NCERT Class 7 - Our Pasts II • NCERT Class 12 - Themes in Indian History Part II, Chapter 9

Babur, Humayun and Sher Shah Suri

The Mughal Empire was founded by Babur in 1526. His son Humayun lost it to Sher Shah Suri, who in five years built an administration so sound that Akbar later adopted most of it.

Babur and his four battles

• Babur came from Fergana in Central Asia and was a descendant of Timur on his father's side and of Genghis Khan on his mother's.
• First Battle of Panipat, 1526 - defeat of Ibrahim Lodi. Babur used field artillery under Ustad Ali Quli and the tulughma tactic of encircling the enemy flanks.
• Battle of Khanwa, 1527 - defeat of Rana Sanga of Mewar, which ended Rajput hopes of taking Delhi.
• Battle of Chanderi, 1528 - defeat of Medini Rai.
• Battle of Ghaghra, 1529 - defeat of the Afghans and the ruler of Bengal, fought in Bihar.
• He wrote his memoirs, the Tuzuk-i-Baburi or Baburnama, in Turkish; they are frank about Indian climate, plants and people.

Humayun

• He ruled 1530-1540 and again 1555-1556, losing the throne in between.
• He was defeated by Sher Shah at Chausa in 1539 and at Kanauj, also called Bilgram, in 1540, both fought near the Ganga.
• He spent years in exile, took refuge with the Safavid ruler of Persia, and recovered Delhi in 1555.
• He died in 1556 after falling from the stairs of his library in the Sher Mandal at Delhi.
• Humayun's Tomb in Delhi, built under his widow Hamida Banu Begum, is the first great garden tomb in India and the model for the Taj Mahal.

Sher Shah Suri

• His original name was Farid; he earned the title Sher Khan for killing a tiger, and ruled as Sher Shah from 1540 to 1545.
• Land revenue was fixed by measurement of the land, with a schedule of crop rates called the rai; the state's share was about one-third of the produce, payable in cash or kind.
• Every peasant received a patta, a title deed stating his holding and dues, and signed a qabuliyat, a deed of agreement - the first clear statement of peasant rights in Indian revenue history.
• He issued the silver rupiya and the copper dam, and the rupiya is the ancestor of the modern rupee.
• He rebuilt the great highway later called the Grand Trunk Road, running from Sonargaon in Bengal to the Indus, and planted trees, wells and sarais along it.
• The sarais doubled as dak chaukis, post stages, creating a working postal and news service.
• He died in 1545 at the siege of Kalinjar. His tomb at Sasaram in Bihar, standing in the middle of a lake, is one of the finest in India.