Living with the Mughals: a legacy that endures despite erasure

On a hot, wind-swept April day 500 years ago, a tall, lean man and his army of 15,000 soldiers waited in battle formation on the dusty fields of Panipat, less than 100 km from Delhi. Facing them was the wary yet formidable force of Delhi Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, nearly 10 times larger, with 1,00,000 soldiers and 1,000 war elephants.

The invading army, led by Zahiruddin Babur, a Chagatai Turk who traced his lineage to both Timur and Genghis Khan, had reached Panipat on April 12, 1526. Lodi’s forces probed and provoked the enemy camp, even taking heads as trophies, but to no avail. “…they broke ranks they had maintained and as though undecided whether to stand or proceed, were able to do neither,” wrote Babur in his memoir about the Sultan’s army.