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

Ghiyas-ud-din also introduced certain administrative measures to prevent, or at least minimise, the exploitation of farmers by tax collectors — thus, instead of the usual method of remunerating the tax collectors by giving them a percentage of their revenue collection, which resulted in the collectors extorting excess payments from farmers, the sultan compensated the collectors by exempting their land holdings from taxes. Further, to protect farmers, he prohibited the use of torture for collecting tax arrears, even though he allowed torture in cases of theft and embezzlement.

The sultan was equally considerate in his treatment of Hindus — while he followed the orthodox Muslim state policy of treating Hindus as subject people and second class citizens, he took care that they were not turned destitute. According to Barani, the sultan ordered that Hindus should be left with enough (but only with just enough) sustenance to lead a productive life, so that they would not become either ‘blinded by wealth’ and turn rebellious, ‘nor, on the other hand, be so reduced to poverty and destitution as to be unable to pursue their husbandry.’

Ghiyas-ud-din’s general policy in dealing with his subjects, Hindus as well as Muslims, was to be fair but firm with them — he would not exploit the people, nor would he allow the people to cheat him. Thus when he found that Khusrav had improperly given away extensive land grants and large amounts of money to various influential people, including some religious leaders, to win their support, he ordered the resumption of those lands and demanded the refund of the money from the recipients. One of the chief beneficiaries of Khusrav’s largesse was the celebrated Sufi sage Nizam-ud-din Auliya, who had received about half a million tankas from him. When Ghiyas-ud-din demanded the refund of this amount from the sage, he replied that he had distributed all the money in charity as soon as he received it, and therefore could not make the restitution. This angered the sultan and intensified his dislike of the sage, whose dervish practices he, an orthodox Muslim, in any case strongly disapproved. This ill feeling between the two would later add a curious twist to the mystery about the violent death of the sultan a few years later.

Another important administrative measure of Ghiyas-ud-din was the restoration of the postal system that Ala-ud-din had set up, but had fallen into disuse after his death. Its restoration enabled Ghiyas-ud-din to keep in regular touch with all parts of his empire, and manage its affairs efficiently.

ONE OF THE major concerns of Ghiyas-ud-din as sultan was to recover the territories that the Sultanate had lost during the turmoil following the death of Ala-ud-din, and to restore the Sultanate to its former position of absolute supremacy in the Indian subcontinent. In pursuit of this policy he sent, in the second year of his reign, an army into Warangal, where the Kakatiya ruler Prataparudra-deva had thrown off the yoke of the sultanate and was expanding his territory and power through military campaigns against his neighbours. The Sultanate army, commanded by Ghiyas-ud-din’s eldest son Jauna, then invaded the kingdom and forced the raja, after a prolonged siege, to plead for peace.

But at the point of the conclusion of the campaign, the Sultanate army was suddenly thrown into turmoil by certain mysterious developments. The basic cause of the trouble was that the army had not received any news from Delhi for nearly a month — because the communication link between Delhi and the army had been cut by local rebels — and that led to all sorts of wild rumours to spread in the army. One such rumour was that Ghiyas-ud-din was dead, and that Delhi was in the throes of a political turmoil. It was also rumoured that Jauna was plotting to usurp the throne, and was planning to liquidate some of the senior army commanders whose loyalty to him was suspect. All this created great disquiet among the army commanders, and they, as well as Jauna, retreated in disorder to Devagiri, from where the prince sped to his father in Delhi with a small escort.

This is the story told by Barani. But Battuta offers another explanation for the development, and states that the rumour about Ghiyas-ud-din’s death was deliberately spread by Ubaid, a poet and boon companion of Jauna, on the suggestion of the prince. This, according to Battuta, was done to enable the prince to win the support of the army in his plan to usurp the throne, but the plan failed as the army commanders suspected the truth and deserted the prince, as they did not want to be associated with the planned usurpation.

The version given by Battuta is not credible, because of its inherent improbability — Jauna, as the eldest son of the sultan, had already been designated as the heir apparent, and there was no reason for him to jeopardise that position by rebelling. Besides, subsequent developments also disprove the usurpation attempt theory. On the return of the army to Delhi, the officers who deserted Jauna were put to death by the sultan — the chief deserters ‘were impaled alive, and some of the others with their wives and children were thrown under the feet of elephants,’ reports Barani. In direct contrast to this, Jauna was given a fresh army and sent again against Warangal, where the raja had reasserted his independence. There was evidently no suspicion at all in the sultan about the loyalty of Jauna. This was also proved by subsequent developments. Thus a year or so later, when the sultan set out on a campaign into Bengal, he had no hesitation at all to appoint Jauna as his regent in Delhi.

Jauna’s stature as the heir apparent enhanced considerably after his second Warangal campaign, which was entirely successful. The raja there once again surrendered to him after a brief resistance, and the prince then sent him, along with all his treasures, to Delhi, and annexed the kingdom to the empire. From Warangal Jauna then seems to have advanced north-eastward into Orissa and then southward into the Tamil country, but the accounts about this campaign in contemporary chronicles are confusing. But on the whole the peninsular campaign of Jauna seems to have been quite successful. This is indicated by the grand reception that the sultan accorded to the prince on his return to Delhi.

Ghiyas-ud-din then put Jauna in charge of Delhi and set out for Bengal with an army, to reassert his authority over that rebellious and strife-torn province. After a successful campaign there, which brought most of Bengal once again under the rule of Delhi, the sultan hastened back home, as some disquieting news had reached him about developments in Delhi. This concerned Jauna’s association with Nizam-ud-din Auliya, and the dervish’s prediction in one his trances that Jauna’s accession to the throne was imminent. Other astrologers are also said to have made similar predictions. Hearing all this, Ghiyas-ud-din wrote menacing letters to the astrologers, and sent a warning to Auliya that when he returned to Delhi, the city would be too small to hold them both.

AS IT HAPPENED, it was not the sultan’s threat, but the dervish’s prediction, that came true. When some of Auliya’s devotees warned him of the sultan’s imminent arrival in Delhi, and advised him to leave the city in view of the sultan’s threat, he is said to have replied, ‘ Hanuz Dihli dur ast! ’—Delhi is still far off!

According to Barani, when Jauna learnt of the sultan’s return, he along with the great nobles in Delhi went forth to receive him, and built for his reception a temporary structure at Afghanpur, a village about a dozen kilometres from Tughluqabad, the capital that Ghiyas-ud-din had built for himself south of Delhi. When the sultan arrived at Afghanpur, the prince and the nobles ceremoniously conducted him to the reception hall they had built there, and served him a grand banquet. Then suddenly, while the sultan was still in the building, ‘a calamity occurred. Like a thunderbolt falling from heaven … the roof of the dais on which the sultan … was sitting fell, crushing him and five or six other persons, so that they all died.’