Exploring Society I · Chapter 2 — Reshaping India's Political Map

Imagine looking at a map of India that redraws itself every few decades: a border moves south, a new capital appears, an old kingdom vanishes and a new empire spreads across the plains. That is what India's political map looked like between the 11th and the 17th centuries.

What 'medieval' means here. Historians often call this time the later medieval period. The word medieval means 'between two ages' and was first used for European history, from the fall of the Roman Empire (5th century CE) to the Renaissance (14th to 16th centuries). Europe's story and India's story are very different, so the label does not fit India perfectly, and historians do not agree on its exact dates for India. In this chapter it simply means the 11th to the 17th centuries.

A new kind of challenge. India had seen many wars before, but from the early 11th century it faced a long series of invasions from beyond the Hindu Kush mountains in the northwest. Many invaders were Central Asian, of Turkic or Afghan origin. They came for India's famous wealth, to win territory, and often to spread their own form of religion, by force if they chose.

Key reference dates. The textbook keeps dates to a few landmarks. These are worth remembering:

Spellings. Persian names are written in English in more than one way, so you will meet Khalji and Khilji, Tughlaq and Tughluq, or Mughal and Moghul. They name the same people.

How to study this chapter. Keep three questions in mind. How did invasions and new dynasties redraw the map? How did Indian society and its economy respond? And what did all this mean for ordinary people? Keep returning to the timeline: it is the skeleton on which the story hangs.

A note on darker periods. This chapter includes wars and cruelty. Historians study such events calmly and carefully, to understand how they happened. Nobody living today is responsible for what rulers did centuries ago.

Picture a throne that changes hands so often that most rulers barely get settled before someone pushes them off. That was the throne of Delhi for about three hundred years.

Beginnings. The Delhi Sultanate grew out of the defeat in 1192 of Prithviraj Chauhan, who ruled parts of northwestern India. A sultan is a title used by some Muslim rulers, and a sultanate is the land a sultan rules. Five dynasties of Turkic-Afghan origin ruled one after another: the Mamluks (the 'Slave dynasty'), the Khiljis, the Tughlaqs, the Sayyids and the Lodis.

Unstable rule. The Sultanate kept trying to grow, so armies raided villages and cities, plundered wealth and destroyed temples and centres of learning. Changes of ruler were often violent: almost two out of every three sultans took power by killing or removing the one before. The average reign lasted only about nine years.

Ala-ud-din Khilji. Around 1300 he campaigned across north and central India, plundering many cities, and also drove back several Mongol invasions; the Mongol Empire then covered most of Asia. His coins called him 'the second Alexander'. His general Malik Kafur pushed far south, defeating kingdoms and attacking centres such as Srirangam, Madurai and Chidambaram. The plunder paid for a huge army.

Muhammad bin Tughlaq. He extended the Sultanate further than ever: for the first time since the Mauryas, most of the subcontinent was under one ruler, though only briefly. His bold schemes often failed in practice. He moved the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad (then Devagiri), forcing people to travel more than 1,000 km, and later moved it back; both moves cost many lives according to some sources. He introduced token currency, cheap copper coins given the value of silver or gold. The idea was ahead of its time (most money today is token money), but people forged the copper coins, trade became confused and the economy declined.

Wealth and burdens. The sultans and their courts lived in luxury, funded by plunder, heavy taxes and the slave trade. Some sultans charged jizya, a tax on non-Muslim subjects, which could be both a financial burden and a humiliation. Many Buddhist, Jain and Hindu sacred images were destroyed, for plunder and also from iconoclasm, the rejection of religious images.

Timur and the end. In 1398 Timur, a Turkic-Mongol conqueror, attacked Delhi, killing or enslaving very many people and leaving the city in ruins. Afterwards the Lodis set up the last Sultanate dynasty, but its territory had shrunk as Indian kingdoms resisted.

If you look at a map of the Sultanate at its biggest, it may seem that nothing stood in its way. Look closer and you will find kingdom after kingdom that held out, fought back or broke away.

The Eastern Gangas of Kalinga. This kingdom covered present-day Odisha and parts of Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, and the Sultanate never conquered it. In the mid-13th century King Narasimhadeva I drove back several Sultanate attacks and defeated the Sultanate's governor of Bengal. Partly to celebrate these victories, he built the famous Sūrya temple at Konark.

The Musunuri Nayakas. Under the Tughlaqs, these Telugu chieftains united more than 75 other local chiefs into a confederacy. Together they defeated Sultanate forces and drove Muhammad bin Tughlaq's army out of Warangal (in present-day Telangana) around 1330 to 1336. Bringing so many leaders together, with no phones or roads as we know them, was a remarkable achievement.

The Hoysalas. Ruling much of present-day Karnataka, the Hoysalas fought off several Sultanate attacks and for a time were the only independent kingdom in the south. They built the splendid temples of Belur and Halebidu. Weakened by war and quarrels inside the kingdom, they declined and in the mid-14th century were absorbed into the Vijayanagara Empire. Their emblem tells a folk story of a young man, Sala, fighting a lion to save his teacher.

Breakaway sultanates. Some of the Sultanate's own provinces declared independence. The Bahmani Sultanate, founded in 1347, controlled much of the Deccan for a time, and powerful sultanates arose in Gujarat and Bengal. Alliances shifted constantly and wars were frequent.

Mewar. Parts of Rajasthan stayed out of Delhi's reach. In the 15th century Rana Kumbha of Mewar resisted the Sultanate and also beat back the later regional sultanates. He built Kumbhalgarh Fort in the Aravalli hills, famous for a wall about 36 km long, one of the longest continuous walls in the world.

Why hills and forests? Many forts were built on steep, forested hills. Such places were hard to attack and easy to defend, but they were also hard to supply with food and water during a long siege. Geography could be both a shield and a trap.

A Portuguese visitor in the early 16th century walked through a southern Indian capital and felt it was as large as Rome, full of gardens, water channels, lakes and crowded markets loaded with goods. That city was Vijayanagara, today's Hampi in Karnataka.

Founding. In the 14th century two brothers, Harihara and Bukka Raya, who had served as governors under Muhammad bin Tughlaq, rejected Delhi's authority and set up their own kingdom (traditionally dated 1336). It grew into the Vijayanagara Empire. A folk tale says they saw a hare turn and chase a pack of hounds at Hampi; their guru Vidyaranya took it as a sign of courage and advised them to build their capital there.

Rivals. North of the empire lay the Bahmani Sultanate, which later split into five Deccan Sultanates: Bijapur, Golconda, Berar, Ahmednagar and Bidar, each run by a former governor who declared independence. Vijayanagara fought Bijapur and Golconda, and also the Gajapati kings of Odisha. Titles of the time used pati, meaning lord: Gajapati (lord of elephants), Narapati (lord of men, for Vijayanagara kings), Ashwapati (lord of horses, for Bahmani rulers).

Krishnadevaraya. The empire peaked in the 16th century under Krishnadevaraya, who secured its power in the Deccan. He supported poets and scholars in Sanskrit, Telugu and Kannada and himself wrote a Telugu poem, Āmuktamālyada, about the Tamil poet-saint Āṇḍāl, including a section of advice on good government. He gave grants to temples such as Tirupati and the Vitthala temple, whose 'musical pillars' ring with different notes when tapped.

Trade. Foreign merchants came to trade, especially in horses for the army. Portuguese horse traders were treated very well, since the king did not want them selling horses to his enemies.

Talikota and after. Krishnadevaraya died of illness in 1529. In 1565 the Deccan Sultanates joined together and defeated Vijayanagara's army, led by Ramaraya, at the Battle of Talikota. The capital was plundered for months; homes, markets, palaces and most temples were destroyed and many people were killed. The empire broke into smaller regions ruled by Nayakas, former military governors, and came to an end in the mid-17th century.

Why it lasted. Vijayanagara held out for over two centuries thanks to a strong army with horses and fortified cities, wealth from trade and farming, and rulers who won loyalty through patronage of temples and learning.

In 1526, on the plain of Panipat north of Delhi, cannons and matchlock guns, only recently brought to Indian battlefields, decided a battle. The winner, Babur, founded an empire that would last, in some form, for more than three hundred years.

Babur. A Turkic-Mongol ruler descended from Timur, Babur had lost Samarkand (in today's Uzbekistan) and turned to India. He defeated Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat (1526), ending the Delhi Sultanate and founding the Mughal Empire. His memoir, the Baburnama, shows a curious, cultured man who loved gardens, birds and fruit trees, and also a ruthless conqueror who massacred and enslaved the people of captured cities. He admired India's gold, silver and countless skilled workers, which is perhaps why he stayed.

Humayun, Sher Shah and Hemu. After Babur died in 1530, his son Humayun struggled. The Afghan leader Sher Shah Suri built the Sur Empire across north India and made lasting reforms, though it did not last. Hemu, a commander and chief minister under a later Suri ruler, captured Delhi and ruled briefly as Hemchandra Vikramaditya, but he was wounded and defeated by Babur's grandson Akbar at the Second Battle of Panipat (1556) and then executed.

Akbar. Made emperor at 13, Akbar ruled almost 50 years (1556 to 1605). His reign mixed brutality and tolerance. At Chittor he besieged the fort for over five months; after it fell, many defenders died fighting, hundreds of women committed jauhar to escape capture, and about 30,000 civilians were massacred. Later he relied more on strategy: marriage alliances with Rajput families, Rajput and regional leaders at court, abolition of the jizya and a policy called sulh-i-kul, 'peace with all'. He held discussions among scholars of different faiths and had Sanskrit works such as the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyaṇa and the Pañchatantra translated into Persian at Fatehpur Sikri.

Jahangir and Shah Jahan. Jahangir loved art and tried to expand into the Deccan. Shah Jahan is remembered above all for the Taj Mahal. This was a high point for Mughal architecture (Humayun's tomb, the Red Forts of Delhi and Agra), miniature painting, calligraphy and music.

When Shah Jahan fell ill in 1657, his four sons began a deadly contest for the throne. The winner reached the largest empire the Mughals ever had, and left it exhausted.

A violent succession. Shah Jahan wanted his eldest son Dara Shikoh to succeed him. His younger son Aurangzeb defeated Dara in a series of battles and had him executed, removed his other two brothers, and imprisoned his father in Agra Fort until Shah Jahan died. Aurangzeb crowned himself in 1658, took the title Alamgir ('conqueror of the world') and ruled for almost 49 years.

Biggest, but strained. A skilled general, Aurangzeb conquered much of the south, and the empire reached its greatest size. But he faced constant rebellions and spent his last 25 years fighting war after war in the Deccan. Keeping huge armies in the field drained the treasury and overloaded the administration. Historians see this as a key reason why Mughal power declined quickly after his death in 1707.

Religious policy. Aurangzeb was a devout Sunni Muslim who lived simply. He banned music and dance at court, and brought back the jizya and a pilgrimage tax on Hindus, both abolished by Akbar. Some scholars stress political motives and point to grants he gave some temples. But his own orders also show religious motives: in 1669 he ordered provincial governors to pull down the schools and temples of non-Muslims. Temples at Varanasi, Mathura and Somnath were destroyed, along with Jain temples and Sikh gurudwaras, and Sufis, Muslims of other sects and Zoroastrians were also persecuted.

Looking back. In letters to his sons near the end, Aurangzeb wrote that he felt he had not done well for the country and its people and saw little hope for the future.

Reading numbers about reigns. Compare the average length of rule:

Longer reigns usually mean steadier government: officials stay in post, policies continue and fewer wars of succession break out. The early Mughals were far more stable than the sultans. After Aurangzeb, reigns became short again, a sign of the empire's weakening.

A reminder. Learning about such events helps us understand the past and honour its victims. No one alive today is responsible for them.

Mughal maps show a vast empire, but all through its history people pushed back: peasants angry at harsh taxes, forest tribes guarding their land, Rajput clans proud of their freedom, and a river kingdom in Assam.

Peasants. In the 17th century the Jat peasants of the region that is now western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and eastern Rajasthan rose against an oppressive Mughal officer and killed him. About 20,000 men later fought the Mughal army bravely, but their leader was killed and the revolt was crushed.

Tribes. Groups such as the Bhils, Gonds, Santhals and Kochs resisted attempts to take their land or tax them. Some were defeated or absorbed; others, living in forests, hills and remote areas, kept a good deal of independence.

Rani Durgavati. Queen of Garha, a Gond kingdom in central India, she ruled well and kept an army of about 20,000 soldiers and 1,000 elephants. When Akbar's general attacked in 1564, she led her troops though outnumbered, and when wounded took her own life rather than be captured. She was 40, and is still honoured as a heroine.

The Rajputs. Rajput clans had a long record of facing invaders. Rana Sanga united several clans in the early 16th century but lost to Babur at Khanwa. Maharana Pratap of Mewar refused to accept Mughal overlordship. At Haldighati in 1576 the Mughals had the upper hand, but he escaped and fought for years by guerrilla warfare, small surprise attacks by fighters who knew the land. The Bhils served as his archers and guides, and a Bhil warrior appears on Mewar's emblem. Under Aurangzeb, Durga Das Rathore fought for Jodhpur's independence. Mughal control over Rajasthan stayed limited.

The Ahoms. The Ahoms came from present-day Myanmar to the Brahmaputra valley in the 13th century and built a kingdom that resisted both the Sultanate and the Mughals. Under their paik system, every able-bodied man gave the state labour or military service in return for land rights, so the king could build roads and embankments and raise a large force without a permanent army. When Aurangzeb's forces briefly took their capital Garhgaon, the Ahoms used forests, hills and rivers and kept up guerrilla attacks. At the Battle of Saraighat (1671) on the Brahmaputra near Guwahati, commander Lachit Borphukan with about 10,000 men defeated a Mughal force of about 30,000. The Ahoms stayed independent.

Common threads. Knowledge of terrain, unity among local groups and determined leadership let smaller forces stand up to a giant.

Every year at the Republic Day parade in New Delhi, the Sikh Regiment salutes a gurudwara in the busy market of Chandni Chowk. The custom, followed since 1979, honours a sacrifice made there more than three centuries ago.

Guru Nanak's message. In 15th-century Punjab (a region now divided between India and Pakistan), Guru Nanak taught equality, compassion and the oneness of God, Ik Onkār. His followers became known as Sikhs. The faith began as a purely spiritual path.

From prayer to protection. Later Gurus had to face growing intolerance from some Mughal rulers. When Emperor Jahangir learnt that Guru Arjan had supported his rebel son, he had the Guru tortured to death. Guru Arjan's son, Guru Hargobind, then began martial training and raised a Sikh army that fought several battles with Mughal forces.

The Guru Granth Sahib. The Sikh holy book was first compiled by Guru Arjan; hymns of Guru Tegh Bahadur were added later. It teaches that there is one God for all and asks Sikhs to live by truthfulness, compassion, humility and self-control. One line teaches that truthful living is higher even than truth itself.

Guru Tegh Bahadur, 1675. A group of Kashmiri Pandits asked the ninth Guru for protection from religious persecution. He chose to stand with them. Arrested and ordered by Aurangzeb to convert, he refused even after torture and after seeing three disciples tortured to death. He was publicly beheaded in Chandni Chowk, where Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib now stands.

The Khalsa. His son Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and last Guru, founded the Khalsa (1699), a brotherhood of warriors committed to justice, equality and defence of the faith. It fought the Mughals many times, at a great cost of lives.

The Sikh Empire. As the Mughals weakened, especially under Maratha attacks, several Sikh confederacies arose in Punjab. Maharaja Ranjit Singh united them at the turn of the 19th century (the textbook's timeline gives 1799). With military skill, diplomacy and religious tolerance he built a strong, centralised Sikh Empire covering much of the northwest, including parts of Kashmir. Until the mid-19th century it resisted both Mughal remnants and British expansion.

Values that last. Equality, sevā (selfless service) and justice, central to Sikh teaching, still matter today: think of community kitchens (langar) that feed anyone who comes, without asking who they are.

Ruling a huge empire without trains, telephones or computers is a puzzle. How do you collect taxes from distant villages and raise an army quickly? The Sultanate and the Mughals each built a system to solve it.

The Sultanate system. The sultan held absolute power as head of the state and the army. Writers of the time listed his duties as defending the realm, collecting taxes and keeping in touch with the people's condition. A council of ministers ran departments. Under the iqta system, a noble (an iqtadar) was given a territory to collect taxes; after his expenses, the rest was meant to go to the sultan's treasury, mainly to pay for the army. Iqtas were not hereditary, so the nobles stayed dependent on the sultan. Trade was taxed at every stage, but the heaviest burden fell on peasants, and some accounts describe great cruelty in collecting land revenue.

Akbar's reorganisation. Akbar divided work among ministers:

Such officers were placed in each of the empire's twelve provinces (subahs), which were divided further, with officials checking one another. In villages, old systems of self-government carried on largely undisturbed.

The mansabdari system. Every officer, or mansabdar, held a rank (mansab) that fixed how many soldiers, horses, elephants and camels he had to keep ready for the state. Regular inspections checked this. So the emperor could gather a large army quickly without paying a permanent central army. Mansabdars were usually paid through land assignments called jagirs, so they were also called jagirdars. Abul Fazl described this in the Ain-i-Akbari.

Who held office. Even under tolerant Akbar, non-Muslims rarely made up more than about one-third of the senior officials, and often fewer; officials of foreign origin were generally preferred over Indian-born Muslims.

Todar Mal's revenue system. Akbar's finance minister Todar Mal surveyed crop yields and prices, fixed rates for each crop from that data, and began a systematic survey of land across the empire. Revenue collection improved and the state grew stronger.

Compare. Both the iqta and the jagir paid officials from land revenue, but Akbar added fixed ranks, inspections and detailed land surveys.

Kings rose and fell, but most people's days were shaped by the harvest, the market and the temple. Despite constant war, India stayed one of the richest regions in the world in these centuries.

Infrastructure and money. The Sultanate built roads, especially in north India, bridges, a few canals and new cities, and the Mughals did much more. Coins were issued in several metals; the Mughals used a silver rupaya and a copper dam. The Persian wheel, turned by animals, lifted water from wells to fields.

Agriculture. Farming was the base of the economy, and rulers relied on land revenue for their armies and administration. Usually they took about one-fifth of the produce, but some sultans raised it to as much as one-half. Better irrigation allowed several crops a year: food crops like rice, wheat, barley, pulses, sugarcane and spices, and other crops like cotton, silk, dyes, timber and jute. Harvests varied by region and year, and there were severe famines, with relief depending on the ruler.

Crafts and trade. Textiles led, but craftspeople also made weapons, utensils and jewellery, and shipbuilding grew. Goods went out from ports such as Calicut, Mangalore, Surat, Masulipatnam and Hooghly. India exported much more than it imported; imports included horses, silk, metals and luxuries. Merchants from Arabia, Persia and Central Asia settled in Indian ports.

Systems run by society. Guilds (śhreṇis), occupational communities (jātis) and credit networks kept the economy running even when governments changed. A hundi was a written order to pay money to someone; it could cross borders, so merchants did not have to carry coins that could be robbed. Communities such as the Marwaris built trust and credit networks that worked across kingdoms, an early form of banking.

Temples as economic centres. Rulers and others donated land and wealth (dāna) to temples. Temple managers used it to build tanks, irrigation works and rest houses for pilgrims, gave credit to merchants and helped fund trade by land and sea. Markets grew around temples.

Hardship. Wealth was concentrated among rulers, nobles, officials and merchants. Craftspeople and labourers often lived hard lives, and war forced people from their homes. By the late 1600s many peasants kept only a small share of their harvest after taxes and payments to middlemen, and some lost their land and became bonded labourers. There were clashes over sacred sites, but most people of different faiths lived side by side, depending on one another.

Resilience. Through it all, communities rebuilt towns and temples, kept traditions alive and blended old and new in art, music and architecture.