Second Battle of Panipat (1556): Akbar's Army Defeats Hemu

The Second Battle of Panipat was fought on 5 November 1556 between the Mughal army of the young emperor Akbar, led by his regent Bairam Khan, and the forces of Hemu, the Hindu general who had just seized Delhi in the name of the Afghan Sur dynasty. Hemu was close to victory when an arrow struck him in the eye and his army broke. The battle secured Mughal rule in northern India and opened the way for Akbar’s long reign.

Background: a contested throne

The Mughal dynasty had been founded by Babur after the First Battle of Panipat in 1526. His son Humayun lost the empire to the Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri in 1540 and spent fifteen years in exile. Sher Shah’s successors quarrelled after 1554, and Humayun recovered Delhi and Agra in July 1555.

Humayun died in Delhi in January 1556 after a fall. His son Akbar, aged thirteen, was proclaimed emperor at Kalanaur in the Punjab on 14 February 1556, under the guardianship of the experienced general Bairam Khan. Mughal control of the heartland was still thin.

Hemu’s rise and the capture of Delhi

Hemu, also known as Hemchandra, came from a Hindu merchant family, probably from Rewari near Delhi. He supplied the Sur armies, rose in the service of Islam Shah, and under Adil Shah Suri became chief minister and commander. Contemporary and later accounts credit him with winning many battles against rebel Afghans; the figure of 22 victories is often repeated, though it cannot be checked.

After Humayun’s death, Hemu marched west from Bengal and Bihar. He took Agra, whose Mughal governor fled, and on 7 October 1556 he defeated the Mughal governor of Delhi, Tardi Beg Khan, at Tughlaqabad. Tardi Beg and other Mughal officers retreated north to join Bairam Khan. Hemu entered Delhi and assumed royal status with the title Vikramaditya, an ancient Hindu royal name. Whether he still acted for Adil Shah or claimed the throne for himself is debated.

The Mughal response

At the Mughal camp, many nobles advised retreat to Kabul. Bairam Khan argued that giving up Hindustan would mean losing the empire for good. He insisted on fighting and had Tardi Beg executed for abandoning Delhi, a harsh act that restored discipline. The army marched south towards Delhi.

An advance force under Ali Quli Khan Shaibani (later Khan Zaman) captured Hemu’s artillery train, which was moving separately with a weak escort. This loss removed one of Hemu’s advantages before the main battle.

The battle, 5 November 1556

The armies met on the plain of Panipat, about 90 kilometres north of Delhi, on ground close to where Babur had defeated Ibrahim Lodi thirty years earlier. Mughal sources describe their army drawn up in centre, left and right divisions, with a strong vanguard under Ali Quli Khan. Hemu’s army was larger. Figures in the sources differ greatly, but it is commonly said to have included around 30,000 cavalry and roughly 1,500 war elephants, against a Mughal force of perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 horsemen. Akbar and Bairam Khan stayed some distance behind the lines.

Hemu personally led the attack from an elephant, often named in tradition as Hawai. His elephants and cavalry pressed back both Mughal wings, and the battle seemed to be turning in his favour. Then an arrow struck Hemu in the eye. He collapsed in his howdah, and his troops, believing him dead, lost heart and scattered.

Mughal soldiers seized Hemu’s elephant, and the wounded, barely conscious Hemu was brought to the Mughal camp. According to Abul Fazl, Bairam Khan urged Akbar to strike the prisoner, but the boy refused, and Bairam killed Hemu himself. Other writers say Akbar did strike. Hemu’s head was sent to Kabul and his body displayed in Delhi, and in keeping with the brutal customs of the age a tower of the heads of the fallen was raised on the battlefield.

Key people

Hemu (died 1556) was an unusual figure: a Hindu of non-military background who commanded Afghan armies and briefly held Delhi as a king. Some modern Indian writers celebrate him as the last Hindu ruler of Delhi before British times, a description that simplifies a complex political situation.

Bairam Khan (died 1561), a Turkmen noble, had served Humayun through exile and became regent for Akbar. Panipat was his greatest success; four years later Akbar dismissed him.

Akbar (1542-1605) was only thirteen. His later reign as Akbar the Great built on the security that this battle provided.

Ali Quli Khan, an Uzbek commander, played a key role by capturing Hemu’s guns and leading the vanguard.

Myths and facts

Myth: Akbar led the Mughal army to victory. Akbar was thirteen and watched from the rear. The planning and command belonged to Bairam Khan and his generals, although the victory was celebrated in Akbar’s name.

Myth: Hemu was a mere grocer. Mughal chroniclers mocked his merchant origins, and older English books repeat the label. In fact he had run the supply and finances of the Sur state for years and had won a string of campaigns before Panipat, which is why the Mughals took him so seriously.

Fact: the outcome turned on chance. Most accounts, including Mughal ones, agree that Hemu’s troops were pressing hard when he was wounded. Few battles in Indian history show so clearly how the fall of a single commander could decide the fate of an empire.

Consequences

The Mughals reoccupied Delhi the next day and soon recovered Agra. The remaining Sur claimants collapsed within months: Sikandar Shah Sur surrendered after a long siege at Mankot in 1557, and Adil Shah was killed in Bengal the same year.

The victory gave the Mughals undisputed control of the region between the Punjab and the Ganges. Bairam Khan’s prestige was at its height, and for the next four years he governed the empire in Akbar’s name, rewarding the commanders who had fought at Panipat with high rank and lands. The victory also marked the start of an expansion that would make the Mughal Empire the dominant power in South Asia for more than 150 years. For the Afghan Sur dynasty, it ended any hope of restoring Sher Shah’s empire.

The three battles of Panipat

Panipat lies on the main route from the north-west into the Ganges plain, so invading or defending armies often met there. The first battle, in 1526, brought Babur to power. The second, in 1556, secured his grandson’s throne. The Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, between the Maratha Empire and the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani, was one of the bloodiest battles of the eighteenth century.

Timeline

• 1555, July: Humayun re-enters Delhi.
• 1556, January: Humayun dies in Delhi after a fall.
• 1556, 14 February: Akbar is proclaimed emperor at Kalanaur.
• 1556, 7 October: Hemu defeats Tardi Beg Khan at Tughlaqabad and occupies Delhi.
• 1556, early November: Ali Quli Khan captures Hemu’s artillery.
• 1556, 5 November: Second Battle of Panipat; Hemu is captured and killed.
• 1557: Sikandar Shah Sur surrenders at Mankot; Adil Shah is killed in Bengal.

Why it matters

The Second Battle of Panipat decided who would rule northern India. A single arrow turned a likely Afghan victory into a Mughal triumph, and the empire of Akbar, with all that followed in Indian history, was built on that result.