The classical roots of Indian political structures and warfare had developed by this era into a pattern with several important characteristics for military history. First, Indian warfare was conducted not by states but by a complex hierarchy of elites: There was little notion in the culture of firm borders and governments with monopolies on the use of violence, partly because the right, and duty, of bearing arms was class and caste bound. This created a shifting political terrain for conflicts that were more about confirming a symbolic pecking order than about territorial conquest. This led to a second characteristic of Indian politics: Allegiances were almost always for sale at any time in a conflict. The geopolitics of the subcontinent were further complicated by the continued existence of a large inner frontier consisting of the jungle and arid areas unsuitable to settled agriculture. Such areas became pathways for pastoralists, merchants, and warrior bands, and they were therefore paradoxically sources of both instability and resources, monetary and military, for settled areas. It was into this complex landscape that Muslims began to raid in the 800s and to initiate conquests in the late 900s.
Figure 14.3 India in the Time of the Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate
Muslim armies were composed primarily of Turkish slave soldiers (see Chapters 8 and 11)—mounted archers supported by heavy lancers. They found easy pickings in the rich north Indian plains. Drawn by plunder and the divided resistance of the Hindu Rajput states, raiding became conquest. A major victory over a Rajput coalition in 1192 opened nearly all north India to occupation; in 1206, the Delhi Sultanate was founded (Figure 14.3).
The Muslim Turkish population of the Sultanate formed a military ruling class, but it was tiny in comparison with the vast numbers of their Hindu Indian subjects. The sultans in the early decades also limited rulership to Turks, meaning other Muslims and Muslim converts were excluded from the top positions. This also hindered administration of their territories and required that they receive constant infusions of fresh Turkish slave soldiers. In this, the sultans were both assisted and ultimately harmed by the Mongol invasions of the rest of the Muslim world (see Chapter 13): Early Mongol conquests drove refugee Turks into India, but the consolidation of Mongol rule dried up the supply.
The most successful and powerful of the Delhi sultans was Balban (ruled 1249-87), whose success lay not so much in conquest as in his steps to strengthen the sultan’s power at the expense of the Turkish nobles who exercised much local power. Much like Qubilai Khan in Yuan China, Balban attempted to establish a true monarchy with centrally administered and directed armies. But his successors were unable to continue his progress, and the Delhi Sultanate reverted to the previous pattern whereby the sultan was more a Central Asian chieftain who directly controlled only his own forces and needed the approval of the nobility for any major actions or military expeditions. The Central Asian pattern was reinforced by the Indian pattern of shifting alliances, which continued to operate among Hindu princes within the context of the sultan’s nominal overlordship. Muslim rule therefore failed to transform the Indian political structure.
Militarily, however, the Islamic Turkish style of fighting had a significant impact on Indian warfare. In almost every encounter in northern India, and most of those in the south as well, the Muslim armies were smaller—sometimes considerably so—than their Rajput opponents. That they won most of these battles was not usually due to the inexperience of Rajput forces. Rajput armies were veterans of centuries of constant combat with each other. Defeat at the hands of Muslim armies was primarily due to two factors: Rajput disunity and inferior tactics, strategy, and weapons.
Rajput princes rarely saw the invasions as invaders versus Indians or Muslims versus Hindus. Some Rajput princes, in fact, were quite happy to see longtime local enemies destroyed by the Muslims, and some even helped the invaders against their traditional enemies—a logical extension of the practice of shifting alliances. Most of the few attempts at unity were acts of desperation in the face of an oncoming enemy force. Such unity as resulted was mainly formal, with little coordination of the allied units. In contrast, the Muslim armies, in the first couple of centuries of the invasions at least, were united, disciplined, and well led. The Muslims usually took care to see that their men were paid, they were supplied with adequate provisions, and they and their families were taken care of in case of injury or death.
In terms of experience, the centuries of Rajput warfare are misleading, since Rajput strategy and tactics were basically the same as those of the Guptas centuries earlier (see Chapter 4). The key to most of their battles was the use of elephants as instruments of shock. There was almost no cavalry, which formed the main military arm of the invading Muslims. Horses and camels gave the Muslims much greater mobility, and they learned not only how to evade the massive elephant charges but how to turn them against the Rajputs. Often, the elephants ended up killing and disrupting the Indians far more than they did the Muslims. The Muslim use of cavalry was also devastating to the large but untrained infantry formations of the Rajputs. Time and again, disciplined cavalry formations handily dispersed the Rajput infantry.
The use of cavalry in Indian warfare was not new, but it had been limited by the small number of Indian regions in which horses could be bred. The Muslim conquests radically increased the importance of the warhorse and mounted archer in Indian warfare, while opening wide the trade routes to central Asia that supplied horses. Horse-archers were able to campaign across the inner frontier and so make widespread conquests easier, but they could not occupy or tame the outer frontier regions, which remained a source of instability. The Delhi Sultanate’s political disintegration therefore began soon after its expansion.
Also, Muslim weapons were generally superior to those possessed by the Rajput armies. For the most part, their advantage was simply in the quality of their individual weapons, especially swords and bows. This was due both to the relative isolation of the Indian states and to the deleterious effect of the caste system. By this period, the caste system had become much more rigid. During earlier periods, especially the time of the Mauryans and Guptas, weapons makers held high prestige, and many members of higher castes were engaged in weapons production. By the eleventh century, however, this was uncommon, as weapons makers had been relegated to some of the lowest castes. Military commanders, unlike many of the Muslim generals, paid little heed to weapons and their construction. But Muslim armies also brought improved siege weapons, especially the traction trebuchet, from the Near East. Combined with mobile armies of horse-archers, these siege weapons boosted offensive capabilities and aided conquests.
Such advantages proved decisive in north India. But the difficult terrain of south India and its distance from the centers of Muslim power and horse breeding in the north, made for a much more even contest. And, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Indian fortress building improved in response to the challenge of the trebuchet, renewing the advantage of the defense, which, in turn, reinforced shifting alliances and the tendency to end sieges by bribery. In addition, the rise of a major southern kingdom provided unity in the south for over two centuries.
The Delhi Sultanate tried to but could never maintain a consistent presence in southern India. However, the military campaigns of the Sultanate to conquer the south stimulated the establishment of the kingdom of Vijayanagara. Much Indian political and military history of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries consists of war between various Muslim territories and Vijayanagara.
The kingdom became very wealthy through control of trade and tribute in the region, such tribute often being obtained through military force. Vijayanagara was named for its capital city, whose name means “City of Victory” and which was defended by an elaborate series of walls and trenches. This was necessary to defend against not only the Muslims but other Hindu enemies in the southeast, especially the kingdom of Orissa. Throughout its history, Vijayanagara was an armed state with an army that reportedly reached into the hundreds of thousands.
The army of Vijayanagara was primarily infantry, with a small but important cavalry arm. Harihara, the founder of the kingdom, had introduced cavalry after his experiences fighting with the Delhi sultans. Most of the early cavalrymen were Turks who had been persuaded to defect to Vijayanagara or who had been captured in battle and offered the choice of defection or execution. Vijayanagara’s cavalry could never be large, especially because it was always difficult to acquire the necessary horses. Vijayanagara’s greatest period of glory came with the arrival of Portuguese traders, for the main item purchased from the Portuguese was horses for its cavalry. After victories over neighbors, Vijayanagara usually required payment of tribute and provision of soldiers, but it did not impose direct administration.
The kingdom of Vijayanagara was utterly destroyed in the battle of Talikot in 1565. The collapse of the kingdom seriously weakened Portuguese power in the area, as Vijayanagara had been Portugal’s main land-based ally in India, and left south India exposed to conquest by the newly established Mughal Empire (see Chapter 17).