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

Such shows of clemency were rare in Balban. He normally insisted on unremitting efficiency from his officers, and treated inefficiency and failure to perform assigned duties as unpardonable offences. And he was utterly ruthless in enforcing discipline and hard work among his officers, and in punishing the tardy, for that, he believed, was the only way to ensure dependable service from them. Thus, when Amin Khan, the governor of Oudh, who was sent to suppress a rebellion in Bengal, was defeated by the rebel and he tamely retreated, Balban ordered him ‘to be hanged over the gate of Oudh,’ reports Barani.

Balban was equally stern and uncompromising in the administration of justice, and would, according to Barani, show ‘no favour to his brethren or children, to his associates or attendants.’ Thus when Malik Baqbaq, a top noble and governor of Budaun, flogged to death one of his servants, Balban, on receiving the complaint about it from the servant’s wife, had the noble himself flogged to death, and had the news-writer, who had failed to report the noble’s crime to Balban, hanged over the city gate. Similarly, when another top noble, Haibat Khan, slew a man in a drunken rage, Balban had 500 lashes given to the noble, and then handed him over to the widow of the slain man, saying, ‘This murderer was my salve, he is now yours. Do you stab him as he stabbed your husband.’ Though the khan then managed to purchase his life from the widow for 20,000 tankas, he thereafter never again appeared in public, out of shame.

BALBAN DID NOT have the common vanity of kings to gain glory through conquests. This was not because he was averse to military campaigns, but because he considered that it would be imprudent for him to seek fresh conquests when the territories that were already in the empire were not properly consolidated, and the empire itself was periodically menaced by Mongol raids. Balban’s primary focus during his entire rule, as regent and as sultan, was on the consolidation of the empire, its proper administration, and its protection against Mongol raids, and not on seeking fresh conquests. Once when some of his courtiers suggested that he should seek renown through conquests, he outright rejected the proposal. ‘I have devoted all the revenues of my kingdom to the equipment of my army, and I hold all my forces ever ready and prepared to … [meet the threat of Mongol invasion]. I will never leave my kingdom, nor will I go to any distance from it. In the reigns of my patrons and predecessors there was none of this problem with the Mongols, so they could lead their armies wherever they pleased, subdue the dominions of Hindus, and carry off gold and treasures, staying away from their capital a year or two. If this anxiety [about the Mongols] … were removed, then I would not stay one day in my capital, but lead forth my army to capture treasures and valuables, elephants and horses, and would never allow the Rais and Ranas to repose in security at a distance.’

Mongols had first forayed into India during the reign of Iltutmish, and had since then raided India several times, and were a constant menacing presence in western Punjab. ‘No year passed without the Mongols forcing their way into Hindustan and … [raiding] different towns,’ notes Barani. The Mongol threat to the Sultanate was not so much of the conquest of territory as of plunder, destruction and carnage. As the early medieval chronicler Juwaini puts it, ‘Mongols came, razed, burnt, slaughtered, plundered, and departed.’

In India the Mongol depredations were largely confined to the Indus Plain west of the Sutlaj. When they advanced further east, they, despite their fearsome reputation for savagery, were invariably routed by the Sultanate forces, for the Mongol army was not a professional army but a horde, and was no match to the trained and disciplined army of the Sultanate. Often, on the approach of the Sultanate army, Mongols fled without fighting, not wanting to risk losing the plunder that they had already gathered.

Turks detested Mongols as uncouth savages. ‘Their eyes were so narrow and piercing that they might have bored a hole into a brass vessel, and their stench was more horrible than their colour,’ writes medieval poet Amir Khusrav, colouring his description with bardic fancy. ‘Their heads were set on their bodies as if they had no necks, and their cheeks resembled leathern bottles, full of wrinkles and knots. Their noses extended from cheek to cheek, and their mouths from cheekbone to cheekbone; their nostrils resembled rotten graves, and from them the hair descended as far as the lips. Their moustaches were of extravagant length, but the beards about their chins were very scanty. Their chests, in colour half black, half white, were covered with lice which looked like sesame growing on a bad soil. Their whole bodies, indeed, were covered with these insects, and their skins were as rough-grained as shagreen leather, fit only to be converted into shoes. They devoured dogs and pigs with their nasty teeth … The king marvelled at their beastly countenances and said that god had created them out of hellfire.’

By the mid-thirteenth century, Lahore had become a Mongol dependency, with its Turkish governor acknowledging the suzerainty of Mongols and paying tribute to them. Around this time the governor of Sind also transferred his allegiance from the Sultanate to Mongols. It was feared that Mongols might even advance on Delhi. Balban, who was the regent of the Sultanate at this time, met the challenge of Mongols with a combination of astute diplomacy, unwinking vigilance, and display of military might, and he was able to avert any serious damage to the empire to be caused by them. With Mongols dominant in Afghanistan and Central Asia, Turks in India had at this time nowhere to retreat to — India was now their homeland, and they had to protect it at all cost in order to survive. Balban therefore took care to maintain good relationship with Hulagu Khan, the Mongol viceroy in Iran and a grandson of Chingiz Khan, and obtained from him the assurance that Mongols would not advance beyond Satluj. This rapport prompted Hulagu to send, in 1259, a goodwill mission to Delhi, which was accorded a grand reception by Balban, which included also a cautionary demonstration of the military might of the Sultanate.

The peace with the Mongols did not however last long. Occasional Mongol forays into the Sultanate continued, and by around 1279 major Mongol incursions resumed. But Balban had by then, during the period of relative peace with the Mongols, reorganised his western frontier defences under the command of his eldest son Muhammad, who was appointed as the supreme commander of the frontier forces. Mongols were not therefore allowed to operate beyond Satluj, and their raids were mostly confined to the region west of Indus.

BALBAN WAS AS much concerned with internal security as with external security. The countryside, even the neighbourhood of Delhi, was at this time periodically marauded by predatory tribes and bands of brigands. Of particular menace were Meos of Mewat, the heavily forested region on the southern and western flanks of Delhi. ‘At night they used to come prowling into the city, giving all kinds of trouble, depriving the people of their rest; and they plundered the country houses in the neighbourhood of the city,’ states Barani. ‘In the neighbourhood of Delhi there were large and dense jungles, through which many roads passed. The disaffected … and the outlaws … [of this region] grew bold and took to robbery on the highway, and they so beset the roads that caravans and merchants were unable to pass through them … [Because of their ravages] the western gates of the city were shut at afternoon prayer, and no one dared to go out of the city in that direction after that hour … [The Mewatis would assault] the water-carriers and the girls who were fetching water, and would strip them and carry off their clothes. These daring acts … caused a great ferment in Delhi.’