to most men in their prime. He made settlements with the
implacable Marathas, tranquillised the Rajputs, decisively defeated
the Sikhs in the Punjab, and took their last Guru into his services.
He was travelling throughout his reign and only came to rest in
Lahore in the last few months of his life.
From here on, the Mughal dynasty begins to disintegrate, and with
surprising speed. Many directly blame Aurangzeb and his destructive
policies which eroded the faith of the subjects in the Mughals for
this. However, this is by far an overstatement. Whatever might have
been Aurangzeb's policies, he remained very much the emperor till
his dying breath in 1707. True, his policies did lead to resentment;
even at the end of Shah Jahan's reign the rot had set in. Aurangzeb
in fact tried to stop it and did a good band-aid job for a little
while, but then things just went haywire with his persistent Deccan
devil.
Deccan wrung Aurangzeb the man, the king, the father and the
believer out of all softer emotions and decorum. He simply lost all
sense of balance. He alienated a sizeable portion of his subjects
along with allies and employees and made completely unnecessary
enemies which cost his successors dearly. He tried during his
lifetime to put down rebellions all over his empire (the Marathas,
the Sikhs, the Satnamis and the Rajputs) by one hand while trying to
take Deccan with the other. However, it was like trying to put out a
wild fire. Ultimately, it was these alternative power blocs which
were cropping up all over the country that sped up the fall of the
Mughals. Not to mention the foreign powers who were already among
those present: the British stretching their legs in Calcutta, the
Portuguese in Goa and the French testing waters in the South.
Of course, it did not help matters that the successors of the great
Mughals were weak and unworthy of their forefathers. But that was
bound to happen some time or the other, wasn't it? So, from the
late-18th century the field was wide open for any new
power that wanted to try to set up shop in India.
This was the time when a certain East India Company suddenly
realized that they had stumbled upon a gold mine.
The Empire in the 17th Century
The Mughal Empire in the seventeenth century continued its conquest and territorial expansion, with dramatic increase in the numbers, resources, and responsibilities of the Mughal nobles and mansabdars. There were also attempts at tightening imperial control over the local society and economy. The critical relationship between the imperial authority and the zamindars was regularized and generally institutionalized through thousands of sanads (patents) issued by the emperor and his agents. These centralizing measures imposed increasing demands upon both the Mughal officials and the local magnates and therefore generated tensions expressed in various forms of resistance. The century witnessed the rule of the so-called three Great Mughals: Jahangir (ruled 1605-27), Shah Jahan (ruled 1628-58), and Aurangzeb (ruled 1658-1707). The reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan are noted for political stability, brisk economic activity, excellence in painting, and magnificent architecture. The empire under Aurangzeb attained its greatest geographic reach; the period, however, also saw the unmistakable symptoms of Mughal decline.
Political unification and the establishment of law and order over extensive areas, together with extensive foreign trade and the ostentatious lifestyles of the Mughal elites, encouraged the emergence of large centres of commerce and crafts. Lahore, Delhi, Agra, and Ahmedabad, linked by road and waterways to other important towns and the key seaports, were among the leading cities of the world at the time. The Mughal system of taxation had expanded both the cash nexus and commodity production, which, in turn, promoted a network of grain markets (mandis), bazars, and small townships (qasbahs), supplied by a highly differentiated peasantry in the countryside.
Increasing monetization was illustrated, in the first place, by the growing use of bills of exchange (hundis) to transfer revenue to the centre from the provinces and the consequent meshing of the fiscal system with the financial network of the money changers (sarrafs); and second, by the increasing interest of and even direct participation by the Mughal nobles and the emperor in trade. Tatta, Lahore, Hugli (Hooghly), and Surat were great centres for such activity in the 1640s and 1650s. The emperor owned the shipping fleets, and the governors advanced funds to merchants from State treasuries and the mints.
The shift in the attitude towards trade in the course of the seventeenth century owed a good deal to the growing Iranian influence in the Mughal court. The Iranians had a long tradition of combining political power and trade. Shah Abbas I had espoused greater State control of commerce. Because the contemporary Muslim empires, including the Mughals, the Safavids, and the Ottomans, were conscious of one another as competitors, mutual borrowings and emulations were more frequent than the chroniclers would indicate.
Nadir Shah's Invasion
The weakening Mughal Empire invited Nadir Shah's descent upon the plains of northern India for plunder and spoil. For years the defenses of the northwest had been neglected. Nadir captured Ghazni and Kabul, crossed the Indus at Attock (December 1738), and occupied Lahore virtually unopposed. Hurried preparations were then made to defend Delhi, but the faction-ridden nobles could not agree on a strategy. Nadir defeated the Mughals at Karnal (February 1739), took Emperor Muhammad Shah prisoner, and marched to Delhi. As a reprisal against the killing of some of his soldiers, Nadir ordered the massacre of some 30,000 Delhi citizens. The invader left Delhi in May laden with a booty estimated at 700 million rupees. His plunder included the famous Koh-i-noor diamond and the jewel-studded Peacock Throne of Shah Jahan. He compelled Muhammad Shah to cede to him the province of Kabul.
The Iranian invasion paralysed Muhammad Shah and his court. Maratha raids on Malwa, Gujarat, Bundelkhand, and the territory north of these provinces continued as before. The emperor was compelled to appoint the Maratha peshwa, Balaji Baji Rao, as governor of Malwa. The province of Katehar (Rohilakhand) was seized by an adventurer, Ali Muhammad Khan Ruhela, who could not be suppressed by the feeble government of Delhi. The loss of Kabul opened the empire to the threat of invasions from the northwest; a vital line of defense had disappeared. The Punjab was again invaded, this time by Ahmad Shah Abdali, Nadir Shah's Afghan lieutenant, who became king of Kabul after Nadir's death (June 1747); Abdali sacked Lahore, and, even though a Delhi army compelled him to retreat, his repeated invasions eventually devastated the empire.
The Afghan-Maratha Struggle for North India
Muhammad Shah died in April 1748, and within the next 11 years four princes ascended the Mughal throne. Muhammad Shah's son, Ahmad Shah (ruled 1748-54), was deposed by his wazir, Imad-ul-Mulk. Alamgir II (ruled 1754-59), the next emperor, was assassinated, also by the wazir, who now proclaimed Prince Muhi-ul-Millat, a grandson of Kam Bakhsh, as emperor under the title of Shah Jahan III (November 1759); he was soon replaced by Alamgir II's son Shah Alam II. In one way or another, the Marathas played a role in all these accessions. Maratha power had by then reached its zenith in North India. Maratha efforts to dominate the Mughal court were, however, stubbornly contested by the Afghans, newly risen in power under the leadership of Najib-ud-Daulah. The Afghans also had the advantage of support from Abdali. The period thus saw a fierce struggle between the Marathas and the Afghans for control over Delhi and North India. The Afghans enjoyed the blessings of the Sunni Muslim theologians, who saw in the rise of the Marathas the eclipse of the power of Islam. The Marathas, however, were never able to mobilize the Hindu chiefs of northern India to side with them collectively. The Jats and the Rajputs, who had emerged as effective rulers of a sizable part of North India, preferred to stay neutral. To the people of northern India, including the Hindus, the Marathas were alien plunderers from the south comparable to the Pathans** from the northwest. (See Ghazi-ud-Din, Imad ul-Mulk.)
Meanwhile, Abdali had invaded and plundered repeatedly the northern plains down to Delhi and Mathura. The peshwa then dispatched a strong army under his cousin Sadashiva Rao to drive away the invader and establish the Maratha supremacy in North India on a firm footing. The final battle, in which the forces of Abdali routed the Marathas, was fought near Panipat on January 14, 1761. This defeat shattered the Maratha dream of controlling the Mughal court and thereby dominating the whole of the empire. Abdali did not, however, found a new kingdom in India. The Afghans could not even retain the Punjab, where a regional principality was emerging again under the Sikhs. With Shah Alam II away in Bihar, the throne in Delhi remained vacant from 1759 to 1771. During most of this period Najib-ud-Daulah was in charge of the dwindling empire, which was now effectively a regional kingdom of Delhi.
Regional States, c. 1700-1850
The States that arose in India during the phase of Mughal decline and the following century (roughly 1700 to 1850) varied greatly in terms of resources, longevity, and essential character. Some of them -- such as Awadh (Ayodhya) in the north or Hyderabad in the south -- were located in areas that had harboured regional States in the immediate pre-Mughal period and thus could hark back to an older local or regional tradition of State formation. Others were States that had a more original character and derived from very specific processes that had taken place in the course of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In particular, many of the post-Mughal States were based on ethnic or sectarian groupings -- the Marathas, the Jats, and the Sikhs, for instance -- which had no real precedent in medieval Indian history.
The Marathas
There is no doubt that the single most important power that emerged in the long twilight of the Mughal dynasty was the Marathas. Initially deriving from the western Deccan, the Marathas were a peasant warrior group that rose to prominence during the rule in that region of the sultans of Bijapur and Ahamadnagar. The most important Maratha warrior clan, the Bhonsles, had held extensive jagirs (land-tax entitlements) under the Adil Shahi rulers, and these were consolidated in the course of the 1630s and 1640s, as Bijapur expanded to the south and southwest. Shahji Bhonsle, the first prominent member of the clan, drew substantial revenues from the Karnataka region, in territories that had once been controlled by the rulers of Mysore and other chiefs who derived from the collapsing Vijayanagar kingdom. One of his children, Shivaji Bhonsle, emerged as the most powerful figure in the clan to the west, while Shivaji's half-brother Vyamkoji was able to gain control over the Cauvery delta and the kingdom of Thanjavur in the 1670s.
Shivaji's early successes were built on a complex relationship of mixed negotiation and conflict with the Adil Shahis on the one hand and the Mughals on the other. His raids brought him considerable returns and were directed not merely at agrarian resources but also at trade. In 1664, he mounted a celebrated raid on the Gujarat port city of Surat, at that time the most important of the ports under Mughal control. The next year, he signed a treaty with the Mughals, but this soon broke down after a disastrous visit by the Maratha leader to Aurangzeb's court in Agra. Between 1670 and the end of his life (1680), Shivaji devoted his time to a wide-ranging set of expeditions, extending from Thanjavur in the southeast to Khandesh and Berar in the northwest. This was a portent of things to come, for the mobility of the Marathas was to become legendary in the eighteenth century.
Rise of the Peshwas
The good fortune of Shivaji did not fall to his son and successor, Sambhaji, who was captured and executed by the Mughals in the late 1680s. His younger brother, Rajaram, who succeeded him, faced a Mughal army that was now on the ascendant, moved his base into the Tamil country, where Shivaji, too, had earlier kept an interest. He remained in the great fortress of Senji (earlier the seat of a Nayaka dynasty subordinate to Vijayanagar) for eight years in the 1690s, under siege by a Mughal force, and for a time it may have appeared that Maratha power was on the decline. But a recovery was effected in the early eighteenth century, in somewhat changed circumstances. A particularly important phase in this respect is the reign of Shahu, who succeeded Rajaram in 1708 with some acrimony from his widow, Tara Bai. Lasting some four decades, to 1749, Shahu's reign was marked by the ascendancy of a lineage of Chitpavan Brahmin ministers, who virtually came to control central authority in the Maratha State, with the Bhonsles reduced to figureheads. Holding the title of peshwa (chief minister), the first truly prominent figure of this line is Balaji Vishvanath, who had aided Shahu in his rise to power. Vishvanath and his successor, Baji Rao I (peshwa between 1720 and 1740), managed to bureaucratize the Maratha State to a far greater extent than had been the case under the early Bhonsles. On the one hand, they systematized the practice of tribute gathering from Mughal territories, under the heads of sardeshmukhi and chauth (the two terms corresponding to the proportion of revenue collected). But, equally, they seem to have consolidated methods of assessment and collection of land revenue and other taxes, which were derived from the Mughals. Much of the revenue terminology used in the documents of the peshwa and his subordinates derives from Persian, which suggests a far greater continuity between Mughal and Maratha revenue practice than might have been imagined.
The Sikhs in the Punjab
The origins of the Sikhs, a religious group initially formed as a sect within the larger Hindu community, lie in the Punjab in the fifteenth century. The Sikh founder, Guru Nanak (1469-1539), was roughly a contemporary of the founder of Mughal fortunes in India, Babur, and belonged to the Khatri community of scribes and traders. From an early career as a scribe for an important noble of the Lodi dynasty, Nanak became a wandering preacher before settling down at Kartarpur in the Punjab at about the time of Babur's invasion. By the time of his death, he had numerous followers, albeit within a limited region, and, like many other religious leaders of the time, founded a fictive lineage (one not related by blood) of Gurus who succeeded him. His immediate successor was Guru Angad, chosen by Nanak before his death. He, too, was a Khatri, as indeed were all the remaining Gurus, though of various sub-castes.
The Sikh chiefdoms continued many of the administrative practices initiated by the Mughals. The main subordinates of the chiefs were given jagir assignments, and the Persianized culture of the Mughal bureaucracy continued to hold sway. Unlike the Gurus themselves, who, as has been noted, were exclusively drawn from Khatri stock, the bulk of the Sikh chieftains tended to be of Jat origin, a fact that drew disparaging remarks from at least some contemporary writers, who spoke of them as Shudras (the lowest of the four major Indian castes). Thus, besides the States set up in other regions, such as Bharatpur, the Jats can be said to have dominated state building in the Punjab in this period as well.