Q1.
Compare the maps in Figs. 2.3, 2.12 and 2.16. What differences do you notice? What is the ‘reshaping’ that has occurred?
Answer
Read the three maps as three photographs of the same land taken about a century apart. Here is what each one actually shows, taken from the legends and the shading.
| Fig. 2.3 (Page 24) | Fig. 2.12 (Page 33) | Fig. 2.16 (Page 39) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Area covered | The whole Subcontinent | The Deccan and the south only | The whole Subcontinent |
| Biggest block | Tughlaq dynasty, 1335 — from Peshawar in the northwest to Madurai in the far south, and east into Bengal | Vijayanagara under Krishnadevaraya, 1529 — the peninsula from roughly 15°N southward | Mughal Empire under Akbar (1605), extended by Aurangzeb (1700) into the Deccan and the east coast to Kanchipuram |
| Who is left out | Eastern Ganga territory under Narasimhadeva, 1264 (Jajnagar, Konark); Hoysala territories, 1300 (Belur, Halebidu) | Gajapati kingdom, 1458, along the east coast; Bahmani Sultanate, 1477, in the northern Deccan | Pathan tribes in the northwest; Mewar shown as a separate pocket; Guwahati and the Ahom country outside to the east |
| The shrinking | Lodi dynasty, 1479 — only the Ganga plains around Delhi, Gwalior and Jaunpur. It does not reach Peshawar, Gujarat or the Deccan. | The Bahmani Sultanate fragments into five states — Bijapur, Golconda, Berar (Achalpur), Ahmednagar and Bidar, all marked as cities on this map | The legend already lists the successors: Rajput territories (1751), Ahom kingdom (1826), Sikh Empire (1839) |
So what is the ‘reshaping’? Three patterns, and each one is visible on the maps rather than merely asserted:
- Expansion is followed quickly by fragmentation. Tughlaq 1335 to Lodi 1479 is the clearest case: the same dynasty's territory collapses to a fraction in under 150 years. The Bahmani Sultanate does the same thing in the Deccan, splitting into five.
- The land does not stay empty. Where Delhi loses control, a new regional power appears — Vijayanagara after the Hoysalas, the Gajapatis on the coast, the Deccan Sultanates, and later the Rajputs, Ahoms, Marathas and Sikhs.
- Power keeps swinging between one big centre and many regional ones. Fig. 2.3 shows one giant block, then a small one; Fig. 2.12 shows several medium powers; Fig. 2.16 shows a giant block again — with its replacements already drawn in.
Why it happens: because holding territory was harder than taking it. Conquest gave a ruler tax and plunder, but governing distant provinces meant trusting governors — and governors on the far side of the empire could and did declare independence. Harihara and Bukka Raya had “initially served as governors under Muhammad bin Tughlaq”; the five Deccan Sultanates were founded by “former governors or tarafdars who declared autonomy”. The very officers who extended an empire were the ones best placed to break it up.
Try this: take a blank outline map of India and shade the three biggest extents in three colours — Tughlaq 1335, Vijayanagara 1529 and Aurangzeb 1700. Now mark the six cities that appear on more than one of the chapter's maps (look for Delhi, Jajnagar, Golconda, Bijapur/Vijayapura, Konark, Madurai). Cities outlast empires, and that is worth seeing on paper.