Although overgrown and encroached upon, the extensive fortifications and other remains of Tughlaqabad are very impressive. Excavations in the 1990s revealed a secret passage connected to the palace, with elaborate passageways, hidden storage rooms and disguised entrance and exit. The exit is a small opening on the outer wall that looks like an innocuous drain. However, despite its rather solid appearance, the city was only occupied for a few years before being abandoned, probably because its water-supply was not secure.
Muhammad Tughlaq was the second sultan of the dynasty. He decided to shift the capital a thousand kilometers south to Daulatabad in 1326 AD. The fort held a strategic position on the Southern Road or Dakshina Path, and was ideally located for making raids into southern India. Therefore, the Sultan’s decision was understandable but for the fact that Muhammad insisted that every single inhabitant had to move with him. We have a macabre tale about how an old beggar was too feeble to make the journey. The Sultan had him tied to a cart and dragged along for forty days. Only his feet arrived in Daulatabad.
However, the Sultan soon changed his mind and the entire population was made to trudge back to Delhi. Muhammad now decided to expand the recently repopulated city and invited settlers from the rest of his empire and from Central Asia. He built a set of walls that connected the old city of Lal Kot with the Khilji fortress of Siri. This enclosed a very large area that would be the next city of Delhi—Jahanpanah. Note that the older cities continued to be inhabited. Even some parts of the abandoned Tughlaqabad were used for storage and to house garrisons. Thus, Jahanpanah was probably not entirely built up but contained open areas and even farming communities within the walls. Nonetheless, a massive new palace-complex was built. It is this patchwork of urban settlements that Ibn Batuta saw when he visited Delhi.
Ibn Batuta is one of the greatest travel writers of all time. Originally from Tangier in Morocco, he was a near-contemporary of Marco Polo, and travelled across the known world through North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and India, and eventually to China. He then made his way back to Morocco before orally recording the story of an adventure that had lasted almost three decades. When he arrived in Delhi, Muhammad Tughlaq ruled from his new palace in Jahanpanah. This was a time when the erratic despot was trying to build up the prestige of his court by importing learned Muslim scholars. Ibn Batuta soon found himself a lucrative position and spent several years in the city.
He has left us a very vivid description of the Tughlaq court. He tells us that one had to pass through three gates to enter the Sultan’s audience hall. There was a platform in front of the first gate where the executioners sat. When a man was sentenced to death, he would be executed outside this gate and his body would be left there for three days as a warning to others. The first gate also had a number of trumpeters and pipe-players. Whenever a notable arrived, they would blow the trumpets and loudly announce the person’s name. Between the first and second gates, Ibn Batuta tells us, were platforms occupied by large numbers of palace guards.
At the second gate sat the royal ushers in gilded caps, the chief usher wielding a golden mace. Inside this gate was a large reception hall where people could sit as they awaited their turn. The visitor would then walk up to the third and final gate where scribes entered the person’s name, time of arrival and other details. A nobleman who had failed to attend the court for more than three days without a valid excuse was not allowed beyond this point except by the Sultan’s explicit permission. Beyond this gate was the main audience hall, a large wooden structure of ‘a thousand pillars’. 20
The Sultan sat on a raised throne supported by cushions. An attendant stood behind the king and flicked a flywhisk to chase away the flies. (Well, you cannot leave dead bodies lying around on the front porch for days and not expect flies.) In front of the Sultan would be members of the royal family, the nobility, the religious establishment, the judiciary and so on. Each person was accorded a position according to his status. We are told that when the Sultan arrived and sat down, the whole court rose and shouted ‘Bismillah!’. A hundred of his armed personal guards stood on either side of the throne. Clearly the Sultan was taking no chances.
Most of the nobility and senior officials would have been foreigners—Turks but also Khurasanis, Egyptians, Syrians and so on. Ibn Batuta tells us that Muhammad Tughlaq systematically gave high positions to foreigners. He was not unusually biased. The Turks would have considered themselves as an army of occupation and Indians—both Hindus and local Muslims—would have been treated with contempt. Indeed, there were periods when Indians would have been tolerated within the walls of medieval Delhi only as slaves, menial workers and other service providers. This attitude only changed under the Afghan Suris in the mid-1500s and was institutionalized under Mughal Emperor Akbar. It was a slow transformation. As Percival Spear points out, even under Akbar, most of the nobility was foreign-born. 21
Ibn Batuta tells us that from time to time, the Tughlaq Sultan held banquets. All the guests would be seated by rank. Each person was first given a cup of ‘candy-water’ that they were expected to drink before they ate. Then, the food would be brought from the kitchen in a procession headed by the Chief Usher holding a golden mace and his deputy holding a silver mace. As they walked by, they would cry out ‘Bismillah!’. The food consisted of rounds of unleavened bread, roast meats, chicken, rice, sweets and, interestingly, samosas. After the meal, each person was given a tin cup of barley water to settle the stomach. Finally, everyone was served paan (betel leaves and areca-nuts). When the meal was finished, the chamberlains cried ‘Bismillah!’ and everyone stood up.
We are not sure exactly where Muhammad Tughlaq’s palace stood but the most likely site is the enigmatic ruins of Bijay Mandal, very close to IIT Gate. Very few tourists visit the site and it appears to be used mostly by the teenage boys of nearby Begumpur village to steal a forbidden drink—there are empty beer bottles everywhere. Just behind the Bijay Mandal complex is the impressive Begumpur Mosque which may have once served as the imperial mosque but, again, is rarely visited by tourists. I found the place entirely to myself on a sunny winter afternoon and sat there thinking about Ibn Batuta and the unpredictable Sultan.
Ibn Batuta grew to fear the volatile Sultan over time. He would eventually get himself assigned to an embassy to China and flee. We are told that, as the embassy made its way south, it was repeatedly attacked by bandits. Ibn Batuta tells us that he was captured and nearly killed before being set free. The fact that even an imperial embassy could not safely travel on a major highway shows us the degree to which the interiors of the country had been plunged into chaos by the Turkic invasions.
After many more adventures, Ibn Batuta did eventually make his way to China. Despite his fame in the Arab world, his adventures are barely remembered in India outside of the world of specialist historians and scholars. His memory is now limited to a mention in a somewhat inane but popular Hindi song about his shoe!
One would have thought that after having built three capitals—Tughlaqabad, Daulatabad and Jahanpanah—the Tughlaq dynasty would have grown tired of building. Not so. Muhammad’s successor Feroze Shah Tughlaq was an even more enthusiastic builder. He built many new structures as well as repaired many old ones. He also extended the city northwards by building a fortified palace-complex along the Yamuna called Feroze Shah Kotla. We know that the older Delhis were still inhabited, so it is possible that this was just a royal suburb like Versailles.
The enigmatic ruins of Feroze Shah Kotla are near the busy ITO crossing and just behind the offices of India’s leading newspapers. They were repeatedly cannibalized for building material by builders of later Delhis. Nonetheless, the site contains a three-storeyed pavilion topped by the Ashokan pillar that had been carefully brought there by the Sultan. The complex is said to be inhabited by djinns and people, mostly Sufi Muslims, visit the site to light lamps to assuage and petition them. One will see small offerings and walls blackened by the smoke from the lamps. Some o
f the faithful tie colourful strings to the grill put up by the Archaeological Survey to protect the Ashokan pillar. Thus we have the impossible combination of modern Indians paying their respects to an ancient imperial pillar in order to petition medieval spirits.
Feroze Shah ascended the throne in middle-age and ruled till he died after several years of illness at the age of eighty-one. As with Ashoka, his empire was already weakening while he was alive and, after his death, there was a quick succession of ineffective rulers. The Turko–Mongol marauder Taimur the Lame (also known as Tamerlane) saw his opportunity and swept into the country from Central Asia in 1398. He defeated the Sultan’s army with ease and entered Delhi. Exclusively Muslim enclaves were spared, everything else was pillaged and the entire Hindu population was either massacred or taken away as slaves. 22 Taimur later wrote in his diary, ‘I was desirous of sparing them but could not succeed as it is the will of God that this calamity should befall this city’. Somehow, I am not convinced.
Not surprisingly, after this episode, Delhi went into a period of decline. For the next one and a half centuries, the most important city in India would be Vijaynagar in the far south. We will return to it later. Meanwhile, the Tughlaqs were replaced by a succession of minor dynasties. Although the empire was much diminished, Delhi’s patchwork of urban habitations continued to be a political and economic hub of some importance. Like all dynasties that have ruled this city before and after, the rulers of this period also built grand memorials to themselves. One can visit some of them at Lodhi Gardens in the heart of New Delhi, one of the most beautiful city parks in the world. The rich and powerful of modern India come here for their walks and to discuss the affairs of the world. It is also a good place to watch the extraordinary variety of birds that inhabit Delhi.
In 1526, a Turko–Mongol adventurer called Babur defeated the Sultan of Delhi in what is known as the First Battle of Panipat. We know a great deal about Babur because he has left us a fascinating account of his life in the form of a diary written in Turkish, the Tuzuk-i-Baburi. He was a shameless opportunist, but comes across as a loveable rogue. His enemies may not have seen him as loveable though—I suppose there are some advantages to writing your own history.
Babur had impeccable lineage. He was a direct descendant of Ghengis Khan from his mother’s side and from Taimur the Lame on his father’s side. However, Taimur’s empire had disintegrated by the time Babur was born. At the age of twelve, he inherited a tiny kingdom in the beautiful Ferghana valley in Central Asia. Babur tells us that it could barely support an army of three to four thousand men. 23 This did not deter him from repeatedly trying to capture Taimur’s capital of Samarkand. He even succeeded briefly, but could not hold on to it. Eventually, the Uzbeks chased him out and he made his way south with a tiny band of followers. Ever the adventurer, he won and lost many battles along the way till he gained control of Kabul. It was then that he saw the opportunity of making a raid into India.
It was an audacious plan because his army was much smaller than the Sultan’s, but Babur had a secret weapon—matchlock guns. This was the first time that guns would be used in North India. (South India had already tasted Portuguese artillery a few decades earlier.) Babur decisively defeated the Sultan and quickly went on to beat off all other rivals, including the Rajputs. Thus was born the Mughal (i.e. Mongol) empire in India. Note that the dynasty did not use this term to describe itself. Rather, the Mughals preferred to call themselves ‘Gurkhani’. This is after the title of ‘Gurkhan’ meaning ‘son-in-law’ that Taimur liked to use after he was married to a princess from Ghengiz Khan’s dynasty.
Although Babur had finally conquered a significant kingdom, he always hankered for Samarkand. His opinion of India is rather unflattering: ‘Hindustan is a place of little charm. There is no beauty in its people, no graceful social intercourse, no poetic talent or understanding, no etiquette, nobility or manliness. The arts and crafts have no harmony or symmetry. There are no good horses, meat, grapes, melons, or other fruit. There is no ice, cold water, good food or bread in the markets’. At least, Babur was very candid about why he was in India: ‘The one nice aspect of Hindustan is that it is a large country with lots of gold and money’. 24
Babur died less than five years after he came to India. His empire was inherited by his son Humayun, who started construction on the next Delhi—Dinpanah. Built just south of Feroze Shah Kotla, along the river Yamuna, it included a citadel that we now know as Purana Qila (or Old Fort). As we have already discussed, it was said to be the site of ancient Indraprastha. There is nothing to suggest that this historical association had anything to do with the choice of location. In addition to the citadel, there was a fortified city. Unfortunately, very little has survived of the city of Dinpanah except one of its impressive gates—the Lal Darwaza (or Red Gate). One can see this imposing structure across the road from Purana Qila and Delhi Zoo.
Humayun did not complete either Dinpanah or Purana Qila. He was chased out by a group of Afghan rebels led by Sher Shah Suri and escaped with his family to Persia. It was Sher Shah who completed Purana Qila. He was also a remarkable administrator who carried out many key reforms during his short reign. He re-organized tax collection, minted the first silver Rupiya (precursor to the modern Rupee), and revived the ancient city of Pataliputra (Patna). He also rebuilt the ancient Uttara Path highway from Punjab to Bengal. Known as ‘Sadak-e-Azam’ (or Great Road), it would be a major artery of the Mughal period; the British would know it as the Grand Trunk Road and it is now part of the Golden Quadrilateral highway network.
If Sher Shah Suri had lived longer, it is possible that we would not remember Mughal rule as anything more than one more Central Asian raid. However, he died in a gun powder-related accident after just five years on the throne and Humayun was able to come back and re-occupy Delhi. Humayun too did not enjoy the Purana Qila for long, dying in a curious incident. He had gone to watch the rise of Venus from the roof of his library. One his way down the steep stairs, he tripped on his robe and died from the fall. Humayun’s library building survives in Purana Qila. The stairway, however, is not open to the public and visitors trying to re-enact Humayun’s last moments will be disappointed.
A thirteen-year-old Akbar now became the new ruler. He is usually called the third Mughal Emperor but, in reality, it was he who created the foundations of a stable empire. He not only continued Sher Shah’s reforms but also institutionalized a more liberal relationship with the country’s Hindu majority. 25 This was a major step in the evolution of Indian civilization. Although it is today considered politically incorrect to see it in these terms, it is difficult to deny that, before Akbar, there was a ‘clash of civilizations’ element to Hindu–Muslim interaction in North India. This is evident from both the writings of Muslim authors of that time as well as from the Hindu response to the Turkish invaders.
Take for instance the dogged resistance to the Turks by the Rajput-ruled kingdom of Mewar in southern Rajasthan. The rulers of Mewar did not see themselves merely as kings but explicitly as the custodians of Hindu civilization embodied in the temple of Eklingji, a manifestation of Shiva. The deity was considered the real king of Mewar and this is why its rulers did not use the title of Maharaja (which means Great King) but that of Rana (i.e. Custodian or Prime Minister). It is important to recognize this if one is to understand why Mewar kept up continuous resistance to the Sultans despite suffering extreme hardship over centuries. On three separate occasions, its capital Chittaur was defended to the last man and, even after it fell, the struggle was sustained in the hills. One cannot explain away this behaviour merely in rational political terms.
In order to comprehend this state of mind, one must visit the shrine of Eklingji, less than an hour’s drive from Udaipur. It is a thousand-year-old temple complex wedged into a hillside. If one walks around in the surrounding Aravalli hills, it becomes obvious that they are heavily fortified. The fortifications of Chittaur, Kumbhalgarh and even Udaipur are within a few hours’ dri
ve. Mewar must have been the most militarized place in the medieval world. It tells of a population that considered itself under siege and was prepared to hold out to the end.
By the time Akbar appeared on the scene, however, centuries of conflict had left both sides exhausted. Thinkers like Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh tradition, had already put forward arguments for civilizational accommodation. Emperor Akbar probably had a naturally liberal disposition, but his thoughts also evolved with time. The tipping point may have been the siege of Chittaur, the capital of Mewar, in 1568. The fort fell after many months. The defenders fought literally to the last man and the womenfolk committed ritual suicide (jauhar). Akbar massacred an additional twenty thousand non-combatants. Like Ashoka, eighteen centuries earlier, he may have been shocked by his own savagery.
We now see Akbar laying greater emphasis on reconciliation between the two cultures. In 1555, the Mughal nobility or Omrah, consisted of fifty-one foreign-born Muslims (Uzbeks, Persians, Turks, Afghans). By 1580, the number had jumped to 222 but included forty-three Rajputs and a similar number of Indian Muslims. 26 Not everyone was convinced. On one hand, the orthodox Muslims were very unhappy with the emperor’s liberal attitude. On the other hand, the rulers of Mewar would continue to view him with suspicion and keep up their resistance (perhaps not surprising given their recent experience). The ballads of how Rana Pratap and his army of Bhil tribesmen fought the Mughals can still be heard in the Aravallis of Mewar. His coat of armour and that of his horse Chetak are prominently displayed in the Udaipur City Palace Museum. It would be more than a generation before Mewar would accept a non-antagonistic relationship with the Mughals.
Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography Page 14