Reassessing the Mughals

Srinivas_K

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Reassessing the Mughals



Every society has a collective memory of its past, but each generation interprets it according to their present perspective. Sometimes, the past may be rejected as an obstacle to future progress, but at other times it is used as an inspiration for a struggle against present weaknesses.

History shows that when a country is colonised, its people and resources are used to further strengthen colonial power. After acquiring political power in India, the East India Company was surprised at the widespread popularity of the Mughal Empire. Although, the Mughal Empire was in the process of decline and the emperor had lost his authority, the people of India were still loyal and respectful to him.

Nadir Shah, who occupied Delhi after defeating the Mughals in 1737, failed to replicate the glory of the Mughal rule. He left India with the looted treasury of the Mughals while the dynasty remained intact. Likewise, Ahmad Shah Abdali invaded the subcontinent several times, but had no aspirations to rule it. He looted and plundered, forcibly married a Mughal princess and left for Afghanistan along with the acquired wealth and the family of his newly-wed wife. This gave the Marathas an opportunity to oust the Mughal emperor and to plant their candidate on the throne, but they still preferred to rule in the name of the Mughal emperor.

History has shining examples of religious bigotry being shunned in order to accommodate marginalised communities into the mainstream
Following the same tradition, the East India Company recognised the emperor as the legitimate ruler of India and paid homage to him. Even though the company had political power, the Mughal emperor remained popular among his subjects. Therefore, in the first phase, the company ruled in the name of the Mughal emperor, posing as the inheritors of the Mughal Empire and retaining nearly all its institutions and etiquettes.

However, the policy and the attitude of the company changed when it gained power and decided to create its own administrative set-up to get recognition as the legitimate rulers of India. At this stage, the Mughal past was denied and portrayed as despotic and oppressive. The idea behind the motive was to convey a message to the people of the subcontinent that the company had liberated them from a tyrannical rule and established a benevolent and enlightened government.

The company further propagated their campaign through history writing. The British historians published a series of books on the Sultanate and Mughal history, distorting it in order to prove that the Muslim rule was tyrannical and biased against the Hindus. Elliot's History of India: as told by its own historians I(1848) is one of the series of history books which condemned the Mughal past but justified the British rule.

The Mughal past was again interpreted differently during the freedom movement against the British Raj. The historians of the subcontinent, under the influence of nationalism, glorified the Mughals whose rule culturally integrated the Hindus and the Muslims as one community. Their argument was that the Mughal rule created a pluralistic society in which there was no religious discrimination. It was the basis of their popularity which had strengthened their empire.

In the 1920s, history was communalised and historians on both sides condemned as well as admired the Mughal past. There was also a conflict in history writing between secularist and religious minded historians. To the secularists, Akbar was a ruler who 'Indianised' the Mughal Empire and laid down the foundations of religious tolerance and communal harmony. During his reign both the Hindus and the Muslims shared administration and contributed in the expansion of the empire.

But according to the Islamist historians, Akbar was the cause of the Mughal decline as he appointed the Hindus on high posts, depriving the Muslims of their high status. They admired Aurangzeb who deviated from the policy of Akbar and introduced religious practices, which alienated the non-Muslim subjects. In Pakistani history writing, Akbar has no place while Aurangzeb is regarded as a pious ruler, admired and projected as the best emperor.

There is a need to reassess the Mughal past in view of our present situation. We must try to understand why their rule flourished for such a long period (1526-1857). The reason for its continuity and popularity was its policy of religious tolerance and providing opportunities to talented people to play their role in administration, irrespective of their creed, caste and ethnicity. It respected the local traditions and preserved their values and institutions. Marginalised communities can only be assimilated into the society as long as there is religious tolerance.

Reassessing the Mughals - Newspaper - DAWN.COM


Mughals are not popular in the masses contrary to the authors view. Mughal empire is non existent in 1857 only the name remained. By the end of 17 century Mugals have declined.

Only thing good about Mugals is, they never tried to transfer the wealth of India to other countries.
 
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Ray

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The are various views, depending on the historian's perspective.

The medieval mindset overpowered any societal good for the general mass that the Mughals may have done.

In the field of arts and culinary skill, they added their distinct form that added to the Indian vista.
 

Virendra

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There is a need to reassess the Mughal past in view of our present situation. We must try to understand why their rule flourished for such a long period (1526-1857).
Putting aside the sickular grapevine, DAWN is off (by 150 yrs) about the figures too. Mughals ceased to flourish by 1707 A.D. as a fact and in my opinion much before that.
 

Jailor

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Nope mugal were mix of Mongol and Persian . Mongol directly attacked in 1200 and failed.
Yeah, no persians?
Babur was a uzbek, secondly they were horseback archers, not persian warriors, they might have picked up a few persians, afghans here and there but they were majorly mongols.
Persia itself got overrun by mongols so much so that they themselves say around 40% of their population was wiped out and their Dna was altered by the wrath of mongols.

Rest you can imagine whatever you want.
 

IndianHawk

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Yeah, no persians?
Babur was a uzbek, secondly they were horseback archers, not persian warriors, they might have picked up a few persians, afghans here and there but they were majorly mongols.
Persia itself got overrun by mongols so much so that they themselves say around 40% of their population was wiped out and their Dna was altered by the wrath of mongols.

Rest you can imagine whatever you want.
They were all mix races. Yet mugal themselves were proud about their Persian origin and wrote about it extensively. Anyway point still stands that direct Mongol attacks of 1200 were failed .
Let's agree to disagree on the rest .
 

Jailor

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They were all mix races. Yet mugal themselves were proud about their Persian origin and wrote about it extensively. Anyway point still stands that direct Mongol attacks of 1200 were failed .
Let's agree to disagree on the rest .
Yes, everyone was mixed race, even changez khan started mixing the defeated tribes into his tribes, but the fact that makes them mongol is mongol way of fighting i.e. horseback archery and quick hit and run tactics not the persian way of fighting.
Secondly he was uzbek the area under mongol khanate, of course mongols must have intermixed with local defeated uzbeks too so mixing doesn't change their mongolness.

Thirdly persia got slaughtered by mongols and babur first conquered kabul and then launched attacks on Delhi, so even if the persians got picked up which i doubt still doesn't change the fact it was a mongol horseback army.

In 1200 they lost but to whom? Delhi itself was under islamic invaders and depends what you call India at that time because much of pakistan was majority hindu and under mongol occupation that too was Indian territory, you can check the mongol empire.

Pakistan of today was under mongols so they did won Indian territory and northern India was under islamic occupation so, there's no WE STOPPED MONGOLS.
 

IndianHawk

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Yes, everyone was mixed race, even changez khan started mixing the defeated tribes into his tribes, but the fact that makes them mongol is mongol way of fighting i.e. horseback archery and quick hit and run tactics not the persian way of fighting.
Secondly he was uzbek the area under mongol khanate, of course mongols must have intermixed with local defeated uzbeks too so mixing doesn't change their mongolness.

Thirdly persia got slaughtered by mongols and babur first conquered kabul and then launched attacks on Delhi, so even if the persians got picked up which i doubt still doesn't change the fact it was a mongol horseback army.

In 1200 they lost but to whom? Delhi itself was under islamic invaders and depends what you call India at that time because much of pakistan was majority hindu and under mongol occupation that too was Indian territory, you can check the mongol empire.

Pakistan of today was under mongols so they did won Indian territory and northern India was under islamic occupation so, there's no WE STOPPED MONGOLS.
Delhi sultanate has armies made up of Turks afgans and indians too. Ruler may be Islamic but they were using army and resources provided by US majorally.

Much in the same way the so called great mugal empire was a compromise between Mughal and rajputs . And British empire was a compromise between hundreds of Indian states who remained autonomous.

Horseback Archery was adopted by afagans and turks too. And Mughal won because of barood not horse back riding.

So question is where did the barood came from? Also Mughal adopted persian way of rule including Farsi as state language. All point to Persian heritage.
 

Jailor

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Delhi sultanate has armies made up of Turks afgans and indians too. Ruler may be Islamic but they were using army and resources provided by US majorally.

Much in the same way the so called great mugal empire was a compromise between Mughal and rajputs . And British empire was a compromise between hundreds of Indian states who remained autonomous.

Horseback Archery was adopted by afagans and turks too. And Mughal won because of barood not horse back riding.

So question is where did the barood came from? Also Mughal adopted persian way of rule including Farsi as state language. All point to Persian heritage.
wishful thinking, resources were their's because they won them after defeating the Indian or rather delhi king(many kingdoms then no India) and India doesn't start at IB of today it started at wherever there were hindus so, they conquered the area called Pakistan today so they did conquer Indian territory hence the original argument that we stopped them is false.
secondly Delhi sultanate did contain hindus in their ranks but just a few, still it was a combined effort by majorly outsider warriors plus a few hindus still doesn't qualify for WE stopped the mongols, the credit goes to Delhi sultunate.

Rest your post is fanboyism rajputs were reduced to deserts of rajasthan (They were found in Delhi,UP,Pakistan etc too) and barring a few all of them ACCEPTED MUGHAL SUPERMACY, just like maratha empire forced mughals to accept their supermacy and Delhi was indirectly under maratha empire.

Horse back riders is not same as horse back archery, turks are cousins of mongols, so yes they were horseback archers themselves.
If it were so easy to learn how come Indian kings couldn't learn it?

Mughals ADOPTED ,yes they adopted it, just like Pakistan adopted a UP language called urdu which is nothing but khadi boli with persion arabic words added heavily to it. In mughal times poets,scholars etc were persians.

Your British point doesn't even require a rebuttal.
British ruled entire India and 75% of world at that time. By occupying or ruling it doesn't mean every fucking territory needs to have a english king it means they accept English supermacy which all of them did to save their "autonomous" kingdom.

Its like Pakistanis claiming victory in all 4 wars.

Barood was also present with some Indian kingdoms of that time but they couldn't win still.
Also by your logic Indians won against outsiders due to elephants in medieval India, question is would they have without elephants?
Would british have won without guns?
Would Indians have survived the invasions if not for huge numerically superior armies?
Would US be strongest military without it's advanced weapons?

It doesn't matter what they used they WON that matters.
 

IndianHawk

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wishful thinking, resources were their's because they won them after defeating the Indian or rather delhi king(many kingdoms then no India) and India doesn't start at IB of today it started at wherever there were hindus so, they conquered the area called Pakistan today so they did conquer Indian territory hence the original argument that we stopped them is false.
secondly Delhi sultanate did contain hindus in their ranks but just a few, still it was a combined effort by majorly outsider warriors plus a few hindus still doesn't qualify for WE stopped the mongols, the credit goes to Delhi sultunate.

Rest your post is fanboyism rajputs were reduced to deserts of rajasthan (They were found in Delhi,UP,Pakistan etc too) and barring a few all of them ACCEPTED MUGHAL SUPERMACY, just like maratha empire forced mughals to accept their supermacy and Delhi was indirectly under maratha empire.

Horse back riders is not same as horse back archery, turks are cousins of mongols, so yes they were horseback archers themselves.
If it were so easy to learn how come Indian kings couldn't learn it?

Mughals ADOPTED ,yes they adopted it, just like Pakistan adopted a UP language called urdu which is nothing but khadi boli with persion arabic words added heavily to it. In mughal times poets,scholars etc were persians.

Your British point doesn't even require a rebuttal.
British ruled entire India and 75% of world at that time. By occupying or ruling it doesn't mean every fucking territory needs to have a english king it means they accept English supermacy which all of them did to save their "autonomous" kingdom.

Its like Pakistanis claiming victory in all 4 wars.

Barood was also present with some Indian kingdoms of that time but they couldn't win still.
Also by your logic Indians won against outsiders due to elephants in medieval India, question is would they have without elephants?
Would british have won without guns?
Would Indians have survived the invasions if not for huge numerically superior armies?
Would US be strongest military without it's advanced weapons?

It doesn't matter what they used they WON that matters.
You seem hurt by something . Mughal themselves claim Persian heritage. Not my fault..

Regarding history of empires .things were far more complex then you want to see in your black and white view.

Tell me why India is still majorly Hindu despite all these turk Mughal rule if rajput failed?? Why didn't we end up like Iran completely islamized??

Because rajputs forced mughals and before turks to share power and back off from conversion in their kingdoms.

But this nounce is too much for you to accept .
 

Jailor

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You seem hurt by something . Mughal themselves claim Persian heritage. Not my fault..

Regarding history of empires .things were far more complex then you want to see in your black and white view.

Tell me why India is still majorly Hindu despite all these turk Mughal rule if rajput failed?? Why didn't we end up like Iran completely islamized??

Because rajputs forced mughals and before turks to share power and back off from conversion in their kingdoms.

But this nounce is too much for you to accept .
yeah, you are that guy anonymous right? aka khsitij b etc etc
Forget babur, Check the map of "India" during mongol empire and navigate the territory under mongol empire and do not forget Pakistan was also part of "India" then and under mongols.

You said "WE" stopped mongols "WE" were not Indians but Delhi sultanate and India didn't start at Delhi but boundaries of Afghanistan-pakistan border and also there was no India but a bunch of kingdoms with fluid and ever changing boundaries.
 

IndianHawk

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yeah, you are that guy anonymous right? aka khsitij b etc etc
Forget babur, Check the map of "India" during mongol empire and navigate the territory under mongol empire and do not forget Pakistan was also part of "India" then and under mongols.

You said "WE" stopped mongols "WE" were not Indians but Delhi sultanate and India didn't start at Delhi but boundaries of Afghanistan-pakistan border and also there was no India but a bunch of kingdoms with fluid and ever changing boundaries.
Sigh ! Go to strategic forum and you may find my posts debating anonymous.

Have a nice day.
 

neatgye

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It is very wrong to call Mughals, especially Aurengzeb a criminal.

He was the one that tried to keep Colonial british at bay and stop India from disintegrating.
 

Indx TechStyle

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It is very wrong to call Mughals, especially Aurengzeb a criminal.

He was the one that tried to keep Colonial british at bay and stop India from disintegrating.
Mughals weren't even foremost power in India when British came. It was Maratha empire dominating and Mughals were left as satellite states and enclaves.
Once Marathas were defeated, entire India fell to invaders like a pack of cards.
Even if history would have been alternative and Mughals would be ruling till British empire, keeping British empire away would not have been anything vindicating him from his crimes. Mughals would have fought Brits to continue to exploit India themselves and not any altruism towards Indians.
 

VSinghCalhans

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They were all mix races. Yet mugal themselves were proud about their Persian origin and wrote about it extensively. Anyway point still stands that direct Mongol attacks of 1200 were failed .
Let's agree to disagree on the rest .
Babur was a 'Barla' which is considered a Turkic subgroup with heavy Persian influence(including language).Now Turks themselves descended from Mongols coz Mongols went to both east to establish Yuan dynasty and west to control Transoxonia(where they got converted). So we can consider Mughals(headed by a Barla tribesman) as Mongols but more accurately as Turks with culture of the Persians because Babur had a majority of 'Sarts' in his army too.
But mughals couldnt only be called as mongols, coz they were more Turks and Babur was a direct descendent of Timurid too.
 

shade

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Babur was a 'Barla' which is considered a Turkic subgroup with heavy Persian influence(including language).Now Turks themselves descended from Mongols coz Mongols went to both east to establish Yuan dynasty and west to control Transoxonia(where they got converted). So we can consider Mughals(headed by a Barla tribesman) as Mongols but more accurately as Turks with culture of the Persians because Babur had a majority of 'Sarts' in his army too.
But mughals couldnt only be called as mongols, coz they were more Turks and Babur was a direct descendent of Timurid too.
Babur and his dynasty preferred being called Mughals, or Gurkaniyan( i.e son in law, of whom? of Genghis Khan who else ) in between fellow Turko-Mongol clans
Babur's whole mindset was based on I iz the descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan yo.
Turki only gets high status now because Ottoman empire, earlier they were a random Central Asian tribe selling themselves out as mercenaries after being driven away from by advancing Mongol empire.
In olden times they would get status by saying they are descendants of Changhez, and were Persian culturally just as everyone else was in central asia since even pre Islamic times.
 

VSinghCalhans

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Babur and his dynasty preferred being called Mughals, or Gurkaniyan( i.e son in law, of whom? of Genghis Khan who else ) in between fellow Turko-Mongol clans
Babur's whole mindset was based on I iz the descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan yo.
Turki only gets high status now because Ottoman empire, earlier they were a random Central Asian tribe selling themselves out as mercenaries after being driven away from by advancing Mongol empire.
In olden times they would get status by saying they are descendants of Changhez, and were Persian culturally just as everyone else was in central asia since even pre Islamic times.
Timur too called himself 'gurgeniya' repeatedly as he married women from chengez's tribe to become his son in law(even though chengez was long dead). Whereas Babur, who was a descendent of Chengez from both his mother's side as well from fathers side (who descended from Timur also), put a major emphasis to portray himself as the heir of Timur meanwhile trying to bring Timur on par with Chengez. Though Mughals too took term gurgeniya but they were more concerned about their paternal ancestors. Hence mughals are considered as persianised turks in modern history.

And the anatolian turks were the ones from ottoman empire, hence the anatolian peninsula is now called turkey. And even though they were random tribes at the start of last millenia, the turks went on to achieve greater pie of islamic history.
 

Steven Rogers

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wishful thinking, resources were their's because they won them after defeating the Indian or rather delhi king(many kingdoms then no India) and India doesn't start at IB of today it started at wherever there were hindus so, they conquered the area called Pakistan today so they did conquer Indian territory hence the original argument that we stopped them is false.
secondly Delhi sultanate did contain hindus in their ranks but just a few, still it was a combined effort by majorly outsider warriors plus a few hindus still doesn't qualify for WE stopped the mongols, the credit goes to Delhi sultunate.

Rest your post is fanboyism rajputs were reduced to deserts of rajasthan (They were found in Delhi,UP,Pakistan etc too) and barring a few all of them ACCEPTED MUGHAL SUPERMACY, just like maratha empire forced mughals to accept their supermacy and Delhi was indirectly under maratha empire.

Horse back riders is not same as horse back archery, turks are cousins of mongols, so yes they were horseback archers themselves.
If it were so easy to learn how come Indian kings couldn't learn it?

Mughals ADOPTED ,yes they adopted it, just like Pakistan adopted a UP language called urdu which is nothing but khadi boli with persion arabic words added heavily to it. In mughal times poets,scholars etc were persians.

Your British point doesn't even require a rebuttal.
British ruled entire India and 75% of world at that time. By occupying or ruling it doesn't mean every fucking territory needs to have a english king it means they accept English supermacy which all of them did to save their "autonomous" kingdom.

Its like Pakistanis claiming victory in all 4 wars.

Barood was also present with some Indian kingdoms of that time but they couldn't win still.
Also by your logic Indians won against outsiders due to elephants in medieval India, question is would they have without elephants?
Would british have won without guns?
Would Indians have survived the invasions if not for huge numerically superior armies?
Would US be strongest military without it's advanced weapons?

It doesn't matter what they used they WON that matters.
Bullshit at the end,Rajputs follow Vedic art and rule of fighting in which horse back archery wasn't part of,even after the invasion of Huns,and rule of Mughal empire,none of the Rajput kingdom raised cavalry full of archers while they continued to follow thier art of war,it's only in the late era when world move to some long range howitzers,rajputs moved to the outdated musketeers,still we won numerable battles against all odds,for an example the Maratha's Daulat Rao scindhia with his maratha army and French generals with their so called advance canons of that time couldn't stop a cavalry of Jaipur State backed by the Jodhpur state. And with lots of love that maratha empire removed Mughals from the reign,it was an effort of Jodhpur with the backups of the mewar and bharatpur that entered the delhi and conquered the Mughal fort for the first time,their after Delhi was on a payroll of Rajputs and jats,jats later started to raid and loot Mughals as the so called emperor was just a puppet and was put to that position only for the stability of the whole kingdom which again was on paper....and yes rajputs aren't restricted to Rajasthan but we occupy majority of the north india.
 

neatgye

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Mughals weren't even foremost power in India when British came. It was Maratha empire dominating and Mughals were left as satellite states and enclaves.
Once Marathas were defeated, entire India fell to invaders like a pack of cards.
Even if history would have been alternative and Mughals would be ruling till British empire, keeping British empire away would not have been anything vindicating him from his crimes. Mughals would have fought Brits to continue to exploit India themselves and not any altruism towards Indians.
I would disagree please.

Aurangzeb first clashed with the Colonials when Maratha were still a nobody.
 

porky_kicker

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It is very wrong to call Mughals, especially Aurengzeb a criminal.

He was the one that tried to keep Colonial british at bay and stop India from disintegrating.
Yes you are correct , aurangzeb was not a criminal, aurangzeb was a Islamist genocidal degenerate maniac. And the same goes for mughals , they were nothing but Islamist pillagers , looters , maniacs , degenerates with nothing to show for except those they managed by exploiting the Indians. There is absolutely no difference between the mughals and the British except that one predated the other, both of them are foreign invaders which is a irrevocable fact . No mughals fought for india , India is a 10000+ year old civilization , mughals was never part of the Indian civilisational state , the mughals fought to keep themselves in power after butchering 100+ million Indians and destroying more that half of Indian heritage.

It is ironical to find a paki talking about history
First settle historically who is the daddy of pakis... Arabs ? Turks ? Persians ? Indian's ? Etc
 
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