Sacking of Hooghly Port by Shah Jahan in 1632

Mast of a Portuguese Ship at Bandel Church, Hooghly / Image Credit 

Portugal was the first European power to establish factories and trading settlements in India in the early 16th century. In 1579–80, a Portuguese captain named Pedro Tavares received a firman from Mughal emperor to establish a city in Bengal for the Portuguese. The Portuguese were also allowed to preach their religion.  As a consequence, a Portuguese colony was established at Hughli (in 1579 AD). The famous church of Bandel in Hooghly was built by the Portuguese. 

The friendly attitude of Akbar towards the Portuguese was continued by his son and next Mughal emperor Jahangir.  

Jahangir died in October 1627 and after a short interregnum marked by violent conflict among the other claimants for the throne, his son Shah Jahan became emperor in 1628 by eliminating all other possible contenders to the throne. Shahryar Mirza (youngest son of Jahangir), Dawar Bakhsh (Grandson of Jahangir and Khusrau’s eldest son), two sons of Akbar's son Daniyal (Tahmuras and Hushang) were all executed.  

Shah Jahan was harbouring a grudge against the Portuguese as the latter did not side with him when he rebelled against his father Jahangir in 1622. 

Added to this, the casus belli for the sack of Hooghly by Shah Jahan in 1932 was the abduction of two slave girls of his consort Mumtaz Mahal by the Portuguese in 1624 during the reign of Jahangir. The Portuguese, on the other hand, became involved with the slave trade. This was rankling in Shah Jahan's mind. Hence he ordered Bengal governor Qasim Khan to crush the Portuguese. In 1632 Qasim Khan captured Hooghly after three months. The Bandel church was burnt down during the sacking of Hooghly.   

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Banda Bahadur: Epitome of Valour and Sacrifice

Banda Bahadur / Image Credit

Born as Madho Das on 27 October 1670 in Rajauri in a Hindu family, Banda Singh Bahadur was a Sikh leader known for devotion, chivalry and undaunted courage. He fought the Mughals with exemplary valour.  

Banda Bahadur was leading a life of an ascetic before he met the tenth Sikh Guru Guru Gobind Singh in 1708 at Nanded In Maharashtra. The Sikh Guru asked him to give up the life of ascetic and directed him to fight the Mughals.       

In November 1709, Banda Bahadur attacked Samana and captured it.  After thayt the Sikh forces under Banda Bahadur brought Sirhind under their control and established the first Sikh State. During Mughal period Sirhind was a city located between between Delhi and Lahore. 

Mukhlispur became the capital of the Sikh State and was renamed Lohgarh. The siege of Sirhind took place after the Battle of Chappan Chiri (on 12 May 1710) in which the Mughal Governor Wazir Khan was beheaded by the Khalsa  army. Wazir Khan had  ordered two sons of Guru Gobind Singh( 9-year-old Zorawar Singh and 6-year-old Fateh Singh) to bricked alive in Sirhind in 1705. 

Bahadur Shah I, the Mughal Emperor, died in 1712 during the course of his campaign against Banda Bahadur. His son Jahandar Shah became the next Mughal emperor who, in turn, was succeeded by Farrukhsiyar who ruled from 1713 to 1719. An important event of Farrukhsiyar's rule was the execution of Banda Bahadur.

Samad Khan, the Mughal governor of the Kashmir Subah, was tasked to capture Banda Bahadur who was defeated by the Mughal forces in the Battle of Gurdas Nangal which took place in April 1715. 

Banda Bahadur was tortured to death by the Mughals in 1716 in the Mehrauli area of Delhi. 

Tomb of Bibi Pari, Dacca

Tomb of Bibi Pari / Image Credit

One of the famous Mughal monuments in Bangladesh, the seventeenth century tomb of Bibi Pari  was built by the Mughal Subahdar of Bengal Shaista Khan for her daughter Iran Dukht Rahmat Banu. She was married to Muhammad Azam Shah, son of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. 

Tomb of Bibi Pari is located within the Lalbagh Fort in Dacca. The construction of Lalbagh Fort, then known as  Aurangabad Qila, was started by Muhammad Azam Shah in 1678, and was being continued by his successor Shaista Khan. 

Mirza Abu Talib, popularly known as Shaista Khan, was appointed Mughal Subahdar of Bengal by his uncle and Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb after the death of Mir Jumla in 1663. 

Mir Jumla was made governor of Bengal in 1659 by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. He died while he was on his way to Dacca and was entombed at Thakurbari on the Assam-Meghalaya border in the westernmost part of West Garo Hills. 

Shaista Khan was sent by Aurangzeb to defeat Shivaji. However, he had to retreat when in 1663 Shivaji embarked on a surprise attack at the well-guarded mansion of Shayista Khan in Poona. In the scuffle Shaista Khan lost his thumb and his son, Abul Fath, was killed. This incident served a body-blow to the Mughal prestige in the Deccan. Aurangzeb recalled Shayista and transferred him to Bengal. 

Raja Man Singh Tomar And Dhrupad Music

Apart from being great warrior and patron of architecture, Raja Man Singh (1486-1517), the Tomar Rajput ruler of Gwalior, was a skilled musician as well as a patron of musicians. He opened the doors of music to laymen. He developed Dhrupad, a Hindustani classical music, into a popular style and made it appealing for the common people. 

Mankutuhal (Man Singh's Curiosities) was the name of a treatise created by the musicians of the court of Raja Man Singh Tomar under his supervision. Manakutuhala was written in Hindi verse around 1488 A.D and is the first work on Indian music written in Hindi.

Though original Manakutuhala is no longer available, it was translated into Persian by Faquirullah Saif Khan in the seventeenth century by the name ‘Raga Darpan’. 

The dhrupads of Man Singh won the admiration of both Hindus and Muslims. 

Firoz Shah Tughlaq Tomb in Pictures

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309 – 1388 CE) was the third ruler of the Tughlaq dynasty of the famed Delhi Sultanate. He succeeded to the throne in 1351 after the demise of his cousin Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq who had become second Tughlaq sultan in 1325 AD. 

 

Tomb of Firoz Shah Tughlaq is located in Hauz Khas in Delhi.  Attached to the tomb is a madrasa built by Firoz Shah in 1352–53.

Amboyna Massacre of 1623

Dutch East India Company (VOC) / Image Credit

The Amboyna Massacre, as it came to be called in England, took place in 1623 in Amboyna, an important clove-producing island in modern-day Indonesia. 10 Englishmen, 10 Japanese, and one Portuguese were executed by the local authorities of Dutch East India Company. 

Portuguese were the common enemy of the English and the Dutch when the last two entered the East.  However, the commercial rivalry between the English and the Dutch led to the massacre at Amboyna (currently Amboyna).

Spice trade has been very lucrative throughout the history. In the ‘Age of Discovery’ (a period of European overseas exploration from the 15th to 17th century), the European powers - Dutch, Portuguese, English and Spanish, had been in a fierce struggle for supremacy of the spice trade. 

The English poet and dramatist John Dryden had written a dram called Amboyna, or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants in 1673. 

Dalmadal Cannon, Bishnupur

Dalmadal Canon / Image credit

The grandeur of Bishnupur in the Bankura district of West Bengal can be ascertained by the presence of many beautiful temples featuring intricate terracotta ornamentation. Built mostly of brick & at times, of laterite, these magnificent temples are the mute spectator to Bishnupur’s glorious past.

Apart from the terracotta temples, Dalmadal Cannon is another highlight of Bishnupur.  This 3.8 m long wrought iron forge welded cannon has a barrel with a diameter of 28.5 cm. Built by expert artisan Jagannath Karmakar, this historical canon with Persian inscriptions is  located near Chinnamasta temple in Bishnupur and weighs 11,840 kg.

Tradition has it that Dalmadal Cannon was used by the Malla kings of Bishnupur to repulse the ruthless bargis (Maratha troops) under Maratha leader Bhaskar Pundit sent by Raghoji I Bhonsle of Nagpur in the 18th century. The marauding bands of Maratha cavalry came to be called bargis in Bengal.  

Bhaskar Pundit and his twenty two generals were killed by Bengal Nawab Alivardi Khan while the former was plundering the people of Bengal.