Re: The worst day…
Excellent explanaitions bhai feel free to jump the gun whenever you like. :k:
Yes the Tai or Thai are the same as the Thai’s of Thailand who migrated through Burma ever Eastwards. That is partly why Burmese and Thai people are in a state of perpetual war. Burmese claim Thaliand as thier own.
As for the events that changed the subcontinent I shall pick up form where I left off.
In my earlier post I had established the situation of the Mughal empire was critical, the late Aurangzeb had pushed the empire to it’s limits and later it was weakened considerably by invasions and insurgencies which gave rise to various powers in the subcontinent chief of which were the confederate states that made up the Maratha empire. However the Marathas were not the only threat and reason why the Mughals became so feeble.
The British East India company had established itself allong with various other colonial powers including the Dutch, French and Portugese but the British succeded most from thier trading. In particular in 1757 the British defeated Bengal and practically made them selves masters of one of the richest states in Hindustan. The Mughals could have responeded to that but failed to do so becuase the Persian invasion of Nadir Sha was deemed more dangerous and so the Mughals were forced to direct thier resources against that greater threat. Ultimately the Mughals needed to find a diplomatic solution becuase the weaker Mughal forces were no match for the technically superior Persian war machine.
In the meantime the Marathas grew ever stronger soon defeating Hyderabad thier old rival, and spreading as far North as Ajmer after the Rajputs of that region joined the Maratha confederacy. Due to Western influences we Desi people seem to think our 18th century predecessors were somehow millitarily weaker then Europeans this is not the case, the fact is in manyways we were superior but due to circumstance the Europeans were able to capitalize on our weaknesses. At the time the Maratha empire had changed as much as the Mughals.
The armies were no longer made up of Noblemen who were chivalrous and landed members of the gentry. Both Maratha and Mughal armies were now made up of increasing numbers of peasants and infantry rather than cavalry. The Marathas had thier main strength in the fact they always had secure hill forts to retreat too and could make use of thier lighter forces to harry thier opponents.
However in the country we would now call Afghanistan emerged a leader as skilled in war as any Mughal or Maratha before him. His name was Ahmed Khan and would later be known as Ahmed Sha Abdali founder of the Durrani empire. He rose from humble beginings as a slave soldier to the Persians to become head of the Pashtun tribes and soon carved a large empire for himself which spanned most of modern Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as larger portions of Iran and Central Asia. Soon his forces swept into the Punjab with hopes of taking India too as the Mughals had done before him.
Abdali was a determined man who had reat ambitions of conquest and is remembered as the founder of Afghanistan being the first man to unite all the Pashtun tribes. However he faced a crisis just like other conqeorors before him such as Ghengish Khan and Alexander, he had united his people but without any reward his followers would drift back into internal conflict… so he decided to launch his united armies agianst common enemies that were not of his own people. The classic need to strike at someone else… a case of them and us. However 4 attemtpts to breach Hindustan had given him nothing more than Punjab and his hold on that region was strenous at the best of times.
What shifted the course of history was the brutal assasination of Alamgir the second, Mughal emperor in 1760 this led to a dramatic and short civil war between the Mughal empire which gave Abdali the chance he needed to storm Hindustan for the fifth time. Alamgir was supposedly assasinated by his prime Minister Imad Ul Mulk who subsequently ruled as regent for Alamgir the seconds younger son Mohi-ul Millat, he chose to ignore the rights of the elder son Ali Gohar who had been away in Rajasthan fighting rebbels. Ali Gohar ended up going to war with his Brother and the whole subcontinent was forced to hold it’s breadth as the once mighty Mughal dynasty seemed to crumble into itself.
It was at this point that depending on whom you believe, either Sha Wali ullah and the likes of Muslim Ulema pleaded with Abdali to invade or more likely he was persuaded to invade by native Rohilla’s. The Rohilla state of Rohillkand was in Northern India and was created by native Pathans of India who many were second generation immigrants. The Chief of the Rohilla’s Najib Khan as ambitious as Abdali wanted to sieze his chance of expanding his own plot. Seeing the invasion of Abdali as his chance to join up with simmilar Pathan brothers from across the border was a simple step to achieving many gains in his eyes.
What happended in the next year was perhaps one of the most divisive and interesting moments of Indian and Pakistani history becuase it is almost a prequel to the Partition on 1947 and just as terrible. It’s why I hope to highlight the lessons that can be learned and hopefully in my next post I shall clarify in yet more detail the situation on each side of the story.