A Short History of the Mughal Empire (I.B.Tauris Short Histories)

by Fisher, H, Michael

  Similarly, when Roman Catholic Portuguese explorers first reached the south-western Indian coast in 1498 (28 years before Babur’s final invasion), they initially identified all the non-Muslims there as Christians, whose temples supposedly contained distorted images of the Virgin Mary and various Catholic saints. Moreover, the Portuguese used their term casta/caste (‘breed’) to include all four varnas and the many thousands of jatis. This terminological confusion has remained in wide circulation ever since.

  When Babur arrived, a substantial minority of people living in South Asia were Muslims: some were immigrants and their descendants, but most were converts. Many families had accepted Islam through the influence of charismatic Sufis. Often, these Sufis had heterodox Islamic concepts and customs that incorporated many of the converting community’s pre-Islamic beliefs and practices, especially domestic customs about birth, marriage and other rituals, and women’s roles. Some prominent converts later claimed biological descent from the Prophet Muhammad or another revered Arab, boasting honorifics like Sayyid or Shaikh, despite their Indic biological ancestry. The largest concentrations of Muslims lived in the widely separated regions of India’s north-west and eastern Bengal.

  Since the early thirteenth century, Muslim Afghan immigrants had established themselves as landholders and rulers across the Gangetic plain. When Babur arrived, a Lodi Afghan sultan ruled in Delhi while other Muslim dynasties ruled in the Deccan. Although Babur would project himself as the model Muslim ruler during some campaigns in north India, many Indo-Afghan Muslims regarded him as alien and fought against him. Babur’s descendants would each negotiate the extent and expression of their roles as Islamic sovereigns.

  Linguistically, South Asia also contains great diversity, with three major language families, dozens of separate regionally based languages, and thousands of distinct dialects. Most north Indians speak one of the dozen languages derived from Sanskrit. Most south Indians speak one of the four major languages of the separate Dravidian family. Additionally, especially in the Deccan and the north-east, many forest-dwelling groups have their own languages, unconnected to either Sanskrit or a Dravidian language.

  From well before Babur’s invasion, Persian had begun to dominate at Muslim courts, especially in the Deccan sultanates that had cultural, diplomatic and economic links across the Indian Ocean with Iran. Gradually, the Mughal dynasty would shift from the Turki of Babur to Persian, and adopt many accompanying Iranian administrative and cultural practices. Then, as the Mughal Empire expanded, its imperial Persianate culture and administrative forms became fashionable for other rulers, including Rajputs. Thus, from Babur onward, the Mughal Empire would interact with the distinct traditions in each region, as well as with South Asia’s overarching trans-regional patterns.

  THE ECONOMIES OF SOUTH ASIA

  Throughout India’s history, including during the entire Mughal period, the vast majority of its people have lived in an agriculturally based economy. When Babur arrived, he found that settled farmers held customary occupancy rights to plant and harvest (although not full property landownership). Other local people or institutions also held their own separate rights to that same land. Most prominently, one or more levels of zamindars (‘landholders’) held rights to collect the revenues, retain a portion, and convey the rest to the state’s agents. Many zamindars based their claims on having originally settled or conquered the region. The amount of revenue retained by zamindars depended on whether the land was directly managed by them or not, as well as on their power relative to the cultivators and the state. Village headmen, servants, accountants and local religious institutions also often had customary rights to a share of the produce. All these rights could be inherited, exchanged, or sold, with varying degrees of documentation required by various states.

  In Babur’s time, most regions had much unused but potentially arable land. Hence, the land itself had limited economic value, although farmers often had invested in considerable labor to bring it under active cultivation. Control over people was more valuable than control over land. Thus, the revenue demands by zamindars or the state could not be so high as to drive farmers to emigrate and resettle new lands. Moneylenders and merchants made loans and purchased produce for sale in regional markets (the agricultural economy in many regions would be further monetized under Mughal rule).

  Overall, zamindars, peasants, moneylenders and imperial administrators engaged in multi-sided cooperation and subtle or open contestation over agricultural resources. Each had his (or, less frequently, her) own interests in maximizing income while minimizing the economic and cultural costs of defending those interests. Babur, trying to establish his regime quickly, often officially recognized those landholders who would at least pay some tribute, letting them assess and collect revenues from the cultivators. Even in Hindustan, Babur never fully convinced many local rulers and landholders to accept his authority and routinely pay him the revenues or service he demanded. Mughal officials would long struggle even to gain information about the actual local production. Further, while Babur could concentrate his forces to capture cities and conquer territories, he controlled insufficient manpower and authority to prevent the periodic rebellions that necessitated his reconquering them.

  Like many other rulers of that age, the Mughal dynasty would favor settled agriculturalists as their main revenue base. But settled agriculture was not strongly separated from other ways of life. For example, at times of drought (or excessive revenue demand), farmers sometimes resorted to the forests, while periods of rain (or promises of revenue relief) could attract former forest-dwellers to settled agriculture.

  Further, some individuals, families, or whole communities customarily migrated. During the harvest season, male and female agricultural laborers often followed the shifting wave of ripening crops intra- or inter-regionally. During the fallow season, many village men (with varying military experience and weaponry) joined mobile armies or formed their own bands, seeking plunder. The Mughal state would never fully control this vast seasonal military labor market. Further, itinerant artisans and entertainers provided services to villages. Women and men hand-manufactured cloth and other products for sale which they, or brokers, carried to nearby qasbas (‘market towns’)—centers of regional commerce, concentrated artisan manufacture, inter-regional trade and governance.

  Throughout the Mughal period, many migratory communities combined pastoralism with commerce, often over long distances. They also produced meat and dairy products for local and regional markets. Imperial armies relied on huge caravans of bullocks carrying grain on their backs. But such pastoralists and itinerant traders also proved difficult for the Mughal administration to locate and tax.

  Many communities lived mainly or provisionally in forests, often forming internal frontiers for the Empire, easily avoiding the heavy cavalry and artillery that became the imperial army’s core.4 Forest-dwelling adivasis hunted and practiced swidden agriculture. In many cases, a leading family had risen to establish its own kingdom and claim Rajput status. Such forest-dwellers had tense relationships with settled agricultural society, both raiding for cattle, grain, women and other booty and also trading forest products like wood and herbs for grain and artisanal products. Further, recalcitrant landholders, political rebels and outlaws took refuge in thick groves, often planted for that purpose, against tax-collectors as well as marauding warlords and recent invaders like Babur. Babur bemoaned the ‘forests of thorny trees in which the people … hole up and obstinately refuse to pay tribute.’5 Conversely, such forest-dwellers often felt the brunt of Mughal coercive efforts to transform forests into settled, revenue-producing farmland.

  In addition to the interrelated agricultural, pastoralist and forest-based economies, extensive long-distance trade routes in high-value, low-volume goods connected South Asia by land with the famous trans-Asian ‘Silk Road.’ In Kabul, Babur had already taxed this trade. In particular, South Asia imported horses (vital for cavalry but constantly needing replacemen
t due to uncongenial equine conditions) while exporting slaves and valuable man-made and natural products. Babur was initially less familiar with India’s sizable and growing overseas trade with Africa, Southeast and East Asia and (especially from the sixteenth century onward) Europe. But, he came to appreciate India’s wealth from indigenous production and also its perennial export surplus. To tap into these, Babur had to conquer Hindustan and the prosperous coastal provinces to its south-west and south-east.

  THE POLITICAL WORLDS OF SOUTH ASIA

  Each South Asian region had its own history of political independence. Over the previous two thousand years, many had been centers of their own trans-regional empires, a few briefly conquering much of the subcontinent. But all empires struggled to govern beyond their original heartland. From the early thirteenth century until Babur’s invasion, the Delhi Sultanate, under five successive Muslim dynasties (most ethnically Afghan or Turk), had ruled in north India. They fought, negotiated with, and occasionally ruled many of the diverse Rajput and other regional states across the Ganges and the Indus macro-regions.

  Some more expansive Delhi sultans also conquered the Deccan, but such military assertions beyond the Sultanate’s heartland proved technologically and culturally unsustainable. Indeed, the Deccani conquests split off as the Bahmani Sultanate in 1347. Coincidentally, just after Babur’s invasion, the Bahmani Sultanate itself fragmented into warring successor kingdoms: Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur and Golkonda. Cultural, economic and political links across the Indian Ocean to Iran meant more Persian and Shi‘i influences in the Deccan than in north India. Nonetheless, several contending Deccani sultans sent ambassadors to Babur soon after his invasion, each vainly seeking his military support against the others. However, Babur had insufficient resources to extend into the Deccan so he dismissed those invitations.

  Even further south, at the margins of Babur’s knowledge, were many diverse kingdoms. Most were ruled by regionally based Hindu kings from Dravidian-language speaking communities with their own martial traditions and ambitions. The largest was Vijayanagar (until 1565, when it fragmented). Babur’s dynasty would never fully incorporate these various southern states.

  During Babur’s lifetime and thereafter, military and economic battles continued for control over the Indian Ocean. However, neither Babur nor his descendants built blue-water warships or many coastal defenses. In contrast, the Portuguese royal navy proved a rising military and mercantile force in the Indian Ocean, based after 1505 in permanent colonial enclaves along the western coast. The most significant Portuguese bases were Goa (seized from the Bijapur Sultanate in 1510) and Daman and Diu (taken from Gujarat in 1531 and 1535 respectively). The Portuguese also established trading enclaves in Bengal at Satgaon (1550) and Hugli (1579). The Portuguese profited from both their own transoceanic trade with Europe and their participation in Asian commerce in the Indian Ocean. Further, fast and well-cannoned Portuguese warships enforced their demand that all Indian Ocean merchant ships purchase their license (cartaz) or else have their cargo, crew and passengers subject to seizure. While the cartaz fee was modest, the document carried Christian images, which offended many Muslims; it could only be purchased in Portuguese colonial ports, which redirected trade routes there. Thus, although the Portuguese did not penetrate inland, they nonetheless affected India’s politics, economy and culture.

  Map 3: Major States and Regions as of 1526

  The still expanding Ottoman Empire sent occasional war fleets into the Indian Ocean from Egypt, seeking political and commercial advantage. But they eventually lost out to the Portuguese, who themselves would be overshadowed by the Dutch, French and English East India companies during following centuries. Later Mughal emperors negotiated with European sea powers for the safety of pilgrims to Mecca and of oceanic trade, with limited success. Thus, the Mughal Empire remained a land power with modest riverine forces.

  Babur’s shattering of the Delhi Sultanate opened new possibilities for expansion by ambitious rivals. In the lower Gangetic plain, many Indo-Afghan and other local rulers seized the opportunity. Only months after Panipat, Babur sent Humayun to march eastward against these rulers, whom Babur repeatedly called ‘rebels’—although they had never been under Babur’s rule, he claimed sovereignty across north India, making them ‘rebellious.’

  The most threatening ruler who marched against Babur in the next campaigning season after Panipat was Maharana Sangaram Singh, ‘Rana Sanga’ (r. 1509–29). An experienced Sisodia Rajput commander, he bore many battle scars earned in expanding his domain over the key Rajasthan regions of Mewar and Marwar. Rana Sanga pressed north into the heart of Hindustan, leading a coalition of Rajput, Indo-Afghan and Indian Muslim clans. Babur concentrated his forces, now including substantial numbers of Indian Muslims. Babur rightly apprehended a perilous battle against a much larger army, and the reluctance of his core force of Central Asians, many homesick, to remain fully committed to his cause. Dishearteningly, a prominent Central Asian soothsayer arrived and declared the planet Mars to be aligned against Babur.

  For the first time, Babur faced a predominantly non-Muslim army. Hence, he sought sectarian and divine support by highlighting his Islamic identity more than ever before. He exempted all Muslims from taxes on cattle and goods. He publicly renounced wine (forbidden in Islam), even destroying a newly arrived shipment of ‘three camel trains [of] superior Ghazni wine’; he shattered his gold and silver drinking vessels, distributing the valuable shards to poor Muslims.6 All the soldiers of what Babur now called his ‘Army of Islam’ swore on the Qur’an to fight as ghazis (Islamic warriors) in a jihad until death. Babur also had a supportive audience from Muslim west Asia: Safavid and Uzbek ambassadors attended him.

  In 1527, the armies met at Khanua, near Agra. After desperate fighting, Babur’s forces prevailed and Rana Sanga fled wounded. In triumph, Babur built a huge tower of enemy skulls in the Timurid mode and seized territories from those who had opposed him, including the strategic region of Mewat, near Delhi.

  Featuring his newly emphasized Islamic identity, Babur officially added Ghazi to his own titles and coins. He also composed the verses:

  I have become a desert wanderer for Islam

  Having joined battle with infidels [kafar] and Hindus.

  I readied myself to become a martyr [shahid],

  God be thanked I am become a ghazi.7

  Additionally, Babur also renamed his most effective cannon ‘Ghazi.’

  Two of Babur’s courtiers separately ‘found’ the Hijri year of his victory in the alpha-numerical value of Fath-i Badshah-i Islam (‘Victory of the Emperor of Islam’), thus discovering God’s will via chronogram. Indeed, increasingly in India, Babur reduced his earlier emphasis on Timur as his source of authority, which had proved unpersuasive to Indians. Instead, Babur highlighted himself as conquering champion of Islam in the pattern of Mahmud of Ghazni, who had invaded India 17 times around 1000 CE.8

  Babur still remained oriented toward Muslim Central Asian warrior culture. But, many of his Central Asian followers, having already endured enough of India’s uncomfortable and unfamiliar climate, returned home, laden with loot and gifts from Babur. To reinforce his thinning forces in Hindustan, Babur issued a general invitation of employment to all warriors in Central Asia. However, Uzbeks took advantage of Babur’s extended absence in Hindustan by seizing Balkh. In response, Babur sent Humayun and his personal followers back to govern Badakhshan and expand the Mughal Empire in Central Asia. Instead, Humayun struggled to hold Badakhshan. As Humayun’s grandson, Jahangir, stated: ‘it is the temperament of the Badakhshis to be seditious and turbulent.’9 Further, Humayun failed to recover Balkh or capture Samarkand.

  As Humayun left Hindustan, however, he had strengthened his hand against his three rival half-brothers, but imprudently upset Babur, by taking money from the Delhi treasury without authorization. In Humayun’s place, Babur summoned his youngest son, Askari (age 12), to prove his worthiness in battle and administration und
er Babur’s direct observation; Askari would remain in India until Babur’s death. Through Babur’s own writing, we see his growing engagement with South Asia, which he never left alive.

  CREATING THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

  Babur, his Central Asian followers, and his new Hindustani subjects created the Mughal Empire as an amalgam of their various cultures, traditions and interests. Although Babur’s forces had initially triumphed, his rule remained tentative. He and his still mainly Central Asian commanders and troops were alien to his new Hindustani subjects, having different values and speaking different languages. Even many Indo-Afghans did not know the Persian or Turki of Babur’s followers. Nor did all Hindustanis regard Babur as their legitimate ruler. Hence, Babur’s regime largely relied on the military forces he could command and reward with looted treasuries and forced taxes.

  Ruling an expanding empire but lacking a robust land-tax collection administration, Babur needed to keep capturing royal treasuries in order to reward his commanders. During the three remaining campaign seasons until his death, Babur annually led his forces or dispatched his commanders to overawe or crush regional powers—from the Sultan of Bengal in the east to the nomadic Baluch rulers in the west. Many agreed to accept Babur’s overlordship and submit tribute—at least temporarily while under immediate threat or assault by his troops.

  Babur allotted often still resistant cities to his most prominent remaining Central Asian commanders. They were to extract from these their expenses for maintaining their soldiers, households and pleasures, plus submit a proportion of the revenues to Babur’s own treasury. In a patrimonial court like Babur’s, the ruler often turned to a courtier or attendant at hand to take military governance over a newly available city. Hence, many Central Asian governors—arbitrarily assigned to control unknown places and having no affinity with the local population—largely remained in beleaguered garrisons. Nor did they typically remain there long, either recalled by Babur for the next campaign or else transferred to another unfamiliar posting.