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Comment by sheepscreek | Hacker News Reader

My very personal take (which can be completely wrong) is that few dynasties were comparable to the vastness of Mughals in this particular era. All the Indian princely states were a lot smaller by comparison, in this time period at least. One that stands out to me is The Sikh Empire 1799–1849 that managed to rule much of North India + current day Afghanistan and Pakistan but for a relatively short period of time. The British East India company were a challenging force to beat, some allied with them which stunted their own ambitions, others like the Sikh Empire lost to them eventually.

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I have nothing against Mughals, they had a great impact on the subcontinent history esp during 17th century. However the center of gravity was the Indian Ocean Spice trade network which was the South. This is what the Portuguese and various EICs wanted to connect to. We have records of the vast riches of these Deccan cities from these travelers.

> 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...

Yeah, the south was one of the most economically prosperous regions in the Indian subcontinent at the time. They were the centres of the spice trade, and a lot of colonial interest began there first. Because of the trade networks, a lot of outside cultural influence was part of the area's history. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all came to the Malabar and Konkan coast just a few decades or tens of decades after they starting gaining traction in the Levant and other Middle-Eastern areas. In fact, Islam's first contact with the Indian subcontinent was on the Malabar coast and near it [0]. Colonial trading posts were set up in cities on the Malabar coast like Kochi [1] first, before they were set up in the North. In fact, after he died, Vasco da Gama was buried in a church in Kochi, Kerala, for many years before his son dug him up and took him back to Portugal [2]. My point is, a lot of stuff happened outside of the Gangetic Plains area, and not much is known about it in contemporary Western historical discourse.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_India#Early_history_o...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Emmanuel

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama#Death

> the south was one of the most economically prosperous regions in the Indian subcontinent at the time.

Still is, tbh

The marathas were much larger and in a lot of ways a lot more interesting than the Mughals for a variety of reasons. The fact that you believe that that Indian princely states were smaller is... Bizarre and ahistoric. England's rule over India only became a sure thing when England defeated the Marathas. Until then it was just piecemeal colonization. The fact that you are discussing the Raj without mention of the Marathas underscores the very concern that was brought up that Indian history is highly editorialized

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.

Also when discussing Mughals the most important elephant in the room is ignored. Their intention to totally Islamise India. But this is more about Indian history being editorialised by few communists and others as they hate the notion of a caste system filled India and prefer the Mughal & British rule in their sanitised version. The historic animosity in different groups exists and persists to this day and is reflected in these perspectives. The atrocities of Mughals are not only glossed over, they are completely whitewashed, especially their demolition of 1000s of temples, subjugation of native population and many other crimes are painted as something normal in their time when reality is much more complicated. This is to not even speak of the over romanticisation of Taj Mahal as something 'Indian' while ignoring numerous other architecture that still survives to this day. When pointed out that many mosques were built on top of temples whose basement still survives to this day that part of history is conveniently ignored.

>>Their intention to totally Islamise India.

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.

like arguing Hitler could have killed all the Jews but was nice enough to let some escape

This is a silly analogy, and ahistorical to boot.

Half of my ancestors were kept in the dungeons at Seringapatam for decades for the crime of being Christian by a Muslim ruler, which resulted in 2/3 of them dying. What gracious overlords we had to let the other 1/3 not die even though they could have killed them. I remain eternally grateful to their magnanimity.

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.

That was a very big deal in a specific locale 220 years ago to be sure, although it was just a decade and a half in total.

* 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).

I'm not generalizing. All I said is that people should not be called Islamophobes for pointing out very real events in the Indian subcontinent. The simple truth is that even mentioning that a Muslim ruler did something wrong in the Indian context often ends up with death threats, claims of 'Islamophobia', and other attempts to silence people. The history of India is large and varied; there is a persistent effort to pretend the history of Islam in India is glorious and wonderful. No such bias exists for the Hindus or for the British / Portuguese, who are often criticized without much fuss.

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.

I agree that people should not be called {slur} for pointing out very real events in the world.

> 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.

That's nuanced, they were always challenged every few decades, from Marathas to Ahoms in North East. Fighting with all Hindu princely state instead of making them ally would've surely might have been counter productive. While it was their intention to Islamise, and many did, but it was impossible without an extremely cultural backlash that they also feared.

Again even within their "safe" core territories we don't see an organized ongoing program of mass coerced conversion. So the point is - they weren't trying to totally Islamicize India and whether you believe that's because they didn't care to or they were afraid to due to political calculation doesn't really make a difference.

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.

Your assumption is that mass pogroms were possible, such attempts would've lead to massive revolt and unification of all hindu ally's and perhaps Mughals losing power. Having said that in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Iran ( which was Zorastrian ), state discrimination and oppression of Zorastrians were used.

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.

There were also financial reasons not to, just as there were with the Ottoman Empire in Eastern Europe -- Islamic law says that no Muslim can be taxed more than a non-Muslim so non-Muslims were handy to have around because they could be taxed more.

The British and Mughals were fine with the caste system. Caste is a pan Indian social phenomenon found even amongst Muslims and Christians (and Jews) of the subcontinent, as well as the dharmic religions. I agree that there's a bizarre desire to only acknolwedge the Islamic empires, but I'm not sure it's about caste.

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

When Duke Wellington was asked what was his most difficult battle, he mentioned the Battle of Assaye. He said he found the Maratha troops equal to the European military . His horse was killed under him and he was lucky to live through the battle.

Maybe, the fate of Europe and that of India would have been different if he hadn't that day.

The Marathas, the Bengal Subah, Durrani's Afghanistan, the Hyderabad Sultanate, the Konbaung Empire, Mysore, and Thanjvur were contemporaries similar or larger in scope and size than the Sikh Empire.

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.

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