The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c10.s2.4

c10.s2.4

These cases of open disapprobation of royal orders were the work mainly of the Hindu artisan and business classes. In spite of their modesty and humility they possessed the middle class temperament. As is well-known Indian manufactures were of excellent quality, often better than European,⁴⁵ but this does not signify any social advancement of the manufacturers. Indeed, according to Bernier, they were either wretchedly poor, or who, if rich assume appearance of poverty a people whose grandees pay for a work of art considerably under its value and according to their own caprice, and who do not hesitate to punish an importunate artist or a tradesman with the *Korrah*, that long and terrible whip hanging at every Omrahs gate ⁴⁶ Bernier adds that the artisans could not venture to indulge in good fare or to dress in fine apparel even if they could afford to.⁴⁷ Manucci says that traders and merchants were sometimes wanting in courage and they could not claim any high status.⁴⁸ And yet these very people used to defy the rulers orders. Their strength was known to the regime, that is why most kings used to treat them harshly. Ziyauddin declares them to be the most unscrupulous among the seventy-two classes, (believed to be inhabiting the world) and Alauddin Khalji visited them with dire punishments.⁴⁹ Even a mild king like Firoz Tughlaq did not treat them any better. Shams Siraj Afif writes that when Firoz Tughlaq was building the fort-city of Firozabad, he ordered that every trader who brought goods (grain, salt, sugar, cotton etc.) to Delhi, was to transport free of charge bricks and stones on his pack-animals from the old Delhi (Mehrauli) to the construction site at Firozabad. If the trader refused, government officials used to carry off his pack animals and clamp him in jail. But the traders were not to be cowed down and they more often than not refused to do *begar* (work without wages).⁵⁰ Such protests and resistance against governments injustice continued throughout the medieval period. Tavernier writes similar things about Shahjahan. All waggons which come to Surat from Agra or other places in the Empire and return to Agra and Jahanabad (Shahjahanabad) are compelled to carry (the kings) lime which comes from Broach It is a great source of profit to the Emperor (whose monopoly it was and) who sends it where he pleases.⁵¹ Similarly, when Aurangzeb wanted more money and ordained that the rupees or coined money of silver, not worth more than fourteen sols (sous) of France, or thereabouts, should pass as worth twenty-eight sols the *sarrafs*, who are the money changers, resisted the royal orders, giving various excuses At last the king in anger sent for the money-changers in the city of Delhi, and when he found that they could not be brought round to his view he ordered one of the aged *sarrafs* to be thrown, down the battlements. This terrified the *sarrafs* and they obeyed.⁵²