CHAPTER 14 THE DECCAN AND THE DELHI SULTANATE : INDIA, HINDUTVA AND HISTORY
CHAPTER 14: THE DECCAN AND THE DELHI SULTANATE
We now return to the Deccan in the late 13th century. The Yadavas reigned from their capital in Devagiri or Deogarh (today’s Daulatabad) in Maharashtra (423). Around 1296 AD, when the Cholas had been defeated by the Pandyas in far-off southern Tamil Nadu, Alauddin Khilji, not yet on the throne of Delhi, but related to the reigning Sultan Jalaluddin Khilji, invaded Deogarh (424, 425).
The reigning Yadava king, Ram Deo, came to terms with
Alauddin. When Ram Deo’s son, Ramachandra, returned from another front, he
challenged Khilji and lost. Ram Deo again sought terms, which were agreed (426).
Soon after this, Sultan Jalaluddin Khilji was assassinated
by Alauddin. Taking advantage of the ensuing confusion in Delhi, Ram Deo stopped
paying the agreed tribute. Once Alauddin Khilji had stabilised his reign, he
turned his attention to South India once again.
He feared an invasion by the Mongols from the
northwest frontier, and needed all the funds he could gather through tribute. In 1307, the
Sultan sent his general, Malik Gafur, to Deogarh to demand payment of the
tribute (427). He gave strict orders for Ram Deo’s life to be protected and for
civilian inhabitants to be spared. The historian Ferishte records that when
Gafur entered Deogarh “he took the inhabitants under his affectionate
protection and would not allow even an ant to be injured (428).”
Raja Ram Deo again asked for an accord. Malik Gafur escorted him to Delhi to negotiate terms directly with the Sultan (429).
The Raja was received with great ceremony by the Sultan. Pearls and precious stones were showered on him when he entered the court. Ferishte has written that “the honour accorded to Rama Deva [Ram Deo] was such that the people of the court could make no distinction between him and the Sultan (430).”
According to Ferishte, Khilji was genuinely grateful and well-intentioned toward Ram Deo as he believed that he had been able to gain the throne of Delhi owing to the treasure of Deogarh. Sultan Alauddin Khilji’s interest was in revenues, and not annexation.
A tribute was agreed, and an alliance sealed with the marriage
of Sultan Alauddin to a daughter of Ram Deo’s called Jhatyapali (431).
The exchange was not entirely one-sided. Ram Deo was
given the district of Nausari in Gujarat as a gift and one lakh of gold tankhas
(430). He was sent back to the throne of Deogarh with the title “Rai Raiyan” (432).
However, Ramachandra, Ram Deo’s son, was once again unhappy
about settling with Delhi. He challenged Malik Gafur, but lost again (427). Ram
Deo denounced his son in the course of these affairs (431).
At this time, Andhra country was ruled by the Kakatiya
Raja Pratap Rudra, grandson of Ganapati Deva whom we read about in previous
chapters. Two years after the alliance with Deogarh, in 1309, Malik Gafur was
sent by Sultan Alauddin to obtain tribute from the neighbouring Kakatiyas (433).
Pratap Rudra sued for peace, and was appointed a tributary of the Delhi Sultan (434).
Having entered into a
tributary alliance with the Yadavas of Devagiri in Maharashtra as well as the
Kakatiyas in Telangana, Alauddin Khilji now set his sights on kingdoms farther
south (435). At this time, Karnataka was under the Hoysalas, and Tamil country
was under the Pandyas.
Veera Ballala, called
“Bilal Deo” by the northerners in Delhi, sat on the Hoysala throne. In Madurai,
Vira Pandaya and his half-brother Sundara Pandya were in a pitched battle of succession.
In the winter of 1310, Malik Gafur left Delhi for
Dvarasamudra (today’s Halibedu in Karnataka), the Hoysala capital (436). As
allies of Khilji, Pratap Rudra of Telangana sent forth twenty-three elephants,
and Ram Deo sent advance troops to the gates of Dvarasamudra under his Dalavay
or Commander-in-Chief, Parasuram Deo (436).
Ram Deo was hostile to the Hoysalas on his own account,
as they had recently seized some of his territory (437). Moreover, the Yadavas
and Hoysalas, though probably originating in the same clan, had a long history
of conflict between them.
Hoysala Veera Ballala was away from Dvarasamudra at
the time of Gafur’s advance upon his capital. He had marched on Madurai with
the intention of plundering it while the Pandyas were distracted with their internecine
fight (438).
He turned back for his capital on hearing that
Khilji’s men were headed there. Vira Pandya is said to have sent his men to aid
the Hoysala against Malik Gafur. He probably hoped to get Hoysala support in
his own contest against Sundara Pandya.
But Veera Ballala decided not to fight Alauddin
Khilji. He sued for peace and, as in the case of Ram Deo, was sent by Malik
Gafur to negotiate terms directly with the Sultan in Delhi. The Hoysala
returned sometime later as an ally of Khilji’s.
Khilji was now in alliance with all the Deccan
kingdoms except those of Tamil country in the deep south. Unexpectedly, he
received an invitation from there itself. It came from none other than the
Pandya royal – Sundara (439)!
In the 13th century, the Pandyas had risen
to become the most powerful of the Tamil rajas. They defeated both the Cholas
and Pallavas, keeping them in place in their respective domains as subordinates.
They had driven the Telugu chieftains from Tamil lands.
These Telugu chieftains settled around the Krishna River
in Andhra country. The Pandyas also drove the Hoysalas out of Tamil country,
killing Hoysala Somesvara. This act was deeply resented by the priests at
Srirangam in Trichy, owing to the historic connection of the Hoysalas with the
legendary priest of Srirangam - Ramanujacharya.
In Madurai, the reigning Pandya
Kulasekhara had designated his son, Vira Pandya, as his successor. At the end
of the 13th century, Sundara Pandya, his other son killed the Kulasekhara in a bid to beat his half-brother Vira to the throne (440). But Vira
succeeded to the throne, nevertheless. The Hoysala’s alliance with Khilji may
have prompted Sundara Pandya to think of making a similar alliance in order to
strengthen his hand against Vira Pandya.
By one account, Sundara
Pandya had been deposed by Vira Pandya and fled to Alauddin Khilji for
protection, and it was then that the alliance was formed for Khilji to send in
forces to Madurai on Sundara Pandya’s behalf (441). Malik Gafur marched on
Madurai and Vira Pandya decamped, taking his queens with him.
After raiding Madurai,
Chidambaram and, possibly, Rameshwaram, Malik Gafur returned to Delhi, leaving
a garrison of soldiers in Madurai to support Sundara Pandya (442). Some legends
of this heavily contested region say that Malik Gafur’s men attacked temples at
Chidambaram, but there are similar legends saying that such attacks occurred in
the course of earlier conflicts between the Cholas and Sri Vaishnavites.
As Khilji was keen on
alliances and Gafur had entered Madurai at the invitation of Sundara Pandya, it is
unlikely that he would have attacked any temples as a religious crusade.
Wherever they would have gone would have been at the instruction and
information of Sundara Pandya, who may well have instigated attacks on Chola
temples as they had supported his rival Vira.
When Malik Gafur came into Pandya territory he
encountered Muslims who had already been living there (443).
As described in Chapter 12, Arabs had been coming to
the eastern and western coasts of the Southern Peninsula for centuries, even
before the advent of Islam. There were also Arab settlements associated with
the ports all along the Andhra, Tamil, Karnataka and Kerala coast (338A). Typically,
Arabs officiated at these posts. At the time of the defeat of the Cholas by the
Pandyas in the 13th century, Turko-Persian Muslims, called “Tajiks”
(they may well have come from Tajikistan) had also been entering the Deccan for
trade and other reasons via North India from Central Asia and Afghanistan.
As an ally of the Delhi Sultan’s, Pratap Rudra also
invaded the Pandyas in Kanchipuram in 1311. He used this opportunity to supress
a rebellion against him among the chiefs of Nellore in Andhra territory (445).
Around this time, a warrior chieftain by the name of
Sangama, who was in service of the Hoysalas, began to rise in importance (446).
He had five sons, including Harihara and Bukka who went on found the
Vijayanagar kingdom.
In 1313, one of the Sangama sons, Kampanna, came to
prominence in Kolar on the southeast of Karnataka country.
Soon after making the alliance with the Hoysalas, the
Delhi Sultanate got caught up in its own intrigues up in North India (447). Alauddin
Khilji was on his death bed, and Malik Gafur began intriguing against his son
and appointed heir, Khizr Khan, in a bid to usurp power for himself (447A).
The Kerala raja, Ravi Varman Kulasekhara, seized the
opportunity to annex Madurai, Tiruvadi (South Arcot) and Kanchi (448). The
Yadava and Warangal rajas re-asserted themselves in Maharashtra and Telangana,
respectively.
Malik Gafur managed to get Sultan Alauddin to sign on
a deed that named Jhatyapali’s infant son as heir apparent in place of Khizr
Khan. Sultan Alauddin died soon after and Malik Gafur had Khizr Khan blinded.
However, Malik Gafur was unable to rally support and was soon assassinated (449).
Qutubuddin Mubarak Shah, Alauddin’s eldest son, took
the throne of Delhi. He decided to re-establish Delhi’s lost control over the
Deccan. The Yadava king was ousted and killed. Deogarh was annexed and placed directly
under a governor appointed by the Delhi Sultanate (450). Mubarak Shah also set
up military posts in Gulbarga and the Hoysala capital of Dvarasamudra in
Karnataka.
He also built a mosque in Deogarh. The mosque had carved
pillars, said to have been taken from a Hindu temple. The historian SK Aiyangar,
irretrievably closed to the idea of any shared culture of the Hindus with
India’s Muslim rulers – a communal attitude that he shared with most Tamil
historians of the early 20th century - says dismissively that the
effect of “Hindu carvings in the temple of monotheism is most incongruous”, and
attributes it to Mubarak being a “debauchee” and a bigot (450).
However, Mubarak had grown-up in a household that
included many Hindu-born members – his step-mother Jhatyapali, and his
sister-in-law and the favourite wife of his brother Khizr Khan, Dawal Rani. Amir
Khusroe worked on a masnavi (a highly stylised poem) to Dawal Rani whose initial
draft had been written by the adoring Khizr Khan himself (451).
Mubarak Shah’s closest associates included his general
Khusrau Khan, who was said to have been taken as a Hindu-born slave boy into
the service of the Delhi Sultanate. Khusrau Khan had close relations with the
Hindu warrior clan called “Baradu”. They eventually conspired with Khusrau Khan
to assassinate Mubarak Shah, but that is getting a little ahead of events.
Suffice it to say here that Mubarak’s sentiments regarding the mosque containing
Hindu pillars in Deogarh may have been very different to what is surmised by Aiyangar.
As was usual at the time among tributaries when there
was a change of guard in their suzerains, Pratap Rudra tested Mubarak Shah by
stopping the tribute to Delhi. In 1318, Sultan Mubarak sent forth Khusrau Khan
to deal with the Telugu raja. Once again, negotiations ensued, and terms were
agreed. Pratap Rudra remained in place as a tributary. Khusrau Khan proceeded
deeper south, reaching Madurai where he is said to have plotted to capture the
throne of Delhi for himself (452).
Khusrau Khan returned to Delhi from his southern
campaign as very powerful, and received much favour from the unsuspecting Sultan
Mubarak Shah. But in 1320, Khusrau Khan, together with a posse of Hindu Baradu
recruits, assassinated Mubarak Shah, taking the throne of Delhi for himself.
Khusrau Khan was unable to consolidate his position. He
was seen as a usurper. The use of Hindu soldiers to kill Mubarak Shah also placed
a communal colour on the whole affair (453).
Some historians believe that Khusrau Khan’s policy of
appointing Hindus whom he had recruited and befriended in South India to
positions in Delhi was widely resented; although other historians have
demonstrated from the record that he did not give any positions to his Baradu
soldiers, and that many of the Muslim high officials who served the Khiljis had
accepted office under him.
Be that as it may, Khusrau Khan was not allowed to
rule. Within two months he was deposed in a mutiny led by one of his generals,
Malik Fakkhruddin. This general’s father, Ghazi Malik, a Khilji governor,
ascended to the throne of Delhi as Sultan Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq (454).
Pratap Rudra again ceased paying the tribute to Delhi.
Sultan Ghiyasuddin sent his son, Ulugh Khan, to deal with the Telugu raja. After
an initial defeat, in 1323 Ulugh Khan was victorious against Pratap Rudra. But
Ulugh Khan did not kill him, as the idea in Delhi was still to obtain tribute
rather than annexation (456). So, as with earlier Deccan rajas, Pratap Rudra
was set off under escort to negotiate terms with the Sultan in Delhi.
However, like many South Indian rajas who ended their
own lives after defeat in war, Pratap Rudra is said to have given up his life
in a ritual suicide en route to Delhi at the Narmada River (457). There
is a parallel tradition that Pratap Rudra did not die, but was received well by
Tughlaq (458). Either way, the outcome
of this episode was that the Kakatiya dynasty was weakened and local chiefs who
had been appointed governors or “Nayakas” by the Kakatiyas now took over.
The status of Madurai is unclear at this point. The
historian Nilakanta Sastri says that Ulugh Khan also sent his men down to
Madurai and took the reigning king, Parakramadeva Pandya, prisoner to Delhi. According
to him, the Delhi Sultans counted Madurai as a tributary from then on. But it
does not appear that Delhi’s de facto control extended to Madurai until later
(459).
In 1325, Ulugh Khan, ascended to the throne of Delhi.
He took the name Mohammad bin Tughlaq. In 1326-7, he decided to consolidate his
Deccan holdings by moving his capital to Deogarh in Maharashtra, which he
renamed Daulatabad, and decreeing that his nobles should move there from
Delhi (460).
This was a hugely unpopular decision. It was among Mohammad
bin Tughlaq’s deeds that earned him the moniker of the “Mad Sultan” (461). Though,
to be fair, if the Sultan wished to expand his empire southwards, then moving
the centre to Daulatabad from Delhi made sense. But Mohammad bin Tughlaq, like
many unpopular kings before and after him, lacked tact and a sense of
proportion.
He seems to have carried out his plans with too firm a
hand. He was said to have been so determined to move Delhi to Daulatabad that
even when only two inhabitants were left behind – a blind man and a lame one,
he had them, respectively, fired from a catapult, and dragged by the remaining leg
out of Delhi (462)!
This was, of course, a great exaggeration. It was his
amirs and sheikhs that Tughlaq had wanted to move to Daulatabad. He even wanted
the sufis of Delhi to move as that would have encouraged the others, but many,
such as the legendary Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, refused.
Mohammad bin Tughluq has a bad reputation, but it is
worth noting that a Sanskrit inscription has been found staying that he had
ordered the repair of a Shiva temple in Kalyan (Bidar, Northern Karnataka in
former Yadava domains) in order to restore worship there (463).
He also appointed local Hindu chieftains and
ex-feudatories of the Yadavas to revenue districts called “iqtadaris” in
Gulbarga (now “Kalaburgi”, in northern Karnataka), and other Yadava lands.
Between 1327 and 1328, Muhammad bin Tughlaq brought
Andhra and Karnataka country back into allegiance with Delhi. He also sent one
of his commanders, Sharif Jalaluddin Ahsan Shah, to take Madurai (464). Ahsan
Shah appears to have been successful, as coins were struck in Madurai in the
name of Mohammad bin Tughlaq in 1330 and 1333.
Throughout this time, the Hoysalas held to their
alliance with Delhi, atleast in name. But the Sangama brothers (mentioned in
page 253) were eating away at Hoysala control. The same year as Mohammad bin
Tughlaq shifted his capital to Daulatabad, another Sangama brother, Muddamma,
took over authority in Mysore (465).
In this way, the Sangama clan rose in Karnataka on the
strength of the Tughlaqs in Delhi. The Hindutva depiction of this history glosses
over all this when it calls the Vijayanagar Empire founded by the Sangam
brothers the last “Hindu” empire of India.
The Raja of Kampili, Kampiladeva, in Bellary on the border between Hoysala and Yadava lands had held out from the start against the Delhi Sultans (466). His resistance to the Delhi Sultanate was not based on religion. He had good relations with the Muslim governors in Maharashtra. But he did not want to become a tributary of Delhi. He also had hostile relations with both the Hoysalas and Warangal (Andhra country).
Tughlaq’s Deccani governors were in a rebellious mood against the Delhi Sultan themselves. When Tughlaq demanded tribute from Kampiladeva, he made an alliance with the governor of Sagar (in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh), Bahuddin Gushtap (or “Gurshap/Garshap”), who was a cousin of Tughlaq’s, with rival claims to the throne of Delhi. Later, when Tughlaq sent his forces to the Deccan to deal with his wayward governors and subdue Kampili, Gushtap took refuge with the latter (467).
A battle ensued. When defeat by Tughlaq’s forces
looked inevitable, Kampiladeva sent Gushtap to the Hoysalas. It is not clear
what Kampili intended with this act when the Hoysalas were still allies of the
Tughlaqs and therefore likely to give Gushtap up to the sultan.
Kampiladeva died on the battlefield and his women are said to have committed sati along with his children. But atleast some of Kampiladeva’s sons lived beyond this episode, as eleven of them are said to have been taken into care by Tughlaq, and three of them were re-appointed by the Delhi Sultan as amirs (468).
Veera Ballala Hoysala gave up Gushtaq to Tughlaq who
flayed the rebel alive, stuffed his body and had it paraded in his various
provinces. He is then said to have had the body cooked and fed to the dead
Gushtaq’s unsuspecting wife and children (470)! True or not (I am inclined to
disbelieve such excess on the part of Tughlaq), this was the reputation of the
Mad Sultan.
A former Khilji commander called Zafar Khan and his
brothers, who were already present in the Maharashtra region when Mohammad bin
Tughlaq rose to power, distinguished themselves in the battle of Kampili. As a
reward, Zafar Khan was given the iqta (governorship) of Sangli and Belgaum in
Maharashtra (476).
Even so, Zafar Khan and other Muslim nobles and
generals in Maharashtra who had served under the Khiljis, continued to dislike
the “Mad Sultan” intensely.
Though Mohammad bin Tughlaq was able to greatly expand
the boundaries of the Delhi Sultanate, which at one point reached its largest
size ever under him, he was unable to hold on to his dominions.
He made ambitious plans to invade China and Persia,
even raising a huge army whose expenses began to empty his treasury. To
replenish his coffers he raised taxes, causing dissatisfaction all around. He
also tried to introduce copper coins in an attempt to restore the collapsing
economy. But there was widespread forgery, and this policy too ended in
disaster (471).
By 1331, the Telugu Nayakas were in control of all the
eastern coastal region from the River Mahanadi in present-day Odisha to the
River Gundlakumma in Nellore (at the centre of Andhra Pradesh’s eastern coast) (472).
A Telugu Nayaka called Somadeva, the ancestor of a later Vijayanagar dynasty
(the Aravidu dynasty), led a revolt against Tughlaq’s governor in Kampili. Even
the Hoysalas asserted themselves against Delhi, by invading Kampili (472A).
Somadeva Nayaka was able to capture forts in the fertile
Raichur Doab where the Tungabhadra meets the Krishna River. The Raichur Doab
was fought over for centuries thereafter by rival powers in the Deccan.
Soon all of Tughlaq’s holdings in the Deccan were on
the boil. Even the alliance with the Hoysalas was weakening. Local chiefs, like
Sangama mentioned earlier, became increasingly assertive. Many of them allied
with the Delhi Sultanate directly, thus releasing themselves from Hoysala
authority. Among them were the ambitious sons of Sangama, Harihara and Bukka.
Harihara obtained appointment as an amir directly by the Tughlaq administration
in the Deccan (455).
Harihara and Bukka, with their local chieftain lineage
and experience in the Deccan, presented the best hope for settling matters
there. They were deputed by Tughlaq as governors to Kampili, and charged with
restoring order to his domains in the Deccan (469).
It is said that the Sangama brothers had served in
Pratap Rudra’s armies and moved to Kampili after he fell. They had been
captured by Tughlaq’s forces in the war against Kampili, and this is how they
came to be recruited by the Sultan. We will discuss this in further detail in
the next chapter.
Madurai Sultanate
Rebellions now broke out against Tughlaq in Sindh and
Multan in the North. Taking advantage of the Sultan’s distraction there, in
1335, Jalaluddin Ahsan Shah declared independence in far-off Madurai (473). Coins
were struck in Jalaluddin’s name.
Aiyangar says that Mohammad bin Tughlaq reacted by
cutting Jalaluddin’s son in half (474). But it is unlikely that Jalaluddin, who
was securely ensconced in Madurai and free to choose his moment, would have
acted when his son was so vulnerable to Tughlaq.
The period to follow in this region is referred to as
the “Madurai Sultanate”. The areas within the Madurai Sultanate were Madurai,
Tirunelveli, Ramanathapuram, parts of Pudukkotai and Trichy. It may have
included Chidambaram in Tanjore.
Interestingly, the Hoysalas never challenged
Jalaluddin when he usurped the throne of Madurai, though they allied with the
Nayakas of Warangal to declare independence from Tughlaq at the same time.
The Sangama brothers, who would go on to found the
Vijayanagar kingdom, the last great “Hindu” rajas according to proponents of
Hindutva, too did not challenge him, even though Sultan Ahsan Khan would have
been quite isolated, alteast from any Muslim assistance, in Madurai.
This surely means that the Madurai Sultanate was
accepted by the Hindus at the time, including the future founders of the
Vijayanagar Empire. If Vijayanagar saw itself, as a handful of Tamil scholars such
as Aiyangar and Sastri writing in the early 20th century claim, as a
Hindu bulwark against Muslim rule, then the Madurai Sultanate should have been
the first to be dislodged.
The fact that Muslims were accepted in Madurai is also
evidenced by the presence of the Kazimar mosque and
dargah here since the time of the Pandyas as described in Chapter 13. By
the 14th century, the South Indian rajas also had communally mixed
armies. Ibn Batuta recorded in his chronicles that the Hoysala king, Veera
Ballala, had twenty thousand Muslims in his army, consisting of slaves and
prisoners of war (475).
In 1336, within months of Jalaluddin Ahsan Khan’s
seceding from Delhi, there was an uprising in Warangal led by a local Telugu
chieftain, Kapala Nayaka. He was joined by all the Nayakas of the former Kakatiya
kingdom who declared independence from Delhi (476A).
Kapala Nayaka and Hoysala Veera Ballala formed an
alliance, and took the region of Tondaimandalam, comprising southern Andhra and
parts of northern Tamil Nadu (Arcot) upto Chennai. In the Tamil districts of
Tondaimandalam, the Kapala Nayaka and Veera Ballala entered an alliance with
the local rulers of the Sambuvarayar dynasty.
The Sambuvarayar had ruled Tondaimandalam as
subordinates of the Cholas and then the Pandyas since the 13th
century AD. They built a strategic fort in Rajagambhiram that could give
advance warning of any attacks from the north.
The coastal region from the River Godavari to Kalinga
(Odisha) was brought under the control of the Telugu Koppula Nayakas. Kondavidu
in Eastern Andhra country came under the Reddy clan. In south-west Telangana,
the Valama (Velama) Nayakas established the principality of Rajakonda (in the
hills of Nalgonda) (476A). By 1336, all of Andhra and Telangana were under the
Telugu Nayakas.
The Sangama brothers too asserted themselves, holding
a rajyabhishekha (coronation) in the Virupaksha temple in the town of Hampi,
which they named Vijayanagar (476B). Hampi was north of the Hoysala centre of
Dvarasamudra.
The Sangamas were now in open contention in the Deccan
theatre. However, while they consolidated their position, the Hoysalas remained
in power in Dvarasamudra, and continued to remain actively engaged with the
Telugu Nayakas in trying to assert themselves against Tughlaq.
Matters simmered on in the Deccan till 1339 when Zafar
Khan and his brothers rose in open rebellion against Mohammad bin Tughlaq. They
seized the forts of Gulbarga and Bidar in Karnataka, and of Sagar in Madhya Pradesh
(476).
At the same time Harihara seized important centres
such as Bijapur (today Vijayapara) and Shimoga in Karnataka, and Chingleput in
north-east Tamil Nadu (476C).
In 1340, Jalaluddin Ahsan Shah was assassinated by one
of his nobles (474). A former Sultanate courtier, Alauddin Udauji, took the
throne of Madurai. In the same year, the Sangama brothers took control of
Vatapi or Badami in Karnataka.
Udauji tried to invade northern Tamil country, which
was then under the Hoysalas. Notably, the Sangama brothers did not come to the
aid of the Hoysalas. Udauji was assassinated within a year and succeeded by his
son-in-law, Qutubuddin. A mere forty days later, Qutubuddin was in turn
assassinated by Ghiyasuddin Dhamghani (477).
Sultan Dhamghani had a reputation for cruelty similar
to that of Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s. It was only now that the Madurai Sultanate
was challenged by Hoysala Veera Ballala.
The Hoysala raja may have seen an opportunity in the
Sultan’s unpopularity. Fighting commenced, but in 1342 Sultan Dhamghani
defeated and killed Veera Ballala. The Sultan was said to have treated Veera
Ballala atrociously. He did not give the Hoysala raja the amnesty usually
granted to kings, and strung his body up in public in Madurai.
But Dhamghani’s victory was short-lived. Within weeks
he died, probably poisoned by his own people.
The Sangama brothers did not come to the aid of Veera
Ballala in his battle with Dhamghani or to that of his son and crowned
successor, Virupaksha Ballala IV (478). Instead, the Sangamas used the death of
Veera Ballala as an opportunity to take control of as many Hoysala territories
as they could.
By 1342, Harihara had acquired the Muslim township of
Honawar from Hoysala territory on the west coast. Here he was known as “Horaib”
(444). He also took control of the Bangalore and Kolar areas of southern
Karnataka.
Had the Sangama’s aim been Hindu rule, then they would
have been able to establish this on a firm footing by supporting the new
Hoysala king. However, this was clearly not their objective. The Sangama
brothers were focussed on establishing their own rule in South India.
In the meanwhile, Tughlaq supressed the revolt begun
by Zafar Khan. He banished Zafar Khan to Afghanistan, and appointed a new
governor in Daulatabad. For a while matters settled under the new governor of
Daulatabad, Qutlugh Khan, who was popular all around.
But Tughlaq dismissed Qutlugh Khan in 1344, catalysing
another large-scale rebellion. In 1345, Hindus and Muslims all over Tughlaq’s
empire rose against him. Besides the revolts in the Deccan, there were revolts
in Malwa (Madhya Pradesh), Gujarat and Daulatabad (479).
Tughlaq was able to get the better of the revolt in
Gujarat. His rebel amirs tried to flee to Daulatabad but were overtaken and
massacred by his forces. Those who managed to survive sought refuge with the
Hindu raja of Baglam, Man Deo. Baglam lay on the road between Gujarat and
Daulatabad. However, Raja Man Deo imprisoned and plundered them in turn (480).
Further south, practically all of Hoysala territory
had come under the Sangama brothers. They ousted the sitting Sambuvarayar raja in
Arcot and Chingleput, installing another Sambuvarayar as their tributary,
giving themselves the title of Sambuvarayar Sthapanacharya (“the Ones Who
Installed the Sambuvarayar”) (481).
Thus, even with Tughlaq in action all around, the
Sangama brothers were targeting Hindu rajas. Another example of how religion
was irrelevant to developments in South India at this time, as at others. Hindutva
readings completely, and maliciously, mischaracterise as some sort of religious
or civilisational war, the competition and contest for the kingdoms of the
Deccan in this period, as at others.
It was Hindu rajas, chiefs and ambitious commanders
who themselves brought in or capitalised on the presence of the Muslim rulers
in South India. The Sultans joined the theatre of the Deccan in the same spirit
as the other jousting rajas there. Religion was incidental to the course of
events all around.
Before proceeding further, we must pause to note
something extraordinary that was set off by Khilji’s excursions into the
Deccan. Khilji’s alliances with the South Indian rajas mark the first coming
together into political alliance of North and South India.
The entry of Alauddin Khilji into the Deccan, for all
that it was with an eye to gaining the resources for his own ascension to the
throne of Delhi, broke the ground as it were and, more importantly, opened the
mind to the possibilities of confederation rather than competition between the kings
on either side of the Vindhyas.
This was a momentous turn in Indian history, that set
the North and South of India on the path that eventually led to their forming
into a single polity in modern times. In this sense, it is in the first
alliance between the Khiljis and the Yadavas of Deogarh that the modern Indian
nation has its beginnings.
We in India have not yet understood the full
significance of our early medieval history. There is a tendency to focus on the
later Mughal era, and a generally North-centric approach among historians that
misses some of the important dynamics that were created by the engagement of
North and South India with each other through the medium of the politics set
off by the incursions of the Delhi Sultanate into the Deccan.
I ask readers to note in the chapters to follow how,
from this point onwards, the most ambitious and daring kings and warriors of
North and South India adopted a pan-Indian vision as a pillar of their state
policy. This pan-Indian vision is something that actually unites some of the
greatest adversaries that emerged on the scene from this time onwards, such as
Shivaji and Aurangzeb.
The logic of a coming together of the North and South,
once presented, proved to be irresistible to anyone who had the talent and
vision to see its potential. After Khilji, no great statesman of North or South
India was able to ignore the rich promise of such a merger.
At the same time, not one of them succeeded in uniting
North and South India. Indeed, their aspiration for the Deccan, was the nemesis
of both Tughlaq and Aurangzeb. But this was precisely because they failed to
understand that it could only be done by alliance between North and South India,
rather than, as they sought, by take-over.
Another point that deserves inquiry is why, when the Shakas,
Parthians, Kushans, Huns, Turks and Mongols who settled in Persia, Central
Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North West India were open to and eventually
adopted the religions of their subjects, becoming Zoroastrian, Buddhist,
Christian, Manichean, Jain, Hindu or Muslim, this did not happen in India.
This question acquires particular relevance as it is
clear that in the early years of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mamluks and Khiljis,
were not particularly observant; were keen to integrate with their Hindu
subjects; and were aware of their vulnerability in terms of numbers as Muslims,
as compared with their vast population of Hindu subjects.
Hindutva interpretations of history, not surprisingly,
attribute this to the “intolerance” and other negative characteristics that
they are always willing to claim against Islam, while avidly cultivating
intolerance in themselves. However, another plausible explanation is simply the
nature of Hinduism by the age of the Delhi Sultanate, which did not allow
anyone entry into the fold of their religion.
Even fellow Hindus, as we will see in the case of
Harihara and Bukka, the founders of the Vijayanagar Empire, and founder of the Maratha
Empire, Shivaji, were resisted from aspiring to kingship by the Hindu orthodoxy
as they were in the case of the former rumoured to have been converts to Islam,
and in the case of the latter said not to be from the Kshatriya caste which was
alone, in the lights of the orthodox Hindus, entitled to rule.
An interesting eccentricity of the Hindu mind in those
times is that these objections were raised only against those who wished to
rule as Hindu kings, and not against those who ruled as Muslims, whether
Turko-Persian or native converts!
This tendency for exclusionism was an abiding feature
of Hinduism since the ancient Vedic age. As we studied in earlier chapters, the
pre-Puranic priests of the Vedic faith were more interested in performing
expensive yagyas that could only be afforded by kings, than in reaching out to
the common people.
There were even restrictions upon who was entitled to
hear and recite the Vedas. That the Vedas and other Hindu scriptures were in
the elite language of Sanskrit, whereas by the time of the Buddha and Mahavir, as
far back as the 6th century BC, it was Prakrit that was the language
of the common people, added further layers of separation between the ordinary
people and the Hindu faith.
Whereas other faiths, including those that emerged in
India, such as Buddhism and Jainism, welcomed new entrants, Hinduism was always
more focussed on whom to exclude on grounds of having breached touch (“pollution”)
taboos, dietary norms and other rules.
There was even a notion that those who left their
village or travelled over the seas, lost their caste. There was no notion of
“becoming” Hindu or being brought into the fold of the Vedic religion. You were
born Hindu, and born into your particular caste, and if not, then you were an
outsider.
There were phases when Hindus dropped this exclusionary
attitude, for instance, during the times of Adi Shankaracharya and
Ramanujacharya, when the Hindu priesthood decided to convert people away from
the competing faiths of Buddhism and Jainism, as we studied in previous
chapters. There is also a tradition that the Huns when they entered India were accepted
into the Hindu fold as Kshatriyas by the Brahmins as they felt the need to
cultivate a warrior class as a bulwark against further invasion on the route
taken by the Huns.
However, by the time of the establishment of the Delhi
Sultanate in the 13th century, Hinduism had long supplanted Buddhism
and Jainism. It was under no compulsion leave its usual attitude of exclusion
to welcome any new entrants.
Even when Hindu prisoners-of-war escaped Muslim
captors, they would not be readily accepted, and were often disowned by their
own community or demoted from their caste (482).
The openness of the early Delhi Sultans to embracing
Hinduism can never be firmly established, as even Muslim historians of modern
times do not allow themselves to make such speculations.
However, the question is worth pondering. The slave
commanders who rose to form the Mamluk and Khilji dynasties were relatively
recent converts to Islam. If actions speak louder than words, then in their
actions they were not fastidiously observant. They were open and tolerant of
other religions, and interested in understanding the beliefs and culture of
their new Hindu subjects.
They resisted the Muslim orthodoxy quite firmly and
decisively on the issue of converting the Hindus; and enlisted the support of
the sufis and nobles like Amir Khusroe to cultivate a syncretic Hindu-Muslim,
or rather Indo-Turkic-Persianate, culture.
They even welcomed and befriended Hulegu who had
killed the Abbasid Calipha, the titular head of Islam. In neighbouring
Transoxiana, their cousin race, the Mongols, would not convert to Islam till
the mid-14th century – a hundred and fifty years after the formation
of the Delhi Sultanate.
So the Sultans of the early Delhi Sultanate may well
have been open to adopting Hinduism had there been such a possibility or need at
the time. However, it seems quite clear that the Hindus of the time neither
wanted this, and nor would this have been permitted under the prevailing norms
of Hinduism.
All this is of course, to use the popular phrase,
ancient history, and I do not bring it up to suggest that the Muslim sultans
should have embraced Hinduism. They were liberal and accepting towards
Hinduism, which was all that was needed from a humane and practical point of
view. Moreover, many of the Muslim emigres who came to the Delhi Sultanate
fleeing the Mongols would, quite understandably, not have had any inclination
in this direction.
I am merely pointing out that whereas it is always the
sultans that are blamed for their “intolerance” in ruling as Muslims over a
Hindu people, it is worth considering that there was no path open in Hinduism
for anyone who was not born Hindu to become one.
The ossification of religious identity in India into
Muslim and Hindu, whereas in earlier times it was more fluid both here and
elsewhere, and for both the Indians and the Turko-Mongols, may not necessarily
have been owing to the rigidity of the sultans, but to that of the Hindus of
the time.
The more one studies the Delhi and Deccan Sultans, the
more they are revealed to be aesthetes and liberals, with a relaxed attitude
toward religion and the world in general that is basically modern, and not
“medieval” (as understood in the European sense) at all.
Take their open enjoyment of homosexuality and
penchant for cross-dressing. Babur was so besotted by a young man that he never
went near his first wife, who left in disgust after waiting for months for him
to notice her.
Akbar too is said to have written passionate sonnets
to a young man. Babur’s and Jahangir’s taste for opium and alcohol are also
well-known.
Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh, who designed the angarakha
with one nipple peeping voluptuously out, and Ibrahim Adil Shah of Bijapur, who
allowed himself to be painted with his fingers decorated in alta, are other colourful
characters in this sybaritic firmament.
In many ways, the Sultans and Mughals were ahead of their times, or atleast ahead of the times of the prim English colonisers and their repressed Tamil historian compatriots, whose interpretation of them as “debauched” and “bigots” - a contradiction in terms, surely - has dominated, and in some respects continues to dominate the telling of their story.
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