Two things strike you at once: how mixed his opinion of India is, and how mixed the man himself is.
1. He dislikes the country and admires its wealth in the same breath. He was nostalgic about Central Asia and found India “a country of few charms”. Yet he also wrote: “Hindustan is a large country and has masses of gold and silver. … Through the rainy season, the air is remarkably fine, not to be surpassed for healthiness and charm. … There are countless artisans and workmen of every sort in Hindustan.” The chapter draws the obvious conclusion — “perhaps for the last reasons, especially India's wealth, he decided to stay and build his empire in India rather than return to Central Asia.” He stayed for what India had, not for what he felt about it.
2. What he notices tells you what kind of mind he had. Not fortresses and revenue alone, but birds — many of which he lists in some detail — fruit trees, architecture and poetry. That is an observant, curious writer. The Baburnama is valuable to historians precisely because he wrote down what interested him rather than only what flattered him.
3. And the same book records terrible things without apology. He was “a brutal and ruthless conqueror, slaughtering entire populations of cities, enslaving women and children, and taking pride in erecting ‘towers of skulls’ made from the slaughtered people of plundered cities.” The word to hold on to is pride. He is not confessing; he is recording an achievement.