READING HALL DOORS OF WISDOM
"THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY"
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READING HALL DOORS OF WISDOM"THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY" |
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BABAR
CHAPTER XIIPANIPAT
When Babar at last invaded India in force he was
attacking an organized kingdom. It was no longer a case of wild Mongol or Uzbeg
tribes; he had to face a settled civilization supported by a disciplined and
numerous army. Since the time, five hundred years before, when Mahmud of Ghazni
first carried the standards of Islam over northern India, and left a permanent lodgment
in the Punjab to his successors, six dynasties had upheld the Muhammadan rule
in Hindustan, and had extended its sway from Multan to the Gulf of Bengal, and
from the Himalayas to the Vindhya mountains, and even into parts of the Deccan.
The last of these dynasties, that of the Lodi Afghans, was now represented by Sultan
Ibrahim, who ruled a considerable kingdom from his capital at Delhi. It was,
however, greatly shrunk in comparison with former centuries. The rise of
independent states had cut off Bengal, Jaunpur, Malwa, and Gujarat, from the
parent crown, and though the “Kings of the East” had lately been dethroned and
their state of Jaunpur recovered, the King of Delhi was by no means the king of
all Muhammadan India, to say nothing of the powerful Rajput principalities.
Sikandar Lodi, the father of Ibrahim, however, had been a vigorous ruler, and
had annexed territories to the east and south, and compelled some of the Hindu Rajas
to pay him homage; so that he left his son an extended realm, including what we
now call the Punjab, North-West Provinces and Oudh, Bihar, and a portion even of
Rájputána. The organization of the kingdom, however, made against unity. It was
parceled into innumerable principalities and fiefs (jágírs) ruled by hereditary chieftains, or by zemindárs appointed from Delhi,
all of which tended to create a separate loyalty and obedience, apart from the
supreme power. The great fiefs were in the hands of leading Afghans, and the
race is not celebrated for subordination. The early events of Sultan Ibrahim’s
reign (1518 ff.) had increased the tendency to separation. The kingdom had been
divided between him and his brother; civil war was the result, the Amirs had
taken sides, and when victory declared for Ibrahim, his severe treatment of
many of the Afghan chiefs stirred up general disaffection. Whole provinces rose
in revolt, and among them was the Punjab, whose powerful governor, Daulat Khan,
declared his independence.
At this juncture, a royal prince of the Delhi house, Alá-ad-din,
commonly called Alam-Khan, uncle of Sultan Ibrahim, fled to Babar at Kabul and
entreated him to help him to the throne of his ancestors. Hardly had he made
his appeal when Daulat Khan invited, the Emperor to come to his aid in the Punjab.
No more propitious moment could be desired. India was seething with faction and
discontent; Babar was strong and prepared, and at his side was a member of the
Lodi family to sanction his plans and invite adhesion. The Emperor was soon on
the march, and following his previous route to Bhíra was quickly in the neighborhood
of Lahore. The insurgent governor, Daulat Khan, had already been driven out by
the Delhi army, but he was amply avenged by the Kabul troops, who routed the
enemy with heavy slaughter, and chased them through the streets of Lahore,
plundering and burning the bazar. Babar only rested four days in the capital of
the Punjab, and then pressed on at his best speed to Dibalpur, where he stormed
and sacked the town, and massacred the garrison. Here Daulat Khan joined him;
but suspicion of the governor’s good faith was aroused, and though treated
leniently, he was so little satisfied with the minor fief allotted him by his
ally, instead of the whole province, that he fled to the hills to mature plans
of vengeance. This defection, natural enough in the circumstances, brought Babar
back from his march upon Delhi. The Punjab must be secured against its old
governor before any further advance could be risked. He appointed some of his
most trusty officers to defend the province, and having established Sultan Alá-ad-din
at Dibalpur (with a veteran Mongol to watch him), the Emperor returned to Kabul
to beat up reinforcements.
The moment Babar was out of the way, Daulat Khan took
the field, drove Alá-ad-din out of Dibalpur, and compelled the Turkish officers
to concentrate at Lahore. Alá-ad-din tied straight to Kabul, where he offered
to cede to Babar the Punjab if he would aid him in seizing the throne of Delhi.
The treaty was arranged; and armed with the Emperor’s promise of immediate
support, the pretender hastened back to Lahore. Babar himself was delayed by
some trouble on the Uzbeg border, but set out on his fifth and last invasion of
India in November, 1525. Bus eldest son, Humayun, brought a contingent from Badakhshan,
and Khwája Kalán, trustiest of generals, led the troops of Ghazni. It was the
largest army Babar had ever commanded in Hindustan, yet the total muster,
including camp followers, did not exceed twelve thousand men. On crossing the
Jhílam he was joined by part of the Lahore army, which had been seriously
weakened by an ill-advised march, under Alá-ad-din, upon Delhi, ending in a
panic and disgraceful flight. Siálkót had been lost, and Babar’s generals were
assembled at Lahore in the hope of making a stand. Daulat Khan, after deceiving
A1á-ad-din with pretended support, was now in the field at the head of 40,000
men, and the old Afghan had girded on two swords in token of his resolve to win
or die. Nevertheless this valiant army broke and vanished at Babar’s approach.
When he reached the banks of the Rávi, where the enemy’s camp had been, he
found no one to oppose him. A light detachment was sent in pursuit of the
fugitives, and the old Khan was compelled to surrender himself, with the two
swords still hanging round his neck. It was the last appearance of Daulat Khan,
for though his conqueror contented himself with administering a severe
upbraiding, and spared his life, the old man died on his way to his village.
Having disposed of this double traitor, and restored
order in the Punjab, the Emperor continued his march towards Delhi, attended by
Alá-ad-din, whom, so long as he was useful, he treated with politic respect. Proceeding
by way of Sirhind and Ambála, in February, he learned that Sultan Ibrahim was
already coming to meet him, supported by a second force from Hisár-Firúza. This
latter was effectually dispersed by Humayun, in his maiden battle; the town was
plundered, and Babar had a hundred prisoners shot, as a warning to the enemy.
Heartened by this little victory, he went on by Shahabad, and followed the
Jamna for two marches, till he came within touch of the enemy. It is
characteristic that even at this momentous crisis of his career, Babar found
time to visit a fountain at Sirsáwa, “rather a pretty place”, and to cruise in
a boat on the river under an awning, not without the solace of a drug. But he
was keenly on the alert, and sent a strong detachment across the river to
dislodge the King of Delhi’s cavalry outpost, which was driven in and pursued
to the edge of the royal camp, with the loss of some elephants and prisoners
(April 1).
The decisive battle was fought on April 21st, 1526, on
the plain at Pánipat—the historic site where the throne of India has been
thrice won. For several days Babar was busy with his preparations; he collected
seven hundred gun-carts, and formed a laager by linking them together with
twisted bull-hid.es, to break a cavalry charge, and by arranging hurdles or
shields (túra)
between each pair to protect, the matchlock men. Then two marches more brought the
army to Pánipat. Here he stationed the army in such a way that he had the town
on his right; his center was formed by the cannon and matchlocks; and the left
was strengthened by ditches and abatis of trees. He was careful to leave gaps
in his line a bowshot apart, through which a hundred or a hundred and fifty men
could charge abreast.
In spite of every careful disposition, and the confidence
in their general which long experience had confirmed, Babar’s men were far from
cool. They were months journeys distant from their homes—always an unsettling
reflection in an Oriental army—and in front of them the King of Delhi was
believed to muster a hundred thousand troops, with nearly a hundred elephants.
On the other hand, Sultán Ibrahim was no match in generalship for Babar, who
describes him contemptuously as “an inexperienced young man, careless in his
movements, who marched without order, halted or retired without method, and
engaged without foresight”. The fact that the invaders were fluttered to go on
entrenching themselves at Pánipat for over a week without molestation was proof
of the incompetence as well as the timidity of the enemy, who even suffered a
little band of the imperial troops to insult them by riding up to their camp
and shooting arrows into it, with perfect impunity. That week, when the two
armies lay facing each other, was wholly in Babar’s favor: it gave his men time
to recover confidence.
On the 20th of April a night surprise was attempted upon
the enemy s position, and tough it failed, owing to the confusion of the troops
in the darkness, it had the effect of drawing the enemy out of his camp. Sultán
Ibrahim, elated by the ease with which this attack had been driven back,
brought his army out at dawn on the 21st in battle array. The moment Babar
detected the movement of the enemy, his men were ordered to put on their
helmets and mail, and take up their stations. His army was drawn up behind his
laager in the usual order, right and left center, right and left wing, advance
guard, and reserve; but in addition he had placed flanking parties of Mongols
on the extreme right and left, with orders to execute their famous national maneuver,
the tulughma—that
rapid wheel, charging the enemy’s rear, of which Babar had himself proved only
too thoroughly the tremendous effect.
The army of Delhi came straight on, at a quick march,
without a halt from the start. They seemed to be aiming at Babar’s right, and
he sent up the reserve to its support. As the enemy came up to the
ditches, abatis, and hurdles, they hesitated, and the pressure of the troops
behind threw them into some confusion. Taking advantage of this, Babar sent out
his Mongol flankers through the gaps in the laager, and they galloped round the
enemy and poured their arrows into the rear. Part of the Emperor’s left wing,
advancing incautiously, got into difficulties; but the general’s eye was on
them, and they were promptly supported from the center. Meanwhile the right was
also hard pressed, and Babar sent forward his right center to their assistance.
The master gunner, Ustád Ali, made pretty practice with his feringi pieces, in front of the line,
and was admirably seconded by Mustafá, the cannoneer on the left center. The enemy was now engaged on
an sides, front, flanks, and rear; and their charges, which seemed ineffective
to men who had stood up to the Mongols swoop, were easily repulsed and driven
back upon their center, which was already too crowded to be able to use its
strength. In this jammed confusion they lay at the mercy of the hardy Turks and
Mongols, who fell upon the strangled ranks with deadly effect. By noon the
great army of the King of Delhi was broken and flying for dear life. Sultan
Ibrahim himself lay stark on the field, amidst some fifteen thousand of his
dead. They brought his head to Babar; and prisoners elephants, and spoil of all
sorts began to come in from the pursuers. “The sun had mounted spear-high when the
onset began, and the battle lasted till midday, when the enemy were completely
broken and routed, and my people victorious and triumphant. By the grace and
mercy of Almighty God this difficult affair was made easy to me, and that
mighty army, in the space of half a day, was laid in the dust. Two detachments
were at once dispatched to occupy Delhi and Agra, and on Friday, April 37, the
public prayer was said in the mosque of the capital in the name of the new
Emperor, the first of the Great Moghuls”-
The whole thing had been almost incredibly easy.
Seldom was a day—
So fought, so followed, and so fairly won.
The explanation is no doubt to be found partly in the
unpopularity of Sultan Ibrahim, whose severity and avarice, joined to military
incapacity, fostered treachery, or at least half-heartedness, among his troops.
We read of no actual desertions, and many of his men fought to the death; but
there must have been disaffection, as well as a want of confidence in their
leader, to allow 100,000 well-armed troops to go down, break, and run, before
an army one-tenth their size. Babar’s generalship, however, had much to do with
the successful issue. His skillful disposition of his men behind a fortified laager,
which checked the enemy’s charges, above all their heavy elephants; his
adoption of the Mongol flanking maneuver; and his alert support of each section
of his line the instant he detected any wavering—these were among the causes of
his victory. His men began the battle in no little alarm: it was their Emperor’s
cool science and watchful tactics that restored their confidence and gave them
back their pluck.
To the Afghans of Delhi the battle of Pánipat was
their Cannae. It was the ruin of their dominion, the end of their power. In
their despair they raised their dead Sultan, poor creature as he was, to the
sanctity of a martyr, and long continued to make pilgrimages to his grave. The
battlefield became an uncanny spot which no man cared to pass after dark. Wailing
and groans and other supernatural sounds were heard there of nights; and the
historian Badáóni, a man of veracity in his way, crossing the haunted plain one
night with some friends, heard the dreadful voices, and fell to repeating the
holy names of God as a protection from the awful influences around him.
Babar had his share of superstition, but he was too
busy at first to think of it. He was gathering such spoil as passed all dreams.
He had seized the royal treasuries at Delhi and Agra, and the first business
was to divide the booty among the expectant troops. To Humayun, who had played
his part like a man in the great battle, he gave seventy lakhs (of dams, i.e.
about £20,000) and a treasure which no one had counted. His chief Begs were
rewarded with six to ten lakhs apiece (£1,700 to £2,800). Every man who had
fought received his share, and even the traders and camp-followers were
remembered in the general bounty. Besides this, the Emperors other sons and
relations, though absent, had presents of gold and silver, cloth and jewels,
and captive slaves. Friends in Farghana, Khurasán, Káshghar, and Persia were
not forgotten; and holy men in Herat and Samarkand, and Mekka and Medina, received substantial offerings. Finally, to every person in Kabul,
man, woman, slave and free, young or old, a silver coin was sent in celebration
of the victory. The balance was stored in the treasury to carry on the government
and support the army.
For himself, Babar kept nothing. When Humayun brought
him the glorious diamond, one of the famous historical jewels, valued at “half
the daily expenditure of the whole world”, which the family of the late Raja
Bikramajit had given him in gratitude for his chivalrous protection, the father
gave it back to the young prince. He had no love for wealth oNr precious stones,
except to give away, and his prodigal generosity in distributing the immense
spoil of the Delhi kings gained him the nickname of “the Kalandar”—the beggar-friar.
He had what he prized far above jewels and gold. He had renown and a name in
history for all time.
CHAPTER XIIIHINDUSTAN1520-1528 A.D.
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