On January 14 1761 one of the largest battles in Indian history took place at Panipat just north of Delhi. Two great empires – the Indian Marathas and the Afghan Durrani – clashed to decide who would control northern India in the ashes of the great Mughal Empire. However, as we shall see, Panipat may not have swayed the course of history as much as we might be led to believe.
The Situation in 1761
In less than 60 years the Mughal Empire went from controlling most of the Indian subcontinent to being reduced to vassalage in Delhi. While the area around Delhi remained economically vibrant and newly independent states sent ‘homage’ to the Mughal emperor, in reality the days of Mughal glory were long behind them. Decentralisation, which was intertwined with local rulers siphoning off funds when given authority to collect taxes, allowed states to break off from Mughal rule and two states – Hyderabad and the Marathas – had the position to replace the Mughals as the dominant hegemon in India. Following a campaign in the 1730s the Marathas defeated Hyderabad effectively positioning them as the hegemon able to replace the Mughals, however, there was another force to the north – Nader Shah. The shah of Persia he idolised Genghis Khan and Timur, and in 1739 he captured Delhi taking the emperor hostage and taking the splendid Peacock Throne as spoils of war. In 1747 Nader Shah was assassinated which quickly disintegrated but this did not see Central Asian hegemons from returning to India. In Kabul one of Nader Shah’s generals, Ahmad Shah ‘Abdali, managed to cajole and consolidate the various communities under his control forming the basis of an Afghan state, although it would not be referred to as Afghanistan for centuries to come. To mark his new kingdom Ahmad Shah renamed himself Ahmad Shah Durrani – the ‘Pearl of Pearls’.
Like the founder of the Mughal Emperor, Babur, and Nader Shah before him, Ahmad Shah Durrani began invading the Indian subcontinent, mainly the Punjab. The edges of empires are simultaneously where the state is most keenly felt and its weakest as distance from the capital means that states are ever so more keen to assert their sovereignty. The Punjab had seen increasing authority through the rise of principally the Sikh Confederation, a coalition of roughly a dozen Sikh states, that first began resisting following the execution of a Sikh leader by the Mughal emperor in the late-1600s. Control of the Punjab, especially is fertile land and manufacturing industries, had brought the Afghans and Marathas into conflict already. As we saw in a previous post Ahmad Shah Durrani captured Delhi in 1757 as part of a wider campaign to replace the Mughals as the dominant force in northern India. Delhi was soon captured by the Marathas whose ally, the ambitious and ruthless Mughal vizier Imad ul-Mulk, would have the Mughal emperor Alamgir II assassinated in 1759 due contacts with the Durrani. Mughal chiefs would coup Imad ul-Mulk’s puppet emperor a year later so the political intrigue threatened both Afghans and Marathas. As mentioned, while the Mughals now held very little power, a common phrase for then ruling emperor Shah Alam II was Sultanat-e-Shah Alam, Az Dilli ta Palam ‘The empire of Shah Alam is from Delhi to Palam [a suburb in Delhi’, they held symbolic power. Blessings from the Mughal emperor guaranteed legitimacy and whoever controlled Delhi was in prime position to place themselves as the successors of the Mughals.
Lead Up to Panipat
Since 1758 the Afghans and Marathas had been intermittingly fighting in the Punjab and the Khyber, especially around the fortified city of Peshawar. A centre of trade connecting China to the Middle East and Central Asia is was a rich city so control of the city could help fund armies. It had come under Afghan control in 1747 becoming a favoured site for the winter capital when the Durrani were campaigning. When the Marathas captured Peshawar in 1758 putting the garrison to the sword this ignited the personal indignation of the Afghan court. The battles were not just between the Afghans and the Marathas, instead various coalitions of smaller states held the balance of power during the fighting. For one, many of the Durrani setbacks against the Marathas were thanks to the Sikhs and Jats who saw the Marathas as closer allies against the Afghans. The harsh Durrani war machine and his tactical use of jihad to unite Muslims behind the Afghan cause alienated the Sikh and Jat states. Meanwhile, the Afghans had allies in the form of the Kingdom of Rohilkhand, a state just north of Delhi founded by Rohillas. The Rohillas were Muslim Pashtuns, the same ethnic group as the ruling Durrani dynasty in Afghanistan, who sought common cause with the Afghans for this reason.
By the end of 1759 the Afghans were back so the Marathas erected a large army to bring the war to them. Alongside the Chhatrapati, monarch, of the Marathas the most important position in the Maratha Confederacy was the peshwa, (a vizier), and the minister of finance. As the nephew of the peshwa and minister of finance this made Sadashivrao Bhau one of the most important figures in the Maratha Confederacy, so the young official was eager to show his power by directly tackling the Afghans. Leading the army he laid siege to the Afghans held up in the fortress of Kunjpura eventually enslaving or executing the surviving members of the garrison in 1760. However, Bhau was not aware of the situation in northern India and, despite advice, was reluctant to use guerrilla tactics. Instead, mass sieges gave the Afghans time to cross the Yamuna River. Catching the Marathas off guard the Afghan command further used the landscape to their advantage by strategically taking supply lines and depots to strangle the Marathan army. Their superior numbers would mean nothing when they had to live off the land which would soon become barren and alienate the local people against the Marathas. By the start of 1761 this had reduced the Maratha fighting force to a starving mess.
History Rhyming – Panipat and Empire Making
Panipat’s location on key trading routes and so close to Delhi has made it a very important site in the history of India, and, as you can tell, we are covering the Third Battle of Panipat today. The first established the Mughal Empire and the second ensured the Mughal’s place as a power. In 1526 another Islamic polity was collapsing to be replaced by a Central Asian Islamic conqueror. At one time the Delhi Sultanate had controlled significant parts of India but by the 1500s their power began to wane. Meanwhile, to the west a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur called Babur was seeking to build his own empire. Using field fortifications and gunpowder Babur’s army triumphed over Delhi at Panipat in April 1526 – Delhi’s war elephants were not used to gunpowder so had panicked during the fighting. This allowed Babur to take hold of Delhi establishing what would become the Mughal Empire. Babur would die four years later and his son, Humayun, would be ousted into exile in Persia by a new rising power Sher Shah Suri in 1540. One of his generals, Hemu, after defeating the Mughals again at Delhi would crown himself emperor, but it would be short-lived. Babur’s grandson, Akbar just 13-years-old after Humayun died falling down the stairs, managed by Bairam Khan met Hemu in battle at Panipat in November 1556. A stray arrow pierced Hemu’s almost impenetrable armour and with their leader dead Hemu’s forces scattered. From exile in Persia the Mughals were once again back in power.
The Third Battle of Panipat
Over the second-half of 1760 the Maratha army was collapsing. Almost like a python the Afghan forces had chocked off the Maratha supplies leaving the army slowly starving. Making matters worse for the Marathas they were constantly being fired upon by Afghan artillery which ended up costing the lives of two Marathan generals – Balavant Rao Mehendale and Govindpant Bundele. Sadashivrao Bhau realised that if this continued his army would be too weak to fight and would be torn apart by Afghan artillery, so he decided to take the fight to the Afghans. It was to be a battle of the ages – each side had over 40,000 troops and the Marathas had some of the best generals across India leading their forces. Both sides positioned their forces to best maximise their loyalties. Durrani placed his Rohilla and Oudh allies in the centre making them less likely to break and run, and Bhau placed the unpopular Gardi musketeers far from the centre where they would not encounter the other troops. On January 14 1761 the battle began when, early on in the morning, the Marathans set up their artillery and opened fire. While the artillery failed to initially break the Afghan and Rohilla ranks bowmen and musketeers (some of the best imported directly from Europe) cut through the lines. A cavalry clash then erupted in the centre with the Maratha cavalry almost smashing through the Afghan lines, but their momentum soon waned allowing the Afghan centre to hold.
Ahmad Shah was two kilometres behind the lines observing what was happening, and upon seeing what was happening he sent reinforcements in. Unlike the Afghans, the Marathas lacked reinforcements so any loss was permanent. Afghan reinforcements swept past the Marathas who were being torn apart by the camel-mounted artillery whose mobility gave them a major advantage. Furthermore, one of the Afghan cavalry units dismounted and proceeded on foot while setting up temporary fortifications which artillery fired over. This brought them close to the Marathan left-flank unawares which were also torn apart. Eventually, the Afghans advanced on all sides – the Gardi musketeers were destroyed and their commander, Ibrahim Khan Gardi, was captured, later to be executed. Bhau was leading from the front so when the Afghans finally descended on his position he too was killed. When the battle was over between 28,000 and 30,000 Marathans were killed including a significant portion of the Marathan military elite, and the following day Durrani ordered a further 40,000 captives to be executed. The Afghans were bloodied as well. 20,000 of their forces had been killed, the vast majority being Rohillas – a purposeful plan by Durrani to ensure his own troops were not bearing the brunt of the fighting.
Aftermath
The Marathas were shattered, their military leadership slaughtered in the battle, and when news reached the Maratha peshwa he apparently went insane before passing away. Despite this, the peace terms levied on the Marathas was not as crippling as you might think. The Rohillas were given more land and the other polities of India had to recognise the legitimacy of Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II as emperor, with the caveat that his ally Najib ad-Dawlah would be the overseer of the emperor and Delhi. Much of this was a recognition of Durrani’s own weaknesses. Losses at Panipat had been heavy and that is before we acknowledge the battles and raids before and after the battle. Most importantly were the raids by the Sikhs who effectively cut the lines between Kabul and Panipat, and had successfully resisted Afghan control throughout the previous decade. Ahmad Shah Durrani did not take the Punjab because he simply could not.
The Third Battle of Panipat further destabilised the Maratha Confederacy. Not only had the third most powerful person in the administration been killed, but the peshwa died which would eventually lead to succession battles. The Marathas, potentially on their way to become the new hegemon of India, had this dashed by the Afghans. Several historians, such as John Keay, have argued, largely based on the early-nineteenth-century British historian Grant Duff, that the Maratha defeat and later disorganisation prevented the emergence of a hegemon to fight against the rising British in Bengal. This is an interesting viewpoint, and, while I am not a specialist on eighteenth-century India so take my opinion with scepticism, I may disagree with this view. Not only did the Marathas defeat the British in the First Anglo-Maratha War (1775-1782) showing they were far from a spent force, but I believe it is looking at history backwards. As we know the British would end up conquering India the defeat of the Marathas at Panipat, which prevented them to replace the Mughals as the dominant hegemon, becomes part of a wider explanation for why the British took control. Even if we took the British out of the equation we cannot guarantee how long the Marathas would have been a hegemon, even if they did become one. No doubt the Sikhs would have resisted the Marathas as they resisted the Afghans and Mughals, and in the south Mysore was quickly rising as a power. The Marathas being a confederacy did face many of the issues that the Mughals did – namely local rulers managing to create their own autonomy in the face of weakened Maratha control. This does not diminish the Third Battle of Panipat, but it does indicate that we should not blame it for the eventual rise of the British – William Dalrymple in his book on the rise of the British in India refers to the battle only once. Instead, it is part of a wider look into how power can be fleeting.
Other Events:
There were other events to happen in the first quarter of 1761, here are some of them:
- Just two days after the Battle of Panipat the British would capture the French fortress of Pondicherry in southern India as part of the global Seven Years’ War.
- March 9 in Hexham, northern England the local militia would fire on a crowd protesting the forced enlistment of civilians into the militia.
- March 31 another devastating earthquake would hit Lisbon, but censorship would mean news of it would not reach far outside the capital.
Bibliography:
- M. Athar Ali, Mughal India: Studies in Polity, Ideas, Society, and Culture, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
- William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, (London: Bloomsbury, 2019)
- Jonathan Lee, Afghanistan: A History from 1260 to the Present, (London: Reaktion Books, 2018)
- John Keay, India: A History, (New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000)
- Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, Fourth Edition, (London: Routledge, 2018)
- Kings and Generals, ‘Battle of Panipat 1761 – Durrani-Maratha War Documentary’, YouTube.com, (11/10/2020), [Accessed 10/06/2024]
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