Fortune, however, favoured Humayun in his early wars, before the hostile forces had grown uncontrollable. Five or six months after his accession he marched to besiege the fortress of Kalinjar in Bundelkhand, on the suspicion that its Raja was in sympathy with the Afghans. But he had to retire, after levying a certain amount of money from the Raja, to deal with the Afghan menace in the east. He gained a decisive victory over the Afghans at Dourah (Dauhrua) and drove out Sultan Mahmud Lodi from Jaunpur. He besieged Chunar, then held by the Afghan chief Sher Khan, but soon abandoned it, and without completely suppressing the rising Afghan chief accepted from him “a purely perfunctory submission”, and thus allowed him free scope to develop his resources and power, while he had to march to the west to check the growing pretensions of Bahadur Shah of Gujarat.
Bahadur Shah had given definite provocation to Humayun. He had openly given shelter and help to many of the Afghan refugees and foes of the latter. The decline of Mewar had given him the opportunity to extend his territories at its expense, and after annexing Malwa he besieged the famous Rajput fortress of Chitor, when Humayun reached Malwa towards the end of 1534 without reaping the full advantage of his victory over the Afghans. Severely harassed by the Gujaratis, Rani Karnavati of Mewar solicited Humayun’s assistance against Bahadur Shah. But the Mughul king paid no heed to this, nor did he, for his own sake, immediately attack Bahadur Shah, but waited while the latter vanquished the Rajputs and stormed Chitor with the help of the Turkish engineer, Rumi Khan (of Constantinople), and Portuguese and other European artillerymen. Humayun committed a fatal blunder by ignoring the Rajput appeal. Indeed, he lost a golden opportunity of winning for his own cause their sympathy and support, the inestimable worth of which was realized by his son, Akbar. For the present he defeated the troops of Bahadur Shah in an engagement on the banks of an artificial lake near Mandasor, chased him from Mandu to Chamapaner and Ahmadabad and thence to Cambay till he was compelled to seek refuge in the island of Diu. But this victory of Humayun over the Gujarat ruler was short-lived. The weakness of his character soon manifested itself here as in other events of his career. In the flush of victory, he, his brother, ‘Askari, and most of his soldiers, plunged into feasting and revelry, as a natural sequel to which “his affairs fell into confusion; and even his own camp became a scene of uproar and insubordination”. The Sultan of Gujarat took advantage of this to recover his lost territories from the Mughuls. Humayun could not think of subduing him again, as his attention was drawn towards the east, where the Afghans had grown immensely powerful. No sooner had he begun his return march than Malwa was also lost to him. Thus “one year had seen the rapid conquest of the two great provinces; the next saw them quickly lost”. The next stage in Humayun’s career was marked by his ill-fated conflicts with Sher, the champion of Afghan revival.
Sher Shah and the Surs : The Afghan Revival and Decline
Babur’s victories at Panipat and Gogra did not result in the complete annihilation of the Afghan chiefs. They were seething with discontent against the newly founded alien rule, and only needed the guidance of one strong personality to coalesce their isolated efforts into an organized national resistance against it. This they got in Sher Khan Sur, who effected the revival of the Afghan power and established a glorious, though short, regime in India by ousting the newly established Mughul authority.
The career of Sher Khan Sur, the hero of Indo-Muslim revival, is as fascinating as that of Babur and not less instructive than that of the great Mughul, Akbar. Originally bearing the name of Farid, he began his life in a humble way, and, like many other great men in history, had to pass through various trials and vicissitudes of fortune before he rose to prominence by dint of his personal merit. His grandfather, lbrahim, an Afghan of the Sur tribe, lived near Peshawer and his father’s name was Hasan. Ibrahim migrated with his son to the east in quest of military service in the early part of Buhlul Lodi’s reign and both first entered the service of Mahabat Khan Sur, jagirdar of the paraganas of Hariana and Bakhala in the Punjab, and settled in the paragana of Bajwara or Bejoura. After some time Ibrahim got employment under Jamal Khan Sarang Khani of Hissar Firuza in the Delhi district, who conferred upon lbrahim some villages in the paragana of Narnaul for the maintenance of forty horsemen in his service. Farid was born probably near Narnaul
