First Battle of Panipat 1526: Babur vs Ibrahim Lodi, tactics and results

Why Babur marched on Delhi

Babur was a Timurid prince from Fergana in Central Asia who had lost his home kingdom and then built a base at Kabul. After four unsuccessful raids into India between 1519 and 1524, he was encouraged to try again by discontented Afghan nobles, including Daulat Khan Lodi, the governor of Punjab, and Alam Khan, the uncle of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, who argued that Ibrahim's harsh, centralising rule had alienated his own nobles.

Setting out in November 1525, Babur advanced through Punjab, winning over or defeating local forces on the way, and reached Panipat, about 80 km north of Delhi, in early April 1526. Panipat mattered because it lay on the main route from Punjab into the Indo-Gangetic plain: whoever held it stood on the road to the Delhi throne.

A small army against a much larger one

On paper the contest looked uneven. Babur's army is generally estimated at no more than about 12,000 seasoned soldiers, while Ibrahim Lodi's standing army is described in Babur's own memoirs as a lakh, or 100,000, supported by a large force of elephants. Modern estimates of the casualties in the battle range widely, from about 15,000 to 50,000, which is a reminder that the army figures themselves are traditional rather than exact.

What Babur lacked in numbers he made up in organisation. His troops were experienced cavalrymen, and he had field artillery obtained with Ottoman help, a weapon Ibrahim's army did not possess in comparable form. Before the battle Babur spent about a week probing the enemy camp with small detachments and night attacks, fixing his defensive position while Ibrahim's much larger force waited.

Tulughma, carts and cannon

Babur's plan combined three elements. First, his army was arranged in coordinated left, right and centre divisions, with flanking forces ready to wheel around the enemy's wings, a Central Asian manoeuvre known as tulughma. Second, his centre was shielded by hundreds of carts tied together with rawhide, behind which cannon and matchlock men could fire in relative safety. Third, his mobile cavalry could strike at the sides and rear once the enemy was engaged.

When Ibrahim advanced on the morning of the battle, his elephants and massed troops could not manoeuvre effectively against this formation. Babur's artillery broke up the charges, the flanking cavalry closed around the Lodi army, and after several hours of fighting the Lodi force collapsed. Ibrahim Lodi was killed on the field, a rare fate for a Delhi sultan and a decisive end to his dynasty.

Why Panipat 1526 matters

The immediate result was political: within three days Babur occupied Delhi, and by early May he was in Agra. But the deeper result was dynastic. The battle ended both the Lodi dynasty and the Delhi sultanate and opened the way for Mughal rule, which lasted, in one form or another, until 1857.

It also marked a military turning point. Panipat 1526 is remembered as one of the first battles in India in which gunpowder firearms and field artillery played a decisive role, and it showed that a smaller, well-drilled force using artillery and mobile cavalry could defeat a much larger traditional army. Babur still had to fight further battles, against Rana Sanga at Khanwa in 1527 and against the Afghans at Ghaghara in 1529, before his new empire was secure, but Panipat was the battle that made it possible.

Editorial disclosure

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