Mercenaries in India In 16th and 17th centuries , the imperial Mughal power was crumbling and other powers , mainly Maratha chiefs , were emerging . At this time , a number of mercenaries , arriving from several countries found employment in India . Some of the mercenaries emerged to become independent or independent rulers . European mercenaries in India . Thousands of Europeans took up service at the courts of rulers all over India . These mercenaries for the most part came from the margins of their respective societies . European mercenaries served in the courts of Indian rulers for 300 years , beginning with the large - scale defections of Portuguese soldiers from Goa in the 16th century , followed by a series of defections of British soldiers and laymen from the British East India Company bridgehead at Surat in the 17th century . During Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama ' s first historic journey to India in 1498 , he observed that there were Italian mercenaries in the employ of various " Rajah s " on the Malabar coast . Two of da Gama ' s own crewmen had left him to join the Italians in the service of a Malabar " Rajah " for higher wages . Portuguese historian João de Barros stated that there were at least 2 , 000 Portuguese fighting in the armies of various Indian princes in 1565 . Among these mercenaries included the indigenous Goan Catholic and East Indian soldiers and sailors . The Maratha Emperor Shivaji employed many Portuguese and hundreds of Goan Catholics and East Indians in his navy , until they were persuaded by the colonial authorities in Goa to desert . They were generally sought after as artillery experts by the Mughals and Marathas . When the Mughals complained to the Portuguese Viceroy António de Melo e Castro about the Portuguese soldiers serving under the Marathas , the latter was forced to respond with a letter stating that he had no control over the Portuguese and native Christian officers in Shivaji ' s army , just as he had no control over the mercenaries serving in the Mughal and other armies . During the reign of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan , so many Europeans took up service at the Mughal Army that a distinct suburb was built for them outside Delhi named Firingipura ( Foreigners ' Town ) . Its inhabitants included Portuguese , French and English mercenaries , many of whom had converted to Islam . These mercenaries formed a special " Firingi " ( Foreigners ' ) regiment , under the command of a Frenchman named Farrashish Khan . Shah Alam II gave the German mercenary Walter Reinhardt Sombre a large estate in the Doab , north of Delhi . Sombre settled in the estate with his wife Farzana Zeb un - Nissa ( also known as Begum Samru ) , and made the village of Sardhana his capital . The ruling class of this principality was drawn from an assortment of Mughal noblemen and 200 French and Central European mercenaries , many of whom had converted to Islam . Sombre was succeeded after his death by his wife who took command of his mercenary troops and became the ruler of Sardhana , earning the distinction of being the only Roman Catholic ruler in India , till Sonia Gandhi took over in the 21st Century . Among these mercenaries was John - Augustus Gottlieb Cohen , a German - Jewish mercenary who was the father of Urdu poet , Farasu . There were many mercenaries working in the armies of the Deccan sultanates that controlled much of central and southern India . One of the most prominent mercenaries in the Adil Shahi court was Gonçalo Vaz Coutinho , a Portuguese former landowner in Goa , who was imprisoned there on a murder charge before escaping to Bijapur in 1542 . There he converted to Islam with his wife and children , and was given lands with great revenues by Ibrahim Adil Shah I . A Portuguese - Jewish gunner Sancho Pires defected in similar circumstances to the Ahmadnagar Sultanate in 1530 . Pires converted to Islam and took the name Faranghi Khan ; acquiring a position of great influence in the Nizam Shahi court . Many British renegades defected to the service of the Mughals and Deccan sultanates during the 17th century , as in the case of Joshua Blackwell , a British East India Company official who in 1649 converted to Islam and took up service in the Mughal army . Most of these renegades , like the trumpeter Robert Trulleye , however , went into the service of the Deccan sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda . In 1654 , 23 British East India Company servants deserted Surat in a single mass breakout . In the 1670s , the British authorities uncovered an active network of covert recruiting agents in Bombay . By the 1680s , the increasing defections of British soldiers and East India Company servants led Charles II to issue an order calling back all Englishmen in the employ of Indian princes . During the Indian Rebellion of 1857 , a British convert to Islam named Abdullah Beg was one of the most active insurgents in Delhi against British rule . Beg was a former Company soldier , who upon the arrival of the mutineer " sepoy s " on May 11 , self - identified with them and virtually became a leader and advisor to the rebel forces in Delhi . He was last seen manning the rebel artillery along with another British defector and Muslim convert , Sergeant - Major Gordon . On account of his faith , Gordon was spared during the massacre of Christians at the outbreak of the uprising . In due course Gordon was taken to Delhi , where he manned the guns on the northern side of the city walls .