History of India 1

HISTORY

Subject : History
(For under graduate student)

Paper No. : Paper - II

History of India

Topic No. & Title : Topic - 21

Regional Polity

Lecture No. & Title : Lecture - 2

Socio-Political Formations &
Economy of Deccan

Script

Socio-Political Formations and Economy of the

Deccan

Medieval Deccan
For most historians of medieval India, the Krishna River
running through the middle of the Deccan demarcates a
histographical dividing line between two conflicting cultures,
to the north, from the fourteenth through the late
seventeenth countries by the Bahmani Kingdom and its
successor states all of them ruled by Muslim Sultans. To the
History of India 2

north lay the Vijaynagar Kingdom often characterized as a

‘Hindu bulwark’ against ‘Muslim encroachments’. This
discussion will centre around whether the entire history of
medieval Deccan revolved around the conflict between
these two religious groups or not.

The Bahmani Kingdom

The Bahmani Kingdom had come into existence in 1347. Its
founder Alauddin Hasan, an Afghan adventurer, had risen in
the service of a Brahman – Gangu, and was initially known
as Hasan Gangu. After his coronation, he assumed the title
of Alauddin Hasan Bahman. He is known to have traced to
his descent to an Iranian half-mythical hero Bahman Shah.
The historian Ferishta however mentioned that the word
Bahman Shah was meant to be a tribute to his Bahman
patron. In any case, it was from this title that the Kingdom
was called the Bahmani Kingdom.

Conflict with Vijaynagar

The interest of the Vijaynagar rulers and the Bahmani
sultans clashed in three separate and distinct areas: in the
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Tungabhadra doab, in the Krishna-Godavari delta and in the

Maratha country.

The Tungabhadra doab was the region between the rivers

Krishna and Tungabhadra and consisted of 30,000 square
miles. On account of its wealth and economic resources it
had been the bone of contention between the Western
Chalukyas and Cholas in the earlier period and between the
Yadavas and Hoysalas in later years. The Krishna-Godavari
valley was also very fertile and it had numerous ports
controlling the foreign trade of the region. This was also the
reason as to why it was linked to the struggle for the
Tungabhadra doab. In the Maratha country the main
contention was for the control of the Konkan and the area
which gave access to it. It included the port of Goa which
was an important outlet for the products of the region, as
well as for the import of horses from Iran and Iraq. Since
good quality horses were not bred in India, Goa was of
great importance to the Southern states.

Military conflict between the Vijaynagar and Bahmani

Kingdoms were almost a regular feature and lasted as long
History of India 4

these kingdoms continued. It resulted in widespread

devastation of the contested areas and the neighbouring
territories, resulting in considerable loss of life and
property. Both sides sacked and burnt towns and villages,
imprisoned men, women and children. In 1367, when
Bukka I of Vijaynagar assaulted the fortress of Mudkal in
the disputed Tungabhadra doab, he slaughtered the entire
garrison except one man. When this news reached the
Bahmani Sultan, he swore in revenge to slaughter 100,000
Hindus. In spite of the rainy season and the opposition of
the Vijaynagar forces, he crossed the Tungabhadra, the first
time a Bahmani Sultan had in person entered the
Vijaynagar Empire. The Vijaynagar King was defeated and
forced to retreat. We hear of the use of artillery on both
sides during the battle. The victory of the Bahmani Sultan
was said to be due to the use of superior artillery and more
efficient cavalry. The war dragged on for several months,
but the Bahmani Sultan could not either capture the capital
or defeat the Raja, while the slaughter of men, women and
children continued. Finally a treaty was concluded. The
significance of the treaty lay in the fact that an agreement
was reached between the two powers that as neighbours,
History of India 5

they should refrain from killing, unarmed men, women and

children in future wars. Although historians agree that this
accord was not fully implemented, it helped to make
warfare more humane.

Firoz Shah Bahman was regarded as a remarkable

personality by his contemporaries. He defeated the
Vijaynagar ruler Deva Ray who had to pay ten lakhs of huns
and pearls along with some elephants as indemnity. Deva
Ray cemented the alliance by agreeing to marry his
daughter to the Sultan, ceding to him in dowry Bankapur in
the Doab to obviate all future dispute.

It was celebrated with great deal of pomp and splendour.

From the gate of the city to the palace, which was a
distance of ten km, the road was spread with cloths of gold,
velvet, satin and other rich staff. The two monarchs rode on
horseback with the relations of Deva Raja joining the
cavalcade marching on foot before the two kings. The
festival lasted for three days.
History of India 6

The significance of this ritual was to illustrate to the people

that the Bahamanis were powerful enough to dictate peace
on their own terms. This was not however the first political
marriage between Hindus and Muslims in the area. Earlier,
the ruler of Kherla in Gondwana had married his daughter
to Feroz Shah Bahmani. These intermarriages between
Hindu princesses and Muslim Kings proved that the dividing
line between the two sects constructed by later historians
had no base in reality.

Firoz Shah Bahmani, a man versed in many languages was

determined to make Deccan, the cultural centre of India. He
not only had command over Arabic, Persian and Turkish,
but also Telegu, Kannada and Marathi. He had a large
harem with wives coming from many countries including
Hindu women and he claimed to converse with each in their
own language.

He is believed to have said that kings draw around them

learned men from all nations so that from their society the
rulers would obtain information and thus acquire without
travelling all the knowledge of different lands. Feroz Shah
History of India 7

was also known to have read the Old Testament and the
New Testament of the Bible and respected all the religious
tenets. Ferishta calls him an orthodox Muslim, his only
weakness being his fondness for wine and music.

One of the most remarkable steps taken by Feroz Shah was

inducting Hindus into his administration. It is said that from
his time the Deccan Brahmins became dominant in the
administration particularly in the revenue departments. This
was the time when foreigners, mainly from Iran and Iraq,
mostly Shias, started flocking to the Deccan. The Hindus
offered a check to their occupation of key posts.

In the fields of knowledge, he particularly encouraged the

pursuit of astronomy and built an observatory near
Daulatabad. He paid a lot of attention to the development
of the principal ports of his kingdom. The two ports Chaul
and Dabhol attracted trading ships from the Persian Gulf
and Red Sea, bringing in luxury goods from all over the
world.
History of India 8

The expansion policy of Feruz Shah was directed towards

Berar by defeating the Gouda Raja Narsing Rai of Kerala.
The Rai made a present of 40 elephants, 5 mounds of gold
and 50 mounds of silver. A daughter of the Rai was married
to Feruz Shah.

Yet, in spite of these successes and his marriage with the

daughters of the Vijaynagara ruler, wars broke out once
more between the two countries and Feroz Shah was
defeated by Vijaynagara forces. He was then compelled to
resign in favour of his brother Ahmed Shah I.

Ahmad Shah
Ahmad Shah continued the policy of expansion. He kept in
mind that Warangal had sided with Vijaynagar and in order
to wreck vengeance he invaded Warangal, defeated and
killed the ruler in a battle and annexed most of its
territories. In order to consolidate his rule, he shifted the
capital from Gulbarga to Bidar. After this he turned his
attention towards Malwa, Gondwana and Kankan. The loss
of Warangal to the Bahmani kingdom changed the balance
of power in South India. The rise of a new statesman,
History of India 9

Mahmud Gawan further helped the Bahmanis to expand

their power. Mahmud Gawan, an Iranian by birth, was
known to have been a trader. He won the favour of the
Sultan and was granted the title Malik-ul-Tujjar. Soon he
was raised to the post of the prime minister or Peshwa. For
almost 20 years he dominated the affairs of the Bahmani
Kingdom. It was a policy of expansion with clear notions of
consolidation built into its core.

On the eastern front he made a deep raid in the Vijaynagar

Empire up to Kanchi. He then overran the western coastal
areas including Dabhol and Goa. The loss of these ports was
a heavy blow to Vijaynagar. It led to extension of Bahmani
kingdoms trade with Iran and Iraq. Internal trade and
manufacture also grew.

Mahmud Gawan also tries to settle the northern frontiers of

the Kingdom. Malwa was the main contender for the
mastery of Gondwana. Berar and Konkan. The Khalji rulers
of Malwa lost due to the help that the Bahmanis got from
the rulers of Gujarat. It was finally agreed that Gondwana
would go to Malwa and Berar to the Bahmani Sultan.
History of India 10

Special Features of Deccan Politics

It was thus clear that in spite of the general assumptions
the struggle in the South did not allow divisions along
religious lines : political strategic and control over trade and
commerce being more important causes of the conflict.
Secondly, the struggle between the various states in North
India and the South did not proceed in isolation from each
other. In the West, Malwa and Gujarat were drawn into the
affairs of the Deccan. In the East, Orissa rulers made deep
raids in Bengal, also casting covetous eyes on the
commercially rich Coromandel Coast. Mahmud Gawan was a
good administrator. He divided the Kingdom into eight
provinces or ‘tarafs’. Each ‘taraf’ was governed by
‘tarafdar’. The salaries and obligations of each noble was
fixed. For maintaining a contingent of 500 horses, a noble
received a salary of 1, 00, 000 Huns per year. The salary
could be paid in cash on by assigning a Jagir. Those who
were paid by means of a jagir were allowed expenses for
the collection of land revenue. In every province a tract of
land (Khalisa) was set apart for the expenses of the Sultan,
efforts were made to measure the land and to fix the
History of India 11

amount to be paid by the cultivator to the

State.

Mahmud Gawan was a great patron of arts. He built a

magnificent madrassah or college in the capital Bidar. It
was extremely well decorated with coloured tiles. It had
accommodation for one thousand teachers and students
who were given clothes and food free. Some of the most
famous scholars of the time belonging to Iran and Iraq
came to the Madrassah at the invitation of Mahmud Gawan.
One of the most difficult problems, which faced the
Bahmani Kingdom, was the strife among the nobles. The
nobles were divided into two sharply defined groups, the
original Deccanis and the new comers – afaquis also called
gharibi. As a new comer Mahmud Gawan was never
accepted, finally he was murdered at the age of 70 (1482).
After this begins another phase in the history of the Deccan.

The Disintegration of the Bahmani Kingdom – Rise of

Smaller States
The breakup of the Bahmani kingdom resulted in the
formation of three powerful states. Ahmednagar, Bijapur
History of India 12

and Golkunda, which combined to crush Vijaynagar at the

battle of Bahmani near Talikota in 1565. After this victory,
the Deccan states assumed their old ways to quarrel over
different pieces of territory. Both Bijapur and Ahmednagar
claimed Sholapur which was a rich and fertile tract. Neither
war nor marriage alliance between the two could resolve
the issue. Both the states had the ambition of conquering
Bidar. Ahmednagar also wanted to annex Bidar in the north.
In fact as the descendants of the old Bahmani rulers, the
Nizams claimed a superior position from that of their
neighbours. Their claims were contested not only by Bijapur
but also by rulers of Gujarat who had their eyes on the
Konkan area in addition to Berar. The Gujarat rulers now
actively aided Berar against Ahmednagar and even engaged
in war against Ahmednagar in order not to upset the
balance of power in the Deccan.

The Rise of Marathas

An important feature in the socio-political structure of the
Deccan, was the rise of the Marathas. For a long time the
Maratha troops were employed as loose auxiliaries or bargis
in the Bahmani Kingdom. The revenue affairs were in the
History of India 13

hands of the Deccani Brahmins. Some of them held

Mansabs and Jagirs and became powerful landholders in the
Deccan.

Though they were not leaders of clans like the Rajputs, they
formed the backbone of the landed Hindu aristocracy.
During the middle of the sixteenth century the rulers of the
Deccan states definitely embarked upon a policy of wooing
the Marathas to their sides. Thus when Akbar turned his
attention to the Deccan, it was a seething cauldron of
politics with each small state fighting with another.

Islamicate Environment
Culturally the Deccan in this period was the seat of an
‘Islamic’ world whose influence was to be found in Sicily
(Europe) and the whole of the Deccan (including the
Vijaynagar kingdom). In all these areas Islam was a
civilizing factor operating within a cosmopolitan cultural
exchange even between Vijaynagar and the Bahmani
kingdom. From a common moral economy of protecting the
subjects to ensuring that they were able to pay their taxes.
By wearing a common head gear in the form of a conical
History of India 14

cap, to adopting titles like ‘Suratran’ (same as Sultans) the

Hindu rulers were illustrating their acceptance of an Islamic
taste.

Moreover the presence of the Sufis in the region helped to

entrench the popular image of Islam. It is said that after
the death of Delhi’s greatest Chisti Master, Shaikh Nizam-
ud-din Auliya, one of his leading disciples Barhan-al-Din-
Gharib moved from Delhi to the Tughlaq’s Deccan capital of
Daulatabad.

One of the ways the Bahmanis justified their rebellion

against the centralizing powers of the Delhi Sultanate was
through their patronage of the Sufi shaikhs. The territorial
sovereignty of the Sufi sheikhs was based on their spiritual
authority which was unlimited. Moreover they were highly
mobile and they helped to control a world of long-distance
trade, of mobile wealth, of extensive monetization and of
easily recruitable and purchasable military slaves. In this
fluid context Turko-Persian states could emerge anywhere,
where they had the backing of the powerful Sufi Shaikhs.
History of India 15

This also led to what was considered as Hindu sacred space

as opposed to Muslim sacred space. Architecture played an
important role in these definitions. While temple building
continued depending on regional variations – as in
Vijaynagar, completely new architectural styles arrived with
the Muslim Sultans and their central Asian architects. After
the 12th century the use of arches, domes and application of
lime and cement brought in completely new techniques in
buildings. It also brought in love of light and grace which
the earlier trabeate construction could easily match. It
stood in sharp contrast to the ‘plastic exuberance’ of the
earlier tradition seen in temple decorations. This was
carried to its fullest treatment in the Bahmani architecture
where the Indo-Saracenic form of the Mosques, Madrassahs
and palaces reached its regional character. In Firozabad,
the city set up by Sultan Firoz Shah Bahmani we find a very
good example of how space was created. The Jami Mosque,
a magnificent structure (104.5 by 61.5 meters) covering an
area of 69,286 square feet remains the most impressive
building in the whole city. This shows that it was meant for
a congregation of Muslims of all classes. These kinds of
public buildings made it clear that the Muslim Sultans built
History of India 16

their cities not as a personal retreat but as a meeting space

between rulers and subjects.

In paintings new steps were taken following the classical

Persian idiom. This style was continued right through the
14-15th century. The Persian style was absorbed into a
regional pictorial language. During the rule of Hussain
Nizam Shah (1555 – 65) a chronicle celebrating his victory
against the rulers of Vijaynagar, known as Tarikh-i-Hussain
Shahi was composed. It was hailed as a national epic. An
illustrated version of this manuscript was found which
brought before scholars the artistic achievements of the
Deccani paintings prior to the coming of the Mughals.

To conclude it would be interesting to turn to the medieval

Persian Chroniclers who wrote the histories of Bahmani
kingdom – Saijid Ali Tabataba, Rafi-al-Sherazi or
Muhammad Qasim Ferishta. They were all highborn Persian
immigrants who tended to adopt a colonialist view towards
non-Muslim Indian society. For them all such people were
infidels. At the same time they were loyal to their patrons
and they wrote their histories as epics of victory. These
History of India 17

were read and interpreted by modern historians who were

constructing a grand narrative of communal struggle. They
did not take into account all those facts which contradicted
the medieval chronicles. Thus for them the river Krishna
became a static dividing line between Muslim and Hindu
Deccan.

These discussions had prevented more recent generations

from appreciating the degree to which both Vijaynagar and
its northern neighbours were integrated into a multi-ethnic,
trans-regional universal meeting together by shared
political norm, cultural values and esthetic tastes. The
Vijaynagar rulers did not patronize Islamite culture as a
deliberate strategy for controlling their Muslim subjects.
Rather they chose to participate in a territorial decentred
Islamite system that was not dominated from any
hegemonic political centre. On the other hand the Sufi
wilayat was theoretically unlimited but in practice was
always identified with well defined specific localities so the
Bahmani Kingdom became an important centre of Islamic
spiritual power. This in association with the courtly and
History of India 18

cosmopolitan Islamicate world system proved eminently

useful for Muslim kings or states in the medieval Deccan.