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BABUR IN INDIA
BABUR FOUNDER OF THE MOGHUL DYNASTY IN
INDIA, IS ONE OF HISTORY MORE ENDEARING
CONQUERORS. IN HIS YOUTH HE IS ONE AMONG
MANY IMPOVERISHED PRINCE,
ALL descended from timur , who fight among themselves for
possession of some small part of the great man,s fragmented
empire. Babur even captures Samarkand itself on three
separate occasions, each for only a few months. The first time
he achieves this he is only fourteen.
What distinguishes babur from other brawling princes is that he
is a keen oberver of life and keeps a diary. In it he sorrows,
whether riding out with friends at night to attack a walled
village or mooning around for unrequited love of a beautiful
boy.

1526 - 1530

Babur,s throneless time, as

he later describes these
early years, come to an
end in 1504 when he
captures Kabul here, at
the age of twenty-one he
is able to establish a
settled court and to
enjoy the delightsin the
timurid traditionof his
family.

With a powerful new Persian dynasty to the west (under ismail i)

And an aggressive uzbek presence to the north (under
shaibani khan) , babur s, Kabul becomes the mani surviving
centre of the timurid tradition. But these same pressures mean
that his only chance of expanding into india.
Babur feels that he has an inherited claim upon northern
india,deriving from timur scapture of delji in 1398, and he
makes several profitable raids through the mountain passes
into theg Punjab.but his first seriousexpedition is launched in
ouctober 1525.
Some forty years later (but not sooner than) it is evident that
babur descendants are a new and established dynasty in
northern india. Babur thinks of himself as a turk, but he is
descended from Genghis khan as well s from timue.

born (February 14, 1483 )

died( December 26, 1530)

The Persians refer to his dynasty as Mughal, meaning mongol.

And it is as the moghul emperors of india that that become
known to history
By the early 16th century the muslim sultans of delhi ( an afghan
known as lodi) and much weakened by threats from rebel
muslim principalities and from a hindu coalition of Rajput
rulers. When babur leads an army through the mountain
passes, from his stronghold at Kabul, he at first meets little
opposition in the plains of north india.
The decisive battle against Ibrahim, the lodi sultan, come on
the plain of panipat in april 1526 babur is heavily outnumbered
(with perhaps 25,000 troops in the field against 100,000 men
and 1000 elephants ), but his tactics win the day.

by ROHIT SRIVASTAV
28/6/2016

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Babur digs into a prepared position copied (he says) from the

BABUR

The armies meet at

khanua in march 1527 an
again using similar tactice
babur wind for the next
three years babur roams
aroundwith his army.

Turks from whom the use of guns has spread to the Persians
and now to babur. As yet the Indians of delhi have on artillery
or muskets. Babur has only a few, but he collects 700 carts to
from a barricade (adevice pioneered by the hussites of
bohemia a century earlier)
Sheltered behind the carts, babur,s gunners can go through
the laborious business of firing their matchlocks _ but only at
an enemy charging their position. It takes babur some days to
tempt the Indians into doing this. When they do so, they
succumb to slow gunfire from theh front and to a hail of from
babur,s cavalry charging on each flank.
Victory at panipat brings babur the cities of delhi and agra
with much booty in treasure and jewel. But he faces stronger
challeng from the confederation of rajputs who had
themselves been on the verge of attacking Ibrahim lodi.