Rulers of India: Akbar

by G. B. Malleson

Whilst his own palace was building one of his wives became pregnant, and Akbar conveyed her to the dwelling of the holy man. When, somewhat later, he had conquered Gujarát he gave to the favoured town the prefix 'Fatehpur' (City of victory). The place has since been known in history by the joint names of Fatehpur-Síkrí. Towards the end of the year his wife, whom he had sent to reside at Síkrí, gave birth to a son at the house of the saint, who is known in history as the Emperor Jahángír, though called after the saint by the name of Salím. His mother was a Rájpút princess of Jodhpur. To commemorate this event Akbar made of Fatehpur-Síkrí a permanent royal abode; built a stone fortification round it, and erected some splendid edifices. He then made another pilgrimage on foot to the mausoleum of the saint on the Ajmere hill. Having paid his devotions he proceeded to Delhi.

Early the following year Akbar marched into Rájpútána and halted at Nagaur, in Jodhpur. There he received the homage of the son of the Rájá of that principality, then the most powerful in Rájpútána, and that of the Rájá of Bíkáner and his son. As a tribute of his appreciation of the loyalty of the latter, Akbar took the Rájá's daughter in marriage. He amused himself for some time at Nagaur in hunting the wild asses which at that time there abounded, and then proceeded to Dipálpur in the Punjab. There he held a magnificent durbar, and then, with the dawn of the new year, proceeded to Lahore. After settling the affairs of the Punjab, he returned to Fatehpur-Síkrí with the intention of devoting the coming year to the conquest of Gujarát.

The province of Gujarát in Western India included, in the time of Akbar, the territories and districts of Surat, Broach, Kaira, Ahmadábád, a great part of what is now Baroda, the territories now represented by the Mahi Kántha and Rewá Kántha agencies, the Panch Mahas, Pálanpur, Rádhanpur, Balisna, Cambay, Khandeah, and the great peninsula of Káthiáwár. This agglomeration of territories had for a long time had no legitimate master. Parcelled out into districts, each of which was ruled by a Muhammadan noble alien to the great bulk of the population, it had been for years the scene of constant civil war, the chiefs grinding the peasantry to obtain the means wherewith to obtain the supreme mastery. Sometimes, fired by information of the weakness of an adjoining province, the chiefs would combine to make temporary raids. The result was that Gujarát had become the focus of disorder. The people were oppressed, and the petty tyrants who ruled over them were bent only on seeking advantages at the expense of others. Akbar had long felt the results of this anarchy, and he resolved now to put an end to it for ever.

The expedition of Akbar to Gujarát is the most famous military exploit of his reign. He was resolved that there should be no mistake either in its plan or in its execution. For the first time since he had become ruler of the greater part of India he felt secure as to the behaviour, during the probable duration of the expedition, of the conduct of his nobles and his vassals. He set out from Fatehpur-Síkrí at the head of his army in September, 1572, and marching by Sanganer, eighteen miles south of Jaipur, reached Ajmere the middle of October. There he stayed two days to visit the mausoleum of the saint, then, having sent an advanced guard of ten thousand horse to feel the way, followed with the bulk of the army, and marched on Nagaur, seventy-five miles to the north-east of Jodhpur. On reaching Nagaur a courier arrived with the information that a son, later known as Prince Dányál, had been born to him. He spent there fourteen days in arranging for the supplies of his army, then pushing on, reached Patan, on the Saraswatí, in November, and Ahmadábád early in the following month. In the march between the two places he had received the submission of the chief who claimed to be supreme lord of Gujarát, but whose authority was barely nominal. At Ahmadábád, then the first city in Gujarát, Akbar was proclaimed Emperor of Western India.

There remained, however, to be dealt with many of the chieftains, all unwilling to renounce the authority they possessed. Amongst these were the rulers of Broach, of Baroda, and of Surat. No sooner, then, had the Emperor arranged matters at Ahmadábád for the good order of the country, than he set out for Cambay, and reached it in five days. There, we are told by the historians, he gazed for the first time on the sea. After a stay there of nearly a week, he marched, in two days, to Baroda. There he completed his arrangements for the administration of the country, appointing Ahmadábád to be the capital, and nominating a governor from amongst the nobles who had accompanied him from Agra. Thence, too, he despatched a force to secure Broach and Surat. Information having reached him that the chief of Broach had murdered the principal adherent of the Mughal cause in that city, and had then made for the interior, passing within fifteen miles of Baroda, Akbar dashed after him with what troops he had in hand, and on the second night came in sight of his camp at Sársa, on the further side of a little river.

Akbar had then with him but forty horsemen, and, the river being fordable, he endeavoured to conceal his men until reinforcements should arrive. These came up in the night to the number of sixty, and with his force, now increased to a total number of a hundred, Akbar forded the river to attack ten times their number. The rebel leader, instead of awaiting the attack in the town, made for the open, to give a better chance to his preponderating numbers. Akbar carried the town with a rush, and then dashed in pursuit. But the country was intercepted by lanes, bordered on both sides by cactus hedges, and the horsemen of Akbar were driven back into a position in which but three of them could fight abreast, the enemy being on either side of the cactus hedges. The Emperor was in front of his men, having by his side the gallant Rájpút prince, Rájá Bhagwán Dás of Jaipur, whose sister he had married, and the Rájá's nephew and destined successor, Mán Singh, one of the most brilliant warriors of the day. The three were in the greatest danger, for the enemy made tremendous efforts to break in upon them. But the cactus hedges, hitherto a bar to their formation, now proved a defence which the enemy could not pass. And when Bhagwán Dás had slain his most prominent adversary with his spear, and Akbar and the nephew had disposed of two others, the three took advantage of the momentary confusion of the enemy to charge forward, and aided by the desperate gallantry of their men, roused by the danger of their sovereign to extraordinary exertions, to force them to flight. The followers of the rebel chief, sensible that they were engaged in a losing cause, displayed nothing like the firmness and persistency of the soldiers of Akbar. They dropped off as they could find the opportunity, and the rebel chief himself, abandoned by his following, made his way, as best he could, past Ahmadábád and Dísa to Sirohí in Rájpútána.

Broach meanwhile had fallen, and there remained only Surat. Against this town, so well known to English traders in the days of his son and grandson, Akbar marched in person on his return from the expedition just related. Against the breaching material employed in those days Surat was strong. But the Emperor pressed the siege with vigour, and after a patient progress of a month and seventeen days, the garrison, reduced to extremities, surrendered. He remained at Surat long enough to complete the settlement of the affairs of the province of Gujarát, and then began his return-march to Agra. He arrived there on the 4th of June, 1573, having been absent on the expedition about nine months.

Whilst Akbar had been besieging Surat, the rebel chief whom he had defeated at Sársa, and who had fled to Sirohí, had been bestirring himself to make mischief. Joined by another powerful malcontent noble he advanced against Pátan, met near that place the Emperor's forces, and had almost beaten them in the field, when, his own troops dispersing to plunder, the Mughal forces rallied, pierced the enemy's centre, and turned defeat into victory. The news of this achievement reached Akbar whilst he was still before Surat. The rebel leader, still bent on doing all the mischief in his power, made his way through Rájpútána to the Punjab, encountering two or three defeats on his way, but always escaping with his life, and plundering, as he marched, Pánípat, Sonpat, and Karnál. In the Punjab he was encountered by the imperial troops, was defeated, and, after some exciting adventures, was wounded by a party of fishermen near Múltán, taken prisoner, and died from the effect of his wound. He was a good riddance, for he was a masterful man. It may here be added that during this year the Mughal troops attempted, but failed to take the strong fortress of Kángra, in the Jálandhar Duáb. The besiegers had reduced the garrison to extremities when they were called off by the invasion of the adventurer whose death near Múltán I have recorded. Kángra did not fall to the Mughal till the reign of the son of Akbar.

Akbar had quitted the province of Gujarát believing that the conquest of the province was complete, and that he had won by his measures the confidence and affection of the people. But he had not counted sufficiently on the love of rule indwelling in the hearts of men who have once ruled. He had not been long at Agra, then, before the dispossessed lordlings of the province began to raise forces, and to harass the country. Determined to nip the evil in the bud, Akbar prepared a second expedition to Western India, and despatching his army in advance, set out, one Sunday morning in September, riding on a swift dromedary, to join it. Without drawing rein, he rode seventy miles to Toda, nearly midway between Jaipur and Ajmere. On the morning of the third day he reached Ajmere, paid his usual devotions at the tomb of the saint; then, mounting his horse in the evening, continued his journey, and joined his army at Páli on the road to Dísa. Near Pátan he was joined by some troops collected by his lieutenants, who had awaited the arrival of their sovereign to advance.