.
The Battle of Ghaghra,
fought in 1529, was the last of
a series of three major battles, victories in which gave Mughal warlord Zaheer-ud-din Babur overlordship over north India. It followed the first battle of Panipat (1526) and the battle of Khanwa (1527). Babur soon occupied Gwalior, Dholpur, Mewat and Chanderi. But then he heard about the build-up of forces on the east under the leadership of Ibrahim Lodi''s brother, Mahmud lodi. The Lodhis, an Afghan dynasty who ruled the Delhi sultanate, had been defeated and displaced by Babur at Panipat in 1526. Many of their partisans, being largely the Afghan nobility of eastern India (present-day Bengal, Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh), combined forces to challenge the rapidly entrenching Mughal power in India. The battle of Ghaghra, fought near Varanasi in present-day Uttar Pradesh, ensued. It resulted in victory for Babur and the establishment of the Mughal dynasty in India. A decade later, the Afghan nobility of eastern India, led by Sher Shah Suri, did manage to oust the Mughals by defeating Humayun, Babur''s son and successor, at the battle of Kannauj in 1540. However, the Mughals made a comeback in 1556, after the second battle of Panipat, and the Mughal dynasty, thus re-established, was to endure in India until 1857.
Published: March 08, 2008
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