I recently read about Malik Ambar, an African slave who served as a soldier in India and eventually became an influential ruler of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate in India. This got me thinking about slavery in in India. In Europe we learn quite a lot about the trans-Atlantic slave system and the slavery in Southeast-Asia. I also happen to know some things about the slavery of the Muslim world and the Mediterranean slavery of the classical era, but I never hear about slavery in India. Was slavery a common thing there or were slaves only used as soldiers (like Malik Ambar)? And what other forms of slavery were there in South-Asia?
I get that the timespan of this question might make things a bit too vague, but I'm mostly wondering about the colonial time period; just before and just after the arrival of the Europeans (so 1500-1800 or something like that).
Slaves were common in India from an early time though not so obviously visible as the West. Manumission was seen as an act of piety by both Hindus and Muslims. Nonetheless open air slave markets existed throughout the Deccan Sultanate and Mughal Empires (as in most Islamic ruled kingdoms of the time) as well as earlier Hindu kingdoms and empires. Many Hindu works discuss slaves and the price for slaves and how they should be treated. When the famous emperor Ashoka won at Kalinga a 100,000 in 3rd c. BC or so were made slaves and transported to work in fields / mines.
Sultanate era (1200- 1526) works like Barani's Twarikh e Feroz Shahi explicitly talk about slave markets. Greek, Abyssinian and certain other ethnicities of slaves were preferred. The practice continued in Mughal period though I'm struggling to recall if they explicitly talk about slave markets
The more interesting feature when it comes to people like Malik Ambar is that of the practice of Mamluk slaves (same as Egyptian tradition) where certain slaves were bought specifically for warfare (as they were more loyal), who were later married into the family and treated as sons/freemen. Many became nobles with the help of their patrons
While Ambar comes far later, the very first Islamic dynasty of India was the Mamluk (slave) dynasty. After Muhammad of Ghor defeated Prithviraj in 1192 he left his slave Qutb ud din Aibak as his regent in Delhi and returned to Afghanistan. Eventually Muhammad died and his empire was splintered between his slaves/successors. Aibak succeeded in present day India, and his slave/son in law Iltutmish eliminated the other slaves . The 40 most important slaves of Aibak became the all powerful Chahalgami nobles who would later see his daughter deposed when she claimed the throne and eventually one of them (Balban) also became a ruler
Many centuries later Ambar likewise rose from a slave to a noble to autonomous ruler