The Age of Wrath

Title: The Age of Wrath - A History of the Delhi Sultanate

Author: Abraham Eraly

Publisher: Viking Penguin, 2014 (First)

ISBN: 9780670087181

Pages: 448

Just as Europe declined to Dark Ages in the sixth century CE, India too witnessed the demise of its classical age. The drivers of its growth and vitality gradually dried up. This put India in a difficult position vis-a-vis the foreign invasions that was still continuing with devastating regularity. The Turks from Turkestan in Central Asia poured into India in large swarms. The Turks were entirely different from all the previous invaders of India, and Indians of this age were entirely different from their forefathers. India had absorbed all the pre-Turkish invaders and migrants into its society because it was then a marvellously vital and creative civilization, which was far more advanced than that of the invaders. In dismal contrast to this, Indian civilization at the time of the Turkish invasion was in an awfully decadent and comatose state. The Turks landed in India and stayed for seven centuries in the form of the Delhi sultanate and later as the Mughals. This book covers the Sultanate period, and its description covers the Arab conquest of Sindh in 711 CE to the defeat of Ibrahim Lodi to Babur at Panipat in 1526 CE. Abraham Eraly is a Keralite historian who is the acclaimed author of three books on Indian history.

This book is the second in the series on Indian history. The first part, titled ‘The First Spring’ came out in two parts and was reviewed earlier. Its narrative ends at around the middle of the first millennium CE which marked the disintegration of Indian society. Eraly identified the cause of the decline to the fall of the Roman Empire that desiccated the flow of trade between Europe and Asia. Whatever may be the reason, the author clearly pinpointed the wilting away of creativity as the factor that led to the country’s abject surrender to Muslim invaders. Instead of the urban sophistication that had characterized the classical Indian civilization in the early medieval period, crude rusticity characterized it leading to the fall of towns and society moved back to the villages. This dismal state of Indian culture worsened during the Sultanate period because the main sustenance of cultural activity was royal patronage and this dwindled. Vandalization and destruction of many of India's ancient cultural institutions and religious structures pushed the country deep into the Dark Age.

Eraly makes a guess on the geographical and physical factors that contributed to the rout of Indian princes on the battlefield. The aggressors who swooped down from the cool Afghan mountains had immense kinetic energy. Indians were mostly plainspeople leading a sedentary, lethargic life in an enervating climate. Their posture as defenders was generally static. Psychologically too, they suffered from the victim syndrome and were sluggish in battles. Their fatalistic value system inculcated a defeatist attitude. To add to all these woes, they were demoralized by astrological predictions that a Muslim victory was inevitable. This book houses a gruesome account of the brutal destruction and plunder of Somnath Temple at the hands of Mahmud of Ghazni (p.46-9). What is strange is the ecstatic report of the medieval historian al-Biruni on this incident, who says, ‘Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country and performed there wonderful exploits, by which the Hindus became like atoms and dust scattered in all directions’. It is also stated that Mahmud assembled all his plundered riches while in deathbed and wept bitterly as he could not take them to the afterlife.

The medieval sultans belonged to a very small Muslim aristocracy ruling over a sea of Hindus. Terrifying their subjects with murders, religious conversions and destruction of temples formed part of the modus operandi of them. But if you reduce the situation to a nutshell, the continued existence of Hindus was in the interests of the sultans, since all of them could not be killed or converted anytime soon. So, a working relationship eventually evolved between them. Hindus could live in the kingdom as second class citizens, but without any notions of confidence or self-respect. But, Ala-ud-din Khilji went one step further and was a bloodthirsty tyrant who wanted to crush his Hindu subjects by indirect means. He controlled the price of grains and other commodities through rigorous financial and trade reforms. The market price of all articles, including that of slaves, was kept at a deliberately low level so that he could employ a larger standing army without a commensurate increase in wages. Almost all of the peasants and traders were Hindus, who were thus forced to reduce the selling price at immense loss to them on the pain of cruel punishments for infringement. Ala-ud-din maintained that Hindus would never become submissive and obedient till they are reduced to grinding poverty. Strict orders were issued to see that they are not able to accumulate wealth and prosper. The wives of even the landed proprietors and chief men had to go to the houses of the Muslim nobles and do domestic work there for the meagre wages it offered. The agricultural tax rate shot up to 50 per cent during this period and suffocated the farmers. The revenue collector was so dreaded and authoritative a figure that Zia-ud-din Barani comments that ‘should the collector chooses to spit into his mouth, the Hindu should open the same without hesitation so that the official may spit into it’ (p.129). Eraly however comments that many of his reforms were several centuries ahead of their time. Probably he had Kim Jong Un of North Korea or Adolf Hitler in his mind!

Okay, if Ala-ud-din Khilji was such a monster, was there any sultan who stood at the other end of the spectrum? Eraly offers Firuz Tughluq to such a place, who is praised as ‘a people's sultan’ having wide cultural interests and liberality in patronage of culture. Let’s briefly examine his antecedents from the narratives of foreign chroniclers. During his campaign in Rohilkhand, he ordered the general massacre of Hindus and the devastation of the region for the next five years. He duly visited the place every year to see that his order was obeyed in every detail (p.183). Firuz sacked the temple town of Puri in Odisha. He not only demolished the renowned Jagannath Temple, but also rooted up its idol, took it with him to Delhi and placed it in an ignominious position (p.184). During Bengal campaign he issued an order for collecting the heads of slain Bengalis and a silver tanka was offered for every head. Soon, 180,000 people were slain by his motivated soldiers (p.180). Ferishta states that he broke the idols of Jwalamukhi temple in Kangra, mixed their fragments with the flesh of cows, hung them in nose bags round the neck of Brahmins and sent the principal idol as a trophy to Medina (p.185). Eraly describes such a wicked bigot as ‘a highly cultured person whose actions were guided by humane and liberal principles’, ‘the most liberal of the rulers of the Delhi sultanate’ (p.183) and ‘essentially a man of peace’!

The author does not comment on the drain of huge amounts of wealth from India to Central Asia due to the relentless plunder that lasted nearly a thousand years. The Muslim sultans provided a readymade template to the following British by importing a nobility from foreign lands to lord over the natives. The sultans generally preferred to appoint foreign migrants, namely, Arabs, Turks and Persians who were assigned top administrative and military posts in government, reflecting their disdain for native Indians (p.280). This form of apartheid coupled with the pervasive violence and criminality of the age makes the book’s title ‘The Age of Wrath’ an apt one.

Eraly follows the path of leftist historians who somehow always end up glorifying violence and condoning genocide if Indians are at the receiving end. The Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque near Qutb Minar in Delhi was built using the material from 27 Hindu and Jain temples demolished for the purpose. But the author justifies this wanton assault on the basis of necessity rather than choice that made Aibak use those materials, because it was easy to construct by destroying temples rather than facing delays in fetching fresh quarry of stones. He exonerates Bakhtiyar Khilji on the destruction of Nalanda because he ‘mistook’ it to be a fort. He made another ‘mistake’ in killing all the Buddhist monks of the university as he thought they were Brahmins! In fact, the books he burnt there continued to smoulder for many months. Is it possible that people with that much firepower make a mistake of whom they visit? Another often used disclaimer is that the atrocities were staged just to ‘demoralize and subjugate the Hindus’!

The diction in the book is clean, clear and impeccable. However, the text is solely based on the narratives of medieval Muslim chroniclers. It includes several chapters on South Indian history like Vijayanagar and Bahmani Sultanates. There are many repetitions in the thematic descriptions as they are again taken out of the main passages and told repeatedly.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star