A Military History of Medieval India

"This book is a rare study of warfare in India from the 11 to the 18 century of the Christian era. It traces the evolution of strategy, tactics and weapons employed by indigenous as well as invading armies during this period in rich detail.

Carrying forward India’s military history from where the author’s companion volume, A Military History of Ancient India left it, the book opens with Mahmud of Ghazni’s raids into India between AD 1000 and 1028, describes his successive expeditions, the Ghazanavid military system and the reasons for Mahmud’s easy success in the country. The author then examines in detail the military systems of the Rajputs, the Turkish Sultans of Delhi, the Bahmani Sultans of the Deccan, the Vijayanagara emperors, the Sur Afghans, the Mughal emperors and the Marathas. Major and crucial battles have been described with the help of maps and sketches for a better understanding of the strategy employed by the combatants. A detailed tactical examination of each battle offers readers rich insights about its conduct and progress. A political history of the country has been included in bare outline as a contextual framework for conflicts and battles which brought about cataclysmic political changes. The book closes with a review of the great military leaders of the period.

The book, thus, presents a study of the development of warfare in the country from the 11 to the mid-18 century when modern warfare made its appearance in India, unlike in Europe where it had developed two centuries earlier. The first such occasion was in 1746 in the battle of the Adyar River (San Thome) when a few French soldiers supported by a detachment of European-trained "native soldiers" defeated a much larger local force of the Nawab of Carnatic, thus heralding the advent of modern warfare into the country’s antiquated military system.

Wars have been the primary, if not the only, instrument for political change since ancient times. A study of the development of warfare in a country is, therefore, an essential component for a correct understanding of its political developments. Notwithstanding this fact, India’s military history has, thus far, been sadly neglected by the country’s professional historians. This book, a result of huge scholarship and stamina, helps to set right this lacuna. The author draws many lessons of enduring value which the military history of medieval India has to offer the country’s policy-makers, politicians, bureaucrats, historians, political scientists and professional soldiers." (jacket)