Flushing out the Enemy: Revisiting the battle of Bhatavadi

Orientations 25:2 (1994): 47-52, 1994

Muqarnas, 2021

The Chand Minar (1446) at Daulatabad Fort is one of the tallest pre-modern stone minarets in the world and has long been recognized as a major work of Indo-Islamic architecture. Yet surprisingly little is known about the building: its iconography and the reason for its construction have not been established; even its height is frequently misreported by half. The present article analyzes the building’s architecture and urban context and critically reads its inscriptions against the Tārīkh-i Firishta (ca. 1610), the main primary text for the history of the medieval Deccan. In so doing, the article demonstrates that issues of race shaped the courtly politics in the Deccan at the time of the minaret’s construction. The Chand Minar was commissioned by Parvez bin Qaranful, an African military slave, who dedicated the building to the Bahmani sultan ʿAla⁠ʾ al-Din Ahmad II (r. 1436–58). The article shows that the building commemorated the role of African and Indian officers in a 1443 military victory of the Bahmani sultanate (1347–1527) against the Vijayanagara empire (1336–1664). The construction of the Chand Minar impressed upon Ahmad II the importance of retaining in his court dark-skinned officers from India and Africa (dakkaniyān) at a time when their standing was threatened by the lighter-skinned gharībān, who had immigrated from the western Islamic regions. The article thus presents a detailed study of an important but neglected monument while shedding new light on racial factionalism in the fifteenth-century Deccan.

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2018

The present article is a study of the process of Mughal empirebuilding in early modern North India using war as the point of entry. Specifically, it focuses on three sieges from the early years of Akbar's reign-Chitor (1567-68), Ranthambhor (1569) and Kalinjar (1569). It teases out certain aspects of these sieges and discusses them at length individually. Bypassing historiographically-popular themes like combat and technology, it explores less-probed issues such as the fate of defeated enemies, the involvement of zamindars and mansabdars, military finance and the role of quasi-military labour in imperial military campaigns. In the process, it strives to write a social, cultural and economic history of Mughal military expansion focused primarily on the second half of the sixteenth century.

The ancient port of Banbhore is an important site of the Indus delta, near Thatta, still visible by its fortifications. It is one of the rare sites from Indian coast to the Red Sea to be inhabited from Parthians to Muslims (until XIIIth century (because abandon following the Mongol invasion and change of the course of the Indus). Fortification of Banbhore is an urban military enclosure, adapted to the geographical environment (the site was probably surrounded by water). Full and semi-circular bastions, probably Sassanids or Abbasids (during reconstruction at the end of IXth century) are built on the massive enclosure. Many marks in the massonry and stonework suggest a reuse of an oldest city wall, probably Hindu/Parthian with square towers (as Sirkap, Taxila or Hatra in Iraq, but also by the Kushans in Kochambi (Uttar Pradesh, India). The two monumental gateways of the site are surrounded by two towers in Sassanid style. Because this principle of fortification will go back over by the Muslims (after conquest in 712), we question about the importance of the reuse of existing fortifications by Muslims? As well as the function of the defensive network of fortifications in delta of Indus, as Ratto Kot, surely to protect Banbhore.

The Dutch and English companies set up their factories in Patna mainly due to the fact that the city was strategically situated on the confluence of three major rivers-Ganga, Son and Punpun. The Ganga connected the city with Calcutta, an entrepot, and it remained navigable throughout the year because of the decent water level. Unlike other pre-colonial urban centres which had gone into obscurity due to the political disintegration of the Mughal rule, Patna's strategic advantage enabled its proliferation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Incidents of violence, the experience of 1857 days and apprehensions of similar disturbances in future, however, disallowed the all-around expansion. This paper tries to factorise the historical roots that influence the state's decision for developing urban centres in certain ways that could have an adverse impact in environmental terms.

London Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences , 2022

The conflict between Mughals and Ahoms first occurred in 1615 in the battle of Samdhara due to the imperial ambition of the Mughal emperor and to extend their territories further east beyond Bengal and also had to dominion of the largest part of Hindustan. Followed by several attacks such as the battle of Alaboi in 1669 the Battle of Saraighat in 1671 it lasted till 1682, where in the battle of Itakhuli 1682 Ahom got a decisive victory over the Mughals and with that the conflict between the Ahoms and the Mughals permanently stopped. Amongst the battles that fought between Ahoms and Mughals the battle of Saraighat of 1671 is considered as the last major attempt by the Mughals to occupy Assam. From the side of Mughal Raja Ram Singh of Amber appeared in Assam with a huge forces on the other hand Ahoms had a very limited number of soldiers; assessmenting this all situation the Lachit Barphukan the general of a Ahom’s army and navy had adopted guerrilla tactics and his great diplomatic and military skills to defeat the mighty Mughals in the battle of Saraighat. The battle which can be said to be more a psychological war than an arms war between the massive Mughal army and the Lachit Barphukan. As a consequence of this war Ahom retake Guwahati from the Mughal and the Mughals did not even think of attacking Assam for a very year. In this paper I have tried to provide a detailed report of Ahom-Mughal conflicts with special reference to the Battle of Saraighat and Lachit Barphukan.

Archives of Asian Art, vol. 68, no. 1 (Apr 2018), pp. 33-46, 2018

From the six teenth through the mid-sev en teenth century the early Ma ra thas were, along with other ethnic iden tity groups, an in te gral part of the Deccan sultan ates, yet their pres ence is cu ri ously miss ing from the ma te rial re cord of this pe ri od. I pro pose that the scanty ar chi tec tural ev i dence from the early sev enteenth cen tury dem on strates the ar chi tec tural pa tronage of early Ma ra tha elites em bed ded within a greater Islamicate cul ture of the sul tan ate Deccan. Chhatrapati Shivaji Bhonsale (1627-1680), who founded the in de pen dent sov er eign king dom of the Ma ra thas, was descended from fam i lies in mil i tary ser vice to var i ous Deccan sul tan ates and also the Mu ghals. It is there fore not sur pris ing that the ar chi tec tural ex pres sion of the early Ma ra tha state was sim i lar to that of the sul tanates. There are few traces of the ar chi tec ture com missioned or pa tron ized by Shivaji's fore fa thers, but two sets of com mem o ra tive build ings sur vive; at trib uted as the me mo ri als to his ma ter nal and pa ter nal grand-fa thers, the ar chi tec ture of both is sty lis ti cally iden tical to the fu ner ary ar chi tec ture of the Deccan sul tans. There are very few non mil i tary build ings that can be firmly at trib uted to Shivaji's own pa tron age-one such is the Jagadīśvara tem ple at Raigad constructed in about 1674, which also bears strik ing sim i lar i ties to the ar chi tec ture of the Deccan sul tan ates. The sev enteenth cen tury was the last flour ish of sul tan ate identity in the Deccan be fore the Mu ghals took over, and the early Ma ra thas shared their vi sual cul ture and re gional ex pres sion with the sul tan ates be fore ca pit ulat ing to the Mu ghals in the early sev en teenth cen tu ry.

https://www.sahapedia.org/the-fortress-of-daulatabad

A Persian manuscript of Durr-i-Maqāl: A versified account of the British Military Expeditions in the former North-West Frontier Province (1858 to 1863, 2021

A Persian manuscript entitled Durr-i-Maqāl, a poetical work of Mirza Abdul Haq Arvi has recently surfaced in the Swat valley. It is a voluminous and versified account of the military expeditions of the British Indian Empire carried out against the Hindustan Mujahidin (the so-called Hindustani fanatics) stationed at Panjtar, Sitana, Mangal Thana, and Malka between 1858 and 1863. The manuscript is substantially devoted to the Ambela war of 1863, in which various tribes of Buner, Swat, Dir, Bajur, Chitral and upper Indus valley participated against the British forces. Unlike the British military and Intelligence reports, wherein the bravery of Colonial officers is exaggerated, Durr-i-Maqāl, on the contrary, impartially records the casualties of the English army and Mujahidin. Moreover, this is perhaps the only recorded document of the bribery of thirteen thousand rupees received by the local chiefs of Buner from the British government in lieu of the destruction of Malka. An attempt is made here to present a summary of this important MS and to find out the facts so for shrouded in mystery.