The days of huge imperial armies, financed by an overflowing treasury, had ended for ever. Instead, as authority disintegrated, everyone took measures for their own protection and India became a decentralised and disjointed but profoundly militarised society. Almost everybody now carried weapons. Almost everybody was potentially a soldier. A military labour market sprang up across Hindustan – one of the most thriving free markets of fighting men anywhere in the world – all up for sale to the highest bidder. Indeed, warfare came to be regarded as a sort of business enterprise.143 By the end of
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