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

Even the mode of decision-making by the two sultans was entirely different. While Ala-ud-din always held detailed discussions with his councillors on every major project, though in the end he made up his own mind, Muhammad ‘never talked over his projects with any of his councillors and friends,’ states Barani. ‘Whatever he conceived, he considered to be good, but in promulgating and enforcing the schemes he lost his hold upon the territories he possessed, disgusted his people, and emptied his treasury. Embarrassment followed embarrassment, and confusion became worse confounded. The ill feeling of the people gave rise to outbreaks and revolts … As more and more the people became disaffected, more and more the mind of the king was set against them, and the numbers of those brought to punishment increased. The tribute of most of the distant countries and districts was lost, and many of his soldiers and servants were scattered and left in distant lands. Deficiencies appeared in the treasury. The mind of the sultan then lost its equilibrium. In the extreme weakness and harshness of his temper he gave himself to severity … [Thus his] schemes led to the ruin of his empire, and the decay of the people. Every one of [his schemes] … led to some wrong and mischief, and the minds of all men, high and low, were disgusted with their ruler … When the sultan found that his orders did not work as well as he desired, he became still more embittered against his people, and he cut them down like weeds …’

Many of Muhammad’s administrative reforms related to revenue matters, for adequacy of funds was a prerequisite for the implementation of his other ambitious plans. Soon after his accession he therefore ordered the compilation of a register of the revenue and expenditure of all the provinces of his empire, on the model of the register that was already being maintained for the districts neighbouring Delhi. For this, Muhammad directed the governors of the provinces to send to him the details of their revenue and expenditure, and these reports were, over several years, compiled into a common register for the whole empire by a host of clerks under the supervision of officers. This register, if properly maintained, would have been invaluable for systematising the revenue administration of the empire, but it is not known how effectively it was maintained, or for how long, and with what results.

Equally innovative and valuable was Muhammad’s decision to set up a ministry of agriculture, to expand cultivation by converting fallow lands into farmlands, and to spread the cultivation of high value commercial crops in the place of common crops—‘not one span of land should remain uncultivated … and whatever was being cultivated should be changed [for more valuable crops],’ the sultan directed. ‘Wheat should be sown instead of barley; sugarcane instead of wheat; grape and date instead of sugarcane …’ And, to encourage farmers to make this changeover, the sultan offered them liberal loans from the royal treasury.

When this scheme to expand cultivation was promulgated, several ‘greedy, impecunious men … came forward,’ reports Barani. ‘Some … pledged to bring one lack of bighas of wasteland under cultivation, others promised to raise a thousand horsemen from [the revenues of] wastelands — all within three years! They were given horses …, gold-embroidered gowns, waistbands of brocade, and cash [by the sultan].’

The scheme however failed miserably, for, as Barani observes, ‘the officers entrusted with the distribution of loans [to farmers] from the public treasury took care of themselves, and appropriated the money for their own wants and necessities … In the course of two years about seventy lakh tankas had been issued from the treasury to the superintendents of the cultivation of wastelands, but not one hundredth or one thousandth part of what was disbursed was reproduced in agriculture.’

ANOTHER SCHEME OF Muhammad to increase the revenue of the state was the introduction of revenue farming, by which all the revenues of particular areas were for a certain period assigned to their highest bidders, on their agreement to pay the government the bid amounts irrespective of whether the revenue they collected was more, or less, than the bid amount. This scheme was initially introduced in the Deccan, but was later extended to the other provinces of the empire.

This procedure had, in theory, the double advantage of reducing the administrative burden of the state and at the same time increasing and stabilising its revenue. In practice, however, the system proved to be ruinous, to the people as well as to the government, for the successful bidders were often upstart speculators with hardly any administrative experience, who could seldom meet their extravagant revenue promises, however hard they squeezed the people. Predictably several of the franchise holders turned into rebels eventually, when faced with punitive action by the sultan for the collection of the revenue dues from them. The common people too suffered greatly, due to their exploitation by the revenue collectors. So this scheme too, like most of the other schemes of Muhammad, proved to be counterproductive, resulting in civil disturbances and the near collapse of the revenue administration of the state.

Yet another counterproductive administrative reform of Muhammad was to sharply increase the tax on the cultivators in the Doab, as he, according Barani, felt that ‘he ought to get five or ten per cent more tribute from the [rich agricultural] lands there … [And he] collected these cesses so rigorously that cultivators there were impoverished and reduced to beggary.’ Further, these taxes were assessed on the standard yield, not on the actual yield, and that added to the distress of farmers during periods of poor yield. But instead of offering relief to farmers in distress, the sultan added to their financial burden by requiring them to pay, in addition to the tax on farm produce, ‘a cattle-tax, a house tax, and several other imposts of an oppressive nature,’ states Mughal chronicler Badauni. All this, according to Barani, led to ‘the ruin of the country and the decay of the people.’ But Muhammad was unconcerned. And he, despite the all too evident problems that his tax measures caused, gradually extended them to a wide area of the empire.

Inevitably people in several places rose in rebellion against these exacting, oppressive measures of the sultan. In the Doab, farmers ‘burnt their corn stacks and turned their cattle out to roam at large,’ reports Barani. Muhammad responded to this peasant uprising with savage reprisals. ‘Under the orders of the sultan, collectors and magistrates then laid waste the country, and they killed some landholders and village chiefs and blinded others. Such of these unhappy inhabitants as escaped formed themselves into bands and took refuge in jungles.’ According to Nurul Haq, ‘the sultan then gave orders that every peasant who was seized should be put to death, and that the whole country should be ravaged and given up to indiscriminate plunder … He himself marched out … and put to the sword all the remaining population and ordered their heads to displayed from the battlements of the fort. In this way he utterly depopulated whole tracts of his kingdom, and inflicted such rigorous punishment, that the whole world was aghast.’

These adversities of the people were compounded by an acute and prolonged drought that afflicted North India at this time. ‘For seven whole years not a drop of rain fell from the heavens,’ states Badauni. And this, according to Barani, ‘produced a fatal famine in Delhi and its environs, and throughout the Doab … It continued for some years, and thousands upon thousands of people perished … All cultivation [was] abandoned … Man was devouring man.’ Battuta states that he once saw some women stripping off the skin of a long dead horse and eating it, and that cooked hides were on sale in markets. And people gathered in butcheries to drink the blood of slaughtered cattle. In one place a man was found cooking a human foot. Cannibalism became common.