Babar was the first of the Mughals to invade India in 1521, and seize power at Delhi by defeating the army of the Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi at Panipat in 1526 towards December 1719, Mohammed Shah Rangila was placed on the throne inspite of the protestations of his widowed mother. Mohammed Shah remained an Emperor in name only till his death in 1748. During all these years Afghanistan had heen a part of the Mughal Kingdom, and at the time of Mohammed Shah it was under Governor Nasir Khan. This man’s control over his province was as weak as that of the Delhi Emperor. There was hardly any collection of state revenues. The soldiers had not been paid for several years, which in fact was happening in Delhi too.
Such conditions of unrest and frustration provided an energetic outsider like Nadir Shah a golden opportunity to seize power. A son of a poor shepherd in Khurasan, a province of Iran, Nadir had joined a robber band when he was still a boy. He grew up to be its leader at about the time in 1717, when the Afghans occupied Khurasan and later the capital of Iran. Nadir’s patriotic zeal was roused and he rallied a strong band of horsemen who helped him regain Khurasan. By 1725, he had hecome a national hero, who drove the Afghans out of Iran, and who became a sort of regent with a boy of the royal family as King of Iran In 1736, when the boy King died, Nadir assumed the title of Emperor of Iran.
The Afghans had invaded Iran several times, and to avenge these raids, Nadir Shah advanced upon Ghazni and then Kabul, both of which were occupied in May, 1738. The Governor Nasir Khan was then in Peshawar. As Nadir Shah rode out towards the Khyber Pass in November 1738, Nasir tried to block his passage with a force of 20,000 ill trained Afghans, who were just no match for the fierce Khurasani horsemen. By December 1738, Nadir Shah had crossed the river Indus, and the lush plains of the Punjab stretched before him, literally beckoning him on. Zakaria Khan had made frantic requests for aid from Delhi, but without success. When he himself came out to oppose the invaders at the banks of the river Ravi, his army was just brushed aside.
Nadir Shah was an able general and a wise administrator but insane criminal. His band of soldiers would aptly be called freebooters, rapists and looters. Atrocities were committed on Punjabi Muslims and Hindus alike. Then, he accepted a gift of two million rupees and retained Zakaria Khan as his governor at Lahore. He took as hostages a son of Zakaria and a son of the minister Lakhpat Rai, and thus secure against revolt, he proceeded towards Delhi. As his whole army was on horseback, his advance was rapid. Leaving Lahore on the 26th January, he reached Sirhind on the 1st February, Ambala on the 7th, and Karnal on the 12th Fehruary. The Delhi army had been alerted in Novemher on the fall of Kabul. The generals dragged their feet in moving out of Delhi. Every fresh report of Nadir’s advance struck terror into them. They took two months to move their large army and their heavy guns up to Karnal, a distance of 75 miles. Here, they decided to give battle. They heavily outnumbered the attackers, but had no discipline and hardly any heart for a fight. On the 13th February, 1739, within three hours they had lost, over 20,000 killed or wounded, and the rest just scattered in all directions.
Nadir Shah entered Delhi as a victor on 9th March, 1739. He demanded 2.5 million Rupees as retribution, but the Rangila Emperor had nothing in his government treasury. He threw open his personal safe of jewels, and Nadir availed himself of all the diamonds and rubies of the Peacock Throne, and also the famous Koh-i-noor.
He left Delhi at the beginning of May 1739, taking with him a few thousand Indian girls, a large number of boys as slaves and thousands of elephants, horses and camels loaded with the booty his men had collected. The hollow shell that made up the Mughal empire had been smashed open by Nadir Shah with one sweep.
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