A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c16.81

c16.81

Such was the end of Bāhmani rule, by no means an attractive chapter in the history of the country. Among the eighteen sultans of the line, there were few who were not drunkards and debauchees surrounded by informers and self-seekers. Faction and party strife dominated court-life and sometimes led to terrible blunders like the murder of Mahmud Gawan. Some of the kings were bigots, and none of them had any genuine sympathy for their subjects who were Hindus. Something was done to promote irrigation and agriculture, and though this was largely to increase the revenue to the crown, still it did good to the people as well. The Russian merchant Athanasius Nikitin who lived in Bidar for some time (1470-4) records: ‘The land is overstocked with people; but those in the country are very miserable, whilst the nobles are extremely opulent and delight in luxury. They are wont to be carried on their silver beds, preceded by some twenty chargers caparisoned in gold, and followed by 300 men on horseback, and by 500 on foot, and by horn men, ten torchbearers and ten musicians.’ The army and its leaders often sucked the country dry, and the people were helpless against them. The wars with the neighbouring Hindu states, particularly Vijayanagar, were marked by sickening horrors, and there were occasions when several hundreds were made ‘converts’. Numbers of foreigners—Persians, Turks, Arabs and Moguls—came in search of trade or office, settled in the country and formed unions with the women of the land. All the same, the bulk of the population continued Hindu, and the number of Muslims in the former ‘Hyderabad state’ never exceeded fifteen per cent.