BATTLE ROYALE

India may sound a land of poor masses and starved urchins but this beautiful country had faced countless wars in its heart. It’s own children have fought for their own greed and many times martyrs have laid their lives to save this holy land. No place in India describes better than KASHMIR or PANIPAT. While the former is continuously subjected to modern warfare, the latter saw 3 major battles which redefined the Indian history.

The first major battle to be recorded was ironically on our homeland i.e. KALINGA

The furious annexation of KALINGA by a hot blooded ASOKAVARDHAN MAURYA or ASOKA saw the death of over 1,00,000 lives including royal soldiers and civilians. This tremendous loss of lives changed ASOKA’s mindset to embrace the teachings of LORD BUDDHA. The first battle of PANIPAT saw the clash between the forces of an AFGHANI chieftain BABUR and The sultan of Delhi IBRAHIM LODHI.

Babur had a force of only 8000 men while Lodhi had a 1,00,000 men strong army with 300 war elephants. But the decisive point of the battle was the use of field artillery by Babur. The sound of artillery made lodhi’s elephant panicked and they tramped their own men. Thus with that battle, the foundations of the greatest empire in India was built. After 30 years, on the same plains of PANIPAT again the MUGHAL empire under the leadership of a teenager JALAL-UD-DIN MOHAMMED AKBAR and his guardian GENERAL BAIRAM KHAN faced a brave and strong SAMRAT HEMRAJ VIKRAMADITYA or HEMU. Defeat was almost inevitable for the Mughal forces but Bairam Khan with a small troop of army shot an arrow straight to the eyes of Hemu. Seeing their leader almost dead, the forces lost their morale and finally the war was won by AKBAR. The battle of PANIPAT in 1761 was one of the biggest battle in the 18^th century. It was fought between the MARATHA CONFEDRATION and an AFGHANI invader AHMED SHAH ABDALI. The former turned up with a army of 70000 men including infantry, civilians and Pindaris. The latter came up with 42000 cavalry,48000 infantries and 200 cannons. The battle was waged for the capture of DELHI SULTANATE. It resulted to the defeat of MARATHA CONFEDRATION.

India had been a mute spectator to many bloody wars. Unfortunately till now also India is witnessing a never ending legacy of battles. The 1948,65,71,99 wars against the traditional rivals PAKISTAN has seen the loss of numerous lives. Today, our country is pitted against battles of illiteracy, hunger, poverty and many things else. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF and if we don’t learn from it we are bound to repeat it again. :