The Myth of Thousand Years Rule

[Stradlater]

Every now and then I see this Myth propagated by Pakistanis and a few Hindutva propagandists that how India was a slave of Muslims for around 1000 years and that Hindus were subjugated by a mere handful of Muslims (Interestingly Pakistanis say it with a pride even though their female ancestors were the first ones to be brutally raped by these Invaders).

 

I find this whole thing quite amusing honestly. I mean I know for a fact that this is completely and utterly wrong. I mean if you count Delhi and surrounding districts as whole India then yeah sure we were ghulams of 'Muslims' for a Thousand Years. But what many Pakistanis seem to forget that India is much larger country than area from Qutab Minar to Taj Mahal and that much of the India for a large part of this period was relatively free from any outsider control.

 

I have tried to ask many Pakistanis about the exact timeline of this rule but all I get in return are half baked lies or troll posts. Where did this myth actually start from? And do people really believe in it or is it just one of those tools evolved to troll Indians on internet?

[Tibarn]

"Hindutva propagandists"  promoting the 1000 years of subjugation myth. Wendy Doniger style Alternative History here. It's mostly liberandus and rayta-wingers who love this BS myth. 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2018 by Tibarn

[Gollum]

It's a myth, only Delhi and nearby areas were under direct Islamic rule for around 700 years before Brits took control. Bengal, Kashmir, Punjab, Awadh, Bihar were under Islamic rule for around 400-500 years while places like Rajasthan, Gujarat, Malwa, Maharashtra etc were under their rule for lesser time, moreover in these areas the foreign rule wasn't uninterrupted because of local rebellions and weak Muslim rulers. In Tamil Nadu and Kerala Islamic rule was negligible, a few decades max while Karnataka, Telugu lands a couple of centuries. This 1000 years stat is nonsense, the only place where there was 1000 years Islamic rule was in areas in present day Pakistan, after all Sindh was invaded by Bin Qasim in early 700s... Slave Dynasty was established in India after 1100 A.D. Those who lived in modern day Pakistan region were the earliest converts, they were the Hindus who were subjugated most easily and never fought back like  Rajputs, Sikhs, Nepalis, Marathis, Southies etc. Trust the twisted Pakistanis to take pleasure in their 1000 years ghulami, not once do they acknowledge that their ancestors got raped/killed/tortured into accepting a foreign faith. 

Edited May 7, 2018 by Gollum

[Tibarn]

Anyway, Raytas and Liberandus should read this chart

 

[Gollum]

3 hours ago, Tibarn said:

"Hindutva propagandists"  promoting the 1000 years of subjugation myth. Wendy Doniger style Alternative History here. It's mostly liberandus and rayta-wingers who love this BS myth. 

 

 

TBH many Hindutva types also use this 1000 years wallah myth as some sort of clarion call/rallying cry for like minded people. I have even seen armymen like GD Bakshi/Gaurav Arya/Surendra Poonia use this phrase in a some of their videos. Ofc they weren't meaning to mock us, just that we needed to wake up and understand the reality of our enemies and overcome our inherent weaknesses like disunity, lack of killer instinct, excessive tolerance with traitors etc. Libtards use this as a form of humiliation/psychological attack on Hindus. Most Pakistanis and some Indian Muslims (eg check AIMIM/PFI/Zakir Naik facebook pages/fan clubs, many Indian Muslim FB groups/twitter handles) who do this are b@stards basically, never really expect those people to have a functioning brain. Pakistanis who needle Indians reg this like OP was talking about are scum of the Earth, you can't expect anything sensible from those mofos , life lesson : gutter rats will never change. @Stradlater don't engage with such Pakistanis on general topics, khud pagal hai, tujhe bhi pagal bana denge, let their collective stupidity and delusion sink their joke of a country. 

Edited May 7, 2018 by Gollum

[Clarke]

Some padosi mullah, while looking for inspiration online must have come across Hitler & his thousand year reich plans and invented this story. 

[Tibarn]

24 minutes ago, Gollum said:

TBH many Hindutva types also use this 1000 years wallah myth as some sort of clarion call/rallying cry for like minded people. I have even seen GD Bakshi use this phrase in a couple of his videos. Ofc he wasn't meaning to mock us, just that we needed to wake up and understand the reality of our enemies and our inherent weaknesses like disunity, lack of killer instinct, excessive tolerance etc. Libtards use this as a form of humiliation/psychological attack on Hindus. And Pakistani and some Indian Muslims (eg check AIMIM facebook page or many Indian Muslim FB groups/twitter handles) who do this are b@stards basically, never really expect those people to have a functioning brain. Pakistanis are scum of the Earth, you can't expect anything sensible from those mofos and those gutter rats will never change. @Stradlater don't engage with such Pakistanis on general topics, khud pagal hai, tujhe bhi pagal bana denge, let their collective stupidity and delusion sink their joke of a country. 

GD Bakshi is like Ajit Doval, part of the Vivekananda Foundation,their view is that Hindutva is the same as "genuine secularism"

 

see here

http://www.vifindia.org/event/report/2014/february/25/defining-hindutva-released-at-vif

Quote

Speaking on the occasion, Amb Gupta asserted that Hindutva was akin to genuine secularism and Hinduism and Hindutva were not contradictory to each other.

The concept of Hindu Rashtra, he said, was as old as Rig Veda itself. While listing out the various grievances of the Hindu community, he said Hindutva was neither anti-minority nor anti-Muslim.

I doubt that is what the OP was getting at, people who are pro-"genuine secularism". I mean, I guess everyone can make up their own definition of Hindutva which says this or that, but, just from my end on twitter/other forums, I never get this from who I consider Hindu Nationalists/Hindutva types. It could be a difference in experience or a difference in definitions by people who use the phrase. 

 

 

[Muloghonto]

3 hours ago, Tibarn said:

Anyway, Raytas and Liberandus should read this chart

 

This chart is a bit off. For eg, Ghaznavids conquered Punjab during the reign of Mehmoud of Ghazni, who reigned from 998-1030 AD. he most likely conquered it around 1010-1015 AD, after destroying the Kabul-Shahis and genociding them. 

 

Mughals also controlled Maharashtra and Karnataka from later days of Jahangir to Aurangzeb's death.  Good effort though.

 

[Muloghonto]

The reason they think they ruled over us for a thousand years, is because thats how Islamic & Arab sources have treated it. 

You have to remember, that traditionally, India, to the eyes of the westerners (and by that, i mean westerners to Indians - ie, Persians, arabs, Greeks, Romans, etc) has traditionally began from Kabul-Kandahar and later the Indus river.

 

These people traditionally saw 'conquering India = conquering western parts of Indian subcontinent'. 

Not many travelled to the eastern parts of India and the Greek literature is replete with 'Alexander conquering India' - even while they themselves say he ran away from the Nandas and went only as far as Ludhiana or so, they still say ' conquered India'. 

Same with the Arabs - Bin Qasim conquered Sindh and Multan, the arab sources specifically say he conquered Sindh & Multan, yet call him fatih al hind - meaning 'conqueror of India'. 

So when you spend a 1000 years in madrassahs learning about how your ancestors conquered India, it begins to be taken as a fact. 

 

[Muloghonto]

2 minutes ago, Green Monster said:

Bharatis themselves acknowledge Mughals as those who made Bharat as sone ki chidiya... 

I am yet to meet many Bharatis who think that.

Google Dr. Angus Maddison. He was an economics historian. He long since established that India was made 'sone ki chidiya' by their own people - Magadh Empire right up to fall of the Kannauj triangle powers, India was the #1 economy in the world. By Mughal times, thanks to Islamic barbarism and genocides, our share had fallen from 30% of worlds GDP to around 15-20% and behind that of China. 

 

[rahulrulezz]

In my opinion three most important battles in no order for India agiant Islamic empires were

 

1) I always believe battle of Khanwa the most important battles for India. Rana Sanga United Rajputs for the first time after Prithvi Raj Chauhan 

 

2) Even second battle of Panipat with Hemu was another one which I believe would have changed demographics of India. Hemu was smart and brave. 

 

3) 2nd battle of Tarrain (taraori) with Prithviraj Chauhan against Ghouri. If Ghouri was stopped that time, things would have been so different for India. Though Prithviraj was just unfit and too soft for this battle. 

 

P.s. I have been to all three battle grounds. 

 

 

More than Rana Sanga, I believe Hemu had more in him to conquer and unite India

 

What annoys me is the kind of attention Maharana Pratap gets. 

Edited May 7, 2018 by rahulrulezz

[Muloghonto]

16 minutes ago, rahulrulezz said:

In my opinion three most important battles in no order for India agiant Islamic empires were

 

1) I always believe battle of Khanwa the most important battles for India. Rana Sanga United Rajputs for the first time after Prithvi Raj Chauhan 

Rajputs were not united by Prithviraj Chauhan. He only had the support of the Tomars and he himself was a Shakhambhari Chahamana...ie, Chauhans of Sambhar. Jaichand, Kalachuris, etc. all remained un-allied. 

 

16 minutes ago, rahulrulezz said:

2) Even second battle of Panipat with Hemu was another one which I believe would have changed demographics of India. Hemu was smart and brave. 

Hemu lost a winning battle, because he was too busy chasing personal glory, instead of being a commander. A smart & brave commander is someone like Julius Caesar - sit back and command your troops, like any commander is supposed to do and only get into fighting when situation is dire, as it taps into the 'oh crap, even our boss is fighting, so its dire, so we have to tap into 200% effort' mentality of the troops. 

 

16 minutes ago, rahulrulezz said:

3) 2nd battle of Tarrain (taraori) with Prithviraj Chauhan against Ghazini. If Ghazini was stopped that time, things would have been so different for India. Though Prithviraj was just unfit and too soft for this battle. 

Tarain was versus Ghauri. Ghazni was a century prior to him. 

 

[Gollum]

@rahulrulezz what makes you think that even had Hemu won history would have taken a different turn? His army was comprised of mostly Afghan Muslims (Suri forces). What makes you think the Muslims would have been loyal to him? May be he would have survived a few years as Delhi overlord but I can't imagine a situation 20 years down the line where he would still be King. He would have been assassinated, betrayed, or maybe his children killed....somehow I am unable to reconcile myself with a Hindu King commanding Muslim soldiers and surrounded by Muslim nobles. Right from Delhi Sultanate times you must have seen how common treachery is, even among kith and kin, FFS even Humayun had to go through hell with his brothers, it is pure luck that he survived once Sher Shah assumed charge. 

 

And even if your 3rd and 1st scenarios (esp the 3rd because that would have nipped the bud of Islamic rule in India) played out in the favor of our side did the Hindu rulers have it in them to consolidate an empire? Let us focus on Chauhan stopping Ghori here because by the time Khanwa happened Islamic rule had already spread to many places like Bengal, Kashmir, Bihar, Deccan etc. We were under constant attack from Mongols (esp from 13th to 16th century) and even had the Rajputs established an empire in North India, how long could they have defended before falling over? They used to squabble a lot and tbh weren't exactly visionaries...very short sighted people. Even assuming had we minimized damage against Ilkhanate and Chagatai Khanate, who would have stopped Timur? I am struggling to think of any force that could have stopped someone like Timur laying plunder across North India. Sources say Delhi was a ghost town for 100 years because of Timur, that is why under the Sayyids and early Lodis, Delhi had nothing to show in terms of culture. Timur was comparatively lenient with us because we were ruled by Muslims, imagine if he had to come against an infidel Maharaja.....probably a complete holocaust like his great predecessor Hulagu Khan did with Baghdad. Mongols changed their religion under Timur but they were the same bloodthirsty barbaric intolerant race, those genes were intact. Hulagu was a Christian who butchered the others (Muslims) in Persia.....think of Hulagu multiplied by 100 and you get the notorious Timur. After subjugation and complete destruction of India all Timur would have done is placed a deputy to rule and strike coins and read khutbas in Timur's name....conquest complete. In fact that is what he did by appointing Khizr Khan but he left many of the Muslim warlords alive because of religion, especially the Afghans from among whom the Lodis emerged. Now ofc the Lodis were too weak courtesy after effect of Timur's invasion and before they could consolidate in came Babur. At this point I wonder whether it would have made a difference as to who would rule Delhi, Hindus or Muslims or someones else. We were too weak and ripe for pickings and Babur did exactly that. 

 

What strikes me about our medieval history is how backwards and outdated we locals were militarily. All our invaders had better weapons technology and more modern warfare strategy. Even tulghuma was an alien concept for Ibrahim Lodi's soldiers in spite of it being standard technique in all wars in Central Asia. Our people stopped innovating and transfer of knowledge had halted during these 700 odd years. That is why whenever we faced invaders we were outmatched. Invaders would invade, settle down, fight local wars and get gradually dumbed down therefore being bali ka bakra for the next set of invasions from the north west...almost like Delhi crown was draining all creativity, innovation, knowledge and common sense. I know we had relatively peaceful reigns now and then but our N.W. frontier was a constant source of trouble for majority of the time. Nothing exemplifies our mental bankruptcy more than Nadir Shah and Abdali's invasions. The 3rd battle of Panipat was brutal, probably should make a book about it and give the title 'How not to fight', it should find a permanent shelf in military school libraries across the world. 

[Muloghonto]

6 minutes ago, Gollum said:

 

And even if your 3rd and 1st scenarios (esp the 3rd because that would have nipped the bud of Islamic rule in India) played out in the favor of our side did the Hindu rulers have it in them to consolidate an empire? Let us focus on Chauhan stopping Ghori here because by the time Khanwa happened Islamic rule had already spread to many places like Bengal, Kashmir, Bihar, Deccan etc. We were under constant attack from Mongols (esp from 13th to 16th century) and even had the Rajputs established an empire in North India, how long could they have defended before falling over? They used to squabble a lot and tbh weren't exactly visionaries...very short sighted people. Even assuming had we minimized damage against Ilkhanate and Chagatai Khanate, who would have stopped Timur? I am struggling to think of any force that could have stopped someone like Timur laying plunder across North India. Sources say Delhi was a ghost town for 100 years because of Timur, that is why under the Sayyids and early Lodis, Delhi had nothing to show in terms of culture. Timur was comparatively lenient with us because we were ruled by Muslims, imagine if he had to come against an infidel Maharaja.....probably a complete holocaust like his great predecessor Hulagu Khan did with Baghdad. Mongols changed their religion under Timur but they were the same bloodthirsty barbaric intolerant race, those genes were intact. Hulagu was a Christian who butchered the others (Muslims) in Persia.....think of Hulagu multiplied by 100 and you get the notorious Timur. After subjugation and complete destruction of India all Timur would have done is placed a deputy to rule and strike coins and read khutbas in Timur's name....conquest complete. In fact that is what he did by appointing Khizr Khan but he left many of the Muslim warlords alive because of religion, especially the Afghans from among whom the Lodis emerged. Now ofc the Lodis were too weak courtesy after effect of Timur's invasion and before they could consolidate in came Babur. At this point I wonder whether it would have made a difference as to who would rule Delhi, Hindus or Muslims or someones else. We were too weak and ripe for pickings and Babur did exactly that. 

The way to beat Timur, would've either been the Rashtrakuta way( where they defeated a very central asian-model Gurjara-Pratihara empire repeatedly) or the way of Ala-ud-Din Khilji vs the Mongols.

 

Not many know this, but Delhi Sultanate survived the mongol years due to a combination of luck ( the vaunted Mongol horses were completely unaccustomed to hot and humid India and dropped like flies over the course of the campaign season) and good tactical accumen.
Ala-Ud-Din knew, that a pitched battle vs the Mongols, when the Mongols were expecting it, is a disaster - no force on the planet could beat a prepared mongol army expecting a fight. So instead, he started to ambush them on their way back laden with loot or right after they'd cross over from Himalayas/Hindu Kush.

 

The mongols had a unique tactical advantage that no invader ever did : they'd vassalized Tibet, were very familiar with the Pamir Knot region due to trade and thus, once they started to get ambushed, instead of following the Kabul-->Peshawar route they would follow the Manasarovar route, suddenly appearing around Bareili-Ludhiana region. 

Yet, he beat them by a combination of scorched earth, ambush and playing to his strengths : also cavalry, but more of the arab stock than central asian, which fared better in the hot & humid Indian climes. 


The Rashtrakutas & Gurjars, like all Indians, leave no detail of their actual fights. But what we do know, from Arab descriptions, is that the might of the Gurjar-Pratihara was based mostly on cavalry. If all the Gurjar armies were combined (which they wern't as they were predominantly deployed in 3 army groups), they would amount to over 300,000 cavalry. 

 

The Rashtrakutas, in the same breath are described as great infantry-men, with good order & discipline, commanded by elephant-riding commanders.  They are also noted- both in Arab sources as overall masters of India as well as in their own inscriptions specifically talking about the various times they've crushed the Gurjars.

Not much is known about their actual army tactics, but this description makes sense : the south has been typically fragmented & hard to conquer, is because of its terrain, its easy for infantry to hold a narrow strategic region. This is the 'rome-greek effect' - where if you have terrain that is not cavalry friendly (hills, broken grounds, narrow passes, etc), it favors infantry, which in turn leads to a disciplined infantry force fighting in formation. 

Granted, they were not as heavy as the Greco-Roman classical infantry, but as the later Byzantine empire proved versus the Persians, a well disciplined medeival infantry force, with some cavalry support, can utterly destroy a predominant cavalry based army on hilly/mountain terrain. With proper preparation, they can overmatch the cavalry heavy army in the plains, though usually a good commander (which Timur was) could extricate his cavalry most of the time. 

 

In such a context,it'd have required a deccan based empire controlling most of the Indo-Gangetic plains (as they had significantly superior infantry), intercepting Timur around the salt range/hills of Attock region. 

 

6 minutes ago, Gollum said:

 

What strikes me about our medieval history is how backwards and outdated we locals were militarily. All our invaders had better weapons technology and more modern warfare strategy. Even tulghuma was an alien concept for Ibrahim Lodi's soldiers in spite of it being standard technique in all wars in Central Asia. Our people stopped innovating and transfer of knowledge had halted during these 700 odd years. That is why whenever we faced invaders we were outmatched. Invaders would invade, settle down, fight local wars and get gradually dumbed down therefore being bali ka bakra for the next set of invasions from the north west...almost like Delhi crown was draining all creativity, innovation, knowledge and common sense. I know we had relatively peaceful reigns now and then but our N.W. frontier was a constant source of trouble for majority of the time. Nothing exemplifies our mental bankruptcy more than Nadir Shah and Abdali's invasions. The 3rd battle of Panipat was brutal, probably should make a book about it and give the title 'How not to fight', it should find a permanent shelf in military school libraries across the world. 

A big fall of India, was due to rise of Vedantic hinduism. It over-amplified devotion and specifically outlawed travel outside of India as an unclean thing to do. Even millenias later, Ramanujan wrote about how his mother was disappointed that he wanted to go to a mleccha land, requiring intense cleansing when returned, to go attend Cambridge!

This mentality lead to India losing general strategic & tactical developments in rest of the world. We became happy letting the arabs be our coolies, showing up at our ports, taking our goods and not leaving home. Only the Gujjus and to a lesser extent, the Tamils remains people who had some traders amongst them, but they could not compare with the depth and volume of traders traditional central asians like Sogdians, Kambojas, etc. or the Arabs themselves possesed. 

 

Our mode of warfare did not evolve past the Gupta period and we remained a society that preferred direct confrontation over ambushes & playing to our strengths. We were not alone in this - even Rome refused to learn this lesson versus Hannibal ( they fired their Consul Fabian, who came up with the ONLY strategy to work against Hannibal, known as the Fabian strategy- deny a fight, but keep harassing him, keep raiding his supplies, etc. because he is on foreign soil and you are on home soil. They thought it was too cowardly. Yet, 10 years later after they were till getting owned by Hannibal, they finally won via Fabian strategy). 

 

The problem is that India is too poor in horses and as such, defending the vast indo-gangetic plains have required political stability - which the north rarely had, due to its diversity & population base. 

 

Fully agreed on 3rd battle of Panipat - if there ever was a bigger tactical & strategic blunder in pre-modern warfare, i am yet to encounter it. 

[Singh bling]

One thing in Indian history really surprised me that South Indian kings were never interested in North India.I am sure Krishandeva Raya the most powerful ruler must had heard about Rana Sangha and vice versa . Imagine a great alliance between them was enough to take back control of India

[rahulrulezz]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

Rajputs were not united by Prithviraj Chauhan. He only had the support of the Tomars and he himself was a Shakhambhari Chahamana...ie, Chauhans of Sambhar. Jaichand, Kalachuris, etc. all remained un-allied. 

 

Hemu lost a winning battle, because he was too busy chasing personal glory, instead of being a commander. A smart & brave commander is someone like Julius Caesar - sit back and command your troops, like any commander is supposed to do and only get into fighting when situation is dire, as it taps into the 'oh crap, even our boss is fighting, so its dire, so we have to tap into 200% effort' mentality of the troops. 

 

Tarain was versus Ghauri. Ghazni was a century prior to him. 

 

1) you get my point. I don’t want to get into the specific details. Most Rajputs were still together till this point. It was not the case later till Rana Sanga

 

2) he was smart in a way that he was the first Hindu lord who thought of actually uniting India. He also defeated 17 other war lords before winning Delhi.  After Humayun and Sher Shah, he realized there was a potential for him to rule India. Which no Hindu never thought from 1200. Rana Sanga was still fixated about Delhi not whole of India. Yes Panipat was a blunder. 

 

3) yes Ghouri. Thanks for pointing. I was busy When I wrote this post and wasn’t fully focussed. Somehow that movie Ghajini was stuck in mind when I was writing the post. 

[Muloghonto]

7 minutes ago, Singh bling said:

One thing in Indian history really surprised me that South Indian kings were never interested in North India.I am sure Krishandeva Raya the most powerful ruler must had heard about Rana Sangha and vice versa . Imagine a great alliance between them was enough to take back control of India

Ofcourse they were interested. The Satavahanas at their peak controlled parts of the eastern Ganges plains, the Rashtrakutas regularly whacked the Gurjars  (origin of the Rajputs) like their toy, also crushed the Palas regularly and multiple times held the Ganges valley.

 

Problem with the south, is that the south is too consumed in dominating the south and it has very rarely happened that a southern power has dominated the entire south ( only during the rule of 1-2 Satavahana ruler and 2-3 Rashtrakuta ruler, can we say that the entire south, atleast on paper, was either conquered or paying tribute to one southern lord).

 

The reason for this is simple : terrain. Lots of broken ground, lots of pockets of land. 
Its for eg, very easy for TN to stay independent from rest of the south - the Nilgiri hills & Mysore plateau make a neat western & most of the northern border, with just a narrow chunk of land that is densely populated & fertile, leading into AP. Plop a good infantry here to block passage and you are golden.

 

Same with going from Hyderabad region to the Bijapur region. 

As such, the south has continuously been busy pacifying the south, as most southern kings, wisely realized that there is no way they can conquer & hold the numerically superior and vast terrain of the north, without fully consolidating the south first.

 

[Muloghonto]

1 minute ago, rahulrulezz said:

1) you get my point. I don’t want to get into the specific details. Most Rajputs were still together till this point. It was not the case later till Rana Sanga

Nope, they were never really that together. The Gurjars briefly held overlordship over all the Rajputs but once they got crushed repeatedly by the Rashtrakutas, the Gurjar power declined due to the rajputs resorting to their tried and tested clannism. 

 

By Prthviraj's time, the Kalachuris were at war with the Gahadvalas, who had an uneasy peace with the Tomars, Prithvraj himself is recorded to've waged multiple war against his Rajput bretheren. 

 

[Gollum]

Great post @Muloghonto, wish I could upvote your post more than once. From where do you acquire so much knowledge about medieval military matters? Are you a chess enthusiast because I don't think you are a military general? I can't imagine even full time historians analyzing the military aspects like you do, and history is just your hobby !!!

 

@Stradlater is it ok if we can merge this thread with the original mega thread on Indian history because then we can have all history posts consolidated in one place, easier for future references and will eliminate the need to repeat points. If you say yes maybe some mod can do the needful. 

 

 

 

 

 

[rahulrulezz]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

@rahulrulezz what makes you think that even had Hemu won history would have taken a different turn? His army was comprised of mostly Afghan Muslims (Suri forces). What makes you think the Muslims would have been loyal to him? May be he would have survived a few years as Delhi overlord but I can't imagine a situation 20 years down the line where he would still be King. He would have been assassinated, betrayed, or maybe his children killed....somehow I am unable to reconcile myself with a Hindu King commanding Muslim soldiers and surrounded by Muslim nobles. Right from Delhi Sultanate times you must have seen how common treachery is, even among kith and kin, FFS even Humayun had to go through hell with his brothers, it is pure luck that he survived once Sher Shah assumed charge. 

 

And even if your 3rd and 1st scenarios (esp the 3rd because that would have nipped the bud of Islamic rule in India) played out in the favor of our side did the Hindu rulers have it in them to consolidate an empire? Let us focus on Chauhan stopping Ghori here because by the time Khanwa happened Islamic rule had already spread to many places like Bengal, Kashmir, Bihar, Deccan etc. We were under constant attack from Mongols (esp from 13th to 16th century) and even had the Rajputs established an empire in North India, how long could they have defended before falling over? They used to squabble a lot and tbh weren't exactly visionaries...very short sighted people. Even assuming had we minimized damage against Ilkhanate and Chagatai Khanate, who would have stopped Timur? I am struggling to think of any force that could have stopped someone like Timur laying plunder across North India. Sources say Delhi was a ghost town for 100 years because of Timur, that is why under the Sayyids and early Lodis, Delhi had nothing to show in terms of culture. Timur was comparatively lenient with us because we were ruled by Muslims, imagine if he had to come against an infidel Maharaja.....probably a complete holocaust like his great predecessor Hulagu Khan did with Baghdad. Mongols changed their religion under Timur but they were the same bloodthirsty barbaric intolerant race, those genes were intact. Hulagu was a Christian who butchered the others (Muslims) in Persia.....think of Hulagu multiplied by 100 and you get the notorious Timur. After subjugation and complete destruction of India all Timur would have done is placed a deputy to rule and strike coins and read khutbas in Timur's name....conquest complete. In fact that is what he did by appointing Khizr Khan but he left many of the Muslim warlords alive because of religion, especially the Afghans from among whom the Lodis emerged. Now ofc the Lodis were too weak courtesy after effect of Timur's invasion and before they could consolidate in came Babur. At this point I wonder whether it would have made a difference as to who would rule Delhi, Hindus or Muslims or someones else. We were too weak and ripe for pickings and Babur did exactly that. 

 

What strikes me about our medieval history is how backwards and outdated we locals were militarily. All our invaders had better weapons technology and more modern warfare strategy. Even tulghuma was an alien concept for Ibrahim Lodi's soldiers in spite of it being standard technique in all wars in Central Asia. Our people stopped innovating and transfer of knowledge had halted during these 700 odd years. That is why whenever we faced invaders we were outmatched. Invaders would invade, settle down, fight local wars and get gradually dumbed down therefore being bali ka bakra for the next set of invasions from the north west...almost like Delhi crown was draining all creativity, innovation, knowledge and common sense. I know we had relatively peaceful reigns now and then but our N.W. frontier was a constant source of trouble for majority of the time. Nothing exemplifies our mental bankruptcy more than Nadir Shah and Abdali's invasions. The 3rd battle of Panipat was brutal, probably should make a book about it and give the title 'How not to fight', it should find a permanent shelf in military school libraries across the world. 

@Gollum the kind of questions you have raised to my points, you have seriously impressed me. Tbf these are exact questions I would think if results of these battles were other way around. 

 

 

Btw I read biographies of Timur and Babur(where he actually explained Timurs invasion). Trivia Timur was great great grandfather of Babur while Babur also had Gengis Khan blood too. The kind of description of massacres that Timur did in India, I couldn’t sleep for two days after what I read about what Timur did in India. I agree that he would have been brutal had it been a Hindu king. 

Edited May 7, 2018 by rahulrulezz