It must first be stated that no military system, culture or tradition emerges without the influence of external factors such as society, environment, geography and experience.

THE NATURE OF MILITARY SLAVES

The Janissaries were not a unique military formation. Infact, the practice of taking young boys or men, from defeated and subjugated or minority populations and having them undergo years or lifetimes of rigorous training to produce a fighting force singularly loyal to the ruler was well established since the days of the Abbasid Caliphate, which enslaved young Turk boys and trained them into their famed Mamluk cavalry and guard formations. This practice was only tweaked, improved upon and adapted to changing military requirements by the Ottomans, the Delhi Sultans, the Safavids or the Afsharids. It must be understood that neither this system nor the system of the Praetorian Guards was without heavy liabilities :

1. The extensive period of training required ro raise these formations meant that in case of a crisis, had they been diminished in the previous campaigning season, the sovereign could not muster more numbers quickly enough to meet said situation.

2)The very nature of these formations meant that they would cause friction among the army, since they were considered answerable only to the sovereign these formations developed elitist and insulary attitudes, making them either incomaptibe with other military or civic institutions or in the worst case scenario, in competition to said institutions. For example - the rivalry among the Janissaries and the Sipahis of the Ottoman Empire, which persisted until the Janissaries as an institution and formation were extinguished.

3. Due to their obvious proximity to the sovereign, these formations were regularly involved in fratricidal wars, securing the Throne for and crowning those candidates to the Throne that promised them greatest rewards and benefits. Even in the Delhi Sultanate, slave soldiers, often controlled the sovereign from behind the curtain and at opportune moments siezed the Throne for themselves.

THE MILITARY OF THE MUGHAL EMPIRE :

THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE

In this regards the Mughals occupy a unique place among the Muslim superpowers of their era, in that unlike the Ottomans or the Safavids, the Mughal Empire avoided the practice of military slaves altogether.

According to Andrew de La Graza "Slaves were mostly a luxury for the wealthy, providing skilled domestic work. This context may have influenced the Mughals’ deployment of armed slaves. Most such servants acted as palace guards or bodyguards for individual officers. The closest thing to a true corps of slave soldiers were the "shagirdpe-sha" . This term, which was also used to describe general laborers, referred to units maintained by Akbar composed of former prisoners of war. These men, unlike ordinary prisoners, who were usually demobilized at war’s end or recruited without prejudice into the army proper had committed some crime or dishonorable act that required them to earn their freedom by service."

MONOPOLISATION OF GUNPOWDER

While it has become cliché to define the Mughals as a gunpowder empire, the usage of gunpowder weaponry cannot be seperated from the foundational and expansion story of the Empire by any stretch of the imagination. Therefore, in the words of Abul Faz'l, firearms were the "‘wonderful locks for protecting the august edifice of the state; and befitting keys for the door of conquest". The Imperial Household held the exclusive right to employ and raise musketeers. Even when local governors or Subehdars raised musketeers for the fulfilling of Imperial commands, they would be paid out of the Imeprial treasury. Imeprial musketeers would be deployed in special garrisons, commanded by imperial officers. All these steps, were to ensure that the advantage that these weapons conferred upon the battlefield would never slip into the hands of local rebellious nobles or worse, that trained and experienced veterans wouldn't defect to enemy states. This monopoly, maintained the supremacy of the Imperial arms for the greater part of the 16th and 17th century

THE AHADIS (GENTLEMAN TROOPERS)

Another formation that could be interpreted as elite, were the Ahadis. The Ahadis were individual, aspiring officers who did not have the means to raise their own troops in order to warrant an Imperial mansab or rank ( a Mansab was the rank assigned to all nobles and officers of the Empire, it implied their payroll and troop quota), but still showed potential for leadership and command. These men were recruited by the Emperor since the days of Akbar himself, and were assigned the command of small units in the logistics, artillery, engineer or cavalry or infantry branches of the army. While its unclear whether or not these officers underwent regular rotation in order to become well rounded professionals or were kept in permanent employment into a specific branch in order to create specialised officers for each branch, it's certain that they were a corps of competent officers nonetheless. The Ahadis were also organised into cavalry formations, as columns of cavalry meant to accompany the Emperors at all times and to serve as reserve cavalry on the battlefield and to serve as an emergency reserve to meet unforeseen crisis.

CASTE, ETHNICITY AND FEUDALISM

While the fact that the Mughals bypassed the practice of keeping formations of military slaves can partly be attributed to the fact that the Mughals were wary of the liability of such formations, it was mostly due to the fact that South Asian society in this period was, militarised to the point of saturation.

To put this statement into context, North Indian society in the time period we are concerned with, which is the 16th-18th century, was a unique tapestry of incredibly militarised castes and ethnic groups, that were in abundant supply in the North Western Frontier (a geographical classification created during the British Raj) region of the country in the territory of modern day Pakistan, and Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

The previous century or so of Turkic, Turko-Afghan and Afghan rule at Delhi had led to the immigration of vast numbers of Central Asian and Iranian nobles, chieftains and mercenary and professional soldiers. These preexisting numbers and the continued immigration of these groups provided the Empire with a ready and available supply of quality mounted troops, both in terms of mounted archers and light and heavy cavalry. Apart from these groups the Rajputs of the Rajputana, had in their centuries of struggle against the Delhi Sultans, themselves adopted and specialised in mounted warfare, especially in heavy shock cavalry tactics. Another groups which specialised in this type of warfare were the ample Afghan immigrants that had dotted North India since the 14th century.

Meanwhile, Hindu society in North India in this period was was divided into numerous castes and within these castes there existed class distinctions as well. The upper castes, specifically the Brahmins (priestly caste) , the Kshatriyas or Rajputs (warrior caste) , and later the Jats (agricultural/warrior caste) and Khatris (a caste that initially came to prominence as merchants but were later integrated into the warrior caste as capable soldiers) were highly motivated to seek employment as mercenaries or professional soldiers, which was seen as a path which brought status, wealth and honour and prestige to the family and community. Unlike popular perceptions, mobility in the upper castes was more prevalent than is hinted to in the scriptures. It was usual to find Brahmins employed as infantry, or to find cavalry belonging to the Jat or Brahmin or Khatri caste in an army.

These castes and ethnicities were organised into a feudal structure, with land owning peasants, forming the basis of this structure, and intermediaries who came to prominence as local leaders of whichever community formed the majority of the peasantry in a region, forming a class of feudal estate holders who served as both local chieftains or rulers but also as those who held hereditary right to collect taxes or revenues from the primary landlord or peasant and remitting it to Imperial revenue collectors. The Mughals recognised these zamindars as nobility, granted then mansabs and treated their territory as "jagirs" or hereditary land. In this way, the Mughal's nobility, was their beaurocracy.

Being hereditary rulers and nobility, these zamindars held the right to raise troops to maintain peace and order in their realms. These forces were comprised of their own caste and kin, (whose position as the majority community of the area allowed these zamindars to attain their position) and also, other castes and ethnic groups in smaller proportion.

According to Abul Faz'l, the author of the Akbarnama, the biography of Akbar, the total numbers of their troops, stood at forty four lakhs comprising 384,558 cavalry, 4,277,057 infantry; 1863 elephants, 4260 guns and 4500 boats. While these numbers may seem bloated, it's necessary to remember, that zamindars were present in the entirety of the land held by the Mughal Empire.