Indian Antiquary Vol 51

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 168

160
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
A NEW VIEW OF SHER SHAH SUR. BY SIR RICHARD C. TEMPLE, BT.
[ AUGUST, 1922
I set out to write a review of Professor Qanungo's recent monograph on Sher Shah Sûr (c. 1485-1545), but the interest that his career has long roused in myself, its very great importance to modern Indian History, the excellence of Professor Qanungo's examination thereof, and the quantity of new light he has been able to throw on the life and doings of Sher Shâh from his researches into original sources of information, have tempted me to compose a fresh résumé of what is known of that remarkable man.
The difference between Sher Shah and the other great rulers of Upper India was that he was capable of doing all his work himself, with the requisite personal knowledge of the details of both civil and military administration-a knowledge he deliberately acquired in his youth. He was never obliged to trust to, or lean upon, others for details, and was his own Commanderin-Chief, his own Prime Minister, his own Controller of Customs and Revenue, his own Treasurer, his own Minister of Agriculture and Public Works, his own Master of the Mint and his own And his capacity in Provincial Governor of the very manyiniature districts he set up. every such position is shown by the fact that he raised himself from the status of the son of an ordinary fief-holder or country gentleman of recent standing to that of true monarch of an empire stretching from Afghanistan to Assam, from the Himalayas to the confines of Râjputânâ. This vast territory he ruled and organised on lines of his own, so sound that they formed, and still are, the basis of all subsequent government-Muslim and British. This extraordinary genuis, however, had the misfortune to run out his career just before the European commercial invasion of India had any practical effect, and also to be succeeded by the very interests he had combated all his life. So until the recent advent of dispassionate critical research into Indian History, his life and doings had no chance of being appreciated in their true proportion. It has therefore happened that the quality of the work and character of one of the very greatest men of the past in India has been known only to a few investigators and has been practically ignored by all others.
I find I have myself described Sher Shâh Sûr in a short general résumé of Indian History as "the father of modern Indian Administration, following the lead of his great predecessor, Firôz Shah Tughlaq of Delhi (1351-1388), and giving it to his successors, Akbar the Great (1556-1605), Warren Hastings (1774-1785) and Lord Dalhousie (1848-1856)." The points I drew into prominence in Firôz Shâh's administration were soundness of principle, light taxation, canals and roads. To Sher Shâh himself we still owe the Great North Road as part of the Grand Trunk Road of Northern India. In making these remarks I did not in fact do justice to the extraordinary achievements of Sher Shâh Sûr; and in this I was not alone. Writers of history have not properly appreciated his worth.
Such a man as this, to whom nearly four centuries after his time India still owes so much, deserves all the research that can be bestowed upon his career and methods. Professor Qanungo has bravely undertaken some of the task in the right way, i.e., from critical study of the original sources of information, whatever they are-Indian, British, Portuguese The key to Sher Shâh's success lies in the fact that his early self-training was entirely in civil administration, so that when his outstanding military capacities gave him the power necessary to all rulers in his day, he could use it with an intimate personal knowledge of the principles of successful civil government, which was not available to any of his Indian predecessors, contemporaries or successors. He was never in the hands of Ministers, as he knew
1 Sher Shah, by Kalikaranjan Qanungo, M.A., Professor, Ramjas College, Delhi. Calcutta: Kar Majumder and Co., 1921.