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Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

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Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#21

Post by oa335 »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #6

The unwavering focus on the Mughal empire by the West, is a curious phenomenon. Is it because they built highly visible monuments like the Taj? Mughals didn’t even reach their zenith until 1680s and were vastly reduced by 1730s. The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India. The wonders of Bijapur, Golconda and Hampi would put 16th CE Delhi to shame.

I think it’s because they were they were the dominant power at the point when westerners began dominating the area. We see a similar fascination with Aztec, Iroquois, etc. westerners (or really all audiences of history) need to sense their presence in the story, even if it’s “just around the corner”.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#23

Post by SilverElfin »

Wait so these people invaded and took over India? For what reason - Land? Religion? Feuds? And it seems like they were displacing another Islamic colonial power that was already there? Weird to have this article discuss battles but skim over the context.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#24

Post by HexDecOctBin »

catlover76 wrote: post #8
HexDecOctBin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abrahamic societies will naturally be sympathetic to the acts of other Abrahamic peoples and antagonistic to pagan and polytheistic cultures, especially if the non-Abrahamic culture rejects the Abrahamic proselytising that purports to "civilise the heathens" as many Indic societies did. To expect anything else under some expectation of fairness or empathy is nothing but childish naïveté.

The ignorance of Western people to think "Abrahamic bad", "Eastern good" is very aggravating. Modern times have given us plenty of violent Bhuddist and Hindu extremism right before our eyes, for example. And it isn't the first time in history for either of those either. No religion ends up being special, because, unfortunately, humans are fundamentally misbegotten. Not to mention the ignorance in this thread of the b…

> "Abrahamic bad", "Eastern good"

Is that what you read in my comment? Because that is not what I wrote. People sympathise with those who are similar to them. Europeans sympathise with Ukrainians, Muslims with Palestinians, Abrahamics with other Abrahamics. How you got from that to your "Abrahamic bad", I can't even fathom.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#25

Post by keiferski »

SilverElfin wrote: post #23

Wait so these people invaded and took over India? For what reason - Land? Religion? Feuds? And it seems like they were displacing another Islamic colonial power that was already there? Weird to have this article discuss battles but skim over the context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turco-Mongol_tradition

Read that and you’ll get the context.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#26

Post by derektank »

alephnerd wrote: post #15
FlyingSnake wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True that. There is no interest in objectively studying history in India. It is just a tool to further the agendas of various parties involved.

Read what I wrote, and reread it again. I don't think you understood what I said. What I'm positing is that the crux of the issue with the Western crop of South Asia is that it is hagiographic in nature, not quantitative. My argument is an institutionalist and political economy approach to studying historical and contemporary South Asia solves most of the problem. This was what John Fairbanks argued back in the 20th…

In your view, why is the academic work being done in Indian institutions so inaccessible in the US and the rest of the anglosphere? Naively, I would have assumed a lot of this work would be conducted in English, or at the very least translated into English for the sake of international conferences, journals, etc.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#27

Post by FlyingSnake »

sheepscreek wrote: post #18
FlyingSnake wrote: post #6

The unwavering focus on the Mughal empire by the West, is a curious phenomenon. Is it because they built highly visible monuments like the Taj? Mughals didn’t even reach their zenith until 1680s and were vastly reduced by 1730s. The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India. The wonders of Bijapur, Golconda and Hampi would put 16th CE Delhi to shame.

My very personal take (which can be completely wrong) is that few dynasties were comparable to the vastness of Mughals in this particular era. All the Indian princely states were a lot smaller by comparison, in this time period at least. One that stands out to me is The Sikh Empire 1799–1849 that managed to rule much of North India + current day Afghanistan and Pakistan but for a relatively short period of time. The…

I have nothing against Mughals, they had a great impact on the subcontinent history esp during 17th century. However the center of gravity was the Indian Ocean Spice trade network which was the South. This is what the Portuguese and various EICs wanted to connect to. We have records of the vast riches of these Deccan cities from these travelers.

> few dynasties were comparable to the vastness of Mughals

The Mauryas perhaps ruled a much larger area than Mughals. Khalji, Tughlaqs, Satvahanas, and Marathas also ruled over vast landscapes, but they are not much known outside India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_Empire#/media/File:Ind...

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#28

Post by 19f191ty »

FlyingSnake wrote: post #6

The unwavering focus on the Mughal empire by the West, is a curious phenomenon. Is it because they built highly visible monuments like the Taj? Mughals didn’t even reach their zenith until 1680s and were vastly reduced by 1730s. The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India. The wonders of Bijapur, Golconda and Hampi would put 16th CE Delhi to shame.

One reason is financial. At its peak the Mughal empire was the largest economy in the world. Estimated to be about 25% of global GDP. That's close to the position US occupies in the modern world.

Re: Panipat: The rise of the Mughals

#29

Post by anon291 »

sheepscreek wrote: post #18
FlyingSnake wrote: post #6

The unwavering focus on the Mughal empire by the West, is a curious phenomenon. Is it because they built highly visible monuments like the Taj? Mughals didn’t even reach their zenith until 1680s and were vastly reduced by 1730s. The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India. The wonders of Bijapur, Golconda and Hampi would put 16th CE Delhi to shame.

My very personal take (which can be completely wrong) is that few dynasties were comparable to the vastness of Mughals in this particular era. All the Indian princely states were a lot smaller by comparison, in this time period at least. One that stands out to me is The Sikh Empire 1799–1849 that managed to rule much of North India + current day Afghanistan and Pakistan but for a relatively short period of time. The…

The marathas were much larger and in a lot of ways a lot more interesting than the Mughals for a variety of reasons. The fact that you believe that that Indian princely states were smaller is... Bizarre and ahistoric. England's rule over India only became a sure thing when England defeated the Marathas. Until then it was just piecemeal colonization. The fact that you are discussing the Raj without mention of the Marathas underscores the very concern that was brought up that Indian history is highly editorialized

Part of the reason is that -- in the popular Western imagining -- India really refers to the Gangetic plain. Any book on India mainly attributes Gangetic culture to 'India' whole completely ignoring the south, west, east and north east all of which have unique cultural traits.

As someone of Indian ethnicity, this was extremely confusing to me because when we read about Indian history in books and people would ask me, I would literally have no idea. My particular ethnic group lived along the coast of the western ghats and greatly valued the ocean and seafaring... Almost completely the opposite of the Gangetic peoples. This bias is prevalent everywhere because, despite these individual cultures having enough population to be a country in their own right. They are marginalized by popular history.

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