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

Characteristically, Muhammad then swung from one extreme posture to its total opposite, from callousness and brutality to compassion and humanism. To relieve people from the horrors of famine he then ordered grain to be issued to them from the royal granary, and he set up public kitchens to feed the destitute. Also, he tried to revive cultivation by advancing loans to farmers from the treasury to buy seeds and plough-cattle, but ‘want of rain prevented cultivation,’ so the misery of the people continued, notes Barani.

THE MOST RADICAL of the economic reforms of Muhammad was the introduction of token currency in the fifth year of his reign, when he issued brass or copper coins on par with the value of his silver tanka coins. He did this, according to Barani, to raise funds to finance his grandiose plan to conquer the whole known world. Besides, the sultan’s ‘bounty and munificence had caused a great deficiency in the treasury,’ and that had to be rectified. ‘So he introduced the copper money, and gave orders that it should be used in buying and selling, and should … [be accepted as legal tender] just as the gold and silver coins [were accepted].’

It is likely that Muhammad was inspired to introduce token currency by what he had learnt about its use in China (which had been using paper currency for some centuries) and Persia (which had adopted the practice in the thirteenth century). The idea of introducing token currency in India excited the sultan, as he had a compulsive need to try something new every now and then. Besides, he considered it as the best solution to the financial problems he faced. However, unlike the Chinese who took elaborate measures to prevent forgeries of paper currency and punished counterfeiters with death, Muhammad did not have the administrative will and skill to execute the scheme effectively. So it failed utterly.

The token coins that Muhammad issued were easily counterfeited. ‘Every goldsmith struck copper coins in his workshop,’ states Barani. ‘The promulgation of the edict [about token currency] turned the house of every Hindu into a mint, and Hindus of the various provinces coined lakhs and crores of copper coins. With these they paid their tribute, and with these they purchased horses, arms, and fine things of all kinds. The rais , the village headmen and landowners, grew rich and strong upon these copper coins, but the state was impoverished.’

Soon it came to be that people in their everyday transactions would accept copper coins only for the value of its metal, not for its inscribed value. But everyone paid their dues to the government in copper coins, often in forged coins. In consequence of this, the treasury, according to Barani, ‘was filled with copper coins. So low did they fall [in value] that they were not valued more than pebbles or potsherds.’ As Badauni wryly comments, ‘After all, copper was copper, and silver was silver.’

When the sultan found that his token currency project had failed, and that it was ruining the finances of the state, he abandoned it, ‘and in great wrath he proclaimed that whoever possessed copper coins should bring them to the treasury and receive gold [or silver] coins in exchange,’ reports Barani. That in effect meant that the government now bought copper at the price of silver or gold. ‘Thousands of men from various quarters, who possessed thousands of these copper coins … now brought them to the treasury, [and received in exchange gold and silver coins] … So many of these copper coins were brought to the treasury, that heaps of them rose up in Tughluqabad like mountains.’ The abject failure of the token currency project further embittered Muhammad, and ‘he more than ever turned against his subjects.’

ANOTHER GOOD INTENTIONED scheme of Muhammad that failed miserably was the shifting of his capital from Delhi to Devagiri, nearly a thousand kilometres to the south. Devagiri was in a fairly central location in the Sultanate, and in those of days of slow communication and travel it certainly was a political and military advantage to locate the capital there, especially as Muhammad had extended his direct rule deep into South India. Besides, Devagiri, unlike Delhi, was well beyond the reach of Mongols, who were a perennial menace to the Sultanate.

Apart from these locational advantages, Devagiri had the advantage of having an impregnable fort atop a high, rocky and precipitous hill which, from the security point of view, was an excellent place for the sultan to reside in those turbulent times. Moreover, to live in a place far above his subjects suited Muhammad’s exalted view of his personal eminence.

The plan to shift the capital to Devagiri was therefore on the whole sensible, and it deserved to succeed. But it failed. It failed because it was an abrupt, impulsive, personal decision of the sultan, which was made, as Barani stresses, ‘without any consultation, and without carefully examining its advantages and disadvantages on every side.’ But more than that, the move failed because Muhammad not only shifted his capital to Devagiri, but vindictively insisted that the entire population of Delhi also should move to it.

Muhammad’s decision to shift the capital to Devagiri was made in 1327, in the second year of his reign, but there is some confusion about whether he initially meant only to relocate there the royal court, its offices and staff, or whether he wanted all the people of Delhi also to move there. The reports of Barani and Battuta, both contemporary chroniclers, speak of the forced shift of the entire population of Delhi to Devagiri, but while Barani implies (though he does not state it explicitly) that this was essentially an administrative measure, Battuta describes it as a punitive measure against the people of Delhi because of their animosity to the sultan. It is probable that the shifting of the capital was effected in two phases, as later medieval chroniclers like Badauni, Ferishta and Sirhindi indicate — a first phase in which the royal court was shifted there as an administrative measure, and a second phase a couple of years later in which the entire population of Delhi was forced to move there as a punitive measure. Asking all the people of Delhi to move to Devagiri in the first instance was far too senseless a measure even for a weird eccentric like Muhammad to conceive and execute, though it was not entirely beyond him.

Muhammad renamed Devagiri (Mountain of Gods) as Daulatabad (Abode of Prosperity) and in a few of years it did indeed become, true to its new name, a great and splendid city, as royal officers and others dependent on the court built their residences there, and opulent bazaars and other facilities suitable for a royal capital were set up there. Battuta, who visited Daulatabad some years later, found it to be an ‘enormous city which rivals Delhi … in importance and in the spaciousness of its planning.’

MUHAMMAD’S DECISION TO shift his residence to Devagiri would have been quite upsetting to the people of Delhi, for the royal court was the very heart of Delhi, and its transfer from there would have rendered the city lifeless. The people of Delhi therefore had good reason to resent the sultan’s decision, and they seem to have expressed their feelings about it by sending anonymous abusive letters to him, and that was probably what roused his wrath and prompted him to order the complete evacuation of Delhi.

According to Battuta, the people of Delhi ‘used to write missives reviling and insulting’ the sultan, seal them and throw then into the audience hall at night, with a warning written on them that they should be opened only by the sultan. ‘When the sultan broke their seal [and opened the letters] he found them full of insults and abuse. He [therefore] decided to lay Delhi in ruins, and having bought from all the inhabitants their houses … and paid them the price of them, he commanded them to move to Daulatabad. But they refused. So a crier was sent around the city to proclaim that no one should remain in the city after three nights. The majority [of the residents there] then complied with the order, but some of them hid in the houses. The sultan then ordered a search to be made for any persons remaining in the town, and his slaves found two men in the streets, a cripple and a blind man. They were brought before him and he gave orders that the cripple should be flung from a mangonel, and that the blind man dragged from Delhi to Daulatabad, a distance of forty days’ journey. He fell to pieces on the road and of him all that reached Daulatabad was his leg. When the sultan did this, every person left the town, abandoning furniture and possessions, and the city remained utterly deserted … [Then] one night the sultan mounted to the roof of his palace and looked out over Delhi, where there was neither fire nor smoke nor lamp, and he said, “Now my mind is tranquil and my wrath appeased.” Afterwards he wrote to the inhabitants of the other cities commanding them to move to Delhi to repopulate it. The result was only to ruin their cities and leave Delhi still unpopulated, because of its immensity, for it is one of the greatest cities in the world. It was in this state that we found it on our arrival, empty and unpopulated, save for a few inhabitants.’