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

MEDIEVAL INDIAN STATES had no fixed frontiers — their frontiers were what their army controlled at any given time. So the territory of the state varied from reign to reign, and even from time to time during the reign of each sultan or raja. And the control of the central government over the provinces of the kingdom also varied from reign to reign. The sultans and the rajas usually kept a certain portion of their kingdom, its richest districts, under their direct administration. The rest of the kingdom was divided into provinces, and given to royal favourites to govern and collect revenue.

During the reign of Ala-ud-din Khalji the Delhi Sultanate was divided into twelve provinces (subas), each under a governor. Each province in turn was divided into a number of districts (sarkars), and the districts again into taluks (parganas). Each taluk was made up of a number of villages, which were the basic administrative units of the state all through pre-modern history of India. Villages were virtually autonomous, and royal officers did not normally intrude into their affairs as long they paid their revenue dues to the king, and did not create any major law and order problem, like breaking out into rebellion or taking to brigandage.

The other divisions of the state — provinces, districts and taluks — also, like villages, enjoyed considerable autonomy in medieval India, in Muslim as well as Hindu kingdoms. Provinces were in fact semi-independent states, and provincial governors functioned like semi-independent rulers, except that the king exercised hegemonic control over them. In Vijayanagar, as Sewell notes, each provincial chief ‘was allowed entire independence in the territory allotted to him so long as he maintained the quota of horse, foot, and elephants … [assigned to him, and kept them] in perfect readiness for immediate action, and paid his annual tribute to his sovereign. Failing these he was liable to instant ejection, as the king was lord of all and nobles held [their office] only by his goodwill.’

The ultimate authority in the Sultanate in all matters was the sultan. In theory he was expected to rule according orthodox Islamic laws and conventions, but in practice he was usually an autocrat, who did whatever he pleased and could get away with. Autocracy did not however necessarily mean tyranny. Though several of the sultans were indeed dreadful tyrants, there were also several sultans who were benevolent rulers. And some of the tyrannical sultans — Ala-ud-din, for instance — were exceptionally caring about the welfare of the common people.

Next to the sultan in authority was the wazir, chief minister. The entire civil administration of the empire was under his purview, and it was he who appointed all the top civil servants and oversaw their work. The management of the finances of the empire — the collection of revenue and the allocation of funds to various government departments — was his particular responsibility. He also had the responsibility of getting the accounts submitted by various government departments and provinces audited, and of taking measures to recover from officers the funds they had misappropriated or squandered. And it was he who disbursed funds to deserving scholars and writers, and sanctioned charitable payments to the indigent. The responsibilities and powers of the wazir were so wide and important that his role in the state was held to be as crucial for its survival as the role of the soul for the survival of a man.

Alongside the wazir there were three other senior ministers in the Delhi Sultanate, each in charge of a crucial government department: Diwan-i-risalat, which administered religious institutions and allotted financial support to the pious and the scholarly; Diwan-i-arz, which controlled the military establishment; and Diwan-i-insha, which handled the state correspondence, collected intelligence reports from the various provinces of the empire, and supervised the transactions between the central government and the provincial officials. These three officers, along with the wazir, were considered the four pillars of the government.

These officers, like all the other top officers of the state, held their posts at the pleasure of the sultan. So what mattered most to them, in terms of their career prospects, was their ability to please the sultan, rather than their ability to discharge their official duties efficiently. And no one was ever secure in his office, his position being subject to the whims of the sultan as well as the conspiratorial intrigues of rival officers. Inevitably, it was the most earnest and efficient officers who were in the greatest peril, as they most roused the envy of their fellow officers.

IN THE EARLY period of the Delhi Sultanate, till the reign of Balban, the relationship of the nobles with the sultan was of camaraderie than of subservience. Balban changed that, and raised the status of the sultan far above that of the nobles. Consequently most of the nobles became abjectly servile towards the sultan, though there were still a few rare instances of royal officers boldly asserting themselves before the sultan. Such was the case of Ainu-l Mulk, ‘a wise, accomplished … [and] clever man,’ as Afif describes him. He held a senior position in the government under Firuz Tughluq, but had a personality clash with the wazir and was therefore dismissed from service. However, a few days later, the sultan, unwilling to lose the services of this able officer, assigned to him the charge of three fiefs along the critically important north-west frontier of the empire. But Ainu-l Mulk submitted that he would accept the appointment only if he was allowed to submit his reports directly to the sultan, and not through the wazir, and he took charge of the assignment only when the sultan acceded to that condition.

That was an exceptional case. The normal attitude of the nobles towards the sultan was of obsequiousness, and this was evident even in the manner in which provincial governors formally received royal orders. ‘It was the custom for every chief when he heard of the coming of a royal order to go out two or three kos to meet its bearer,’ records Abdullah, a late medieval chronicler, about the practice in the Sultanate during the reign of Sikandar Lodi. ‘A terrace was then erected, on which the messenger placed himself, whilst the nobleman standing beneath received the firman in the most respectful manner with both hands, and placed it on his head … If it was to be read privately he did so, and if it was to be made known to the people, it was read from the pulpit of the mosque.’

Such shows of servility by the nobles were however just pretences in most cases — if the sultan grew weak, or the noble grew powerful, the noble’s attitude towards the sultan changed from servility to defiance. Provincial insubordination and rebellion were in fact perennial problems in the Delhi Sultanate.

The provincial governments of the Delhi Sultanate were virtual replicas of its central government, with the governor in the provincial capital occupying a position similar to that of the sultan in Delhi. The main duties of the governor were to collect revenue from his province, and to maintain law and order there. From the revenue of his province the governor had to remit a specified portion to the royal treasury, and with the rest of the revenue meet his administrative expenses, maintain a military contingent for the sultan, and also meet his personal expenses. The provincial governor in turn farmed out his territory to his subordinates, to administer and to collect revenue.

A BAFFLING FEATURE of the Delhi Sultanate was the open and rampant corruption in its government at all levels, from the highest to the lowest. ‘It was well known in the world that government clerks and servants were given to peculation,’ states Afif. And they often indulged in venality right under the sultan’s nose. ‘It usually happens that there is a long delay in the payment of the money gifts of the sultan,’ grouses Battuta, who once had to wait for six months before receiving the twelve thousand dinars awarded to him by Muhammad Tughluq. ‘They have a custom also of deducting a tenth from all the sums given by the sultan.’ Once when the sultan sanctioned a payment to Battuta and ordered the treasurer to pay it, ‘the treasurer greedily demanded a bribe for doing so and would not write the order,’ states Battuta. ‘So I sent him two hundred tankas (silver coins), but he returned them. One of his servants told me from him that he wanted five hundred tankas, but I refused to pay it.’ Eventually the sultan had to intervene before the money was paid to Battuta.