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PRIYA SHARMA

BA (H) HISTORY, II YEAR

2018/32

Gunpowder was the key which unlocked the doors of Akbar’s conquests, elaborate.

The Mughal empire reached its zenith under the reign of Akbar the great (1543-1605 AD), as

the title itself is suggestive, it becomes important for one to understand the significance of

Akbar’s rule in the history of medieval India. Akbar was a little more than thirteen years old

when he succeeded to the throne and initially had the guidance of Bayram Khan who was an

officer and a friend of Humayun’s. It also becomes important to take a note of Akbar’s

approach towards annexation of different states through the carrot and stick method

combined where the stick signifies the military aspects and the carrot signifies the non

military aspects. During the reign of Akbar, gunpowder played a very important and key role

in the siege of grand forts. The gunpowder empires hypothesis by McNeill and Hodgson

which basically states that the success of the Mughal empire was determined by the use of

gunpowder right from Babur’s times. P.K. Gode has mentioned that in the second half of the

15th century cannon and musket were being used in Gujarat, Malwa and Kashmir but the most

effective military strategy was adopted by Akbar. There is no denying the fact that Akbar was

a great general and an excellent administrator. However Gode’s works are influenced by the

English translations or on the information reproduced in secondary works which leaves a

significant part of the original Persian chronicles unnoticed.

It is also interesting to understand how different historians have portrayed Islamic

rulers and their approaches towards extending their empires. Jos J.L. Gommans and Dirk

H.A. Kolff in their book, Warfare and Weaponry in South Asia; 1000-1800 AD have
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mentioned that Orientalist historians, Robert Orme and Henry Elliot have praised the British

rule and have given detailed descriptions of violence committed by different Islamic rulers

from the sub-continent and there are sections where their works lack information on military

events, tactics and logistics. Military historians have to go through primary and as well as

secondary texts to get a better understanding of such aspects, hence ta’rikhs and fathnamas

play a significant role in extending the knowledge of a military historian in this context. A.L.

Basham’s book, The wonder that was India also is a remarkable piece of work as it is an

attempt to correct the negative stereotypes about India created by authors like James Mill,

Thomas B. Macaulay and others. William Irvine’s and H.H Dodwell’s works purely focus on

military history and covered topics like military recruitment and crime. Irvine’s book The

army of Indian Mughals gives a comprehensive account of the Mughal army. Works on Indo-

Persian sources were continued by Muslim historians and a few others. Some of the most

prominent historians in this regard are Habib, Athar Ali, Abdul Aziz, A.J. Qaisar and Iqtidar

Alam Khan to name a few. The rise of social sciences from the 1970s and the need to

highlight the socio. economic, cultural and religious aspects of south Asian history has played

an important role in widening up the horizons of Mughal History.

The Mughal rulers were successful in establishing their supremacy in the battle field.

The two victories at Panipat, Babur over Ibrahim Lodi in 1526 (932) and Bayram Khan over

Himu in 1556 (964) and Babur’s defeat of Rana Sangha at Khanwa in 1527 (933) were

important for the Mughal rulers to prove their mettle. The other two important battles fought

by Akbar, Tukaroi in 1575 (982) and Haldighati in 1576 (984) were provincial rather than

imperial encounters. At the first battle of Panipat and Khanwa, Babur used the same tactics

as the Ottomans used against the Safavis at Chaldiran in 1514 and against the Hungarians at

Mohacs in 1526. These battles were the first to witness the technique of tabur jangi, which

was basically an arrangement of carts, joined by rows of rawhide. At Panipat, the guns were
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in the centre and the mounted archers on the wings were able to give heavy blows to Ibrahim

Lodi’s force. During the second battle at Panipat, Himu relied on an elephant charge to defeat

the Mughals by shock action and in retaliation the Mughal army used their capabilities as

mounted archers to attack them and spray them with arrows.

Douglas Streusand in The formation of the Mughal Empire, mentions that the

combination of artillery and mounted archers gave the Mughals the superiority in battle.

Bernier has written in his account that a horseman could shoot six times before a musketeer

could fire twice. John F. Guilmartin in his book, Gunpowder and Galleys has mentioned that

the armies of mounted archers had only one disadvantage: only an expert could be an

effective archer on horseback. Turks and Mongols nomads were established riders and had a

great control over the bow. Simon Digby in War Horse and Elephant has laid emphasis on

the fact that elephants, not war horses were important in determining the superiority of the

Delhi Sultanate and later on during the Mughal times. The last expedition against Khan –i

Zamanin 1567 included some 2000 war elephants. However, some scholars argue that

elephants became less valuable as the number of firearms increased. Furthermore, during the

War of Haldighati (1576), neither Man Singh from the Mughal force nor Rana Pratap Singh

from the Rajput clan had any artillery; but due to the support of the musketeers, archers and

gunners in the imperial force and the methods adopted by the Mughals, namely the fire and

shock method made them reinforce the image of the Mughal superiority.

The conquests of the Chitor, Ranthambor and Kalinjar from 1568 to 1569

played a huge role in furthering the establishment of the Mughal Empire under Akbar. Chitor,

the capital of Mewar, was a fortified city and not a proper citadel and hence it was difficult to

conquer a well-structured fortress like Chitor. Udai Singh was the ruler of Chitor and he had

acquired the knowledge that Akbar was short of siege equipment, hence he prepared Chitor

for a siege instead. Akbar set up a camp outside Chitor on 20 October, 1567 with the help of
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Asaf Khan Harawi who was the jagirdar of Bayana, the nearest Mughal territory to Chitor.

The initial attacks from the Mughal forces did not bear any fruit and in turn suffered heavy

losses from the archers and musketeers on the walls. Eventually two mines and a sabat or

trench were excavated along with the casting of a twenty five pounder gun in the camp. Rajah

Tudar Mal and Khan Mir –i Bahr were the supervisors for the excavation of the sabat. The

charges under the wall were exploded and that made a large breach in the walls of the fort.

The death of Jaymal Singh brought down the spirits of the Rajput army as he was the officer

in charge of Chitor. Akbar ordered a massacre the next day for which three hundred elephants

were used. Abu al- Fazl’s reports state that eight thousand members of the garrison died,

nearly thirty thousand peasants were imprisoned or executed and only a few Rajput

musketeers could escape.

The siege of Ranthambor in 1568 (976) followed a nearly similar pattern of

conquest to Chitor. The construction of sabat allowed the Mughal forces to carry fifteen

heavy guns to the hill top. The guns were called zarb zan and fired balls weighing three

hundred pounds and this in turn made it fairly easy for the Mughal army to breach the walls

and damage the buildings. Massacre was avoided through the treaty between Surjan and

Akbar. Kalinjar was ruled by Rajah Ram Chand, who was also the ruler of the principality of

Bhath or Pannah. As soon as Ram Chand came to know about the fall of Chitor and

Ranthambor, he decided to submit and sent pishkash to Akbar. Streusand mentions that the

three sieges do not support the gunpowder hypothesis given by McNeill and Hodgson. It was

moreover difficult to maintain sieges as carrying heavy guns overland became a problem. The

military system supplanted the existing elephant based system. J.F. Richards has mentioned

that Akbar spent a large part of his resources on the construction of fortresses at Agra,

Allahabad, Lahore and Ajmer. Akbar, for establishing his personal and dynastic supremacy,

ordered the construction of Fatehpur Sikri.

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It becomes important to understand the significance of Mughal forts as bulwarks

against revolt. The evidences for this can be traced down from the incidents of Sultan

Khusraw’s revolt against Jahangir in 1606 and this was the time when Dilavar Khan the

governor- designate of Lahore prepared the city for defence against Dilavar Khan. The

gunpowder hypothesis needs to be revised as this and other incidents where the artillery or

the infantry armed with firearms did not play an important role. Moreover the ability to

breach walls alone does not fully support the gunpowder hypothesis as mentioned by McNeill

and Hodgson. Firearms contributed to centralization, a very significant characteristic of the

gunpowder empires.

The significance of the gunpowder, artillery and other militarily aspects are

insufficient in covering all of the aspects of the Mughal empire. Almost all of the Islamic

polities suffered from inadequate measures to ensure a proper centralized empire as the

monetary systems, rudimentary level of banking systems and the inefficiency of the systems

to ensure the distribution of salaries did not make way for the smooth functioning of the

political and administrative systems. J.F. Richards also mentions that the Mughal polity was

held together by a political economy that was constantly fed by flows of honours and gifts.

The military labour market of the agrarian society north India witnessed the origin of two

concepts- namak which was the marketable pay of the soldier and naukari the honourable

service in the warband. D.H.A. Kolff has mentioned that since the zamindars or the peasants

were always under the risk of experiencing some sort of violence, armed gangs were very

common in the countryside. He also has given examples of the agriculturalists of Baroda,

where the men had to serve in the army as during the dry seasons of the year they had no

work. The troops who were getting paid from provincial land revenue greatly outnumbered

those paid directly from the central treasury. The troops who participated in successful

campaigns, usually got promotion and jagirs were given. In order to maintain a standard order
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in provinces, the Mughal provincial army had to function as contingents. The Mughal army

had to confront a series of private zamindars or peasant armies. Two officials were involved

in the tax paying or in the land revenue system at a local or parganah level, i.e., a Qanungu

who kept records of the cultivated area, crop production and revenue demand and the other

one was a chawdhri who was usually the leading zamindar and he paid directly to the

imperial recipient. The Mughals usually received 90 per cent of the land revenue because the

imperial representative or the collector was more powerful and had no risk of action taking

against him by the ruler.

Akbar’s expansion policy also played a major role in defining his success as a

ruler. D.H.A. Kolff has described marriage alliances to be the chief factor in establishing the

political relationships with the Rajputas. The second phase of expansion began with the

absorption of the Rajput states and the annexation of the Muslim kingdoms, Malwa, Gujarat

and others. The Mughals absorbed the principality of Pannah (1561), the Gakkhar country,

the hills between the Indus and the Beas in the Punjab and part of Marwar (1563-4). With the

exception of Mewar and Orissa, the Mughals were able to rule the major part of the country.

Akbar’s relationships with the kings of different principalities like Amber, Jodhpur, Gujarat,

Bikaner and Jaisalmer reflects that Akbar was a great ruler.

As we have seen that the gunpowder hypothesis provided by McNeill and Hodgson

can only fit in the Mughal Empire’s framework when seen with other aspects of the empire as

well. The sieges also followed a standard pattern where the guns usually couldn’t be used as

it was difficult to drag guns overland and instead of them the sabat played an important role.

The Mughal empire and more specifically Akbar had the ability to incorporate several

elements from different religions and culture into his governance. Akbar’s policy of sulh –i-

kul, peace for all, clearly indicates the respect he had for different sects of the society. J.F.

Richards has mentioned that by 1583 Akbar had rejected public prayer and other features of
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the orthodox Islamic practices too. He has also laid emphasis on the fact that Akbar had a

great ability to maintain and establish relationships with rulers of different principalities

through the carrot and stick method combined. D.H.A. Kolff has stated that the group of

military settlers acquired a position in the agricultural arena and according to Abu’l Fazal this

group of men constituted a major part of the military from North India. The expansion of

was not only defined by the use of gunpowder, artillery and war, other significant elements

like negotiations and treaties between the Mughal rulers and other rulers as mentioned by

Douglas Streusand also should be given due weightage.

Bibliography:

 Streusand, D.E. “The Process of Expansion”, The Formation of Mughal Empire. New Delhi:

Oxford University Press, 1989

 Kolff, Dirk H.A. “The Polity and The Peasantry”, Warfare and Weaponry in South Asia:

1000-1800, eds. Jos J.L. Gommans and D.H.A. Kolff. New Delhi: Oxford University Press,

2001

 Khan, Iqtidar Alam. “Early Use of Cannon and Musket in India: A.D. 1442- 1526”, Warfare

and Weaponry in South Asia: 1000-1800, eds. Jos J.L. Gommans and D.H.A. Kolff. New

Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001

 Richards, John F. “The Formulation of Imperial Authority under Akbar and Jahangir”, The

Mughal State: 1526- 1750, eds. Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. New Delhi:

Oxford University Press, 1998.

 Qureshi, I.H. “India Under The Mughals”, The Cambridge History Of Islam, Vol. 2A: The

Indian Sub- continent, South- East Asia, Africa and The Muslim West, eds. P.M. Holt, Ann

K.S. Lambton and Bernard Lewis. Cambridge University Press, 1977.