History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c13.101

c13.101

Muhammad is charged with having brought about by his unwise and tyrannical policy the break-up of the sultanate of Dihli. It will be admitted on all hands that his policy and plans had much to do with the disruption of the empire. But there is one important consideration which we should not lose sight of in apportioning blame. It is unfair to saddle the responsibility entirely upon him. His great predecessor, ‘Ala-al-Din Khilji, had built up a vast empire which extended to the farthest extremity of the South, but soon after his death it broke up and Ghiyas-al-Din had to reassert his authority over the Deccan and Bengal. A large empire could not hold together in the 14th century when the means of communication were highly inadequate and the north and south were separated by historical, geographical and ethnological differences. The essential ingredients of an empire—unity, cohesion among the component groups and the community of interest—were absent. The military position was far from secure. From the distant capital in the north it was well-nigh impossible to check the forces of disorder in a country where racial and religious fanaticism had not yet completely exhausted its strength. The provincial satraps were always anxious to found independent dynasties, and the central power was frequently compelled to allow them to exercise authority according to their discretion. There is no evidence to prove that the Sultan was negligent or indolent. With an overmastering sense of duty, Barani informs us, he issued mandates and decrees and attempted measures to effectuate his ascendancy in the north and south. Later he tried to introduce ameliorative reforms for the benefit of his people and during famine spent lakhs to afford relief to the agricultural population. But the broils of his nobles, the dearth of capable native officers, the protracted famine, the Sultan's own lack of statesmanship—all combined to frustrate his plans. Throughout the period it appears that the clericalists and their sympathisers were anxious to see the present régime speedily brought to a close. Want of tact and sympathy on the part of the Sultan made the situation worse. His own confessions show that he invariably believed himself to be in the right and fathered the responsibility for the disturbances of his reign on his nobles and subjects. It was difficult for a mediæval despot to act otherwise, for the acknowledgment of mistake was tantamount to a confession of weakness. The Sultan's policy based on his unassisted calculations took the people by surprise and his measures provoked disgust and resentment by their sheer novelty. Remorselessly he swept away those who failed to come up to his standard or stood in his way. With the best possible intentions in the world and with a firm will to carry them out, the Sultan failed because he became an enigma to his own generation. He failed to realise the truth that heroic remedies are as dangerous to the body-politic as they are to the human organism and that for a monarch in the India of the 14th century *festina lente* was a sound maxim. But over and above faults of a personal character the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed largely contributed to his failure. Towards the close of his reign the empire was reduced in extent, but it was stronger than it was at the time of the death of his cousin Firuz whose methods of government are applauded by all Muslim writers. Indeed, the elements of vigour were so completely undermined that the central authority found itself powerless to arrest the progress of anarchy which became a normal feature of Indian politics after 1388 A.D. Yet how different is the verdict of clerical writers on Firuz Tughluq?