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The Three Battles of Panipat
My dear Gauri,
Throughout the long and chequered history of India literally hundreds of battles, big and small,have been fought, but some of them stand out in memory. Ashoka, for instance , fought the Kalingas in battle, but that battle had a redeeming feature: Ashoka was so ashamed of what he had done and with the terrible loss of life his army had inflicted that he banned all wars and became an ardent follower of the Buddha.
Then there is the famous Battle of Haldighat which Rana Pratap lost. But the battle is remembered for the Rana’s bravery.
I would like to tell you about three other battles, all fought at a place called Panipat, now in Haryana.The first Battle of Panipat was fought in 1526; the second was fought thirty years later in 1556, and the third and the last in 1761.
The first Battle of Panipat was fought between the forces of Babur (who was the founder of the Mughal empire) and those of Ibrahim Lodi who then ruled Delhi. Ibrahim Lodi has been described by Babur as “an inexperienced young man, negligent in all his movements, who marched without order and engaged his battle without foresight”. He was no match for Babur who was a trained fighter.
Babur thought that Punjab (he did not think of India as a whole for he had no concept of the subcontinent) was his by right, just because he was a descendant of Timur. He therefore marched into Punjab in November 1525 with an army of 12,000.
He could have been stopped at the bottom of the Khyber Pass which would have been the right place to stop him, but Ibrahim Lodi had no idea of what was coming. Once the army had crossed Khyber, the inevitable battleground was the region between the Sutlej and the Yamuna.
Ibrahim Lodi had an army of 40,000,but Babur had firearms that Lodi’s men did not possess. The country was flat and well suited to Babur’s cavalry as well. And Babur was a superb strategist, having fought many battles before. Lodi’s forces were, under the circumstances, no match for Babur who inflicted a crushing defeat on the Sultan of Delhi. Babur was to similarly crush the Rajputs under Rana Sanga because of his artillery power. The Indian side was backward in technology. It was a victory not for Babur as much as for superior technology. You just cannot fight cannons with bows and arrows.
Under the circumstances, within eight months of the Panipat battle, Babur’s sway extended from one end of northern India right up to Bihar in the east.
The second Battle of Panipat was fought on 5 November 1556.By then both Babur and his son Humayun had died. Humayun , the second Mughal, had had a chequered career. He had to contend with powerful rulers like Sher Shah who ruled in south Bihar. Sher Shah had the good sense not to offend Hindus and he had the wisdom to exploit their talent for the creation and consolidation of his rule. Humayun, who was generally indolent and incapable of sustained fighting, was no match for Sher Shah and had to flee to Afghanistan, and then to Persia from where he finally returned following the death of Sher Shah. He had, in his exile, succeeded in securing Persian help. In November 1554, Humayun, like his father before him, invaded India and conquering every opposition before him came to Delhi in July 1555. He did not live long thereafter. He died in January 1556, when his son, Akbar, was hardly 14 years old.
Now Akbar had to contend with his own opposition in the form of a man called Himu. Himu was no ordinary officer. He had risen in the ranks of Adil Shah’s forces and had shown by his courage and enterprises that he was a capable fighter. Himu decided that he would take on Akbar’s forces and marched towards Delhi. Again the contest was to be in Panipat.
The battle between the forces of Himu and those of Akbar, led by the latter’s uncle Bairam Khan, was fought on 5 November 1556. During the battle Himu was struck by an arrow and, as happened in such circumstances, the army without a leader broke up in disorder. Himu lay on the ground senseless, where he was picked up by the Mughal forces and brought to Akbar. According to some historians, Bairam Khan asked his nephew to cut off Himu’s head which he reportedly did. But some other historians have maintained that Akbar refused to strike a prisoner who was not even conscious at the time. But whatever the truth is, the second Battle of Panipat was to lay a firm foundation for Mughal rule in India.
Years passed. The Mughal empire waxed and waned. Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jehan, Aurangzeb…they all came, ruled the country and died.
In the south-west Shivaji came to power and was followed by the Peshwas who extended the power of the Marathas right up to the Khyber Pass! This was around 1757-58. A little earlier, the Afghan ruler, Ahmed Shah Abdali, had invaded India four times, entered Delhi and compelled the weak Mughal emperor to cede to him the provinces of Punjab and Multan. When the Marathas overthrew Abdali’s governor, he decided to retaliate. For the fifth time the Afghan leader attacked India and marched towards Delhi.
The Marathas did not have a major force in the Punjab and Abdali easily overpowered those units that offered resistance. The Marathas had earlier been overconfident. Had they not gone as far as the Khyber? Now as Abdali’s forces were returning to give battle, Sadashiv Rau Bhau was confident that he could fight them. He would not listen to the advice of his Jat friends to leave the army hangers-on (the women and other non-fighters) behind. The Maratha forces were too far from their base. At this stage Abdali’s artillery was far superior to that of Sadashiv Rau Bhau. The Afghan’s was a compact, centralised organisation was feudal and individualistic.
Starved of supplies, his horses and soldiers starving and his ammunition exhausted, Sadashiv Rau Bhau finally decided that it was better to fight than be starved. For nearly three months, the Afghan and Maratha forces had encamped close to each other. Now they came forth to fight. Had Sadashiv Rau waited for another month his forces might even have starved to death!
Cut off from supplies, unable to get reinforcements, the Maratha army fought bravely, but to no avail. They were fighting better-led, better-armed, and better-fed forces and they lost heavily. Sadashiv Rau himself was killed in battle. A large part of the Maratha forces was massacred and annihilated. The remnants were pursued and ruthlessly slaughtered. The total loss suffered by the Marathas has been estimated at 50,000 horses, 2,000,000 cattle, thousand of camels, hundreds of elephants and the cream of Maratha fighters. As many as 75,000 Maratha soldiers lost their lives.
The battle had begun at 9 a.m. on 14 January 1761. Till 2 p.m. the Marathas had the upper hand and the Afghans were fleeing. The Marathas had gone without water or food for full five hours. Then Abdali summoned his reserves and put them into battle. This move turned the tide in Abdali’s favour.
What happened was later recounted by Abdali in a letter to his friend Raja Madho Singh:
The enemy distinguished themselves and fought so well that it was beyond the capacity of other races. Gradually the fighting passed from the exchange of cannon and rocket-fire to the discharge of muskets from which it proceeded to the stage of combat with swords, daggers and knives. They grasped each other by neck. These dauntless bloodshedders ( the Marathas ) did not fall short in fighting and doing glorious deeds. Suddenly the breeze of victory began to blow and as willed by the Divine Lord, the wretched Deccanis suffered utter defeat
The Divine Lord may have helped, but the work had been done by some 15,000 fresh troops and mounted guns which fired at the Maratha army at close quarters. That did the work for the Divine Lord.
The worst part of it all was that Abdali had no desire to stay on in India and rule the country. He knew that he could not do that. He had fought a war, lost heavily himself in men and material and gained very little except booty and prestige. This remains one of the most futile wars ever fought in India. Abdali was even prepared to make peace with the Marathas in April 1761. The attempt failed. A defeated Maratha power had nothing to offer. Instead of staying on, Abdali left India. He might have won a famous victory, but what good came out of it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Only, for the Marathas, the situation spelt disaster. Their dreams of bringing India under a united command collapsed. Sadashiv Rau Bhau’s ideal was India for Indians. The country up to Attock on the Indus was to be governed by Indians themselves, and not by Turks, Persians or Afghans. Representing the Peshwa, he wanted to defend the Mughal empire from its enemies. He failed.
Maratha character (the leaders were constantly bickering among themselves) and habits (the army would not leave camp followers behind) and knowledge were just not up to the job they had taken on themselves. The third Battle of Panipat sealed India’s fate for decades to come. Had the Marathas won, who knows, there may not have been a British empire and we may all by now have been speaking in Marathi rather than in English!
Your's Loving
Ajja
My dear Gauri,
Throughout the long and chequered history of India literally hundreds of battles, big and small,have been fought, but some of them stand out in memory. Ashoka, for instance , fought the Kalingas in battle, but that battle had a redeeming feature: Ashoka was so ashamed of what he had done and with the terrible loss of life his army had inflicted that he banned all wars and became an ardent follower of the Buddha.
Then there is the famous Battle of Haldighat which Rana Pratap lost. But the battle is remembered for the Rana’s bravery.
I would like to tell you about three other battles, all fought at a place called Panipat, now in Haryana.The first Battle of Panipat was fought in 1526; the second was fought thirty years later in 1556, and the third and the last in 1761.
The first Battle of Panipat was fought between the forces of Babur (who was the founder of the Mughal empire) and those of Ibrahim Lodi who then ruled Delhi. Ibrahim Lodi has been described by Babur as “an inexperienced young man, negligent in all his movements, who marched without order and engaged his battle without foresight”. He was no match for Babur who was a trained fighter.
Babur thought that Punjab (he did not think of India as a whole for he had no concept of the subcontinent) was his by right, just because he was a descendant of Timur. He therefore marched into Punjab in November 1525 with an army of 12,000.
He could have been stopped at the bottom of the Khyber Pass which would have been the right place to stop him, but Ibrahim Lodi had no idea of what was coming. Once the army had crossed Khyber, the inevitable battleground was the region between the Sutlej and the Yamuna.
Ibrahim Lodi had an army of 40,000,but Babur had firearms that Lodi’s men did not possess. The country was flat and well suited to Babur’s cavalry as well. And Babur was a superb strategist, having fought many battles before. Lodi’s forces were, under the circumstances, no match for Babur who inflicted a crushing defeat on the Sultan of Delhi. Babur was to similarly crush the Rajputs under Rana Sanga because of his artillery power. The Indian side was backward in technology. It was a victory not for Babur as much as for superior technology. You just cannot fight cannons with bows and arrows.
Under the circumstances, within eight months of the Panipat battle, Babur’s sway extended from one end of northern India right up to Bihar in the east.
The second Battle of Panipat was fought on 5 November 1556.By then both Babur and his son Humayun had died. Humayun , the second Mughal, had had a chequered career. He had to contend with powerful rulers like Sher Shah who ruled in south Bihar. Sher Shah had the good sense not to offend Hindus and he had the wisdom to exploit their talent for the creation and consolidation of his rule. Humayun, who was generally indolent and incapable of sustained fighting, was no match for Sher Shah and had to flee to Afghanistan, and then to Persia from where he finally returned following the death of Sher Shah. He had, in his exile, succeeded in securing Persian help. In November 1554, Humayun, like his father before him, invaded India and conquering every opposition before him came to Delhi in July 1555. He did not live long thereafter. He died in January 1556, when his son, Akbar, was hardly 14 years old.
Now Akbar had to contend with his own opposition in the form of a man called Himu. Himu was no ordinary officer. He had risen in the ranks of Adil Shah’s forces and had shown by his courage and enterprises that he was a capable fighter. Himu decided that he would take on Akbar’s forces and marched towards Delhi. Again the contest was to be in Panipat.
The battle between the forces of Himu and those of Akbar, led by the latter’s uncle Bairam Khan, was fought on 5 November 1556. During the battle Himu was struck by an arrow and, as happened in such circumstances, the army without a leader broke up in disorder. Himu lay on the ground senseless, where he was picked up by the Mughal forces and brought to Akbar. According to some historians, Bairam Khan asked his nephew to cut off Himu’s head which he reportedly did. But some other historians have maintained that Akbar refused to strike a prisoner who was not even conscious at the time. But whatever the truth is, the second Battle of Panipat was to lay a firm foundation for Mughal rule in India.
Years passed. The Mughal empire waxed and waned. Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jehan, Aurangzeb…they all came, ruled the country and died.
In the south-west Shivaji came to power and was followed by the Peshwas who extended the power of the Marathas right up to the Khyber Pass! This was around 1757-58. A little earlier, the Afghan ruler, Ahmed Shah Abdali, had invaded India four times, entered Delhi and compelled the weak Mughal emperor to cede to him the provinces of Punjab and Multan. When the Marathas overthrew Abdali’s governor, he decided to retaliate. For the fifth time the Afghan leader attacked India and marched towards Delhi.
The Marathas did not have a major force in the Punjab and Abdali easily overpowered those units that offered resistance. The Marathas had earlier been overconfident. Had they not gone as far as the Khyber? Now as Abdali’s forces were returning to give battle, Sadashiv Rau Bhau was confident that he could fight them. He would not listen to the advice of his Jat friends to leave the army hangers-on (the women and other non-fighters) behind. The Maratha forces were too far from their base. At this stage Abdali’s artillery was far superior to that of Sadashiv Rau Bhau. The Afghan’s was a compact, centralised organisation was feudal and individualistic.
Starved of supplies, his horses and soldiers starving and his ammunition exhausted, Sadashiv Rau Bhau finally decided that it was better to fight than be starved. For nearly three months, the Afghan and Maratha forces had encamped close to each other. Now they came forth to fight. Had Sadashiv Rau waited for another month his forces might even have starved to death!
Cut off from supplies, unable to get reinforcements, the Maratha army fought bravely, but to no avail. They were fighting better-led, better-armed, and better-fed forces and they lost heavily. Sadashiv Rau himself was killed in battle. A large part of the Maratha forces was massacred and annihilated. The remnants were pursued and ruthlessly slaughtered. The total loss suffered by the Marathas has been estimated at 50,000 horses, 2,000,000 cattle, thousand of camels, hundreds of elephants and the cream of Maratha fighters. As many as 75,000 Maratha soldiers lost their lives.
The battle had begun at 9 a.m. on 14 January 1761. Till 2 p.m. the Marathas had the upper hand and the Afghans were fleeing. The Marathas had gone without water or food for full five hours. Then Abdali summoned his reserves and put them into battle. This move turned the tide in Abdali’s favour.
What happened was later recounted by Abdali in a letter to his friend Raja Madho Singh:
The enemy distinguished themselves and fought so well that it was beyond the capacity of other races. Gradually the fighting passed from the exchange of cannon and rocket-fire to the discharge of muskets from which it proceeded to the stage of combat with swords, daggers and knives. They grasped each other by neck. These dauntless bloodshedders ( the Marathas ) did not fall short in fighting and doing glorious deeds. Suddenly the breeze of victory began to blow and as willed by the Divine Lord, the wretched Deccanis suffered utter defeat
The Divine Lord may have helped, but the work had been done by some 15,000 fresh troops and mounted guns which fired at the Maratha army at close quarters. That did the work for the Divine Lord.
The worst part of it all was that Abdali had no desire to stay on in India and rule the country. He knew that he could not do that. He had fought a war, lost heavily himself in men and material and gained very little except booty and prestige. This remains one of the most futile wars ever fought in India. Abdali was even prepared to make peace with the Marathas in April 1761. The attempt failed. A defeated Maratha power had nothing to offer. Instead of staying on, Abdali left India. He might have won a famous victory, but what good came out of it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Only, for the Marathas, the situation spelt disaster. Their dreams of bringing India under a united command collapsed. Sadashiv Rau Bhau’s ideal was India for Indians. The country up to Attock on the Indus was to be governed by Indians themselves, and not by Turks, Persians or Afghans. Representing the Peshwa, he wanted to defend the Mughal empire from its enemies. He failed.
Maratha character (the leaders were constantly bickering among themselves) and habits (the army would not leave camp followers behind) and knowledge were just not up to the job they had taken on themselves. The third Battle of Panipat sealed India’s fate for decades to come. Had the Marathas won, who knows, there may not have been a British empire and we may all by now have been speaking in Marathi rather than in English!
Your's Loving
Ajja
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