DBWI:What if akbar won the second battle of panipat

vishnu s

Banned
In our timeline, during the second battle of Panipat the forces of the Hindu king Hemu the great was successful in driving away the forces of Akbar from Delhi and established the Vikramaditya dynasty which had the support of Afghans and the hindus of the subcontinent. What would have happened if Hemachandra was defeated by Akbar at Panipat?
 
In our timeline, during the second battle of Panipat the forces of the Hindu king Hemu the great was successful in driving away the forces of Akbar from Delhi and established the Vikramaditya dynasty which had the support of Afghans and the hindus of the subcontinent. What would have happened if Hemachandra was defeated by Akbar at Panipat?

Bengal won't face a famine and lose a third of the population as Akbar would spare Bengal while Hemu's conquest, though effective was brutal.

No three way Kashmir wars between the Indians, Kabul Timurids and the Oirats. But... possibly more content to accept European bases. Hemu's successors cleared all European bases North of Goa in the Subcontinent. This made the Vikramaditya dynasty popular amongst Indian nationalist even today.

Though I wonder what would happen to the Grand Fleet built in 1576... the Timurids sure as hell won't build it.
 

vishnu s

Banned
Bengal won't face a famine and lose a third of the population as Akbar would spare Bengal while Hemu's conquest, though effective was brutal.

No three way Kashmir wars between the Indians, Kabul Timurids and the Oirats. But... possibly more content to accept European bases. Hemu's successors cleared all European bases North of Goa in the Subcontinent. This made the Vikramaditya dynasty popular amongst Indian nationalist even today.

Though I wonder what would happen to the Grand Fleet built in 1576... the Timurids sure as hell won't build it.
The europeans might have had more control in some parts of north too. I mean they were driven out only due to the grand army of afghans and the Hindus.
 
The europeans might have had more control in some parts of north too. I mean they were driven out only due to the grand army of afghans and the Hindus.

Let's not underestimate the Grand Fleet. Their destruction of the Portuguese Navy in 1578 near Diu did make siege possible. The Grand Army walked in basically.
 

vishnu s

Banned
Do you think the Europeans would have conquered the whole land if not for the Successors and the fleet?
 
Do you think the Europeans would have conquered the whole land if not for the Successors and the fleet?

India is too big to subdue even being weak. The Oirats conquered China in the early 17th century. By the late 18th century they weakened by facing many revolts which the Europeans tried take advantage. But at the end, conquest failed and it would fail in India as well.
 

vishnu s

Banned
India is too big to subdue even being weak. The Oirats conquered China in the early 17th century. By the late 18th century they weakened by facing many revolts which the Europeans tried take advantage. But at the end, conquest failed and it would fail in India as well.
that is true. Hopefully Akbar and his descendants(if they survive) will somehow push them away
 
It may seem a bit counterintuitive, but I think that inter religious relations would have been a lot better. Obviously the Vikramaditya dynasty had to set itself up as hereditary vakils of the Suri dynasty in order to maintain the afghan support similar to the Japanese shoguns and yet even so, the Vikramaditya rulers who crossed the ulemma were the cause of many many incredibly bloody rebellions (see Jaunpur especially), polarising thé Muslims and non Muslims. Perhaps if there were a strong Muslim ruler who attempted to curtail the power of the ulemma it would be accepted more easily, as later happened in the Gujarat Sultanate.
The grand fleet was mainly built by the Vikramadityas in order to harass and redirect shipping away from the hostile ports of Gujarat to the more firmly secured regions of Bengal- whether the Timurids would do that is dependent on whether they manage to secure both major mercantile port regions of the north or only one of them, and the grand army only managed to get that far into Gujarati territory, past all the Gujarati Rajput allies is because the commanders had been bought by the gujaratis to do their dirty work for them.

Further perhaps Akbar could have secured that vital northwest frontier that the Vikramadityas never could that made the gangetic plain so vulnerable to further waves of Turks and mongols and severely retarded the economic growth of the Punjab.
Ooc: a centralised grand army flies in the face of the political and military context of medieval India- it’d be at best a grand confederation, which I’ve tried to show by use of parts of it by foreign powers. Also as regards to an independent Hindu monarch, I refer you to Raja Ganesh of Bengal, who took control of a sultanate by exploiting the weakness of the Ilyas shahi dynasty. Within the year he was deposed in favour of his Muslim son and even though he had a lot of influence in his sons reign he as a Hindu could never be monarch. I had a feeling you wanted the Vikramadityas to remain Hindu so I made use of the Japanese political fiction that allows for it to be a sultanate with a Muslim sultan and a state where power is in the hands of one Hindu dynasty. Had Hemu won and established a dynasty, the most likely outcome would’ve been conversion to Islam within at the most three generations.
 
OOC: sorry, didn’t realize this was a DBWI o_O

IC: oh, this is so embarrassing! I can’t believe I thought the Manchus conquered China! A simple search on the interweb revealed my ignorance. I can’t believe I thought an obscure, inconsequential, and backwater tribe such as the Manchus could ever have conquered China! It could never ever have happened! It makes much more sense that the better connected, more populated, and more advanced Oirats conquered China!

I would point out to those who think a Muslim/Mughal India would be weaker than a Hindu one simply due to the Muslims being outsiders that here is little to reason to think this is the case. The Ottomans could be argued to be more successful in the Rumelian territories than their Orthodox predecessors and neighbors ever were. Islamic Mysore repeatedly humiliated the Hindu Vikramadityas. Ayodhya, which sprang up from invading Tai peoples, was more hegemonic even than Angkor at its height. Even the Oirats did not fall really to ethnic or national tensions or even due to inferior institutions—theirs were largely inherited from the Ming—but due to China’s centuries-long trend of falling behind Europe that began even before the Ming (and was largely exacerbated by them) and due to rebellions brought on by famine, impoverishment, and national humiliation by Europeans. but With the right policies, rulers, and a touch of luck, a Mughal Empire could easily equal or even surpass the Vikramadityas and even become a world power, I would say.
 
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