04-14-2005, 09:35 PM
Book reivee in The Telegraph, 15 April 2005,
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->SCIENCE OF KILLINGÂ
Written in stoneÂ
HINDU ARMS AND RITUAL: ARMS AND ARMOUR FROM INDIA 1400-1865 By Robert Elgood, Mapin, Rs 3,500
Historians have always believed that the south Indian polities were technologically backward and that new kinds of weapons were introduced among them by the Muslim rulers of the north. <b>Contradicting this view, Robert Elgood asserts in this book that south India had a dynamic tradition of producing various kinds of military hardware, few of which have survived.</b> For one, the monsoon rains led to the rusting of the iron weapons. Two, the British, determined to disarm the Indian people, destroyed most of the arms. In fact, the East India Company melted down countless swords and shields which it sold as scrap. Three, the British ruling elite sequestrated weapons from the private armouries of kings and took them home. Many of these can now be seen in private collections and museums in Europe and America. Comparing the few scattered pieces in existence with the sculptures in temples, Elgood tries to chart the evolution of the weapons of south India.
<b>Historians had also long held the idea that Hindu weapons were governed by aesthetics and were not very effective in combats</b>. Such an interpretation is certainly overdrawn and arose because only the weapons studded with precious stones which belonged to the rulers have survived due to their intrinsic value. But it is clear that the process of secularization of European arms and armours, which began after the Renaissance, did not occur in pre-British India. The Hindus and Muslims considered military hardware as part of their religious ethos. The Hindus believed that weapons were the dwelling places of gods and that religious motifs would protect the warriors. Through the iconography on the weapons, the warriors expressed their spiritual loyalties.
<b>The Cholas introduced the tiger symbol in weapons, which continued under Tipu Sultan. Ancients also Hindu believed that gems warded of evil spirits which explains why the swords of rulers had precious stones on their hilt. The Bahmanis and the Mughals continued this tradition.</b>
The kingdoms south of the Vindhyas evolved many types of swords and daggers which were adopted by those in the north. <b>For example, the arms produced by the Cholas in the Sangam age was adopted by the Hoysalas and from them, passed on to Vijaynagara and then on to the Bahmanis and later the Mughals.</b> Elgood quotes medieval Islamic writers who noted that Damascus blades were made with steel imported from south India. The straight-bladed swords known as khandas, which the Rajputs adopted from south India for close combat, were in no way inferior to the Persian single-edged curved swords â tulwars â with which the Delhi Sultanateâs cavalry was armed.
<b>In south India, shields were made by boiling buffalo and rhinoceros hide in oil. This tradition spread to Kutch and thence north India. Such leather shields could stop bullets fired from 18th century muskets</b>.
The history of arms and armour remains an exotic subject even among scholars of military history. Elgoodâs monograph, which places pre-modern south Indian military equipment within the social and religious context, will probably bridge this gap.
KAUSHIK ROY
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->MEN IN ARMS
- The weapon of the oppressor as well as the oppressedÂ
From the barrel of a gunÂ
<b>Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India By Iqtidar Alam Khan, Oxford, $ 35</b>
Iqtidar Alam Khanâs articles about gunpowder manufacture and firearms technology, which spread in early medieval times from China to Europe, on the one hand, and through central Asia and the Middle East into India, on the other, have been an important source of information for a quarter century now about the use and changes in firepower in the medieval Gangetic Plains, Bengal and the Deccan. Khan is a distinguished member of the Aligarh group of historians, which is devoted to critical analyses of Persian (and also Arabic and Turkish) texts so as to place them in a systemic perspective, informed by a secular approach to history as a record of class struggles. He has covered many aspects of Mughal history in his writings â the early Turco-Afghan ideas of governance, Muslim theologians, the Rohilla and Bangash chieftains in the Doab, and evidence of a âmiddle-classâ in Mughal times. This volume gives information about the social character and political significance of technological change, or tardiness in accepting it, in pre-colonial India. It is embellished with black-and-white reproductions of artefacts, paintings, sketches and photographs of cannons and handguns, or of soldiers carrying them during a sieges, a battle or on the move.
The four chapters deal with early references to gunpowder and rockets. Hawais or baans were commonly used throughout the period and still survive in our fireworks. Missile scientists nowadays see them as forerunners of European reformulated rocketry, which have become so common in low-intensity terrorist warfare. Khan looks at the effectiveness of various kinds of artillery cast in bronze or brass, as against the Europeansâ lighter and easier to manoeuvre cast-iron guns, which Clive used to decimate Sirajuddaulahâs troops at Plassey. Indian state power controlled the market for artillery, but it was lax in ensuring cost-effectiveness. This helped late 18th century British victories. When regional potentates in Mysore, Gwalior or Lahore sought to compete, they were âtoo lateâ to challenge the colonial domination of the sub-continent. Khan is interested in a more significant innovation than cannons, the mechanical aspects of improved musket power in the hands of actual people who were the agents of the state, or who resisted it.
The next two chapters give a novel interpretation of Indian musketmen as part of the interaction between imperial centralization and peasant revolt. Armed contingents were raised by the emperors to use firepower to cow down the countryside. But, if muskets made it easier than heavier cannons for the rulers to reach and to probe into village recalcitrance, the emulation effect also made muskets cheap for the peasantry themselves. Many areas are classified in the revenue records as mawas (rebellious), or zortalab (brought to order only by force). Here the new banduqs could be used against imperialist surplus extraction. Even in Akbarâs days, Badauni had described zamindars getting ordinary villagers (gawaran) to fix planks on trees to station musketeers to fire down on approaching government levies. The Italian traveller Manucci (an expert artillery man himself) described, a hundred years later, peasants outside imperial Agra, firing at state troops, from the shelter of âslight wallsâ with women standing just behind them, holding their spears and lances, and reloading their matchlock guns. Interesting examples are given of how the low caste Dhanuks or archers; sweepers among the Jats; or Paiks, the footmen of the Bengal-Orissa borderland, were gunmen for the rebels against superior authority, thus contributing to the Mughal breakdown. Khan could have continued giving data for the first century of British rule, since it was not until 1857-59 that such âcivil disturbancesâ were crushed. An analogy is possible with the early Marxian tag of the 1840s about religion â musketry too was âthe cry of the oppressed as well as the oppressorâ. Khan clearly bears out the mechanics of Irfan Habibâs thesis that elements of the agrarian crisis led to the dissolution of the Mughal Empire.
The conclusion is comprehensive. It re-emphasizes that âa possible response of the Mughal military system to the widespread use of muskets by agrarian rebels was the creation of a new corps of mounted musketeers; some of them were manned by horsemen of Ottoman origin. They came to be designated as barq-andaz.â Their guns âwere in most cases, unwieldy matchlocks, which could be fired only after dismountingâ. As the Mughals and their successors-principalities failed to resist powerful neighbours like the Marathas or the Afghans, not to speak of the British, there were the menials themselves â men of the sweeper class â who, by the mid-18th century, were moving from village to village, hiring their own matchlocks and renting themselves out to Rohilkhand landowners for âone ser of flour and a little dalâ¦a little tobacco⦠(and) after victory, some grainâ. Three hundred of a band of such men had begun to call themselves âBarkisâ. The menials, inverting themselves into subalterns of alternative authority, were as important factors as colonialist aggrandizement in the collapse of the old order during the first century of British rule in India. It was left to colonialism to effectively subjugate the lower classes.
BARUN DE
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->SCIENCE OF KILLINGÂ
Written in stoneÂ
HINDU ARMS AND RITUAL: ARMS AND ARMOUR FROM INDIA 1400-1865 By Robert Elgood, Mapin, Rs 3,500
Historians have always believed that the south Indian polities were technologically backward and that new kinds of weapons were introduced among them by the Muslim rulers of the north. <b>Contradicting this view, Robert Elgood asserts in this book that south India had a dynamic tradition of producing various kinds of military hardware, few of which have survived.</b> For one, the monsoon rains led to the rusting of the iron weapons. Two, the British, determined to disarm the Indian people, destroyed most of the arms. In fact, the East India Company melted down countless swords and shields which it sold as scrap. Three, the British ruling elite sequestrated weapons from the private armouries of kings and took them home. Many of these can now be seen in private collections and museums in Europe and America. Comparing the few scattered pieces in existence with the sculptures in temples, Elgood tries to chart the evolution of the weapons of south India.
<b>Historians had also long held the idea that Hindu weapons were governed by aesthetics and were not very effective in combats</b>. Such an interpretation is certainly overdrawn and arose because only the weapons studded with precious stones which belonged to the rulers have survived due to their intrinsic value. But it is clear that the process of secularization of European arms and armours, which began after the Renaissance, did not occur in pre-British India. The Hindus and Muslims considered military hardware as part of their religious ethos. The Hindus believed that weapons were the dwelling places of gods and that religious motifs would protect the warriors. Through the iconography on the weapons, the warriors expressed their spiritual loyalties.
<b>The Cholas introduced the tiger symbol in weapons, which continued under Tipu Sultan. Ancients also Hindu believed that gems warded of evil spirits which explains why the swords of rulers had precious stones on their hilt. The Bahmanis and the Mughals continued this tradition.</b>
The kingdoms south of the Vindhyas evolved many types of swords and daggers which were adopted by those in the north. <b>For example, the arms produced by the Cholas in the Sangam age was adopted by the Hoysalas and from them, passed on to Vijaynagara and then on to the Bahmanis and later the Mughals.</b> Elgood quotes medieval Islamic writers who noted that Damascus blades were made with steel imported from south India. The straight-bladed swords known as khandas, which the Rajputs adopted from south India for close combat, were in no way inferior to the Persian single-edged curved swords â tulwars â with which the Delhi Sultanateâs cavalry was armed.
<b>In south India, shields were made by boiling buffalo and rhinoceros hide in oil. This tradition spread to Kutch and thence north India. Such leather shields could stop bullets fired from 18th century muskets</b>.
The history of arms and armour remains an exotic subject even among scholars of military history. Elgoodâs monograph, which places pre-modern south Indian military equipment within the social and religious context, will probably bridge this gap.
KAUSHIK ROY
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->MEN IN ARMS
- The weapon of the oppressor as well as the oppressedÂ
From the barrel of a gunÂ
<b>Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India By Iqtidar Alam Khan, Oxford, $ 35</b>
Iqtidar Alam Khanâs articles about gunpowder manufacture and firearms technology, which spread in early medieval times from China to Europe, on the one hand, and through central Asia and the Middle East into India, on the other, have been an important source of information for a quarter century now about the use and changes in firepower in the medieval Gangetic Plains, Bengal and the Deccan. Khan is a distinguished member of the Aligarh group of historians, which is devoted to critical analyses of Persian (and also Arabic and Turkish) texts so as to place them in a systemic perspective, informed by a secular approach to history as a record of class struggles. He has covered many aspects of Mughal history in his writings â the early Turco-Afghan ideas of governance, Muslim theologians, the Rohilla and Bangash chieftains in the Doab, and evidence of a âmiddle-classâ in Mughal times. This volume gives information about the social character and political significance of technological change, or tardiness in accepting it, in pre-colonial India. It is embellished with black-and-white reproductions of artefacts, paintings, sketches and photographs of cannons and handguns, or of soldiers carrying them during a sieges, a battle or on the move.
The four chapters deal with early references to gunpowder and rockets. Hawais or baans were commonly used throughout the period and still survive in our fireworks. Missile scientists nowadays see them as forerunners of European reformulated rocketry, which have become so common in low-intensity terrorist warfare. Khan looks at the effectiveness of various kinds of artillery cast in bronze or brass, as against the Europeansâ lighter and easier to manoeuvre cast-iron guns, which Clive used to decimate Sirajuddaulahâs troops at Plassey. Indian state power controlled the market for artillery, but it was lax in ensuring cost-effectiveness. This helped late 18th century British victories. When regional potentates in Mysore, Gwalior or Lahore sought to compete, they were âtoo lateâ to challenge the colonial domination of the sub-continent. Khan is interested in a more significant innovation than cannons, the mechanical aspects of improved musket power in the hands of actual people who were the agents of the state, or who resisted it.
The next two chapters give a novel interpretation of Indian musketmen as part of the interaction between imperial centralization and peasant revolt. Armed contingents were raised by the emperors to use firepower to cow down the countryside. But, if muskets made it easier than heavier cannons for the rulers to reach and to probe into village recalcitrance, the emulation effect also made muskets cheap for the peasantry themselves. Many areas are classified in the revenue records as mawas (rebellious), or zortalab (brought to order only by force). Here the new banduqs could be used against imperialist surplus extraction. Even in Akbarâs days, Badauni had described zamindars getting ordinary villagers (gawaran) to fix planks on trees to station musketeers to fire down on approaching government levies. The Italian traveller Manucci (an expert artillery man himself) described, a hundred years later, peasants outside imperial Agra, firing at state troops, from the shelter of âslight wallsâ with women standing just behind them, holding their spears and lances, and reloading their matchlock guns. Interesting examples are given of how the low caste Dhanuks or archers; sweepers among the Jats; or Paiks, the footmen of the Bengal-Orissa borderland, were gunmen for the rebels against superior authority, thus contributing to the Mughal breakdown. Khan could have continued giving data for the first century of British rule, since it was not until 1857-59 that such âcivil disturbancesâ were crushed. An analogy is possible with the early Marxian tag of the 1840s about religion â musketry too was âthe cry of the oppressed as well as the oppressorâ. Khan clearly bears out the mechanics of Irfan Habibâs thesis that elements of the agrarian crisis led to the dissolution of the Mughal Empire.
The conclusion is comprehensive. It re-emphasizes that âa possible response of the Mughal military system to the widespread use of muskets by agrarian rebels was the creation of a new corps of mounted musketeers; some of them were manned by horsemen of Ottoman origin. They came to be designated as barq-andaz.â Their guns âwere in most cases, unwieldy matchlocks, which could be fired only after dismountingâ. As the Mughals and their successors-principalities failed to resist powerful neighbours like the Marathas or the Afghans, not to speak of the British, there were the menials themselves â men of the sweeper class â who, by the mid-18th century, were moving from village to village, hiring their own matchlocks and renting themselves out to Rohilkhand landowners for âone ser of flour and a little dalâ¦a little tobacco⦠(and) after victory, some grainâ. Three hundred of a band of such men had begun to call themselves âBarkisâ. The menials, inverting themselves into subalterns of alternative authority, were as important factors as colonialist aggrandizement in the collapse of the old order during the first century of British rule in India. It was left to colonialism to effectively subjugate the lower classes.
BARUN DE
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->