Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c4.s1.t1.4

c4.s1.t1.4

Strong physical barriers have divided the north of India from the south; and the points of contact between the two regions have been very few in history and too feeble to effect a cultural fusion between the two peoples. Now and then, ambitious monarchs have attempted to unite the whole of India under one crown to immortalise themselves as a ‘chakravartin’; but the difficulties of communication and administrative control have uniformly thwarted their cherished desires. The well-known experiment of Sultan Muhammad Tughluq, namely the attempt to establish a centrally situated capital for the whole of the Indian Empire, met with complete failure. A few centuries later, the Mughal emperor Aurangzib again attempted to hold the Deccan and spent half his life in camp fighting in a vain attempt to achieve the impossible. In the end his successors, as those of Muhammad Tughluq, wisely contented themselves with their northern possessions. For the Hindu and the Muslim period it may be laid down almost as a historical law that the establishment of a kingdom within the confines of Hindustan signified its vigour and compactness, and an extension into the Deccan its dismemberment and ruin. This moral, of course, does not apply to the modern conditions of administration. Of these two divisions, the neighbouring parts resemble one another to a slight degree, but as one moves towards the extremities one notices the growing contrast, until at last the language, the religious sects, the architecture, the dress, the appearance, the diet—in fact, every aspect of social life appears to differ completely from the other.¹ It is not to be wondered at then, if these two regions (which Vincent Smith aptly describes as ‘geographical compartments’) developed a distinct and a highly complex story of their own.² In the light of these considerations, therefore, it is more convenient to study the social developments of Hindustan as a separate cultural region of the Indian peninsula.