Internal strife and conflict beset with personal ambitions was enough of an invitation for the Ghurids to invade India. Discuss.

Answer:

The Ghurid conquest of northern India at the end of the twelfth century was greatly facilitated by the disunity of the Rajput states, whose mutual rivalries and personal ambitions left them incapable of common action. Yet internal strife alone does not explain the outcome, for Ghurid strengths were equally decisive.

The reality of internal strife

• Northern India was divided among the Chahamanas, Gahadavalas, Chandellas, Chalukyas and Paramaras.
• Prithviraj Chauhan and Jaichandra of Kanauj were bitter personal rivals.
• The Rajputs mounted no united defence of the north-western frontier.
• Muhammad Ghori was able to defeat them piecemeal, at Tarain in 1192 and Chandawar in 1194.
• Some chiefs even served the invaders in the hope of local advantage.

Ghurid strengths

• Swift mounted archers gave them mobility and tactical flexibility the Rajputs lacked.
• Unified command and a professional standing army contrasted with feudal levies.
• Superior strategy was shown in Ghori's regrouping after his defeat at the first battle of Tarain in 1191.
• Religious zeal and the promise of plunder gave their forces cohesion.

Deeper Indian weaknesses

• A rigid caste order confined warfare to a narrow warrior class.
• A decentralised feudal polity fragmented military resources, as R.S. Sharma argued.
• Outdated chivalric conventions and reliance on elephants hampered the Rajputs in battle.
• Alberuni noted the isolation and complacency that left India ignorant of external dangers.

A qualified verdict

• Rajput valour was never in doubt, as the first battle of Tarain in 1191 showed.
• Prithviraj's failure to pursue the defeated Ghori proved a decisive error.
• Ghurid success also depended on the earlier Ghaznavid raids that had weakened the north-west.
• Disunity was thus the invitation, but military and organisational superiority secured the conquest.

Internal strife was therefore a genuine invitation, and without it the Ghurid success is scarcely intelligible. Yet, as historians emphasise, the invaders' superior organisation, mobility and unity of purpose were equally necessary, so the Rajput defeat is best explained by the meeting of Indian disunity with Ghurid military efficiency.