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Chapter 9 – General Condition of India in the Middle of the Sixteenth Century

The empire conquered south of the Sutlej by the Afghan predecessors of the Mughal had no claim to be regarded as the empire of Hindustan. It was rather the empire of Delhi, that is, of the provinces called up to the year 1857 the North-western Provinces, including that part of the Bengal Presidency which we know as Western Behar, and some districts in the Central Provinces and Rajputana. It included, likewise, the Punjab. For a moment, indeed, the princes of the House of Tughlak could claim supremacy over Bengal and almost the whole of Southern India, but the first invasion from the north gave the opportunity which the Hindu princes of the south seized to shake off the uncongenial yoke, and it had not been re-imposed. The important kingdom of Orissa, extending from the mouth of the Ganges to that of the Godavari, had always maintained its independence. Western India, too, had for some time ceased to acknowledge the sway of the foreign invader, and its several states had become kingdoms.

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Thus, at the accession of Akbar, the westernmost portion of India, the kingdom of Gujarat, ruled over by a Muhammadan prince of Afghan blood, was independent. It had been overrun, indeed, by Humayun, but on his flight from India it had reasserted itself, and had not since been molested. Indeed it had carried on a not unsuccessful war with its nearest neighbour, Malwa. That state, embracing the greater part of what we know as Central India, was thus independent at the accession of Akbar. So likewise was Khandesh: so also were the states of Rajputana. These latter deserve a more detailed notice.

The exploits of the great Sanga Rana have been incidentally referred to in the first chapter. The defeat of that prince by Babar had greatly affected the power of Mewar, and when Sher Shah drove Humayun from India its chiefs had been compelled eventually to acknowledge the overlordship of the conqueror. But, during the disturbances which followed the death of Sher Shah, they had recovered their independence, and at the accession of Akbar they still held their high place among the states of Rajputana. Of the other states it may briefly be stated that the rulers of Jaipur had paid homage to the Mughal in the time of Mbar. The then Raja, Baharma, had assisted that prince with his forces, and had received from Humayun, prior to his defeat by Sher Shah, a high imperial title as ruler of Ambar. The son of Baharma, Bhagwan Das, occupied the throne when Akbar won

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Panipat. Jodhpur, in those days, occupied a far higher position than did Jaipur. Its Raja, Maldeo Singh, had given to the great Sher Shah more trouble in the field than had any of his opponents. He had, however, refused an asylum to Humayun when Humayun was a fugitive. He was alive, independent, and the most powerful of all the princes of Rajputana when Akbar ascended the throne of Delhi Jaisalmer, Bikaner, and the states on the borders of the desert were also independent. So likewise were the minor states of Rajputana; so also was Sind; so also Multan. Mewat and Baghelkhand owned no foreign master; but Gwalior, Orchha, Chanderi, Narwar, and Pannao suffered from their vicinity to Agra, and were more or less tributary, according to the leisure accruing to the conqueror to assert his authority.

But even in the provinces which owned the rule of the Muhammadan conqueror there was no cohesion. The king, sultan, or emperor, as he was variously called, was simply the lord of the nobles to whom the several provinces had been assigned. In his own court he ruled absolutely. He commanded the army in the field. But with the internal administration of the provinces he did not interfere. Each of these provinces was really, though not nominally, independent under its own viceroy.

According to all concurrent testimony the condition of the Hindu population, who constituted seven-eighths of the entire population of the provinces subject to Muhammadan rule, was one of contentment. They

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were allowed the free exercise of their religion, though they were liable to the jizyia, or capitation tax, imposed by Muhammadans on subject races of other faiths. But in all the departments of the Government the Hindu element was very strong. In most provinces the higher classes of this faith maintained a hereditary jurisdiction subordinate to the governor; and in time of war they supplied their quota of troops for service in the field.

Each province had thus a local army, ready to be placed at the disposal of the governor whenever he should deem it necessary. But, besides, and unconnected with this local army, he had almost always in the province a certain number of imperial troops, that is, of troops paid by the Sultan, and the command of which was vested in an officer nominated by the Sultan. This officer was, to a great extent, independent of the local governor, being directly responsible to the sovereign.

Theoretically, the administration of justice was perfect, for it was dispensed according to the Muhammadan principle that the state was dependent on the law. That law was administered by the Kazis or judges in conformity with a code which was the result of accumulated decisions based on the Kuran, but modified by the customs of the country. The Kazi decided all matters of a civil character; all questions, in fact, which did not affect the safety of the state. But criminal cases were reserved to the jurisdiction of a body of men whose mode of procedure

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was practically undefined, and who, nominated and supported by the Crown, sometimes trenched on the authority of the Kazi. The general contentment of the people would seem, however, to authorise the conclusion that, on the whole, the administration of justice was performed in a satisfactory manner. Time had welded together the interests of the families of the earlier Muhammadan immigrant and those of the Hindu inhabitant, and they both looked alike to the law to afford them such protection as was possible. In spite of the many wars, the general condition of the country was undoubtedly, if the native records may be trusted, very flourishing.

It is important to note, in considering the administration upon which we are now entering, that neither Babar nor Humayun had changed, to any material extent, the system of their Afghan predecessors in India. Babar, indeed, had been accustomed to a system even more autocratic. Whether in Ferghana, in Samarkand, or in Kabul, he had not only been the supreme lord in the capital, but also the feudal lord of the governors of provinces appointed by himself. Those governors, those chiefs of districts or of jaghirs, did indeed exercise an authority almost absolute within their respective domains. But they were always removable at the pleasure of the sovereign, and it became an object with them to administer on a plan which would secure substantial justice, or to maintain at the court agents who should watch over their interests with the ruling prince.

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Similarly the army was composed of the personal retainers of the sovereign, swollen by the personal retainers of his chiefs and vassals and by the native tribes of the provinces occupied.

With Babar, too, as with his son, the form of government had been a pure despotism. Free institutions were unknown. The laws passed by one sovereign might be annulled by his successor. The personal element, in fact, predominated everywhere. The only possible check on the will of the sovereign lay in successful rebellion. But if the sovereign were capable, successful rebellion was almost an impossibility. If he were just as well as capable, he discerned that the enforcement of justice constituted his surest safeguard against any rebellion.

Babar, then, had found in the provinces of India which he had conquered a system prevailing not at all dissimilar in principle to that to which he had been accustomed in the more northern regions. Had he been disposed to change it, he had not the time. Nor had his successor either the time or the inclination. The system he had pondered over just prior to his death shows no radical advance in principle on that which had existed in Hindustan. He would have parcelled out the empire into six great divisions, of which Delhi, Agra, Kanauj, Jaunpur, Mandu, and Lahore should be the centres or capitals. Each of these would have been likewise great military commands, under a trusted general, whose army-corps should be so strong as to render him independent of

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outside aid: whilst the Emperor should give unity to the whole by visiting each division in turn with an army of twelve thousand horse, inspecting the local forces and examining the general condition of the province. The project was full of defects. It would have been a bad mode of administration even had the sovereign been always more capable than his generals. It could not have lasted a year had he been less so.

The sudden death of Humayun came to interfere with, to prevent the execution of, this plan. Then followed the military events culminating in the triumph of Panipat. That battle placed the young Akbar in a position his grandfather Mbar had occupied exactly thirty years before. Then, it had given Mbar the opportunity, of which he availed himself, to conquer North-western India, Behar, and part of Central India. A similar opportunity was given by the second battle of Panipat to Akbar. On that field he had conquered the only enemy capable of coping with him seriously. As far as conquest then was concerned, his task was easy. But to make that conquest enduring, to consolidate the different provinces and the diverse nationalities, to devise and introduce a system so centralising as to make the influence of the Emperor permeate through every town and every province, and yet not sufficiently centralising to kill local traditions, local customs, local habits of thought, – that was a task his grandfather had never attempted; which, to his father, would have seemed an impossibility, even if it had occurred or

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had been presented to him. Yet, in their schemes, the absence of such a programme had left the empire conquered on the morrow of the Panipat of 1526, an empire without root in the soil, dependent absolutely on continued military success; liable to be overthrown by the first strong gust; not one whit more stable than the empires of the Ghaznivides, the Ghors, the Khiljis, the Tughlaks, the Saiyids, the Lodis, which had preceded’ it. That it was not more stable was proved by the ease with which the empire founded by Mbar succumbed, in the succeeding reign, to the attacks of Sher Shah. It may be admitted that if Babar had been immortal he might possibly have beaten back Sher Shah. But that admission serves to prove my argument. Babar was a very able general. So likewise was Sher Khan. Humayun was flighty, versatile, and unpractical; as a general of but small account. It is possible that the Sher Khan who triumphed over Humayun might have been beaten by Babar. But that only proves that the system introduced by Babar was the system to which he had been accustomed all his life – the system which had alternately lost and won for him Ferghana and Samarkand; which had given him Kabul, and, a few years later, India; the system of the rule of the strongest. Nowhere, neither in Ferghana, nor in Samarkand, nor in Kabul, nor in the Punjab, nor in India, had it shot down any roots. It was in fact impossible it could do so, for it possessed no germinating power.

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And now, at the close of 1556, the empire won and lost and won again was in the hands of a boy, reared in the school of adversity and trial, one month over fourteen years.21 Panipat had given him India. Young as he was, he had seen much of affairs. He had been constantly consulted by his father: he had undergone a practical military education under Bairam, the first commander of the day: he had governed the Punjab for over six months. But it was as an administrator as well as a conqueror that he was now about to be tried. In that respect neither the example of his father, nor the precepts of Bairam, could influence him for good. So far as can be known, he had already displayed the germs of a judgment prompt to meet difficulties, a disposition inclined to mercy. He had refused to slay Hemu. But other qualities were required for the task now opening before him. Let us examine by the light of subsequent transactions what were his qualifications for the task.

Footnotes

21. Akbar was born the 15th October, 1549. The second battle of Panipat was fought the 5th November, 1556.

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