Less than 150 km from Delhi, Rakhigarhi in the Hisar district of Haryana, is an IVC or Harappan site that dates back 10,000 years. Archaeologists believe that it would have once been much closer to the Ghaggar river which now flows nearly 30 km away and was located in the valley of a pre-historic river. Rakhigarhi has become particularly famous in recent years because the DNA of a skeleton found here do not show a link with steppe people or Indo-Aryans, based on this, the Aryan migration theory is denied.

Findings at Rakhigarhi include terracotta jewellery, gold and semi-precious stones. Excavations at Sinauli, another Harappan site, now in Uttar Pradesh, have produced an ox-driven cart with solid disk wheels; some scholars have unsuccessfully posited them as chariots, copper helmets, bronze swords and wooden coffin burials.

These two sites have strengthened the textual history that describes the region of Haryana as the ancient Iron Age (1200-900 BCE) kingdom of Kuru which was formed by the merger of Bharata and Puru tribes, and which is said to be one of the first recorded instances of an organised society. The Kuru kingdom’s sovereignty weakened over the ages as it split into two kingdoms, and was displaced due to massive floods. However, it is credited with the transformation of Vedic religion into Brahmanism and eventually Hinduism. 

An ancient land of epic battles

Even those uninterested in history would know about the Indian epic Mahabharat, which is a saga of war between cousins, Pandavas and Kauravas. According to the epic, the 18-day war took place in Kurukshetra near Delhi and ended in the destruction of both Pandavas and Kauravas as well as the death of lord Krishna, and the beginning of the Kali age. The war was gory and brutal, it has remained an allegory of internecine dispute between members of the same clan. 

In the historical period, the most illustrious king of this region was Harshavardhan (607-647 CE), who reigned from Thanesar before shifting his kingdom to Kannauj. Excavations at Thanesar have revealed artefacts dating back to the Painted Grey Ware (1300-700 BCE) and Red Polished Ware in the post 300-400 CE period. Another noted site at Thanesar is the tomb complex of Sheikh Chilli (Abd-ur-Rahim Abdul-Karim Abd-ur-Razak), a Sufi saint of the Qadiriya school and one of the teachers of Mughal prince Dara Shikoh.

The Battles of Panipat

Panipat etymologically traces its roots to Pandu Prastha or the land of Pandu, the ancestor of Pandavas. The plains around Panipat have been witness to three of the most historic battles fought for the throne of Hindustan.

Nearly 500 years ago, the first battle of Panipat was fought between the reigning emperor, Ibrahim Lodi and his Timurid challenger, Zahird-ud-din Muhammad Babur, on April 12, 1526.  

Babur had marched rapidly from Lahore to Panipat, capturing outposts on the way and defeating two contingents sent by Lodi in advance. However, Lodi outsized Babur’s army considerably, according to historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar in Military History of India.

While estimates place Babur’s forces at about 12,000- 25,000 men, Lodi’s army was popularly rumoured to be one lakh men and one thousand elephants. Babur handed Lodi a decisive defeat, by using innovative techniques such as mobile artillery, use of firearms and cavalry charges. This victory alone didn’t ensure Babur’s complete triumph though; he had to subdue other kings like Medini Rai of Chanderi, Rana Sanga of Mewar and the Afghan chiefs of eastern India. But with this victory, Babur laid down the foundation of Mughal rule which would last till 1857 when emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was deposed and exiled to Burma by the British East India Company.

In 1556, three decades after Babur's victory, the Second Battle of Panipat was fought between armies that were hard to distinguish on religious lines. On the southern side was a vast army of Afghans led by Hemachandra, popularly memorialised as Hemu, a Hindu minister in the court of Muhammad Adil Shah Sur, the seventh and final ruler of the Sur empire, and arrayed against was 14-year-old Akbar (Babur's grandson) and his regent and general Bairam Khan.

In the words of contemporary Mughal courtier and chronicler Abul Fazal, “Hemu...rode proudly on an elephant named Hawai (wind)), which was one of his best. He beheld with apprehension the combats of the warriors of fortune’s army (Akbar's), and gathering together a band of fierce elephants he showed every stratagem which his powerful capacity could conceive and every daring deed which lurked in his seditious soul. He made powerful onsets and performed many valorous acts, and dislodged many strenuous soldiers of the sublime army.”

Hemu was a soldier of fortune who came extremely close to becoming the emperor. From a small village in Haryana’s Rewari district to the de facto ruler of Delhi in 1556 after winning a spate of 22 battles, Hemu could have become the emperor of Hindustan if he had not been struck in the eye by a stray arrow during the second Battle of Panipat. Soon after being hit, he was captured and executed by Bairam Khan.

Noted historian Satish Chandra assessed Hemu as a tolerant ruler, he writes in Hemu- his ancestry and place in history, “If Hemu had remained in power, the close association of Hindus and Muslims brought about by Akbar may have developed much earlier. The alliance of Hemu and Adil should thus be regarded as one of the portents of the future”

Third battle of Panipat

The most visibilised battle at Panipat saw the disunited Maratha confederacy lose to Afghan Durrani king Ahmed Shah Abdali in 1761. Spun out in a communal yarn, a slew of portrayals in recent years have shown Abdali as the quintessential Islamic tyrant out to destroy ‘Hindu India’ while showing the Marathas as fighting for the protection of Hindus. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In the decades following emperor Aurangzeb's death in 1707, the Marathas had reached the pinnacle of their power, their rule extending up to Lahore in the West and the borders of Awadh in the East. But their loss to Abdali’s army was not only because of staid military moves such as static artillery and their opponent’s clever tactic of camel mounted small artillery guns. Sadashiv Rao Bhau, the arrogant leader of the Maratha army, had made few allies and ignored the handful he had, like the Jat ruler Suraj Mal whose plea to march light and leave the thousands of camp followers especially women in safe forts was ignored by Sadashiv.

Kaushik Roy writes in India’s Historic Battles, “Bhau dismissed Suraj Mal's sage advice as merely the chattering of a Jat zamindar. The Maratha chiefs differed among themselves regarding the combat technique to be adopted against Abdali. While Malhar Rao Holkar wanted to harass Abdali with guerrilla warfare, Bhau was for a pitched battle”.

The Marathas lost everything on that cold January day in Panipat. They lost close to 3,000 men on the battlefield and more than 50,000 camp followers the next day. Roy writes, “In a span of seven hours, the Marathas had lost everything they had gained in seventy years. After being defeated by Abdali they retreated behind the Chambal. The only positive effect of the battle was that the Maratha Confederacy was able to get rid of the inefficient and incompetent Balaji Baji Rao. He died either of a cerebral haemorrhage or a heart attack.”

HistoriCity is a column by author Valay Singh that narrates the story of a city that is in the news, by going back to its documented history, mythology and archaeological digs. The views expressed are personal