Essay on Reasons of Success of the Ghurid during Early Medieval India

Many reasons were put forward regarding the success of the Ghurids starting with the one that they were from cold climates and were non-vegetarians! But there were non-vegetarian Hindus as well and eating habits alone do not make fighters.

Inciden­tally, none of the contemporary historians (Hasan Nizami and Minhas Siraj) commented on this aspect. Fakhri-Mudabbir’s Adabul Harb mentioned the cav­alry as the strong point of the Turks and the feudal levies as the weak spot of the Indians. The British historian, Elphinstone, wrote that the Ghurids were warlike and fought the Tartars and the Saljuks.

The gentle, inoffensive and pacifist Indians coming from small states and forced into war without any hopes of gain or aggrandizement were no match. This, however, ignored the fact that Muslim regions fell before the Monglos without a fight in 1218-20 and that the Rajputs who faced the Turks were not exactly lacking in bravery, martial spirit and courage.

Sir Jadunath Sarkar pointed out in his book, Military History of India: “Islam gave to its followers (as H.A.L. Fisher has pointed out) three characteristic virtues which no other religion has inspired so successfully, and which imparted to natural soldiers like the Arabs, Berber, Pathans and Turks, a won­derful military efficiency. These were: First, complete equality and social solidarity, as regards legal status and religious privileges.

Thus all distinctions of caste and race were swept away and the sect was knit together like the members of one vast family of brothers. Second, fatalism springing from an absolute reliance on God and the belief that what Allah wills must triumph over every human effort. This bred contempt of death in fighting. Third, freedom from drunkenness. Wine drinking is a sin according to the

Quran and a crime punishable by the state in Muslim countries. On the other hand, wine drinking was the ruin of the Rajputs, Marathas, and other Hindu soldiers, and made them incapable of far- sighted military planning, conducting surprises, and even guarding their own camps with proper precau­tion.”

Professor K.A. Nizami says that coming as adversaries to people and institutions having poly­theistic idolatrous forms, the Turks might have shown at times crude religious zeal. But that, in his opinion, was a ‘passing mood’ and not a ‘permanent objective’ or inspiring motive of their campaigns.

He says: “The real cause of the defeat of the Indians lay in their social system and the invidious caste distinc­tions, which rendered the whole military organisation rickety and weak. Caste taboos and discriminations killed all sense of unity, social and political.

Even religion was the monopoly of a particular section, and the majority of the Indian people were not allowed a glimpse of the inside of a high-caste temple. Thus for the bulk of the Indian people the was hardly anything which could evoke patriotic responses in them when face to face with the Ghurid invader. They watched with sullen indifference fate of the Indian governing classes.

The towns, consequendy, fell like ripe fruits. Only the forts put up some resistance, but they became helpless where the enemy controlled the countryside. Had the Indian government classes succeeded in enlisting the support of the masses for their defence plans, these forts and fortresses would have served as a fortified base of a very dynamic character by linking up all their striking force to a single state centre. But under the existing social circumstances, these forts became a futile defence and could not protect even their own areas.”

The caste system almost ruined the military efficiency of the Rajputs. Since fighting the profession of a group, all recruitment was limited to that particular caste or group and it was not possible for the bulk of the population to arty military training by joining the forces.

The custom of physical pollution by touch made division of labour among the soldiers impossible and the men were required to do all sorts of work, from fighting to fetching water. They were unaware of the latest developments in the art of warfare, and composed, as they were, of the soldiers of different chiefs, they were of divided loyalties and did not know the benefits of an unified command.

Lack of mobility or slow mobility was another debilitating weakness of the Indians. That was the age of horses, and a well-equipped cavalry with its ability to move swiftly from one place to the other generally held the winning cards. Indian military strategy stressed on weight, rather than on mobility.

The Rajputs believed in crushing the enemy and not in delivering deadly blows and swiftly moving away. Huge and unwieldly columns with caprisoned el­ephants in the lead were not an advantage when attacked by a cavalry charging from the left and right, front and rear at will. The elephants had the tendency to get frightened and turning back trampled on their own army.

In a number of occasions, the fortunes of the war were reversed when the elephants got frightened or behaved erratically. Commenting on this aspect of mobility, Sir Jadunath Sarkar said: “The arms and horses of these trans-border invaders gave them indisputable military superiority over the Indians.

Their provisions also were carried by fast- trotting camels, which required no fodder for them­selves but fed on the roots and leaves of the wayside, while the Banjara pack-oxen of the Hindu commis­sariat were slow and burdensome.”

The second tactical advantage after mobility which the Turkish army had over the Indians was their efficiency in archery. They were able to shoot arrows from the saddle of moving horses and thus were more deadly than the sword-wielding slow- moving Rajputs.

Actually, it would appear incredible from the hindsight of the latter-day chronicler that even with that kind of military organisation the Rajputs were able to beat the Turks in the first battle of Tarain as also at Anhilwara. Dividing the armies into three parts (right, left and centre) the Indians invariably made a frontal attack on the enemy.

The Turks divided their armies into five sections: advance guard and reserves besides the three referred to above. The advance guards made lightning forays, the three regular divisions provided the body blows and the reserves moved in to deliver the final blow or to provide cover for retreat when things were bad.

The Rajputs regarded the battle as a game with a code of conduct in which they tried to show their skill, bravery and chivalry. They normally did not strike an enemy who was down, allow him to recover and recoup. The Turks were not concerned with such niceties, believing that everything was allowed in war and would go all out to achieve victory.

To them, the end was important, not the means. They were prepared to poison or to divert the water sources to put the enemy into trouble. They did not hesitate to sack the countryside to starve the enemy into surrender. Lightning attacks and shock tactics were a part of their strategy to demoralise the enemy.

Habibullah says that the Rajputs had a sort of “all or nothing” attitude and staked almost every­thing on the issue of a single encounter. They could not think in terms of a temporary set-back and get ready for another encounter.

If it was the question of defending a fort, they would defend it to the end. If the defeat was inevitable, all the men would die fighting and the women and children would commit jauhar. As a result, nothing was left after a defeat; all the defeats were literally catastrophes. They did not realise that it was sometimes necessary to retreat in a war and to attack again wherTthe enemy was at a disadvantage.

Yet another defect was that the Rajputs never took the initiative of attacking. They always waited for the enemy to appear before their strongholds. A defensive policy is not necessarily the best; when combined with an offensive policy, it usually gives the desired results.

Looking back over the expeditions of the Shakas and the Hunas in the past, the Indians believed that the Turks would not proceed beyond Punjab. This lack of foresight and a tendency to hope for the best (without getting ready for the worst) proved to be ruinous in the end.

Dr Buddha Prakash says that the fall of Hindu India before the Turks was more an instance of suicide than of murder. Referring to the enmity between the Hindus and the Buddhist monks, he says that the latter did not hesitate to gang up with the invaders to destroy the former, who were after all their compatriots.

Likewise, Hindu fanatics had no compunction in burning down the library at Nalanda. Also, Jaichand’s celebration of the defeat of Prithviraj at Tarain shows that the rivalry and hatred between the feuding kings was murderous even when they faced a deadly common enemy.

It would also appear that the mistakes of the Indian rulers helped the Turks to win. Admittedly, Jayapala was defeated by Subuktgin and Mahmud Ghazni, but instead of burning himself in a funeral pyre, he should have recouped himself and should have gone to fight the enemy another day.

Likewise, Raja Dahir should not have gone to fight the Arabs in the manner of a common soldier. As the com­manding general, he should have stayed back direct­ing the forces. His participation in the thick of battle drew the enemy to him, and making him their target they defeated him.

The general attitude of the Hindus towards others and their own lives, on which Al-Beruni commented, was another significant cause. Al-Beruni observed that the Indians had the peculiar trait of regarding everyone else as below their stations, their false sense of superiority proved to be their ruin.

It also resulted, as Al-Beruni observes, in “….a state of confusion, devoid in logical order and in the last instance always mixed up with silly notions of the crowd. I can only compare their mathematical and astronomical knowledge to a mixture of pearls and sour dates, or of pearls and dung or of costly crystals and common pebbles. Both kinds of things are equal in their eyes since they cannot raise themselves to the methods of a strictly scientific deduction.”

Dr Tarachand says that an interval of 175 years separated the sack of Somnath by Mahmud and the batde of Tarain which sealed the fate of Hindu India, but the doom was self-inflicted.

“There were warn­ings of the impending crisis and the Indians had enough time in which they could have set their house in order. However, the rajahs did not bother and they continued their merry game of toppling one another, showing utter unconcern about the happen­ings in Punjab and beyond. Their lack of intelligence was abysmal.

(There was no effective spy system, no attempts to gather intelligence reports on the enemy) On the eve of the Muhammadan conquest, the Hindu principalities were divided, engaged in never-ending feuds and suicidal wars amongst them­selves. In Western India, the Chalukyas, the Paramaras and the Chauhans fought with one another and also with their neighbours to the east and to the south.

In Central India, the Gahadavalas, Chandellas, Kalachuris with some others thrown in competed for supremacy. In Eastern India, Palas and Senas of Bihar and Bengal were constantly under fire from Gahadavalas of Kanauj and of Gangas of Orissa. The result was that when the Ghurid hammer fell, they were struck down one after another like nine-pins”.

The relevance of culture and morality in this debacle has also been a matter of dispute among scholars: one body of opinion holds the view that it had some effect, the other says that it was not so. Dr K.M. Panikkar feels that cultural degeneration was the foremost cause of the failure of the Rajputs and Dr A.L. Shrivastava also thinks it to be one of the causes. The spread of Tantric cult, devadasis in temples and growing corruption in sanghas and viharas are regarded as the degeneration of religion.

Depiction of explicit sexual acts on the temple walls of Puri and Khajuraho as also in Chitor and Udaipur are held as a sign of the general permissiveness of the times. Literature was also of this trend and all this contributed to a cultural degeneration which had a pernicious effect on the society and its mores.

Not so, argues Dr U.N. Ghoshal who says that lack of political unity, apathy of the people towards the fate of the country, and degeneration in morals and culture are exaggerated and blown out of proportion. He says that Tantricism, appealing to the vast underclass outside the pale of orthodox religion, gave them a rallying point and strengthened their determination to fight against the invaders.

Devadasi system was not invented in that age and the caste system, social divisions not withstanding, prevented the Hindu society from the inroads of the foreigners. There was resurgence in temple architecture as also in the construction of forts and palaces, and the erotic sculpture of the period perhaps indicated an exotic idiom of which people in general were perhaps not aware.

With regard to Rajput military weakness, their attitude towards war went against their success. Professor A.B.M. Habibullah says, “Rajput reckless­ness has an element of romance in it, but is of little practical wisdom”. Dr U.N. Ghoshal comments: “The Rajputs, in particular, although they were noted for their bravery and contempt of death, were inspired by a high sense of chivalry and military honour which made them often unfit for success in practical warfare”.

In his opinion, “….it was not for their social and geographical aloofness but for want of leaders with sufficient talents that the Indians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries failed to adopt their time-honoured system of warfare (as Shivaji, the Maratha was destined to do in the seventeenth century) to the requirement of the new situation”.

Also, the lack of any emotional idea for fighting was a cause for the defeat of the Rajputs. They were fighting for no higher purpose than the safety of their rulers and of their hearth and home. On the other side, the Turks were fighting to bring glory to their newly acquired faith of Islam, Dr K.A. Nizami’s denial notwithstanding.

Although these things have apparently lost their sheen in the present age, religion, romance and chivalry were regarded highly in the medieval age. Religion was an inspiration for all sorts of people, be they Hindus, Muslims or

Christians. L.P. Sharma says, “If the Turks too were inspired by their religious zeal, it was neither uncommon nor undesirable. On the contrary, it would be an act of injustice to them if we do not accept this fact, because, in that case, a charge would go against them that they failed to do justice to their age”.

Dr U.N. Ghoshal says “….a still more potent cause of the military superiority of the Turks….was derived ….from zeal for their newly acquired reli­gion.

That this was the greatest single factor in enabling the Turks to conquer most of the country after a hard struggle of more than three centuries is proved by similar examples of Saljuk-Turks of the eleventh and the Ottoman Turks of the fifteenth centuries who succeeded in despoiling and eventu­ally destroying the Byzantine empire in spite of the immunity from the characteristic weakness of the Indian political and social system”.