Abraham Eraly - The Age of Wrath - A History of the Delhi Sultanate

Some of the Delhi sultans also took care to build irrigation facilities to promote agriculture. Firuz Tughluq in particular was active in this; he built a vast network of canals in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, which drew water from several rivers — Yamuna, Sutlej, Ghaggar and so on — and distributed it for irrigation. This canal system is considered to be the largest such network ever built in India in pre-modern times. Provincial governors also played a notable role in expanding irrigation facilities in their territory. Besides these massive canal networks built by the state, several villages also built local canals to feed their fields.

A great variety of cereals, fruits, nuts, kitchen vegetables and spices were cultivated in medieval India. In addition to these native agricultural products, India in medieval times also took to the cultivation of tobacco, maize and potatoes, produce of the Americas brought into India by the Portuguese, and these in time became major crops.

Cereals were usually harvested twice a year in India: an autumn harvest (kharif) and a spring harvest (rabi). ‘When they have reaped the autumn harvest, they sow spring grains in the same soil in which autumn grains had been sown, for their country is excellent and the soil is fertile,’ reports Battuta. ‘As for rice, they sow it three times a year.’ Most of the agricultural produce in medieval India were consumed locally, in the villages that produced them, but there was also some trade across the subcontinent in them, particularly in cereals, carried by Banjaras, wandering grain traders.

In early medieval India farming was almost entirely in the hands of Hindus. Most of the farm holdings at this time were small, and were cultivated by their owners themselves. There were however also a few large estates owned by landlords, who cultivated them by hiring farm labourers. Hindu temples also played a major role in agriculture — they owned extensive tracts of land, which they usually rented out to tenants, but sometimes they themselves cultivated them by employing labourers. Temples also financed agriculture by advancing loans to farmers on the security of their lands. The state too played a notable role in promoting agriculture, inducing farmers to expand cultivation by granting them tax remissions or concessions, and by encouraging them to plant more valuable crops — sugarcane, oil-seeds, spices and poppies — instead of cereals.

Another development of economic importance in medieval India was the mass migration of people from one region to another. A major instance of this was the migration of a large number of farmers from the dry areas of Karnataka to the fertile lower Kavery valley. There was also a notable movement of Telugus into the Tamil country at this time, so that Telugu farmers and merchants came to constitute significant elements in the population of several districts in Tamil Nadu.

THE MOST SIGNIFICANT economic development of the early medieval period in India was the gradual revival of urban prosperity, and the related expansion of industrial production and trade. Some of the traditional industrial products of India, such as high quality textiles, underwent notable changes at this time, to reflect the Turkish taste, as Turks had become the major consumers of these products. Even the very mode of textile production changed at this time, as Indians now, in the thirteenth century, took to the use of the spinning wheel under Turkish influence, replacing the traditional the hand spindle. This technology became widespread in India over the next century, and it greatly speeded up textile production. Indians also took to the use of cotton-carder’s bow around this time. Possibly the weaver’s loom also underwent a modification in the medieval period, but information about this is scanty. Bengal was the main textile manufacturing region of India at this time, with Gujarat close behind it.

Cloth-weaving was the most widespread industrial activity in medieval India, but there were also several other crafts flourishing in India at this time. Metal crafts, for instance, boomed during this period, manufacturing war materials like swords and guns, as well as several household items. Indians also took to the manufacture of paper now, around the thirteenth century.

A notable economic development in India in the middle ages was the growing prominence of state run manufacturing units, producing a variety of luxury goods. This happened in nearly all the kingdoms of the period, but most prominently in Delhi. What the royal factories produced were not, however, for sale in the market, but for the consumption of the vast royal establishments, and for the king and his family members to give away as presents.

‘The sultan has a factory, in which 400 silk weavers are employed,’ notes Shahab-ud-din. ‘And there they make stuffs of all kinds, for the dresses of persons attached to the court, for robes of honour and presents, in addition to the stuffs which are brought every year from China, Iraq and Alexandria. Every year the sultan distributes 200,000 complete dresses; 100,000 in spring and 100,000 in autumn. The spring dresses consist principally of the goods manufactured in Alexandria. Those of the autumn are almost exclusively of silk manufactured in Delhi or imported from China or Iraq … The sultan keeps in his service 500 manufacturers of golden tissues, who weave the gold brocades worn by the wives of the sultan, and those given away as presents to the amirs and their wives.’

Indian craftsmen enjoyed a high reputation in the medieval world for their skills. ‘I tell you that they are the greatest and the most expert workmen … in all the world,’ states Varthema. But the crafts environment in India also had a negative aspect to it, in that the top Indian craftsmen were usually very secretive about their skills, passing them on to their sons or favourite disciples late in their lives, often near the time of their death. Sometimes they failed to do this, so that their unique skills died with them.

DOMESTIC TRADE IN India had declined sharply in the post-Gupta period, due to the ruralisation of Indian society and economy. Around that time India’s foreign trade too petered out, because of the collapse of the Roman Empire and the slide of Europe into the Dark Ages. But now, with the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, internal trade gradually revived, stimulated by the insatiable demand for luxury goods by the sultans and nobles. India’s foreign trade also revived at this time, as the demand for Indian goods rose in Europe as it emerged out of the Dark Ages. These economic developments in India were noted by several contemporary foreign visitors — Battuta, for instance, found cities flourishing in the upper Gangetic valley, Gujarat, Bengal, the Deccan, Vijayanagar and Kerala. Barbosa and Paes also speak of the lively commercial scene in India at this time. Gold coins, which were rarely issued in India after the collapse of the Gupta Empire, now once again began to appear, indicating the revival of Indian economy.

Towns now rose to prominence again, with flourishing markets, where trade fairs were held periodically. Also, the political integration of a large part of the subcontinent under the Delhi sultans led to the economic integration of the subcontinent, as well as to the expansion of trade and to the close commercial interlinking of villages and towns. New towns now began to sprout all over the land. And alongside the existing major towns there appeared flourishing suburbs, indicating the spread of prosperity and the increased feeling of security among the people. The travel of people and the transport of goods across the land were now safer than in the previous period, though they were still quite hazardous. Caravanserais now appeared along major trade routes, and this also greatly facilitated regional and inter-regional trade.