The Move to Delhi occurred in 1524 when the Timurid badshah Babur, having conquered Delhi from Pashtun rebels, moved the capital of his nascent Mughal Empire from Kabul to Delhi. The transition was marked by a bloodbath across his empire as Afghan and Indian subjects alike rioted.
History[]
By 1519, the Timurid prince Babur ruled over a small kingdom in Afghanistan that included the cities of Kabul and Ghazni; he also commanded a diverse army including Afghan spearmen and gunners, Central Asian cavalry, and modern artillery pieces. Having failed to reconquer Transoxiana with Safavid Persian aid to the Sunni Uzbeks' anger at his (superficial) conversion to Shia Islam, Babur instead set his sights on conquests in the Indian Subcontinent, where the Afghan-ruled Delhi Sultanate was in a state of civil strife due to the unpopularity of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi. Babur and his armies crossed the Hindu Kush mountains, subdued several rebellious Pashtun towns and cities, conquered the Rajput strongholds of the Punjab, and, in 1523, conquered Delhi and put 22,030 of its male citizens to the sword before looting 44,706 tankas from the conquered city.
Babur was almost immediately faced with a dilemma: while his original landholdings in Afghanistan were happy under Mughal rule due to their proximity to the capital of Kabul, his growing Indian territories chafed under foreign, Muslim domination, especially by a ruler whose court sat across the mountains. In 1524, Babur decided to ameliorate his new Indian subjects' disillusionment with his rule by moving his capital from Kabul to Delhi.
This decision, while intended to spare the Mughal Empire from mass bloodshed in India, had the reverse effect in Afghanistan. The dispatching of Prince Humayun, Eligedei of Qum, and other Mughal generals from their garrisons in Afghanisan to extend Mughal control over that country left several key cities ungarrisoned or under-defended, and restive Pashtuns rioted against their purported abandonment by their former rulers. In 1524, riots broke out in several Pashtun-majority towns and cities. Civil unrest in Sirhind and Sultanpur Lodhi were initially bloodless, but, in Rawalpindi, 139 citizens and 11 soldiers were killed, while, in the former capital of Kabul, 3,313 citizens and 16 soldiers were killed. A civil revolt in Sultanpur Lodhi left 697 citizens dead, while a revolt in Kabul left 1,549 more citizens dead, and rioting in Lahore killed 164 citizens and 1 soldier. In response to the uprisings, Nasir Mirza was sent to reconquer Kabul, while Daritai Mansabdar besieged Sultanpur Lodhi.