The Mughals were the last powerful descendants of the Mongols; descended from Mongol stock in
Turkestan, in the early 1500's they engaged in the last series of conquests to bear the Mongol name. They
were, however, quite distant from their original ancestors. The Mughals had become Islamic, for the
Middle Eastern Mongol invaders had converted to Islam long before. They had also thoroughly absorbed
Middle Eastern culture, especially Persian culture (the Persian word for Mongol is "Mughal," from which
we get the English word, "mogul," meaning "tycoon"), and their wars of invasion spread Persian culture
throughout India. Much of Persian culture was based on Shi'a Islam and its mystical doctrine of a Divine
Light present in the earth in the form of the Imam, or religious guide on earth. It was equally influenced by
Sufi mysticism, a branch of Islamic religion that stressed the mystical union of human with god. Much of
Persian culture was also derived from Mongolian culture, particularly art, which was based on Chinese
models of painting. In many ways, then, the Mughal invasion of India and its importation of Persian culture
was a roundabout way of importing far eastern culture into India.
India was no stranger to Islam; it had been invaded by Muslim forces as early as the seventh century AD,
and since the early 1300's, the south-eastern portion of India, the Rajput, was dominated by the Dehli
sultan, a Turkish invader.
Despite their illustrious ancestors, the Mughals began humbly. When the great Mughal conqueror, Babur
the Tiger, came to power in 1483, he ruled over a very small kingdom in Turkestan. With the smallest of
armies, he managed to conquer first Afghanistan and then the Dehli sultanate and all of Hindustan. Faced
with overwhelming odds (when he fought the Dehli Sultan he was outnumbered ten to one), he overcame
his enemies with a new technology: firearms. For this reason, Western historians have dubbed the Mughal
Empire, the first gunpowder empire.
Babur:
The founder of the Mughal dynasty was Babur, "The Tiger," who ruled from 1483 to 1530. Babur was
not fully a Mongol: his mother was descended from Genghis Khan, but his father was descended from
Timur. Like his ancestors, he rose from comparatively little to become one of the great conquerors of his
time. He ruled over a small kingdom in Turkestan; he expanded his kingdom by attacking Afghanistan and
capturing Kabul in 1504. From there he crossed over the mountains into Hindustan and attacked the Dehli
Sultanate. With an army of only twelve thousand men, he defeated the Sultan at Panipat, captured Agra and
Dehli, and established himself as Sultan. He then attacked a confederation of Rajput states. When he died
in 1530 he had conquered all of Hindustan and controlled an empire that extended from the Deccan to
Turkestan. Besides his fierce military genius, his conquest of this vast territory was aided by technological
superiority. He was the first Islamic conqueror to employ muskets and artillery, and even though these
weapons were somewhat primitive, they were more than a match for the armies of the Hindustan.
India was no stranger to Islamic conquest. In the seventh century, just decades after the beginning of
Islam, India was invaded by Muslims. In the tenth century, the Punjab was conquered by the Turkish
chieftain, Mahmud. In the thirteenth century, the Turk Qutb-ud-din, invaded the Punjab and established the
Dehli Sultanate which remained in power until Babur's invasion. Still, the Islamic Sultanate did not protect
India from Muslim invasion. In 1398, Timur invaded from the west and utterly destroyed Dehli. Although
the Sultanate survived, Timur's invasion left the entire area politically shattered.
At the same time that Babur was aggressively expanding his territory, however, Europeans began their
slow and steady invasion of India. Initially begun by the Portugese, the process would be brought to
completion by the British who, in the 1850's, annexed India into the British Empire. The history of the
Mughal Empire is intimately tied to the history of European expansion and territorial invasions. In 1510,
the Portugese conquered the island of Goa off the Indian Coast and a few years later occupied territory on
the Indian subcontinent itself. Babur was still in Afghanistan; it would be fifteen more years before he
crossed the mountain paths and attacked the Dehli sultanate.
Babur was succeeded by his son, Humayun, whose history walks the fine line between tragedy and farce.
He inherited one of the largest empires in the world, and between 1530 and 1540, he managed to lose all of
it to rebellions, from Afghanistan to India. He went into exile in Persia, and slowly put together an army to
reconquer his lost territory. By 1555, he managed to do this, despite his inauspicious first decade in charge.
Just as he was on the verge of complete reconquest, he fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck.
Despite his tremendous success at reconquest, both Islamic and Western history has marked him down as
one of the major losers of history.
Humayun's defeat, however, had a profound influence on Mughal culture. In his years of exile in the
Persian court, Humayun developed a deep understanding and love for Persian culture, and instilled that in
his son Akbar. After his and his son's reconquest of India, the culture that they built around themselves was
based heavily on Persian models: philosophy, literature, painting, and architecture, all show deeply
embedded Persian models.
Humayun, you might say, almost made it. The task of finishing the reconquest fell to his son and
successor, Akbar, whose name means in Arabic, "The Great."
Muslim, Indian, and Western historians all see Akbar as the greatest ruler of Indian history. When his
father, Humayun, died in 1556, Akbar became padshah ("ruler of the empire") at the age of thirteen. Under
the guidance of Bairam Khan, who had been instrumental in Humayun's reconquests of Panipat, Dehli, and
Agra, Akbar instantly began seizing more territory throughout Hindustan. Bairam Khan fell from power in
1560, but Akbar continued his conquest of India and Afghanistan. By the time he died in 1605 (his reign,
1556 to 1605, corresponds almost exactly to that of Elizabeth I of England), his Empire was greater than
that of Babur and included almost all of northern India.
In order to govern this territory, Akbar developed a bureaucracy and a system of autonomy for the
imperial provinces. Akbar's bureaucracy was among the most efficient in the world. He put military
governors, or mansabars , in charge of each region. Each governor was responsible for the provincial
military and, as in the Ottoman state, was directly responsible for all abuses. Abuses of power and
mistreatment of the poor or weak resulted in severe punishments and death, just as in the Ottoman Empire.
Each military governor was put in charge by the padshah himself, so he could be dismissed at will.
The most important part of the bureaucracy was tax collection. Akbar made several innovations. His tax,
like all other states, was a land tax that amounted to one-third of the value of the crops produced on it each
year. However, the tax was assessed equally on every member of the empire—a radical innovation
considering that every other state in the sixteenth century rarely taxed the nobility. He also eliminated the
tax assessed on non-Muslims. From the beginning of the Islamic expansion, a special tax was levied on
non-believers. This special tax, called the jizya , was bitterly resented all during the history of Muslim rule
in India. In addition, Muslim rulers in India charged a "pilgrimage" tax on unbelievers travelling to various
Hindu pilgrimage sites. Akbar eliminated this tax in 1564.
A large part of Akbar's administrative efforts were winning over Hindu populations. The Rajput
kingdoms had never fully accepted Islamic rule, but the revocation of the jizyat and the pilgrimage taxes
helped to calm their restiveness. Akbar also included vast number of Hindus in the official bureaucracy; by
his death, almost one-third of the imperial bureaucracy were Hindu. He cemented relations with the various
kingdoms by marrying the daughters of the kings. By the end of this process he had over five thousand
wives, almost all of whom he married for political reasons. His favorite wife, however, was a Hindu, and
she gave birth to his successor, Jahangir.
His most successful administrative coup, however, was allowing Hindu territories to retain a large degree
of autonomy. In all other Muslim kingdoms, non-Muslims came under the same law, the Shari'a , as all
Muslims. Akbar, however, allowed the Hindus to remain under their own law, called the Dharmashastra ,
and to retain their own courts. This loose style of government, in which territories were under the control of
the Emperor but still largely independent, became the model that the British would emulate as they slowly
built the colonial model of government in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The Political Theory of Akbar's State
There was considerable disagreement all during the reigns of Babur, Humayun, and Akbar over the
nature of monarchy and its place in Islamic society. Many Islamic scholars under Babur and Akbar
believed that the Indian monarchies were fundamentally un-Islamic. At the heart of the problem was the
fact that none of the invading monarchs were approved by the Caliph, but rather were acting solely on their
own. The majority of Islamic scholars, however, concluded that the monarch was divinely appointed by
God to serve humanity and that the Indian sultanate or the Mughal padshah was acting in the place of the
Caliph.
The political theorists and Islamic scholars surrounding Akbar were deeply influenced by Shi'a Islam. In
particular, they subscribed to the Shi'a notion that God had created a Divine Light that is passed down in an
individual from generation to generation; this individual is known as the Imam. The central theorist of
Akbar's reign was Abu'l Faz'l, who joined Akbar's court in 1574 and is considered one of the greatest
political theorists in Islamic history. He believed that the Imamate existed in the world in the form of just
rulers. The Imam, in the form of a just ruler, had secret knowledge of God, was free from sin, and was
primarily responsible for the spiritual guidance of humanity. This, to a certain extent, made the padshah
superior to the Shari'a , or Islamic law, and the Islamic scholars that interpreted it. Needless to say,
orthodox Islamic scholars bitterly opposed this political theory, but instead advocated a close partnership
between the ulama , or Islamic religious and legal scholars, and the Sultan or padshah .
Abu'l Fazl was also deeply influenced by Platonic philosophy as it had been handed down by Muslim
philosophers. In particular, he argued for Plato's concept of the "philosopher-king," who, by virtue of his
talent, wisdom, and learning, deserved to be obeyed by all others. He saw Akbar as the embodiment of the
perfect philosopher-king.
From a religious standpoint, Akbar's state was built on the principle sulahkul , or "universal tolerance."
All religons were to be equally tolerated in the administration of the state; hence the repeal of the jizya and
the pilgrimage taxes. In Akbar's theory of government, the ruler's duty is to ensure justice ('adale ) for all
the people in his care no matter what their religion.
Din-i Ilahi
Akbar took very seriously Abu'l Fazl's idea that he was a spiritual leader of his people and he devoted
considerable amounts of time and resources to sorting out the common truth in the multiple religions he
ruled over. From this concern he developed a new religion he called Din-i Ilahi , or "The Religion of God."
Believing, as Muslims do, that every faith contained the essential truth that God is unified and one thing, he
sought to find the unifying aspects of all religions. He originally began this project, long before he came up
with Din-i Ilahi , by sponsoring a series of debates at his court between representatives of the various
religions, which included Christianity (Catholic Jesuits), Hindus, Zoroastrians, and Jains. Eventually he
included members of the ulama , but the debates did not go well because of the intolerant attitude and
behaviors of the Jesuit participants who wanted to convert Akbar, not discuss the formation of a universal
religion.
Akbar was a devout and, so he said, an orthodox Muslim; still, aspects of his belief were in part derived
from Shi'a Islam. The Din-i Ilahi , the religion that would synthesize the world's religions into a single
religion, that he established was predominantly based on Islam. Like Islam, it was rationalistic and was
based on one overriding doctrine, the doctrine of tawhid : God is one thing and is singular and unified.
Akbar also elevated the notion of wahdat-al wujud , or "unity of the real," to a central religious idea in his
new religion. The world, as a creation of God, is a single and unified place that reflects the singularity and
unity of its creator. Finally, Akbar fully subscribed to the Islamic idea of the Perfect Man represented by
the life of the Prophet or by the Shi'ite Imamate. There is little question that Akbar accepted Abu'l Fazl's
notion that he was the Divine Light and was a Perfect Man. He assumed the title, "Revealer of the Internal
and Depictor of the Real," which defined his role as a disseminator of secret knowledge of God and his
function of fashioning the world in the light of this knowledge.
In addition to Islam, however, the Din-i Ilahi also contained aspects of Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and
Hinduism. The Din-i Ilahi borrowed from Jainism a respect and care for all living things, and it derived
from Zoroastrianism sun-worship and, especially, the idea of divine kingship. This latter innovation deeply
disturbed the ulama ; they regarded it as outright heresy. The notion of divine kingship, however, would
last throughout the history of the Mughal Empire.
Fatehpur Sikri
Akbar's closest and most beloved religious advisor was an Islamic Sufi mystic, Shayk Salim Chishti.
After years of having no son and heir, the birth of Jahangir seemed to fulfill one of Salim Chishti's
prophecies. In gratitude to his former religious advisor and to Allah, Akbar set about building what he
theorized as the "perfect city," one that would represent the power of his empire, the meaning of God's
message to humanity, and would ensure perfect harmony. Above all, the city would represent Islam. He
completed his new city, Fatehpur Sikri, in 1578. The city contains a mosque, a palace, a lavish and huge
garden, a worship hall for Din-i Ilahi , and, finally, a tomb for Shaykh Salim Chishti in the great mosque
itself. The city served for a while as Akbar's capital and lavish court. It was, however, placed far from
source of water and the "perfect city" and "perfect symbol of Islam" was abandoned forever shortly after
Akbar's death.
Akbar had put in place an efficient administration and a set of political relationships between the Mughal
court and local Hindu kingdoms that ensured a peaceful empire for the remainder of his life. He was
followed by three more great emperors, each with their own faults, who expanded Akbar's empire through
conquest and built Mughal culture to its highest points. Strangely, the success of both of these projects—
expansion of the empire and the development of more and more resplendent artifacts of Mughal culture—
inevitably contributed to the later decline of the Empire. The expansion of the Empire, largely carried out
by the last great Mughal conqueror, Aurangzeb, spread Mughal government and military administration too
thin. The incredible expense of the Mughal court and building projects, particularly under Shah Jahan,
impoverished the country and built up long-standing and volatile hostility towards the lavish emperors.
Jahangir
Akbar was succeeded by his favorite son, Jahangir, who ruled the empire from 1605 to 1628. Jahangir did
not pursue military conquest as forcefully as his father, but he did manage to assert Mughal rule over the
Bengal in eastern India. Akbar had claimed that any kingdom that was not expanding was in decline, but
the later decades of Akbar's rule were in general peaceful and uneventful. Akbar spent most of his time
concerned with administration, culture, the arts, and his new religion, Din-i Ilahi , rather than pursuing wars
of conquest. Jahangir seems to have inherited the attitude of the older Akbar, for he lavishly patronized the
arts: painting, architecture, philosophy, and literature, while ignoring military conquest. The period of
Jahangir's tenure as Emperor is considered the richest period of Mughal culture; Indian, Muslim, and
Western scholars have named this period, the age of Mughal splendor.
Shah Jahan
Jahangir's successor, Shah Jahan (ruled 1628-1658), inherited Akbar's obsession with the military and
wars of conquest. Although Jahangir had ruled relatively peacefully, the Empire was starting to come apart
at the accession of Shah Jahan. The new emperor threw himself into military pursuits: he put down a
Muslim rebellion in Ahmadnagar, repulsed the Portugese in the Bengal, and conquered parts of the Deccan.
By the end of his reign, the empire was again expanding and the Mughals seemed firmly in charge.
One of Shah Jahan's major innovations was moving the capital from Agra to Dehli, the traditional seat of
Muslim power. Dehli was one of the largest cities in India and its status as capital increased its wealth and
power. Through much of modern Indian history, Dehli was the most economically and politically important
cities in India.
Shah Jahan began a series of incredible, resplendent, and monumental architectural projects in Dehli. The
city itself was surrounded by sixty foot walls. In the middle of the city he built a magnificent palace for
himself itself contained within the Red Fort (so called because it was made of red sandstone), which housed
the palace as well as all the buildings associated with imperial administration. He built for himself an
extravagant throne, the Peacock Throne, all in gold and covered in rare jewels. Western historians estimate
that the throne was built at an expense of over five million dollars. In 1739, the Afghani conqueror of
Persia, invaded Hindustan, burned down Shah Jahan's palace and seized the Peacock Throne for himself—
it has remained in Iran ever since.
Shah Jahan's most famous building project, however, was the Taj Mahal in Agra. When his favorite wife,
Mumtaz Mahal ("Ornament of the Palace"), died at the age of 39 while giving birth to her fourteenth child
in 1631, the grief-stricken emperor set about building for her the most lavish tomb he could manage. The
Taj Mahal took over twenty years to build and demanded the labor of over twenty thousand men. Like all
other Muslim tombs, the primary architectural design is based on building an equivalent of the Muslim
paradise that the dead are certain to be in. Combining both Persian and Indian architectural styles, the tomb
and the grounds are meant to bring into reality the Muslim idea of Paradise.
All these lavish building projects, however, broke the bank. With the treasury depleted by his lavish
expenses and by military expeditions against Persia and Central Asia, Shah Jahan was forced to raise the
land tax from 30% to 50% of the value of the crops produced on the land. While this did not create famine,
it did bring about hardship on the poorest members of Hindu society and raised hostility against the
Mughals.
Aurangzeb
Like the Ottomans, the Mughals had no clear set of rules regarded succession to the throne. They
believed, as the Ottomans, that God would choose the most worthy successor. In reality, this produced
serious conflicts as each emperor aged. The first real succession crisis occurred near the end of Shah
Jahan's reign. The conflict between Shah Jahan's sons ended with the victory of Aurangzeb, who
imprisoned his father in 1658 (he died in 1666) and executed his older brother.
Aurangzeb would rule an incredibly long time, from 1658 to 1707. Under his tenure, the Mughal Empire
expanded to its greatest limits, largely driven by wars of conquest under Aurangzeb's leadership. In
particular, he led Mughal forces in the conquest of the Deccan, seizing first the Golkunda and Bijapur
Sultanates, and then attacking the Maratha chieftains. He annexed all the Maratha territories, but he never
managed to conquer the Marathas who continued to fight using guerilla tactics. While Aurangzeb is the last
great conqueror of Mughal history, both Muslim and Western historians agree that the Empire had grown
too large for Mughal administration.
Aurangzeb was driven by an intense Muslim piety. He insisted that the Shari'a become the law of the
land, and forbade all drinking and gambling. The Hindu majority, accustomed to living according to Hindu
law, the Dharmashastra , now found themselves facing Islamic law courts. Aurangzeb outlawed the Hindu
practice of suttee in which widows voluntarily killed themselves by throwing themselves on the funeral
pyre of their husbands. More seriously, however, was Aurangzeb's repeal of all taxes that were not
specifically authorized in Islamic law or tradition. This move depleted the Empire of much-needed revenue,
so Aurangzeb reinstituted the jizya , or tax on non-believers, that was customary in every other Islamic
state. Since the majority of Mughal subjects were Hindu, the jizya created unrest throughout the Empire.
The system began to fall apart throughout Aurangzeb's rule. Individual states rebelled against the new
policies, but the most serious opposition came from two groups: the Marathas and the Sikhs. Together,
these two, in their opposition to the Mughals and their establishment of independent kingdoms contained
within the Empire, would form the basis of Mughal government in the eighteenth century and the nature of
British colonialism.
The Sikhs
The Sikhs are one of the most prosperous and politically important religious minorities in India. The
religion itself is of comparatively recent origin—it dates from the time of Babur—but the history of its
community, called Panth , or "Path," by the faithful, is a deeply rooted aspect of Sikh life. Since its
inception, the Sikh community has been one of the major factors in Indian history. The Mughals
understood that Sikhism was a separatist movement, and by the eighteenth century, the Sikhs had
established a separate kingdom with its capital in Lahore. The Sikhs were a major force in the British
Allied army as the British gradually annexed the whole of India in the 1850's, and after Indian
Independence, the Sikh community, half of which had to flee Muslim Pakistan after partition, became
economically and politically the most significant and successful minority community in India. The Sikhs
are unique as a religious movement. Founded in the deepest spirituality and mysticism, they are a radically
egalitarian group rooted deeply in their sense of community, called "brotherhood" (khalsa ) , and history.
The khalsa is unified by one aspect: all Sikhs are disciples of the founding Gurus of the religion—the word,
"Sikh," means disciple. They are also, however, a highly militant religion and society; the community has
to be protected with the highest martial vigilance and ability. Since the seventeenth century, Sikh fighters
have been feared throughout India for their ability and sheer courage. The British, who employed them in
their army in the nineteenth century, referred to them as the greatest of the "martial races." It's an odd
mixture. On the one hand, Sikhism is one of the most deeply spiritual and profoundly mystical religions of
the world, advocating a social harmony and egalitarianism unrivalled by any other major religion, with the
possible exception of Buddhism. On the other hand, the Sikh community is a militant, warrior community,
willing to fight, sacrifice, or assassinate to protect or further the community.
Their history begins with Guru Nanak (1469-1539) who founded the religion. Much of his life Western
historians have found difficult to put together, but in Sikh history, his life is recorded in the janam sakhis
which record in small stories various events and sayings of Nanak's life. Western historians discount the
janam sakhis as reliable historical evidence, but Sikh historians argue that the stories are both historically
reliable and central to an understanding of Sikhism. Both Western and Sikh historians agree on a number
events as central to Guru Nanak's life, vision, and mission.
Born in 1469, Nanak became an accountant to the Muslim governor of Sultanpur. During this time, he
had a vision of God and the presence of God in the human soul. His vision of God demanded that he teach
people the true nature of God and the presence of God in humanity. Guru Nanak then began to journey
about the country and teach people the nature of God; these journeys make up the whole of the janamsakhis . Evenutally he established a village in the Punjab called Kartarpur for all his followers to live in.
Throughout his life, he seems to have been deeply hostile to the Mughal administration. He referred to
Babur the conqueror as "The Messenger of Death," and was profoundly troubled by the number of deaths
the Mughal conquest was built on.
Guru Nanak's teachings were written down in a series of verses. These verses make up the central
teachings of the Sikh sacred scriptures, called the Adi Granth. The core teaching of Sikhism is one truth:
that God is one God and is behind and present in all of creation, particularly in each human soul. God can
be directly apprehended by an individual by examining his or her soul; this examination is carried out by
meditating on the name of God. There is no need of any intermediary function, such as rituals, priests,
fasting, churches, mosques, or anything else. All other gods are human particularizations of the one God,
that is, they particularize one aspect of God. So all religions are both legitimate and illegitimate.
Perhaps the most radical of Guru Nanak's teachings wat the rejection of caste or class. Since all human
beings contain God within themselves, social distinction and inequality are externalizations of humanity's
sinfulness. The ideal community is one in which no social distinctions are in place at all. The early history
of Sikhism under Nanak and the first four Gurus is largely an attempt to build a class-free and caste-free
society.
The core of Guru Nanak's teachings involve three fundamental doctrines.



Nam: The Name. A direct, unmediated experience of God can be attained by meditating on God's
name (Nam); this name, according to Guru Nanak, is ek , or "One." Each human being can
overcome their sinfulness and achieve a mystical union with God by meditating on this name.
Sabad: The Word. God is revealed through the spoken word (sabad ) . The spoken word reveals
the nature and name of God as well as the methods by which one can meditate on the Name and
achieve union with god.
Guru: The Teacher. The Name and the Word are revealed through the Guru; knowledge of both
only comes through the Guru. The Sikh concept of the Guru is different from the Hindu concept,
for the Sikh Guru is synonymous with the Name and the Word. It is slightly inaccurate to say this,
but it comes close to hitting the mark: in many ways, the Guru is the voice of God speaking to
humanity.
The Guru is one of the foundational concepts of Sikhism, and before his death, Guru Nanak appointed his
successor. He was followed by nine more Gurus; the tenth and last declared the office to be discontinued
and there has been no Guru since. While Guru Nanak established the central teachings of Sikhism, each
Guru who followed added significantly to the religion (which was one aspect of the office of Guru). The
figure of the Guru gave Sikhism a stable continuity from in its earliest and most volatile period; it also
made it adaptable to changing situations. The figure of the Guru, who had the same authority as the
founding Guru, allowed the religion to change and adapt to a growing community and growing hostility
from the Mughal emperors.
The Gurus
The first four Gurus of Sikhism established many of the customs and rituals of Sikhism. The fourth Guru,
Ram Das (1574-1581) founded the city of Amritsar as a place of Sikh pilgrimage. It is to this day the most
important city in Sikh geography; the central temple of Sikhism, the Golden Temple, is located there.
The most important of the early Gurus, however, was Arjan, who led the Sikh community as Guru from
1581 to 1606. Arjan was the Guru who assembled the verses of Guru Nanak and the first four Gurus into
the anthology, Adi Granth , which became the scriptures of the Sikh community. Arjan was the first Sikh
Guru to fall afoul of the Mughal authorities, thus setting the tone for the remaining history of the Mughal
Empire. When Prince Khusrau rebelled against his father, Jahangir, Arjan helped him. Jahangir, growing
suspicious of the steady growth of the Sikh community and Arjan's increasing influence over the region,
arrested him in 1606 and tortured him to death.
This event more than any other converted the Sikh community into a militant community. Arjan was
succeeded by his son, Hargobind (1606-1644), who built the Sikh community into a military power. He
elevated martyrdom to an ideal of the religion; this was not merely dying for the faith, but being killed
while fighting for the Sikh community. At this point in history, the Sikh community begins to actively
resist the Mughal Empire and several battles are fought between the two sides.
Gobind Singh
The most militant of the Gurus was the tenth and last, Gobind Singh. Under Aurangzeb, who fanatically
tried to suppress non-Muslim practices, the Sikhs were persecuted viciously by the Mughal government. In
response, Gobind Singh transformed the Sikh community into a military community. For the Mughals and
for Muslim historians, Gobind Singh was no better than a warlord with no religious credentials. To an
extent, this is accurate. He was a powerful military general with a profound vision of transforming Sikh
society into a militaristic society—an absolute necessity for a community surrounded by a hostile and
powerful empire. Gobind Singh established the fourth and last most important doctrine of Sikhism (the first
three being the Name, the Word, and the Guru): this was the doctrine of Khalsa, or the "Brotherhood" of
Sikhs. The khalsa gives the community a deep sense of unity founded on symbolic acts. The most
important of these is an initiation rite very similar to Christian baptism. In this rite, the believer drinks
sweetened water that has been stirred with a dagger (the dagger represents the initiate's willingness to fight
for the faith and the community). After this ceremony, the initiate is given a name added on to his own
name: Singh, or "lion." This common name identifies each person as part of the community, as part of the
same family, and as willing to fight for the faith. Each Sikh male is required to wear symbolic clothing and
accoutrements to make manifest his membership in the community: these include uncut hair and a steel
dagger.
There is no question that the formation of the khalsa is the single most important event in the Sikh
experience of history. It fully unified the community and made it a force to reckon with militarily. After the
formation of the khalsa , the political and military power of the Sikhs grew tremendously. By the early
1800's, the Sikhs managed to carve out an independent kingdom in the Mughal Empire, which they retained
until the British annexations in the 1850's. Still, the Sikh military brotherhood was the most powerful
fighting force that the British used against the Mughal Empire in its closing days.
Gobind Singh declared the Guru to be officially ended at his death. From his death onwards, religious
authority has rested in the scriptures, which were renamed Guru Granth Sahib , and in the Sikh community.
To this day, the Sikh community is economically and politically very powerful and is one of the most
restive of India's minorities. It has demanded greater autonomy and has militantly defied the government.
India's Prime Minister was assassinated by her Sikh guards, and Sikh militancy has led to military
intervention, including the the invasion of the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar. To Akbar, the Sikhs were a
religious community deserving imperial support. To Jahangir, they were a growing political force that
potentially threatened the Empire. To Aurangzeb, the Sikhs were dangerous heretics to be stamped out at
any cost. To the successors of Aurangzeb, the Sikhs were a major military and social force pulling the
Empire apart. As a separate and militant community, the Sikhs still find themselves partly foreigners in
their own country, suspicious of and suspected by the dominant government.
The Europeans
The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498. Shortly thereafter, the Portuguese
established a factory at Calicut to permit the storage and transport of the valuable spices increasingly
sought by Europe. Although the Portuguese soon left this location, they established other such enterprises
along the Indian coast at Goa, Daman and Diu on the Gujarat coast. Portuguese domination of this lucrative
trade lasted less than a century while British, Dutch, and French traders filled the vacuum.
In 1627, the Mughal Emperor Jahangir granted the British East India Company permission to build a
fortified factory at the principal Mughal port of Surat. Within a decade, however, the factory at Bombay
became the headquarters of the Company. Eventually the region was divided into the three presidencies of
Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Although each of the regions funtioned independently, they were still
responsible to the Court of Directors in London. Through their efforts, the Company garnered huge profits
generated by a system of triangular trade that saw English gold and silver coins traded for Indian goods
which were then utilized in China to subsidize purchases of commodities there.
Generally, historians consider Robrt Clive's victory at the Battle of Plassey, in 1757, as being the
effective inauguration of the British Raj domination of India. It would take additional victories over the
French at Wandiwash in 1760, and Pondicherry, the following year, however, for English hegemony to be
complete. British rule in India lasted nearly two centuries, matching the longevity of the Mughal Empire.
India had been exposed to world trade for centuries, but never the exploitation it would experience at the
hands of Britain. Under the imperial control of the East India Company, an ever increasing number of small
Indian states were forced to pay subsidies to the Company for military protection. Independent states, not
annexed by the British, maintained their status by allying themselves to the colonial power and paying
tribute for their common defense.
The lessening of Company profits that resulted from corruption, as well as a need to recoup debts
generated by military efforts, produced a need for higher revenues. Peasant landowners, required to pay
their taxes in cash, increasingly had to turn to moneylenders who seized much of this land for nonpayment
of loans. This, coupled with land speculation, resulted in large-scale land ownership and a signinficant
decrease in small holdings. Additional problems resulted from extensive logging and intensive
deforestation programs begun in an effort to pacify the native population. The desired effect of ecological
destruction, then, was intended to transform the Indian peasantry into a farming society.