Babur's conquest, Humayun's struggles, and the Sur interregnum, 1526-1556
Babur: Central Asian Background and Rise
The Basics
Babur was born into a line that joined two of Central Asia's greatest conquering houses. On his father's side he descended from Timur, who had united Iran and Turan in the fourteenth century. On his mother's side he descended from Chingiz Khan, through Chingiz Khan's son Chagatai. This dual Timurid-Chingizid inheritance gave Babur great prestige. But the Timurids also had a habit of splitting territory among many heirs. This kept their power divided and fragile.
By 1526, Ibrahim Lodi ruled Delhi but faced revolt among his Afghan nobles. Some had already invited Babur into Punjab. A clash between the two became unavoidable. Babur marched towards Delhi to force the issue.
Babur arrived in Hindustan in 1526 facing armies that fought in older styles: large infantry and elephant forces, with cavalry charges but no coordinated use of guns. Gunpowder itself was not new to India; small firearms had existed earlier. What Babur brought was a new way of combining weapons and tactics, learned from his years fighting in Central Asia and from contact with Ottoman Turkish methods.
Babur wrote his memoir in Chaghatai Turkish, his mother tongue. It is known as the Baburnama, also called Tuzuk-i-Babri. Persian was the usual court language of the time, but Babur chose Turkish instead. The memoir is regarded as a classic of Turkish prose. During Akbar's reign, Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khana translated it into Persian. This made it widely accessible to the Mughal court and to later readers.
Humayun succeeded Babur at Agra in December 1530 at the age of 23. The administration was not consolidated and finances were weak. The Afghans, defeated but not destroyed at Panipat, still hoped to expel the Mughals. Following Timurid custom, Humayun shared power with his brothers. Kamran held Kabul and Qandhar, Hindal held Alwar and Mewat, and Askari held Sambhal. Kamran soon marched on Lahore and Multan and occupied them. Humayun, unwilling to start a civil war, let him keep these lands in return for his loyalty. This set a pattern of divided authority that weakened the new empire from within.
After Babur's death, Sher Khan, whose birth name was Farid, had already made himself master of Bihar. His father Hasan Khan was a jagirdar (a holder of land assigned in lieu of salary) of Sasaram in Bihar. Sher Khan defeated the Bengal ruler at the Battle of Surajgarh and extracted a huge indemnity. He built a large army with subsidies from Bahadur Shah of Gujarat. He kept professing loyalty to the Mughals while quietly planning to replace them.
Sher Shah Suri's Administrative and Revenue Reforms
The Basics
Sher Shah ruled for only about five years, from 1540 to his death in 1545. In this short time he rebuilt the administrative machinery of north India on firmer foundations than any ruler since the Delhi Sultanate. His reforms were not wholly new. He continued many Sultanate-period institutions but applied them with unusual discipline and personal supervision, since he distrusted leaving too much power with ministers.
After his defeats at Chausa and Kannauj, Humayun spent years as a wandering exile. From around 1540, he moved through Sindh for about two and a half years, trying various schemes to recover his kingdom.