Episode 19 The Early Mughal* Empire

A History of India

Michael Fisher (2016)

Film Review

In 1526, Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur led his troops out of Kabul (Afghanistan) to conquer the Delhi Sultanate in north India. The Mughal empire lasted three centuries before being crushed in 1858 by the British.

Born in the central Asian kingdom of Ferghana, Babur was distantly related to both the Mongol Genghis Khan and the Turkman Timur (aka Tamerlane).

He made four unsuccessful attempts (starting in 1505) before ultimately capturing the Delhi Sultanate from a much larger army. The sultan had 100,000 men and 100 elephants lined up against Barbar’s 12,000. However the latter’s troops were much more mobile, using mounted warriors to surround enemy lines, as well as muskets and small canon in common use by the Ottoman Turks.

Maharam Sengram Singh led a major coalition of Hindu Rajput, Indian Muslim and Indo-Afghan troops against the invaders, which Babur ultimately defeated in 1527 to occupy all Muslim and Hindu cities of North India.

After constructing a string of watchtowers and postal rests along the highway to Kabul (which remained his home base). Barbur, who found north India oppressively hot and humid, sealed himself off in Delhi in walled-off water cooled gardens. When he died, his body was returned to Kabul for burial.

After taking up his father’s throne in Delhi in 1530, his oldest son Humayun declared himself divine and made an unsuccessful attempt to conquer south India. Sher Khan, who ruled the Bengal sultanate, united the Indo-Afghans from Bengal and Gujarat against him and eventually drove him out of India. In 1540 Sher Khan replaced him in Delhi as Sher Shah.

In 1555 Humayun recaptured the Mughal lands from Sher Shah’s son Isam Shah. He died a few days later after a fall, leaving his 13-year old son Akbar to reestablish the empire.

*Mughal is a Persian world for a warrior of mixed Mongul/Turkic origin.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/366254/366209