by John Keay
Beset by so many aggressive neighbours, the Seunas had taken the sensible precaution of locating their capital at the base of the most impregnable citadel in western India. A fang of rock, mostly bare of vegetation, vertiginous, accessible only by a labyrinth of caves and shafts, and further strengthened by glowering fortifications plus a Stygian moat, the citadel rises three hundred metres above the plains at a place called Devagiri (Deogir), later Daulatabad, between the rock-city of Ellora and the garden-city of Aurangabad. Here the considerable fortune amassed by the Seunas from revenue, raiding and trade seemed secure. From his eyrie King Ramachandra could survey the core of his kingdom on the upper Godavari river safe in the knowledge that, however his armies fared, his person and possessions were unlikely to be jeopardised.
In 1296 a dry-season offensive against the Hoysalas in Karnataka was being conducted by his son. Devagiri was therefore sparsely defended. But Rama-chandra, nearing the end of a successful reign that had already lasted twenty-five years, was not unduly anxious. A few Muslim troops were already serving as mercenaries in the Deccan. The rigidity of Islam was familiar from centuries of contact, and the aggressive forays of the Delhi sultans north of the Narmada must long have been matter for comment. Three years previously the young Ala-ud-din Khalji had led a plundering expedition from his base at Kara, near Allahabad, and pushed as far south as Bhilsa, near Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. High-value booty had been secured from this ancient capital and from the neighbouring Buddhist centre of Sanchi. But Bhilsa was not halfway from the Ganga to the Godavari; there were still over three hundred kilometres of the ruggedest country between it and Devagiri. To Rama-chandra such barely authorised escapades by some unknown nephew of the remote and unusually pacific Feroz Shah I were scarcely cause for alarm. He was therefore taken completely by surprise when in the spring of 1296 Ala-ud-din suddenly materialised on his precipitous doorstep.
In the event, Rama-chandra was not the only one surprised. Ala-ud-din’s eruption into the Deccan had been kept secret even from his uncle the sultan. In fact, surprising the latter was the higher priority; for as would soon appear, the real target was not Devagiri but Delhi. Ala-ud-din was acting without authority and with comparatively few troops. From Kara via Bhilsa he had stumbled on a secluded route to the rich kingdoms of the Deccan which avoided the still-defiant rajputs of Rajasthan and Malwa. But he needed to complete his mission before it was discovered and countermanded. Speed of movement was therefore essential; he had avoided towns, camping in the jungle and following previously reconnoitred routes. On what was essentially a quest for wealth and prestige, all that mattered was securing a quick submission plus a monumental ransom from the luckless Rama-chandra.
The Khalji’s troops therefore sacked and plundered the town of Devagiri as soon as they reached it. Rama-chandra retired to his citadel and, to the invaders’ distress, looked capable of holding out indefinitely. But after barely a week’s defiance it was found that provisions within the citadel were already running low. With almost indecent haste the adversaries then concluded a pact which even the unexpected return of the Seuna army failed to compromise. Thus, after days rather than weeks, Ala-ud-din and Rama-chandra parted on the best of terms, the invader with a Seuna bride and treasure beyond his wildest dreams, and the invaded with his kingdom intact, his army undefeated, his beliefs uncompromised, and a powerful new Turuska ally.
As planned, news of Ala-ud-din’s remarkable achievement reached the ears of his uncle in Delhi ahead of the reports about his original disobedience. All, if not forgiven, was now beyond reprehension. Ala-ud-din had rediscovered the predatory purpose behind Turkish rule in India; he had established himself as a resourceful and fortunate general; and he had acquired sufficient treasure, plus the possibility of more where that came from, to attract powerful support. Clearly he needed careful handling. The sultan therefore extended his congratulations and, ignoring advice to ambush his ambitious nephew en route, bade him return to Delhi with his plunder. In fact Ala-ud-din headed for the safety of his own fief at Kara on the Ganga. There he eventually inveigled his uncle into paying him a visit. Only a sultan as guileless as the aged Feroz would have accepted such an invitation and have then sailed downriver to the meeting with only a few unarmed attendants and no hope of escape. Needless to say, he had barely stepped ashore when he was cut down. ‘While the head of the murdered sovereign was yet dripping with blood, the ferocious conspirators brought the royal canopy and elevated it over the head of Ala-ud-din.’22
The usurper then made his way to Delhi, gathering supporters as he went by showering the roadsides with coins fired as grapeshot from a specially-designed manjanik. His fellow conspirators were quickly disposed of; such men were obviously not to be trusted. But during a reign of twenty years (1296–1316) Ala-ud-din would not otherwise disappoint the high expectations he had aroused amongst the sultanate’s supporters. Although an illiterate of unremarkable physique and unendearing presence, he combined the scruple-free instincts essential to survival with a paternal and even innovative concern for the welfare of his kingdom. Ala-ud-din’s memory would transcend the eventful years of his reign and become something of a benchmark for later rulers. Much the most successful as well as the most unforgiving of the Delhi sultans, it was he who now directed the victorious progress of Turkish arms throughout India.
Conquest to any lasting purpose it was not. With the exception of Gujarat and parts of Rajasthan and Malwa, very little new territory was brought under direct Khalji rule. No pan-Indian empire under a Turkish or an Islamic dispensation resulted. Mass conversions were almost unknown. Existing rulers were mostly reinstated and, despite promptly acknowledging Delhi’s suzerainty, they rarely fulfilled their tributary obligations unless compelled to do so by the threat of further armed intervention. Ala-ud-din’s victories certainly conjured up amongst his supporters a vision of Islamic dominion throughout India. Perhaps they also reminded his Hindu subjects of those indigenous traditions of universal sovereignty associated with the concept of the cakravartin. But it would be another two hundred years before these ideals were fused into an effective reality; and the credit would then belong neither to the Turkish Khaljis nor their Afghan successors, but to the descendants of those hordes who continued to threaten the very existence of the Delhi sultanate and whom, though known to Europe as ‘Mongols’, contemporary Persian and Indian sources always called ‘Mughals’.
From 1297 to 1303 Ala-ud-din faced almost annual Mongol onslaughts. Delhi itself was twice surrounded, the Doab was ravaged and what is now Pakistan suffered continual Mongol occupations. Whether even the stern Balban could have held the enemy at bay must be doubtful. But after a crushing victory in early 1300 and numerous other lesser triumphs, Ala-ud-din not only stemmed the tide but reversed it. Sind and the Panjab were regained and by the end of his reign Khalji forces were raiding Ghazni, Kabul and Kandahar in Afghanistan. It was by no means the end of the ‘Mughal’ threat. But Ala-ud-din’s successes served as a temporary deterrent and provided a convincing demonstration of the military effectiveness of manoeuvrable Turkish cavalry in combination with a solid Indian elephant-phalanx.
Further demonstrations of military might were witnessed in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Malwa, the Deccan and even the extreme south. Although glossed over in contemporary accounts, there were also setbacks, most notably in Bengal and initially in Andhra. It is clear, too, that Tod’s rajputs gave a good account of themselves, with the great hill-forts of Ranthambhor, Jalor and Chitor withstanding long sieges, occasioning heavy casualties, and inspiring posterity with their legendary jauhars. These hara-kiri rituals had been practised by other doughty patriots ever since Sind was first invaded in the eighth century, but the rajputs of Rajasthan now made them peculiarly their own. When all was lost, when the last scrap of food had been eaten, the last arrow fired, the last water-skin emptied, a pyre was lit and, as the womenfolk hurled themselves into the flames, the men rode out in a still brighter blaze of glory to kill until they were kil
led. Fanaticism was not an exclusively Islamic prerogative. The Khalji forces marvelled that principalities so agriculturally disadvantaged and forts so poorly endowed with treasure should occasion such passionate resistance.
Much less trouble and infinitely more rewarding were the conquests of Gujarat and then Malwa, from where the poet-king Bhoj’s Paramara successors were finally removed. Gujarat, besides being extremely fertile and renowned for both its textiles and its cattle, was further enriched by the maritime trade of Cambay, which had now superseded Broach as north India’s main port on the Arabian Sea. Prodigious spoils resulted from this campaign of 1298, including more gold and precious stones from the rebuilt, and now re-demolished, temple of Somnath; its replacement lingam was again hammered into fragments and reserved for trampling by the feet of the faithful, this time in Delhi. Amongst Cambay’s seized assets the most prized was a Hindu captive who would add particular lustre to the Khalji sultanate. A eunuch and a slave, he quickly espoused Islam but retained the nickname ‘Thousand-dinar Kafur’, presumably a reference to his original valuation. ‘His beauty,’ says Barani, ‘captivated Ala-ud-din’ who thereafter trusted him implicitly and appointed him a Malik-naib, or senior commander.23
The king of Gujarat, meanwhile, had found sanctuary in the fortress of Devagiri where Rama-chandra’s son, if not Rama-chandra himself, had been having second thoughts about the Seuna – Khalji alliance. In 1307, with the arrears of Seuna tribute mounting, Ala-ud-din sent an army to chastise the son and reoccupy the kingdom. Commanded by none other than ‘Thousand-dinar Kafur’ it quickly routed the Seuna forces and again ransacked the capital. Sangama, the Seuna heir, fled. Rama-chandra, however, was taken to Delhi and was there much fêted by the sultan, who reinstated him on his throne and showered him with favours in an unusually creditable display of magnanimity. As a result the Seuna king ‘not only stood firm in his loyalty to the sultan but rendered valuable assistance to the officers whom he sent to subdue the Hindu kingdoms of the south’.24
Pre-eminent amongst these officers was again the inspirational Malik-naib Kafur. In 1309 he headed south for the second time and from Devagiri mounted an assault on the Kakatiyas of Andhra. About eighteen years earlier Marco Polo, while visiting Tamil Nadu by sea from China, had noted the rich diamond finds made in the Andhra country which, he reported, was then ruled by a formidable queen of Seuna birth. She had lost her Kakatiya husband and was acting as regent for her grandson. The grandson was Pratapa-rudra who, coming of age, had since succeeded to the Kakatiya throne, and now withdrew within the fortifications of Warangal as Malik Kafur approached. The siege proved lengthy but Pratapa-rudra eventually succumbed and was relieved of horses, elephants and the usual trunkloads of treasure before being reinstated on the promise of an annual tribute.
Next year Kafur was back in the Deccan, and from Devagiri he this time continued south. The Seunas, relishing the prospect of their Hoysala rivals being the next to be humbled, provided supplies, guides and covering forces. With the distant outline of the Western Ghats tracking his progress, Kafur pressed on south into the interminable Deccan horizon. Halebid, nestling amongst greener pastures, was reached and duly besieged. But Ballala III, the Hoysala king, then opted for terms under which he was to perform much the same escort service in respect of Kafur’s onward march into the Pandya country. It did not mean that Halebid escaped the customary demands for treasure and elephants, but it did mean that Kafur’s troops had traversed the entire Deccan without once having had to fight a battle.
Directed by Kafur, himself born a Hindu under rajput rule, ‘the Muslim conquest of the south’ was partaking more of the digvijaya than the jihad. Claims by Ferishta and others that Malik Kafur built a mosque in Halebid and established Islam throughout Karnataka are deemed a wishful fabrication. ‘Though he served a master who bore the name of Ala-ud-din [i.e. Aladdin] he could not have worked, without the aid of the wonderful lamp, such miracles during a brief stay of less than two weeks.’25
From Halebid the Khalji forces, aided by the Hoysalas, descended into the Tamil country through elysian vales dotted with teak trees, their fallen leaves crackling underfoot like crisp papadums. They spent only a month amongst the rice fields of Tamil Nadu. Again no battles are recorded and the time seems to have been mainly spent in a fruitless pursuit of the elusive Pandyan ruler. It did, though, suffice to strip the temple cities of Madurai, Srirangam and Chidambaram of their solid-gold idols, to empty their gold-filled temple cavities, and to yield much other portable wealth. Such being the whole point of the exercise, ‘Thousand-dinar Kafur’ turned for home heavily laden and well satisfied.
Barani, who witnessed his ecstatic reception in Delhi, puts the campaign’s haul at 612 elephants, twenty thousand horses, ninety-six thousand man of gold and countless boxes of jewels and pearls. Although modern equivalencies are notoriously difficult to work out, ninety-six thousand man is said to correspond to 241 tonnes.26 ‘The old inhabitants of Delhi remarked that so much gold had never before been brought into Delhi. No one could remember anything like it, nor was there anything like it recorded in history.’27
Yet in a thoughtful retrospect of Ala-ud-din’s reign, Ziau-ud-din Barani would place ‘constant succession of victories’ no higher than second in his list of the sultan’s most notable achievements. ‘Rolling back the Mughals’ came third, ‘repairing mosques’ eighth, while ‘rooting out idolatry’ or ‘spreading the true religion’ are not mentioned at all. The sultan was no Islamic bigot: ‘there is no instance to show that Ala-ud-din oppressed some people simply because they were Hindus and favoured others just because they were Muslims.’28 Indeed, if one may judge by his reported interest in founding a new religion centred on his own illustrious person, his faith was decidedly unorthodox. He did extend Aybak’s Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in Delhi, adding the great Alai Darwaza (Ala-ud-din’s Gateway). He also planned a prodigious minaret which, if completed, would have dwarfed that of the Qutb. In fact it never rose much above its current stump height, and should be seen as the aberration of a sultan occasionally deluded by his own success. Like his assumption of the title ‘The Second Alexander’ on his coinage, it was a case of the megalomaniac getting the better of the Muslim.
In Barani’s listing, the first and greatest of Ala-ud-din’s achievements was, somewhat surprisingly, ‘cheapness of grain, clothes and the necessaries of life’. Writing in an old age embittered by extreme poverty, Barani paid particular attention to such matters. His narrative, though coloured by an old-timer’s recollection of palmier days, thus provides the first detailed account of the management of an Indian economy. From it we learn of Ala-ud-din’s cancellation of all land grants and revenue assignments made by his predecessors and of his prohibition of the sale and consumption of alcohol. These measures affected mainly Muslim courtiers and were designed to cow dissent and quell conspiracy. The more draconian ordinances which followed – and which were designed to finance the vast armies required for his Mongol and Deccan campaigns, to eliminate profiteering and reduce the grievances of the Delhi populace – affected Hindus more directly. It is doubtful whether they were ever applied beyond the city of Delhi and its immediate environs. On the other hand, by concentrating on such a manageable entity, they could be enforced to dramatic effect.
Reasoning, apparently, that despite the expected yield of his ‘Aladdin’s cave’ in the south, new troops could not be as handsomely paid nor as well equipped as rising costs and unflinching loyalty demanded, the sultan had hit on the idea of lowering prices. That meant, first and foremost, controlling the grain market. All foodgrains were listed, their prices duly fixed, and markets carefully and ruthlessly supervised. To guard against fluctuations in supply, the yield of the royal lands (khalsa) was stockpiled in city granaries, all transport was so heavily regulated as to be effectively nationalised, and provincial officials were bound to strict procurement targets. For the middleman the avoidance of penalties, invariably of the most barbaric nature, now replaced the accumul
ation of profits as his main incentive. Hoarding, even by the cultivator, kept a network of spies and torturers busy. Although a policy on paper, it became a purge in practice. Yet the results, according to Barani, were truly amazing. Grain prices plummeted, and stayed both cheap and unchanged even in years of drought. ‘This was indeed the wonder of the age, and something which no other monarch was able to effect.’29
The success of this price-fixing policy resulted in its extension to just about every other commodity known to the Delhi bazaars. Textiles, groceries, slaves, whores, cattle, in fact everything ‘from caps to shoes and from combs to needles’ had its fixed price and its market regulators. It was not just one of the first recorded examples of planned economic management but also one of the most ambitious. And therein partly lay its undoing. ‘A camel could be had for a dang [a farthing],’ says Barani, ‘but wherefrom the dang?’ Purchasing power seemed to decline just as fast as prices; and urban sufficiency brought only chronic rural depression. There was no incentive to increase yields. Nor was there any chance of so ambitious a system surviving the heavy-handed authority which alone had made its imposition possible.
When Ala-ud-din succumbed to sickness and then death, both markets and prices simply reverted to the usual free-for-all. Most of his reforms, like most of his conquests, were temporary expedients and anything but proof against the internecine succession crises which now again overtook the sultanate. In the space of four years two of his sons, plus a Hindu convert, occupied the throne and quickly paid the price – a price which, though not fixed, was invariably lethal. So did ‘Thousand-dinar Kafur’, who briefly acted as king-maker; half a dozen other pretenders were either blinded or murdered. Mubarak, the son of Ala-ud-din who occupied the throne for longest, turned out to be what Ferishta calls ‘a monster in the shape of a man’. Most of his indecencies were too gross to mention although not, strangely, his practice of ‘leading a gang of abominable prostitutes, stark naked, along the terraces of the royal palaces, and obliging them to make water upon the nobles as they entered the court’.30