History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c39: Chapter XXIII. The Downfall of Northern India

History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c39

Language: English

Chapter XXIII. The Downfall of Northern India

The causes which led to the downfall of Northern India must be, and indeed are, different from those which led to the downfall of the Panjab. In the Panjab there were no Rajput kingdoms. Panjab, as stated before, was always ruled from outside, by Sind, by Kashmir, by Kabul. Northern India was always ruled by Hindu and local kings. Panjab was usually the land of foreign invasions and of foreign rule. Northern India had always defeated and driven out foreign invaders. Alexander did not cross the Sutlej at all. Menander came as far as Ayodhya but was eventually driven out by Pushyamitra. The Śakas came as far as Mathura but were driven away by Vikramāditya. The Kushans and the Huns indeed ruled rather long in the western part of Northern India but they were driven away by Skandagupta of Patna, by Viṣṇuvardhana of Mandsaur and finally by Pratāpavardhana of Thanesar. From 600 A. D. down to 1000 A. D. there were no foreign invasions. Mahmud indeed conquered Rājyapāl and imposed a tribute on Northern India but the Gāhadavālas soon drove out the foreign foe and stopped the tribute, while Rājyapāla had even been killed by the Chandellas and Kachhwahas for submitting to Mahomedan yoke. In short the Aryan kings of Northern India had always held their own against foreign invaders. The Rajput kingly families of the Hindu period were unquestionably most heroic and did not brook submisson. Why did they fall before Shihabuddin Ghori? There could be no lack of armies or of capable generals. Indeed Prithvīrāja was the greatest warrior put forward by the indomitable Chauhans to oppose the Mahomedan onslaught. He had actually defeated four kings successively. He held up the flood of Mahomedan conquest like a strong bund. Strangely enough as soon as the bund gave way, the flood rushed over the whole of Northern India and uprooted all the Rajput kingdoms within the course of twenty five years. Why did the heroic Rajput kingly families, like the Chauhans and the Rathods, the Chandellas and the Paramāras, the Solankhis and the Haihayas succumb and why did Northern India fall so completely as never to rise again?

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There was no superiority of physique or valour in favour of the Mahomedan combatants. The Rajputs were as hardy, powerful or heroic as the Turks and Afghans who conquered them. There was no difference of weapons. Neither the Afghans nor the Rajputs had fire-arms. Both fought with the same weapons, the sword, the lance and the arrow. Both had elephants in perhaps equal numbers. The Moguls indeed conquered the Rajputs by the use of cannon; and so did the Marathas under Scindia. As stated already, before the scientific weapons of destruction of the western nations, India was bound to fall. But in the days of Shihabuddin Ghori, neither side used fire-arms, though Firishta and, Chand Bardai by anachronism mention their use.

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It can not be alleged that the religious fervour actuating Shihabuddin and his Mahomedans was stronger than that actuating the Rajputs. Although Mahomedan historians describe the former as making a religious war, Shihabuddin was fighting for conquest of territory and not for extending religion. Indeed we find that conversion of the people to Mahomedanism was not his motive in conquering Northern India, and conversions did not take place on a large scale in Northern India for reasons which we will presently see. On the other hand the Rajputs and the Hindus of Northern India were actuated by a more fervent religious zeal than the inhabitants of the Panjab. As stated before, religious zeal in the Panjab has always been weak; but the land of the Sarsvati, the Jumna and the Ganges has always been the stronghold of Hinduism being its birthplace. We, therefore, think that the impelling force of religion was equally strong on either side.

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The foremost cause which is usually and properly assigned to the fall of the Rajputs is their internecine fighting. The Rajput kingly families always fought amongst themselves not so much for extension of territory as for establishment of superiority, At this very time we find Prithvīrāj attacking his three great neighbouring kings of Gujarat, Bundelkhand and U. P. These fights were always tough fights as between European nations and doughty warriors on both sides always fell in great numbers. The fighting strength of all the four powerful kingdoms, i. e. of the Chauhans, the Rathods, the Chandellas and the Solankhis was thus reduced and each fell when fighting singly and separately against the strong common foe. Internecine warfare has always been the bane of the Rajputs. Though the Rajputs always neglected artillery and were, therefore, always weak in modern times, they could even then have driven out the Moguls, if only they had combined, as Manuchi distinctly states in his memoirs and they could have withstood even the Marathas, though not the English, for the Maratha artillery was in the hands of Europeans. Against Shihabuddin whose ambition was threatening India, of which the Rajputs must have had ample knowledge from informants, the Rajputs should have stayed their quarrels and combined. They did not stop their fights even against the common impending danger and they consequently were all destroyed.

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The condition of India at this time resembled that of Germany at the end of the eighteenth century. Germany was divided at that time into several small but strong kingdoms the ruler in each of which aspired to the imposing dignity of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and consequently tried to humble though not destroy the others. In the same way in India each Rajput king aspired to being called Chakravartin or emperor and for that end tried to conquer other kings without attempting to annex his kingdom. Thus while the power of both was lessened, the conqueror gained no strength from increase of resources or dominion. Bhoja of Malwa for example fought with and humbled other Rajput kings and was called Mālava Chakravartin. Karna of Chedi followed his example. And Kumārapāla attempted to obtain the same honour. The rivalry between the Gāhadavālas and the Chauhans lasted for nearly thirty years, between Vijayachandra and Vigrahapāla and Jaichand and Prithvīrāj and weakened both. As the Rāsā relates, ninety out of a hundred of Prithvīrāj's sāmantas fell in his conflict with Jayachand in carrying off Sanyogitā. It is, therefore, no wonder that the Rajput kingly families fell before Shihabuddin as the Germanic states severally fell before Napoleon.

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But while Germany was never finally conquered and subjected to foreign domination, Northern India was laid prostrate for all time. We have, therefore, really to find out the reason why even after temporary conquest as the natural consequence of defeat in battle, Northern India could not regain its feet and make itself free. The cause of this, in our view, lay in the rigidification of caste which took place about this time. We will show in our General Survey Book how caste which was fluid in the beginning of this sub-period became rigid by the end of the 12th century and the modern rigid caste system of India with its intricacies and its numberless subsections inside the main castes was evolved. While Kshatriyas married in previous times Vaiśya wives and Brahmins married Kshatriya and Vaiśya wives and often vice versa, each caste and subcaste now confined marriage and even food to itself. The social sympathy which existed previously among the various sections of the Hindu people was gone and it was replaced by a feeling of aloofness and even aversion.

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But the most injurious result of this rigidification of caste was the vast dimunition in the fighting strength of kingdoms. Even now this evil of the caste system in India is not adequately realised. It is often wondered how a nation consisting of 33 crores of inhabitants can be ruled by a nation of four crores. But it must be remembered that the fighting people in India scarcely number four crores while the whole British nation of four crores is the fighting reserve of Britain. In India, excepting the Panjab, the people are divided firstly by race into Aryans and Dravidians and secondly by caste into fighters and non-fighters. The Dravidian section of the Indian population is nearly more than one half and chiefly consists of non-fighters. In the Aryan section of the population again, only the Kshatriyas are by heredity and present occupation inclined to fight. The result is that in India about 10 per cent of the population is fit and disposed to fight, while the remaining 90 per cent by nature and heredity is not fit to fight and is, therefore, ready to accept the rule of any strong nation which happens to be successful. As we will explain elsewhere, the idea of a nation did not develop in India and the people as a whole never thought of opposing foreign conquest. Especially at this time by the rigidification of caste the number of those who fought for independence was owing to internecine fighting limited and as soon as these viz. the Rajputs fell, the country as a whole submitted without demur to the foreign yoke.

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This baneful effect of a rigid caste system, wherein the number of those who fight for the independence of the community becomes limited, was seen by the ancient law-givers and they attempted to remedy it by laying it down that though ordinarily it is the duty of the Kshatriyas to take up arms, it was yet the duty of all the three higher varṇas to take up arms when religion was threatened and religion or Dharma, according to the Hindu notion, included politics and imposition of the yoke of a foreign people and religion was certainly a danger to religion. But where the people are, for generations, bred up in professions which are docile and in a spirit of submission, it is impossible to expect them to suddenly become fighters. Indeed, as stated before, when Shihabuddin conquered Kanauj, the rais and land-holders came forward and tendered submission. Moreover it must be noted that the population of Northern India is predominantly Dravidian, unlike the Panjab. It is even now so, the total number of Kshatriyas in U. P. is remarkably small. While, therefore, Shihabuddin Ghori could raise an army from the whole of the overflowing population of the Panjab, of Afghanistan and of Turkestan, the Rajputs could not raise large armies in India nor would the people offer resistance as a whole to foreign yoke. It may be noted that in western countries at the present day, the whole population of a country becomes the recruiting ground for an army fighting for the nation's existence. Germany in the recent war could place in the field nearly 70 lakhs of soldiers and so could France and England. And the national sentiment is so strong in the west that the whole country takes the greatest interest in the national struggle. The condition of Northern India at this time was exactly the opposite. The Kshatriya population alone was the recruiting ground; it is indeed true that some Brahmins and Vaiśyas did fight even at that time, but these exceptions prove the rule viz. that the Brahmins and the Vaiśyas then, as now, were as a rule unwilling and even unfitted to take up arms. The case was different during the days of the Guptas and the Vardhanas, of Dahir and Lalliya. Secondly, the people as a whole took no interest in the national struggle and without demur offered their submission to the foreign yoke, especially because, as we shall presently show, the Mahomedan rulers did not adopt any coercive measures for the spread of their religion.

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Many of the remnants of the chivalrous, independence-loving Rajputs retired to the deserts and hills of Rajputana, or the ravines of the Chambal and the Jumna and other retired tracts and there and preserved their independence, thus leaving Northern India in general and the Madhya-deśa in particular, all the more helpless. Northern India, therefore, fell prostrate never to rise, because there was no national resitastnce. This will explain how while in Europe even small nations have successfully resisted attempts to enslave them, in India large countries like the Kanauj kingdom fell finally before the Mahomedans. These countries or kingdoms were large enough even singly to oppose successfully any Mahomedan conqueror. But the reality is that there was no national resistance and the resistance offered by the Rajputs was unavailing owing to their being outnumbered by reason of rigidity of caste. It is not a mere matter of accident that Sobieski the greatest leader of the Poles was able to finally stop the onward rush of the Turks at Vienna. The Poles were more heroic than the Greeks, no doubt, but the Poles fought as a nation and hence succeeded. In Northern India unfortunately, both Prithvīrāj and Jaichand were defeated; but if the people had resisted as a whole, Northern India could not have been finally subdued by the Mahomedans.

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The efficacy and the necessity of national resistance, was first realised in India, in our view, by Shivaji, under the inspiration of whose spirit Mahārāshtra resisted as a nation and fought against Aurangzeb. The Marathas, meaning thereby Kshatriyas, Brahmins, and the common people or Śudras combined and fought as a man in the days of Rajaram and rose superior even to the whole combined power of the Mogul empire with which Aurangzeb in vain strove to crush them. The Marathas of the days of Shivaji and Rajaram, alone in Indian history, offered national resistance and attained and preserved independence. They alone in Indian history verified the maxim laid down in western politics that no power however great can crush the independence of a people however small if they resist as a nation. India naturally could not realise the necessity of national unity when its kingdoms were ruled by Hindu kings of whatever clan. The Marathas first realised it after three centuries of Mahomedan rule. The Sikhs followed them with their religious conscription. The Indian people under English rule must realise the necessity of national effort if they are to attain Swaraj or political freedom

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The message of history for the future, therefore, is that not only the Rajputs should learn to confederate and unite, but the whole of the people of India and especially the Hindus whose caste system makes disunion their normal characteristic. It is not indeed possible to suggest that caste should be abolished. The evolution of the Hindu society for thousands of years has been developing caste and it would be impossible to induce the Hindus to give up caste. Moreover, the Rajputs have developed their highly chivalrous and heroic nature, through this very principle of heredity. Indeed the preservation of caste-purity of which the Rajputs take particular care has everything to recommend it. But the Rajputs not only of the east and the west but also of the north and the south, the Gurkhas, Dogras, the Bundelas and the Marathas must learn to unite on terms of absolute equality and more imperatively confederate for national uplift. But still, the Hindus, inspite of their caste distinctions must learn to confederate on terms of equality of status while preserving the independent growth of each main caste (though not of each subordinate subdivision which has come into being for fanciful reasons). The principle of confederation of independent units for political purposes was first thought out and practised by the American states and has now been followed by Germany. The confederation of Hindus, subdivided as they are, into independent castes, is the real problem of the future as previous history teaches us, and it must be practicable to achieve it, even if it be necessary to adopt for it, commensality of food and drink and of some religious worship. There is, and there should be, no idea in this confederation of the Hindus, of opposing or harassing the Mahomedans; for the confederation of Hindus and Mahomedans is also absolutely necessary for the political progress of the country. But it must be remembered that the Mahomedans are already a united and a strong community and the confederation of Hindus and Mahomedans can only be achieved and made permanent if the Hindus also become a united and strong community.

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To conclude the disunion among the Rajputs the fighting arm of India and the rigidity of caste by which 9/10 of the people were made incapable or unwilling to resist foreign domination were the two main causes which led to the permanent enslavement of Northern India.