Environment and the Heterogeneous Conquest of North India

This chapter studies the Mughal conquest of the heart of North India. It argues that the heterogeneous geography of this landmass shaped the course and nature of military engagements. The vast open plains of the Punjab and the Gangetic Basin allowed large-scale cavalry manoeuvres. Hence, the Mughals were able to engage their adversaries in a number of battles and skirmishes here. In contrast, the broken terrain of the forested highlands of central India restricted free movement of troops and encouraged fortress warfare. For this reason, Mughal expansion entailed a greater number of sieges here. This environmental heterogeneity also made it impossible for either cavalry or firearms to spearhead Mughal military conquests uniformly or single-handedly. Thus, even within the fairly contiguous region that was to eventually comprise the political heartland of the Mughal empire, the natural environment left a deep imprint on the conduct of warfare and the course of empire-formation.

Military Labour, Animals, and the Material Production of War

This chapter explores the world of Mughal military logistics. It focuses on military labour, mobilization of animals, supply of resources, production of infrastructure, and transmission of intelligence. Shifting the focus from combat to logistics, this chapter makes three main points. First, it underlines the crucial role that the careful management of these logistical activities played in the overall military success of the Mughals. Second, it shows that much of these activities, in turn, were executed by an enormous logistical workforce, comprising a large section of the non-elite, non-combatant population of South Asia. It argues that the contribution of this non-elite workforce was no less important than the military aristocracy in creating the empire. Finally, it highlights that appreciating the complexity and importance of military logistics allows us to understand that war did not signify mere moments of rupture in Mughal history; rather, it characterized the quotidian life of the empire.

Ideology, Empire, and the Cultural Climate of War

This chapter investigates the cultural climate of conquest at the Mughal court. It begins by discussing how the Mughals conceptualized the nature and meanings of kingship. It then goes on to probe the location of war and conquest within this ruling ideology. It argues that inspired by Nasirean akhlāq, the Mughals conceptualized the sovereign as a divinely-mandated instrument for establishing equilibrium, order, and—above all—justice across the world. They looked upon war as an unavoidable means of achieving this. This conceptualization of war in terms of the vague concept of justice allowed the empire a great degree of flexibility in terms of applying and legitimizing military violence. By studying different imperial narratives of war from the period under study, the chapter argues that this flexibility in turn fed a particular approach to war, whereby the empire expanded more by defeating and co-opting its adversaries than by eliminating them completely.

Routes, Forts, Environment, and the Making of Imperial Frontiers

This chapter unravels the dynamics of the formation of imperial frontiers in the Mughal empire. Eschewing the idea that frontiers were simply areas far away from the political heartland, the chapter argues that frontiers of Mughal power emerged due to the conjuncture of several processes. These included failures to control routes of communication, cope with environmental conditions, negotiate the military techniques of their adversaries, and co-opt local zamindars into the imperial project. It shows how two regions—the Afghan belt and Bengal–Assam—emerged as long-standing imperial frontiers through these processes. In effect, frontiers signified zones of fading imperial authority and increasing scope of personal agency and ambition of military commanders. Physically, they did not resemble the closed, enveloping borders of modern times; rather, they were embodied by forts that commanded routes of communication that emanated radially outward from within the imperial domain.

Moving East, Moving West

By 1570, Akbar’s armies established their hold over the heart of North India. Using this landmass as their base, they projected their power in different directions in the following decades. As they ventured increasingly away from their political heartland, they encountered new adversaries as well as radically different environmental conditions. The result was very different military experiences and political results across the different theatres of war. The present chapter unravels these diverse histories by focusing on six regions—the Bengal Delta, the Brahmaputra Basin, the Lower Indus Basin, the Himalayas, Qandahar, and Balkh–Badakhshan. It shows that varying conditions of terrain, ecology, and climate precipitated tremendous military heterogeneity with respect to tactics, strategy, logistics, and deployment of technology. In light of this, it becomes necessary to understand Mughal war-making and empire-building as highly adaptive and accommodative processes that constantly evolved in response to the diverse conditions they encountered.