What is military labour? War,logistics,and the Mughals in early modern South Asia

Road-building

Building roads and keeping them under control was an integral part of Mughal military campaigns. ²² Given that early modern South Asia had considerable forest cover, woodcutters and pioneers would routinely proceed before the main army, cutting down forests and levelling the ground to ensure smooth movement of the troops. ²³ Nicocolao Manucci, who journeyed with an imperial army under Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707) in the mid-seventeenth century, describes such a scene in details:

[T]here marched close to the baggage one thousand labourers, with axes, mattocks, spades, and pick-axes to clear any difficult passage. Their commanders ride on horseback carrying in their hands their badges of their office, which are either an axe or a mattock in silver. On arriving at the place appointed for the royal halt, they put up the tents and placed in position the heavy artillery. ²⁴

These activities found a particularly important and visible role in three different regions. First, in regions like Kashmir or the Afghan area, the terrain was dominated by hills, defiles, and ravines. Here armies regularly needed the ground to be flattened before they could march over it. Narratives of Emperor Akbar’s (r. 1556-1605) military operations – especially those in the Afghan region in the mid-1580s – provide us with a lot of examples of this. The name of one Muhammad Qasim Khan – a commander holding the position of Mir Barr wa Bahr under Akbar – comes up repeatedly in contemporary texts with respect to these operations. ²⁵ In many cases, Qasim Khan was sent ahead of the main army with groups of labourers to level the ground and create some sort of a path for the imperial troops to march on. For example, describing Akbar’s march from Agra to Kabul in 1585, Abul Fazl writes, ‘Qasim was sent on to level the roads (nishīb wa farāz rā hamwār gardand) up to the Indus. Afterwards he was to make the Khaibar and the road to Kabul passable for carriages (gardūn guzār sāzad)’. ²⁶ Eventually, in the context of Akbar marching towards Kabul, the chronicler complements Qasim Khan on his good performance. He observed that roads over which camels and horses could travel earlier only with great difficulty had been rendered so good that even ‘carts passed through easily (ki ‘arāba ba-āsānī guzasht)’. ²⁷

In the colder parts of empire on its north and northwest, removing snow from roads was a recurrent part of road-building. In addition, because of the hilly terrain of these parts, existing paths were often very narrow and passed over elevations. Consequently, the army had to frequently concentrate on building wider roads in order to proceed. The logistics of the Mughal invasion of Balkh and Badakhshan in 1645-1647 is a case in point. As a part of the preparations for the first campaign, one of the commanders of the army was sent in advance to mobilize ‘as many masons (sang-tarāsh, lit. stone-cutters), carpenters (najjār), and sappers (bel-dār) as should be required to improve the road’. ²⁸ Soon after, we are told that a contingent of labourers was dispatched ahead of the main army. They were to render ‘the most strenuous exertions in widening narrow defiles (tausī‘ tangī-hā), leveling inequalities (hamwār sākhtan-i past), and constructing bridges (bastan-i pul-hā) along the road’. ²⁹ In spite of these efforts, the invading army found it too difficult to proceed and the invasion was paused. The next year, imperial commanders were once again sent to recruit ‘a vast number of the peasantry in those regions for the purpose of removing the snow from the aforesaid [Tul] pass (barāy bar-dāshtan-i barf-i kutal-i mazkūr)’. ³⁰ Accordingly, on the eve of the campaign in early 1646, the Amir-ul-Umara reached Kabul and concentrated his efforts on removing snow from the passes and roads. He also started building bridges over streams for the army to cross. ³¹ Such instances are, in fact, recurrent. ³²

Finally, in certain regions like Assam, Bengal, and the Aravalli Hills, Mughal armies had to negotiate dense forests. Campaigns and combat were hugely dependent on woodcutters and other workers cutting down trees and thickets and preparing a way to march forward. Some references of this type come from narratives of imperial campaigns in Assam. Describing the 1662-1663 campaign, for instance, Khafi Khan mentions a group of ‘hatchet-men and wood-cutters’ marching ahead of the main army as it advanced along both banks of the river Brahmaputra in early 1662. He narrates that ‘with great care and caution, they cut down the trees with their hatchets and other implements and made a broad road for the army between the trees’. ³³ Either due to a paucity of the number of workers available, or because of the density of the forest cover, soldiers were also deployed to help the workmen in these tasks. Another contemporary chronicler tells us that Dilir Khan, the commander of the vanguard of the imperial army, and Amir Mortaza, the dārogha of the imperial artillery, led the advance with the help of elephants and soldiers. Even Mir Jumla, the commander of the army and the ṣūbadār (governor) of Bengal, participated in the chopping down of forests and filling up ravines with grass. ³⁴

Siegeworks

Siege warfare was a form of military engagement that demanded a lot of logistical work. Mughal armies routinely began their sieges by encircling forts on all sides and enforcing a blockade. They followed this up by constructing siegeworks – mines (naqb), saps (sābāt̤), batteries, and defensive barricades. This would be done by thousands of builders, carpenters, diggers, and other workmen with various specializations. In the siege of Chitor (1567-1568), for instance, Akbar’s army deployed 5,000 carpenters (najjār), builders (bannā’), stone-masons (sang-tarāsh), sappers, and other labourers. ³⁵ Part of this contingent of labourers must have comprised skilled labour, in charge of planning and supervising the construction of the siegeworks. Alongside this, there must also have been a substantial number of unskilled workmen, responsible for digging earth, carrying rubble out, flattening the ground, and so on. This occupational difference and social hierarchy is easily discernible in contemporary Mughal miniature paintings that depict scenes of sieges. Working within the range of the projectile weapons of the garrison, these workers put their lives in danger to get the job done. Mughal sources indicate a very high rate of casualty among the workers owing to firing by the garrison. ³⁶ The daily death toll was somewhere between 100 and 200. Having no time or respite to dispose of the dead bodies properly, these were built into the walls of the sap. In order to keep the workforce motivated and functional under such harsh conditions, Akbar – who was leading the siege – freely scattered gold and silver bullion among the workers. Abul Fazl writes, ‘[t]he coin of presents was poured into the lap of the workmen’s hopes, and silver and gold were reckoned at the rate of the earth (zar wa sīm khāk bahā shūda būd)’. ³⁷ One can surmise that such financial rewards were accompanied by coercion to keep the workforce going. As a result of their constant labour for months on end, the siegeworks were finished. Ultimately, it was not Mughal siege artillery, but a physical assault on the fortifications delivered from a sap that brought the fort down. ³⁸

Contemporary accounts of the siege of Ranthambhor (1569) allow us to find these workers in a slightly different role. ³⁹ Here, the besieging Mughal army discovered a hill right opposite to the fort. Under the instructions of the commanders, 500 ‘iron-armed kahars and strong-shouldered porters (kahārān-i āhanīn-bāzū wa ḥammālān-i sangīn dosh)’ hauled 15 Mughal ẓarbuzans (big cannons) to the top of hill. ⁴⁰ From here, Mughals bombarded the inner quarters of the fort and eventually scared the garrison into submission. In sieges where such nearby elevations were absent, Mughal armies would often require their workmen to construct artificial elevations called sar kob, from where artillery or handguns could be deployed.

War-fleet

In several theatres of war, including Bengal, Assam, and Sind, Mughal armies operated with war-fleets, sometimes comprising hundreds of vessels. In Bengal, war-boats numbered almost 300 in 1608. ⁴¹ In a major expedition against Khwaja Usman, an Afghan warlord, in Sylhet in 1611-1612, around the same number of boats were deployed. ⁴² Four hundred vessels were deployed in the Mughal invasion of Koch, Kamta, and Kamrup to the north of Bengal in 1612. ⁴³ The number increased to close to 1,000 in the late-1610s, when imperial armies mounted an invasion against the Arakan kingdom to the southeast of Bengal. ⁴⁴ Each of these war-boats required several boatmen as crew. Mirza Nathan, a Mughal commander who served in Bengal and Assam in the early-seventeenth century, puts the number of sailors and crew manning the entire war-flotilla under the command of his father at 12,000. ⁴⁵ On another occasion, the number is mentioned to be around 13,000. ⁴⁶ He also mentions that there were slightly less than 300 war-boats in the fleet at this time. ⁴⁷ This means that on an average, 40 to 50 people were employed in manning every vessel. Understandably, bigger boats – especially those with artillery mounted on them – would require much more manpower than smaller ones, which mainly served as carrier vessels for troops and material.

Owing to the abundance of rivers and waterways in Bengal and Assam, a large part of the imperial campaigns in these parts were amphibious. As such, the war-fleet played a crucial role in Mughal territorial expansion here. The contribution of the corps of boatmen – who manned the war-fleet – to this process can hardly be over-emphasized. Moreover, contemporary sources indicate that the involvement of these boatmen went well beyond just logistical tasks. They were, in fact, often required to perform a variety of combat-related functions for the imperial armies. Let us consider a few examples.

Just like building roads in other regions, riverine areas would often require waterways to be cleared to facilitate the movement of vessels. In course of the amphibious campaigns in Bengal, the imperial fleet would, at times, need shallow and silted water channels to be dug up to proceed further. In one instance, the flotilla required to enter the Ichhamati River at a certain point during an ongoing military operation against Musa Khan in 1608. Mirza Nathan narrates that the task was assigned to him. He instructed 10,000 out of the 12,000 boatmen of the Mughal war-fleet to excavate the channel. He writes that he oversaw the operation personally and distributed bhāng (Indian hemp), opium, rice, and copper coins among the boatmen to keep their morale high. ⁴⁸ The boatmen worked straight for a whole week and managed to dig up the silted canal. Thanks to their efforts, the imperial flotilla then sailed through it and entered the Ichhamati river. ⁴⁹

Mughal texts also indicate that the boatmen of early modern Bengal were famous for building highly resilient temporary fortifications built of riverside mud. By the time the imperial armies made a decisive push into eastern Bengal in the early-seventeenth century, they were well-aware of the efficacy of these mud-forts, especially when defended with artillery, archers, and matchlockmen. During their campaigns in these parts from this time onward, imperial armies on the march would have their boatmen build these temporary fortifications for them at every station. In times of combat, Mughal generals made the boatmen construct these improvised forts to defend their position. ⁵⁰ Given the paucity of big stone forts in deltaic Bengal, the mud-fort became the chief defensive apparatus of Mughal armies in course of the seventeenth century. In this case, the chief architects of these forts – the boatmen – were labourers who had been initially hired to fulfil a different function. This exemplifies how, in times of war, logistical labourers often had to switch their tasks as per the military needs of the campaigning armies.

Building mud-forts was not the only way in which Mughal armies drew their logistical workforce more explicitly into the ambit of combat. Imperial texts mention that during their campaigns in Bengal, the boatmen could be summoned to help out soldiers in course of sieges. On one such occasion, an imperial army had besieged Musa Khan’s fort at Dakchara in 1607-1608. At one juncture, Mughal troops were faced by constant firing by the garrison and found it extremely difficult to approach the fort. ⁵¹ Upon the command of Mughal officers, the wagons of the army were advanced in front to form a defensive barrier. Mughal troops took shelter behind them. Next, the boatmen were summoned. One half of them were instructed to accumulate mounds of earth and another to pile up bundles of grass behind the line of wagons in order to build a wall. The firing by the garrison caused heavy casualties in the ranks of the boatmen. Yet, they finished the task. ⁵² Their duty, however, did not end here. As the imperial troops closed in on the fort, they were welcomed by a ditch. The entire area had also been planted with sharp bamboo spikes to keep out any attack from the outside. If the Mughal army wanted to assault the fort directly, first the ditch needed to be filled up and the threat of the bamboo spikes had to be neutralized. Once again, the boatmen were called upon to help the soldiers out. The captains of the fleet were instructed to divide the boatmen into two parties. One was to deposit bundles of straw and the other basketfuls of earth into the ditch. ⁵³ This task, too, the boatmen fulfilled amid constant firing by the garrison. ⁵⁴ The coordinated efforts of the boatmen enabled the imperial army to eventually cross the ditch and storm the fort. ⁵⁵

The camp

The imperial military establishment and the camp were serviced by thousands of workers and officials on a daily basis. They were responsible for the ceaseless production, transport, and maintenance of various equipments, weapons, and war-animals used in military campaigns. Manufacturing, storing, and guarding weapons of various kinds were a constant preoccupation of the empire. One can imagine that a large number of skilled craftsmen and workers remained engaged in producing military material at the imperial, regional, and local levels to satiate the demands of the empire. A huge workforce was also employed at all times at the stables of the various war-animals. Ā’īn-i Akbarī – an administrative compendium compiled in the late-sixteenth century – informs us that different types of elephants had specific servants dedicated to their upkeep. They numbered from two to five and a half, depending on the quality and nature of the animal. ⁵⁶ Every contingent of 10, 20, and 30 elephants was supervised by a faujdār, who was responsible for training the elephant for the battlefield. ⁵⁷ Similarly, a large number of non-elite caretakers were assigned to the horse stables, in addition to a host of elite supervisors. The akhtachī would be responsible for the harness, the chābuksawār would be in charge of the speed of horses, the hāḍā would teach the animals their initial steps, the baytar would tend to their medical needs, the naqīb would watch over them, and so on. The Ā’īn records 18 types of offices in all. ⁵⁸ Similarly, the stables of camels, cows, and mules all had separate corps of caretakers attached in various capacities to the different animals. ⁵⁹ Mughal military success in South Asia owed considerably to the tactical as well as strategic mobility that these animals – deployed in hundreds and thousands – offered imperial armies on and off the field. The present discussion makes it clear that a large part of the credit for this was also due to the massive workforce devoted to the service of animals. These workers laboured round the year in the imperial stables procuring the animals, feeding and taking care of them, and training them into fulfilling the various tasks for the empire.

The moving imperial military camp – itself an embodiment of the pomp and glory of the empire – was similarly serviced by hundreds of labourers. Writing in the mid-seventeenth century, Francois Bernier puts the number of foot-soldiers at ‘two, or even three hundred thousand’. ⁶⁰ He continues,

This will not be deemed an extraordinary computation if we bear in mind the immense quantity of tents, kitchens, baggage, and even women, usually attendant on the army. For the conveyance of all these are again required many elephants, camels, oxen, horses, and porters. ⁶¹

At all times, two sets of camps would be maintained; while one would be pitched at one station, the other would be sent ahead to be ready at the next. This whole operation, carried out meticulously for months on end, necessitated the involvement of very large numbers of labourers and officers with diverse duties and specializations. Aside from the soldiers employed as guards and beasts of burden deployed to carry the material, food, and furniture, the Ā’īn mentions that each encampment would be worked by ‘a thousand Farrashes [sic], natives of Iran, Turan, and Hindustan, 500 pioneers (bel-dārān), 100 water-carriers (suqā), 50 carpenters (durodgar), tent-makers (khaima-doz), and torch-bearers (mash‘al-chī), 30 workers in leather (charm-doz), and 150 sweepers (khāk-rob)’. ⁶²

Recruitment

The one obvious question that emerges from the above discussion is whether the Mughals maintained permanent corps of logistical workforce. Unfortunately, Mughal texts do not give us any direct answer to this question. It is understandable that some of the work described above were perennial in nature. Taking care of war-animals, producing weaponry, and serving the camp fall within this ambit. It is possible that workers were employed on the long term for these tasks. It appears that beyond this, the bulk of the logistical workforce needed in military campaigns for the performance of specific military tasks were kept in employment only on the short term. They would often be recruited at the onset of campaigns directly from the region the army would operate in. For instance, we find a Mughal army headed towards Qandahar in mid-seventeenth century waiting for several days at Kabul for gathering pioneers and road-builders from the area from Jalalabad. ⁶³ Mughal texts designate these various groups of workers by their specialization – like carpenters (durod-gar), pioneers (bel-dār), and blacksmiths (āhan-gar). This indicates that these were workers already specialized in these fields. They were recruited with the hope that they would bring their specialized skills to the service of the imperial campaigns. Hence, the armies did not have to train these workers. In early modern South Asia, communities oriented towards different professions would be organized on the basis of their caste status and religious background. Inevitably, this social basis of their occupation would play a big role in shaping the nature of recruitment, pay, and supply of these workmen in Mughal armies. Dirk Kolff has investigated this social angle to some extent with respect to the non-elite ‘spurious’ Rajput soldiers of eastern and northern India. ⁶⁴ The issue needs further investigation in the context of the logistical workforce in early modern South Asian armies.

As to the method of their recruitment, once again we have very little direct information. In one case, a text mentions Mirza Nathan requisitioning boatmen from Khwaja Mutahhar Karori. ⁶⁵ Elsewhere Nathan is mentioned to have deputed mutāṣaddīs to recruit boatmen from the neighbouring localities. ⁶⁶ Their official titles indicate that these were imperial officers, usually involved in revenue administration. Hence, they would have strong connections with or would have been recruited from the rural elite, which would give them access to the local labouring communities. At the other end, it seems that the leaders or commanders whom Manucci saw among the woodcutters employed in the Mughal armies in the mid-seventeenth century negotiated with the representatives of the Mughal state on behalf of the labouring communities. They appear to be the middlemen through whom the state would recruit and control these vast populations of workers. In this sense, they were similar to the jam‘dārs or jobber-commanders Kolff finds leading the peasant-soldiers of North India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They could also be compared with the military entrepreneurs who supplied troops, money, and equipments to early modern European states. ⁶⁷ Our sources also indicate the fairly easy availability of these workers. ⁶⁸ The state would usually hire and pay these workmen and then assign them to individual commanders as per their rank and need as dākhilī troops. The Ā’īn clearly mentions that this would be the case, for instance, for carpenters (durod-gar), blacksmiths (āhan-gar), water-carriers (suqā), and pioneers (bel-dār). ⁶⁹ Finally, the zamīndārs – a heterogeneous social group comprising the rural elite of various statures – who joined Mughal ranks played an important role ^{in facilitating the process of labour recruitment} owing to their intermediate status between the imperial circles and village communities. In one such instance, Raja Satrajit – the ^zamīndār of Busna – lent Mirza Nathan 100 boatmen for a period of three months to reconstruct some Mughal residential buildings in Gilah that had been gutted by fire. ⁷⁰

Motivation

What led these thousands of people in the logistical workforce to serve the Mughal Empire? Ravi Ahuja points out that in the second half of the eighteenth century, the war between the English East India Company and the Mysore sultanate caused massive disruption to the society and economy in the Tamil Plains of South India. Military conflict destroyed the economy and devastated rural communities. This left a large part of the surviving population with no other option for livelihood than to join as camp followers those very armies that had caused their destruction in the first place. ⁷¹ Did something similar happen in the Mughal Empire as well? One argument against this could be that in contrast to war-ravaged South India of the second half of the eighteenth century, Mughal territories were relatively less contested between Akbar’s rise to power in the middle of the sixteenth century and Aurangzeb’s death in the beginning of the eighteenth. True, there were repeated rebellions and insurgencies, and the state’s response was usually swift and violent. Yet, the picture of war driving societies to pauperization and destitution that Ravi Ahuja unravels for late eighteenth-century South India is difficult to trace in the Mughal Empire at its height.

Instead, it is possible to argue that financial rewards held out a sizable incentive for various communities. The logistical labourers were mainly paid in cash. ⁷² This is indicated by Shireen Moosvi, who points out that by the seventeenth century, paying skilled and unskilled labourers as well as domestic servants in cash was standard practice. ⁷³ In contingent times, more cash and other rewards would be held out. Abul Fazl’s description of Akbar scattering gold and silver bullion among the labourers who were deputed to construct the siegeworks at Chitor under heavy firing by the garrison ⁷⁴ or the mention of Mirza Nathan freely distributing bullion, rice, and intoxicants among the workers deployed to dig up the silted channel in eastern Bengal are cases in point. In addition, it is likely that some labourers had to render their services without any remuneration (be-gār) as a part of their social and caste obligations.

Dirk Kolff argues that the itinerant non-elite Rajput soldier/trader/herder, who hired his services out to various states in early modern South Asia, was strongly inspired by an ideal of naukarī (service). ⁷⁵ Is it possible that aside from financial remuneration and some element of coercion, the same ideal of service also inspired the woodcutters, pioneers, carpenters, stone-cutters, and other workers in the Mughal logistical workforce? Unfortunately, the imperial sources are completely silent on this. Here one reaches one of the many limits ingrained in the elite and state-centric nature of the Mughal archives. Perhaps vernacular sources of this period might be able to throw more light on such socio-cultural issues pertaining to the logistical workforce. This, however, is beyond the ambit of the present essay.