History of the Qaraunah Turks in India c7.83

c7.83

Barani's remarks deserve a close examination. The highly coloured picture of the Sultan's policy drawn by him is largely due to the fact that he belonged to a party with whose ideals and opinions the Sultan did not sympathise. But since he was an eyewitness of official doings, his remarks cannot be lightly dismissed. All taxation is unpopular even in modern times, and Muhammad's new scheme, coming as it did after a period of ease, was bound to cause discontent. That it caused distress and was resented by the people is beyond a shadow of doubt: Much of it was due to the severity that was practised by the officials in the realisation of these cesses, and we learn from Ibn Batūṭah that officers were venal in those days. Hājji-ad-Dabīr, following Barani's text, says that during the two years the Sultan stayed at Dihli (728 A.H.—730 A.H.) a great ruin was brought about by the rigorous collection of the cesses in the Doab. The cattle were sold, corn stacks were burnt and the ryots were treated with merciless cruelty. In sheer despair they also broke out into rebellion and killed the officers of the state.⁴⁹ It is certainly a hyperbole to say that the ryots of distant countries, on hearing of the distress and ruin of the people of the Doab, broke out into rebellion and "threw off their allegiance," for at this time the Sultan was engaged in establishing his authority in the different parts of his empire and exacting obedience from all classes of his subjects. To make matters worse, a famine occurred at this time and there is nothing to show that the Sultan relaxed the severity of his demands. These continued as usual, and under the double pressure of an inexorable state demand and the depression of the agricultural industry owing to drought, the ryots must have suffered heavily. When they tried to escape from the enhanced impost, they were severely punished. Barani's story of the expedition to Baran, where according to him, the Sultan hunted men like wild beasts, is to be ascribed to his patriotic indignation at the punishments inflicted upon the people of his own native district for their inability to meet the demands of the state.⁵⁰ Mr. Gardner Brown