The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate (41 page)

THE MOST IMPORTANT source of revenue for the medieval state was agricultural tax. This was collected soon after each of the two harvests normally gathered in India:
rabi
, the winter harvest, and
kharif
, the rainy season harvest. The state usually sought to enhance its agricultural tax revenue by encouraging farmers to expand the land under their cultivation, and to plant more valuable crops.

The agricultural tax rates charged by kings varied considerably from kingdom to kingdom, and from king to king. The normal tax rate in Muslim states was probably around one-fifth of the gross farm produce, but some sultans, Ala-ud-din Khalji for instance, collected much higher taxes. Sometimes, where special facilities had to be built by the farmer for irrigation, like the bucket or wheel system, there, unlike in the rain-fed fields, taxes were sometimes reduced by kings to as much as one-twentieth of the produce, to compensate the farmer for the extra labour he had to put in to cultivate his field.

In Hindu kingdoms, the tax rate demanded by the rajas varied considerably with the exigencies of their situation, from the traditional one-sixth to as much as one-half of the gross produce. The Agricultural tax rate in Vijayanagar was between one-sixth and one-third of the gross produce. A complicating factor in the tax system of Vijayanagar and of several other Hindu kingdoms—often of Muslim kingdoms as well—was the practice of the state farming out tax collection to the highest bidders. This was a pernicious practice, for
the speculators who bid for tax collection were usually exploitative towards cultivators, so the tax burden on them in kingdoms like Vijayanagar was usually very high and oppressive.

A curious practice of the Delhi sultans was that they sometimes raised agricultural tax exorbitantly to punish unruly villagers. Thus Muhammad Tughluq once raised ‘the taxes on the inhabitants of the Doab by ten or twenty per cent, as they had shown themselves refractory,’ notes Mughal chronicler Badauni. ‘He instituted also a cattle-tax, a house tax, and several other imposts of an oppressive nature, which entirely ruined and desolated the country, and brought its wretched inhabitants to destruction.’ And this led to a vicious cycle of rebellion by peasants and brutal repression by the sultan—driven to extremities, peasants sometimes rose in rebellion, burned their grain stacks and drove away their cattle; and the sultan responded to that by desolating the villages, and slaughtering or blinding the villagers.

This was typical of the eccentric policies and actions of Muhammad Tughluq. On the other hand some of the Delhi sultans did indeed take elaborate measures to systematise land revenue assessment and collection. Thus Ala-ud-din Khalji had all the cultivated land in his empire measured and categorised, and fixed the tax on them on the basis of their standard yields. His tax demands were high—he demanded half the agricultural produce as tax, based on the average yield of a particular area; in addition he also collected tax on pastures. But despite these high tax demands, peasants were on the whole better off under Ala-ud-din than under most other sultans, for his high tax demands were balanced by measures providing security to villagers from marauders, protecting them from exploitation by village headmen, and encouraging them to expand cultivation.

Unlike most other sultans, Ala-ud-din collected agricultural taxes directly from peasants though his officers, and did not depend on village chieftains for tax collection, because the vested interests of the chieftains clashed with the interests of the state as well as of the cultivators. He also rescinded the tax exemptions and privileges that village chieftains traditionally enjoyed, and treated all farmers on par. Further, he abolished the system of collective tax on villages, but taxed each farmer individually, so that the village chieftains did not transfer their tax burden on to the common villagers, as they used to do.

All this considerably increased the administrative burden of the state, but Ala-ud-din met that challenge by appointing an army of officers to deal with land revenue assessment, collection, and audit. Later Firuz Tughluq also sought to systematise land revenue assessment and collection. One of the radical measures he took in this matter was to organise a six-year survey of agricultural production in the empire, which enabled him to make an informed estimate of the revenue potential of the empire, and tailor his tax demand accordingly.

JIZYA WAS ANOTHER source of revenue for the Muslim state. This was a tax imposed by Muslim states on zimmis, protected non-Muslims, and its collection was mandatory for Muslim rulers. It was a discriminatory communal tax, but its collection imposed certain reciprocal obligations on Muslim rulers, to protect the life and property of non-Muslims, to grant them the freedom to live according to their traditional way of life, and to perform their customary religious rites without any hindrance. In the early history of Islam the zimmi privilege was granted only to Jews and Christians, but it was extended to the followers of other religions when the political power of Muslims extended beyond Arabia.

Did Hindus merit to be treated as zimmis? Some Muslim theologians held that they did not, and that they should be forced to become Muslims or be killed. But this was not a sensible or practical idea. Hindus were far too many to be exterminated. Besides, they had a crucial and indispensable role in Indian economy, particularly in agriculture, which was entirely dependent on their labour. It was in fact the labour of Hindus that that provided the Muslim state its sustenance. Hindus also provided many essential services in the Muslim army and administration. Their contributions were an absolute requirement for the very survival of the Sultanate.

But there was a curious anomaly in the collection of jizya in India, for Brahmins, who headed the Hindu society, were exempted from this tax. This was presumably because Brahmins played an important and essential role in running the administration of Muslim states, as officers and clerks. Further, Brahmins were not considered an economically productive people, so they could be exempted from jizya, just like the other people considered to be non-productive, such as women, were exempted from it. It was also probably feared that antagonising Brahmins, the most revered people in Hindu society, would antagonise a large section of the Indian population, and make the administration of the country difficult. Most sultans therefore exempted Brahmins from jizya. But these considerations did not influence hyper-orthodox Firuz Tughluq, and he imposed jizya on Brahmins, as on other Hindus, though at a reduced rate.

Jizya was a poll tax, not an income tax. However, for the fair distribution of the burden of jizya, non-Muslims were divided into three economic groups—the affluent, the middle class, and the commoners—paying different amounts of the tax. The actual amount charged on the people of each of these categories is given variously in different medieval texts, but their ratio seems to have been the same as what Arabs charged on non-Muslims during their rule in Sind, requiring the affluent to pay 48 dirhams a year, the middle class 24 dirhams, and the others 12 dirhams. Women, children, and the disabled, as well as government servants, were exempted from this tax. In towns jizya
was collected separately from each individual, but in villages it was usually assessed as a collective tax. The collection of jizya does not seem to have been rigorously enforced in the Delhi Sultanate, and it does not seem to have been a major source of revenue for the state.

Similar to jizya paid by Hindus, Muslims paid an alms tax called zakat. The revenue from zakat was not allowed to be used for state expenses, but was for distribution in charity among needy Muslims and Muslim institutions. In fact, under Firuz Tughluq the revenue from zakat was remitted into a separate treasury. Zakat was not a poll tax, but a wealth tax, and was collected as a percentage of the wealth of individual Muslims. But it was charged only on the wealth that was in the possession of an individual for at least one full year. This provision was often misused by people to evade the tax, by transferring their property to a wife at the end of a year and then repossessing it at the beginning of the following year.

Yet another source of income for the Muslim state was booty, collected during wars. The Sharia prescription on this was that one-fifth of the booty collected may be kept by the sultan for charitable and religious purposes, and that the rest should be distributed among soldiers. But the Delhi sultans (except Firuz Tughluq) usually reversed this ratio, and took four-fifth of the booty for themselves, and gave only one-fifth to soldiers. This reversal was justified by the sultans on the ground that while Muslim soldiers had originally received no salary but only a share of the booty—as they were not employees, but partners in a common endeavour—later, as soldiers were recruited as employees of the state, they merited only one-fifth share of the booty, for they were then paid regular salaries by the state all through the year, whether they were deployed in war or not.

Plunder, similar to war booty, was another major source of revenue for the state. Plundering raids were a legitimate state activity in medieval India, and the sultans as well as the rajas periodically launched these raids into neighbouring kingdoms, to replenish their treasury. The other normal revenue sources for the state were judicial fines, and the presents that the king received from favour seekers.

Tax collection was a difficult task for the state in early medieval India, because of the general laxity of administration in those days, in Hindu as well as Muslim kingdoms. Besides, people everywhere and at all times were reluctant to pay taxes, especially so in medieval India, as very few people there had any disposable income, and in any case they received hardly any benefits from their rulers. Kings therefore often had to use force to collect taxes; sometimes they even had to send their soldiers into the refractory villages to plunder the people there, as that was the only way to collect the tax dues from them.

The state was usually assisted in tax collection by the village headmen, who normally received 2.5 per cent of the collection as their reward. The headmen themselves did not normally (except under the rigorous rule of Ala-ud-din) pay any taxes, or even pay jizya (presumably because they considered themselves to be government officers) but enjoyed various perquisites. In the Delhi Sultanate tax collection was sometimes farmed out to officers, who were required to remit a fixed annual amount into the state treasury, irrespective of their actual revenue collection, whether high or low.

Despite all the irregularities and inefficiencies in revenue administration, sultans and rajas usually had overflowing coffers. ‘In the king’s treasury there are chambers, with excavations in them, filled with molten gold, forming one mass,’ writes Razzak about Vijayanagar. The raja there maintained two treasuries, one to meet the current expenditure of the kingdom, and the other to store savings to meet emergencies. Under Krishnadeva, the ideal was to divide the state revenue into four equal parts: one part for palace expenditure and charity, two parts for the army, and the remaining part for depositing in the reserve treasury.

THE LAWS THAT applied to Hindus and Muslims in a Muslim state were entirely different—while Muslims were subject to Sharia (the prescriptions of the Koran and the traditions of Prophet Muhammad) it was caste rules and local conventions that applied to Hindus. Though Hindus were normally subject only to their own laws, if one of the litigants in a case was a Muslim, the matter had to be taken to a Muslim court, and judged according to Sharia.

The Hindu legal system was incredibly complex, as its laws and legal conventions, as well as its legal institutions and practices, varied from place to place and caste to caste. An act considered as an abominable crime in one caste could be considered as a perfectly legitimate act in another caste, and what was considered as the lawful punishment for a crime in one caste could be considered as entirely unlawful for the same crime in another caste. And, as these rules were enforced by caste courts, political authority had only a marginal role in the process.

Even in the case of the Muslim legal system there was a good amount of variability in the law that was applicable in any given situation. Though Muslim law everywhere in the world was based on Sharia, these were only guidelines, and what law applied in any specific case depended on the interpretations of Sharia by the ulama (religious scholars), and these interpretations varied from country to country, sect to sect, and from scholar to scholar.

The sultan, advised by his chief qazi (judge), was the highest judicial authority in a Muslim state. In the case of capital punishments, the judgements of the lower courts had to be brought before the sultan, and his
confirmation was required before the sentence could be executed. Further, the sultan could intervene in the administration of justice at any point, and when he did that, his decision, whether it was in conformity with conventions or not, invariably prevailed.

In Delhi the sultans usually set aside certain days in the week to deal with people’s complaints—Muhammad Tughluq, for instance, heard complaints on Mondays and Thursdays—but they were normally accessible to suppliants on other days too. Iltutmish even set up at the entrance of his palace a great bell that people could ring to draw his attention and seek justice. People could even sue the sultan in a court of law—there are recorded instances of Muhammad Tughluq appearing humbly in a qazi’s court and submitting to its judgement against him. On the other hand, if anyone, however great he might be, incurred the wrath of the sultan, he was often summarily executed without any trial.

As in Muslim kingdoms so also in Hindu kingdoms the highest judicial authority was the king. And in both systems there was a hierarchy of courts beneath the king. In the Hindu system, the lowest courts were the village panchayat courts and the caste courts. Appeals could be made against the judgement of a lower court to a higher court, and ultimately to the king. The rajas, like the sultans, were usually accessible to anyone seeking justice. In Vijayanagar, according to Nuniz, ‘when anyone suffers wrong and wishes to represent his case to the king he shows how great is his suffering by lying flat on his face on the ground till they ask him what it s he wants.’ In the Muslim judicial system there were normally four types of courts: the Diwan-i-mazalim, the court of complaints, presided over by the sultan or his representative; the qazi’s court, which administered the law of Islam; the court of the muhtasib, which dealt with issues of public morals and offenses against religious ordinances; and the shurta, police courts.