Suhaldev : The Protector of Hindus

Suhaldev is a legendary Indian king from Shravasti, who is said to have defeated and killed the Ghaznavid general Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud in the early 11th century. He is mentioned in Mirat-i-Masudi, a 17th-century Persian-language historical romance by Abdur Rahman Chishti. According to Chishti, his work is based on Tawarikh-i-Mahmudi by Mulla Muhammad Ghaznavi. It was written by during the reign of the Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) .


According to the legend, Suhaldev was the eldest son of King Mordhwaj of Shravasti. In different versions of the legends, he is known by different names, including Sakardev, Suhirdadhwaj, Suhridil, Suhridal-dhaj, Rai Suhrid Dev, Susaj, Suhardal, Sohildar, Shahardev, Sahardev, Suhar Deo, Suhaaldev, Suhildev, Suheldev and Suheldeo.
Alexander Cunningham, based on the traditional accounts of Tharu Rajas of Gonda, came up with the following genaology of Suhaldev's family:

1. Mayura-dhwaja or Mora-dhaj, c. 900 CE
2. Hansa-dhwaja or Hans-dhaj, c. 925 CE
3. Makara-dhwaja or Makar-dhaj, c. 950 CE
4. Sudhanya-dhwaja or Sudhanwa-dhaj, c. 975 CE
5. Suhaldev or Suhridal-dhaj, c. 1000 CE

Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud was son of Ghazi Salar Sahu, a descendant of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, son of Hazrat Ali, and Sitr-i-Mu'alla, who was sister of Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi (the plunderer of the Somnath temple). According to Mirat-i-Masudi, Masud was born in 1015 CE. As a child, he accompanied his uncle in the Ghaznavid raids on the Hindu temple at Somnath.

Salar Masud , invaded India at the age of 16 with his uncle Salar Saifudin and teacher Syed Ibrahim Mashadi Bara Hazari (Salar-i-Azam of Ghaznavi)  in early 11th century to the South Asia for propagation of Islam.

He crossed the Indus river, and conquered Multan, Delhi, Meerut and finally Satrikh. At Satrikh, he established his headquarters, and dispatched armies to defeat the local kings. Sayyad Saif-ud-din and Mian Rajjab were dispatched to Bahraich. The local Raja of Bahraich and other neighbouring Hindu kings formed a confederation, but an army led by Masud's father Gazi Saiyyed Salar Sahu defeated them. Nevertheless, they continued to threaten the invaders, and therefore, in 1033 CE, Masud himself arrived in Bahraich to check their advance. Masud inflicted defeat after defeat on his enemies, until the arrival of Suhaldev. Suhaldev's army defeated Masud's forces, and Masud was killed in a battle in 1034

After the defeat of this foreign invader Muslims dared  not enter the  gangatic plain till Muhammad Ghori invaded in 1186 when Muhammad Ghori ended the Ghaznavid dynasty after having captured Lahore and executed the Ghaznavid ruler Khusrau-Malik.Ghori defeated Raja Jaichand of Kannauj in 1193  in the  Battle of Chandwar . After the death of  Raja Jaichand  Kannauj army expected Ghori to attack the capital next, but he chose to target the defenseless city of Varanasi, a famous Hindu pilgrim center. He plundered all the temples and enslaved the populace. One thousand temples were converted into mosques. Immense booty was taken, including several hundred elephants, and the Muslim army took possession of the Asni fort. But Rajput resistance continued till Jayachandra's son, Harishchandra, recovered Kanauj, Jaunpur and Mirzapur in AD 1197. Kanauj seems to have stayed independent until Iltumish conquered it.
A dargah (mausoleum) of Salar Masud, said to have been constructed by Firuz Shah Tughlaq, is located in Bahraich.

Hindu genocide by the Muslim invaders of India

Muslim historian Firishta [full name Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah, born in 1560 and died in 1620], the author of the Tarikh-i Firishta and the Gulshan-i Ibrahim, was the first to give an idea to the medieval bloodbath that was India during Muslim rule, when he declared thatover 400 million Hindus got slaughtered during Muslim invasion and occupation of India. Survivors got enslaved and castrated. India’s population is said to have been around 600 million at the time of Muslim invasion. By the mid 1500’s the Hindu population was 200 million.

Will Durant argued in his 1935 book “The Story of Civilisation: Our Oriental Heritage” (page 459):

“The Mohammedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. The Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with great glee and pride the slaughters of Hindus, forced conversions, abduction of Hindu women and children to slave markets and the destruction of temples carried out by the warriors of Islam during 800 AD to 1700 AD. Millions of Hindus were converted to Islam by sword during this period.”

Francois Gautier in his book ‘Rewriting Indian History’ (1996) wrote:

“The massacres perpetuated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese.”

Under the Ghaurivid rulers (Turks) eg Muhammad Ghauri (Afghani) and his military commander then ruler, Qutbuddin Aibak (r1206-1210), the Delhi sultanate was set up. Mass beheadings, enslavements, forced conversions, plunder and the destruction of temples continued. Slaves were incredibly plentiful. In 1195, Aibak took 20,000 slaves from Raja Bhim and 50,000 at Kalinjar (1202) (Lal [c] p 536).

“even the poor (Muslim) householder became owner of numerous slaves.’ (Khan 103, Lal [c] p 537).

Through the 13/14th century ruled by the Khilji (Khaljis) and Tughlaq’s, slavery grew as Islam spread. Thousands of slaves were sold at a low price everyday (Khan p 280). Alauddin Khilji’s (r 1296-1316) capture of slaves was stupendous and he shackled, chained and humiliated slaves (Lal [c] p 540). In the sack of Somnath alone he:

“took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000 and children of both sexes ..more than the pen can enumerate. The Mohammadan army brought the country to utter ruin, destroyed the lives of inhabitants, and plundered the cities and captured their offspring.” (historian cited in Bostom p 641, Lal [c] p 540)

Many thousands were massacred. Alauddin Khilji (r 1296-1316) had 50,000 slave BOYS in his personal service and 70,000 slaves worked continuously on his buildings.(Lal [c] p 541)

Women practised Jauhar (burning or killing oneself to avoid enslavement and rape) and sati.

The Sufi Amir Khusrau notes “the Turks, whenever they please, can seize, buy or sell any Hindu” (Lal [c] p 541)

The Khilji dynasty's court historian wrote (abridged),

The (Muslim) army left Delhi in November 1310. After crossing rivers, hills and many depths, the elephants were sent, in order that the inhabitants of Ma'bar might be made aware of the day of resurrection had arrived amongst them; and that all the burnt Hindus would be despatched by the sword to their brothers in hell, so that fire, the improper object of their worship, might mete out proper punishment to them.
– Amir Khusrow, Táríkh-i 'Aláí

Riots and mutinies by Hindus erupted in various parts of the Sultanate, ranging from modern Punjab to Gujarat to Madhya Pradesh to Uttar Pradesh. These riots were crushed with mass executions, where all men and even boys above the age of 8 were seized and killed. Nusrat Khan, a general of Allauddin Khilji, retaliated against mutineers by seizing all women and children of the affected area and placing them in prison. In another act, he had the wives of suspects arrested, dishonored and publicly exposed to humiliation. The children were cut into pieces on the heads of their mothers, on the orders of Nusrat Khan.

The Muslim army led by Malik Kafur, another general of Allauddin Khilji, pursued two violent campaigns into south India, between 1309 and 1311, against three Hindu kingdoms of Deogiri (Maharashtra), Warangal (Telangana) and Madurai (Tamil Nadu). Thousands were slaughtered. Halebid temple was destroyed. The temples, cities and villages were plundered. The loot from south India was so large, that historians of that era state a thousand camels had to be deployed to carry it to Delhi.

An order was accordingly given to the Brahman and was brought before Sultan. The true faith was declared to the Brahman and the right course pointed out. but he refused to accept it. A pile was risen on which the Kaffir with his hands and legs tied was thrown into and the wooden tablet on the top. The pile was lit at two places his head and his feet. The fire first reached him in the feet and drew from him a cry, and then fire completely enveloped him. Behold Sultan for his strict adherence to law and rectitude. – Tarikh-i Firoz Shahi

Firuz Shah Tughlaq wrote in his autobiography,

Some Hindus had erected a new idol-temple in the village of Kohana, and the idolaters used to assemble there and perform their idolatrous rites. These people were seized and brought before me. I ordered that the perverse conduct of this wickedness be publicly proclaimed and they should be put to death before the gate of the palace. I also ordered that the infidel books, the idols, and the vessels used in their worship should all be publicly burnt. The others were restrained by threats and punishments, as a warning to all men, that no zimmi could follow such wicked practices in a Musulman country.
– Firuz Shah Tughluq, Futuhat-i Firoz Shahi

Timur's massacre of Delhi (1398 AD)

(Timur's) soldiers grew more eager for plunder and destruction. On that Friday night there were about 15,000 men in the city who were engaged from early eve till morning in plundering and burning the houses. In many places the impure infidel gabrs (of Delhi) made resistance. (...) Every soldier obtained more than twenty persons as slaves, and some brought as many as fifty or a hundred men, women and children as slaves of the city. The other plunder and spoils were immense, gems and jewels of all sorts, rubies, diamonds, stuffs and fabrics, vases and vessels of gold and silver. (...) On the 19th of the month Old Delhi was thought of, for many Hindus had fled thither. Amir Shah Malik and Ali Sultan Tawachi, with 500 trusty men, proceeded against them, and falling upon them with the sword despatched them to hell.
– Sharafuddin Yazdi, Zafarnama (ظفرنامه)

The fall of Mughal Empire

During 1612–1757, the East India Company set up "factories" (trading posts) in several locations, mostly in coastal India, with the consent of the Mughal emperors or local rulers. Its rivals were the merchant trading companies of Holland and France. By the mid-18th century, three "Presidency towns": Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta had grown in size

From the mid-eighteenth century, the East India Company began to maintain armies at each of its three main stations, or Presidencies of British India, at Calcutta (Bengal), Madras and Bombay. The military arm of the East India Company quickly developed to become a private corporate armed forces and was utilised as an instrument of geo political power and expansion, rather than its original purpose as a guard force, and became the preeminent professional military force in the Indian Sub Continent. As it increased in size the Army was broken into the Presidency Armies of Bengal, Madras and Bombay each recruiting their own integral Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery and Horse Artillery units. The Navy also grew significantly, vastly expanding its Fleet and although made up predominantly of heavily armed merchant vessels, called East Indiamen, also included warships.

Robert Clive led company forces against Siraj Ud Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal, Bihar, and Midnapore district in Odisha to victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, resulting in the conquest of Bengal. This victory estranged the British and the Mughals, since Siraj Ud Daulah was a Mughal feudatory ally.

The Battle of Buxar was fought on 22 October 1764 between the forces under the command of the British East India Company led by Hector Munro and the combined army of Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal; the Nawab of Awadh; and the Mughal King Shah Alam II.The British victory at Buxar had "at one fell swoop, disposed of the three main scions of Moghul power in Upper India. Mir Qasim disappeared into an impoverished obscurity. Shah Alam realigned himself with the British, and Shah Shuja-ud-Daula fled west hotly pursued by the victors. The whole Ganges valley lay at the Company's mercy; Shah Shuja eventually surrendered; henceforth Company troops became the power-brokers throughout Oudh as well as Bihar .

Soon after the Battle of Buxar, Shah Alam II, a sovereign who had just been defeated by the British, sought their protection by signing the Treaty of Allahabad in the year 1765. Shah Alam II was forced to grant the Diwani (right to collect revenue) of Bengal (which included Bihar and Odisha) to the British East India Company in return for an annual tribute of 2.6 million rupees to be paid by the company from the collected revenue. Tax exempt status was also restored to the company. The company further secured for the districts of Kora and Allahabad which allowed the British East India Company to collect tax from more than 20 million people. East India company thus became the Imperial tax collector in the former Mughal province of Bengal (which included Bihar and Odisha). East India company appointed a deputy Nawab Muhammad Reza Khan to collect revenue on behalf of the company. The emperor resided in the fort of Allahabad for six years. Warren Hastings, the head of East India company got appointed as the first Governor of Bengal in 1774.

In the year 1771 the Marathas under Mahadji Scindia returned to northern India and even captured Delhi. Shah Alam II, was escorted by Mahadji Scindia and left Allahabad in May 1771 and in January 1772 reached Delhi. Along with the Marathas they undertook to win the crown lands of Rohilkhand and defeated Zabita Khan, capturing the fort of Pathar garh with its treasure. Mahadji was appointed as Vakil-ul-Mutlaq (regent of Mughal affairs)

he Hindu Jat kingdom of Bharatpur waged many wars against the Mughal Delhi and in the 17th and 18th century carried out numerous invasions in Mughal territories including Agra During one massive assault Jats sieged Agra in 1761, after 20 days on 12 June the Mughal forces at Agra surrendered to Jats.

They carried the bounty including the two great silver doors to the entrance of the famous Taj Mahal (plundered by mughals after defeating Chittorgargh Rajputs) were carried off and melted down by Suraj Mal in 1764. Suraj Mal's son Jawahar Singh, further extended the Jat power in Northern India and captured the territory in Doab, Ballabgarh and Agra. Jats kept Agra fort and other territories closer to Delhi under their control from 1761 till 1774.

Sikhs, many of whom were Jat Sikhs, had been in perpetual war against mughal intolerance specially after beheading of Sikh gurus and their families by mughals. Simmering Sikhs rose once again in the year 1764 and overran the Mughal Faujdar of Sirhind, Zain Khan Sirhindi, who fell in battle and ever since the Sikhs perpetually raided and took the bounties from the lands as far as Delhi practically every year. They attacked, won and extracted payments from Delhi three times in 11 years particularly in 1772, 1778 and 1783.

Ghulam Qadir , the grandson of Najib Khan himself blinded Shah Alam II on 10 August 1788. Ghulam Qadir behaved with gross brutality to the emperor and his family. Young Prince Mirza Akbar was forced to nautch dance together along with other Mughal princes and princesses. He witnessed how the members of the imperial Mughal family were humiliated, as well as starved.Three servants and two water-carriers who tried to help the bleeding emperor were beheaded and according to one account, Ghulam Qadir would pull the beard of the elderly Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II. After ten horrible weeks, during which the honour of the royal family and prestige of the Mughal Empire reached its lowest ebb, Mahadaji Shinde intervened and killed Ghulam Qadir, taking possession of Delhi on 2 October He restored Shah Alam II to the throne and acted as his protector. Thankful for his intervention, he honoured Mahadji Scindia with the titles of Vakil-ul-Mutlaq (Regent of the Empire) and Amir-ul-Amara (Head of the Amirs). However, he was actually a puppet at the hands of Mahadji Scindia of the Marathas who were his protectors.

His power was so depleted by the end of his reign that it led to a saying 'The kingdom of Shah Alam is from Delhi to Palam'. Thus India was totally free of Muslim rule when British came to India and Mahadji was the true ruler of Hindustan .Kini, the English biographer of Mahadaji Shinde, has described Mahadaji as the greatest man in South Asia in the 18th century. But he died, at his camp at Wanavdi near Pune on 12 February 1794 .

He left no heir, and was succeeded by Daulat Rao Scindia, a grandson of his brother Tukoji Rao Scindia, who was scarcely 15 years of age at the time. Daulatrao was reecognised and formally installed by the Peshwa, 3 March 1794, and conferred the titles of Naib Vakil-i-Mutlaq (Vice Regent of the Empire), Amir-al-Umara (Head of the Amirs) from Emperor Shah Alam II on 10 May 1794.

Urged possibly by this adviser, Daulatrao aimed at increasing his dominions at all costs, and seized territory from the Maratha Ponwars of Dhar and Dewas. The rising power of Yashwantrao Holkar of Indore, however, alarmed him. In July 1801, Yashwantrao appeared before Sindhia's capital of Ujjain, and after defeating some battalions under John Hessing, extorted a large sum from its inhabitants, but did not ravage the town. In October, however, Sarjerao Ghatge took revenge by sacking Indore, razing it almost to the ground, and practicing every form of atrocity on its inhabitants.

Then, in 1802, on the festival of Diwali, Yashwantrao Holkar defeated the combined armies of Scindia and Peshwa Bajirao II at Hadapsar, near Pune. The battle took place at Ghorpadi, Banwadi, and Hadapsar.

Finally, on December 31, 1802, the Peshwa signed the Treaty of Bassein, by which the British were recognized as the paramount power in India.

After the Battle of Delhi (1803), on 14 September 1803 British troops entered Delhi and Shah Alam II, a blind old man, seated under a tattered canopy, came under British protection. The Marathas in 1804 under Yashwantrao Holkar tried to snatch Delhi from the British in Siege of Delhi (1804), but failed.

Akbar Shah II was appointed Mughal Emperor after the death of his father Shah Alam II . The British therefore reduced his titular authority to 'King of Delhi' in 1835 and the East India Company ceased to act as the mere lieutenants of the Mughal Empire as they did from 1803 to 1835. Simultaneously they replaced Persian text with English text on the company's coins, which no longer carried the emperor's name.

The British encouraged the Nawab of Oudh and the Nizam of Hyderabad to take royal titles in order to further diminish the Emperor's status and influence. Out of deference, the Nizam did not, but the Nawab of Awadh did so.

I want to narrate one more incidence in this context :

Archibald Seton, a Scottish East India Company Administrator was the appointed Officer in Red Fort. Next in line to throne, Crown Prince Mirza Jahangir was against British way of working. One day, this reckless young prince of 19 insulted Seton by calling him Lullu. Seton did not react then. Perhaps he did not understood the meaning of the word. Few days later, when Seton was returning from court, Mirza Jahangir, sitting on the roof of Naubat Khana, fired a shot at him, missing Seton completely. While Seton escaped unhurt, his orderly lost his life. Angry with this, British arrested Mirza Jahangir and sent him to Allahabad fort. Back then, it was famous that a political prisoner, who is sent to Allahabad Fort, never returns alive.

The Mughal court tried its best to save him, but the administration was in British hands completely. Having failed at every door, Empress Mumtaz Mahal, mother of Mirza Jahangir came to the shrine of Sufi Saint Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki (ra) in Mehrauli, Delhi. She took a vow that if Mirza Jahangir returns safely, she would offer a sheet (chadar) of flowers at the Dargah.

How British Conqured India

The first purely Indian troops employed by the British were watchmen employed in each of the Presidencies of the British East India Company to protect their trading stations. These were all placed in 1748 under one Commander-in-Chief, Major-General Stringer Lawrence who is regarded as the "Father of the Indian Army"

From the mid-eighteenth century, the East India Company began to maintain armies at each of its three main stations, or Presidencies of British India, at Calcutta (Bengal), Madras and Bombay. The Bengal Army, Madras Army, and Bombay Army were quite distinct, each with its own Regiments and cadre of European officers. All three armies contained European regiments in which both the officers and men were Europeans, as well as a larger number of ‘Native’ regiments, in which the officers were Europeans and the other ranks were Indians. They included Artillery, Cavalry and Infantry regiments, so historical sources refer to the Bengal/Madras/Bombay Artillery/Cavalry/Infantry (the latter often termed ‘Native Infantry’ or ‘N.I.’). From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, the Crown began to dispatch regiments of the regular British Army to India, to reinforce the Company’s armies. These troops are often referred to as ‘H.M.’s Regiments’ or ‘Royal regiments’.

In 1757, Robert Clive came up with the idea of sepoy battalions for the Bengal Presidency, which were to be armed, dressed and trained as the red coats and commanded by a nucleus of British officers. The Madras Army followed suit with six battalions in 1759 followed by the Bombay Army in 1767. Recruitment in all cases was done locally amongst single castes, from specific communities, villages and families.

In the Bengal Army however, recruitment was only amongst high caste Brahmin and Rajput communities, mainly of the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar regions. Recruitment was undertaken locally by battalions or regiments often from the same community, village and even family. The commanding officer of a battalion became a form of substitute for the village chief or gaon bura. He was the mai-baap or the "father and mother" of the sepoys making up the paltan (from "platoon"). There were many family and community ties amongst the troops and numerous instances where family members enlisted in the same battalion or regiment. The izzat ("honour") of the unit was represented by the regimental colours; the new sepoy having to swear an oath in front of them on enlistment. These colours were stored in honour in the quarter guard and frequently paraded before the men. They formed a rallying point in battle. The oath of fealty by the sepoy was given to the East India Company and included a pledge of faithfulness to the salt that one has eaten

In Battle of Plassey the British force consisted of 613 Europeans, 171 artillery-men controlling eight field pieces and two howitzers, 91 topasses, 2100 sepoys (mainly dusadhs) and 150 sailors .

While Nawab's army consisted of 30,000 infantry of all sorts, armed with matchlocks, swords, pikes and rockets and 20,000 cavalry, armed with swords or long spears, interspersed by 300 pieces of artillery, mostly 32, 24 and 18-pounders. The army also included a detachment of about 50 French artillerymen under de St. Frais directing their own field pieces. Siraj-ud-Daulah had a numerically superior force and made his stand at Plassey. The British, worried about being outnumbered, formed a conspiracy with Siraj-ud-Daulah's demoted army chief Mir Jafar, along with others such as Yar Lutuf Khan, Jagat Seths (Mahtab Chand and Swarup Chand), Omichund and Rai Durlabh. Mir Jafar, Rai Durlabh and Yar Lutuf Khan thus assembled their troops near the battlefield but made no move to actually join the battle. Siraj-ud-Daulah's army with 50,000 soldiers, 40 canons and 10 war elephants was defeated by 3,000 soldiers of Col. Robert Clive, owing to the flight of Siraj-ud-daulah from the battlefield and the inactivity of the conspirators. The battle was ended in 11 hours.

In Battle of Buxar British troops engaged in the fighting numbered 7,072 comprising 857 British, 5,297 Indian sepoys and 918 Indian cavalry. The combined army of the Mughals, Awadh and Mir Qasim consisting of 40,000 men was defeated by a British army .The Mughal camp was internally broken due to a quarrel between the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II and Shuja-ud-Daula the Nawab of Awadh Mir Qasim was reluctant to engage the British, and instead went off to collect tribute. The lack of basic co-ordination among the three desperate allies was responsible for their decisive defeat.

Soon after the Battle of Buxar, Shah Alam II, a sovereign who had just been defeated by the British, sought their protection by signing the Treaty of Allahabad in the year 1765. Shah Alam II was forced to grant the Diwani (right to collect revenue) of Bengal (which included Bihar and Odisha) to the British East India Company in return for an annual tribute of 2.6 million rupees to be paid by the company from the collected revenue. Tax exempt status was also restored to the company. The company further secured for the districts of Kora and Allahabad which allowed the British East India Company to collect tax from more than 20 million people. East India company thus became the Imperial tax collector in the former Mughal province of Bengal (which included Bihar and Odisha). East India company appointed a deputy Nawab Muhammad Reza Khan to collect revenue on behalf of the company.

But the situation was different when they took on Hindus of Hindustan Mahadaji Shinde humbled the British in Central India, single handed, which resulted in the Treaty of Salbai in 1782, where he mediated between the Peshwa and the British. Only after death of Mahadaji they dared to expand further .

After the fall of Mysore in 1799–1800, the Marathas were the only major power left outside British control in India. The Maratha Empire at that time consisted of a confederacy of five major chiefs: the Peshwa (Prime Minister) at the capital city of Poona, the Gaekwad chief of Baroda, the Scindia chief of Gwalior, the Holkar chief of Indore, and the Bhonsale chief of Nagpur. The Maratha chiefs were engaged in internal quarrels among themselves. Wellesley had repeatedly offered a subsidiary treaty to the Peshwa and Scindia, but Nana Fadnavis refused strongly.

In October 1802, the combined armies of Peshwa Baji Rao II and Scindia were defeated by Yashwantrao Holkar, ruler of Indore, at the Battle of Poona. Baji Rao fled to British protection, and in December the same year concluded the Treaty of Bassein with the British East India Company, ceding territory for the maintenance of a subsidiary force and agreeing to treaty with no other power.

This act on the part of the Peshwa, their nominal overlord, horrified and disgusted the Maratha chieftains; in particular, the Scindia rulers of Gwalior and the Bhonsale rulers of Nagpur and Berar contested the agreement.

By that time British had 53,000 men to help accomplish their goals. In September 1803, Scindia forces lost to Lord Gerard Lake at Delhi and to Lord Arthur Wellesley at Assaye. Wellesley, who went on to defeat Napoleon at Waterloo, would later remark that Assaye was tougher than Waterloo.

On December 17, 1803, Raghoji II Bhonsale of Nagpur signed the Treaty of Deogaon in Odisha with the British after the Battle of Argaon and gave up the province of Cuttack (which included Mughalbandi/the coastal part of Odisha, Garjat/the princely states of Odisha, Balasore Port, parts of Midnapore district of West Bengal).

On 30 December 1803, the Daulat Scindia signed the Treaty of Surji-Anjangaon with the British after the Battle of Assaye and Battle of Laswari and ceded to the British Rohtak, Gurgaon, Ganges-Jumna Doab, the Delhi-Agra region, parts of Bundelkhand, Broach, some districts of Gujarat and the fort of Ahmmadnagar.

The British started hostilities against Yashwantrao Holkar on 6 April 1804. The Treaty of Rajghat, signed on 24 December 1805, forced Holkar to give up Tonk, Rampura, and Bundi.

Hinduism in Afghanistan before Islamic Conquest

The Kushan Empire spread from the Kabul River valley to defeat other Central Asian tribes that had previously conquered parts of the northern central Iranian Plateau once ruled by the Parthians. By the middle of the 1st century BC, the Kushans' base of control became Afghanistan and their empire spanned from the north of the Pamir mountains to the Ganges river valley in India. Early in the 2nd century under Kanishka, the most powerful of the Kushan rulers, the empire reached its greatest geographic and cultural breadth to become a center of literature and art. Kanishka extended Kushan control to the mouth of the Indus River on the Arabian Sea, into Kashmir, and into what is today the Chinese-controlled area north of Tibet. Kanishka was a patron of religion and the arts. It was during his reign that Buddhism, which was promoted in northern India earlier by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (c. 260 BC–232 BC), reached its zenith in Central Asia. Though the Kushanas supported local Buddhists and Hindus as well as the worship of various local deities.

In the 3rd century, Kushan control fragmented into semi-independent kingdoms that became easy targets for conquest by the rising Iranian dynasty, the Sassanians (c. 224–561) which annexed Afghanistan by 300 AD. In these far off eastern-most territories, they established vassal kings as rulers, known as the Kushanshahs. Sassanian control was tenuous at times as numerous challenges from Central Asian tribes led to instability and constant warfare in the region.

The disunited Kushan and Sassanian kingdoms were in a poor position to meet the threat of a new wave of nomadic, Indo-European invaders from the north. The Hephthalites (or White Huns) swept out of Central Asia around the 4th century into Bactria and to the south, overwhelming the last of the Kushan and Sassanian kingdoms. Some have speculated that the name Afghanistan land of the Afghans derives from which could be an adjective such as brave, chivlarious, valour, which was to use for the people in today's Afghanistan. Historians believe that Hepthalite control continued for a century and was marked by constant warfare with the Sassanians to the west who exerted nominal control over the region.

By the middle of the 6th century the Hephthalites were defeated in the territories north of the Amu Darya (the Oxus River of antiquity) by another group of Central Asian nomads, the Göktürks, and by the resurgent Sassanians in the lands south of the Amu Darya. It was the ruler of western Göktürks, Sijin (a.k.a. Sinjibu, Silzibul and Yandu Muchu Khan) who led the forces against the Hepthalites who were defeated at the Battle of Chach (Tashkent) and at the Battle of Bukhara.

The Shahi dynasties ruled portions of the Kabul Valley (in eastern Afghanistan) and the old province of Gandhara (northern Pakistan and Kashmir) from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 9th century.

They are split into two eras the Buddhist-Shahis and the later Hindu-Shahis with the change-over occurring around 870, and ruled up until the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan.

When Xuanzang visited the region early in the 7th century, the Kabul region was ruled by a Kshatriya king, who is identified as the Shahi Khingal, and whose name has been found in an inscription found in Gardez. The Turkic Shahi regency was overthrown and replaced by a Mohyal Shahi dynasty of Brahmins who began the first phase of the Brahmana Hindu Shahi dynasty.

These Hindu kings of Kabul and Gandhara may have had links to some ruling families in neighboring Kashmir and other areas to the east. The Shahis were rulers of predominantly Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Hindu and Muslim populations and were thus patrons of numerous faiths, and various artifacts and coins from their rule have been found that display their multicultural domain. In 964 AD, the last Mohyal Shahi was succeeded by the Janjua overlord, Jayapala, of the Panduvanshi dynasty. The last Shahi emperors Jayapala, Anandapala and Tirlochanpala fought the Muslim Ghaznavids of Ghazna and were gradually defeated. Their remaining army were eventually exiled into northern India.




Ekamukhalinga (Shiva linga with one face), Afghanistan

A 5th-century marble Ganesha found in Gardez, Afghanistan, now at Dargah Pir Rattan Nath, Kabul. The inscription says that this "great and beautiful image of Mahāvināyaka" was consecrated by the Shahi King Khingala

The first confirmed mention of a Hindu in Afghanistan appears in the 982 AD Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, where it speaks of a king in "Ninhar" (Nangarhar), who shows a public display of conversion to Islam, even though he had over 30 wives, which are described as "Muslim, Afghan, and Hindu" wives.

Islamic conquest of Afghanistan

In 642 CE, Rashidun Arabs had conquered most of West Asia from the Sassanids and Byzantines, and from the western city of Herat they introduced the religion of Islam as they entered new cities. Afghanistan at that period had a number of different independent rulers, depending on the area. Ancestors of Abū Ḥanīfa, including his father, were from the Kabul region.

The early Arab forces did not fully explore Afghanistan due to attacks by the mountain tribes. Much of the eastern parts of the country remained independent, as part of the Hindu Shahi kingdoms of Kabul and Gandhara, which lasted that way until the forces of the Muslim Saffarid dynasty followed by the Ghaznavids conquered them.

In 870, Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar, a local ruler from the Saffarid dynasty of Zaranj, Afghanistan, conquered most of present-day Afghanistan in the name of Islam. In many cases, the people he conquered had rebelled against their Islamic overlords and reverted to prior forms of worship.

Two military families arose from the Turkic slave-guards of the Samanid Empire, the Simjurids and Ghaznavids, who ultimately proved disastrous to the Samanids. The Simjurids received an appanage in the Kohistan region of eastern Khorasan. The Samanid generals Alp Tigin and Abu al-Hasan Simjuri competed for the governorship of Khorasan and control of the Samanid Empire by placing on the throne emirs they could dominate after the death of Abd al-Malik I in 961. His death created a succession crisis between his brothers. A court party instigated by men of the scribal class — civilian ministers rather than Turkic generals — rejected the candidacy of Alp Tigin for the Samanid throne. Mansur I was installed instead, and Alp Tigin prudently retired to south of the Hindu Kush, where he captured Ghazna and became the ruler of the city as a Samanid authority.

The Simjurids enjoyed control of Khorasan south of the Amu Darya but were hard-pressed by a third great Iranian dynasty, the Buyid dynasty, and were unable to survive the collapse of the Samanids and the subsequent rise of the Ghaznavids. After Alp Tigin's death in 993, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim, followed by his slave Sabuktigin, took the throne. Sabuktigin, son-in-law of Alp Tigin and founder of the Ghaznavid Empire, began expanding it by capturing Samanid and Kabul Shahi territories, including most of what is now Afghanistan and part of Pakistan.