Panipat: The rise of the Mughals
historytoday.com
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The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India. The wonders of Bijapur, Golconda and Hampi would put 16th CE Delhi to shame.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_the_Grand_Mughal_Fl...
South Asia Studies in the West needs its John K Fairbanks, but that will not happen. Most India scholars who are decent end up returning to India where policymaking roles abound.
It was the same with how China Studies was treated in the West until the last 5 years - barely 15 years ago all China was in the western zeitgeist was Mao, the Great Wall, pollution, poverty, and ill-paid migrant workers.
> The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India
It's not an either/or situation. There were a whole gamut of states all equally important.
What I'm positing is that the crux of the issue with the Western crop of South Asia is that it is hagiographic in nature, not quantitative.
My argument is an institutionalist and political economy approach to studying historical and contemporary South Asia solves most of the problem.
This was what John Fairbanks argued back in the 20th century that China studies needed to be quantitative and testable in nature, as he was an Intel officer posted in China during WW2. This was not the mainstream view on China studies and China history in the west until the late 2010s.
That said, anyone with this muscle isn't going to teach history in the West in 2026 unlike those who did something similar for China in the 1980s-2000s who made a new generation of China scholars who returned to China.
There is a new generation of India scholars who specialize in this (a number of whom trained under economists like Arvind Subramanian, Raghuram Rajan, etc) but most of these scholars either return to India to take positions at INIs and are thus not visible to Western academia) or (and this is the more common route) end up in the Policy space as the newer crop of IAS, NITI Aayog staffers, World Bank or IMF staffers, India-specific VC/PE, or India specific think tanks.
Edit: can't reply
> why is the academic work being done in Indian institutions so inaccessible in the US and the rest of the anglosphere
Because they publish in Economics journals and work on Political Economy, not "History". This is what the best South Asia scholars in America (eg. Subramanian, Varshney, Rajan) do as well.
It's the same with China scholars - the best ones are economists and are quantitative in nature.
Turns out the skills needed to understand the political economy of the Bengal Subah or the incentive structures of coinage reform in Qing China are also useful to craft economic policy for contemporary countries.
Why work in underfunded and frankly low impact history when you can actually affect change (and make good money and a career) in the various applications of Econ.
Because they publish in Economics journals and work on Political Economy, not "History". This is what the best South Asia scholars in America (eg. Subramanian, Varshney, Rajan) do as well.
It's the same with China scholars - the best ones are economists and are quantitative in nature.
Turns out the skills needed to understand the political economy of the Bengal Subah or the incentive structures of coinage reform in Qing China are also useful to craft economic policy for contemporary countries.
Why work in underfunded and frankly low impact history departments when you can actually affect change (and make good money and a career) in the various applications of Econ.
I knew one back at my Alma mater who if they decided to remain in academia probably would have become a tenure track India studies professor, but he was given an opportunity to directly work on FDI and Tech Policy at PMO which was more exiciting, had more impact, and opened more doors.
> Ignoring your snark
My bad, been a long week.
You seem to be in the arena and have skin in the game. Would love to read your blog on these topics.
- the monuments are obvious points; the Taj Mahal is probably one of the few buildings that the average Western person has heard of
- there is more of a connection, or appears to be, with other empires that Westerners are more familiar with. For example, the Mughals were functionally descendants of the Mongols (indeed the word itself came from it). They also were roughly contemporaneous with the Ottomans during key historical periods, so their categorization as a “gunpowder empire” along with Iran is a known thing.
The prestige languages of all three of these empires was also highly Persianized, which maybe made them more accessible to the West, which was familiar with the Arabic alphabet and Islamic civilization for a longer period than with India. IIRC a lot of foundational Indian works weren’t really translated from Sanskrit to western languages until the mid 1800s.
That is how I myself started reading more about the Mughals: via being interested in the Ottomans.
- And finally there are a number of unique Mughal figures that have managed to become well-known in the West. Akbar, Shah Jahan, etc. I’m sure there were equally interesting people from other Indian empires but they don’t seem to be talked about as much.
Mughals never ruled India for more than 200-300 years, and were challenged by many regional players including Maratha's.
India has far more to offer beyond Taj, and I would say if not more equally interesting architectural marvels like Kailasa temple.
Compare that to the innumerable number of Chinese texts on nearly every topic from politics and history and governance to science and engineering (fun fact, the current Indian civil service was a product of the English civil service, which in turn was inspired by the Chinese one).
Compare that to the English, where you might even be able to find the exact amount of tax owed by some Yorkshire peasant in the 16th century.
Even the Indian and South East Asian monastic orders stuck to the oral tradition, in spite of writing material being significantly more abundant over the past millennia.
If you read the Baburnama, you'll even find him lamenting about India's poor record at tax keeping records and historical records relying on oral traditions, where the narrators are prone to exaggerations and embellishments.
Thankfully India's ancient temples are much more resilient than its books, which is why rock carvings themselves are also a rich source of Indian history. The Ashoka pillar in Mehrauli being a fine example (and in effect being a historical record in itself, which is how we know a lot about the Mauryas than some later kingdoms).
Fun fact: They called themselves "Gurkhaniye" and not "Mughals". It was a term mostly popularized by rivals like Marathas (which is also an exonym)
The poet Ghalib, who was the emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s contemporary, considered himself a descendant of the aristocracy and referred to himself as a “Mughal baccha” in a well-known quote (sourced from his letters, I believe).
And this is OP's point.
Most "India History" in the West has an extremely colonial British bias which only concentrated on Delhi and unpartitioned Punjab.
> few dynasties were comparable to the vastness of Mughals
The Mauryas perhaps ruled a much larger area than Mughals. Khalji, Tughlaqs, Satvahanas, and Marathas also ruled over vast landscapes, but they are not much known outside India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_Empire#/media/File:Ind...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_India#Early_history_o...
Still is, tbh
Part of the reason is that -- in the popular Western imagining -- India really refers to the Gangetic plain. Any book on India mainly attributes Gangetic culture to 'India' whole completely ignoring the south, west, east and north east all of which have unique cultural traits.
As someone of Indian ethnicity, this was extremely confusing to me because when we read about Indian history in books and people would ask me, I would literally have no idea. My particular ethnic group lived along the coast of the western ghats and greatly valued the ocean and seafaring... Almost completely the opposite of the Gangetic peoples. This bias is prevalent everywhere because, despite these individual cultures having enough population to be a country in their own right. They are marginalized by popular history.
Given their military superiority during their zenith, if they really wanted to do that, they could have. But we didn't see that happen even within their core territories.
Just because the world doesn't recognize how awful that Islamic rule of India was to the actual people living there doesn't mean we don't get to criticize those who continue to glorify it.
When you can't criticize someone you should ask why.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captivity_of_Mangalorean_Catho...
* https://www.jstor.org/stable/44147210
Should this behaviour be generalised to all Islam rule all the time, or was it more specific to Tippu Sultan in he Kingdom of Mysore ?
Should we generalise the Albigensian Crusade as an example of typical Catholic rule over christians (but heretics!!) - that saw 200,000 killed (not imprisoned).
Many Islamic rulers of India killed people or forced them -- via violence -- to convert to Islam. Not sure why this is controversial or Islamphobic. Someone pointing out that Islamic rulers had enough power to be even worse but didn't is not some great claim of charity on behalf of the Muslims -- far from it.
Also, let me guess -- you never knew about the captivity of the Mangalorean Christians (who would, lol) -- you read a wikipedia article, and now you pretend to be such an expert at it that you can say things like:
> That was a very big deal in a specific locale 220 years ago to be sure,
That specific locale, 220 years ago had actual people inside. Like real people. It's a big deal because it affected real people, if that wasn't clear.
> Should we generalise the Albigensian Crusade as an example of typical Catholic rule over christians (but heretics!!) - that saw 200,000 killed (not imprisoned).
I currently attend a Dominican parish, and I openly criticize the Albigensian Crusade. No one issues death threats; there is no claim of 'Christophobia'; etc. Similarly to all the various interventions by Christian polities. That's the point -- we are relatively free to criticize Christian colonialism, genocides, etc. The same is true of most religions. There's only one religion of which criticism is constantly met with speech trying to cajole others into silence.
This general disposition towards criticism of Islamic regimes and Islamic genocides means that it's relatively normal to be skeptical of Islamic rule, both ancient and modern. Islam seems unable to criticize itself. I'm hardly the first to notice this.
> mentioning that a Muslim ruler did something wrong in the Indian context often ends up with death threats,
Location dependant really, in some contexts that goes down well. eg: {fill in an example yourself, I'm certain you can name various communities that love to trade in bad stories about {X} for various valuies of {X}}
> Also, let me guess -- you never knew about the captivity of the Mangalorean Christians
Well, your ability to "guess" could use some work, I'm long in the tooth and can reel off a slew of atrocities .. what are your thoughts on the Coniston Massacre, for one such event?
> and now you pretend to be such an expert
Really? Can you highlight how I "pretended to be an expert"?
> you read a wikipedia article
That was to confirm / check I had guessed the correct event via your description, you seemingly overlooked the JSTOR lit review which, TBH, is the kind of thing I first read given myself and my reading habits predate the creation of wikipedia.
> that you can say things like
Just to be clear, is it your position that this 15 year long imprisonment was not a big deal at the time? Are you insistent that the imprisonment lasted longer than 15 years ( 'decades' as you stated)?
If not, then we seem to agree with the statement I made.
I'll also state that in the years that have since passed that event has become an even bigger deal for some, the story having grown and morphed .. in ways discussed in the JSTOR review.
If it helps, my general disposition tends towards _not_ generalising particular historical events and atrocities as a trait shared by all {X} for some {X} unless supported and also properly examined as to whether such traits are confined to {X} or have a more common general human pattern.
By way of example, I avoid generalising the well documented and extensive sexually predatory behaviour of the various Christian Brother groups about the globe to be the behaviour of all Catholics.
Remember, most Indians who converted did so due to the influence of wandering Sufi mystics who were regarded with suspicion by the court-aligned clerics.
Again that doesn't mean all Indians converted through sword, but discrimination was a tool, jizya, and even extreme oppression. India has more Zorastrian than modern day Iran, more Sikhs, Jains and even countless Tribal religions. All other neighbouring countries which had Islamic rules have either a dwindling population, or nothing left.
Britain in particular was completely into the caste system and made huge lists of which caste ought to fill which roles in its government.
All of this is problematic of course. However while its fairly easy to criticize England in the Indian context, it is bizarrely difficult to criticize the Mughals because some people are offended should anyone in their religion ever be criticized
Maybe, the fate of Europe and that of India would have been different if he hadn't that day.
Secondly, cuisine. At least one seminal Indian cookbook I owned had a section devoted to Mughal dishes and explaining how the Empire influenced the culture insofar as what people were permitted to eat, and what foods/ingredients were made available. The Muslim Mughal diet contrasts with the Hindu dishes, and the seafood of the coasts and Goa presents another dimension.
But it seems like India was not ruled by Indians (Hindus?) even before European colonization. Aren’t these previous Mughal rulers and the people before them also colonizers then, if they weren’t indigenous Indians / Hindus? Why aren’t they also discussed that way? When did Indians rule India then - was it in the first millennium?
To me, this is all basically outside of the public’s common knowledge and focus in the West.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have little to minorities or even the memory of past left, but that's mostly what happens with cultural imperialism. There were Hindus / Bhuddist or Zorastrian in those areas, now there are none. Infact India have more Zorastrians than modern day Iran, many fled to India around 16th Century escaping similar cultural imperialism.
>The Mughal position was again fortified with a ditch and wagons linked by chains and the matchlockmen, placed in the front of the force, ‘broke the ranks of the pagan army with matchlocks and guns like their hearts’; they were black and covered with smoke. The Mughals had only about 12,000 troops at Kanua, whereas the Rajputs, allegedly, had 80,000 cavalry and 500 elephants
Digging the ditch during the battle is a typical and signature Persian war technique.
Not trying to be pedantic but the more correct word to use here is probably trench. The trench is called Khandaq in Persian and Arabic, the latter most probably a borrowed word from the former.
The main idea is to pre-emptively dig a trench beforeva battle just enough to prevent the enemies cavalry horses from jumping across.
It's succesfully used by early Islamic force against the much larger Meccan Quraish army including their allies during the famous Khandaq war in defending Yathrib (now Madinah) [1]. The idea was suggested by Salman al-Farisi, a Persian companian of Muhammad [2].
Fun facts, Mughals palace households were mainly speaking Persian language, and the Hindi/Urdu language is heavily influenced by the Persian moreso than Arab.
[1] Battle of the Trench:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Trench
[2] Salman the Persian
They actually spoke Chagatai Turkish in the households and Persian was the court language. Urdu developed independently, mostly outside the royal patronage, and much later.
Read that and you’ll get the context.
Imagine a similar description of conquest by, say, the Christian Spaniards in the Americas. The noble conquests of the brave Hernan Cortés, in similarly flowery language. Imagine the shouts of protest against... well, there is no nedd to imagine since those protests are commonplace.
The Islamic conquest and colonisation of the middle- and far-east is one of the more bloody episodes in history rife with all the vices for which western colonisers are constantly blamed. Slavery was and in some places still is commonplace but the same voices which proclaim the vices of the west are silent or point at the virtues of others who were and sometimes still are guilty of the same. Why is that?
Not to mention the ignorance in this thread of the basic fact that Muslim empires kept attacking and supplanting each other in South Asia, culminating in the Mughal defeat of another Muslim empire, which is exactly what this article describes. But instead of actually reading it, you'd rather bring naked biases and caricatures to the table.
Is that what you read in my comment? Because that is not what I wrote. People sympathise with those who are similar to them. Europeans sympathise with Ukrainians, Muslims with Palestinians, Abrahamics with other Abrahamics. How you got from that to your "Abrahamic bad", I can't even fathom.
He was just a Chagatai raider who somehow ended up the ruler of a principality.
The actual empire was built by Akbar and Shah Jahan.
Political Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism only arose in South Asia in 19th century with the collapse of the Mughal, Maratha, and Sikh Empires and early British attempts at mass Christian conversion which led to political religious movements arise in the late 19th century.
My reaction is not so much targeted at this specific example - religious (Islamic) conquest - but towards the lack of criticism of non-Western conquest and colonisation.
People should be free to criticize all of these events as they see fit.
But the simple truth is that criticizing Islam in the Indian subcontinent often ends in death or threats of violence, unlike most other religions, which seem better able to handle criticism. Look at Salman Rushdie. Scary
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.