ABSTRACT
How was violence or ‘hard power’ mobilised and made use of in early modern India? In this first of three chapters on the state and its power, we begin by looking at the markets for violence, their origins, and how Indian rulers ‘transacted’ with the pools of men ready to take arms for the defence and enlargement of their kingdoms. This is set, in the second section, within the environmental context of the arid and wet zones of Eurasia and the interdependence of mobile pastoral groups with sedentary societies and their military power. The next section looks at the justification of violence and the reward of loyal soldiers and servicemen, discussing the meanings and valence of concepts like jihad and dharamyudh. The fourth section interrogates the concept of ‘gunpowder empires’ and the idea of the ‘Military Revolution’ from an Indian as well as a global perspective, before the conclusion links violence and its use by states to theories concerning the path to state centralisation or modernisation.
