CHAPTER VIII
AKBAR'S FIGHT FOR HIS FATHER'S THRONE
The news of his father's death, I have said, reached Akbar as he was entering the town of Kálánaur at the head of his army. At the moment he had not heard of the revolt at Kábul, nor had his adviser, Bairám Khán, dwelt in his mind on the probability of a movement by Hemu against Delhi. In the first few days, then, it seemed as though there were but one enemy in the field, and that enemy the Sikandar Sháh, to suppress whom his father had sent him to the Punjab. That prince was still in arms, slowly retreating in the direction of Kashmír. It appeared, then, to the young Emperor and his adviser that their first business should be to secure the Punjab; that to effect that object they must follow up Sikandar Sháh. The army accordingly broke up from Kálánaur, pushed after Sikandar, and drove him to take refuge in the fort of Mánkót, in the lower ranges of the Siwáliks. As Mánkót was very strong, and tidings of untoward events alike in Hindustán and Kábul reached them, the leaders contented themselves with leaving a force to blockade that fortress, and returned to Jálandhar.
It was time indeed. Not only had Kábul revolted, but Hemu, his army increasing with every step, had taken Agra without striking a blow, and was pursuing the retreating garrison towards Delhi. A day later came the information that he had defeated the Mughal army close to Delhi, and had occupied that capital. Tardí Beg, with the remnants of the defeated force, had fled towards Sirhind.
In the multitude of counsellors there is not always wisdom. When Akbar heard of the success of Hemu, he assembled his warrior-nobles and asked their advice. With one exception they all urged him to fall back on Kábul. That he could recover his mountain-capital they felt certain, and there he could remain until events should be propitious for a fresh invasion of India. Against this recommendation Bairám Khán raised his powerful voice. He urged a prompt march across the Sutlej, a junction with Tardí Beg in Sirhind, and an immediate attempt thence against Hemu. Delhi, he said, twice gained and twice lost, must at all hazards be won back. Delhi was the decisive point, not Kábul. Master of the former, one could easily recover the latter. The instincts of Akbar coincided with the advice of his Atálik, and an immediate march across the Sutlej was directed.
Akbar and Bairám saw in fact that their choice lay between empire in Hindustán and a small kingdom in Kábul. For they knew from their adherents in India that Hemu was preparing to supplement the occupation of Delhi by the conquest of the Punjab. To be beforehand with him, to transfer the initiative to themselves, always a great matter with Asiatics, was almost a necessity to secure success. Akbar marched then from Jálandhar in October, and crossing the Sutlej, gained the town of Sirhind. There he was joined by Tardí Beg and the nobles who had been defeated by Hemu under the walls of Delhi. The circumstances which followed their arrival sowed in the heart of Akbar the first seeds of revolt against the licence of power assumed by his Atálik. Tardí Beg was a Turkí nobleman, who, in the contest between Humáyún and his brothers, had more than once shifted his allegiance, but he had finally enrolled himself as a partisan of the father of Akbar. When Humáyún died, it was Tardí Beg who by his tact and loyalty succeeded in arranging for the bloodless succession of Akbar, though a son of Kámrán was in Delhi at the time. After his defeat by Hemu, he had, it is true, in the opinion of some of the other nobles, too hastily evacuated Delhi; but an error in tactics is not a crime, and he had at least brought a powerful reinforcement to Akbar in Sirhind. But there had ever been jealousy between Bairám Khán and Tardí Beg. This jealousy was increased in the heart of Bairám by religious differences, for Bairám belonged to the Shí'áh division of the Muhammadan creed, and Tardí Beg was a Sunní. On the arrival of the latter at Sirhind, then, Bairám summoned him to his tent and had him assassinated.1 Akbar was greatly displeased at this act of violence, and Bairám did not succeed in justifying himself. It may be inferred that he excused himself on the ground that such an act was necessary, in the interests of discipline, to secure the proper subordination of the nobles.
1 Vide Dowson's Sir Henry Elliot's History of India as told by its own Historians, vol. v. page 251 and note. The only historian who states that Akbar gave a 'kind of permission' to this atrocious deed is Badauní. He is practically contradicted by Abulfazl and Ferishtá. In Blochmann's admirable edition of the Ain-í-Akbarí, p. 315, the story is repeated as told by Badauní, but the translator adds the words: 'Akbar was displeased. Bairám's hasty act was one of the chief causes of the distrust with which the Chagatái nobles looked upon him.'
Meanwhile Hemu remained at Delhi, amusing himself with the new title of Rájá which he had assumed, and engaged in collecting troops. When, however, he heard that Akbar had reached Sirhind, he despatched his artillery to Pánípat, fifty-three miles to the north of Delhi, intending to follow himself with the infantry and cavalry. But, on his side, Akbar was moving from Sirhind towards the same place. More than that, he had taken the precaution to despatch in advance a force of ten thousand horsemen, under the command of Álí Kulí Khán-í-Shaibání, the general who had fought with Tardí Beg against Hemu at Delhi, and who had condemned his too hasty retirement.2 Álí Kulí rode as far as Pánípat, and noting there the guns of Hemu's army, unsupported, he dashed upon them and captured them all. For this brilliant feat of arms he was created a Khán Zamán, by which he is henceforth known in history. This misfortune greatly depressed Hemu, for, it is recorded, the guns had been obtained from Turkey, and were regarded with great reverence. However, without further delay, he pressed on to Pánípat.
2 Blochmann's Ain-í-Akbarí, p. 319.
Akbar and Bairám were marching on to the plains of Pánípat on the morning of the 5th of November, 1556, when they sighted the army of Hemu moving towards them. The thought must, I should think, have been present in the mind of the young prince that just thirty years before his grandfather, Bábar, had, on the same plain, struck down the house of Lodí, and won the empire of Hindustán. He was confronted now by the army of the usurper, connected by marriage with that House of Sur which had expelled his own father. The battle, he knew, would be the decisive battle of the century. But, prescient as he was, he could not foresee that it would prove the starting-point for the establishment in India of a dynasty which would last for more than two hundred years, and would then require another invasion from the north, and another battle of Pánípat to strike it down; the advent of another race of foreigners from an island in the Atlantic to efface it.
Hemu had divided his army into three divisions. In front marched the five hundred elephants, each bestridden by an officer of rank, and led by Hemu, on his own favourite animal, in person. He dashed first against the advancing left wing of the Mughals and threw it into disorder, but as his lieutenants failed to support the attack with infantry, he drew off, and threw himself on the centre, commanded by Bairám in person. That astute general had directed his archers, in anticipation of such an attack, to direct their arrows at the faces of the riders. One of these arrows pierced the eye of Hemu, who fell back in his howdah, for the moment insensible. The fall of their leader spread consternation among the followers. The attack slackened, then ceased. The soldiers of Bairám soon converted the cessation into a rout. The elephant on which Hemu rode, without a driver—for the driver had been killed3—made off instinctively towards the jungle. A nobleman, a follower and distant relative of Bairám, Sháh Kulí Mahrám-i-Bahárlu, followed the elephant, not knowing who it was who rode it. Coming up with it and catching hold of the rope on its neck, he discovered that it was the wounded Hemu who had become his captive.4 He led him to Bairám. Bairám took him to the youthful prince, who throughout the day had shown courage and conduct, but who had left the ordering of the battle to his Atálik. The scene that followed is thus told by contemporary writers. Bairám said to his master, as he presented to him the wounded general: 'This is your first war: prove your sword on this infidel, for it will be a meritorious deed.' Akbar replied: 'He is now no better than a dead man; how can I strike him? If he had sense and strength I would try my sword (that is I would fight him).' On Akbar's refusal, Bairám himself cut down the prisoner.
3 This is the generally received story, though Abulfazl states that the driver, to save his own life, betrayed his master. Elliot, vol. v. p. 253, note.
4 Compare Elliot, vol. v. p. 253, and Blochmann's Ain-í-Akbarí, p. 359.
Bairám sent his cavalry to pursue the enemy to Delhi, giving them no respite, and the next day, marching the fifty-three miles without a halt, the Mughal army entered the city. Thenceforward Akbar was without a formidable rival in India. He occupied the position his grandfather had occupied thirty years before. It remained to be seen whether the boy would use the opportunity which his father and grandfather had alike failed to grasp. To show the exact nature of the task awaiting him, I propose to devote the next chapter to a brief survey of the condition of India at the time of his accession, and in that following to inquire how the boy of fourteen was likely to benefit by the tutelage of Bairám Khán.