| Second Battle of Panipat | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Hindu Restoration Wars | |||||||
 Dramatisation of Hemu's final charge |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Hemu's kingdom | Mughal Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Hemu Shadi Khan Kakar Ramaya | Bairam Khan Ali Quli Khan Abdulla Khan Uzbak |
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| Strength | |||||||
| 30,000 cavalry 500 war elephants 500 falconets 51 cannons | 10,000 cavalry 5,000 infantrymen (did not engage) |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 5,000 killed, injured or wounded | 10-11,000 killed, injured or wounded 2,000 captured |
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The Second Battle of Panipat, also known as Battle of Panipat, was perhaps one of the greatest battles fought by the Hindustani Raj in their five-century long history. It was fought between the forces of Samrat Hem Chandra Vikramaditya, popularly called Hemu - the Hindu king who was ruling North India from Delhi, and the army of Akbar in November, 1556. It concluded in a decisive victory for the Hindustani Raj.
Prelude[]
On January 24, 1556, the ruler of the Mughal Empire, Humanyun, died in Delhi. He was succeeded by his son, Akbar, who, at the time was 13 years old. Humayun had left his son an Empire ruling the north of India, with their rule confined to Kabul, Kandahar, parts of Delhi and Punjab. Akbar was then on campaign in Kabul with his guardian, Bairam Khan to quell ongoing the rebellion in and around Kabul at that time.
At around this time, Ali Adil Shah's vazier (or Chief Minister), Hemu was crushing the rebellion in Bengal for the Sur Empire. When word reached him of Humayun's death, Hemu seized the opportunity to drive out the Mughals, who had taken the cities of Delhi and Agra from the Suris. Beginning a rapid campaign, the general moved his forces from Bengal and attacked territories recently acquired by the Mughals in what is present day Uttar Pardesh, enjoying great success against his enemies.
The governor of Agra, hearing of his march, fled rather than facing the oncoming forces, leaving Hem's path to Delhi open. He defeated the city's garrison on the outskirts of Delhi, and marched into the city victorious.
At this point, Akbar's general Bairam Khan would order the army to march to face the vazier's forces, against the wishes of his other generals to confront him and take back the throne of Delhi, setting the stage for the Second Battle of Panipat.
Battle[]
However, his regent Bairam Khan thought otherwise and marched the army towards Delhi. Both the armies met at historic battlefield of Panipat, where, thirty years earlier, Akbar's grandfather Babur had defeated Ibrahim Lodi in what is now known as the First Battle of Panipat. On the onset of the battle, the 10,000-strong Mughal cavalry faced off against a force three times its size. 5,000 infantrymen were kept in reserve with Emperor Akbar, in a bid to defend his escape if things were to fail.
Hemu would begin the battle, sending his elephants to attack the flanks of the opposing cavalry in a bid to force the Mughal flanks to fold in onto themselves. This was not to be however, as those men who managed to get out of the attack swept round to attack the flanks of Hemu's cavalry, attacking with their superior bows. The Afghan attack also began to stall as they were unable to reach the stationed Mughal forces, which had taken up defensive spots behind a deep ravine.
As a result, Ali Quli Khan (Khan-i-Zaman) leads his cavalry to attack the rear of the Afghan centre; which was beginning to lose momentum and falter. Mughal cavalry began attacking the elephants and the battle seemingly began to turn their way. Seeing this, Hemu ordered his artillery to open up on Ali Quli's men, with devastating effect. Leading his forces into the fray, Hemu picked off the weakened attackers and his cavalry would begin to push back the attacking forces. In a last ditch attempt, Ali Quli orders his men to attack Hemu with their arrows; aiming for the eyes in a bid to kill him and seize the battle. Yet artillery would mean the horsemen are unable to get sufficiently close enough to Hemu for their arrows to reach him and their attempts fail.
Before long, under the combined assault of all of Hemu's forces, the Mughals broke and began to flee. The battle turned into a rout, with all notable Mughal commanders either captured or killed. Around two thousand cavalrymen would coalesce around Akbar, who would subsequently flee after sending most of his protection force to engage in a rear guard action to allow him time to get away.
Aftermath[]
The rearguard action performed by Mughal forces would buy Akbar crucial time to escape with 2000-odd cavalry. Although they would fight well, by this point it was clear there would be no victory and any of the infantrymen not killed were taken prisoner by the victorious army. It would, however, take years for the Mughals to be finally driven out of Hindustan. The heads of the beheaded generals within Akbar's army were spiked outside the Purana Quila in Delhi. The victorious returning vazier, Hemu, would use his success to usurp Ali Adil Shah and take then throne for himself, following the battle and be crowned Raja Vikramaditya I of the Chandra dynasty. Although initially his rule was weak, the army would remain for the most part loyal to him, which he would use to break the various rebellions that would subsequently occur in the years after his victory and consolidate the hold over his empire.
It would be no less than three years before he went after the remainder Mughal empire, which by that point would have been in a state of constant fighting due to the weak rule of the emperor, who lacked loyal generals. His conquering of Mughal territory would be swift and the Battle outside Kabul would mark the end of the Mughals.