The Invasion Centuries
What You Will Learn...
Main Ideas
1. People today must come to terms with violent times of the past.
2. From the eighth to the eighteenth century, Muslims invaded and then ruled much of India.
3. By the nineteenth century, the British East India Company went from being traders in India to being rulers of India.
The Big Idea
HINDUISM TODAY’S Teaching Standards
This column in each of the three sections presents our subject outline for India and Hinduism from 1100 to 1850 ce.
1. Explain the difficulty in discussing violent historical events that continue to impact us today.
2. Describe successive invasions of India by Arabs, Turks and Mughals and the unyielding Hindu resistance.
3. Explore the founding of the Mughal Empire, its expansion and ultimate decline.
4. Explain the origins of the East India Company and how it gained control of India.
If YOU lived then...
Outside invaders have conquered the kingdom next to the one you live in. The king calls for young men to join his army. Your father decides to take the family and flee to another kingdom, away from the fighting. You may either join the army or go with the family. Your father leaves it up to you.
What do you do, and why?
BUILDING BACKGROUND: Horses thrive in Central Asia, Iran and Arabia, but they do poorly in the hot climate of the Indian plains. Invaders on horseback armed with swords and bows had an advantage over the foot soldiers and even the elephants of the Indian armies. Later, Indian kings imported horses yearly for their armies at great cost.
Understanding a Violent Past
We now enter what historians call a “difficult period” of Indian history. The difficulty is not due to any lack of knowledge. The Muslims’ invasions of India were carefully chronicled by their own historians. The British also kept exacting records of their subjugation and exploitation of the subcontinent. We have a great deal of information, but of a disturbing nature. Muslim historians recount in detail the destruction of cities, sacking of temples, slaughter of noncombatants and enslavement of captives. British accounts reveal the mismanagement and greed that led to famines that killed tens of millions of people and ruined the local industry during their rule.
Nearly every country on our planet has a dark period of history it would like to forget or deny. It is difficult to study such unpleasant pasts in a way that leads to understanding, not hatred. Hindu-Muslim discord has been a fact of Indian history for over a thousand years. At the same time, there have been long periods of friendly relationship, especially at the village level. For Hindus and Muslims, coming to terms with their collective past remains a “work in progress.” True reconciliation comes when people honestly face the past, forgive misdeeds, learn to truly respect each other’s religious beliefs and traditions and promise to move forward in peace.
The Gradual Conquest of India
Muslim Arab attacks upon India began in 636 ce, soon after Islam was founded. The first successful conquest was of the Sindh region in 712, with the fall of the temple towns of Debal and Multan. By 870, Arabs conquered the Hindu kingdoms of southwestern Afghanistan, then were stopped by the kings of north and northwest India.
There were three types of conquerors during this time. Some simply raided a city, robbed its wealth and left. Others defeated a kingdom, reinstated the defeated king and ordered him to pay regular tribute. The third and most effective conquerer annexed the captured territory to his own kingdom.
The next wave of invasions began around 1000. These attacks were not by Arabs, but by Turks from central Asia who had converted to Islam. One Turkic leader, Mahmud of Ghazni, raided India 17 times between 1001 and 1027. In each city, he looted and destroyed temples, and killed or enslaved inhabitants. Mahmud’s successors periodically raided northern India, but generations of Rajput rulers denied the invaders a permanent foothold.
One of the great historians of India, A.L. Basham, wrote that warfare among Hindus was governed by “a chivalrous and humane ethical code, which discouraged such ruthless aspects of war as the sacking of cities and the slaughter of prisoners and noncombatants.” The Islamic invasions introduced a brutal form of warfare which destroyed, killed and enslaved enemies at will.
In 1192, Muhammad of Ghur, also Turkic, finally succeeded in defeating Hindu rulers of the Delhi-Ajmer region and the Ganga valley. This conquest led to the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206. By 1300, the Sultanate had secured stable rule around their main strongholds of the North, and sent armies to raid as far south as Thanjavur and Madurai. But these regions were not annexed. Hindu rule generally continued in Rajasthan, Gujarat and thrived in the entire South, notably within the Vijayanagar Empire (1336-1665). Areas with natural protective boundaries, such as Kashmir, Nepal, Assam, Orissa and Kerala, were less subject to raids.
By 1220, the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan had created the largest empire the world had ever seen, conquering Asia from China to Iran. In 1398, a Muslim descendant, Timur, attacked Delhi because he felt its Muslim ruler was too tolerant of Hindus. In just one instance alone, he killed 100,000 Hindu captives. In 1504, Babur, a descendent of both Genghis Khan and Timur, seized Kabul. This gave him a base to attack India. He overwhelmed both the sultan of Delhi (in 1526) and the Rajput confederacy (in 1527) to found the Mughal Empire. His army was the first in India to use matchlocks and field cannons.
Babur’s grandson, Akbar, became emperor in 1556. He expanded the Mughal Empire over northern India and part of the Deccan by entering into alliances with Hindu kings, particularly the fierce Rajputs. Akbar’s rule was noted for its religious harmony. Unfortunately, his successors did not inherit his tolerance. Akbar’s great-grandson, Aurangzeb, destroyed temples and reimposed the jizya religious tax on Hindus.
By the mid-eighteenth century, the Mughal Empire had declined. The Sikhs, Jats, Rajputs, Marathas and the Empire’s own provincial governors (called nawabs) had asserted their independence, leaving no strong central government in India. The regional Muslim rulers continued to oppress Hindus, but less harshly than the centralized Muslim governments of Delhi had.
The Colonial Period
In 1600 a group of English merchants set up the East India Company to buy and sell goods between Britain, India and other eastern countries. They arrived in India as businessmen, not conquerors, and built major trading posts at Surat, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. Over time, they fortified their posts and developed private armies for defense, paid for with the immense profits of their trade. They hired Hindus and Muslims as soldiers, called sepoys, who served under British officers.
Emboldened by their strength, the British proceeded to meddle in local politics. They gained power and profit by playing one rival against another. The French, especially in South India, did the same. If one king was supported by the French, the Company would back his rival as a way of weakening the French position. But they wanted still more. Robert Clive, commander of the Company’s army, conspired to overthrow the Nawab of Bengal, which led to the Nawab’s defeat in the Battle of Plassey in 1757.
Mir Jafar, the new Muslim ruler of Bengal rewarded Clive’s support with huge gifts and a promise to favor the Company. But things did not go well, and following the battle of Buxar in 1764 the Company gained control of Bengal’s revenues. A few years later they became the direct rulers and ruined the region with heavy taxes, unfair trade restrictions and corrupt practices.
The Company seldom launched a direct attack to conquer a region of India. Rather, they entered into treaties, alliances and other deals with local rulers, exploiting the divisions among them. Along the way, they defeated several heroic kings, such as the Muslim king Tipu Sultan of Mysore, and eventually conquered the powerful Marathas and Sikhs after many battles. In this manner, by 1857, they achieved direct rule over much of India and controlled the rest through puppet rulers.
Why Did the Muslims and the British Win?
Most historians agree that the Hindu kings simply failed to realize the danger they faced and thus did not mount a common defense. Historians also blame the caste system, saying that people relied solely on the warrior caste to do the fighting. Basham shows this explanation to be inaccurate, as all castes were present in Indian armies. Also, he points out, Muslim kingdoms themselves were overrun by subsequent invaders, such as Timur and Nadir Shah, putting up no better defense than the earlier Hindu kings.
Basham explains that each new invader succeeded by virtue of superior military organization, strategy, training, weapons, horses and mobility. With these they overpowered the large but cumbersome Indian armies, Hindu and Muslim alike, which failed to adapt to new methods of warfare. The British also possessed great military skill and modern weapons, a result of their wars in Europe at the time. The Indian rulers failed to recognize and counter the brilliant British strategy and tactic of conquering a region by exploiting internal divisions among its rulers and only occasionally using its own armed forces in an outright invasion.
REVIEWING IDEAS, TERMS AND PEOPLE
1. Explain: How do we know so much about the destruction in India under the Muslims and British?
2. Describe: What are three different ways that invading forces could profit from their conquests?
3. Contrast: How was the Muslim style of warfare different from that of the Hindus?
4. Synthesize: How could Indian kings have better fought the Muslim invaders and the British empire builders?
5 Analyze: How can studying the history of violence in India be useful in helping to bring about a more peaceful world today?
ACADEMIC VOCABULARY
subjugation
to bring under control by force
reconciliation
to restore friendly relations
famine
extreme shortage of food
tribute
payment made by one ruler to another
matchlock
an early type of rifle
fortify
to build walls, towers and gates to protect from attack
meddle
to interfere in someone else’s affairs
alliance
an agreement to work together
puppet ruler
a state ruler who is actually controlled by another ruler