Muhammad Bin Tughlaq

by Anuja Chandramouli

  Muhammad remembered the first time he had seen a man die before his eyes. It was during Mubarak Shah’s reign. They tied him spread-eagled between four horses facing in different directions and a large crowd had gathered to watch the proceedings.

  ‘God have mercy! Spare him!’ somebody sobbed.

  ‘Kill the bastard!’

  ‘Rip him apart!’ other voices screamed in unison, and the mood had swung just like that. Dozens roared for blood, drowning out the sounds of sobbing and keening. When the command was given, the riders charged and the man was literally torn to pieces. At first, there had been no blood, and then all of a sudden blood spurted explosively through severed and twitching limbs.

  Muhammad remembered how the detached leg had kicked spasmodically and how the man’s eyes had been open in his head while portions of his body lay separately. There had been unspeakable agony in those eyes which swivelled wildly before they closed forever. His gorge had risen at the sight and he had been revolted. Yet a part of him had been filled with savage glee. Muhammad was reminded of the incident sometimes when they brought in people who faced execution in fetters. He looked back on it now, feeling the familiar, welcome surge of bloodlust.

  The Sultan’s orders had been clear. ‘You shall show no mercy to the treacherous swine who dared to defy their emperor! A quick death is a lot more than they deserve.’

  Unfortunately for the rebels, they had very little to offer by way of resistance, especially when confronted with the vengeful wrath of the Sultan. Their ringleaders, who at least had some military experience from their training for the Khorasan expedition, had organized them into a semblance of fighting units. When they were rounded up, the emperor punished what he viewed as their betrayal with customary severity. They had been skinned alive, while their weapons were melted down and poured over their open wounds. They went to their deaths screaming. But the Sultan wasn’t quite finished and many more would pay.

  Defenceless as most of the rebels were, Muhammad was in no mood to spare them. Not after what they had done. He had given the province of the Doab much leeway and lavished his benevolence and generosity upon the citizens. They had repaid his kindness with treachery and would pay for it with their blood.

  Swords rose high in the air and fell with merry abandon as more and more marked for death were trod under the flying hoofs and ground into the dust. Muhammad ignored the arms raised in supplication, cutting them all down without discrimination. Some hefted their axes futilely. It did them no good.

  His sword ripped open a human thigh and the bearded man gazed at it with comical horror. Muhammad knew that he would bleed to death in seconds. As for him, he hadn’t felt this invigorated in a long time. It was just as the yogis had told him during their sessions together.

  ‘Bhumi Devi, the Earth mother, periodically demands the blood of her children when their numbers and sinful activities become too much for her to bear. The champions enlisted in her cause use the powers at their disposal to bring about death and destruction to clear some much-needed space for themselves as well as others who have been chosen by a higher power to carry on living.’

  ‘That is an interesting way to look at it,’ Muhammad had replied, ‘though I am not sure that I can agree. My will is my own and I am not a puppet whose strings are pulled by my God or yours. I stand by my actions, and when the time comes to answer for them, I will do so secure in my moral integrity.’

  The yogis had smiled at him, their expressions tinged with pity.

  ‘Control is an illusion, and it is only by letting go that you can become the master of your destiny.’ Such mumbo-jumbo amused him but he did agree that for his empire to thrive the wretched and worthless deserved to be culled from it. As the emperor, it was a duty which he tried to fulfil without bringing unnecessary emotions or personal prejudice into it.

  Death was meted out only to those among his subjects who had well and truly deserved it. It was an exhilarating moment of elucidation. Arrows whistled through the air, burying themselves into the scurrying rodents, felling dozens at one time. Muhammad sliced off a man’s head with a powerful double-handed stroke, the impact of which left his shoulders throbbing and shaking.

  Those who were still alive had retreated deep into the woods. They were on foot and it wasn’t difficult to chase them down. But some of the vermin had gotten away and Muhammad was determined not to let them escape their misdeeds.

  ‘Smoke them out!’ he bellowed. ‘Not a single rebel must be allowed to get away!’

  His men hastened to do his bidding. Gathering piles of wood, they doused them with oil and set them alight. Muhammad watched as the flames rose higher and higher, the thick pall of smoke bellowing outwards with the deadly intent of avenging angels, stinging their eyes and driving them back. The searing heat and suffocating fumes flushed the runaway rebels from their hiding holes and straight into the arms of the soldiers who awaited them.

  Some were on fire and performed a macabre shrieking dance. As they burned, the smell of roasted flesh assailed their nostrils. The ones who were unscathed but sputtering and crawling on their knees were quickly executed by the soldiers.

  The rebellion of the Doab ended just as the flames died down. Muhammad was pleased it was all over. He had given orders that the women, children, old and infirm were to be spared and taken to Dilli to one of those homes run by his mother. After all, he was not a coldblooded killer who killed for the pleasure of it. As the emperor, it was merely his prerogative to decide who lived and who died, depending on the merits or demerits of their actions.

  Before storming the Doab region, Muhammad would have liked a respite from his duties to mourn the loss of Saira and come to terms with his anger. How could she have allowed herself to risk the scandal, humiliation and death, all for an illicit union? Why did she have to get caught and cause him so much pain? Why hadn’t she understood that all he had wanted was for her to not judge him as harshly as he judged himself? That with her by his side he had felt less lonely even though he had always been aware that all he ever would have was his own self, and he wanted no part of himself? Why had she loathed his touch without caring that she was the only one who could arouse desire in him? And more importantly, how could he still love and miss her so much? But he did not have the time or luxury to mourn.

  He had been busy ever since he had received reports of what was happening on the Doab, leading expeditions to and crushing insurrections at Baran, Dalmau and Kanauj. Now that he had stamped out the resistance, he looked forward to returning to Dilli and Daulatabad. Hopefully, he could look forward to a period of golden peace. God knew he had earned it.

  They were camped near the Ganga, some 80 kilometres from Dilli, where he had erected a residence for himself that he called Swarga Dhar, verily the gateway to heaven. Muhammad had a bit of a soft spot for the river Goddess. He liked cooling off in her waters and divesting himself of the blood, dust and grime that clung to him like a second skin. He envied all those who lived close to her banks, where they were far from the dust and heat, trouble and turmoil of the city. It was not surprising that she was dear not just to the Hindus but to all the people in his realm. Every time he emerged from her depths, he felt like a new man.

  The vast tract of land between the rivers Ganga and Sutlej, hemmed in by the Siwalik range in the north and the Rajputana region in the south, extending all the way to Kanauj, had always been a bit of a problem area. It was a fertile region and he had taken special interest, hoping that the Doab would become the food basket of the empire as well as a rich and prosperous domain.

  When he had toured the land at the beginning of his reign, he had realized it was going to be an uphill task. For time seemed to have come to a standstill in the villages that dotted these plains. There was little sign of modernity, and nobody had the remotest interest in doing anything but the things that had always been done for hundreds of years. People lived in their little mud- and dried-dung-plastered huts with extended families, though these hovel
s were unfit for pigs and definitely unsuitable for civilized human beings.

  There was no attempt to maintain sanitary conditions, dispose of trash and develop adequate medical facilities or a system for obtaining clean water. People made do with a few wells, though the water was brackish and the carcasses of pigeons or frogs could occasionally be seen floating on the surface.

  There were no towering monuments or elaborate structures, but an abundance of humble shrines, consecrated to obscure local deities. Since his Hindu subjects couldn’t possibly keep track of the thirty-three crore gods in their pantheon, they wisely picked their favourites and tried not to bother about the rest. The villagers knew little about the world outside and weren’t particularly curious. The majority of these people lived and died without ever finding cause to venture away from their homes and farms.

  Farming was their main source of livelihood, and they raised crops like wheat, corn, barley and some indigenous vegetable and fruit varieties. However, their system was entirely haphazard, and the illiterate farmers seemed to be merely going through the motions, content to place their faith in their remote gods and hope for the best.

  They used ancient equipment and sickly beasts of burden. The sight of the farmers using their rickety wooden ploughs and the puny buffaloes that were used to pull them was a depressing one. The yield per acre was abysmal and absolutely no effort was made to improve it.

  The farmers worked their own fields, which were tiny parcels of land. The tenants of rich landowners got marginally better results. These peasants were entirely at the mercy of the elements. They prayed fervently for rain, which was needed for the parched land, but during monsoons and floods their pathetic huts were washed away along with their paltry possessions. If rainfall was scarce, there would be droughts and famines. The crops were also susceptible to attacks by pests and locusts, which could consume the entire yield.

  Rather than work on how best to divert water from the rivers and wells to their fields, the morons embraced their superstitious beliefs with foolish fervour. They regularly consulted with astrologers, witch doctors and charlatans who encouraged them to part with what little money they had and advised them to perform elaborate pujas, chant mantras, wear amulets and charms or procure potions made with saliva and chicken blood to sprinkle in a perfect circle around their dwellings.

  In difficult times, when money was tight but there were taxes to be paid, many mouths to feed, sick children to be taken to local fraudulent physicians, marriages to be celebrated and funerals to be conducted, the farmers grew desperate and borrowed heavily from moneylenders who charged usurious rates of interest and had no qualms about bleeding the wretches dry.

  But despite their plight, the average farmer had a dozen children with more on the way. Muhammad wished there was some way for him to stop them from breeding like rabbits.

  Even when all these obstacles were somehow overcome and the farmers managed a bumper harvest, they still suffered from the fluctuating market prices and had to sell the surplus crops at ridiculously low prices or watch them remain unsold till they rotted away. Muhammad had done whatever he could to help this sorry lot, though he couldn’t help wishing that his subjects would do more to help themselves rather than look to God or their emperor.

  It had been his intention to cultivate vast tracts of land that lay fallow in the Doab region. He had even started a department of agriculture, the Diwan-i-kohi, and stationed experts on growing crops as well as revenue officials to educate and work with the cultivators. The Sultan had invested over 70 lakh tankas in the enterprise. It was too late before he realized that the money might as well have been flushed, along with the contents of his chamber pots, thanks to the ceaseless corruption in his administration.

  He had also sought to help them supplement their incomes by encouraging weaving and raising of livestock. He provided funds for them to buy cows, chickens and lambs so they would have a steady income by selling the milk and eggs, and even encouraged them to rear hawks and falcons to be sold to the nobles for their preferred pastimes. But the idiots, flush with newfound wealth, had frittered it all away.

  While recruiting troops for the Khorasan expedition, the Sultan had even offered generous incentives for them to join the army, educate themselves and travel around the empire. In addition to all of this, he had recused them from taxes for a while.

  Nearly all his efforts had come to nought, and the Doab had become a simmering cauldron of endless conflict leading to open rebellion. Ungrateful wretches! All the money he had sunk into the region had been wasted, stolen by the unscrupulous rascals at the Diwan-i-Kohi, who hadn’t bothered to cultivate the land or invest in new equipment to make the lot of the farmers easier.

  Muhammad had the corrupt officials arrested and marched naked to Dilli with their wrists pinioned behind their backs and feet in chains. Crowds gathered along the way to watch the miscreants, hurling filth and stones at them. On reaching the fortress, he had them suspended upside down from the battlements with nails hammered into their ears and feet. They were left like that to die as the crows plucked out their eyeballs and tore out strips of their flesh.12

  ‘If that doesn’t curtail corruption and thievery, I don’t know what will, sire!’ Ahmad had remarked as they looked up at the gory sight.

  The situation in the Doab continued to worsen, though. After the disaster with Qarachil and the token currency, Muhammad needed to replenish his treasury and on the recommendation of the central ministry, the Diwan-i-vizarat, he increased taxation. He thought it was fair since it was less than what Alauddin Khalji had demanded and only slightly more than the percentage fixed by his father.

  In the Doab, he reintroduced taxes, and the people were furious at having their former concessions taken away from them. They felt that their Sultan was squeezing them so that he could carry on with his frivolous spending and exorbitant lifestyle. Tax collectors feared his wrath if they failed to hand over the revenue dues, and they used harsh measures to force the peasants to pay.

  Things came to a head when many of the disgruntled troops who had been laid off after the Khorasan expedition used their military training to organize themselves into rebel outfits, riled up the farmers, and murdered the collectors and magistrates. Muhammad had sent his centurions to deal with them, but the Amiran-i-sadah were defeated and cut to pieces by the rebel army. Fearing the Sultan’s retribution, they set fire to the crops and scurried into hiding in Baran and Dalmau.

  In Dalmau, they slew Mubarak Malik, the Sultan’s own brother, and nailed his body upside down to the city gate, mimicking the Sultan’s actions. When Muhammad and his troops arrived after flushing the rebels out of hiding in Baran, they were confronted with the horrendous sight of Mubarak Malik. Or what remained of him. The blood had rushed to his extremities and left them engorged. His bulging belly rested on his chest. His genitals and his tongue had been lopped off.

  Molten rage erupted out of the Sultan when confronted with his brother’s mutilated remains. Muhammad and Mubarak had never been particularly close, and yet, the Sultan mourned his loss. Like Bahram, he had done what was asked of him in silence, never asking for anything more than what was offered. More importantly, he hadn’t plotted and schemed to take the throne from him that Muhammad knew of.

  Muhammad had sworn to avenge his brother’s memory and he had. But the massacre of the rebels gave him no satisfaction. All his brothers with the exception of Masud were gone. He wished he had got to know Bahram and Mubarak better. He wished he had not mistrusted them. He wished he could have kept them safe. He wished and he wished before finally giving it all up as yet another exercise in futility.

  5

  Muhammad wasn’t a fool. He knew the people’s discontent against him was on the rise and that his hold over the empire was weakening. They were now calling him Kuni Muhammad, the bloody emperor. It didn’t help that the very elements seemed to be conspiring against him. The drought, which was the worst in living memory, had begun sometime in t
he year 1334, and they had no way of knowing that it would persist for nearly seven years with little or no relief, leaving Dilli and almost the entire northern provinces reeling.

  When the rains failed, so did the crops. The land became parched, baked into hard clay by the fury of the sun, before it cracked and lay in ruins, utterly unfit for civilization. Soon the soil turned to dust and the hot, dry winds blew it around, making sport with the withered hopes of the farmers. Gaunt and emaciated, they stared listlessly at the destruction that was ahead of them.

  The rivers that watered the plains were temperamental creatures who could wash away entire villages and towns but in the scorching climate they had dwindled to a mere trickle. The wells had dried up completely, carrying little more than the bleached scales, bones and withered carcasses of the little creatures that had been their former inhabitants.

  Famine followed close on the heels of drought, bringing untold misery in its wake. The Sultan’s people came to know the true meaning of starvation, and it was not a fate they would wish on their worst enemies.

  Entire flocks and herds died, the flesh having melted away from the bones, making them unfit for consumption, though it didn’t stop the people from cracking the bones, chewing and sucking on them in the vain hope of nourishment. Food shortage was reported in all the northern provinces. Thousands were starving. In some places, the situation was so bad people were reduced to eating grass and leaves. Beggars prowled the streets begging for a handful of rice. Emaciated mothers clutching their infants flung themselves on the ground, beseeching passers-by for a bite to eat.

  Only the vultures were growing fat. Jackals and dogs roamed boldly among the nearly dead and had been known to attack skeletal children. As the corpses started to pile up, the burning ghats by the sides of the rivers found themselves unequal to the task, and bodies were just dumped into the shrinking water reservoirs. More bodies were simply abandoned. Disease and infection were rampant, compounding their misery.