Muhammad bin Tughluq’s decision to transfer the capital in 1327 from Delhi to Devagiri,renamed by him Daulatabad, was another ill-calculated step, which ultimately caused immense suffering to the people. This project of the Sultan was not, as some modern writers have suggested, a wild experiment tried with the object of wreaking vengeance on the people of Delhi, but the idea behind it was originally sound. The new capital occupied a central and strategic situation. The kingdom then embraced within its sphere the Doab, the plains of the Punjab and Lahore with the territories extending from the Indus to the coast of Gujarat in the north, the whole province of Bengal in the east, the kingdoms of Malwa, Mahoba, Ujjain and Dhar in the central region, and the Deccan, which had been recently added to it. Such a kingdom demanded close attention from the Sultan. Barni writes: “This place held a central situation; Delhi, Gujarat, Lakhnauti, Satgaon, Sonargaon, Telang, Ma `bar, Dorasamudra, and Kampila were about equidistant from thence, there being but a slight difference in the distances.” Further, the new capital was safe from Mongol invasions, which constantly threatened the old one. The Sultan also did his best to make the new capital a suitable abode for his officers and the people, by providing it with beautiful buildings, the splendour of which has been described by Ibn Batutah, ‘Abdul Hamid Lahori, the court historian of Shah Jahan’s reign, and the European travellers of the seventeenth century. All facilities were provided for the intending immigrants. A spacious road was constructed for their convenience, shady trees being planted on both sides of it and a regular post being established between Delhi and Daulatabad. Even Barni writes that the Sultan “was bounteous in his liberality and favours to the emigrants, both on their journey and on their arrival”. In all this, the Sultan acted reasonably.
But when the people of Delhi, out of sentiment, demurred at leaving their own homes which were associated with memories of the past, the Sultan’s harsh temper got the better of his good sense, and he ordered all the people of Delhi to proceed en masse to Daulatalbad with their belongings. We need not believe in the unwarranted statement of Ibn Batutah that a blind man was dragged from Delhi to Daulatabad and that a bed-ridden cripple was projected there by a ballista. Nor should we literally accept the hyperbolic statement of Barni that “not a cat or a dog was left among the buildings of the city (of Delhi), in its palaces or in its suburbs”. Such forms of expression were common among the medieval writers of India. Complete destruction or evacuation of the city is unthinkable. But the sufferings of the people of Delhi were undoubtedly considerable on a long journey of 700 miles. Worn out with fatigue, many of them died on the way, and many who reached Daulatabad followed suit in utter despair and agony like exiles in a strange land. Such were the disastrous results of the Sultan’s miscalculated plan. “Daulatabad,” remarks Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole aptly, “was a monument of misdirected energy.”
The Sultan, having at last recognised the folly and iniquity of his policy, reshifted the court to Delhi and ordered a return march of the people. But very few survived to return, and Delhi had lost its former prosperity and grandeur, which could not be restored until long after, though the Sultan “brought learned men and gentlemen, tradesmen and landowners, into the city (of Delhi) from certain towns in his territory, and made them reside there”. Ibn Batutah found Delhi in A.D. 1334 deserted in some places and bearing the marks of ruin.
Muhammad bin Tughluq tried important monetary experiments. Edward Thomas has described him as “a Prince of Moneyers” and writes that “one of the earliest acts of his reign was to remodel the coinage, to readjust its divisions to the altered values of the precious metals, and to originate new and more exact representatives of the subordinate circulation”. A new gold piece called the Dinar by Ibn Batutah weighing 200 grains, was issued by him. He also revived the Adali, equivalent in weight to 140 grains of silver, in place of the old gold and silver coins weighing 175 grains. This change was probably due to a “fall in the relative value of gold to silver, the imperial treasury having been replenished by large quantities of the former metal as a result of the campaigns of the Deccan”.
But the most daring of his experiments was the issue of a token currency in copper coins between A.D. 1329 and 1330 for which there had been examples before him in China and Persia. Towards the close of the thirteenth century, Kublai Khan, the Mongol Emperor of China, introduced a paper currency in China, and Gai Khatu, the ruler of Persia ,tried it in A.D. 1294. Muhammad bin Tughluq also issued a decree proclaiming that in all transactions copper tokens should pass as legal tender like gold and silver coins. The motives of the Sultan behind this measure were to replenish his exhausted exchequer and find increased resources for his plans of conquest and administration. So he cannot be accused of any device or design to defraud the people.
This ” carefully organised measure “, however, failed, owing chiefly to two causes. Firstly, it was far in advance of the time and the people could not grasp its real significance. Secondly, the Sultan did not make the issue of the copper coins a monopoly of the State, and failed to take proper precautions against forgery. As Thomas writes, “there was no special machinery to mark the difference of the fabric of the Royal Mint and the handiwork of the moderately skilled artisan. Unlike the precautions taken to prevent the imitation of Chinese paper notes, there was positively no check upon the authenticity of the copper tokens, and no limit to the power of production of the masses at large”. The result was that large numbers of counterfeit coins obtained circulation. We are told by Barni that “the promulgation of this edict turned the house of every Hindu into a mint, and the Hindus of the various provinces coined krores and lacs of copper coins. With these they paid their tribute, and with these they purchased horses, arms and fine things of all kinds. The rais, the village headmen and land- owners, grew rich and strong upon these copper coins, but the State was impoverished. . . . In those places where fear of the Sultan’s edict prevailed,
the gold tanka rose to be worth a hundred of (the copper) tankas. Every goldsmith struck copper coins in his own workshop, and the treasury was filled with these copper coins. So low did they fall that they were not valued more than pebbles or potsherds. The old coin, from its great scarcity, rose four-fold and five-fold in value”. Trade and industries were in consequence severely affected, and confusion reigned supreme. The Sultan recognised his error and repealed his edict about four years after the introduction of the currency. He paid for every copper coin brought to the treasury at its face value in gold and silver coins, and the public funds were thus sacrificed without any corresponding benefit to the State. So many copper coins were brought to Delhi that heaps of them were accumulated at Tughluqabad, which could be seen a century later in the reign of Mubarak Shah II.
