Battle of Plassey

Robert Clive of the British East India Company was the winner of the Battle of Plassey, 70 miles north of Calcutta in 1757. At the head of 1,000 English and 2,000 Indian (sepoy) soldiers and with eight pieces of artillery, he routed the 50,000 soldiers and 50 French-manned cannons of his opponent Siraj-ud-Daula, the governor, or nawab, of Bengal. This victory established British primacy in Bengal.

With the Mughal (Mogul, Moghul) Empire in India in rapid decline in the 18th century, Great Britain and France became competitors for control of the subcontinent. Their rivalry was played out by employees of their respective East India Companies and when the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) and Seven Years’ War (1756–63) pitted Britain and France on opposing sides, India became a theater of war.

France won the first round when its agent in India Joseph Dupleix captured the British outpost Madras in 1746 and then extended French influence in the Indian state of Hyderabad.

However Dupleix was outmatched by a brilliant young Briton named Robert Clive, who decided to expand British power to the Bay of Bengal and the Ganges River delta during the Seven Years’ War. First he took revenge on the unpopular Mughal governor of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daula, for the death of many Britons in the infamous “Black Hole of Calcutta.”

He recaptured Calcutta in 1756, then moved upriver and captured the French fort at Chandernagore in the following year. In the next phase of the conflict, the French supported Siraj-ud-Daula, whose oppressive rule had alienated his Muslim noblemen, including the powerful Mir Jaffa. On the other hand Britain had the support of Bengali businessmen and bankers.

These rivalries culminated in the Battle of Plassey, June 23, 1757, which pitted Clive’s 1,000 European soldiers and 2,000 Indian sepoys (no cavalry) and eight cannons against Siraj-ud-Daula’s 50,000 combined infantrymen and cavalry and 50 cannons manned by French soldiers. Mir Jaffa’s neutrality and Siraj-ud-Daula’s flight in the midst of battle caused demoralization and the rout of the latter’s army. Clive lost only 22 European soldiers; fewer than 50 were wounded.

Clive’s victory was a turning point in Indian history. French influence was eliminated from Bengal, and at the end of the Seven Years’ War, from all of India. Britain’s client Mir Jaffa was invested the new governor of Bengal by the Mughal emperor in Delhi, who in turn granted landholder’s rights of 882 square miles around Calcutta to the British East India Company.

Clive remained in Bengal for two years to organize the new administration. In 1759, the Mughal emperor granted land tax rights of all Bengal and Bihar provinces to the British East India Company and made Clive the highest-ranking noble of the Mughal Empire.

The British government made Clive baron of Plassey. Events that developed after Clive’s victory at the Battle of Plassey would change the British East India Company from a trading company to a governing power and draw Britain to conquer the whole of India. Thus the Battle of Plassey was a historic turning point, and its principal participant Robert Clive an empire builder.

Battles of Panipat

Battles of Panipat

There were three battles fought at Panipat, located 70 miles northwest of Delhi, the strategically important city in northern India and capital of many dynasties. The first one was in 1526 between Ibrahim Lodi, Afghan ruler of the Kingdom of Delhi, and Babur from Ferghana in Central Asia via Afghanistan.

The second battle was fought between Akbar’s (grandson of Babur) forces and those of the grandson of Sher Shah (who had driven Humayun, son of Babur, from India). The third battle took place in 1761 when the Afghans under Ahmad Shah defeated the Maratha Confederacy.

First Battle of Panipat

A fugitive from his birthplace Ferghana, Babur led an army variously cited as 12,000 or 25,000 men from Afghanistan into India and met Ibrahim, ruler of the Lodi dynasty (originally from Afghanistan) that ruled north-central India.


Ibrahim headed a much larger army reputedly 100,000 strong with either 100 or 1,000 elephants. At Panipat, Babur prepared for battle by lashing together 700 carts with leather thongs to form a barricade and placing his matchlock men behind them.

Just as Ibrahim’s charging troops were stopped at the barricade and mowed down by the gunfire of Babur’s men, they were set upon on both flanks by arrows from Babur’s cavalry. In the ensuing rout, 20,000 of Ibrahim’s men died, he among them. Babur ordered Ibrahim buried where he fell; his tomb still stands at the site.

That afternoon Babur sent his eldest son, Humayun, to the Lodi capital at Agra to secure its treasures while he marched to Delhi, where he proclaimed himself emperor, founding the Mughal (Mogul, Moghul) dynasty in India.

Second Battle of Panipat

Akbar died in 1530 soon after establishing the Mughal Empire in northern India. His son and successor was Humayun, whose heavy drinking and opium eating habits rendered him unfit to rule. Driven out of India by an able general of Afghan origin, Sher Shah, he found refuge in Persia.

It was only after Sher Shah’s death and with his descendants fighting among one another for the succession that Humayun was able to return to India in 1555, with Persian aid, to restore his fortunes. He died a year later.

On November 5, 1556, Akbar, Humayun’s 13-year-old son, and his mentor, Bairan Khan, met the forces of Hemu, a powerful Hindu general, at the second Battle of Panipat. Hemu was injured, captured, and executed. With that victory Akbar entered Delhi. This battle resurrected the fortune of the Mughals in India.

Third Battle of Panipat

Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) was a devout Muslim and persecutor of Hindus. Hindus of the Deccan rallied around a charismatic leader named Shivaji who was proclaimed king of the Marathas in 1674.

His movement continued to gain momentum after his death in 1680, reaching its zenith in the mid-18th century when the Marathas Confederacy controlled lands extending from Hyderabad in the south to Punjab in the north. But the quest for a restored Hindu empire in India came to an end in 1761 when the Marathas were badly defeated by Afghan forces under Shah Durani at the Third Battle of Panipat.

Although the Afghans retreated from India, the Maratha Confederacy never recovered. The British East India Company was the beneficiary and gradually supplanted the by-now-defunct Mughal Empire and the warring Indian factions.

Mughal Empire

Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire in India was founded by Babur, also known as Zahir-ud-din Mohammed, born in 1482 in Ferghana in Central Asia, a descendant of Timurlane. With Central Asia in turmoil in 1501, Babur fled his native Ferghana and gained the great city of Samarkand, but he could not hold it. He next captured Kabul in 1504, with the intention of creating his own kingdom in Afghanistan.

However, for Babur, Afghanistan was only the stepping stone to the greatest conquest of all: India. For seven centuries, India had been the ultimate prize for all Muslim conquerors from Central Asia, and Babur shared that dream.

In 1505, Babur staged his first raid into northern India, then controlled by Sikander, one of the Lodi dynasty of Muslim sultans in Delhi. The Lodi dynasty had also come to India from Afghanistan. Surprisingly, Sikander took no real action against Babur’s incursion, a fact that was not lost on Babur in the future.


The troublesome Afghan tribes delayed Babur’s plans until 1526, when he invaded India in force. He met the Lodi sultan Ibrahim outside Delhi at the Battle of Panipat. Although Babur commanded only 12,000 men and Ibrahim about 100,000 and 1,000 elephants, Babur used his men well, armed with matchlock muskets and cannon, and won the battle. The Lodi forces were defeated and Ibrahim killed. Establishing his capital in Delhi, Babur then conquered most of northern India, establishing the Mughal (Mogul, Moghul) Empire.

Babur died in 1530 and his son Humayun succeeded him as the second Mughal emperor. However within 10 years Humayun lost his empire. He fled to Persia, then ruled by the Safavid dynasty. This time of exile instilled in Humayun and his son a profound respect for Persian ways so that when they conquered India again their rule was influenced by Persian culture. Persian would become the official language for Mughal India.

In 1555, Humayun raised another army in Persia with the support of Persian shah Tahmasp I and set out to reconquer his kingdom from Sher Shah, who now ruled in northern India. By August 1555, he had reentered Delhi in triumph but died in 1556. His son Akbar, then only 13, took power in 1556.

But Akbar won a decisive victory at the Second Battle of Panipat and became the padishah and undisputed ruler of the realm. Having crushed his Afghan and Hindu foes at Panipat, Akbar moved to consolidate his rule of Afghanistan and northern India.

Akbar began to implement a aktivitas of cooptation with his Hindu subjects to neutralize the threat of a Hindu uprising against his rule. He married a Hindu princess and his son and successor Jahangir was born of this marriage.

Hindus were invited to join the bureaucracy that governed his empire and became an important part of Mughal administration. Akbar wisely allowed the Indian princely states a large degree of autonomy so long as they recognized him as their padishah.

Religious Tolerance

Akbar did not impose the shariah, or Muslim law, upon his Hindu subjects. Instead, he limited the application of the shariah to the Muslim community within his kingdom and let the Hindus retain their own laws.

Exposed to a different religious tradition, including Zoroastrianism and Jainism, Akbar began perhaps the greatest intellectual exploration in Indian history. Studying all the faiths, including the Roman Catholicism that had been brought to Goa by the Portuguese, Akbar created a new religion named Din-i Ilahi, or “the Religion of God.” It was nothing less than an effort to draw together all the religions in his empire into one faith, which he hoped all would accept under his leadership. However this endeavor failed.

In 1605, Akbar died, leaving a legacy of stability to his son, Jahangir. Jahangir did not pursue a military policy but did cement his position in Bengal in the east, probably to gain control of the maritime trade.

In 1614, the Rajput king, Man Singh, who had fought Akbar to a stalemate at Haldhigati in 1576, made his submission to Jahangir. Toward the end of his reign, Jahangir’s son, who would reign as Shah Jahan, rose in rebellion against his father, a ekspresi dominan that would weaken the Mughal dynasty.

When Shah Jahan became emperor in 1628, he attempted to return to the days of military glory of Akbar and engaged in campaigns in the south. In 1658, Jahan’s son Aurangzeb seized power and imprisoned his father, who would live in captivity until his death in 1666. During a reign that would last until 1707, Aurangzeb waged many wars, driving the Mughals to conquer much of the Indian subcontinent.

He conquered the rest of the Deccan region, seizing the sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda, which had achieved virtual independence during the reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan. Aurangzeb turned his armies against the martial Hindu called Mavalhas and conquered their lands after an exhuastive campaign.

While Aurangzeb was extending the Mughal domains to their greatest territorial extent, he was also fatally changing the unified society that Akbar had tried to create. Aurangzeb was a pious, extremist Muslim and returned to the traditional Muslim doctrine that Muslim shariah law should extend to all subjects of an Islamic realm.

He persecuted Hindus. As a result, rebellions started to break out. Aurangzeb’s religious intolerance also made mortal enemies out of the Sikhs, who had peacefully followed the teachings of Guru Nanah from the 16th century.

Their ninth guru, Tegh Bahadur, was brought before Aurangzeb on a charge of blasphemy for preaching a non-Muslim faith and put to death. Sikhs under their 10th guru Govind would retreat to the Punjab to form their own martial kingdom to defend themselves against Aurangzeb’s holy war.

At the same time, the French and British East India Companies had established trading posts in India. Taking advantage of the growing unrest in the Mughal Empire, they would make their first inroads into the Indian subcontinent. When Aurangzeb died in 1707, another succession crisis would further weaken the great Mughal Empire, already in decline, largely the result of his policy decisions.

Toward the end of his life, Aurangzeb wrote, “I am forlorn and destitute, and misery is my ultimate lot.” In a very real sense, he had also penned the obituary for the Mughal Empire.

Jesuits in Asia

Jesuits in Asia

The missionary enterprise of the Jesuits in Asia is comprehensible only against the background of three foundational principles. The first two are from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the order: Following Jesus as a Jesuit entails missionary outreach, and being a missionary implies cultural adaptation because Jesus adapted himself to the human condition.

The third theological principle is that missionary activity should reflect the shared life of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) as documented in the Formula of the Institute and Constitutions.

The nascent Society of Jesus was yet to receive full papal approbation (September 27, 1540) when a request arrived from João III the Pious, king of Portugal, for Jesuits to work in the Portuguese domains of Asia. Ignatius of Loyola chose two of his first companions, Simão Rodrigues and Nicolas Bobadilla, for the mission.


However, before they could leave for Portugal, Bobadilla fell ill. Providentially, Francis Xavier was then in Rome and Ignatius decided to send him instead. The king of Portugal, impressed by the two Jesuits, decided to keep Rodrigues in Lisbon. Xavier, accompanied by Micer Paul, a secular priest recently admitted into the Society of Jesus, and Francisco Mansilhas, a Jesuit aspirant, set sail for India.

They finally reached Goa in India on May 6, 1542. Xavier would labor in Asia for 10 years as a missionary, baptizing and catechizing the inhabitants of the Fishery Coast of southern India; Malacca on the western coast of the Malay Peninsula; the Moluccas, also known as the “Spice Islands”; and Japan.

While in Japan, Xavier heard about China and resolved to preach the Christian message there. While awaiting Chinese government permission to land, he died on the island of Sancian in 1552, unable to fulfill his dream of converting the Chinese to Christ.

That dream would be partially realized not much later as thousands of Jesuits of various nationalities followed Xavier in the Asian missionary enterprise. Missions were conducted in West Asia, for example, with the appointment of Jesuits as papal legates in establishing relations with the Maronites and in negotiating church unity with Orthodox, Nestorian, and Monophysite Churches. But the majority of Jesuit missionaries worked farther afield, chiefly in South Asia and in East Asia.

After India, Jesuits would find themselves laboring in places in peninsular (Malacca, Indochina) and insular (Indonesia, the Philippines) Southeast Asia, and in Japan and China. The primary goal was of course the spread of Christianity, but the diverse cultures who populated the huge continent called for various missionary strategies and tactics.

The chief architect of the Asian missionary enterprise was an Italian Jesuit named Alessandro Valignano. He called for cultural adaptation to Asian ways where this was legitimate and did not compromise the Christian message.

Perhaps the most significant cultural adaptation was the use of Asian languages in the preaching of Christ and teaching of doctrine. They also extended this cultural adaptation to the manner of dress, civil customs, and ordinary life of their target audience.

His principles were put to good use by such as Matteo Ricci and Michele Ruggieri. Aside from exploiting European sciences and arts of their day to gain entrance into the educated elite of China, Ricci and his companions decided to study the Confucian classics esteemed by the Mandarin ruling class.

In a similar way, the Jesuits working in the south of India decided on a two-pronged strategy that enabled them to reach out to both the higher and lower social castes, tailoring their manner of living to gain initial acceptance from their respective audiences.

“Dressed in cloth of red-ochre, a triangular sandal mark on his forehead, high wooden sandals on his feet,” Roberto de Nobili lived in the manner of a Hindu man of God (sannyasi), learned Sanskrit, and memorized the Vedas so that he could share the message of Christ and his church with the Indian people.

In other Asian places not as highly developed in civilization and culture, the Jesuits were animated by the same principles of cultural adaptation. In the Philippines, they creatively replicated strategies that were used elsewhere.

Because local populations were dispersed far and wide, the Jesuits encouraged people to set up permanent communities in planned settlements (a method they used in Latin America called reduction), thus laying the foundation of many towns and cities that exist today. They also set up schools wherever these were needed and constructed churches and other buildings that transformed European architectural designs to suit Asian artistic sensibilities.

They learned the various local languages and dialects and produced grammars, vocabularies, and dictionaries, thus systematizing the study not just of the languages themselves but of the cultures of the peoples that they were seeking to convert. They wrote books that mapped the ethnography of Asia and were keen observers of Asian ways and traditions, including their interaction with the natural environment.

The Jesuit missionary enterprise in Asia met with obstacles along the way. Some of these obstacles arose from European ethnocentric fears and prejudices that burdened the church of their times. Cultural adaptation was denounced as syncretism, and the missionaries themselves were often at loggerheads on the appropriate strategies to use in mission work.

It was not always clear for example whether Chinese categories used to translate Latin ones were without ambiguity, but a lack of understanding, trust, and generosity created a poisoned atmosphere that did not produce the requisite witness to Christian charity.

The distance between Rome and Asia proved to be not only a geographical dilema but also a psychological barrier that prevented church authorities from being more sympathetic to the needs of the missionary enterprise in Asia. Furthermore the political, economic, and social burden imposed by Portuguese and Spanish royal patronage of the church in the Indies proved too heavy at times to carry.

Rome itself would be forced to set up the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith in 1622 to loosen the viselike grip of the European monarchs who wished to manipulate the missionary enterprise for political and economic gain. Also, Jesuits allowed themselves to be caught in political controversies of their host countries, thus inevitably creating enemies for themselves among members of the ruling classes.

In 1759 the Portuguese king expelled all Jesuits working in Portugal and Portuguese Asia. In Spain, the Spanish king followed suit and banished the Jesuits from his domains in 1767. Finally, in 1773, Pope Clement XIV, under extreme political pressure from the Bourbon monarchs of Europe, could no longer prevent the inevitable from happening.

Through the bull Redemptor ac hominis, the pope suppressed the Society of Jesus, thus bringing an end to their missionary work in Asia. This work would be resumed only in the 19th century, when Jesuits would return to their former mission fields now besieged by new historical forces.

Jahangir - Mughal Ruler

Jahangir - Mughal Ruler

Jahangir inherited the Mughal throne from his father, Akbar, the greatest Mughal emperor. His realm included part of Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent up to the Deccan. It was one of the largest empires of the world and enjoyed prosperity.

Prince Salim (Selim) was Akbar’s eldest son, who took the reign name Jahangir, which means “world grasper.” He explained in his memoir that there was a contemporary Ottoman emperor also named Salim, which made him decide to change his name.

Jahangir had to suppress many revolts during his reign, including those of his sons, one of whom he had blinded after the revolt failed. Other campaigns were against rulers in the Deccan area subdued by Emperor Akbar and again in revolt, and against the Persian ruler for control of Kandahar.

In addition to his frank memoir, there are vivid accounts by others about Jahangir. One was by his boon companion, the English sea captain William Hawkins, and another was by Sir Thomas Roe, English ambassador, who arrived at the Mughal court in 1616 to negotiate a treaty between England and the Mughal government but failed and left two years later.


As were many Mughal princes, Jahangir was addicted to strong alcoholic drinks, and to eating opium, which seldom left him sober. He professed himself an orthodox Muslim but was generally tolerant of other religions. However, he let divine faith, a religion that his father sponsored, wither away.

In 1611, Jahangir married the Persian-born widow of one of his officials after having her husband killed for refusing to divorce her and for revolting against him. The lady was given the title Nur Jahan, which means “light of the world,” and she became the empress for the remainder of his reign. Both Jahangir and Nur Jahan patronized the arts. But Nur Jahan was also politically ambitious.

To influence her husband’s succession she married her daughter to one of his sons, and her niece (Mumtaz Mahal) to another, who became his father’s successor as Shah Jahan. She surrounded herself with her relatives, arousing the jealousy of Jahangir’s relatives; intrigues among the members of the two factions led to rebellion.

In 1627, her protégé, a general named Mahabat Khan, revolted in alliance with Shah Jahan; they imprisoned both Jahangir and Nur Jahan for several months. Just as he had revolted against his father, so he died in the midst of his son’s revolt, followed by a power struggle between his sons.

Despite wars and rebellions, Jahangir’s reign was generally prosperous, as he enjoyed the legacy of his father. His memoirs often expressed good intentions for promoting justice and efficiency, but he seldom followed through because of his indulgence in alcohol and drugs.

Humayun - Emperor of India

At the age of 23, Humayun succeeded his father, Babur, as the second Mughal ruler of India. He ruled successfully for the first few years, then abandoned himself to pleasures, including use of opium, resulting in the loss of his patrimony to Sher (Shir) Shah and years of wandering and exile in Persia. He was finally restored to power in India with Persian help in 1555 but died from a fall in 1556.

Humayun inherited a shaky empire that had just been conquered by his father, and he had to deal with three ambitious brothers eager to oust him. Although capable of courage, he was self-indulgent and addicted to pleasures. Two enemies confronted him after his accession, Sultan Bahadur in the southwest and Sher Khan (later titled Sher Shah), leader of Afghans who had settled along the Ganges River in Bihar.

Sultan Bahadur was eliminated by the Portuguese but the more able Sher Khan decisively defeated him in 1539. He was forced to flee with few followers across India, to Afghanistan, finally finding refuge in Persia, whose ruler Sha Tahmasp gave him refuge on condition that he converted to the Shi’i (from Sunni) Islam. He did so, at least outwardly.

The victorious Sher Khan assumed the title of shah and very ably ruled India from 1540 to 1545. He built up an excellent administrative system, which became the foundation of the later resurrected Mughal Empire. He relied on centrally appointed local officials who administered under a hierarchical system of responsibility. Local officials assessed and collected taxes, at one-third of the total production.


He set up courts and weeded out corrupt and oppressive officials. He also established charitable organizations to help the poor and built roads shaded with trees and with rest houses and wells for drinking water interspersed along the way. He died in 1545, when a gunpowder magazine accidentally exploded.

Humayun tomb

Sher Shah’s sons lacked his ability and made matters worse by fighting with one another for their inheritance. Thereupon Sha Tahmasp helped Humayun return to power, first conquering Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan, and then winning back his throne in India in 1555.

He died the following year, however, after a fall in his palace, leaving the throne to his 13-year-old-son, Akbar, born on the northwestern frontier of India during his father’s desperate flight. Babur founded the Mughal Empire, Sher Shah laid its administrative foundations, and Akbar later consolidated it.

Colonization of Goa

Colonization of Goa

This port city on the west coast of India was the center of Portuguese influence in India from 1510 until 1961, and at its height, in the early 17th century, was one of the great cities in the region. Goa as a port dates to the third century b.c.e.

A Portuguese force under Afonso de Albuquerque with 20 ships and 1,200 men took the town in 1510 from Muslim rulers. Albuquerque had all Muslim men there killed, and gradually a Portuguese town of Goa began.

The nearby regions of Bardez and Salcete were added to the areas under Portugal’s control and these areas together became known as the “Old Conquests.” Missionaries arrived, the most famous being Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier (later sainted). The Inquisition was established in Goa in 1560 and operated until 1774.


Goa was initially threatened by a large Muslim force, which, in 1570, besieged the city for nearly a year. When Portugal merged with Spain in 1580, Goa was attacked by the English and the Dutch also. Goa thrived in the early 17th century and was said to exceed Lisbon in wealth with a population of 200,000.

However Goa was located in a swampy area and diseases caused major health problems. In the late 18th century, Portugal acquired additional lands near to its original holdings. These areas became known as the “New Conquests.”

There were major differences between the “Old Conquests” and the “New Conquests.” In the former the population was overwhelmingly Catholic while in the latter there were large numbers of Hindus and Hindu temples survived. Freedom of worship was restored to the Hindus in 1833.

In 1752, the capital was moved from Goa to Panaji for health reasons. The old capital had been easy to protect from attack since the British accepted the Portuguese enclave on the west coast of India. Defense from enemies was no longer a problem. Goa continued as a Portuguese colony until 1961.