History of the Khaljis, A.D. 1290–1320 c17.s2.17

c17.s2.17

Not only trade and commerce but agriculture was also affected. It has been pointed out at length in the preceding chapter how the revenue regulations of the king as well as his economic measures were harmful to agriculturists. Here it may be pointed out once again that these regulations rendered the condition of peasantry almost hopeless. Mr. Moreland thinks that the revenue regulations of the sultan were meant to crush the rich middlemen and not the poor peasants or the "herds" as such. But one fails to understand how the poor peasantry could be happy under the market regulations. It is conceivable that the realization of 50 per cent. of the land produce in kind was not meant to oppress the peasants but to store grain in the capital city. Yet when a husbandman paid half of his hard earned produce in land tax, some portion of the remaining in other sundry duties, and then was compelled to sell his grain at cheap rates to travelling merchants, who on their part were helped by government officials in obtaining their stocks, it does not speak well of the general condition of the peasantry of those days. There is no doubt that the cultivators were relieved of the drudgery of taking their grain into grain markets of big cities lying in the vicinity of their fields, and were saved from falling a victim to the seductions of the profiteering middlemen and speculators, still they could never be happy in selling their grain at a cheap price fixed by the government without having the choice of selecting a market for themselves and trying for a profit. The temptation of making profit, which is the greatest incentive to production, was completely checked by ‘Alāūddīn’s market regulations and the peasants seem to have lived a life of monotony and low standard, if not of squalor. The motive of the sultan may not have been to crush the poor peasants against whom he could possibly have no grudge, but the exigencies of the state required him to take such steps under which the interests of commerce and cultivation were sacrificed to those of the army. A peasant is not always a hoarder; he will not hoard if he is given a fair price for his produce. Just for the sake of safety he stores up some grain as security against bad seasons, but even that was denied to him, and every *man* of available grain was transferred to the Grain Market of Delhi. The stores of the sultan continued to increase so that Ibn Battūṭah ate the rice which had been stored by sultan ‘Alāūddīn. The rice had become dark in colour but had preserved its taste. This fact alone shows that the government had hoarded a large quantity of grain, much above the needs of the state, so much so that it was available even three decades after the death of the king.