THE POSITION OF BABAR IN HINDUSTAN
Master of the two great centres of power in the north-west, Babar,
with the foresight of a statesman, 'took stock' of the actual
situation of Hindustan. He realised at once that he was master of
Northern India, and that was all. The important provinces of Oudh,
Jaunpur, and Western Behar, had revolted against Ibrahim, and though
that prince had sent an army against the revolters, it seemed but too
certain that the two parties would make common cause against the new
invader. Then, Bengal, under its King, Nasrat Shah; Gujarat, under
Sikandar Shah; and Malwa, under Sultan Mahmud, were three powerful
and independent kingdoms. A portion of Malwa, indeed, that
represented by the fortresses, Ranthambor, at the angle formed by the
confluence of the Chambal and the Banas; Sarangpur, on the Kali Sind;
Bhilsa, on the Betwa; Chanderi; and Chitor, very famous in those
days, had been re-conquered by the renowned Hindu prince, Rana Sanga.
In the south of India, too, the Bahmanis had established a kingdom,
and the Raja of Vijayanagar exercised independent authority. There
were, moreover, he found, a considerable number {36} of Rais and
Rajas who had never submitted to Muhammadan kings.
But the independence of these several princes did not, he soon
recognised, constitute his greatest difficulty. That difficulty arose
from the fact that the Hindu population, never conciliated by the
families which had preceded his own, were hostile to the invader.
'The north of India,' writes Erskine, 'still retained much of its
Hindu organisation; its system of village and district administration
and government; its division into numerous little chieftainships, or
petty local governments; and, in political revolutions, the people
looked much more to their own immediate rulers than to the prince who
governed in the capital.' In a word, never having realised the
working of a well-ordered system, emanating from one all-powerful
centre, they regarded the latest conqueror as an intruder whom it
might be their interest to oppose.
The dread thus engendered by the arrival of a new invader, whose
character and whose dispositions were alike unknown, was increased by
the machinations of the Muhammadan adherents of the old families.
These men argued that the success of the Mughal invader meant ruin to
them. They spared no pains, then, to impress upon the Hindu
population that neither their temples nor their wives and daughters
would be safe from the rapine and lust of the barbarians of Central
Asia. Under the influence of a terror produced by these warnings the
Hindus fled from before the merciful and generous invader as he
approached Agra, {37} preferring the misery of the jungle to the
apparent certainty of outrage.
To add to Babar's troubles, there arose at this period discontent in
his army. The men composing it were to a great extent mountaineers
from the lofty ranges in Eastern Afghanistan. These men had followed
their King with delight so long as there was a prospect of fighting.
But Panipat had given them Northern India. The march from Delhi to
Agra was a march through a deserted country, at a season always hot,
but the intense heat of which, in 1526, exceeded the heat of normal
years. Like the Highlanders of our own Prince Charlie in '45, these
highlanders murmured. They, too, longed to return to their mountain
homes. The disaffection was not confined to the men. Even the chiefs
complained; and their complaints became so loud that they at last
reached the ears of Babar.
Babar had been greatly pleased with his conquest. Neither the heat
nor the disaffection of the inhabitants had been able to conceal from
him the fact that he had conquered the finest, the most fertile, the
most valuable part of Asia. In his wonderful memoirs[1] he devotes
more than twenty large printed pages to describe it. 'It is a
remarkably fine country,' he begins. 'It is quite a different world
compared with our countries.' He saw almost at a glance that all his
work was cut out to complete the conquest in the sense he attributed
to that word. Henceforth the title of King of Kabul {38} was to be
subjected to the higher title of Emperor of Hindustan. For him there
was no turning back.
[Footnote 1: Babar's _Memoirs_, pp. 312 to 335.]
He had noted all the difficulties, and he had resolved how to meet
them. A thoroughly practical man, he proceeded first to take up that
which he rightly regarded as the greatest--the discontent in the
army. Assembling a council of his nobles, he laid before them the
actual position: told them how, after many toilsome marches and
bloody fights, they had won numerous rich and extensive provinces. To
abandon these and to return to Kabul would be shame indeed. 'Let not
anyone who calls himself my friend,' he concluded, 'henceforward make
such a proposal. But if there is any among you who cannot bring
himself to stay, or to give up his purpose of returning back, let him
depart.' The address produced the desired effect, and when the words
were followed by action, by new encounters and by new successes,
enthusiasm succeeded discontent.[2]
[Footnote 2: To one of his friends, who found the heat unsupportable,
and whom he therefore made Governor of Ghazni, Babar, when he was
firm in the saddle, sent the distich, of which the following is the
translation:
'Return a hundred thanks, O Babar, for the bounty of the merciful God
Has given you Sind, Hind, and numerous kingdoms;
If, unable to stand the heat, you long for cold,
You have only to recollect the frost and cold of Ghazni.']
The firmness of the conqueror was soon rewarded in a different
manner. No sooner did the inhabitants, Muhammadan settlers and Hindu
landowners and traders, recognise that Babar intended his occupancy
to {39} be permanent, than their fears subsided. Many proofs,
meanwhile, of his generous and noble nature had affected public
opinion regarding him. Every day then brought accessions to his
standard. Villagers and shopkeepers returned to their homes, and
abundance soon reigned in camp. A little later, and the army which
had been employed by Ibrahim Lodi to put down rebellion in Jaunpur
and Oudh, acknowledged Babar as their sovereign. In the interval,
judiciously employing his troops, he conquered a great part of
Rohilkhand; occupied the important post of Raberi, on the Jumna; and
laid siege to Itawa and Dholpur. But troubles were preparing for him
in Central India, from a quarter which it would not do for him to
neglect.
These troubles were caused by Rana Sanga, Rana of Chitor. I have
related already how this great prince--for great in every sense of
the term he was--had won back from the earlier Muhammadan invaders a
great portion of his hereditary dominions. He had even done more. He
had defeated Ibrahim Lodi in two pitched battles, those of Bakraul
and Chatauli, and had gained from other generals sixteen in addition.
Before the arrival in India of Babar he had taken the then famous
fort of Ranthambor. But he had continued, and was continuing, his
career of conquest, and the news which troubled Babar was to the
effect that the great Rajput chief had just taken the strong
hill-fort of Kandar, a few miles to the eastward of Ranthambor.
Towards the end of the rainy season Babar held a council to meet
these and other difficulties. At this {40} council it was arranged
that, whilst his eldest son, Humayun,[3] then eighteen years old,
should march eastward, to complete the subjection of the Duab, Oudh,
and Jaunpur, Babar should remain at Agra to superintend there the
general direction of affairs. As for Rana Sanga, it was resolved to
march against him only when the enemy nearer home should have been
subdued.
[Footnote 3: In the famous _Memoirs_, pp. 302-3, is to be found the
following note, inserted by Humayun: 'At this same station,' the
station of Shahabad, on the left bank of the Sarsuti, reached on the
march to Panipat, 'and this same day,' March 6, 1526, 'the razor or
scissors were first applied to Humayun's beard. As my honoured father
mentioned in these commentaries the time of his first using the
razor, in humble emulation of him I have commemorated the same
circumstance regarding myself. I was then eighteen years of age. Now
that I am forty-six, I, Muhammad Humayun, am transcribing a copy of
these _Memoirs_ from the copy in his late Majesty's own
handwriting.']
The expedition of Humayun was completely successful. He conquered the
country as far as the frontiers of Bihar. On his return, January 6th,
1527, Babar subdued Biana and Dholpur, took by stratagem the fortress
of Gwalior, received information of the surrender of Multan. Then,
master of the country from the Indus to the frontiers of Western
Bihar, and from Kalpi and Gwalior to the Himalayas, he turned his
attention to the famous Rana of Chitor, Rana Sanga. On February 11 he
marched from Agra to encounter the army of this prince, who, joined
by Muhammadan auxiliaries of the Lodi party, had advanced too, and
had encamped at Bisawar, some {41} twelve miles from Biana and some
sixty-two, by that place, from Agra. Babar advanced to Sikri, now
Fatehpur-Sikri, and halted. In some skirmishes which followed the
Rajputs had all the advantage, and a great discouragement fell on the
soldiers of Babar. He contented himself for the moment with making
his camp as defensible as possible, and by sending a party to ravage
Mewat.
Cooped up in camp, discouraged by the aspect of affairs, Babar,
uneasy at the forced inaction, passed in review the events of his
life, and recognised with humility and penitence that throughout it
he had habitually violated one of the strictest injunctions of the
Kuran, that which forbids the drinking of wine. He resolved at once
to amend. Sending then for his golden wine-cups and his silver
goblets he had them destroyed in his presence, and gave the proceeds
of the sale of the precious metal to the poor. All the wine in the
camp was rendered undrinkable or poured on the ground. Three hundred
of his nobles followed his example.
Sensible at length that the situation could not be prolonged, Babar,
on March 12th, advanced two miles towards the enemy, halted, and
again advanced the day following to a position he had selected as
favourable to an engagement. Here he ranged his troops in order of
battle. On the 16th the Rajputs and their allies advanced, and the
battle joined. Of it Babar has written in his memoirs a picturesque
and, doubtless, a faithful account. It must suffice here to say {42}
that he gained a victory so decisive,[4] that on the morrow of it
Rajputana lay at his feet. He at once pushed on to Biana, thence into
Mewat, and reduced the entire province to obedience. But the effects
of his victory were not limited to conquests achieved by himself.
Towns in the Duab which had revolted, returned to their allegiance or
were recovered. When the Duab had been completely pacified Babar
turned his arms, first, against the Hindu chiefs of Central India,
the leader of whom was at the time the Raja of Chanderi. He had
reached the town and fortress of that name when information came to
him that his generals in the east had been unfortunate, and had been
compelled to fall back from Lucknow upon Kanauj. Unshaken by this
intelligence, the importance of which he admitted, he persevered in
the siege of Chanderi, and in a few days stormed the fortress. Having
secured the submission of the country he marched rapidly eastward,
joined his defeated generals near Kanauj, threw a bridge across the
Ganges near that place, drove the enemy--the remnant of the Lodi
party--before him, re-occupied Lucknow, crossed the Gumti and the
Gogra, and forced the dispirited foe to disperse. He then returned to
Agra to resume the threads of the administration he was arranging.
[Footnote 4: Rana Sanga was severely wounded, and the choicest
chieftains of his army were slain. The Rana died the same year at
Baswa on the frontiers of Mewat.]
But he was not allowed time to remain quiet. The {43} old Muhammadan
party in Jaunpur had never been effectively subdued. The rich kingdom
of Behar, adjoining that of Jaunpur, had, up to this time, been
unassailed. And now the Muhammadan nobles of both districts combined
to place in the hands of a prince of the house of Lodi--the same who
had aided Sanga Rana against Babar--the chief authority in the united
kingdom. The conspiracy had been conducted with so much secrecy that
the result of it only reached Babar on the 1st of February, 1529. He
was then at Dholpur, a place which he greatly affected, engaged with
his nobles in laying out gardens, and otherwise improving and
beautifying the place. That very day he returned to Agra, and taking
with him such troops as he had at hand, marched the day following to
join his son Askari's army, then at Dakdaki, a village near Karra,[5]
on the right bank of the Ganges. He reached that place on the 27th,
and found Askari's army on the opposite bank of the river. He at once
directed that prince to conform his movements on the left bank to
those of his own on the right.
[Footnote 5: Karra is now in ruins. It is in the tahsil or district
of the same name in the Allahabad division. In the times of Babar and
Akbar it was very prosperous.]
The news which reached Babar here was not of a nature to console. The
enemy, to the number of a hundred thousand, had rallied round the
standard of Mahmud Lodi; whilst one of his own generals, Sher Khan,
whom he had distinguished by marks of his favour, had joined the
insurgents and had {44} occupied Benares with his division. Mahmud
Lodi was besieging Chanar, twenty-six miles from the sacred city.
Babar immediately advanced, compelled Mahmud Lodi to raise the siege
of Chanar, forced Sher Khan to evacuate Benares and re-cross the
Ganges, and, crossing the Karamnasa, encamped beyond Chausa, at the
confluence of that river and the Ganges, and Baksar. Marching thence,
he drove his enemy before him until he reached Arrah. There he
assumed the sovereignty of Behar, and there he learned that Mahmud
Lodi, attended by but a few followers, had taken refuge with the King
of Bengal.
Nasrat Shah, King of Bengal, had married a niece of Mahmud Lodi. He
had entered into a kind of convention with Babar that neither prince
was to invade the territories of the other, but, despite this
convention, he had occupied the province of Saran or Chapra, and had
taken up with his army a position near the junction of the Gogra with
the Ganges, very strong for defensive purposes. Babar resolved to
compel the Bengal army to abandon that position. There was, he soon
found, but one way to accomplish that end, and that was by the use of
force. Ranging then his army in six divisions, he directed that four,
under his son Askari, then on the left bank of the Ganges, should
cross the Gogra, march upon the enemy, and attempt to draw them from
their camp, and follow them up the Gogra; whilst the two others,
under his own personal direction, should cross the Ganges, then {45}
the Gogra, and attack the enemy's camp, cutting him off from his
base. The combination, carried out on the 6th of May, entirely
succeeded. The Bengal army was completely defeated, and the victory
was, in every sense of the word, decisive. Peace was concluded with
Bengal on the conditions that the province, now known as Western
Behar, should be ceded to Babar; that neither prince should support
the enemies of the other, and that neither should molest the
dominions of the other.
Thus far I have been guided mainly by the memoirs of the illustrious
man whose achievements I have briefly recorded. There is but little
more to tell. Shortly after his return from his victorious campaign
in Behar his health began to decline. The fact could not be
concealed, and an account of it reached his eldest son, Humayun, then
Governor of Badakshan. That prince, making over his government to his
brother, Hindal, hastened to Agra. He arrived there early in 1530,
was most affectionately received, and by his sprightly wit and genial
manners, made many friends. He had been there but six months when he
was attacked by a serious illness. When the illness was at its
height, and the life of the young prince was despaired of, an
incident occurred which shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the
unselfishness and affection of Babar. It is thus related in the
supplemental chapter to the _Memoirs_.[6]
[Footnote 6: This chapter was added by the translators. The same
circumstance is related also by Mr. Erskine in his _Babar and
Humayun_.]
{46} 'When all hopes from medicine were over, and whilst several men
of skill were talking to the Emperor of the melancholy situation of
his son, Abul Baka, a personage highly venerated for his knowledge
and piety, remarked to Babar that in such a case the Almighty had
sometimes vouchsafed to receive the most valuable thing possessed by
one friend, as an offering in exchange for the life of another. Babar
exclaimed that, of all things, his life was dearest to Humayun, as
Humayun's was to him; that his life, therefore, he most cheerfully
devoted as a sacrifice for that of his son; and prayed the Most High
to vouchsafe to accept it.' Vainly did his courtiers remonstrate. He
persisted, we are told, in his resolution; walked thrice round the
dying prince, a solemnity similar to that used by the Muhammadans in
sacrifices, and, retiring, prayed earnestly. After a time he was
heard to exclaim: 'I have borne it away! I have borne it away!' The
Musalman historians relate that almost from that moment Humayun began
to recover and the strength of Babar began proportionately to decay.
He lingered on to the end of the year 1530. On the 26th December he
restored his soul to his Maker, in his palace of the Charbagh, near
Agra, in the forty-ninth year of his age. His remains were, in
accordance with his dying request, conveyed to Kabul, where they were
interred in a lovely spot, about a mile from the city.
Amongst the famous conquerors of the world Babar will always occupy a
very high place. His character {47} created his career. Inheriting
but the shadow of a small kingdom in Central Asia, he died master of
the territories lying between the Karamnasa and the Oxus, and those
between the Narbada and the Himalayas. His nature was a joyous
nature. Generous, confiding, always hopeful, he managed to attract
the affection of all with whom he came in contact. He was keenly
sensitive to all that was beautiful in nature; had cultivated his own
remarkable talents to a degree quite unusual in the age in which he
lived; and was gifted with strong affections and a very vivid
imagination. He loved war and glory, but he did not neglect the arts
of peace. He made it a duty to inquire into the condition of the
races whom he subdued and to devise for them ameliorating measures.
He was fond of gardening, of architecture, of music, and he was no
mean poet. But the greatest glory of his character was that
attributed to him by one who knew him well, and who thus recorded his
opinion in Tarikhi Reshidi. 'Of all his qualities,' wrote Haidar
Mirza, 'his generosity and humanity took the lead.' Though he lived
long enough only to conquer and not long enough to consolidate, the
task of conquering could hardly have been committed to hands more
pure.
Babar left four sons: Muhammad Humayun Mirza, who succeeded him, born
April 5, 1508: Kamran Mirza, Hindal Mirza, and Askari Mirza. Before
his death he had introduced Humayun to a specially convened council
of ministers as his successor, and had given him his dying
injunctions. The points upon which he {48} had specially laid stress
were: the conscientious discharge of duties to God and man; the
honest and assiduous administration of justice; the seasoning of
punishment to the guilty with the extension of tenderness and mercy
to the ignorant and penitent, with protection to the poor and
defenceless; he besought Humayun, moreover, to deal kindly and
affectionately towards his brothers.
Thus died, in the flower of his manhood, the illustrious chief who
introduced the Mughal dynasty into India; who, conquering the
provinces of the North-west and some districts in the centre of the
peninsula, acquired for that dynasty the prescriptive right to claim
them as its own. He had many great qualities. But, in Hindustan, he
had had neither the time nor the opportunity to introduce into the
provinces he had conquered such a system of administration as would
weld the parts theretofore separate into one homogeneous whole. It
may be doubted whether, great as he was, he possessed to a high
degree the genius of constructive legislation. Nowhere had he given
any signs of it. In Kabul and in Hindustan alike, he had pursued the
policy of the conquerors who had preceded him, that of bestowing
conquered provinces and districts on adherents, to be governed by
them in direct responsibility to himself, each according to his own
plan. Thus it happened that when he died the provinces in India which
acknowledged him as master were bound together by that tie alone.
Agra had nothing in common with Lucknow; Delhi with {49} Jaunpur.
Heavy tolls marked the divisions of territories, inhabited by races
of different origin, who were only bound together by the sovereignty
of Babar over all. He bequeathed to his son, Humayun, then, a
congeries of territories uncemented by any bond of union or of common
interest, except that which had been concentrated in his life. In a
word, when he died, the Mughal dynasty, like the Muhammadan dynasties
which had preceded it, had shot down no roots into the soil of
Hindustan.
{50}