Bravehearts of Bharat: Vignettes from Indian History

by Vikram Sampath

Vast swathes of this land seem to have been completely ignored even as a child learns about the most obsolete and short-lived dynasties that ruled in and around Delhi—the Tughlaqs, or Lodhis or Khiljis, whose substantial and lasting contribution to this country, beyond a few pieces of architecture, could well be considered as largely minimal.

This master builder Lalitaditya was the fourth ruler of the Karkota dynasty of Kashmir.

Syrians, Persians, Berbers, Turks and others were rapidly Islamized, and their languages and cultures Arabicized. Such was the glue of faith that a generation thereafter, even the Mongols who were responsible for the decline of the Caliphate, themselves adopted Islam.

The conquerors gave their first lessons of a bloody conquest to the Hindu and Buddhist population of Debal by massacring the entire male population of the town in a gory blood bath.30 Women were taken as slaves and the town was pillaged.

After the Arabs were defanged, it took nearly three centuries for invasions from the west, starting with the Turkish forces of Ghazni to even consider invading India and her frontiers. This speaks of the heroic resistance that was put up by the Indian powers against an expansionist, marauding global hegemony.

That Lalitaditya’s successes left an indelible imprint on the minds of Kashmiris is illustrated in the account of eleventh-century Iranian scholar and polymath Al-Biruni. In his Qitab-Al-Hind he records that Kashmiris celebrated a festival every year to commemorate the victory of Raja Muttai (Lalitaditya) over the Turks.

The last of Rajaraja’s conquests was that of Maldives—the ‘old islands of the sea numbering twelve-thousand.’

Apart from his military conquests, Rajaraja was a great builder. One of the most enduring specimens and finest achievements of Chola art and architectural grandeur is the breathtaking Brihadeswara or the Big Temple in Thanjavur that was completed in 1010 CE.

This great naval expedition and conquest of more than a dozen harbour ports of Srivijaya and the Malay Peninsula was a unique event in the otherwise peaceful and culturally fruitful relationship that India shared with her South East Asian neighbours.

This legacy of the fabric trade of the Cholas survived long after their empire itself declined. The Ramayana and Mahabharata epics became (and continue to remain) the subjects of royal ballets, classical theatre performances and village rituals. Royal ceremonies in Thailand and Cambodia still follow Hindu ritual procedures. Thus, a civilizational impact that India and the Cholas left on this region has lasted almost a millennium now.

It was hence not as is made out to be that Mahmud got away with a free pass to ravage India, but stiff resistance was posed during each of his annual misadventures.

It was thus the application of moral codes of ethical military conduct with an opponent who neither believed nor honoured such protocols that cost the Indian forces heavily during various critical milestones of history. Mahmud thus lived on to inflict more misery on the country.

thanks to the bravery and strategic assault of the fierce Queen of Patan, Gujarat remained invincible for Muhammad Ghori personally. Had this conquest been won by Ghori the whole of southern Rajputana and Gujarat would have gone under his control and the history of India might have taken a different course.

Quite like this wonder monument, its builder Rana Kumbha had the unique distinction of being an undefeated hero of Indian history who vanquished every invader, and won every skirmish that destiny put him in.

The invasion of India in 1398 CE by the barbaric Timur Lang ‘the lame’, of the Timurid dynasty of Central Asia was undertaken on the pretext of destroying the infidels and teaching a lesson to the Muslim rulers of Delhi who he felt had been excessively tolerant of their Hindu subjects.

Kumbha was known to follow no ethical codes of warfare that the opponent did not believe in and replied to them in battle in the language that they understood.

Rana Kumbha became the prototype of the brave Rajput who was unconquerable in the wake of any aggression and who combined deft strategy with raw power to keep all his enemies at bay. That same spirit of valour kept burning relentlessly in the Rajput clan for generations to come.

Our historiography might have been unfair to the Abbakkas of Ullal by not resurrecting their stories enough or placing them suitably within the rubric of Indian history. But in 2003, the Indian Post issued a special stamp dedicated to Rani Abbakka, while in 2015 the Indian Navy acknowledged her naval heroics by naming a patrol vessel after her.

Assam was invaded several times by the Delhi Sultanate up to the sixteenth century, but this met with no success. The inhospitable and inaccessible terrain and the warrior spirit of the people who fiercely guarded their independence enabled them to maintain their dogged resistance against all attacks.

Lachit Barphukan thus led the Ahom force to victory over a numerically larger and superior Mughal army, in what was to be one of the greatest and most historic military victories.

In the fourteen arduous years that it had taken for Shivaji Maharaj to carve out his kingdom, one of his most notable achievements was his visionary role in founding an Indian navy with a formidable fleet.

In his illustrious career, Kanhoji Angre had remained an unvanquished Indian naval hero who had managed to keep all the European powers and to a large extent, the Siddis, at bay and enhance the Maratha naval prestige like few other heroes had done.

The story of Banda Singh Bahadur, his unalloyed devotion to his Guru, his indomitable courage and spiritual strength to face the worst of tortures and a horrifying death make him an inspirational figure for centuries to come.

The Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie (VOC) or the Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602 CE, and by the early eighteenth century, it had grown to become one of the most prominent organizations in world history. Credited as the first company to be listed on an official stock exchange, the VOC actively expanded its global footprint through the 1600s and 1700s, establishing a foothold across South East Asia, even as it operated from its Asian hub at Jayakarta (Jakarta).

It was the allure of ‘Black Gold’—pepper—that brought several European companies to Kerala, right from the fourteenth century. Pepper’s qualities as a preservative were much sought after worldwide, and Kerala being the lead producer attracted traders by the droves.

This was a landmark war and a historic victory that an Indian force had registered so convincingly against a European power. Such was the blow that was dealt on the Dutch that their power collapsed thereafter, and they simply could not establish themselves in India and Kerala after that. Their dreams of colonizing India, too, were completely shattered and they just could not recover after this. They did try to align with the Kollam state and other rival kingdoms of Travancore, but each time were thoroughly defeated by Martanda Varma and Rama Iyen, further adding to their decline.

Ahilya Bai’s charities, temple constructions and compassion gave her a saintly aura all over the country and thereby also protected Indore from any invasion.

The spark of these heroisms that Tamil Nadu witnessed in one of the earliest anti-colonial struggles was lit by the indomitable Velu Nachiyar. In recognition of her valour, a commemorative stamp was issued in December 2008, and in 2014 the government of Tamil Nadu inaugurated the Velu Nachiyar Memorial at Sivaganga.