The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c11.187

c11.187

house of the community.¹ Balban is credited with the improvement of agriculture even when he was an ordinary noble; Ghiyāth-u’d-dīn Tughluq was noted for his interest in the cultivators.² However, it is generally believed that the first monarch to constitute a ministry for this purpose was Muḥammad bin Tughluq. The new department was called *dīwān-i-amīr-i-kohī*; its function was to bring new areas under cultivation and to improve the existing crops. The project was fundamentally sound, but the sultan was not fortunate in the choice of his officials who were inefficient and lacked experience besides being dishonest and corrupt. The system lent itself to corruption, because large sums of money were devoted to the aid of the peasant at a time when the sultan himself was far away campaigning in Gujrāt and Sind and the whole administration was tottering.¹ If Muḥammad bin Tughluq had possessed the capable staff which served ‘Alā-u’d-dīn Khaljī, the story would have been entirely different.³ The department of *amīr-i-kohī*, however, seems to have been much older in origin, because an *amīr-i-koh* is first mentioned under Īltutmish.⁴ Fīrūz does not seem to have continued this ministry, but his interest in the improvement of agriculture was just as great. He assigned desolate areas to men who undertook to populate them and thus bring them under cultivation. Such assignees were charged only nominal revenue for specified periods.⁵ In this way large areas were brought under cultivation, and this extension was not limited to the provinces near Dehlī; for instance, in the *shiqq* of Sāmānah, the chronicler tells us, there were four villages to a *kroh*. The sultan turned his attention also to fruit-growing; no less than twelve hundred fruit orchards were planted round the city of Dehli. Incidentally we come to know that other sultans had planted groves and gardens, for instance, thirty pannīs of grove planted by Sulṭān ‘Alā-u’d-dīn Khaljī were revived.¹ We read of gardens extending for several miles in the outskirts of Dehli under Muḥammad bin Tughluq.² Fīrūz Shāh’s new groves produced, among other fruit, various kinds of grapes, peaches and apricots. Apart from the revenue raised from private gardens, the royal orchards alone produced 180,000 tankahs. Fīrūz had probably inherited his interest in gardens from his uncle Ghiyāth-u’d-dīn, who planted trees in his province before his accession to the throne.³ Such efforts were terminated by the invasion of Tīmūr. When Bābur arrived in India and ultimately conquered the Lodī empire, he complained of the lack of good gardens in his new dominions.⁴ The general attitude of the state towards agriculture during the later days of the sultanate is illustrated by Farīd’s care for the peasants in his father’s parganah⁵