Battle of Khanwa

A year after taking Delhi, the Timurid prince Babur faced a far more dangerous opponent than the sultan he had overthrown: a coalition of Rajput rulers led by Rana Sanga of Mewar. Their armies met at Khanwa, near Fatehpur Sikri in present-day Rajasthan, on 16 March 1527. Babur's guns and fortified lines won the day, and the victory secured the new Mughal Empire in northern India, with Agra as its centre.

From his base in Kabul, Babur had raided Punjab several times before 1524. Discontented members of the ruling Lodi family invited him to intervene in the Delhi Sultanate, and in 1526 he destroyed Sultan Ibrahim Lodi's army at the First Battle of Panipat, killing the sultan. What Rana Sanga's role had been is disputed. In his memoirs Babur says the Rana promised to help against Ibrahim and then did nothing; Rajput sources and some later historians argue the opposite, that Babur sought an alliance with Sanga, by then perhaps the strongest Hindu ruler in the north. The historian Satish Chandra suggests that Sanga may have expected Babur to loot Delhi and Agra and leave, as Timur had done. When it became clear Babur meant to stay, Sanga began assembling a coalition to drive him out.

More than 120 chieftains answered the Rana's call. They were joined by Mahmud Lodi, whom the Afghans had proclaimed sultan, and by Hasan Khan Mewati, ruler of Mewat. Neither side's numbers are securely known. One medieval text puts Babur's army at about 80,000, and the historian Har Bilas Sarda credited Sanga with more than 110,000. Early in 1527 the Rajputs defeated a Mughal force at Bayana and recovered other places Babur had seized, cutting his supply lines.

These defeats shook Babur's army. Afghan troops began to desert, and many of his Central Asian soldiers wanted to go home to Kabul with their plunder. To restore morale, Babur framed the coming fight as a holy war, publicly gave up wine, smashed his drinking cups and poured away his stores of liquor. On the field he repeated the method that had worked at Panipat. Carts chained together, with gaps for cavalry to sally through, formed a barrier in front; ditches protected the flanks; musketeers and light guns stood behind the carts, with heavy cavalry behind them and mounted reserves ready to sweep round the enemy's wings.

Sanga's army charged in the traditional way and was cut down in large numbers by gunfire, which also panicked its horses and elephants. The Rajputs then threw their weight against the Mughal flanks, where fighting raged for about three hours. At some point Silhadi of Raisen is said to have gone over to Babur, though some historians doubt this. The Rana was struck by a bullet and fell unconscious; the chieftain Ajja Jhala took his place at the head of the army while Sanga was carried away. With many senior commanders dead, the Rajput attacks lost direction, and a Mughal counter-attack broke them. Both sides suffered heavily, and Babur, too exhausted to pursue, abandoned any idea of invading Mewar. He had a tower of enemy skulls built, a custom taken from Timur.

Sanga vowed to fight on, but died at Kalpi in January 1528, reportedly poisoned by nobles who did not want another war with Babur. Rajput power was not destroyed; Rao Maldeo Rathore of Marwar soon became its leading figure. The battle is often cited as one of the first in northern India in which gunpowder weapons played a decisive part.

Our 1500 map shows northern India before Babur's arrival, and the 1530 map shows the early Mughal Empire, whose founder came from Afghanistan.