WAS MOHAMMAD TUGHLAQ REALLY A FOOL?

There is a common phrase to name anybody doing some foolish act to name him Mohammad Tughlaq. In fact, it is somehow the human psychology to blame someone who is not acting in one’s accord. Now the question arises as to what did Mohammad Tughlaq do to earn such a noble title for himself? In fact, he is blamed for the transfer of capital, introduction of the token currency and raising the revenue in the Gangetic Doab.

First of all, we take the transfer of capital. It is assumed that Mohammad Tughlaq transferred his capital from Delhi to Devgiri, giving it the new name of Daulatabad. Ibn Batuta, a Moorish traveller to his court, puts it as, “The Sultan was infuriated by his subjects of Delhi, who used to write abuses on a piece of paper and managed to throw the same in his palace. They were in fact annoyed by some of his policies, which had made their lives troublesome. The Sultan ultimately came to the conclusion to punish the ‘guilty’ people and he invented such a novel idea for the same.” It is also stated that the entire population of Delhi was ordered to shift to the new capital. While the entire Delhi submitted to the Sultan’s wishes, it was found that two persons dared to challenge the Sultan’s authority. They were brought forth to the Sultan and when enquired, they replied that as one was a lame and another a blind, it was not possible for them to move away from the city. On this, the Sultan ordered to kill the lame and the blind was ordered to move over to the new capital. It is strange to note that only one arm and a leg of his reached there. This theory has been accepted by one and all in India. Even the historians accept this story on the plea that it is narrated by the contemporary writers, e.g Batuta and Zia-ud-Din Barani. This story is taught to the students in India and filled in their minds that Mohd. Tughlaq was really a fool. Even those who don’t know the A,B,C of history authoritatively state that the Tughlaq Sultan was, in fact, a fool.
Secondly, it is stated that he enhanced the revenue in the Doab at a time when famine broke out in the area. Instead of giving some relief to the peasants, he ordered to receive the new rate of revenue from them. The result was that a number of peasants were forced to leave their lands. However, when later on the Sultan announced grants for them, his officials grabbed a huge amount of it thus causing a huge loss to the State exchequer.
Thirdly, it is stated that the Sultan had issued token currency of copper. People in thousands, started preparing this money themselves and when later on the Sultan found that he had not issued so much the amount from his exchequer as was being circulated in the empire, he immediately ordered to cancel his previous orders regarding the token currency and re-issued the old currency.
Now the question arises as to how far was the Sultan responsible for the failure of his policies? If we go through his first plan, I don’t find him a fool. In history, we do depend on the contemporary evidences. I am teaching history for the last 22 years now. I on my part believe that we have to consider the contemporary evidences and there is no history without the evidences. But what if we get only the corrupted evidences? After all logic to any point is also to be considered. In fact, Mohd. Tughlaq was not the only ruler who transferred his capital and returned soon. Harsha Vardhana made Kannauj his capital in place of Thanesar, Iltutmish transferred his capital from Lahore to Delhi, Ala-ud-Din for a short span made Siri his capital, Akbar made Fatehpur Sikri his capital and later on even the British transferred their capital from Calcutta to Delhi. The only difference of change between the two can be said that the other rulers did not force their subjects to move to the new capital. Did Tughlaq really ordered his entire subjects of Delhi to shift to Devgiri? Here I depend more on my common sense than the unwise theory. The Sultan would never had ordered the transfer of his entire population to Delhi. Is it possible for the entire population to settle down immediately to the new environment? Where can they find accommodation? How can they manage their sources of income? It is all worth consideration. Moreover, the Sultan had not adopted any such policy which would have annoyed the common people and they were forced to send abuses to him. For the Sultan, it was not worth his personality to punish the people, though in those days he could award them serious punishments and even the death penalties for even petty crimes.
Regarding the other two problems, the Sultan himself was not as much responsible as the officials and the common masses themselves. The Sultan had issued the token currency taking in view the financial hazards he was facing. The common people thought that it was a novel method to make money for them. The only fault lay here on the part of the Sultan was that he did not keep a vigilant eye on the mints. He was in fact of the view that the common people were also a farsighted as he was; while the fact remains, that he was thinking almost two centuries in advance. Even if we compare the developments in today’s light I doubt if the people worry for the nation. They even today prefer to fulfil their personal motives. Why to blame those who did the same thing almost seven centuries back.
So far the enhancement of revenue, the Sultan was not informed for what was happening at a place situated at a good distance from Delhi. Even his officers preferred to remain mum at any unhappy development, as it would “worry the Sultan”. Those were the times when there was no development in the field of communication. Today thousands of peasants are giving up their lives in the wake of their problems. The government, which happens to be “of ourselves, by ourselves and for ourselves”, is a meek spectator to all these deaths. Daily we are listening to the news, reading them. Do our leaders have something for them? After the death of a person, a leader would come at his funeral, and announce a grant of one lakh or two lakhs of rupees to the next kin of the dead. And more strangely, rarely would they get this amount.
I think Mohammad Tughlaq was not a fool. He was a great idealist, who thought for the best results, but failed due to the lack of common support from his bureaucrats as well as his subjects. However, for his failures, and I repeat for which he was not solely responsible, he has earned a bad name. It is a common saying, give the dog a bad name and kill him. So has been the case with Mohammad Tughlaq.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah : A Communal or a Secular?

There has been a lot of hue and cry over Mr. L.K. Advani giving a certificate of a ‘secularist’ to Mr. Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The controversy rises over whether Jinnah was a secularist or a communalist? When we go through the career of Jinnah, he appears a controversial figure. In the earlier part of his political career, he was a nationalist to the true sense; a person who hated the mixture of religion in politics. It was this reason that when the Muslim League was formed in 1906, he peferred to remain aloof of this organisation for the simple reason that its foundation laid on the communal grounds.
Born on 25th December, 1876 A.D. in Karachi, in a Muslim Shiite Khoja family, he was much a Muslim in appearance. He did not dress or speak like a MussalmanHis role in the national movement was commendable. It was he primarily drafted the Lucknow Pact that brought the Congress and the League together on a common platform. He alogwith other nationalist leaders was on the fore-front to demand autonomous status after the war ended.
                                                                                 I
The political scenario in the country had changed after the War. However, there was no change in Jinnah’s ideology. He was the first elected member in the Legislative Council to resign as a protest against the extension of the martial laws after the first world war. He wrote, that “the constitutional rights of the people have been violated at a time when there is no real danger to the State, by an overfretful and incompetent bureaucracy which is neither responsible to the people nor in touch with real public opinion.”1
So far Jinnah’s religious views are concerned, he was indeed a Muslim and remained throughout his life. However, his views were private and had nothing to do with the public life.2 He decided to remain aloof of the Khilafat agitation, which had otherwise attracted the entire Muslim community; the cause which had become an issue of life and death for the Indian Mussalmans.The reason behind Jinnah’s ideology was that he was not in favour of mixing politics with religion as it would prove harmful to the nation. He had time and again stood by the Congress leadership in their voice against the imperialist policies of the alien Indian rulers. In December, 1918, he led more than 300 Congress volunteers in Bombay, and forced the sheriff to call off the meeting proposed to honour Lord Wellingdon on his departure. It was a great victory for the democratic forces as Jinnah addressed the gathering, “Gentlemen! you are the citizens of Bombay. Your triumph today has made it clear that even the combined forces of bureaucracy and autocracy could not overawe. Go and rejoice over the day that has secured us the triumph of democracy.”3
Jinnah, with his nationalist outlook, had opposed the Simon Commission like any other nationalist in the country for the reason that it had no Indian member in it.He held a session of the Muslim League in Calcutta and urged upon the Muslims throughout the country to have nothing to do with the Commission at any stage or in any form.4 The other group of the League, led by Mohammad Shafi, decided to co-operate with the Commission and held the session at Lahore. The Shafi League feared the Hindu domination and felt that the Muslim co-operation with the British only could assure the Muslim security.5 Sir Fazl-i-Hussain, the Unionist leader of the Panjab, had earlier declared to boycott any Parliamentary commission, but later on expressed his willingness to co-operate with it believing that he would get a better hearing from the British government rather than the Indian National Congress or any other political party.6
In the meantime, accepting the challenge of Lord Birkenhead, the Secretary of State for India, to “produce a constitution which carries behind it a fair measure of general agreement among the great people of India,”7 an All-Parties Conference in Delhi in February 1928. A sub-committee under the chairmanship of Pt. Moti Lal Nehru was formed to draft the proposed constitution for India. However, some of its recommendations became controversial which included the joint electorates with no reservation of seats for any community in the Parliament. Jinnah, on theother hand, was anxious to come to terms with the Congress. After his consultations with other Muslim leaders, he presented his famous Fourteen Points in 1929. These included 33% reservation for the Muslims in Central Legislative Council, separation of Sind from the Bombay Presidency, minimum 33% Muslim representation in the formation of any ministry in the country. However, the Congress refused to accept these points incorporating the ‘minimum Muslim demands’.Hence the doors for any future understanding between the League and the Congress were closed.
After the Statutory Commission Report was published, efforts were made to solve the constitutional deadlock. Consequently, the Round Table Conferences were convened in London.However, during the course of these conferences, Mian Fazl-i-Hussain, who was a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, exercised his influence in the selection of the Muslim delegation. Most of the delegates were his proteges, and those who did not follow him, were removed from the nominees’ list. Similarly, when he found Jinnah not supporting all the communal demands of the Muslims, he was not invited in the remaining two.
The year 1937 is an epoch making event in the modern Indian history. Elections to the Provincial Legislative Assemblies according to the Act of 1935 were held in early 1937. Jinnah prepared the election manifesto, which was quite similar to that of the Congress. “Full responsible government” was his chief object, which was to be realised if the Hindu-Muslim communal differences were removed.8 Such was Jinnah, a nationalist leader, a secular leader till 1937. Now the question arises as to what went wrong with him after the elections that he was forced to change his views and outlook. What were the factors that within three years of the elections he openly announced the two nation theory, and made the formation of a separate State as the goal of the Muslim League. Did the failure in the elections forced him to think otherwise? Did the British rulers influence over him for this goal? Was the short-sightedness of the Congress leadership responsible for Jinnah turning his path from a nationalist leader to a communal and separatist leader? Had he become a puppet in the hands of the communal Muslim leadership? These are certain questions which should be looked into to come to any conclusion.
                                                                                   II
The Muslim League claimed to be representing the Muslims in the entire India. However, the results of the 1937 elections proved otherwise. It fared badly in the Muslim majority provinces as compared to the minority provinces. It failed to annex any seat in Sind and NWFP, while it won mere two seats out of 86 Muslim seats in the Panjab.9 In the Bengal, its tally was 40 out of 119 Muslim seats. On the other hand, its success rate was much better in the minority provinces. It captured 27 out of 64 seats in U.P., 11 out of 28 in Madras, and 20 out of 29 in Bombay. The League in its manifesto had, apart from the general programme, advocated certain communal principles as: to protect religious righgts, to protect and promote Urdu language and the Persian script, as well to devise measures for the amelioration of the general condition of the Muslims.10 Obviously the fears regarding their interests could influence the Muslims in their minority provinces, but found it deterimental to their interests in the majority provinces.11
The defeat of the League in the Muslim constituencies was a challenge to it. Jinnah, its leader, held the lack of unity among the Muslims responsible for its dismal position and urged upon the Muslims all over the country to unite on a single platform.12 Responding to Jinnah’s call, Sikander Hayat Khan, the Premier of the Panjab and the Leader of the Unionist Party, attended the annual session of the League at Lucknow in October 1937 and later on signed a pact with Jinnah, according to which he was to advise all the Muslim members in the Unionist Party to join the Muslim League as well. Accordingly, both the parties were to act in unison during the elections. What was the motive behind both the leaders in signing this pact, but the fact remains, as the future course of history shows, that the League got a strong footing in the Panjab, and Jinnah emerged as a strong leader of the Muslims.”Without the Panjab, the League had no real heartland of power, no core around which to build its potential chain to nationhood. By luring Sir Sikander into his Party’s Camp, Jinnah raised the green flag with its giant ‘P’ ... signalling the birth of an inchoate nation that was to remain the womb of British India for precisely one decade.”13 He urged upon the Muslims all over India to unite into a well-knit and solid organisation because only then could they enforce upon the opposition its wishes.14
The League after its wash-out in 1937 elections, had rallied the Muslims under its banner exploiting their communal hopes and fears. The policy struck at the right point. The results of the bye-elections in different parts of the country had given ample amount of success to the Muslim League candidates. In the 77 bye-elections in the Muslim constituencies between 1937 and 1945, the Muslim League won 55, Independent Muslims 18 and the Congress only 4. Similarly in the Centre, out of 18 bye-elections on the Muslim seats, the League had won 11, Independent Muslims 5 and the Congress 2. Thus the Congress claims to represent the Muslims had been falsified in these elections.
Thus the League, after its failure in the 1937 elections had decided to wear the communal garb and it clicked.
                                                                                       III
The short-sightedness of the Congress leadership was not less responsible in forcing Jinnah to change his path of nationalism. It is believed that both the League and the Congress leadership had reached an understanding of forming coalition government in the U.P. after the elections. But after the results, where the Congress had performed brilliantly, it refused to form any coalition with the League. The Congress-League controversies arising in the United Provinces about formation of ministeries and certain conditions put by the Congress before the League leaders to accept it, created a wedge between the two.15 It had a disastrous impact on the future course of history. Wherever the Congress had formed its Ministeries, allegations were made against its rule by the Muslim leaders for its anti-Muslim policies and for working in the furtherance of the Hindu interests. Fazl-ul-Haq, the Premier of Bengal, the Raja of Pirpur and the Sharif Committee in their reports levelled grave charges against the Congress rule and the Muslim sufferings under it in different parts of the country. It was declared that the Muslim future in India was uncertain under the Hindu domination. To organise them, communal colour was given to the Muslim miseries, poverty and wretchedness and was propangandized that their social, religious, economic and cultural interests were at stake in the Hindu India.16 The future course of history makes it clear that had the Congress leadership, at the time of formation of the Ministeries, taken the League with it, the developments would have been different.
                                                                                        IV
After the beginning of the second World War, the Governor General, Lord Linlithgow, announced Indian support in the war in favour of the allies. The Congress reacted sharply to it. It wanted that the government should have consulted it before making any announcement. As a mark of protest, the Congress high command ordered its Ministeries to resign immediately. After the Congress ministeries resigned, Jinnah announced to celebrate the day as the Day of Deliverance or Yaum-i-Nijat. It was a good opportunity for the British rulers to utilise the Congress- League differences in favour of their war efforts. The Muslim sentiments were aroused, and the British started pinning hopes on the Muslim support as “we have three great Mohammedan powers, Iraq, Egypt and Turkey, in alliance with ourselves.”17 In order to appease the Muslims, the Government declared on 8th August, 1940 that “no constitution should be enacted by His Majesty’s Government and the Parliament without the consent and approval of Muslim India.” Jinnah wanted the government to safeguard the Muslim interests as they had not obstructed its war-efforts.18 The British rulers started giving Jinnah a very prominent position. All the important problems regarding the Muslims were being discussed with Jinnah. Even Winston Churchill, the British Premier, remained in close contact with Jinnah and worked effectively to transform his political policies. The Congress-Government differences gave an opportunity to the League and its leader, Jinnah, to make an effective appearance on the Indian political scenario, thanks to the British policies.
                                                                                        V
Though the Lahore Resolution of 1940 was adopted at the Muslim League session, neither of its leaders was clear of its objectives. Initially, Jinnah accepted that it was a tactical move designed to wring from the Congress more concessions which would make “partnership more tolerable.”19 But soon Jinnah became violent in his approach. “Pakistan has been there for centuries, it is there today and it will remain till the end of the world.” On another occasion he stated, “I am asked, will the British agree to the basic and fundamental principles of the Lahore Resolution, namely to create an independent Muslim State in the North-Western and Eastern Zones of India? Whether they agree or whether they do not, we shall fight for it to the last ditch.”20
Whatever might have been the objectives in the minds of Jinnah, the demand of a separate homeland had indeed fascinated the Muslim masses. Once the cry for Pakistan was raised it could not be silenced. To the Muslim masses, it held out an ill-defined and alluring prospect of looting the Hindus and the Sikhs. Ambitious politicians, civil servants as well as some professionals held the opinion that under a Muslim Raj “they would rise to the position of power and affluence un-attainable in a single mixed Hindu-Muslim State.”21 The League was reorganised. The Muslim Women cell of the League was constituted. A committee under the Raja of Mahmoodabad, was appointed to set a plan for the social, economic, political and educational advancement of the Muslims.22 Jinnah had even declared that in the Pakistan demand, the Muslims did not want to dominate the whole of India and had no desire to rule over the Hindus.They wanted their own governments to grow freely and develop their own culture in the two zones which they considered as their homelands.23
There was a great change in the political arena after the war. As the British had won it, they were now no more interested in the League. On the other hand, Jinnah had by this time become a force to reckon with. Efforts of the Congress leaders to appease Jinnah had failed. To solve the Indian deadlock, the Viceroy called a political conference in Simla, on 25th June, 1945, in which the important leaders from all the prominent parties represented. However, it failed as Jinnah was adamant to authorise the Muslim League to select all the Musllim members in the Viceroy’s Council.
In the meantime, the British Government decided to send a Cabinet Mission to have talks with the Indian leaders and find out some suitable alternative to the crisis in the Indian politics. The Mission published its formula on 16th May, 1946 which was a compromise between two different proposals. It recommended for a federal government, thus meeting the demands of a united India as well as League’s demand for a separate Muslim majority area, but denying its scheme of partition on communal lines. However, this scheme failed due to Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru’s statement, which was undoubtedly undiplomatic in the contemporary circumstances. Nehru in a Press Conference in Bombay on 10th July, declared that the Congress was not bound by any British imposed settlement and that his party would change the plan at will by virtue of its majority in the Constituent Assembly.24 It enraged Jinnah, who now decided to achieve the ultimate mission of Muslim homeland, resorting to violent methods through the Direct Action starting from 16th August. “This day we bid good-bye to constitutional methods... We have also forged a pistol and are in a position to use it.”25 In spite of Nehru’s pleadings not to celebrate the day, The League turned a deaf ear to such appeals.
The Direct Action Day witnessed the communal riots throughout the country, which continued for almost a year. The cries of ‘Pakistan Paindabad’ and ‘Larh ke Lenge Pakistan’ were heard everywhere. In the meantime, Jinnah had his talks with Lord Mountbatten, teh new Viceroy of India. He demanded full Panjab and full bengal as parts of Pakistan. “A man is a Punjabi or a Bengali first before he is a Hindu or a Mussalman. If you give us those provinces, you must under no condition, partition them.”26 To this, the Viceroy clarified Jinnah that “a man is not only a Punjabi or a Bengali before he is a Hindu or a Muslim, but he is an Indian before all else.”27 Later on, when the partition became a certain fact, Jinnah declared in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11th August, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan ... You may belong to any rteligion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the State. ... We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State.” Thus Jinnah, at last, again demonstrated himself as a secular leader.
However, there can be no denying the fact that in real terms Jinnah was not a communal leader, and before 1937 even dared to hate the communal leadership, whether among the Hindus or the Muslims. But the circumstances changed after the elections, much due to the way he was treated by the Congress leaders. The political exigencies of the British rulers during the war days forced them to follow the policy of appeasement towards him and raised his stature to an undaunted Muslim leader. He also came to the conclusion that to achieve his political motives he had to shun the secularism of the Congress leaders and use religion as the rallying point.28 This he did effectively. But after his political ambitions were fulfilled, and when he aimed to make the new State a secular State, even though it was achieved on the religious grounds, he all of a sudden found himself all aloof in the politics which had gained strength in the hands of the Muslim fundamentalists. An arrow had been shot, it could not return to its bow, the new State had been found on communal grounds under the leadership of Jinnah and now there was no one in Pakistan to listen to his cry of secularism. It is all what is history. The economic or political or cultural interests of the masses have hardly been cared of in both the parts of the Greater India. And above all Jinnah will continue to be a controversial figure in history.


References
1. S. Wolpert, “Faithfully Secular” , in India Today, Vol. XXX, No. 25, June 21 - 27, 2005, p. 22.
2. Ibid, 22.
3. Cited in ibid, 22.
4. Cited in Ram Gopal, Indian Muslims, Bombay 1964 (rep.), 188.
5. K.K. Aziz, The Making of Pakistan, London 1967, 41.
6. David Page, Prelude to Partition, Delhi 1982, 181.
7. Cited in V.P. Menon, The Transfer of Power in India, New Delhi 1979 (rep.), 34.
8. M. H. Saiyid, The Sound of Fury, New Delhi 1981 (Ind. reprint), 178.
9. Tara Chand, HFMI (Vol. IV), New Delhi 1983 (rep.), 224.
10. N.N. Mitra (ed), Indian Annual Register, 1936 (Vol. I), 301.
11. Humayun Kabir, Musim Politics (1906- 47), Calcutta 1969, 25.
12. See, Jamil-ud-Din Ahmed (ed.), Some Recent Speeches and Writings of Mr. Jinnah(Vol. I),Lahore1947, 29.
13. S. Wolpert, Jinnah of Pakistan, New Delhi 1985 (Ind. rep.), 151-52.
14. See, S.S. Pirzada (ed.), Foundations of Pakistan (Vol. II), New Delhi 1982 (Ind. rep.), 267.
15. K.B.Sayeed, Pakistan : The Formative Phase, London 1968, 88.
16. M.H. Saiyid, op cit, 180.
17. Wedgewood Benn in the House of Commons, Indian Annual Register, 1939 (Vol. II), 395.
18. S.S. Pirzada (ed.), Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah’s Correspondence, New Delhi 1981 (Ind. ed.), 202.
19. P. Moon, Divide and Quit, London 1961, 37.
20. Jamil-ud-Din Ahmed (ed.), op cit, 162.
21. P. Moon, op cit, 22.
22. S. S. Pirzada (ed.), Foundations of Pakistan (Vol. II), 373-74.
23. J.J. Pal, Jinnah and the Creation of Pakistan, Delhi 1983, 95.
24. Abul Kalam Azad, India Wins Freedom, New Delhi 1978 (rep.), 155.
25. Jamil-ud-Din Ahmed (ed.), op cit (Vol. II), 314.
26. Jinnah to Mountbatten. Cited in Larry Collins & D. Lappiere Mountbatten and the Partition of India, New Delhi 1982 (Ind. ed.), 43.
27. Mountbatten to Jinnah. Ibid, 43.
28. Mushirul Hasan, “Antithesis of Nehru”, in India Today, op cit, 27.