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Causes of the success of Turkish invasion in India

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In order to discuss the causes of the success of Turkish or Muslim invasion in India and
the reasons behind the failure on part of Indians, we have to depend on the writings of
few contemporary authors like ‘Tabaqat-i-Nasiri’ of Minhaj-ud-din Siraj, ‘Taz-ul-Masir’
of Hassan-ul-Nizami or ‘Tarikh-i-Ferista’ written by Md. Qasim Ferista and so on. On
the other hand number of writings of the contemporary Indian authors on this issue is
quite negligible. To describe the achievement of the Turkish invaders, there are few
prevailing theories. Those are as follows—

1. One of contemporary historian Faqar Mudabbir noted that the cavalry army put the
Turks on an advantageous state in wars against Indians. This view has been supported
by modern historians like Khaleq Nizami, Satish Chandra and others. They held the
view that the physical strength and speed of the horses of cavalry were much more
capable in overwhelming the enemy than that of elephants and infantry soldiers used
by Indian lords. The equipments required to maintain the cavalry force were not yet
available in India, but were very much accessible in Middle East, Arab and Persian
regions.

2. Faqar Mudabbir also said that there was a sense of unity among the Muslim warriors,
which the Indian counterparts lacked very much. Acharya Jadunath Sarkar also claimed
that in respect of legal or religious rights Islam offered wider scope of unity and social
solidarity among its followers. Islam actually inspired them to be the crusaders.
However, modern historians like Nizami disagreed with this theory of religious
inspiration. He opined that common soldiers joined wars for livelihood or salary and at
that time there were a number of Turkish commanders or soldiers who, until then, did
not embrace Islam as their religion. They were not at all aware of Islamic religious
ideals.

3. British historians like Lane-Poole, Vincent Smith or Elphinstone held a distinct view
that the vegetarian diet or food habit of the Indians became a hindrance for them to
acquire physical or mental strength. On the other hand, the Muslims were non-
vegetarians, which helped them to gain more physical power and mental stability than
that of weak Indian soldiers. However, Nizami again contradicted this view by
providing the example of the Mongols, who, in spite of being purely vegetarians,
succeeded in defeating the Turkish army in later years.

4. However, most the scholars are unanimous in accepting the theory of political
disunity in the-then India while discussing on the causes for Turkish success. Generally
it is assumed that particularly in North-Western and Northern India the growing
enmity, mutual distrust and clash among the rulers created a worst situation of political
disunity, which, in turn, became beneficial for the Turks to get hold of the warfare.
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Actually after the downfall of the Guptas and also after the end of the reign of
Harshavardhana, a kind of political instability sprang up in whole of northern India.
The foreign invaders, like the Turks, considered this situation as a golden opportunity
to conquer over India. The long-drawn Tripartite Struggle among Pal, Pratihar and
Rashtrakuta dynasties actually weakened themselves both in terms of military and
mental strength. At the time of Turkish invasions in India during early medieval period,
the most significant power in Eastern India was the Sen dynasty. But they were not at
all capable to form solid resistance against the Turkish army. There is no doubt that the
Rajputs in northern India were full of valour and courage. But they were fragmented
into several smaller states and they never could unite themselves by drifting above the
narrow regional interests. Absence of patriotic spirit was quite apparent in their
psychology. Such environ of utter disunity helped the Muslim conqueror to achieve
success on Indian soil.

5. Dr. Romila Thapar put forth another view that there was a sharp difference between
the attitudes of Turks and Rajputs in regards to have victory in wars. The Turks aimed
at conquering the struggle by any means. Secret conspiracy, secret murder or to attack
unarmed enemy were their regular practice. But, on the contrary, the Rajputs
considered such acts as immoral. Such adherence towards morality in warfront became
an obstacle for the Rajput leaders to achieve success.

6. Dr. Nizami has drawn our attention towards another matter. According to him, the
tradition social structure of India did have a major flaw. Caste and racial discrimination,
influence of the Brahmins in religious practices, imposition of socio-economic injustice
on the lower castes like Shudras—all these were responsible for disparity in the balance
of the society. It resulted in weakening the structure of the State as a whole. This
limitations, prevailed in Indian society and State, acted as a blessing for the Muslim
invaders. Moreover, the Shudras, who had been deprived of their every social and
economic right centuries, considered Islam as an alternative way to have social
freedom. Islam does not believe in caste system and it pays equal respect to all of its
followers irrespective of their class position in society. So, many of the lower caste
Hindus possessed an earnest desire for the victory of Islam in India.

7. The techniques of war prevailed in Indian society was also very much backdated. The
Kshatriyas were the sole proprietor of waging wars. Even, in spite of urgent call for the
sake of motherland, the greater part of the society did not have any right to participate
in wars. As a result they gradually lost their interest to save the country. Moreover, A.
L. Srivastava and other historians viewed that the Indians did not take enough interest
in inventing advanced or sophisticated weapons and armaments. On the other hand,
the Muslim considered war as their profession. Therefore, they were always interested
in developing their weapons and war techniques as well. Such factor made a huge
difference in battlefields, where the Indians had to fight with considerably inferior
resources as compared to that of the Turks.
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8. Dr. Satish Chandra argued that the emergence of feudal structure in Indian society
during early medieval period acted a cause for the lack of a centralized armed force. At
that time none of the Indian kings maintained full-fledged army. Along with their own
forces, they always depended on the soldiers maintained by the subordinate feudal
chiefs. This led to a lack of coordination in Indian army and they failed to combat the
united force of the Muslims.

All the above cited causes are more or less acknowledged by the historians while
discussing on reasons behind the failure of the Indians against the Turks. At one end,
there was growing social and political weakness on part of the Indians and at the other,
there was stern resolution on part of the Muslims—all these led to the inevitable victory
in favour of the Turkish force. By taking the advantage of this weakness of the Indians
Sultan Mahmud invaded this country for seventeen times and clearly further exposed
those limitations. Later on Md. Ghori advanced along Mahmud’s footprint and
succeeded in establishing permanent Turkish empire on Indian soil. The defeat of
Prithwiraj Chauhan in the hands of Md. Ghori in the Second battle of Tarain (1192 A.D.)
ultimately put an end of the Hindu rule over northern India.
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Indian Feudalism
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Use of the term ‘Feudalism’ to describe Indian socio-economic environ

applies a concept of Medieval Indian origin, where the essential
characteristics of Feudalism include weak king, powerful nobility, serfdom,
land and peasantry. It implies a means of holding land by the simplest
form and one strong man with many weak ones joined together to hold
and work on a large tract of land in order to protect their lives. The
peasants were obliged to live on their Lord’s land and gave him their
homage, labour along with a share of produce primarily in exchange of
military protection. Thus social classification becomes the main theme in
the history of Feudalism.

Feudalism is most likely introduced to Indian context when the

Kushana Dynasty from Central Asia invaded India and after getting the
hold of political power they introduced new policies of their own. The first
assimilation of Feudalism in the India context was put forth by James Tod.
He found the replication of the Lord-Vassals relationship in the social
pattern of Rajasthan in India. Few Indian scholars also explored the
prevalence of feudal socio-economic formation in India. As for example, D.
Mukherjee suggested that Feudalism generally involves a kind of military
service. But R. S. Sharma was of the opinion that the military obligation is
not an essential condition of feudalism. The essence of feudalism is the
dependence of the cultivators of land on the king or the State as a whole.
He pointed out that self-sufficiency in a country’s economy is an essential
condition of feudalism. R. S. Sharma then referred to the village economy
of ancient India and opined that the peasantry in that condition had
something to do with Feudalism. However, Nihar Ranjan Ray believed that
by the term Feudalism one should understand various obligations—
political, economic and so on along with military obligations. D. C. Sircar
suggested that the central principle of Feudalism was the holding of land in
return for the property, agreed to perform certain services and to make
some payments and supplies. However, following Karl Marx’s approach of
‘Asiatic mode of production’, the Marxist historians in India often
maintained a distance from the notion of the existence of Feudalism in
India. But, even among them, D. D. Kosambi gave Feudalism a significant
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place in the context of socio-economic history. According to him the

existence of a feudal land tenure was hugely responsible for the
exploitation of the peasants. In various periods of Indian history D. D.
Kosambi noticed the increasing importance of intermediaries between the
king and his subject. Kosambi argued that when the kings began to transfer
their administrative rights to their subordinate chiefs and those chiefs
inevitably came into direct relation with the peasantry, a process started,
which he termed as ‘Feudalism from above’. It reached an advanced stage
of development during Gupta or post-Gupta period, where a new class of
land owners developed within the village. They existed between the State
and the common peasantry and were obliged to render military service to
the king. Kosambi termed this social structure as ‘Feudalism from below’.
However, R. S. Sharma in his famous book ‘Indian Feudalism’ did not
follow Kosambi’s formula of ‘Feudalism from below’ as he viewed the rise
of Feudalism in Indian history entirely as the consequence of State action,
which means the process had been formulated only from above.

Thus, it is quite obvious that there is a huge debate in regards to the

characteristics of Feudalism in Indian scenario. Hence, by absorbing all the
views it can be said that in Indian context the term Feudalism denotes a
socio-political system based upon the rural economy, characterized by
distribution of power in a variety of semi-independent domains. These
domains were, staged as Fiefs (land held under feudal system), were held
on condition of the performance of service.

It is generally believed that feudal institution developed in a State

where there is no efficient system of centralized government, transport and
communication. Under such circumstances the life and property of the
people can only be ensured by the administration of local influential
persons. These persons would have their own army, machinery of
collecting taxes and would pay tributes and go to the rescue of their
overlord with military forces when called for. Actually after the
disintegration and downfall of the Gupta Empire in northern India, such
situation arrived where the entire empire was fragmented into pieces and
several semi-independent king or local chiefs grew up as a result of the
situation. So quite obviously it can be stated that Feudalism concentrated in
India right from this phase. In Gupta period the term ‘Samanta’ became to
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be applied to those granted land or to subjugated feudatory rulers. With

the growing weakening of the enforcement of power exerted by central
Gupta authority, the holders such land grants became independent and
thus the ‘Samantaprabhus’ (holder of ‘Samanta’ land) emerged as the
feudal lords in Indian context. The fundamental features of Feudalism in
early India were namely king, landed aristocracy, slavery, forced labour,
ties of obedience and fragmentation of the royal authority etc. Later on the
term ‘Indian Feudalism’ was used to describe several other newly emerged
classes like Taluqdar, Zamindar, Sardar, Chaudhury, Ghatwals, Jaigirdar
and so on.

So, in conclusion it can be said that the India Feudalism revolved

round the landlords who were directly responsible for the emergence of
powerful politico-economic intermediaries. Therefore, in the light of this
vital feature of class structure the existence of Feudalism in India can never
be denied.