Could Hemuchandra have founded a Hindu dynasty?

If you've never heard of Hemu -- he was a Hindu general who made a bid to be "Samrat Vikramaditya" during a brief post-Suri, pre-Mughal interregnum in 16th century India.

If he had won the Second Battle of Panipat, could Hemu have consolidated his rule and bring northern India under fully Hindu rule for the first time since before the Turkish invasions?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemu
 

guinazacity

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If you've never heard of Hemu -- he was a Hindu general who made a bid to be "Samrat Vikramaditya" during a brief post-Suri, pre-Mughal interregnum in 16th century India.

If he had won the Second Battle of Panipat, could Hemu have consolidated his rule and bring northern India under fully Hindu rule for the first time since before the Turkish invasions?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemu

Honestly, this is one of the most interesting PoDs for india, and should be more explored.

my opinion is that the mughal army would retreat from india and consolidate, after which they would try for another invasion.
 
If the Mughals fracture -- very possible -- or face opposition on their flanks (Safavids, Uzbeks, etc) -- then I think Hemu could definitely build a multi-religious coalition of support in Northwest India. He had the Afghans on his side -- and Hindus as well.

The idea of a Hindu gunpowder dynasty -- to go with the Persians, Russians, Turks and Qing -- sounds really interesting.
 
Hemu's ability to make his dynasty survive depends on more than just chasing out the Mughals though. In fact, I feel like the real challenge to the aspiring emperor will be peace and not war, because it's during peacetime that the Afghan lords are:
1. strongest.
2. least loyal to Hemu.
The Afghan and Turkish nobility were entrenched in India, and had been so since the foundation of the Delhi Sultanate. They had a state in Gujarat, for example.
They originally followed Hemu because he was a general of Sher Shah Suri, an Afghan who managed to usurp the Mughal empire and temporarily stop the erosion of Afghan privilege by the Timurid invaders. Hemu therefore received loyalty because he was acting on behalf of a Muslim Afghan.
Eventually, his army came to respect him on account of his good leadership, which gave him the confidence to displace the Sur dynasty (who had by now descended into infighting) and declare himself emperor.
So, let's say that he then goes on to win Second Panipat. Maybe he does it by not getting shot by an arrow during the battle. He'll then arrange a victory parade in the streets of Delhi, after which his feudal retainers go home.
The problem is, now those Afghan retainers
1. have no pressing need to be loyal-- war's over, and with it the unifying effect of being in an army.
2. are in their home territories again, where they can build up potentially rebellious forces.

So, any victory in war is going to be followed by another war-- a civil war -- where Hemu is mostly likely going to have the odds stacked against him.

A difficult premise, intriguing characters-- if someone does a TL of this, consider me subscribed :D
 
Hemu doesn't need to rely on the support of the Afghan/Turkish nobility necessarily. Depending on the extent of his empire he could rely instead upon the Rajputs, Jatts and if his empire extends to the Deccan, then also the Shi'ite sultans/Marathas.

Hemu could very much dominate India and secure succession of a Brahmanic dynasty. It would definitely be an interesting timeline, almost like an earlier Marathas, with no overarching legacy of the Mughals and incoming Europeans to compete with.

It'd be interesting to see how art and culture develop as the Mughal period really defines Indo-Islamic culture, and it'd be fascinating to see how the role of Indian Muslims develop under a Hindu polity, perhaps like on China in which the Hui become an integrated but distinct ethnicity, the Ajlafi or even Ashrafi Muslims could fulfil this role.

Another interesting thing would be how Sikhism develops. Sikhism only developed many of its aspects such as the Khalsa and other iconic Sikh features due to oppression from Mughals such as Jahangir and Aurangzeb. In the time of Guru Nanak it was very much a non - violent movement along the lines of older Indian religions such as Buddhism and Jainism. Whilst Hindus and Sikhs have at times had a strained relationship (such as the Sikh Misls against the Hill Rajas), I doubt this large scale Brahmanic dynasty would attempt to severely persecute the Sikhs in the way the Mughals, and later the Afghans did. Sikhism would be unrecognisable to OTL.
 
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The problem is, now those Afghan retainers
1. have no pressing need to be loyal-- war's over, and with it the unifying effect of being in an army.
2. are in their home territories again, where they can build up potentially rebellious forces.

So, any victory in war is going to be followed by another war-- a civil war -- where Hemu is mostly likely going to have the odds stacked against him.

A difficult premise, intriguing characters-- if someone does a TL of this, consider me subscribed :D

Thanks for your excellent input! I'll definitely consider that if I do anything with the idea.
 
Anyone else?
One of my first TLs on this forum was a half arsed ate out at this and I plan to come back and finish it someday. Anyways here goes my train of thought;

Basically Hemu had already won the affections of his Afghan generals when he had given them the vast amount of jagirs (feudal lands) when he won his campaigns for Islam Shah Suri, a successor of Sher Shah. So there wouldn't be much reason to revolt Hindu ruler or not, especially considering the majority of his Afghan troops where Indianized by now. They spoke Hindavi alongside most of the populace of the Indo-Gangetic plains.

Add to the fact Bahram Khan, the then young Akbar's regent, actually planned to completely redistribute land to loyal Mughal vassals and not leave a single remaining fief to a pre-Mughal vassal also bound them to Hemu's cause.

And by now everyone was sick of being ruled by 'Turks'. The later Delhi Sultanate dynasties as well as Timur had done quite a bit of damage to the infrastructure of the North and the Afghan Lodis were just beginning fix things (barring Sikandar Lodi, who was a complete disaster of a ruler). But then once again Turks came along, this time under the banner of Babur and the Mughals who pillaged for a bit before settling down in Delhi. Sher Shah finally removed the Mughals from India only for his sons to destroy everything and give Humayun an opportunity to come back in.

Add to the fact Bahram was a Persian who was actually sent by the Shanshah to make sure Persian interests in India stayed valid under the Mughals (which they would not under a Hindu or Afghan dynasty) meant to make the Mughals a protectorate to the Persian emperor.


Hemu was a shrewd strategist as well as very good with economics (he was born to a trading community in the town of Rewari). He would have probably won Panipat if the arrow didn't get him in the eye and he knew that the Mughal army was dwindling in terms of money, men and morale. All he needed to do was eat them in Panipat, from where they would probably retreat to Kabul. If Kabul is taken and the Mughals still escape, I'm not sure if the Shah would 'host' them a second time. Chances are that the Mughal cause dies there or they try to retake their ancestral home Samarkand.

From what I remember reading Hemu always planned to have his nephew (whose name I forget) as his heir and never marry, so the succession is safe as well. From there on the future is clear, his first actions will probably be to wrest control of Bengal from the rebel Sultans there who declared independence after the death of Sher Shah.
 
One of my first TLs on this forum was a half arsed ate out at this and I plan to come back and finish it someday. Anyways here goes my train of thought;

Basically Hemu had already won the affections of his Afghan generals when he had given them the vast amount of jagirs (feudal lands) when he won his campaigns for Islam Shah Suri, a successor of Sher Shah. So there wouldn't be much reason to revolt Hindu ruler or not, especially considering the majority of his Afghan troops where Indianized by now. They spoke Hindavi alongside most of the populace of the Indo-Gangetic plains.

Add to the fact Bahram Khan, the then young Akbar's regent, actually planned to completely redistribute land to loyal Mughal vassals and not leave a single remaining fief to a pre-Mughal vassal also bound them to Hemu's cause.

And by now everyone was sick of being ruled by 'Turks'. The later Delhi Sultanate dynasties as well as Timur had done quite a bit of damage to the infrastructure of the North and the Afghan Lodis were just beginning fix things (barring Sikandar Lodi, who was a complete disaster of a ruler). But then once again Turks came along, this time under the banner of Babur and the Mughals who pillaged for a bit before settling down in Delhi. Sher Shah finally removed the Mughals from India only for his sons to destroy everything and give Humayun an opportunity to come back in.

Add to the fact Bahram was a Persian who was actually sent by the Shanshah to make sure Persian interests in India stayed valid under the Mughals (which they would not under a Hindu or Afghan dynasty) meant to make the Mughals a protectorate to the Persian emperor.


Hemu was a shrewd strategist as well as very good with economics (he was born to a trading community in the town of Rewari). He would have probably won Panipat if the arrow didn't get him in the eye and he knew that the Mughal army was dwindling in terms of money, men and morale. All he needed to do was eat them in Panipat, from where they would probably retreat to Kabul. If Kabul is taken and the Mughals still escape, I'm not sure if the Shah would 'host' them a second time. Chances are that the Mughal cause dies there or they try to retake their ancestral home Samarkand.

From what I remember reading Hemu always planned to have his nephew (whose name I forget) as his heir and never marry, so the succession is safe as well. From there on the future is clear, his first actions will probably be to wrest control of Bengal from the rebel Sultans there who declared independence after the death of Sher Shah.

Awesome! How would the religious situation metastasize once the dynasty has stable control in the Indo-Gangetic plain?
 
Awesome! How would the religious situation metastasize once the dynasty has stable control in the Indo-Gangetic plain?

I think religion wouldn't be much of a problem under Hemu or his nephew but who knows about later rulers.

In truth much of the native Hindvi or Kashmiri populace of Muslims isn't likely to cause much problems for Hemu, rather it would be the mass of Punjabi, Sindhi and Afghan immigrants that may cause problems for the Hindustani administration.

Another thing on the religious situation, even though he did crown himself Samrat under very traditional Vedic rituals, Hemu crowned himself Samrat of Hindustan not Bharat. The former is a Persian term for India (especially the North) so it shows that Hemu was willing to syncretize the culture of the Indo-Gangetic and move past religious differences, like Akbar did with the Rajputs.

Speaking of the Rajputs, not a single Rajput king liked Hemu and they were planning a coalition against him should he turn his eyes towards Rajasthan. Primary among these were Sisodyias in Mewar and the Rathores in Marwar who had put aside their enmity just check Hemu's advance.
 
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