THE MOGUL EMPIRE PART I

IN
The Mogul empire was going to be a work of the Turks, once again, who re-entered India under the command of a new leadership in 1526. This was Barbur, the commander of the city of Kabul (now Afghanistan).

BARBUR
Barbur was a direct descendant of the Mongol historical conqueror Tamerlan (on his father side) and of Genghis Khan (on his mother side). However, he prided himself of being a Chagatai Turk. The Chagatai (also Chagatai Tajiks or Tajik Chagatai) are one of the peoples of Uzbekistan. The Chagatai live in the Surxondaryo Province in south-east Uzbekistan and in southern Tajikistan. Prior to his arrival to Kabul, he had been the chief of the city of Fergana, bur was expelled by the Uzbekistanis.

He arrived to Kabul and sized the power in 1504.He began his expansion and got control over the mountain region next to India just to keeping it further on. His first major victory came in 1526 when he dethroned Ibrahim, the Sultan of Delhi by those days on the battle field of Panipat, near the valley of the Ganges. Later on, Babur occupied Agra the new capital of the Sultante after Dautalabad fell to the Rajputs.

After it he enthroned himself as the Emperor of Indostan. One year after, in 1527, Babur defeated his last powerful rival, the Raja of Mewar, Rana Sangram Singh. Two years later, all the minor Muslims chiefs had been defeated and stripped from their power. He died in 1530, but his Empire now comprised Afganisthan, Panjab and all the Ganges Valley all the way up to Bengal.

Humayun, his son and successor, lost in a few years the control over Afghanistan, but his brother Kamran took it over again and expelled him from the city. Yet, the next Indian expansion was led by Sher Shah who reigned from 1540 to 1545. He became the ruler of all of northern India. Sher Shah regulated the taxing system so that the amounts to pay would be determined by a formula which considered the possessions of the payer. (Prior to that the collector took everything they could).

To ease the administration, the Empire was divided in Districts directed and administered by functionaries directly named by Sher. He was succeeded in 1545, after his dead, by Islam Shah, who would rule for the next 9 years. Islam became famous for his systematization of the law. He regulated religion, politics and income very carefully. This controlled the governmental functionaries more than any other edict prior to Islam.

In 1955 Humayun, the orginal son of Babur, organized a coup d etat and recaptured the power. He claimed that India had become so poor that cannibalism began to be practiced in Delhi. He was murdered a year after and replaced by Akbar, his son who was 13 years old by the date. Akbar was helped in governing and decision making by his minister Bairam Khan until the age of 20 in which he had learnt enough from Khan to command on his own.

AKBAR

The epoch of the ruling of Akbar is one of the most significant ones in India. His story is know thanks to his own personal biographer and historian Abul Fazl. According to his place in Indian history, he is recalled thanks to his might and tolerance. He seemed to be extremely intelligent and a very good administrator who was always personally in charge. At the moment in which he took the throne, the Empire consisted in the Panjab, the Ganges Valley till Allahabad, Gwailor and Ajmer (Central India). Meanwhile, Bengala, Bihar and Orissa were ruled by an Afghan family. The Rajput controlled their region, and Malwa and Gujarat were still Muslims just as 5 States in the Deccan: Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar and Golkunda. Goa was still Portuguese.

Since the beginning, it became obvious that Akbar had the goal to control all of the surrounding territories. To achieve that he began centralizing power and public decisions. With this centralizatio nhe explicitly rejected to be a part of the leaders confederation that had constituted the remainings of the Sultanate of Delhi. His dream was to control everything from Central Asia to Southern India. Thus, he wanted to become a Cakravartin of modernity.

The expansion began heading south-east, by attacking Gondwana, who was south the Ganges and was habitated by the Gons. Akbars rival in that first clash was a woman: Rani Durgavati who personally led her troops. The Gonds were defeated and sacked, but their lives were spared. Rani was dethroned and a relative of Akbar enthroned.

As usual, the most difficult region to conquer was Rajputana. The Rajputs had edified a series of fortress all over the territory, each one with its own army and defense system. This represented not only an obstacle, but a threat. Thus, although he combated the Rajputs and eventually defeated them, he respected them and treated hem differently than the rest of the other kings or governors (including he Muslims) who were deposed of their power. The Rajput chiefs remained in control of their territories.

Why the Rajputs? Not only because they were fearce warriors, but also as a politica strategy. Akbar had slowly replaced the Muslim governors with Persians and Turks. This included a chief loyal to him, Khan-iZaman who dared to challenge him because he was an Usbekian witnessing how his brothers were being removed.

The first Rajput alliance was sealed with the deliverance of one of the daughters of the chief of Amber to the harem of Akbar. Many more of these rituals were to happen. As the tolerant man they say he was, Akbar allowed all of their wives to practice their own religions. From that moment on, the Rajputs fought on Akbars side and they were even the commanders of the troops. These balanced the influence that the Turks were starting to have among Akbars troops.

AKBARS BRUTAL IMPERIALISM Akbars main enemy was the Kingdom of Mewar, which never accepted his dominion. The fortress of Chitor represented a threat in his expansions directed to the south of India. Akbar became stubborn about it, and tried to conquer Chitor at any costs, to make it an example for the rest of the kingdoms. According to the code og honor of the Rajputs, the Mewar defenders fought with pride and restlessness:

Women turned themselves on fire (jauhar) and men rather died than surrender in battle. They were finally defeated by Akbar who ordered any farmer that had fought on the side of Mewar to be publically executed. 30K were slaughtered. The chief of Chitor, Rana Udai Singh, had preciously escaped, which is seen by some historians as an act of cowardy. However thanks to that the resitance was able to continue.

Mewar resistance lasted over 25 years under the command of Rana Pratap Singh. But this resistance couldnt avoid Akbar to penetrate southern and control the trading routes. The next kingdom to be conquered, southern from Mewar, was Gujarat justifuing it because Humayun was hiding there. It as done under an argument of a defensive war: A good monarch must be always prepared and willing to conquer, for otherwise the neighbor kingdoms will rise up in arms against him (Kautilya).

In reality, Gujarat was a very rich kingdom. Ahmadabad, its capitol city, was a trading center whose ports had been the gathering point of several trading routes. It served as an intermediation between inner India and the products arriving to Goa. It took two different campaings for Akbar to conquer Gujarat. The first one (1572) ended fast and suddenly, since a big amount of chiefs from the region surrendered immediately to Akbar.

But this action was only a siluete. As soon as he left the region the Mizra family organized a rebellion against the chiefs that Akbar had left in charge. Akbar returned in 1573 and this time, after defeating the rebells, he ordered the constructio nof a pyramid made by more than 2K skulls as a monument to his victory. The income that Gujarat represented to Akbars Empire after that was 5 million rupees annually.

That evidently helped the expansion of the Empire. In 1576 Akbar started an invasive war against Bengala (the last big conquering of Akbar) and his souveraing Daud Khan. The latter was named governor of Orissa although defeated. However, as soon as he showed hints of eagerness to re-obtain his control over Bengala, he was decapitated.

To maintain the control of the Empire was not an easy task. The Islamic chiefs were irritated by Akbars flexibility so they joined the Indian rebel kingdoms in 1584 in a war that lasted four years and in some regions like Gujarat even longer. Nizam-ud-din Ahzmed a soldier who wrote the history of the war wrote: We turned the cities of Kari and Kataria on fire and destroyed them. We obtained an enormous bounty and, after sacking and destroying about 300 villages I nthree days we came back to the headquarter of Ranh.

Some other rival tribes were the Koli and the Grassia. On te northwest side of India the situation wasnt easy either: the Uzbek Abdullha Khan founded a huge kingdom that comprised a part of he Panjab, thus forcing Akbar to translate the capital to Lahore. Bayazid, a religious leader, who had founded a new religioues sect named Roshniya the enlightened- was another source of trouble, since their main principle was the right to have everything that could be in possession of the infidels.

Akbar died in 1605 after being able of being victorious over the territories from Kabul to Brahmaputra. Entering thus to the leagues of the Tugluqs and the Mauryas. He left his political power to his son Jahangir.