‘The Mughals had a very efficient ranking system that ensured the safety of their territory from foreign invasions.’ Justify this statement.
Answers
Explanation:
Akbar (ruled 1556–1605) was proclaimed emperor amid gloomy circumstances. Delhi and Agra were threatened by Hemu—the Hindu general of the Sūr ruler, ʿĀdil Shah—and Mughal governors were being driven from all parts of northern India. Akbar’s hold over a fraction of the Punjab—the only territory in his possession—was disputed by Sikandar Sūr and was precarious. There was also disloyalty among Akbar’s own followers. The task before Akbar was to reconquer the empire and consolidate it by ensuring control over its frontiers and, moreover, by providing it with a firm administrative machinery. He received unstinting support from the regent, Bayram Khan, until 1560. The Mughal victory at Panipat (November 1556) and the subsequent recovery of Mankot, Gwalior, and Jaunpur demolished the Afghan threat in upper India.
Akbar, however, soon became restless under Bayram Khan’s tutelage. Influenced by his former wet nurse, Maham Anaga, and his mother, Ḥamīdah Bānū Begam, he was persuaded to dismiss him (March 1560). Four ministers of mediocre ability then followed in quick succession. Although not yet his own master, Akbar took a few momentous steps during that period. He conquered Malwa (1561) and marched rapidly to Sarangpur to punish Adham Khan, the captain in charge of the expedition, for improper conduct. Second, he appointed Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Atgah Khan as prime minister (November 1561). Third, at about the same time, he took possession of Chunar, which had always defied Humāyūn.
The most momentous events of 1562 were Akbar’s marriage to a Rajput princess, daughter of Raja Bharmal of Amber, and the conquest of Merta in Rajasthan. The marriage led to a firm alliance between the Mughals and the Rajputs.
Struggle for firm personal control
Akbar thus commanded the entire area of Humāyūn’s Indian possessions. By the mid-1560s he had also developed a new pattern of king-noble relationship that suited the current need of a centralized state to be defended by a nobility of diverse ethnic and religious groups. He insisted on assessing the arrears of the territories under the command of the old Tūrānī (Central Asian) clans and, in order to strike a balance in the ruling class, promoted the Persians (Irānī), the Indian Muslims, and the Rajputs in the imperial service. Akbar placed eminent clan leaders in charge of frontier areas and staffed the civil and finance departments with relatively new non-Tūrānī recruits. The revolts in 1564–74 by the members of the old guard—the Uzbeks, the Mirzās, the Qāqshāls, and the Atgah Khails—showed the intensity of their indignation over the change. Utilizing the Muslim orthodoxy’s resentment over Akbar’s liberal views, they organized their last resistance in 1580. The rebels proclaimed Akbar’s half-brother, Mirzā Ḥakīm, the ruler of Kabul, and he moved into the Punjab as their king. Akbar crushed the opposition ruthlessly.
Subjugation of Rajasthan
Rajasthan occupied a prominent place in Akbar’s scheme of conquest; without establishing his suzerainty over that region, he would have no title to the sovereignty of northern India. Rajasthan also bordered on Gujarat, a centre of commerce with the countries of western Asia and Europe. In 1567 Akbar invaded Chitor, the capital of Mewar; in February 1568 the fort fell into his hands. Chitor was constituted a district, and Āṣaf Khan was appointed its governor. But the western half of Mewar remained in the possession of Rana Udai Singh. Later, his son Rana Pratap Singh, following his defeat by the Mughals at Haldighat (1576), continued to raid until his death in 1597, when his son Amar Singh assumed the mantle. The fall of Chitor and then of Ranthambor (1569) brought almost all of Rajasthan under Akbar’s suzerainty.
Conquest of Gujarat and Bengal
Akbar’s next objective was the conquest of Gujarat and Bengal, which had connected Hindustan with the trading world of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Gujarat had lately been a haven of the refractory Mughal nobles, and in Bengal and Bihar the Afghans under Dāʾūd Karrānī still posed a serious threat. Akbar conquered Gujarat at his second attempt in 1573 and celebrated by building a victory gate, the lofty Buland Darwāza (“High Gate”), at his new capital, Fatehpur Sikri. The conquest of Gujarat pushed the Mughal Empire’s frontiers to the sea. Akbar’s encounters with the Portuguese aroused his curiosity about their religion and culture. He did not show much interest in what was taking place overseas, but he appreciated the political and commercial significance of bringing the other gateway to his empire’s international trade—namely, Bengal—under his firm control. He was in Patna in 1574, and by July 1576 Bengal was a part of the empire, even if some local chiefs continued to agitate for some years more. Later, Man Singh, governor of Bihar, also annexed Orissa and thus consolidated the Mughal gains in the east.