Invasions in the Subcontinent — Lakshmi Rameshwar Rao

Lakshmi Rameshwar Rao, Hyderabad

The first invasions of India were by the Aryans who came from the north in about 1500 BC. The Aryans brought with them strong cultural traditions that, miraculously, still remain in force today. They spoke and wrote in a language, Sanskrit, which was later used in the first documentation of the Vedas.

There were numerous and significant foreign invasions of the Indian Subcontinent. Persian invasion can be dated back to   550 BC, when Cyrus conquered India’s northwestern front. The Greek invasion began in 327 BC, when Alexander conquered North-West India. These two incursions aided Indo-Iranian trade and commerce.

 

From Alexander the Great to the British, India has been invaded more than 200 times for its wealth and immense natural resources. Alexander invaded India in 326 B.C. crossing the river Indus, he advanced towards Taxila. He then challenged king Porus, ruler of the kingdom between rivers Jhelum and Chenab.

Two kingdoms from Afghanistan  

The early Mongol invaders were Mahmud of Ghazni and Mohammad of Ghori from Ghazni close to India and Ghori to the west of Ghazni near Afghanistan. These were two kingdoms of Afghanistan were neighboring India, Ghazni closer to India and Ghori to the west of Ghazni. Alptagin, a Turkish slave, defeated the king of Ghazni and took the throne in A.D. 963.

Mahmud ruled Ghazni from 971 to 1030 AD.  He made a first attack of 17 in all in 1001 to plunder the wealth of India. His 16th attack was on the Somnath temple in 1025 to plunder the gold. At that time, soldiers were captured in battle and made slaves. The slaves were good warriors and often rose to high positions.

The next powerful king, his son-in-law and slave was Sabuktagin. Mahamud, his son, ruled over Ghazni between 997 and 1030. He was a Turk and adopted Persian, the language and culture. He wanted to make Ghazni prosperous and powerful. Mohammad of Ghazni invaded India as he had heard that it was a rich country, and that gold and precious stones were stored in the temples.

Money was needed to fight the Turkish tribes from the north and north-west who raided Ghazni. He fought the Hindu-Shahi kings and took over Punjab and Multan. He destroyed Mathura and Kannauj and took away wealth and riches. In another raid he destroyed the Somnath temple from where he got twenty million gold coins.

Mohammad of Ghazni used the money to build a library and mosques and gardens in Ghazni. He died in1030. After he died Ghazni was invaded by kings of the neighboring kingdom of Ghori.

Muizuddin Mohammad (1173 – 1206) known as Mohammed Ghori, took over Ghazni while his older brother Ghiyasuddin Mohammad (1163-1203) ruled Ghori, further north-west.

There were many small states which were at constant war with each other. Although some of them came together to fight the Turks, they did not have a united army or commander to direct the campaign.  The Turks had superior methods of warfare. Their horses were of good breed. They wore iron stirrups and the horses had horse shoes. Their second attack, led by mounted archers in steel armor, was well-planned. The Rajputs had a large number of elephants which were slow moving and horses were of inferior breed.

The Turks captured Ajmer. Prithviraja was permitted to rule but when he tried to win back his kingdom he was put to death. Jayachandra had not joined the Rajputs earlier. In 1193 Ghori fought the Gahadavala king, Jayachandra and defeated him in the battle of Chandwar. Mohammed Ghori died in 1206. He did not have a son to inherit his empire. Ghiyas-ud-din, his nephew, succeeded him at Ghor.

Qutb-ud-din Aibak took over Delhi and most of the Indian provinces. Bakhtiyar Khalji took over Bihar and Bengal and later Ali Mardan Khan.

Genghis Khan, the Mongol

The Mongol leader Genghis Khan (1162-1227) rose to establish the largest land empire in history. He united the nomadic tribes of the Mongolian plateau, conquering huge chunks of central Asia and China. Genghis Khan born Temüjin was the founder and first Emperor of the Mongol Empire. He made several incursions into the Indian subcontinent. He was Mongol, of the nomadic tribe that lived on the plains of Central Asia from the Ural Mountains to the Gobi Desert.

The Mongols were always at war. Genghis Khan was one of the most important conquerors of all time. By the end of the Great Khan’s life, the Mongol Empire occupied a substantial portion of Central Asia and China.

Taimur Lang

Timur (1336-1405 A.D.) was another invader from Central Asia who dreamt of becoming the famous conquerors of the world. He was a great military commander and conqueror of Central Asia. He conquered one kingdom after another.  Timur was given the title, ‘Taimur Lang’, because his one leg got wounded in the battlefield and compelled the Taimur to walk with a limp.

Timur started from his home in Samarkand and invaded the north Indian subcontinent (present day Pakistan and North India) crossing the Indus River in September 30, 1398. After conquering the Central Asian belt he rested his eyes on India, which he keenly wanted to plunder.

During this period India was under the rule of weak rulers and there was complete political chaos and disharmony amongst the people. This was because the death of Firoz Shah Tughlaq was a good time for Taimur to enter India. The effect of Timur’s invasion was such that no Tughlaq ruler regained the lost strength to come back on throne. The country was on the verge of total breakdown.

Nadir Shah Raids the Weakening Mughal Empire

Babur had taken this opportunity to invade India, and establishing the Mughal Dynasty. After the death of Aurangzeb, his successors could not fill in his place. There were frequent fights for the throne which led to the weakening of Mughal rule. During that time Nadir Shah became the ruler of Persia, after being a chief of dacoits. Nadir Shah advanced towards India in 1738.

Muhammad Shah “Rangeela” was the Mughal Emperor during Nader Shah’s invasion. The actual decline of the Mughal Empire started with the Syed Brothers in the 1710s, when they changed 5 emperors at will through murder and intrigue. Bahadur Shah 1 (1707–1712); while not counted among the great Mughals did manage to hold the empire together.

Nadir Shah considered this period of weak Mughal Empire the right opportunity to seize power and invade India. The two forces of Nadir Shah and Muhammad Shah met at Karnal. At the battle of Karnal on 13 February 1739, Nadir Shah outnumbered the Mughal forces. The battle lasted for less than three hours and the Mughal emperor, Muhammad Shah surrendered.

Both the rulers entered Delhi on 12 March 1739 and Delhi was handed over to Nadir Shah, along with all its treasures. He occupied Shah Jahan’s royal suite in the Red Fort and held a great durbar in the capital the next day. Nadir Shah was victorious against the Mughal Empire.

Historians say that if Nadir Shah had not invaded India, the British would have entered India later than they did or not come at all. Nadir’s campaign against India let the British East India Company know about the weakness of the Mughal Empire.

Nadir Shah’s overall collection after invading India was 700 million rupees worth, including 7000 craftsmen, 200 carpenters, 100 stone-cutters and thousands of elephants, horses and camels, all of which he took with him to Persia. Nadir Shah took with him the Peacock throne built by Shah Jahan and also the legendary “Koh-i-noor” diamond.

There was an irreparable damage done to the Mughal Empire by this invasion. The whole city of Delhi was destroyed, looted, plundered and ruined by the army of Nadir Shah.

Nadir Shah was assassinated on June 19, 1747, at Fathabad in Khorasan. He was surprised in his sleep by Salah Bey, captain of the guards, and stabbed with a sword. Nadir Shah was able to kill two of the assassins before he died. After his death, he was succeeded by his nephew Ali Qoli, who renamed himself Adil Shah (“righteous king”).

The Coming of the Europeans

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to come to India. Vasco da Gama discovered a direct sea route to India in 1498 when he set up a trading factory at Cannanore. Calicut, Cochin, and Cannanore became important trade centers for the Portuguese.

The British landed in India in Surat on August 24, 1608 for trade. In 1612, the English king James I sent a request to the Mughal Emperor Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir, asking for permission for the British East India Company to enter Indian Territory. The British East India Company began operations in 1607, and by 1647 it had established 23 factories in India, including in Bengal, Madras, and Bombay.

Cotton, silk, dyes and tea were the main commodities sought by the company at this time.  Trading privileges in India were sought by the East India Company for British pledges to send the Mughal emperor exclusively manufactured products from Europe. Jahangir eventually accepted the conditions of the British proposal.

The British East India Company’s success in the textile industry was due, in part, to factors such as this. As a result, during the 17th and 18th centuries, it became the world leader in textile trade with India. In 1670, Charles II passed several laws to strengthen the British East India Company’s position in India. These statutes permitted the firm to expand into new areas, establish a currency, and organize an army and build fortresses.

The Dutch became a potent force capturing Nagapatam near Madras (Chennai) from the Portuguese thereby establishing their foothold in South India. During their stay in India, the Dutch tried their hands on the minting of coinages. The coins issued by the Dutch were all modeled on the local coinages. A gold pagoda with an image of Lord Venkateswara, (god Vishnu) was issued at Pulicat mint. The coins issued by the Dutch were all modeled on the local coinages.

The major Indian commodities traded by the Dutch were cotton, indigo, silk, rice and opium. They earned huge profit through business monopolizing in black pepper and spices. The Dutch presence on the Indian subcontinent lasted from 1605 AD to 1825 AD. The brutal killing of some English traders by the Dutch in Amboyna in 1623 further aggravated the situation. The Britishers captured Dutch strongholds one after another.

The first French Factory in India was established in 1664 as the French East India Company in Surat to compete with the Dutch East India Company and East India Company at the market level. The French Company established one factory in Surat in the year 1668 and later another in Machilipatnam. The French decided to expand its business throughout the country. In 1673 AD the Mughal Subedar of Bengal allowed the French to set up a township at Chandernagore.  The French came to India mainly with a purpose of trade and commerce. From their arrival until 1741 AD, the objectives of the French, like those of the British, were purely commercial.

The French were constantly in conflict with the Dutch and later on mainly with the British in India. At the height of French power in the mid-18th century, they occupied large areas of southern India and the area lying in the present day Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.

Between 1744 and 1761, the British and the French repeatedly attacked and conquered each other’s forts and towns in southeastern India and in Bengal in the northeast. After some initial French successes, the British decisively defeated the French in Bengal in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and in the southeast in 1761 in the Battle of Wandiwash (a battle in India between the French and the British in 1760).

After these battles, the British East India Company was the supreme military and political power in southern India as well as in Bengal. In the following decades, it gradually increased the size of the territories under its control. With the arrival of the British and Dutch East India Company, the industries lost their reputation in the marketing world.

In 1674 AD, the French obtained a village called Pondicherry from the Sultan of Bijapur and founded a thriving city on it which later became the main stronghold of the French in India. As time passed, they began to consider India their colony.  Joseph Francois Dupleix was appointed Governor of the French East India Company in 1741 AD. This was the first step towards this realization and goal during which the tenure and political motives began to clearly surface and even overshadow their commercial objectives.

Dupleix was extremely talented took advantage of the rivalries among local rulers and saw it as god send opportunity to establish French empire in India. He was diplomatic and intriguing par excellence, which earned him respectable position in the Indian political scenario. But it was the British who challenged French under Dupleix. An officer, Robert Clive came to India and defeated Dupleix who was then recalled.

Sweden was the last of the more prominent seafaring European nations to engage in the East India Trade. The royal privileges for the Swedish East India Company (SOIC) were granted almost a century after the other European trading companies were established.

With the advent of this East India trade in the 17th century, Chinese and Indian goods were imported to Sweden. Drinking tea and possessing Chinese objects became the height of fashion among Swedish socialites and the middle class. Chinese culture, philosophy, art, agriculture, and architecture were also studied and copied.

Pirates sailing out from Madagascar made an attempt, later, to establish the Swedish trade on the East Indies. After having attacked trading ships, they had become wealthy and were looking for a place to settle down and invest their money in legitimate enterprise. The pirates numbered about 1,500 and commanded a considerable and well-armed fleet of ships.

Although they offered the Swedish King Charles XII half a million pounds sterling and 25 armed ships for his protection, the matter was not resolved. In 1718, representatives for the pirates met again with the King at his camp during the campaign against Norway.

The new offer was for 60 ships, armed and stocked with goods, if the pirates were allowed to settle down in Gothenburg and start a trade with the East Indies under the Swedish flag. One privateer, Morgan, actually obtained a charter for an East India Company and a letter of appointment for himself as governor over the colonies that could be the result of such an enterprise. The King was shot and died in 1718 and the venture was dropped.

Britain had been trading in India since about 1600, but it did not begin to seize large sections of land until 1757, after the Battle of Plassey. This battle pitted 3,000 soldiers of the British East India Company against the 50,000-strong army of the young Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud Daulah, and the French East India Company.

The East India Company was primarily interested in the trade of cotton, silk, tea, and opium, but following the Battle of Plassey, it functioned as the military authority in growing sections of India as well. Britain had been trading in India since about 1600, but it did not begin to seize large sections of land until 1757, after the Battle of Plassey.

The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies in 1757. The battle consolidated the Company’s presence in Bengal, which later expanded to cover much of India over the next hundred years.

1857 War of Independence

A widespread revolt broke out for which there are various names such as “India’s First War of Independence”, “Sepoy Mutiny,”  This revolt began on May 10, 1857, at Meerut as a sepoy mutiny called so becauseit was the first time that a combined effort had been made. This kind of outbreak happened only Indian nationals against the British.  It was initiated by sepoys in the Bengal Presidency against the British officers. The name Sepoy Mutiny was because the soldiers were discriminated on the basis of racism and were paid low salary.

Importantly, the soldiers were given cartridges that had a coating of grease that was made up of Cow and Pig fat. There is no evidence that beef and pork lard was ever used to grease the cartridges, and it seems that it was only a wild rumor. The cartridges had to be bitten before they could be loaded, and this was anathema to many Hindus and Muslims. Biting the cartridges meant that they were eating beef or pork, which was unacceptable in their religion. The rumor may have been designed explicitly to outrage ranks Sepoys.

This war of Independence marked the end of rule by the British East India Company. After this, India was directly ruled by the British government through representatives known as Governor General. The revolt was called this becauseit was the first time that a combined effort had been made by the Indian nationals against the British. The Mutiny of 1857 gave a severe jolt to the British administration in India and made its reorganization inevitable.

The Government of India’s structure and policies underwent significant changes in the decades following the Revolt. After the revolt of 1857, The Government of India Act of 1858 transferred the control of India from the East India Company to the Crown. Power to govern India was vested in the Crown through the Secretary of State, responsible to the British Parliament. 

After 1857 to 1947

The Act of 1858 provided that the Governor-General would have an Executive Council whose members were to act as heads of different departments and as his official advisers.
The Indian Council Act of 1861 enlarged the Governor’s Council for the purpose of making laws, which was known as the Imperial Legislative Council. India, now as a colony came under direct rule of the British Parliament. While authority over India had previously been wielded by the Directors of the Company and the Board of Control, now this power was to be exercised by a Secretary of State for India aided by a Council.

A provision was made in the Indian Councils Act 1861 for a Legislative Council. However, it was merely an advisory body. Gradually, administration was decentralised and powers were given to local bodies, like municipalities and district boards, to overcome financial difficulties faced by the Government due to over centralisation

One consequence of the mutiny was the establishment of direct British governance of India. The Queen adopted the title ‘Empress of India’ or ‘Kaisar-i-Hind’ in 1876. Later, Lord Curzon made it clear to the Princes that they were only agents of the Crown. The number of Indian soldiers in the army was decreased. In the Indian army, the proportion of European soldiers to the Indian soldiers was increased. No key and strategic post was given to Indians, followed strictly after 1857. Indians were not promoted or recruited to higher posts in army.

The Indian rulers had to hold their kingdom under the British Crown. The British started exploiting the religious sentiments of the people of India. Land owned by Muslims was treated with hostility and confiscated.  Peasants were forced to grow indigo on the fertile land where rice was being produced.

After 1850, a very large British capital was invested in railways, loans to the Government of India, and to a smaller extent in tea plantations, coal mining, jute mills, shipping, trade and banking. It was necessary that, to render this British capital secure from economic and political dangers, British rule in India be clamped down even more firmly.

Major changes were introduced in the army after 1857.  A distinction between martial and non-martial was made. The East India’s Company’s European Forces were amalgamated with those of the Crown. The Bengal, Madras and Bombay artillery and the corresponding corps of Indian Engineers were amalgamated with the Royal artillery.

The strength of the European troops in India was increased from the pre-1857 figure of 45000 to 65000.  The number of Indian troops was reduced from the pre- mutiny of 2, 38, 000 to 1, 40, 000. In the Bengal Presidency the proportion of European to Indian troops was fixed at 1:2 while for Bombay and Madras Presidencies it was 1:3. There were two types of states in India — the provinces and the Princely states. Provinces were ruled directly by British officials, who were appointed by the Viceroy. Princely states were ruled by local, hereditary rulers who were given local autonomy in return for acknowledging sovereignty.

The biggest contribution of British in India was removal of social practices like Sati, child marriage, untouchability. They banned such cruel inhumane practices; but also promoted a widow’s remarriage. Social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy supported the British in the cause. The British started recording a census in 1871 taken once in 10 years to collect the statistical data of age, gender, religion, caste, occupation, education of the population. As of 2011, the decennial Census of India has been conducted 15 times. They set up the department of Geographical Survey of India in 1851; the institution surveyed villages, cities, and made maps of India.

Indian nationalism began to take shape in the late nineteenth century. 1857 marked the conscious beginning of the fight for independence from the British Empire’s colonial oppression. The history of the Indian National Congress is the history of the freedom struggle in India. The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885 by Allan Octavian Hume, a retired British civil servant. The goal of the Indian National Congress was to unite all Indian political parties in order to achieve Home Rule for India. It was not until the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi that the Indian National Congress began to unite Indians and fight for independence from foreign rule.

(The writer has a Masters in Adult Education from Jamia Milia Islamia. She has many years teaching experience at the school level as also ten years of experience in book publishing and some published writing in newspapers and more students’ books. Lakshmi has retired and lives in Hyderabad.)