Year 1564
Flashback, four months ago
Within the silent, windowless confines of the central command office of the Tritiya Netra—the Third Eye—Suryasen stood before a large desk illuminated by a lone, flickering oil lamp. He was reviewing a thick stack of encrypted ledgers that had just arrived via his covert courier network. As per the precise orders of Prince Vikramaditya Deva, the spymaster had systematically deployed deep-cover agents to infiltrate the local educational institutions of the kingdom—both the traditional Indu gurukuls and the religious slamic madrassas.
As the agents began transmitting their regular intelligence reports, a deeply unsettling, yet highly strategic pattern emerged from within the walls of the madrassas. The slamic clerics were aggressively abusing their positions, misinterpreting theological texts to fan communal fires and incite their followers into executing horrific acts of cruelty against the common Indu populace. The reports detailed a systematic wave of violence: the destruction of ancient temples, localized riots, the burning of rural homesteads, and the forceful kidnapping of local women. Most alarming to the state's security, however, was the political treason being openly preached from these pulpits. The clerics had declared King Mahendra Deva to be a Khafir—an infidel sovereign completely unworthy of their loyalty. They were instigating their followers to execute sedition, destroy the royal family, and pave the way to turn the Khurda Kingdom into a fanatical slamic religion following sultanate aligned with external hostile powers like Bengal and the Mughals.
In contrast, the intelligence reports regarding the gurukuls revealed a starkly different focus. These institutions remained firmly anchored in ancient Indu culture, spiritual introspection, and the pursuit of classical sciences. While Suryasen's agents did note that a few of these gurukuls exhibited some internal discrimination among the common people based on rigid social hierarchies, the issue was localized, nowhere near as widespread or politically volatile, and could be effectively managed by the state in due time.
When Suryasen brought these detailed ledgers to the private quarters of the prince, Vikramaditya listened with a characteristically stoic, thoughtful expression. As his young eyes swept through the encrypted lines, his futuristic mind captured a highly curious sociological vulnerability within the slamic community itself. The reports revealed that despite preaching absolute religious egalitarianism, the slamic population was fractured by a rigid, deep-seated social divisive hierarchy that was even more pronounced and ugly than that of the Indu society.
At the apex of this social ladder sat the Ashrafs—the ruling elite, clerics, and powerful leaders who claimed direct, pure descent from the original followers of the faith and the bloodlines of foreign conquerors. They held absolute authority, viewing themselves as God's chosen pure elite. Beneath them lay the Ajlafs, who faced regular social discrimination from the Ashrafs but were systematically utilized as the muscle and grunts of the clergy, manipulated into executing violence and religious brutality against the Khafirs. At the very absolute bottom of this hierarchy were the Arzals—the native Indu converts who had changed their faith to escape their own societal hardships. Instead of finding equality, they were treated with complete disdain by the Ashrafs and Ajlafs alike. They were viewed as inherently impure, relegated to the status of untouchables, and barred from entering prominent socio-religious spaces.
Vikramaditya closed the ledger, a dangerous, calculating smile creeping onto his young face. "How extraordinarily interesting," he murmured softly.
Looking across the desk at the spymaster, the prince began outlining a meticulously cold-blooded strategy of subversion that he termed the Divide and Rule policy. He laid down the structural blueprints of the operation, decreeing that it would initially be implemented within the baronies and counties directly under the crown's administrative control. Before the brief briefing could conclude, the door opened with a crisp click and Major General Virendra entered the office. Bringing his fist sharply to his chest in the standardized company salute, the battle-hardened general greeted both the prince and the spymaster before taking his seat.
The prince wasted no words. "General, do we possess a captain within the regular ranks of our modernized army who harbors a deep, personal animosity toward the slamic radical elements?"
General Virendra paused, his mind sifting through the behavioral profiles of his officers, before replying firmly, "Your Highness, Captain Vinay is the man you seek. His hatred against them is absolute. When he was a mere boy, his family was completely butchered, his home torched, and his sister forcefully abducted by slamic radicals operating under the direct instigation of their local religious leader within his village. He was left an orphan."
Vikramaditya's sly smile widened. An officer driven by absolute personal tragedy would possess the perfect, lethal equilibrium of rigid military discipline and unyielding ruthlessness necessary to execute this campaign.
Turning back to Suryasen, the prince commanded, "Elder, you shall personally accompany Captain Vinay. Take a professional company of five hundred modernized line infantry from our barracks and begin implementing the operational parameters across every crown-controlled barony and county. I shall immediately dispatch an encrypted letter to my father, King Mahendra, so that you receive the full backing of the regular Royal Army to stamp out this seditious menace. But remember, this operation must be executed with absolute discretion and hidden behind a curtain of misinformation."
Both the general and the spymaster nodded in understanding and exited the shadows of the room.
Left alone with his thoughts, Vikramaditya leaned back, his mind wandering to the enduring problem of social discrimination among his own Indu people. While the imminent threat of external invasions and continental empires kept the social fractures temporarily suppressed, his historical knowledge of the future warned him that Western mercantilists like the British and Dutch would eventually exploit these exact societal faults to tear Bharat apart, impoverishing its civilization for centuries. To permanently inoculate his empire against this decay, he needed to completely overhaul the indigenous education system. He would establish state-run institutions that combined ancestral Indu culture and ancient texts with high-level modern science, technology, engineering, and entrepreneurship. It would cultivate skills, eliminate archaic social barriers from the roots, and systematically indoctrinate the populace so that their fanatical, unyielding loyalty belonged solely to the crown and the royal family.
A few days later, the cold reality of the prince's plan materialized in the quiet agricultural village of Indragiri, nestled within the recently secured county of Mayurganj.
Without warning, a heavily armed squad of modernized line infantry under the direct command of Sergeant Bhim completely encircled the perimeter of the settlement. Acting on precise behavioral data provided by Third Eye field agents, the soldiers marched into the central district, dragged out the local Ashraf clerics and their prominent Ajlaf co-conspirators, and forced them to their knees before an assembled crowd of terrified villagers.
Standing atop a makeshift platform, Sergeant Bhim drew a heavy parchment and loudly read out their documented crimes, ranging from local extortion to high treason, sedition, and active collusion with the enemies of the kingdom. Finishing the declaration, the sergeant bellowed to the crowd, "By decree of the Crown, any citizen who steps forward to provide verified testimonies of the atrocities committed by these traitors shall receive an immediate reward of five silver mudras and a special recommendation from the Public Administration Office, marking them permanently as a Valued Citizen of the Khurda Kingdom!"
Initially, a heavy, apprehensive silence gripped the crowd. Both the common Indu peasants and the low-caste slamic converts were paralyzed by centuries of fear. However, as they looked upon the glinting ring bayonets of the line infantry and recognized a genuine opportunity to destroy their long-time oppressors, the dam broke. The local villagers scrambled forward, eagerly recounting every buried atrocity, naming hidden collaborators, and pointing out remaining zealots who had escaped initial arrest. Even the long-oppressed Arzal converts joined the accusations with a visceral fury, utilizing the crown's protection to unleash decades of deeply anchored resentment against the tyrannical Ashraf leadership.
Sergeant Bhim smiled coldly. He raised his hand, signaling his line infantry. On his direct command, the soldiers executed the aristocratic accusers and their entire direct lineages on the spot, ensuring no roots of treason could ever regrow. Their vast ancestral estates, properties, and hoarded wealth were immediately confiscated by the state and systematically redistributed among the poor, marginalized Indu peasants.
Seeing the wealth being handed out, several poor Arzal and Ajlaf converts cried out in protest, "My lord! We are equally impoverished and broken by these tyrants! Why are we barred from receiving a share of the seized land?"
Sergeant Bhim adopting an expression of profound, theatrical sorrow, shook his head. "Alas, by the strict legal boundaries of the royal decree, I am prohibited from granting state-confiscated property to those who maintain allegiance to a foreign faith that calls for the destruction of our crown. However... should you choose to cast away the foreign dogmas of your oppressors and return to your original, ancestral Indu roots, you may freely claim your full rights and land allocations. You need only present your Valued Citizen recommendations at the newly constructed Public Administration Office in the nearest city."
This exact calculated sequence began playing out simultaneously across every barony, county, and village directly controlled by the crown.
The psychological trap was absolute. Over time, these structural incentives would systematically drive the vast majority of local converts back into the Indu fold, thoroughly dismantling the domestic sleeper cells of the Sultanates. Simultaneously, the numerous low-born Indu peasants, elevated from their generational degradation and granted unprecedented economic wealth and protection by the royal family, were becoming fanatically, unproportionately loyal to the crown, rapidly filling the recruitment lines of Vikramaditya's growing military machine.
Present Day, August 1564
Inside the heavily fortified stone keeps of his central command compound, Prince Vikramaditya sat behind his heavy oak desk, quietly reading through the latest administrative and intelligence synthesis reports.
The outcome of his Divide and Rule strategy was unfolding flawlessly. The internal religious dissension within the crown lands had been completely paralyzed, its leadership systematically executed, its wealth absorbed into the state, and its lower classes being rapidly assimilated back into the empire's social matrix. None of the surrounding empires or rival domestic nobility were any the wiser. Because the spymasters of the Third Eye had masterfully interwoven these purges with the recent military suppression of the rebellious, fanatical northern Count Amir Durani, the entire continent genuinely believed the executions were merely standard, localized retributions for an armed border insurgency.
Vikramaditya closed the final ledger, a low, genuinely amused laugh escaping his lips. The power of a futuristic paradigm combined with a flawless, weaponized intelligence network was truly an unmatched asset. The physical, societal, and political reality of Khurda was being fundamentally rewritten from the ground up, laying down the unshakeable, modern foundations of an empire that would soon rise to claim the destiny of Bharat.