Indian Antiquary Vol 51

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

Page 199

OCTOBER, 1922]
A NEW VIEW OF SHER SHAH SUR
191
Caprice of the ruler under the Taghlaqs, until the beneficent Firôz Shah Tughlaq (1351-1388) ravived it. Nevertheless, the pernicious system of granting fiefs, as a reward, to the military following of the Muslim invaders, which lasted on to Humayun's day, prevented the efforts of Firoz Shah Tughlaq from effectually protecting the peasantry against oppression.
Sher Shah swept it away and reverted to the land measurements of 'Alâ'u'ddin Khilji and improved on them, and everywhere he took a fourth, instead of 'All'u'ddin's half, of the assessed produce, allowing the peasant the choice between paying in cash or kind. He also gave title-deeds stating the revenue demanded in each case, according to an agreement duly signed and sealed ; and he fixed the collection fees himself. His Assessments were light and his cfficials found favour by realising them in full. Finally, he abolished new grants of fiefs for good service by soldiers, rewarding them in cash. His system was rigorously carried out, and had his life been spared, the long-established plundering superior landlord would have disappeared. As it was, he succeeded in establishing a system which was the model for Akbar, through Todar Mal, and formed the basis of the modern British system of revenue settlement.
Sher Shah's revenue management demanded the existence of regular coinage, and practically he had to create it. Sweeping away all the indefinite metal currencies he found, he introduced a new dam ox copper unit and divided it up into sixteenths for cash revenue purposes, and his gold and silver coins were good, having a fixed relation to each other and to the dam. He further developed the plan of establishing mints at the more important centres of his ever-increasing empire, which have been since so important for tracing histori. cal facts. Truly was he the father of the existing British Indian coinage.
Sher Shah made another clean sweep of old established pernicious habits. Except perhaps as to corn under 'Alá'u'ddin Khilji, there had never been freedom of trade between petty governments within the Muslim Empire. Sher Shâh abolished all customs, except on the frontier and an octroi at the markets. He thus encouraged trade in a manner unknown to Europe or elsewhere in his day.
He showed his administrative genius by his extensive road-building everywhere, and in all directions from Agra. His great roads, Agra to Burhanpur, Agra to Jodhpur and Chitor, Lahor to Multân, and the greatest of all, Dacca (Sunargaon) to the Indus, were well shaded and extraordinarily well supplied with rest-houses. Improved by the work of generations, they are there to this day. The rest houses were an old institution, but Sher Shah's merit was that in his time they were deliberately designed to entertain Hindu and Muslim alike. His system of posts was inherited and so was his method of espionage.
Sher Shah's police system was effective, though mediæval in its severity and methods, but his regulations as to responsibility of village officials for crime committed within their jurisdiction and for fugitive criminals traced to their villages remind one of the existing Track Law of the Panjab, and are therefore interesting.
Within his opportunities, Sher Shah was a noble builder. His splendid mausoleum. at the family fief of Sasaram is the finest specimen as a matter of architecture, but he built much else, and was a past master in the art of the construction of strong forts in the right strategical positions- & great though minor point in his many outstanding capacities. He found Todar Mal Khatri for the building of his Rohtas Fort to overawe the Gakkharsthe Todar Mal, who was to do so much for Akbar later on.
I shall not attempt to write a character of Sher Shah. His life shows hing to have had all the qualities that go to make a great ruler of men--one who had the genius to be a great pioneer: a man ahead of his time, and therefore a man whose career deserves the closest study in its every aspect by all Indian administrators who would profit in their day by the doings and ideals of one of the very greatest of their predecessors.