Soon after Akbar’s accession, Himu, the capable general and minister of ‘Adil Shah Sur, came forward to oppose the Mughuls. He first occupied Agra and Delhi by defeating Tardi Beg, the Mughul governor of Delhi, who was put to death under the orders of Bairam for his failure to defend Delhi. Having assumed the title of Raja Vikramjit or Vikramaditya, Himu met Akbar and Bairam at the historic field of Panipat with a large army including 1,500 war elephants. He had initial successes against both the wings of the Mughul army, but the day was decided by a chance arrow which struck him in the eye. He lost consciousness, and his soldiers, deprived of their leader, dispersed in confusion. In this helpless condition, Himu was put to death, according to some, by Bairam, on the refusal of Akbar to kill him with his own hands, and, according to others, by Akbar himself at the instigation of his Protector.
The result of the second battle of Panipat was decisive. It brought to a close the Afghan-Mughul contest for supremacy in India by giving a verdict in favour of the latter. The victors soon occupied Delhi and Agra. Sikandar Sur surrendered himself to them in May, A.D. 1557, and was granted a fief in the eastern provinces, whence he was soon expelled by Akbar and died as a fugitive in Bengal (A.D. 1558-1559). Muhammad ‘Adil died (1556) fighting at Monghyr against the governor of Bengal. lbrahim Sur, after wandering from place to place, found asylum in Orissa, where he was killed about ten years later (A.D. 1567-1568). Thus there remained no Sur rival to contest Akbar’s claims to sovereignty over Hindustan. The later anti-Mughul Afghan rising, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were more or less too sporadic and local to be a serious menace to Mughul suzerainty.
End of the Regency
THE second batte of Panipat marked the real beginning of the Mughul Empire in India and set it on the path of expansion. Between 1558 and 1560 Gwalior, Ajmer and Jaunpur were incorporated into it. But Akbar, held in the trammels of tutelage by his guardian and Protector, Bairam Khan, was not yet free to act independently. The Protector had rendered valuable services to the Mughuls, but he had created many, enemies by this time by using his power in a high-handed manner. Abul Fazl writes that “at length Bairam’s proceedings went beyond all endurance”. Akbar personally felt a desire to be king in fact as well as in name, and was also urged by his mother, Hamida Banu Begam, his foster-mother, Maham Anaga, and her son, Adam Khan, to get rid of the regent. In 1560 the Emperor openly expressed before Bairam his determination to take the reins of government in his own hands and dismissed him. The Protector submitted to the decision of his master with apparent resignation and agreed to leave for Mecca. But when Akbar deputed Pir Muhammad, a personal enemy and former subordinate of Bairam, to see his guardian out of the imperial domains, or as Badauni puts it, “to pack him off as quickly as possible to Mecca “, the latter, considering it to be an insult, rebelled. He was defeated near Jullundur, but Akbar was wise enough to treat him with generosity in consideration of his past services. On his way to Mecca, Bairam was stabbed to death in January, 1561, by a Lohani Afghan, whose father had been killed on a previous occasion by the Mughul troops under the command of the Protector. Though the Afghans plundered all that he had been carrying with him, his family escaped disgrace and his son, ‘Abdur Rahim, received Akbar’s protection and rose later on to be one of the chief nobles of the Empire.
The fall of Bairam did not at once enable Akbar to assume fully the reins of government into his own hands. For two years more (A.D. 1560-1562), his foster-mother, Maham Anaga, her son, Adam Khan, and their relatives, exercised an undue influence in the State. Adam Khan and Pir Muhammad effected the conquest of Malwa (1561) by methods which have been vividly described by Badauni, an eyewitness of their oppression; but they remained unpunished. Being at last impatient of their influence, Akbar caused the death of Adam Khan. His mother died of grief after forty days. Thus by the month of May, 1562, Akbar was able to emancipate himself from harem influence.
Conquests and Annexations
A strong imperialist by instinct, Akbar followed a policy of conquest for the expansion of his empire until the capture of Asirgarh in January, 1601. Unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances prevented him from carrying it farther. “A monarch”, he held, “should be ever intent on conquest, otherwise his neighbours rise in arms against him.” In fact, Akbar achieved the political unification of nearly the whole of Northern and Central India by frequent annexations extending over forty years. We have already noted how Malwa was conquered by Adam Khan and Pir Muhammad in 1561, but its ruler, Baz Bahadur, soon recovered it and did not submit to the Mughuls until some years later. In l564 Akbar sent Asaf Khan, governor of Kara and the eastern provinces, to conquer the kingdom of Garah Katanga (in Gondwana), roughly corresponding to the northern districts of the Central Provinces. The reigning king of this tract, Bir Narayan, was a minor, but it was ably governed by his mother, Durgavati, a Rajput lady of superb beauty and great valour. She gallantly opposed the imperialists but was defeated in a fight with them between Garah and Mandala (now in the Jabalpur district). In the true Rajput spirit, she preferred death to disgrace and committed suicide. Thus ” her end was as noble and devoted as her life had been useful”. The young ruler, Bir Narayan, fought in a chivalrous manner against his enemies till he lost his life. The invaders captured a vast booty. Asaf Khan held the kingdom for some time, but it was subsequently made over to a representative of the old ruling family, who was compelled by the Mughuls to “part with that portion of his kingdom which now forms the kingdom of Bhopal”.
