Indian Antiquary Vol 51

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

Page 218

210
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
NOVEMBER, 1922
Muhammad Tughlak had the enterprise and spirit to create this huge Empire, but owing to faults of character he could not maintain it. As regards the South, his efforts to do so entailed expeditions to Warangaland Dwarasamudra in 1327-1328, the campaign involving a jauhar, or holocaust of women, at Kampti on the Tungabhadra. Like other provinces, Ma'abar rebelled, but as had happened already in Bengol, the army did not return, and its commander, Jalâlu'ddin Ahsan Khân set up there independently about 1335. Then, in 1329, came successively the cruel move from Delhi to Deogiri, an abortive attempt to reduce Ma'abar to obedience, and the move back from Deogiri to Delhi, Revolts, Hindu and Musalman, were chronic, including Hindu at Warangal and Musalman at Kulbarga in 1343, which were put down. Having stirred up rebellion in Gujarat by an "enquiry into arreare of revenue" and having put it down savagely, Muhammad Tughlak proceeded, about 1346, to do the same thing in Deogiri, and while there yet another revolt was raised in Gujarat by a mamluk named Taghi, who was however easily defeated, though only scotched and able to give yet more trouble. The consequent absence of Muhammad Tughlak in Gujarat, practically to the remainder of his astonishing career, meant another rebellion, this time under Hasan Khangû, which was successful, Hasan Khangû becoming Sultan in Deogiri about 1318. Three years of wanderings in Gujarat and the western frontier brought Muhammad Tughlak's strenuous career to an end in 1351 from "fever", the account of which reads like fish-poisoning.
His ill-conduct of Imperial affairs had reduced his Empire practically to India north of the Vindhyas, minus Bengal. Deogiri, that is the Dakhan, had defied him for at least three years; Warangal's allegiance was only in name; the Hoysalas of Devarasamudra could hardly be called his vassals, and Ma'abar had been actually independent for at least fifteen years. A careful chronology of this last fact is to be found at pp. 152–4 of Professor Krishnaswami's book.
In this way, from the days of Alâu'ddin Khilji to those of Muhammad Tughlak, the first half of the fourteenth century A.D. was a time of continuous strife between Muslim and Hindu in the South of India. There was invasion after invasion, rebellion after rebellion, conqucst and reconquest at times of practically the whole South, and at times of unfortunato portions of it. In the end all the obivious signs that remained of the struggle was the estab. lishment of locally independent Muslim rule in Ma'abar for a while (till 1378); and thus the Muhammadan incursions took the form apparently of mere raids. But in the conditions of mediæval life it was not possible for large armies to march to and fro through all the South, year after year, for something like half a century, without leaving pockets of themselves about the country, and the descendants of these must have remained on here and there, just as in the case of the Hans, Greeks, Parthians, Baktrians, and a host of other immigrant in. vaders of far earlier date in the North-West, and of the Shans, MÔns and other Indo-Chinese races in the North-East. It would be of interest, by dint of examination into local family histories, to ascertain how far the Khilji and Tughlak incursions still affect the population in places, for we have thus in the true South three sources of Muslim population : Firstly, the peaceful penetration of Arab and quasi-Arab mercantile invaders producing an old mixed trading population-Mâpillas, Navê yats, Labbâis, and the like ; secondly, the remnants of the military raiders of the fourteenth century; lastly, the followors of the Dakhani Muhammadan rulers who constantly raided to the southward, and finally overthrew the Vijaya. nagar Empire, a Hindu Empire that rose out of the chaos ensuing on the death of Muhammad Tughlak, in the middle of the seventeenth century. Even an enquiry into the history of the Dakhani idiom of Urdd might throw light on the influence of Islam on the Soutbern Dravidian population and vice versa.