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

In addition to the four revenue sources sanctioned by Islam, most Muslim kingdoms also collected a variety of minor taxes, which varied from kingdom to kingdom, even from ruler to ruler. Many of these additional taxes were in violation of Islamic regulations, and were therefore abolished by Firuz Tughluq.

Hindu kingdoms also collected a wide variety of taxes in addition to agricultural tax; they indeed generally collected a far wider variety of taxes than Muslim kingdoms, such as tax on forest produce, customs duties, octroi, police or military protection taxes, profession taxes (such as on barbers, goldsmiths, leather-workers, dhobis, etcetera), tax on workshops, social taxes (such as marriage tax), taxes on herdsmen, commercial taxes on merchants and artisans, and so on. In fact, virtually all productive activities in the kingdom, however trivial, were taxed — the government took a share of whatever money anyone made in any activity. Besides all these, rajas often charged special taxes to meet temple expenses.

The orthodox Muslim view of state revenue was that it belonged to the state, and was not the sultan’s personal income, and that it should to be used only to meet state expenses. Sultans were however permitted to spend a good part of the state revenue on themselves and their families, to maintain their exalted status, which was considered an essential requirement for maintaining the authority of the state. ‘Whatever is expended on your family could be increased a thousand fold, in order that the royal dignity might be thereby enhanced in the eyes of the people,’ a qazi once advised Ala-ud-din Khalji. ‘This enhancement of the royal dignity is politically essential and expedient.’ This in effect meant that the sultan could treat the kingdom as his private property, use the state revenue as his personal income, and spend it as he pleased.

THE MOST IMPORTANT source of revenue for the medieval state was agricultural tax. This was collected soon after each of the two harvests normally gathered in India: rabi , the winter harvest, and kharif , the rainy season harvest. The state usually sought to enhance its agricultural tax revenue by encouraging farmers to expand the land under their cultivation, and to plant more valuable crops.

The agricultural tax rates charged by kings varied considerably from kingdom to kingdom, and from king to king. The normal tax rate in Muslim states was probably around one-fifth of the gross farm produce, but some sultans, Ala-ud-din Khalji for instance, collected much higher taxes. Sometimes, where special facilities had to be built by the farmer for irrigation, like the bucket or wheel system, there, unlike in the rain-fed fields, taxes were sometimes reduced by kings to as much as one-twentieth of the produce, to compensate the farmer for the extra labour he had to put in to cultivate his field.

In Hindu kingdoms, the tax rate demanded by the rajas varied considerably with the exigencies of their situation, from the traditional one-sixth to as much as one-half of the gross produce. The Agricultural tax rate in Vijayanagar was between one-sixth and one-third of the gross produce. A complicating factor in the tax system of Vijayanagar and of several other Hindu kingdoms — often of Muslim kingdoms as well — was the practice of the state farming out tax collection to the highest bidders. This was a pernicious practice, for the speculators who bid for tax collection were usually exploitative towards cultivators, so the tax burden on them in kingdoms like Vijayanagar was usually very high and oppressive.

A curious practice of the Delhi sultans was that they sometimes raised agricultural tax exorbitantly to punish unruly villagers. Thus Muhammad Tughluq once raised ‘the taxes on the inhabitants of the Doab by ten or twenty per cent, as they had shown themselves refractory,’ notes Mughal chronicler Badauni. ‘He instituted also a cattle-tax, a house tax, and several other imposts of an oppressive nature, which entirely ruined and desolated the country, and brought its wretched inhabitants to destruction.’ And this led to a vicious cycle of rebellion by peasants and brutal repression by the sultan — driven to extremities, peasants sometimes rose in rebellion, burned their grain stacks and drove away their cattle; and the sultan responded to that by desolating the villages, and slaughtering or blinding the villagers.

This was typical of the eccentric policies and actions of Muhammad Tughluq. On the other hand some of the Delhi sultans did indeed take elaborate measures to systematise land revenue assessment and collection. Thus Ala-ud-din Khalji had all the cultivated land in his empire measured and categorised, and fixed the tax on them on the basis of their standard yields. His tax demands were high — he demanded half the agricultural produce as tax, based on the average yield of a particular area; in addition he also collected tax on pastures. But despite these high tax demands, peasants were on the whole better off under Ala-ud-din than under most other sultans, for his high tax demands were balanced by measures providing security to villagers from marauders, protecting them from exploitation by village headmen, and encouraging them to expand cultivation.

Unlike most other sultans, Ala-ud-din collected agricultural taxes directly from peasants though his officers, and did not depend on village chieftains for tax collection, because the vested interests of the chieftains clashed with the interests of the state as well as of the cultivators. He also rescinded the tax exemptions and privileges that village chieftains traditionally enjoyed, and treated all farmers on par. Further, he abolished the system of collective tax on villages, but taxed each farmer individually, so that the village chieftains did not transfer their tax burden on to the common villagers, as they used to do.

All this considerably increased the administrative burden of the state, but Ala-ud-din met that challenge by appointing an army of officers to deal with land revenue assessment, collection, and audit. Later Firuz Tughluq also sought to systematise land revenue assessment and collection. One of the radical measures he took in this matter was to organise a six-year survey of agricultural production in the empire, which enabled him to make an informed estimate of the revenue potential of the empire, and tailor his tax demand accordingly.

JIZYA WAS ANOTHER source of revenue for the Muslim state. This was a tax imposed by Muslim states on zimmis, protected non-Muslims, and its collection was mandatory for Muslim rulers. It was a discriminatory communal tax, but its collection imposed certain reciprocal obligations on Muslim rulers, to protect the life and property of non-Muslims, to grant them the freedom to live according to their traditional way of life, and to perform their customary religious rites without any hindrance. In the early history of Islam the zimmi privilege was granted only to Jews and Christians, but it was extended to the followers of other religions when the political power of Muslims extended beyond Arabia.

Did Hindus merit to be treated as zimmis? Some Muslim theologians held that they did not, and that they should be forced to become Muslims or be killed. But this was not a sensible or practical idea. Hindus were far too many to be exterminated. Besides, they had a crucial and indispensable role in Indian economy, particularly in agriculture, which was entirely dependent on their labour. It was in fact the labour of Hindus that that provided the Muslim state its sustenance. Hindus also provided many essential services in the Muslim army and administration. Their contributions were an absolute requirement for the very survival of the Sultanate.

But there was a curious anomaly in the collection of jizya in India, for Brahmins, who headed the Hindu society, were exempted from this tax. This was presumably because Brahmins played an important and essential role in running the administration of Muslim states, as officers and clerks. Further, Brahmins were not considered an economically productive people, so they could be exempted from jizya, just like the other people considered to be non-productive, such as women, were exempted from it. It was also probably feared that antagonising Brahmins, the most revered people in Hindu society, would antagonise a large section of the Indian population, and make the administration of the country difficult. Most sultans therefore exempted Brahmins from jizya. But these considerations did not influence hyper-orthodox Firuz Tughluq, and he imposed jizya on Brahmins, as on other Hindus, though at a reduced rate.