CHAPTER IX
GENERAL CONDITION OF INDIA IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
The empire conquered south of the Sutlej by the Afghán predecessors of the Mughal had no claim to be regarded as the empire of Hindustán. 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 Rájpútána. 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 Godavárí, 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.
Thus, at the accession of Akbar, the westernmost portion of India, the kingdom of Gujarát, ruled over by a Muhammadan prince of Afghán blood, was independent. It had been overrun, indeed, by Humáyún, but on his flight from India it had re-asserted itself, and had not since been molested. Indeed it had carried on a not unsuccessful war with its nearest neighbour, Málwá. That state, embracing the greater part of what we know as Central India, was thus independent at the accession of Akbar. So likewise was Khándesh: so also were the states of Rájpútána. These latter deserve a more detailed notice.
The exploits of the great Sanga Ráná have been incidentally referred to in the first chapter. The defeat of that prince by Bábar had greatly affected the power of Mewár, and when Sher Sháh drove Humáyún 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 Sháh, they had recovered their independence, and at the accession of Akbar they still held their high place among the states of Rájpútána. Of the other states it may briefly be stated that the rulers of Jaipur had paid homage to the Mughal in the time of Bábar. The then Rájá, Bahármá, had assisted that prince with his forces, and had received from Humáyún, prior to his defeat by Sher Sháh, a high imperial title as ruler of Ámbar. The son of Bahármá, Bhagwán Dás, occupied the throne when Akbar won Pánípat. Jodhpur, in those days, occupied a far higher position than did Jaipur. Its Rájá, Maldeo Singh, had given to the great Sher Sháh more trouble in the field than had any of his opponents. He had, however, refused an asylum to Humáyún when Humáyún was a fugitive. He was alive, independent, and the most powerful of all the princes of Rájpútána when Akbar ascended the throne of Delhi. Jaisalmer, Bíkáner, and the states on the borders of the desert were also independent. So likewise were the minor states of Rájpútána; so also was Sind; so also Múltán. Mewát and Baghelkhand owned no foreign master; but Gwalior, Orchha, Chanderí, Narwár, 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 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 Sultán, and the command of which was vested in an officer nominated by the Sultán. 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 Kázís or judges in conformity with a code which was the result of accumulated decisions based on the Kurán, but modified by the customs of the country. The Kází 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 was practically undefined, and who, nominated and supported by the Crown, sometimes trenched on the authority of the Kází. 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 Bábar nor Humáyún had changed, to any material extent, the system of their Afghán predecessors in India. Bábar, indeed, had been accustomed to a system even more autocratic. Whether in Fergháná, in Samarkand, or in Kábul, 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 jaghírs, 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.
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 Bábar, 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.
Bábar, 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 Hindustán. He would have parcelled out the empire into six great divisions, of which Delhi, Agra, Kanauj, Jaunpur, Mándu, 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 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 Humáyún came to interfere with, to prevent the execution of, this plan. Then followed the military events culminating in the triumph of Pánípat. That battle placed the young Akbar in a position his grandfather Bábar had occupied exactly thirty years before. Then, it had given Bábar 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 Pánípat 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 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 Pánípat 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 Lodís, which had preceded it. That it was not more stable was proved by the ease with which the empire founded by Bábar succumbed, in the succeeding reign, to the attacks of Sher Sháh. It may be admitted that if Bábar had been immortal he might possibly have beaten back Sher Sháh. But that admission serves to prove my argument. Bábar was a very able general. So likewise was Sher Khán. Humáyún was flighty, versatile, and unpractical; as a general of but small account. It is possible that the Sher Khán who triumphed over Humáyún might have been beaten by Bábar. But that only proves that the system introduced by Bábar was the system to which he had been accustomed all his life—the system which had alternately lost and won for him Fergháná and Samarkand; which had given him Kábul, and, a few years later, India; the system of the rule of the strongest. Nowhere, neither in Fergháná, nor in Samarkand, nor in Kábul, 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.
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.1 Pánípat 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 Bairám, 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 Bairám, 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.
1 Akbar was born the 15th October, 1542. The second battle of Pánípat was fought the 5th November, 1556.