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The Khaljis (Khiljis) and the Tughlaqs - Part 2
5.0 Internal Reforms and Experiments
By the time Alauddin Khalji came to the throne, the position of the Delhi Sultanate was fairly well consolidated in the central portion of the Empire, i.e. the portion comprising the upper Ganga valley and eastern Rajasthan. This emboldened the sultans to undertake a series of internal reform and experiments, aimed at improving the administration, strengthening the army, to gear up the machinery of land revenue administration, and to take step to expand and improve cultivation and to provide for the welfare of the citizens in the rapidly expanding towns. Not all the measures were successful, but they mark important new departures. Some of the experiments failed on account of lack of experience, some because they were not well conceived, or on account of opposition of vested interests. They do, however, show that the Turkish state had now acquired a measure of stability, and that it was no longer concerned merely with warfare and law and order.
5.1 Market control and agrarian policy of Alauddin
For contemporaries, Alauddin's measures to control the markets was one of the great wonders of the world. In a series of orders after his return from the Chittor campaign, Alauddin sought to fix the cost of all commodities from foodgrains, sugar and cooking oil to a needle, and from costly imported cloth to horses, cattle, and slave boys and girls. For the purpose, he set up three markets at Delhi - one market for foodgrains, the second for costly cloth, and the third for horses, slaves and cattle. Each market was under the control of a high officer called shahna who maintained a register of the merchants and strictly controlled the shopkeepers and the prices. Regulation of prices, especially foodgrains, was a constant concern of medieval rulers, because without the supply of cheap foodgrains to the towns, they could not hope to enjoy the support of the citizens, and the army stationed there.
But Alauddin had some additional reasons for controlling the market. The Mongol invasions of Delhi had pinpointed the need to raise a large army to check them. But such an army would soon exhaust his treasures unless he could lower the prices, and hence lower their salaries. To realize his objectives, Alauddin proceeded in a characteristically thorough way. In order to ensure a regular supply of cheap foodgrains, he declared that the land revenue in the doab region, that is, the area extending from Meerut near the Yamuna to the border of Kara near Allahabad would be paid directly to the state, i.e., the villages in the area would not be assigned to anyone. Further the land revenue was raised to half of the produce. This was a heavy charge and Alauddin adopted a number of measures to cope with the situation. By raising the state demand, and generally obliging the peasants to pay it in cash, the peasants were forced to sell their produce at a low price to banjaras who were to carry them to the towns, and to sell them at prices fixed by the state. To ensure that there was no hoarding, all the banjaras were registered, and their agents and their family were held collectively responsible for any violations. As a further check, the state itself set up warehouses and stocked them with foodgrains which were released whenever there was a famine or a threat of a shortfall in supply. Alauddin kept himself constantly informed of everything and very harsh punishment was given if any shopkeeper charged a higher price, or tried to cheat by using false weights and measures. Barani tells us that prices were not allowed to be increased even by a dam or a paisa even during the time of famine. Thus, wheat sold at 7 1/2 jitals a man, barley at 4 jitals, good quality rice at 5 jitals. Barani says; "The permanence of prices in the grain market was a wonder of the age."
Thus, we may say in a lighter vein, that the first ancestor of our modern day PDS system in India, was precisely this!
Control of the prices of horses was important for the Sultan because without the supply of good horses at reasonable prices to the army, the efficiency of the army could not be maintained. The position of the supply of horses had improved as a result of the conquest of Gujarat. Good quality horses could be sold only to the state. The price of a first grade horse fixed by Alauddin was 100 to 120 tankas, while a tattu (pony) not fit for the army cost 22 to 25 tankas. The prices of cattle as well as of slaves were strictly regulated, and Barani gives us their prices in detail. The prices of cattle and slaves are mentioned side by side by Barani.
This shows that slavery was accepted in medieval India as a normal feature. Control of the prices of other goods, especially of costly cloth, perfumes, etc., was not vital for the sultan. However, their prices were also fixed, probably because it was felt that high prices in this sector would affect prices in general. Or, it might have been done in order to please the nobility. We are told that large sums of money were advanced to the Multani traders for bringing fine quality cloth to Delhi from various parts of the country. As a result, Delhi became the biggest market for fine cloth, the price of which was fixed and traders from all places flocked to Delhi in order to buy it and sell it at a higher price elsewhere.
Realization of land revenue in cash enabled Allauddin to pay his soldiers in cash. He was the first sultan in the Sultanate to do so. A sawar (cavalryman) in his time was paid 238 tankas a year, or about 20 tankas a month. It appears that he was expected to maintain himself and his horse and his equipment out of this amount. Even then, this was not a low salary, for during Akbar's time, when prices were far higher, a Mughal cavalryman received a salary, for about 20 rupees a month. Actually, a Turkish cavalryman during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was almost a gentleman, and expected a salary which would enable him to live as such. In view of this, the salary fixed by Alauddin was low, and the control of the market was therefore, necessary.
Barani thought that a major objective of Alauddin's control of markets was his desire to punish the Hindus since most of the traders were Hindus and it was they who resorted to profiteering in foodgrains and other goods. However, most of the overland trade to West and Central Asia was in the hands of Khurasanis who were Muslims, and Multanis, many of whom were also Muslims. Alauddin's measures, therefore, affected these sections also, a fact which Barani does not mention.
It is not clear whether the market regulations of Alauddin were applied only to Delhi, or also to other towns in the Empire. Barani tells us that the regulation concerning Delhi always tended to be followed in other towns also. In any case, the army was stationed not only in Delhi but in other towns as well. However, we do not have sufficient information to be certain in the matter. It is clear that while the merchants - Hindus and Muslims - might have complained against the price control, not only the army but all citizens, irrespective of their religious beliefs, benefited from the cheapness of foodgrains and other articles.
5.2 Land revenue administration
Apart from the control of the market, Alauddin took important steps in the field of land revenue administration. He was the first monarch in the Sultanate who insisted that in the doab, land revenue would be assessed on the basis of measuring the land under cultivation. This implied that the rich and the powerful in the villages who had more land could not pass on their burden to the poor. Alauddin wanted that the landlords of the area called khuts and muqaddams should pay the same taxes as the others. Thus, they had to pay the sames taxes on milch cattle and horses like the others, and forgot other illegal cesses which they were in the habit of realizing. In the picturesque language of Barani, "the khuts and muqaddams could not afford to ride on rich horses, or to chew betel leaves and they became so poor that their wives had to go and work in the house of Muslims". The policy of direct collection of land revenue based on measurement could only succeed if the amils and other local officials were honest. Although Alauddin had given those elements salaries sufficient to enable them to live in comfort, he insisted that their accounts should be audited strictly. We are told that for small defaults, they would be beaten and sent to prison. Barani says that their life had become so insecure that no one was willing to marry their daughters to them! No doubt this is an exaggeration because then as now, government service was considered to be prestigious and those who held government offices, whether they were Hindus or Muslims, were eagerly sought as marriage partners.
Although Barani writes as if all the measures mentioned above were directed solely against the Hindus, it is clear that they were, in the main, directed against the privileged sections in the countryside. Alauddin's agrarian policy was certainly harsh and must have affected the ordinary cultivators also. But it was not so burdensome as to drive them into rebellion, or flight.
The market regulations of Alauddin came to an end with his death, but it did achieve a number of gains. We are told by Barani that the regulations enabled Alauddin to raise a large and efficient cavalry which enabled him to defeat the subsequent Mongol onslaughts with great slaughter, and to drive them beyond the Indus. The land revenue reforms of Alauddin marked an important step towards closer relationship with the rural areas. Some of his measures werc continued by his successors, and later provided a basis for the agrarian reforms of Sher Shah and Akbar.
6.0 Muhammad Tughlaq's Experiments
Next to Alauddin Khalji, Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1324-51) is best remembered as a ruler who undertook a number of bold experiments, and showed a keen interest in agriculture. In some ways, Muhammad bin Tughlaq was one of the most remarkable rulers of his age. He was deeply read in religion and philosophy and had a critical and open mind. He conversed not only with the Muslim mystics, but also with the Hindu yogis and Jain saints such as Jinaprabha Suri. This was not liked by many orthodox theologians who accused him of being a 'rationalist', that is, one who was not prepared to accept religious beliefs as a matter of faith. He was also prepared to give high offices to people on the basis of merit, irrespective of whether they belonged to noble families or not. Unfortunately, he was inclined to be hasty and impatient. That is why so many of this experiments failed and he has been dubbed an "ill starred idealist" .
Muhammad bin Tughlaq's reign started under inauspicious circumstances. Sultan Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq was returning to Delhi after a successful campaign against Bengal. A wooden pavilion was erected hastily at the orders of Muhammad Tughlaq to give a fitting reception to the sultan. When the captured elephants were being paraded, the hastily erected structure collapsed, and the sultan was killed. This led to a number of rumours - that Muhammad Tughlaq had planned to kill his father, that this was a curse of the heavens and of the famous saint of Delhi, Shaikh Nizamuddin Aulia, whom the ruler had threatened to punish, etc.
6.1 Change in Capital
The most controversial step which Muhammad Tughlaq undertook soon after his accession was the so-called transfer of the capital from Delhi to Deogir. As we have seen, Deogir had been a base for the expansion of Turkish rule in south India. Muhammad Tughlaq himself had spent a number of years there as a prince. The attempt to bring the entire south India under the direct control of Delhi had led to serious political difficulties. The people of the area were restive under what they felt was an alien rule. A number of Muslim nobles had tried to take advantage of this situation to proclaim their independence. The most serious rebellion was that of a cousin of Muhammad Tughlaq, Gurshasp, against whom the sultan had to proceed personally. It appears that the sultan wanted to make Deogir a second capital so that he might be able to control south India better. For this purpose, he ordered many of the officers and leading men, including many Sufi saints, to shift to Deogir which was renamed Daulatabad. No attempt was made to shift the rest of the population. Delhi remained a large and populous city in the absence of the sultan. Coins minted in Delhi, while the sultan was at Deogir, testify to this.
Though Muhammad Tughlaq had built a road from Delhi to Daulatabad and set up rest houses on the way to help the travellers, Daulatabad was more than 1500 km away. Many people died due to the rigours of the journey and the heat, since this movement took place during the summer season. Many of those who reached Daulatabad felt homesick, for some of them had lived for several generations in Delhi and looked upon it as their home. Hence, there was a good deal of discontent. After a couple of years, Muhammad Tughlaq decided to abandon Daulatabad, largely because he soon found that just as he could not control the south from Delhi, he could not control north India from Daulatabad.
Though the attempt to make Deogir a second capital failed, the exodus did have a number of long-range benefits. It helped in bringing north and south India closer together by improving communications. Many people, including religious divines who had gone to Daulatabad, settled down there. They became the means of spreading in the Deccan the cultural, religious and social ideas which the Turks had brought with them to north India. This resulted in a new process of cultural interaction between north and south India, as well as in south India itself.
6.2 Introduction of token currency
Another step which Muhammad Tughlaq took at this time was the introduction of the "token currency". Since money is merely a medium of exchange, all countries in the world today have token or fiat currencies - generally paper currency, so that they do not have to depend upon the supply of gold and silver. There was a shortage of silver in the world in the fourteenth century. Moreover, Qublai Khan of China had already successfully experimented with a token currency. A Mongol ruler of Iran, Ghazan Khan, had also experimented with it. Muhammad Tughlaq decided to introduce a bronze coin which was to have the same value as, the silver tanka. Specimens of this coin have been found in different parts of India, and can be seen in museums. The idea of a token currency was a new one in India, and it was difficult to induce the traders as well as the common man to accept it. Muhammad Tughlaq might still have been successful if the government had been able to prevent people from forging the new coins. The government was not able to do so, and soon the new coins began to be greatly devalued in the markets. Finally Muhammad Tughlaq decided to withdraw the token currency. He promised to exchange silver pieces for bronze coins. In this way many people exchanged the new coins. But the forged coins which could be found out from tests were not exchanged. These coins were heaped up outside the fort and, Barani says, they remained lying there for many years.
7.0 Problems during Firoz Shah reign
The failure of these two experiments affeced the prestige of the sovereign, and also meant wastage of money. However, the government quickly recovered. The Moroccan traveller, Ibn Battuta, who came to Delhi in 1333, could not see any harmful after-effects of these experiments. A far more serious problem with which Muhammad bin Tughlaq had to contend was that of the security of the frontiers. Administration, especially revenue administration, and his relations with the nobles also presented some serious problems.
7.1 The Mongol threat
A serious problem was posed to the Delhi Sultanate by the steady expansion of the Mongol power into the Punjab, and their assaults on Delhi. Although the Mongols had by then become weak due to their internal dissensions, they were still strong enough to threaten the Punjab and the areas near Delhi. In the early years of Muhammad Tughlaq's reign, the Mongols under their leader Tarmashirina Khan of the chagatai Khanate burst into Sindh, and a force reached up to Meerut, about 65 km from Delhi. Muhammad Tughlaq not only defeated the Mongols in a battle near the Jhelum, but also occupied Kalanaur and for some time his power extended upto Peshawar beyond the Indus.
This showed that the sultan of Delhi was now in a position to go over to the offensive against the Mongols. After coming back from Deogir, the sultan recruited a large army in order to occupy Ghazni and Afghanistan. Barani says that his object was to occupy Khurasan and Iraq. We have no means of finding out the true objective of Muhammad Tughlaq. May be his objective was to reestablish what we have called the "scientific frontier" viz. the area upto the Hindukush and Qandahar. May be many of the princes and others who had fled from Central Asia and taken shelter at the court of Muhammad Tughlaq thought that it was a good opportunity to oust the Mongols from the area. After a year, and following the failure of the experiment of establishing a token currency, the army was disbanded. Meanwhile, the situation in Central Asia changed rapidly. In due course, Timur united the entire area under his control and posed a fresh threat to India.
7.2 Peasant rebellions
Right at the beginning of Muhammad Tughlaq's reign, there was a serious peasant rebellion in the Gangetic doab. Peasants fled the villages and Muhammad Tughlaq took harsh measures to capture and punish them. Historians are of the opinion that the trouble started due to over assessment. Although the share of state remained half as in the time of Alauddin, it was fixed arbitrarily, not on the basis of actual produce. Prices were also fixed artificially for converting the produce into money. A severe famine which ravaged the area for half a dozen years, made the situation worse.
Efforts at relief by giving advances for cattle and seeds, and for digging wells came too late. So many people died at Delhi that the air became pestilential. The sultan left Delhi and for two and half years lived in a camp called Swargadwari, 100 miles from Delhi, on the banks of the Ganges near Kanauj. After returning to Delhi, Muhammad Tughlaq launched a scheme to extend and improve cultivation in the doab. He set up a separate department called diwan-i-amir-i-kohi. The area was divided into development blocs headed by an official whose job was to extend cultivation by giving loans to the cultivations and to induce them to cultivate superior crops-wheat in place of barley, sugarcane in place of wheat, grapes and dates in place of sugarcane, etc. The scheme failed largely because the men chosen for the purpose proved to be inexperienced and dishonest. The large sums of money advanced for the project could not be recovered. Fortunately for all concerned, Muhammad Tughlaq had died in the meantime, and Firuz wrote off the loans. But the policy advocated by Muhammad Tughlaq for extending and improving cultivation was not lost. It was taken up by Firuz, and even more vigorously later on by Akbar.
So, again, we find that managing agriculture in a vast nation like India has never been easy for anyone!
7.3 The Nobility
Another problem which Muhammad Tughlaq had to face was the problem of the nobility. With the downfall of the Chahalgami Turks and the rise of the Khaljis, the nobility was drawn from Muslims belonging to different races, including Indian converts. Muhammad Tughlaq went a step further. He not only entertained people who did not belong to noble families, but gave them important offices. Most of these were the descendants of the Muslim converts, though a few Hindus were also included. There is no reason to believe that these people were uneducated or were inefficient in their jobs. But the office-holders of the earlier period, who were the descedants of old noble families, deeply resented it. The historian Barani, makes this a main point in his denunciation of Muhammad Tughlaq. Muhammad Tughlaq also welcomed foreigners to the nobility, a large number of whom came to his court. Thus, the nobility of Muhammad Tughlaq consisted of many divergent sections. No sense of cohesion could develop among them, nor any loyalty towards the sultan. On the other hand, the vast extent of the Empire provided favourable opportunities for rebellion, and for striving to carve out independent spheres of authority. The hot and hasty temperament of Muhammad Tughlaq and his tendency to give extreme punishments to those whom he suspected of opposition or disloyalty strengthened this trend. Thus, the reign of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, while marking the zenith of the Delhi Sultanate, also saw the beginning of the process of its disintegration.
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