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- [00:01]
William Duranpool
If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to empire club@www.empirepoduk.com. want to shop Walmart Black Friday deals.
- [00:21]
Anita Arnand
First Walmart plus members get early access.
- [00:24]
William Duranpool
To our hottest deals. Join now and get 50% off a one year annual membership.
- [00:29]
Anita Arnand
Shop Black Friday deals first with Walmart.
- [00:31]
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- [01:05]
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- [01:29]
William Duranpool
Ooh.
- [01:31]
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- [01:45]
William Duranpool
Hello. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan and me, William Duranpur.
- [01:50]
So I have just arrived back in India in Mumbai, had the most lovely month actually. I have said just heaven. You really have starting in Bali and my first visit to Malaysia, which was.
- [02:03]
Gorgeous, playing to packed audiences wherever you go, young man. I mean it's been really you to.
- [02:08]
Thank for that, Anita. Three quarters of the audience were there, I think as Empire listeners. It was just lovely.
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That's nice to know. But I mean, honestly, it's been rapturous. You've been like a little bit of a Bono type character. The Bono history traveling around.
- [02:20]
Thank you for that.
- [02:21]
Empire's doing some really strange and amazing things. So I went to kind of an inspiring event really. It was at the House of Lords because they were unveiling the first portrait. It's going to be in quite a prominent place as a first turbaned Sikh Lord guy called Lord Indigit Singh. And so that was very lovely. But the number of people who listened to Empire, when was he. He's now.
- [02:42]
He's living.
- [02:43]
He's. He was There standing next to his portrait. Very good portrait it is too. But the number of people who listened to Empire and sort of generationally so there were some very wise greybeards who were there who listened and who had some sometimes constructive commentary. And then there were some really young, shiny, beautiful things who are also very lovely about it.
- [03:02]
It is an extraordinary medium that we've stumbled into. You and I are used to writing books where, if we're lucky, a few thousand people will read in years after we publish them. And this wonderful form that where you can just chat away with each other and suddenly here we have the whole world listening. It's just crossing every boundary of every country. It's extraordinary.
- [03:20]
See, I chat to you till the cows come home. But also, have you seen the Esquire magazine that's come out with us in.
- [03:25]
It, with me looking like some sort of vampire about to suck your blood.
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I look ridiculous and I realize I should have done my nails before the photo shoot, but let me shall show you. I've got a hard copy. I got one. Hang on. Do you want to see? One second. I'm going to get it.
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I haven't seen it.
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No, I know you haven't. I'm going to show you. It's quite exciting. It was the only thing that made my youngest child who really worships his dad, but thinks I'm there for tea time and hugs. That's what I. That's my job. Look at the size of that.
- [03:52]
Goodness gracious.
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I told you I specially ordered it so you could see it.
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Will you get another one for me? I'd love one. Oh, look at that. It's not a very flattering picture, but it's very big.
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I think you look very nice. We really ought to get down to business, as it were. We're picking up the baton from the last episode of Barber that we did. And if you become a club member, you will not have to wait for these episodes to come out. And such gems as a magazine spread that you can't see, but you'll be able to hear. All of the Barber episodes go to empirepoduk.com, that's empirepoduk.com. you don't just get clumpage with our little miniseries, but you also get early access to any tickets if we do live shows and a weekly newsletter, which.
- [04:36]
Is more like a sort of magazine. It's a very grand magazine.
- [04:38]
Oh, it's pretty good. I know. They should put that photo in it somewhere, including book discounts, which actually add.
- [04:46]
Up, given the amount of people who seem to buy the books that we're talking about.
- [04:49]
Yes, I know people complain that we've made them buy books, but, you know, look, if we're making you buy books, we're also trying to mitigate that pain by giving you discounts. So join the club today, empirepoduk.com is where you'll find us. Now remind us, young man, where did you leave us and where did you leave Babur?
- [05:05]
So we were talking about the life of Babu, who is this extraordinary character who's roughly the sort of contemporary of Henry VIII or maybe one generation before him, Henry vii, if you're looking from English history point of view. And Babur is remembered for two things. He's remembered in India for the fact that he conquered northern India and established the Mughal dynasty, but he's also remembered for being one of the greatest diarists in all history. And my greatest pleasure during lockdown was editing and writing an introduction to the Babur Nama. So this is stuff very close to my heart. And it is Babur the writer that I admire and I'm obsessed with. And I think the section that we're going to be talking about in this episode is one of my all time favorite episodes, because when we ended our last episode, which described his childhood, how he'd inherited this kingdom in the Ferghana Valley of what is now Uzbekistan, and then had to watch both he and all his cousins lose their patrimony and be kicked out. And by the time he was only 21, he was a refugee, wandering with all his family with all their goods on their backs. And then his fortunes turn. And through a series of remarkable accidents, as much as anything else, he captures Kabul and manages to reestablish his dynasty, which have become just refugees, migrants, penniless, hopeless migrants without any lands to their name. He manages to reestablish them and settle them in and around Kabul. And there then follows in the book, which, as I say, probably my favorite section of all, when he goes to visit the one remaining Timurid kingdom, his cousins who have taken over the western Afghan city of Herat. And what's lovely about it is that Babu, who's quite a self confident figure in his book, and for example, when he goes to India, he's very clear that he comes from this superior Central Asian culture where everything is symmetrical and neat and logical, and he regards India as sort of dusty and hot and not to his taste, but it's the reverse. When he goes to Herat, he feels himself, the mud booted, provincial and to be honest, it stirs memories of me when I was a kid coming to visit my cousins in London and being both sort of frightened and gauche and feeling unsophisticated, both then and my first teenage parties in London. I was the Scots boy coming from the countryside and didn't have the clothes or the manners or the small talk.
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Wait, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. Because, Mr. Life and Soul of the Party, you're not taking. Telling me you were clinging to the.
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Wall or hiding in the kitchen, clinging to the wall. And all these good looking party boys in London who knew their dance moves and knew how to talk to girls and I was their age, 14, feeling completely out of it. And this is exactly what Barbour.
- [08:06]
But Barber also, I mean, it is actually delightful about how he sort of describes his own awkwardness. That is lovely. He's also so enthusiastic about everything that he sees, which is like a tourist whose eyes are open for the first time because he does this sightseeing trip, doesn't he? He goes wandering. Look at that, look at that. This is amazing. I just saw this. It's utterly beguiling, actually.
- [08:28]
And when you read the book, it comes straight after this session where he's been a vagrant, you know, he's literally a tramp on the move. He can't wash his clothes, he hasn't got a house to call his own and he's captured the city and now he's going to visit his cousins and he is just dazzled by the clothes, the fashions. And there's one little section I'd love to read, which is when he goes to his first Haratti party. They serve him roast goose and Babel doesn't know how to eat it. And I'll read you the passage, it's so sweet. It just again, very much reminds me of my gauche younger self. As I was no carver or disjointer of birds, I left the duck alone. Do you not like it? Inquired the mirza. The prince said, I, I am a poor carver. At once he disjointed the bird and set it before me in such a matter that he had no match. At the end of the party he gave me an enameled waist dagger. And then there's another occasion when his cousins were listening to flutes and dulcimers, singing and dancing and drinking wine, something Babbo had never tasted. And he says, I knew nothing of its cheer and pleasure. And his cousins begin to mock him. He's the gauche country boy who hasn't ever broken The Islamic ban on alcohol. And this is his description. The party was altogether elegant. It crossed my mind. Now, when the Mirzas were so pressing and when too we were in a town so refined as Herat, where should we drink if not here? Here were all the chattels and utensils of luxury and comfort. They were all gathered and in use. So I said, I resolve to drink wine. I would determine to cross that stream. The social cups were filled. The guests drank down the wine as if it were water of life. And when it mounted to their heads, the party waxed warm, that lovely.
- [10:14]
So, you know, the little yokel comes, his eyes wide open, scared of a goose. But he then does undergo one of quickest educations in becoming a refined gentleman. I mean, there is a lovely account from his nine year old cousin who's a young man called Haldar, who also ends up like all the, all the refugees of this family, as you say, they sort of end up in Herat because, you know, everything else is being seized from them. And Halda describes the education that you get as a yokel who's arrived in cultured Herat. This is what he says. He says the education consists of arts of calligraphy, reading, making verses, epistolary style, painting and illumination, such crafts as seal engraving, jewelry, goldsmith's work, saddlery and armor making. Also the construction of arrows, spearheads, knives, in the affairs of state, in important transactions, in planning campaigns and forays, in archery, in hunting, in the training of falcons, and in everything that is useful in the government of a kingdom.
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Isn't that lovely?
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And I find that rather delightful that, you know, painting and illumination is important in the governing of a country. Isn't that lovely?
- [11:19]
And particularly this thing that he's learning, poetry there, that's what I love. This guy who's quite capable of impaling people alive and, you know, is in some ways, to our eyes, looking back, a complete brute in war. He's also incredibly open to literary nuance and refinement. And there's this one sentence he said, the court of my cousin Hussein Bukhara and the brilliant cultural world he created around him was a wonderful age in it. Khorasan and Herat was full of learned and matchless men. This is the sentence I love in Herat, a man can't stretch out his leg without touching a poet's backside. I love it.
- [12:06]
Oh, that is hilarious. He does start. I mean, the Herat is the awakening of the poet in him as well. And his, you know, I think it's the first time you start seeing him Playing with couplets. He writes couplets of poetry and then rewrites them and rewrites them and rewrites them. As many slight deviations as possible. But to keep. He starts playing. He becomes playful in language. You've told me about your favorite place in Hera. Just tell everyone else.
- [12:28]
This is a place called the Gaza Ghar. And the only reason I went there was because Babur loved it so much. And since then, other people who've read his account have gone. So, for example, Robert Byron and then Bruce Chapman, all my heroes went to this place. And the Gaza Ghar is a Sufi shrine across the valley from Herat. It's outside the town and it's in this little oasis. You cross this sort of bit of deserty territory, scrubland, and then suddenly you're in this oasis with running water and trees everywhere and you go in this arch. And I just remember that the day I was out, there were kind of flights of pigeons landing and taking off. People were feeding them and there were these Sufis doing these incantations in one of the rooms. And you could hear this recitation at a high pitch of sort of mystical fervor coming from one of the rooms and the pigeons flapping and the larch and poplar trees shining in the sun. And for me, as for Bruce Chatwin, as for Robert Barron, all following in the footsteps of Babur, we just sat there reading Babur's description of this wonderful place 500 years ago, feeling that nothing at all had changed.
- [13:36]
So nothing at all. Can I make an observation? Because I've been engrossed, engrossed in a documentary series that's on in Britain at the moment, which is first person camera accounts of British forces in Afghanistan in 2007, and particularly in Helmand province, which is not far from Herat, is it? How far? How?
- [13:57]
In Hans it says sort of 500 kilometers, which in Afghan terms is not that far. No, seven hours drive.
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And it's very moving. I mean, it's from the British perspective of a platoon. I've only watched one, but I will watch more A platoon that loses a boy. I mean, you just actually look at them. They all look like children who are sort of in a foreign land, sort of almost playing a video game that then becomes very, very real. People they care about die. And obviously there are lots of people dying at the other, at the other end as well. But you look at the landscape that they are walking in and it could be a different planet. There is nothing there. You know, the bazaars and things that he talks about Babur, the opulence, the splendor. They're not being able to stretch out your feet without hitting a poet. There is none of that. It is a landscape of rubble, of desolation, of dust, of nothing. When they praise a market, they talk about going through a bustling market. To my eyes, what you see is just piles of goods in the dust.
- [14:52]
There is a reason for that. Afghanistan has been fought over in this land which was the most prosperous. I mean, Babur, when he comes from Kabul and goes to India, he regards himself as going to the provinces. That may have been prejudice on his point of view, but the fact that anyone could hold that view when today, of course, Afghanistan feels like the back end of the most remote, ill treated, neglected place on earth. In a sense, this is the high point from which poor Afghanistan has had a dizzying descent with successive invaders coming, trying to hold it, destroying chunks of it and leaving it more wrecked in Afghanistan. In Herat, when I was there, there was a museum of Jihad. It was basically kind of what, you know, what you call a war museum, or like the Imperial War Museum in London, except that in the Afghan version, the most recent exhibits were all the burnt out Russian troop carriers and tanks which had been left after the Mujahideen took over. And I remember writing in my diary at that time, next it will be the tanks of the British. And sure enough, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Western Alliance's troop carriers will be in that museum already.
- [15:57]
Now, but I mean, the poignancy then of reading Barbara's description of feeling like a yokel in Herat and then looking at what her art is More recently, in 1507, William, something big happens because he's loving her art. And all good things must come to a crushing end in Barbara's life, and particularly if Shabani Khan is involved, the nemesis who has forced his, you know, Barbara's sister to be his wife, because he takes Herat. Tell us about that. You know, so his one place where he's suddenly growing and learning and calligraphy and writing poetry and where his dynasty.
- [16:29]
Has survived, that is an important thing. This is his cousins in charge and they've lost everything in what's now Uzbekistan. Shaibani Khan has taken it. And Herat, other than his own kingdom of Kabul, is the one other kingdom of his dynasty. And Babu's enjoying himself so much that he lingers in Herat late into autumn and very nearly dies on the way back to Kabul because he gets caught in blizzards as he's trying to cross the Hindu Kush and he loses lots of his men.
- [16:57]
Is this as he's fleeing, as Shabani Khan is dealing with.
- [16:59]
He's not fleeing, he's just leaving Herat because he stayed too long partying and drinking wine and falling in love with boys in the bazaar and all that sort of thing. And then the news comes the following spring at the very beginning of the campaigning season. As soon as the pass is Thor, Shaibani Khan just comes and he storms Herat. All these places where Babur has been dazzled and where he has had so much pleasure and fun is now just a charnel house. Shaibani Khan storms Herats, slaughters Baba's cousins. He even mistreated the prince's wives and children. And this includes another of his sisters, Khazada, his only full sibling, who's forced to marry in bed. The family's arch enemy, Shaibani Khan. And according to the historian Condomir, the delicate beauties of the inner sanctum of inviolability were taken captive and tormented by the merciless Uzbeks. And Venuses of the chamber of chastity were left by the ravaging Mongols to wander destitute in the lanes and bazaars. So this has a major psychological effect on Babur because he is now literally the last Timurid ruler standing. And in 1508, in recognition of this, he actually formally decides to take on Timur's legacy and adopt the Persian title Padshah. He calls himself Emperor and he realizes that his is the last stand of his dynasty and he's got to have something. And so what he does is he makes a very controversial alliance with the Persian Shah Ismail Safavi, the founder of the Safavid dynasty. Do you remember we talked about this when we.
- [18:30]
We have with Barnaby Rogerson?
- [18:33]
Yeah.
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Yes, yes, the brilliant Barnaby Rogerson. Now, we ought to remind people who Shah Ismail is. Can you. Can you give us a little pen portrait of who he is?
- [18:41]
Sure. He is this Persian mystical leader who embraces the Shia form of Islam and uses this as a way of sort of weaponizing the faith of his followers and they take over Persia. But this is a highly controversial matter for someone who is an orthodox Sunni like Babur.
- [19:01]
Let's explain that, because if you haven't listened to our episode on Persia and Iran, there are two major factions of Islam that have been at war since the beginning. That is the Shias and the Sunnis. The Shias are largely the Iranians now, and that that begins with Shah Ismail. And then you have the Sunnis who exist in Pakistan, in India, what is now Pakistan, but India, the Uzbeks are Sunnis.
- [19:28]
The rest of the Islamic world, I.
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Mean basically the rest are the Sunnis and the bad blood between them is right from the start. And for our man Babur to try and make a pact with a Shia will be seen in the rest of the Islamic world, will it not? As treachery that, you know, what are you doing? Why are you talking to them?
- [19:48]
Yeah. And so he thinks that by making this alliance with the new kids on the block, the Shias of Persia, that this is his one trump card left to get back at Shaibani Khan and the Uzbeks. And maybe, maybe, maybe if he makes this alliance that abjures his faith. It's important to say that contrary to some impressions of Babur, particularly in India today, Babur is not a very religious person. He drinks, does all sorts of things that an observant Muslim would not do. And so it's not like he is undergoing a major self betrayal as far as his religious instincts are concerned. But it is a highly controversial political move and indeed it misfires. So he makes this alliance. He briefly conquers his old territory of Samarkand again. This is the place he first got when he was 16, is the place he's longing to recapture in alliance with the Safavids and with the mainly Safavid Shia army, they take Samarkand and then the people of Samarkand throw them out because they don't want to be ruled by heretics. Even though Barbur, someone that's been born and brought up there, they prefer the newly arrived Uzbek Sunnis to their old Timurid rulers who in the eyes of the faithful have betrayed their, have broken the faith. Yeah.
- [21:03]
You have to understand that Babur is a man who is desperate to get his lands and titles back. And also his sister has been really very poorly treated by Shaibani Khan. Shaibani Khan is a boo hiss kind of villain in this story.
- [21:14]
Absolutely.
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But the thing is, I mean, my enemy's enemy is my friend is the doctrine that works here for Barbara. Because Shaibani Khan and Shah Ismail hate each other. Hate, hate, hate each other. And it's a really lovely story about how their enmity sort of is born. Can I tell you this story? It's such a story.
- [21:31]
Tell me the story.
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So the story is fantastic. It's basically diplomacy, grenade diplomacy, when you, you set out to insult the person that you're talking to so Shoibani, who is an arrogant so and so sends the Shah as a gift, a begging bowl, basically, like, up yours. That's what I think of you. You're a beggar to me. So he sends an ambassador with a begging ball. The shah responds by sending a spinning wheel. And they, right, okay. And it's war. And you have seen this in history before. Have you read your Henry V? Do you know how it's happened before?
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I've never read Henry V. Actually, no, I haven't.
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It is supposedly the Dauphin sends Henry, the young Henry V, a gift. It's like a big barrel. And he opens it. An ambassador grandly presents it to the court of Henry V and he opens it up and it's filled with tennis balls. And the meaning of it is, you are a young pup. You are not serious. You are frivolous. Go play your games, boy.
- [22:23]
Go play tennis.
- [22:24]
Because, yeah, don't start messing with the grown ups. And Henry V's answer is, the reply I will send will not be tennis balls, it will be cannonballs. And that is, you know, sort of that kind of, again, grenade diplomacy. So I thought that was, you know, sort of a marvelous thing. So, of course, for Barbara, it makes total sense that he will make friends or try and make some kind of treaty with a man who loathes Shaibani Khan as much as he does. Anyway, sorry. People are turning against Barbara because he's broken the faith and he's done a deal with the Shias and that's not what Sunnis do. So what happens?
- [22:56]
So he captures Samarkand and then Shabani Khan is tricked by Ismail Safavi into an ambush, cornered in a cattle compound and dismembered, and his body parts were sent to different parts of the Persian Empire and his skull was set in gold for the Shah to drink from. There are no uncertain terms. So at this point, Babur thinks he's backed the right horse and that this portrayal of the faith is worthwhile. But then it goes horribly wrong. The Samakandis throw him out as a traitor to the face. And it's the third time in his life he's lost his beloved Samarkand, the city that he loves. But this is an incredibly important moment for history because having lost Samarkand, he now realizes that his destiny does not lie to the north, which is now chosen the Uzbeks. His destiny lies to the south. And he says, ever since we came to Kabul, it had been in my mind to move on Hindustan, the sun being an aquarius we rode out of Kabul for Hindustan. Another world came into view. Other grasses, other trees, other animals, other birds and other manners and customs of clan and horde. Once the waters of Sindh are crossed, everything is in the Hindustani way.
- [24:09]
It's a good place to take a break. Join us after the break. His eyes have turned to Hindustan, to India. Find out what happens next.
- [24:17]
Anita Arnand
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- [24:48]
William Duranpool
Welcome back. So we left you with Barbour, now having been chased out, rejected. He salted the earth as far as his people are concerned by doing deals with the Shias and now he's looking to new pastures. And William, you've got a great story about some of those new pastures, particularly one of the crops from those pastures. Tell us about them.
- [25:07]
Mangoes. Not just mangoes, but green mangoes and honey. So the story is that Babur is already now thinking about Hindustan and he's done a couple of raids into the Punjab to test the waters. And then, then in 1522, an irresistible opportunity presents itself in the person of a man called Daulat Khan. Now, Dalat Khan is someone that I have come across a lot because There's a beautiful 16th century madrasa and tank next to my house in Delhi which is built by him. So he's someone I took an interest in and only researching his story did I discover this story. Daulat Khan falls out with the ruler of Delhi who is a guy called Ibrahim Lodi.
- [25:51]
Well, that's going to be an important name, by the way, the Lodis. Just bank that and we'll come back to that.
- [25:55]
You've pronounced him more correctly than me. Lodi rather than Lodi.
- [25:59]
Is that Lodi? And also, can I say daulat? No, but that's all right. I mean, you can't help it. You are Scottish. Also Dawlet or Dawlet Kaan, which is how I would say it. It means wealth. The Kaan of wealth. Yes, carry on. As you were. Go on.
- [26:11]
I can't help it, I'm Scottish. I'm going to save that one to chew on later.
- [26:16]
Put it on a T shirt. He can't help It. He's Scottish.
- [26:20]
Scottish. Anyway, I'll have words with you later, Anita Anand. Anyway, Ibrahim Lodi, as you correctly pronounce him, is the Sultan of Delhi. And he is brutal and autocratic and he has fallen out with many of his noblemen, arresting and killing them. And he has the secret police that terrorize his court. And anyway, so Dkan has enough of this and so he sends an invitation to Babu to take possession of the throne of Hindustan. And this is what Babo writes. At the dawn of day, I prayed in the garden for a sign of victory in Hindustan, asking that it should be a gift of the fruits of that land. And it so happened that Daulat Khan had sent me as a present, half ripened mangoes preserved in honey. And when these were set before me, I accepted them as a sign and from that time forth made preparations to move on Hindustan. I put my foot in the stirrup of resolution and set my hand on the reign of trust with God and moved forward against Sultan Ibrahim, son of Secondar Lodi, whose standing army was said to be 100,000 people and whose elephants and whose lords elephants were over 100 in number. So he realizes this is not gonna be an easy one.
- [27:40]
Well, I mean, can I just say, as somebody who is entirely addicted to mangoes in mango season, fighting a war for mangoes makes perfect sense for me. It's like God, that's the rocket fuel of conflict. I get it. When there's only one left and there are three of you, what are you gonna do?
- [27:55]
I don't think this. Is this a dish that still exists? Have you ever had half ripened mangoes?
- [27:59]
No, I've never had that. Wouldn't mess with a mango. It's perfect. Just wait a minute. Let it ripen. Okay, so tell us a bit more about the Lord. These though. You've kind of just mentioned them, but the Lord, these are very in India at this time.
- [28:11]
So let's do a little sketch of what's going on in India at this point because we kind of assume that India is just there. And in fact, it's a complicated and interesting picture that Babur is walking into. Now, a lot of people in India, I think, imagine that the Moguls brought Islam to India. You hear this frequently on popular conversation, but in actual fact, Islam arrives in northern India, the Delhi region, in the 12th century, 1192, you have the first conquest by various Turkish sultans and they form something called the Delhi Sultanate, which becomes an enormous power. It extends as far as Madurai Within a century. That's in Tamil Nadu in the far south. And what breaks the power of the Delhi Sultanate is Babur's ancestor Timur, who comes charging down from Central Asia, takes the Delhi, then ruled by a dynasty called the Tukluks. And the power of the Delhi Sultanate is shattered. And it fragments into lots of little kingdoms and in fact, arguably the strongest power and certainly the richest power in the century before Babur emerges from the Hindu Kush is the great southern capital of Vijayanagara. Today, Hampi, a place beloved of backpackers.
- [29:22]
And where people go to find themselves. William. They go to find themselves.
- [29:25]
I spent my 19th birthday. I woke up in Hampi.
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Where were you when you found yourself?
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I didn't. Still looking. Still long lost.
- [29:33]
Okay, Right, okay.
- [29:34]
But what's important about Vijayanagara as far as the story of Babur is concerned is that the Timurids send an ambassador from Herat. In fact, the same family who Babur visits in Herat and who dazzle him with their sophistication, they send an ambassador to Vijayanagara. And this is what they report. The city of Vijayanagara simply has no equality in the world, writes the ambassador. It is such that the pupil of the eye has never seen a place like it. And the ear of intelligence has never been informed that there existed anything equal to it in the whole world. It is a city of enormous magnitude and population with a king of perfect rule and hegemony. His kingdom stretches more than a thousand leagues. His regions are flourishing. He possesses 300 ports. He has a thousand elephants with bodies like mountains and the millions of demons. But what he says in particular is the wealth of the place, the extraordinary personal wealth of everyone in the kingdom, especially the profusion of jewelry worn by men and women of every social class and the sophistication of the jewelers. He talks about stalls selling pearls, rubies, emeralds, diamonds. And this message that Vijayanagara and India in general is the richest country in the world is what? Lodges, of course, with the Timurids. And so when Babur is planning an expedition down to Delhi, he's hoping that Delhi is going to be like this, that everyone is covered in jewels and diamonds and gold.
- [31:02]
I mean, it would be good, wouldn't it? I mean, they've already. They've got mangoes and honey. Bit of gold won't hurt.
- [31:07]
So this is. This is his great hope. It's actually his fifth expedition in Hindustan. He's done little raids up to now, but in the autumn of 1525, he rides south at the head of an army of only 8,000 men. But crucially, he brings with him Turkish matchlock men and artillery men.
- [31:28]
What's interesting with this is that there has been a long history of people from Afghanistan making raids into northern India. So the Punjab has been a practice point for anyone who fancies their chances in India.
- [31:38]
Poor ancestors have had a few headaches in their time.
- [31:41]
Yeah, Punjab sort of resists it. Under Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the founding of the first Sikh kingdom, it's like the first time that they're able to repel Afghan raiders. Otherwise the Afghans come over regular. It's like a shopping trip. It's like basically supermarket down. They come over, they take everything they can and they go back over. So you know, there is, there is great history.
- [31:58]
I've heard Afghan raids on India described as a supermarket.
- [32:02]
But you're not wrong. No, it's exactly what it feels like. But also I just wanted to say a little bit something about Ibrahim Ludhi from the Ludhi dynasty because he is an unpopular Sultan as well. So you know, Barber is able to make, I think the headway that he does because people can't stand Ibrahim Lohi. He's a man who likes flattery. He's a man who appoints people who are young and pretty and say nice things to him but are not necessarily the ones with the experience. So there are lots of nobles within Ibrahim Lodi's court who think he's an idiot. An idiot who is vain and stupid and also really unpleasant to be around because he has a temper as well. So Lodi is not loved in his own sultanate.
- [32:46]
And we should also say that he actually controls not an enormous territory compared to the Delhi Sultanate of the past, which whose armies extended down to the middle, if not the south of India. Ibrahim Lodi only really has the immediate Delhi region and a little bit of what's now up. It's a half hearted small kingdom. So it's an ambitious move by Babur, but it's not an impossible game.
- [33:10]
But he knows what he's thinking. He's gaming it. If he's gaming it in his head, things are in his favor. He may be crossing into a new country in a territory that he doesn't have familial roots in. But there's enough going on that can be exploited.
- [33:23]
And what he also seems to know, judging by the preparations that he makes, is that while there is a lot of artillery in the south and the Deccan of India, for some reason the Lodis and the Northern Indians have not yet invested in this new technology.
- [33:41]
It's a bit silly, isn't it? Why haven't they? Do you know? Have you ever thought about why they have? Why haven't they?
- [33:45]
It's interesting because we know that for at least 100 years in what we call the Deccan Sultanates, places like Bijapur and Golconda, that there are artillery, these enormous cannons you still see on the walls there, dating from this time, but for some reason it doesn't exist in the Delhi Sultanate. So the thing that Babur makes preparations for, he does two basic clever moves before taking on Ibrahim Lodi. First of all, he knows that he has to bring in absolutely state of the art artillerymen and musket men, neither of which have been seen in the Delhi South. Secondly, he knows he's got to find some way of frightening Lodi's elephants. And already by this stage in history, people have got the answer to elephants, which from the time of Alexander the Great were the great Indian trump card in battle. You just put your elephants on and they trample everybody. But already now people know how to deal with elephants. And the answer to that is fireworks, right? Elephants are scared stiff of fireworks. So he brings a whole load of just celebratory fireworks like you'd normally use in Diwali or something. He has enough fireworks to sort of blow the whole battlefield up and scare the elephants. And hopefully his plan is that if he lets them off at the right moment and they go off in the right way, that the elephants will not only not move forward, that they will scare, retreat fast and trample the Lodi's troops.
- [35:07]
I mean, fireworks will not be all that he uses because in 1526 and not long after this sort of period where he's dipping his toe in and also, by the way, collecting disgruntled lordy noblemen who hate Ibrahim along the way, who go, actually, you know what? Hate this guy, but hate that guy more. And at least this guy is a better ruler. And he knows calligraphy and also saddle making, which he learned in Herat. So I think, you know, he's learned how to run a government. They are following Babur instead. And he's sort of, you know, like a rolling stone, he's gathering momentum. But one other thing that Babur does, and you know, we mustn't lose sight of this, and I'm glad you pointed it out at the beginning of it episode, we're talking about an interesting fellow who might write poetry, but he is a bloodthirsty bastard at times. So what he does, you know, because he does have guns, which the Lord, these for some reason haven't discovered, and they haven't really discovered how to sort out their elephants when people let off loud bangs. But Barbara does this thing where in, I think it's February 1526, where he asks. And he's sort of taking prisoners along the way in little light skirmishes. He asks for 100 prisoners and eight or nine elephants to be brought before him. And he orders, I don't know whether it's the first, it may be the first firing squad in India. And he orders men with guns to open fire. Now, there is only one reason that you would do that, and that is to spread the word that we are a storm of death coming your way and you have no arm answer to this. And it is a really perplexing thing because actually he hasn't got a history of massacring everybody, unlike Shaibani Khan has. He kills people and he rapes them and he leaves them bleeding by their.
- [36:47]
Well, for most of his life he's been on the back foot. He's lost more territory than he's gained. The one atrocity I think that can be put at young Babu's feet is he does some pretty terrible things in the Bamiyan region with the Hazaras, and he's been pretty horrible to the Hazaras in Afghanistan. But you're right, this is the first sign of a darker, more gratuitous violence.
- [37:08]
It's not bloodlust, it is a very pragmatic thing to Ibrahim Lodi. Look at what I can do and look what's coming for you.
- [37:16]
So what he does, as they approach the great battlefield of Panipat, which is one of these celebrated battlegrounds where time and time again, over the centuries, the fortunes of northern India are decided. Did. And he makes an unexpected strategic move. He goes round the farms in the Punjab and he collects 700 farm carts and he uses this as a barricade. It's a very sort of rustic and un mogul.
- [37:46]
It's very Robin Hood. Very Robin Hood, isn't it? Yeah.
- [37:50]
And they mount the artillery. The artilleryman he's brought with him, his big trump card is this guy, Ustad Ali, who's regarded as the most fancy artilleryman in Central Asia. He's got him on board and he gets Ustad Ali to put all his guns together on this barricade of farm carts and he provokes Ibrahim Lodi to attack his position. And then he unleashes his firepower the artillery wipes out the cream of Ibrahim's cavalry. And just as he planned, he lets off the fireworks, which panics the elephants. And then Baba unleashes his own cavalry, who roll up the Afghan wings and rain arrows down on the Lodi army from both flanks. And this is exactly the technique that Shaibani Khan had used against him. He's learned from his mistakes earlier in his career. And he writes, to his own surprise, by midday 20,000 of the Lodi's troops were dead, including Sultan Ibrahim. And he marches then on Delhi. But what's fascinating is because he recognizes it as a holy city and a city of great civilization, and because he hated what had happened to Herat, he orders that there should be no slaughter, no massacres and no plundering. And instead he comes on foot and visits the two great Sufi shrines of Delhi, which are still there to this day. The shrine of Kutu Bhaktivedin Khaki in Meroli, very close to my house, place I go to a lot. And there's wonderful qalis there on Thursday evenings. And then he goes up to Nizamuddin Oliya's Darganya, near the future tomb of Humayun. And head bowed, he seeks the blessings of both these saints. And then there's this lovely end to the section. He says, having done this, we dismounted at the camp and went on a boat. And there, afloat on the amen much arak was drunk.
- [39:50]
Well, I mean, you know, you fought a battle, you've won, might as well arrack it up. Can I just say one thing? I mean, the fact that he does not destroy where he goes, we have him to thank for the Lordie Gardens still existing then, because that's a lovely little oasis in Delhi. I enjoy the Lordy gardens.
- [40:06]
Well, the Lodi Gardens has been said it was a graveyard.
- [40:08]
Oh, really?
- [40:09]
And it was turned into the Lodi Gardens by somebody called Lady Willingdon. It was originally the Lady Willingdon Gardens.
- [40:14]
Oh, my God.
- [40:16]
And the plaque is still there as you go in on the Khan Market entrance. It says Lady Williams.
- [40:20]
But it feels like such an ancient place with all these sort of. The old building in the middle.
- [40:24]
No, no, those are the Lodi tombs. And indeed, Ibrahim Lodi, who has just been killed at the Battle of Palipat, is buried there. And Barbur allows him to be given a proper burial and a good tomb. It isn't a beautiful garden area like it is now. That is Lady Willingdon's creation, recognizing the beauty of this place. And it's my favorite walk in Delhi.
- [40:40]
Did not know that. Mind blown. That's very interesting. Listen, shall we leave it there and we'll take up the reins of what Baba does next? After this enormous victory and you found yourself destroying the Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate, what happens next? Join us next time. Or if you're a member of our club and you know you can be empowerpoduk.com that's where we are. And you get to listen to all of these in a big clump. But till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand.
- [41:06]
And goodbye from me, William Duranpool.