Nadir Shah's troops on a murderous spree; Source: hebergementwebs.com

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The Delhi that we see today is a luxurious metropolitan bustling with people, punctuated with skyscrapers and defined by the lack of space to even set a foot in. Once you take off the rose-tinted glasses of popular representation, however, the scars that this city had endured are quite visible.

One such marauder who inflicted numerous acts of barbarity on Delhi was Nadir Shah, the Shah of Persia in the mid-18th century. Imperial conquests and collateral damage in the form of entire cities weren't exclusive to him, but he certainly mastered the hideous art of doing so.

Nader Shah's rise began in the year 1730 when he became the founder of the Afsharid Dynasty after wrestling control of Esfahan from the Safavids earlier that year. Thus began his reign of terror- slowly but steadily, he inched closer to Northern India, the domain where the Mughals reigned supreme.

The Mughals were alarmed by Nader Shah's meteoric rise. Tussles for the throne that culminated in perpetual wars of succession had brought ruins to the Mughal Empire, which looked a shadow of its once glorious self. The Marathas too had made life significantly tougher for them. They had every reason to be wary of Nader Shah's nefarious schemes.

Nader Shah wasn't just hungry for more territory for rule- his hunger had some rationale to it. He wasn't one for impromptu and unplanned conflicts with even known enemies, let alone unknown powers. His tactics and understanding of the battlefield made him all the more deadly. 

> One day or another, he was going to come for Delhi- one of the richest capitals in the world at that time. That day arrived very soon.

The scene wasn't pretty at all. One siege after another, one invasion after another, Nader Shah progressed ascended towards Delhi- his actions sent a shiver down Muhammad Shah's spine, who was in touch with the reality of the Mughals at the point in time and knew that it'd take them a miracle to stop Nader Shah's blood-thirsty juggernaut.

His contingent began their long march towards Mughal territory in May 1738 and came in direct contact with the Mughals in late 1738. The confrontations were a cakewalk for Nader Shah and his forces, who crushed the Mughals quite easily.

> The epochal Battle of Karnal of February 1739 just lasted for three hours as the Afsharid forces bullied the Mughals into submission.

The following brutalization of Delhi by Nader Shah's blood-crazed forces left Delhi in ruins. 30000 people died at the altar of the maleficence and their wealth went right into the Afsharid forces. At one point the invasion became so gruesome that people began to kill themselves and their family members in order to die a dignified death.

> Delhi was laced with corpses and reduced to a shadow of its former colourful self the only colour to be seen in sight was red.

In the aftermath of his barbarity. On this day in 1739, Muhammad Shah was strong-armed into signing a treaty with the almighty Nader Shah that separated Afghanistan from the Indian Empire and granted the latter full autonomy. 

The humiliation undergone by the Mughals broke them completely. It was a blow that they could never quite recover from and has raised questions of whether European Colonialism would've been able to fetter India if Nader Shah hadn't unleashed his fury upon them.

Nonetheless, the harrowing pain and sorrow inflicted upon Delhi and the Mughal Empire were countless. While the latter has ceased to exist, the lacerations of the mindless greed of the crazed few are still manifest plenty in the former, hidden in plain sight.

The adage "United we stay, divided we fall" never seemed more true than when Mughals were doomed to a crushing defeat by Nader Shah's army, who destroyed everything in their sight.