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

Despite all these elaborate legal systems and hierarchy of courts, the treatment of criminals in early medieval India, in Hindu as well as in Muslim states, was usually arbitrary and often horribly barbarous. Suspects were invariably tortured to extract confession from them — and tortured so savagely that they often confessed even to the crimes they had not committed, preferring execution to torture. ‘People consider death a lighter affliction than torture,’ notes Battuta.

The punishment of rebels by the state in medieval India was particularly savage, and involved mutilation, impalement, flaying alive, hacking off limbs, trampling by elephants, being shot through a cannon, and so on. Sometimes an entire group of people was summarily executed, on suspicion of being rebels or thieving tribes. Thus Balban, when he was serving Sultan Nasir-ud-din Mahmud as the Lord Chamberlain, slaughtered the entire lot of hill tribes living in the environs of Delhi, because they were all, according to Siraj, a thirteenth-century chronicler, ‘thieves, robbers, and highwaymen.’ This carnage went on for twenty days, butchering all who were caught. Balban, according to Siraj, offered his soldiers ‘a silver tanka for every [severed] head, and two tankas for every man brought in alive.’ Many of those captured were cast under the feet of elephants. ‘About a hundred met their death at the hands of flayers, being skinned from head to foot; their skins were all then stuffed with straw, and some of them were hung over every gate of the city.’

Battuta, who was in Delhi during the reign of Muhammad Tughluq, has left a vivid description of how elephants were used to execute rebels and criminals. ‘The elephants which execute men have their tusks covered with sharp irons, resembling the coulter of the plough … and with edges like those of knives … When a person is thrown in front [of the elephant], the animal winds its trunk round him, hurls him up into the air, and catching him on one of its tusks, dashes him to the ground … [And then it] places one of its feet on the breast of the victim’ and crushes him to death.

The punishments meted out to traitorous royal relatives and high nobles were particularly fiendish in the Delhi Sultanate, because they posed the greatest threat to the sultan. According to Battuta, Muhammad Tughluq once had a rebellious prince ‘skinned alive … His flesh was then cooked with rice, and some of it was sent to his children and his wife, and the remainder was put in a great dish and given to elephants to eat, but they would not touch it. The sultan ordered his skin to be stuffed with straw, and … exhibited throughout the country.’

THE DREAD OF such savage punishments by kings was the primary means for preserving law and order in early medieval India, as it was in ancient India, for, as the Hindu lawgiver Manu held, ‘the whole world is controlled by punishment, for a guiltless man is hard to find.’ This was acknowledged even by Firuz Tughluq, one of the most humane of the Delhi sultans. ‘In the reigns of former sultans the blood of many Mussulmans had been shed, and many varieties of torture employed,’ writes the sultan in his memoirs. ‘Amputation of hands and feet, ears and noses, tearing out the eyes, pouring molten led into the throat, crushing the bone of the hand and feet with mallets, burning the body with fire, driving iron nails into the hands, feet, and bosom, cutting the sinews, sawing men asunder; these and many similar tortures were practised … All these things were practised so that fear and dread might fall upon the hearts of man, and that the regulations of government might be duly maintained.’

Not only were the punishments savage, but its savagery was ostentatiously put on display to horrify people, and thus to deter them from committing offences. Thus when a top official in Ghazni, who had incurred the displeasure of Sultan Masud, was executed, his body was kept on the gibbet for seven years, so ‘his feet dropped off and his corpse entirely dried up, so that not a remnant of him was left to be taken down and buried,’ records Baihaqi. And in Delhi, according to Battuta, ‘it is the custom with this people that whenever the sultan orders the execution of a person, he is despatched at the door of the hall of audience, and his body left there for three days … It was only rarely that the corpse of someone who had been executed was not seen at the gate of the palace.’ This was done even to the princes who were suspected of disaffection. Nor were royal ladies spared — thus during the reign of Muhammad Tughluq a princess, who was suspected of debauchery, was stoned in public at the entrance of the durbar hall. The only sultan of Delhi who abolished these barbaric practices was Firuz Tughluq. ‘Through the mercy which god has shown to me these severities and terrors have been exchanged for tenderness, kindness and mercy,’ he writes.

Vijayanagar and Bahmani kings also inflicted barbarous punishments similar to those inflicted by the Delhi sultans. ‘The punishments that they inflict in this kingdom are these: for a thief, whatever theft he commits, however little it be, they forthwith cut off a foot and a hand, and if his theft be a great one he is hanged with a hook under his chin,’ notes Nuniz about the practices in Vijayanagar. ‘If a man outrages a respectable woman or a virgin, he has the same punishment … Nobles who become traitors are sent to be impaled alive on wooden stakes thrust through the belly. And people of the lower orders, for whatever crime they commit, … [the raja] forthwith commands to cut off their heads in the market-place. And the same [is done] for a murder, unless the death was the result of a duel.’ In the Bahmani Sultanate during the reign of Nizam Shah, when a rebel noble was executed, ‘his body was hewn in pieces, which were affixed on different buildings,’ records Ferishta.

THE ROUTINE POLICING of their kingdoms was not an onerous burden for Indian kings, for Indian villages were self-administering, and they generally policed themselves. The main policing task of Indian states was therefore confined to the cities. In this, the scene varied considerably from city to city. According to a rather incredible report of Abdur Razzak, Kozhikode in north Kerala was a haven of peace and security in the mid-fifteenth century. ‘Security and justice are so firmly established in this city,’ he writes, ‘that the most wealthy merchants bring thither from maritime countries considerable cargoes, which they unload, and unhesitatingly send them into the market and bazaars, without thinking in the meantime of any necessity of checking the account, or of keeping watch over the goods.’

The scene in most other Indian cities was entirely different, and they required elaborate law enforcement setups to preserve order in them. The head of the town police in Muslim states was the kotwal, who worked in tandem with the military officers in the town. His main responsibility was to maintain law and order in the city, but he was also responsible for the upkeep of public utilities and for the regulation of markets. He also had diverse social responsibilities, such as the prevention of the circumcision of boys under twelve years age, the prevention of forced sati, the expulsion of religious impostors and charlatans, and so on. At night the towns were patrolled by the police. ‘Throughout the night the town of Bidar is guarded by 1000 men … mounted on horses in full armour, each carrying a light,’ reports Nikitin. The town gates were usually closed at sunset for security reasons, and would not be opened again till morning; those who arrived at the town after its gates were closed had to spend the night outside the town walls, but there were inns there for their accommodation.

Protecting the frontiers of their kingdom was a major concern of Indian rulers, and the Delhi sultans paid special attention to this, particularly in guarding their ever-vulnerable north-west frontier. ‘When we reached this river called Panj-ab, which is the frontier of the territories of the sultan of India and Sind, the officials of the intelligence service came to us and sent a report about us to the governor of the city of Multan,’ reports Battuta about his experiences at the frontier. ‘When the intelligence officials write to the sultan informing him of those who arrive in his country, he studies the report very minutely. The reporters therefore take utmost care in this matter, telling the sultan that a certain man has arrived of such-and-such appearance and dress, and noting the number of his party, salves and servants and beasts, his behaviour both in action and at rest, and all his doings, omitting no detail. When the new arrival reaches the town of Multan, which is the capital of Sind, he stays there until an order is received from the sultan regarding his entry and the degree of hospitality to be extended to him. A man is honoured in that country according to what may be seen of his actions, conduct, and zeal, since no one knows anything about his family or lineage … On the road to Multan … [at a river crossing] the goods and baggage of all who pass are subjected to a rigorous examination. Their custom at the time of our arrival was to take a quarter of everything brought in by merchants, and exact a duty of seven dinars for every horse.’