The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India: A History of the Establishment and Progress of the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi, 1206–1290 A.D. c11.87

c11.87

In one aspect of his policy however, he showed a lamentable lack of statesmanlike vision. This was his extreme racialism which led him to make the Sultanate an exclusively Turkish concern. He affected a great repugnance to associating with what he called men of “low origin” and could not bear the sight of the native Mussalmans in his government. On one occasion he administered a sharp rebuke to his courtiers for having selected a native Mussalman for a clerical post in Amroha¹. His autocracy was intended to emphasise the unchallenged domination of the Turks, although they themselves were conceded very little share in the exercise of sovereign power. It would therefore be wrong to designate Balban’s state as an oligarchy, but there seems little doubt that he considered himself more the custodian of Turkish sovereignty than a king of the Mussalmans. In so doing, he admittedly was following his master Iltutmish who is also reported to have felt an equal abhorrence for the Indian Muslim. But what was defensible in Iltutmish’s time was fraught with ruinous consequences in that of Balban. The initial conquest, as has been noted earlier, had the character of a racial movement; its easy success was largely conditioned by the uninterrupted flow of immigrant Turks from beyond the Hindukush. A loose political organisation, held together largely by a common race-sentiment could, and was forced by circumstances to, insist on the preservation of this dominant characteristic; while the overrunning was in progress this sentiment, coupled with the equally potent tie of religion worked wonderfully well. This insistence on racialism proved a great help in focussing opposition to the racial aggression of the Mongols. Most of these factors however, had ceased to be operative by the time Balban commenced his reign. No fresh immigration could reach India from Turkestan on a large scale; conversion and inter-marriage steadily increased the non-Turkish Mussalmans. Balban himself put an end to continuous territorial expansion and devoted himself to defending the Muslim state from the Hindus and the Mongols; common interests of safety, which thereby were emphasised, were bound to transcend racial and even religious barriers. Imperceptibly, but with irresistible progress, an integrated Indo-Muslim society was coming into being and the transformation of the Sultanate, from a Turkish to an Indo-Muslim state, was well on its way. To resist this process was therefore not only useless but highly unwise. For the steadily-diminishing number of the pure-born Turks it was impossible to maintain predominance. Balban’s uncompromising will only gave it an unreal lease of life; his death, consequently, meant the passing of the Turk as the controller of India’s destiny.