205. Babur: The Taking of Delhi

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0:29Hello, hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnon. And me, William Duripal. So I have just arrived back in India, in Mumbai. Had the most lovely month that year. I have to say, I've been in just heaven. You really have. Starting in Bali and my first visit to Malaysia, which was gorgeous. Playing to packed audiences wherever you go, young man. I mean, it's been rammed. I have you to thank for that, Anita. Three quarters of the audience were there, I think, because Empire listeners. It was just lovely. 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 of history.

1:04traveling around. Thank you for that. Empire's doing some really strange and amazing things. So I went to a 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 the first turbaned Sikh lord, a guy called Lord Indijit Singh. And so that was very lovely. But the number of people who listened to Empire... When was he? He's now. He's living. 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.

1:41And then there were some really young, shiny, beautiful things who were also very lovely about it. 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. 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 it? With me looking like some sort of vampire about to suck your blood.

2:13I look ridiculous. And I realised I should have done my nails before the photo shoot. But let me think. Shall I 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. I haven't seen it. 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, that thinks I'm there for tea time and hugs. That's my job. Look at the size of that. Goodness gracious. I told you. I'd specially ordered it so you could see it. How will you get another one for me? I'd love one. Look at that.

2:44It's not a very flattering picture, but it's very big. I think you look very nice. We really want 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 Barbara episodes. Go to empirepoduk.com. That's empirepoduk.com. You don't just get clumpage with our little mini series, but you also get early access to any tickets if we do live shows and a weekly newsletter.

3:20Which is more like a sort of magazine. It's a very grand newsletter. Oh, it's pretty good. Yeah. I know they should put that photo in it somewhere, including book discounts. Which actually add up, given the amount of people who seem to buy the books that we're talking about. 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? So we were talking about the life of Babur, 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.

4:03And 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 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 Fergana Valley of what is now Uzbekistan, and then had to watch both he and all his cousins lose their patrimony and be kicked out.

4:56And 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 re-establish his dynasty, which have become just refugees, migrants, penniless, hopeless migrants without any lands to their name. He manages to re-establish 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.

5:44And what's lovely about it is that Babur, 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.

6:30Wait a minute, wait a minute, because Mr. Life and Soul of the Party, you're not telling me you were clinging to the wall or hiding in the kitchen. And all these good-looking party boys in London who knew their dance moves and knew how to talk to girls. And I was there age 14, feeling completely out of it. And this is exactly what Barber said. It was true. 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?

7:05For 40 days, he goes wandering. Look at that. Look at that. This is amazing. I just saw this. It's utterly beguiling, actually. 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 Harati party and they serve him roast goose. And Babel doesn't know how to eat it.

7:41And 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 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 dulcimas, singing and dancing and drinking wine, something Babur had never tasted. And he says, I knew nothing of its cheer and pleasure.

8:18And 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 Mearsers 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 was determined 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.

8:58Isn't that lovely? So, you know, the little yokel comes, his eyes wide open, scared of a goose. But he then does undergo one of the 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. So, like 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 Halder 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, jewellery, goldsmith's work, saddlery and armour making.

9:42Also, 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. Isn't that lovely? And I find that rather delightful that, you know, painting and illumination is important in the governing of a country. Isn't that lovely? 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 is in some ways to our eyes, looking back, a complete brute in war.

10:17He'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, Khurasan 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. Oh, that's hilarious. He does start. I mean, Herat is the awakening of the poet in him as well. 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.

11:05He starts playing. He becomes playful in language. You've told me about your favourite place in Herat before. Just tell everyone else. This is a place called the Gar Zagar. 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. The Ghazagar 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.

11:44And 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. 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. For me, as for Bruce Chapman, as for Robert Byron, all following in the footsteps of Babur, we just sat there reading Babur's description of this wonderful place 500 years ago and feeling that nothing at all had changed.

12:20So 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 a first person camera accounts of British forces in Afghanistan in 2007, and particularly in Helmand province, which is not far from Herat, is it? It's a sort of 500 kilometers, which in Afghan terms is not that far, no. Seven hours drive. 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.

13:01People they care about die. And obviously, there are lots of people dying 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 the bizarres 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. There is a reason for that.

13:38Afghanistan 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.

14:14It was basically what you call a war museum or 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 Jardine 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 Alliances troop carriers will be in that museum already now. Well, I mean, the poignancy then of reading Barbara's description of feeling like a yokel in her art, and then looking at what her art is more recently.

14:51In 1507, William, something big happens because he's loving her art and all good things must come to a crashing end in Barbara's life, and particularly if Shabani Khan is involved, the nemesis who has forced Barbara's sister to be his wife, because he takes Herat. Tell us about that. So his one place where he's suddenly growing and learning and calligraphy and writing poetry. And where his dynasty has survived. That is an important thing. This is his cousins in charge. And they've lost everything in what's now Uzbekistan. Shabani Khan has taken it. And Herat, other than his own kingdom of Kabul, is the one other kingdom of his dynasty.

15:28And Babu is 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. Is this as he's fleeing as Shabani Khan is taking him? 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 passes Thor, Shaibani Khan just comes and he storms Herat.

16:01All 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 her rats, slaughters Baba's cousins. He even mistreated the prince's wives and children. And this includes another of his sisters, Kazada, his only full sibling, who's forced to marry in bed the family's arch enemy, Shaibani Khan. And according to the historian Kwandamir, the delicate beauties of the inner sanctum of inviability 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.

16:41So 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 Safavi dynasty. Do you remember we talked about this when we - We have with Barnaby Rogerson, didn't we? With Barnaby Rogerson, yeah.

17:17Yes, yes, the brilliant Barnaby Rogerson. Now, we ought to remind people who Shah Ismail is. Can you give us a little pen portrait of who he is? 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 Babu. 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.

17:59The Shias are largely the Iranians now and that begins with our Shah Ismail. And then you have the Sunnis who exist in Pakistan, in India, what is now Pakistan but India. The Uzbeks are Sunnis. Basically the rest of the Islamic world. I 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? What are you doing? Why are you talking to them? 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.

18:44And maybe, maybe, maybe if he makes this alliance and 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. It's the place he's longing to recapture.

19:23In 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 Babur is 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. 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.

19:59Absolutely. But the thing is, I mean, my enemy's enemy is my friend, is the doctrine that works here for Barber. 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 good story. So the story is fantastic. It's basically diplomacy, grenade diplomacy, when you set out to insult the person that you're talking to. So Shibani, 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.

20:34So sends an ambassador with a begging bowl. The Shah responds by sending a spinning wheel. And they think, 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? I've never read Henry V, actually. No, I haven't. It is. Supposedly, the Dauphin sends 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, because don't start messing with the grown-ups.

21:11And 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, It's sort of a marvelous thing. So, of course, for Barber, 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 Barber 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 then? So he captures Samarkand, and then Shaibani Khan is tricked by Ismail Safavi into an ambush, cornered in a cattle compound, and dismembered.

21:50and his body parts were set in 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 bat the right horse and that this portrayal of the faith is worthwhile, but then it goes horribly wrong. The Samarkandis throw him out as a traitor to the faith, 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 has now chosen the Uzbeks.

22:27His 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 Cinder crossed, everything is in the Hindustani way. 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.

23:03Welcome back. So we left you with Babur 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 that. Absolutely. 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 in 1522, an irresistible opportunity presents itself in the person of a man called Dalat Khan.

23:45Now, 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. Dalat Khan falls out with the ruler of Delhi, who is a guy called Ibrahim Lodi. Well, that's going to be an important name, by the way, the Lodhis. Just bank that and we'll come back to that. You've pronounced him more correctly than me. Lodi rather than Lodi, as I call them in my Lodi and also, can I say, Dalat. No, but that's all right.

24:17I mean, you can't help it. You are Scottish. Also, Dalat or Dalat Khan, which is how I would say it. It means wealth, the Khan of wealth. Dalat. Yes, carry on, as you were. Go on. I can't help it, I'm Scottish. I'm going to save that one to chew on later. Put it on a T-shirt. He can't help it. He's Scottish. He's 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 terrorized his court.

24:57And anyway, so Dalat Khan has enough of this. And so he sends an invitation to Babu to take possession of the throne of Hindustan. And this is what Babu 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 Dalat 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 Sikhanda Lodi, whose standing army was said to be 100 ,000 people and whose elephants and whose lord's elephants were over 100 in number.