The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c9.s3.16

c9.s3.16

Having studied some prominent cases of bribery, corruption and hoarding, of the nobles, and the rich upper class people in the Sultanate times, let us analyse their genesis and their prominent aspects. It is clear that corruption had nothing much to do with poverty or a low standard of living. During Balbans rule the nobility and armymen, who could not or would not perform their duties for which lands had been granted to them, were not poor. But they wanted their privileges to continue; about performing their duties they were not concerned. Fakhruddin, the Kotwal, who pleaded their case with the king was moved as much by compassion as by self-interest. He was himself old and in course of time stood to lose all privileges if the orders of Balban were not amended. The people who minted counterfeit coins found in the token currency of Muhammad bin Tughlaq a challenge to their intelligence and ingenuity, and took advantage of the golden opportunity provided by it to get rich. The officials of the Diwan-i-Arz who took a gold *tankah* for issuing the fitness certificate to the cavalryman in the days of Firoz were not poor; they were habitual bribe-takers. The *shiqdars* or officers who embezzled the money advanced to them for cultivation by Muhammad bin Tughlaq again, were not poor. The people who minted debased currency, the wholesalers and retailers who indulged in hoarding and black-marketing, men like Kajar Shah and Bashir-i-Sultani, did not do what they did because they were poor, but because they were greedy and opportunists. The object of the opportunists was to get rich, of the rich to get richer. Their luxurious life, their women and wine and their ambition to amass wealth, kept the torch of corruption burning.