Social Scientist

The Medieval State and Caste

Author(s): Shireen Moosvi
Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 39, No. 7/8 (July-August 2011), pp. 3-8
Published by: Social Scientist
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41289417
Accessed: 19-10-2018 09:50 UTC

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 The Medieval State and Caste

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o has been a
The relationship between the caste system and the state(/>
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crucial one for both institutions in India. While Ashoka might
have ignored castes - whether varna or jati - in his inscriptions, at
least from the second century ad, prevention of 'admixture of
caste' had become a recognised obligation for rulers.1 To a degree,
the Dharmashastra texts too prescribed this among the ruler's
duties, as did the Arthashastra.
An interesting question arises as to what would have been the
attitude of rulers who did not come from within caste society. The
great Kushanas, whose homeland was Bactria, paid no particular
homage to the sanctity of caste in their numerous inscriptions.2
Yet this did not mean that they rejected the caste system or in any
way desired to undermine it. In medieval India, rulers who were
Muslims found themselves in the same position as the Kushanas,
and we have here the benefit of a comparative richness of record
which enables us to see how the state under Muslim rulers dealt
with caste and with customs of the caste order.
All societies in historical times have had hierarchies of one
kind or another* The Arab society in which Islam arose had deep-
rooted concepts of tribal differentiation, which continued under
Islam. When the Arab Caliphs conquered Iran they let alone the
agrarian structure, headed by marzbans and dihqansy and treated
Zoroastrians as People of the Book. In fact it was the converted
Iranians, the mawali , who received their particular scorn, so that
they formed almost a depressed class within the Islamic commu-
nity.3
With this experience in Iran behind them, the Arab policy in
Sind and southern Punjab, which the Caliph's armies occupied in
712-14, could well have been predicted. But we are fortunate that
we have a very full record of their measures in that remarkable
work, the Chachnama , which is a Persian translation made in
1216-17 by 'Ali Kufi, of annals of the pre- Arab dynasty of Sind
and annals of the conquest compiled soon after that long-drawn
event.4

The Arabs now encountered a people who culturally were

intrinsically hostile to them. To them, as a report in the Chach- 3

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 Social Scientist

put it, they were "Chandalas and beef-eaters".5 But the Arabs knew
o
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that after conquest the higher castes, to whom they themselves were no
w
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better than outcastes, must be conciliated. Thus their commander
txo
D Muhammad b. Qasim, after occupying Brahmanabad, the major city of
< Sind, "held the Brahmans in esteem and ordered that they be reassured. In
I
X
all their affairs, there was no restriction or prohibition. He appointed each
D
of them to a post. He realized that no misdeed or dishonesty could be
00 committed by them." In fact, we are told, he appointed them to all the posts
I
h> they held under Chach, the founder of the defeated Brahman dynasty, and
</>
O offered honours and rewards to those whom they deemed their religious
Z leaders and scholars.6

Ov The arrangements with the Brahmans were accompanied by a con-

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tinuance of repression of those whom the previous Brahman dynasty had
"o kept in a humiliating position. This was particularly evident in the
>
treatment of the communities which the Chachnama called Jatts. The Jatts
were described by Yuan Chwang, though not by this name, as pastoralists,
"neither rich nor poor", Buddhists formally but "without any moral
rules".7 Chach, the Brahman ruler, had imposed all kinds of constraints on
them, forbidding them from wearing anything but coarse clothing, and
requiring them to walk barefoot and to be always accompanied by dogs.8
When Muhammad b. Qasim was informed of these measures, he con-
firmed each one of them specifically, including the one that required latts
to go about accompanied by dogs. He also exclaimed, "what detestable
people!"9 Balazuri confirmed the imposition of the dog regulation in
relation to the Jatts in his Futuh al-Baldan .10
The next line of Muslim rulers who established themselves in the
Indus basin were the Ghaznavids. By then information about the Indian
caste system had grown immensely and there was an air of comprehension
about its principles. The great Alberuni, in his Kitab al-Hind , c. 1035, took
a surprisingly tolerant view of it, even of its harsher elements.11 Another
Ghaznavid text, rather little known so far, has a most interesting descrip-
tion of the caste system. Kaikaus, writing in 1082-83, said:

The people of India are different from other people in that while all
peoples get mixed up together, the Hindus do not. From the time of
Adam, their custom is that men of different occupations do not
intermarry. Thus greengrocers marry with greengrocers' daughters,
butchers with butchers', bakers with bakers', a soldier with a soldier's, a
Brahman with a Brahman's. Thus every category of people among
them has a different nature. I cannot enumerate all, since this will
divert this book from its main purpose. But the best of them are
benevolent, as well as wise and brave; one of such is either a Brahman
4

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 The Medieval State and Caste

CO
or a Raut12 or a Kirar [merchant] . The Brahman is wise, the Raut brave,
-j*
the Kirar a head of householders. The Brahman is (usually) a
ft) scholar,
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the Raut a good soldier.13 D

2
Quite clearly, there is here not only no animosity towards the caste
o system,
o
but almost an appreciation of it. ln
<
Mahmud of Ghazni is known for his devastating invasions of India;
but in conducting his administration there was little prejudice against
absorbing Hindus into it. How far caste affected this recruitment is
illustrated by the example of one of Mahmud's favourite Hindu officers.
Tilak was the son of a barber, but "skilled, experienced, with command
over language, and a fine hand in both Hindwi and Persian writing". For a
long time he had lived in Kashmir, where he had learnt "javelin-throwing,
coquetry and magic", the last probably meaning Tantricism. Clearly,
Tilak, whether or not a barber's son, had the qualities of a courtier and
scholar; and, catching the eye of Mahmud, had risen high among his
counsels.14 It should however be remembered that in India, there are other
cases of persons who had made careers at the court without belonging to
the higher castes. We have the case of Bhadradeva, a Kayastha and a
gardener ( aramika ) by hereditary profession, who rose to high office in
Kashmir under Samgranaraja (1003-28), much to the annoyance of
Kalhana, writing some 125 years later.15 Tilak is not described as a Kayas-
tha, but he could well have been one.
It is worth considering whether coexistence with the caste system, a
necessity for the prosperity of Muslim dynasties and the court, did not
begin to influence local Muslim communities. Thus, in 1333, Ibn Battuta
noted that the Sumras ('Samira' in Arabic plural), who claimed that they
were descendants of Arab conquerors of over 600 years ago, "never eat with
anyone . . . nor do they marry anyone outside their clan, nor do they allow
anyone to marry into it".16 On the other hand, the Hindu mercantile castes,
of the sort Kaikaus called 'Kirar', flourished. Their great centre was Mul-
tan, whose Hindu merchants, called 'Multanis', appear in the pages of Ziya
Barani as bankers who lent large sums to the great nobles of Delhi during
the time of Balban, making their profits out of the interest earned on the
loans.17 Clearly, they had grown into a rich caste during the earlier regimes
at Multan, presumably those of the Arab amirs and the Ghaznavids, since
Multan was already a large city in the tenth century.18 Castes thus remained
an integral feature of society under both the Arabs and the Ghaznavids.
The relationship between the nobles of the Delhi Sultanate and the
Multanis, which we have just mentioned, indicates a similar association of
the Delhi Sultanate with caste-defined classes. There are many other
indications of this association as well. Until the time of Firoz Tughluq
5

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 Social Scientist

(1351-88), Brahmans were exempted from the jizya or poll-tax on non-

o
(N Muslims;19 and the court poet Amir Khusrau (1318) lavished all possible
v>
(/)
D
praise on the Brahmans for their knowledge and wisdom.20 It was possible
&0
D in 1276 for a poet on behalf of a merchant's family from Uchh settled in
< Delhi, to imagine that "with Sultan Balban as sovereign Lord Vishnu could
I
X
now retire and sleep on the ocean of milk".21 But there is no evidence that
D
any of the depressed castes secured better treatment. On the other hand, it
00 appears that when 'Alauddin Khalji (1296-1316) ordered that the khot
I
h* (village headman) and the Balahar (a menial caste of village watchmen)
to
O were to be treated at par in payment of tax,22 he in fact imposed a tax on
Z even the small plots that the Balahars received in lieu of their traditionally
fixed services to the village. Indeed, the attitude of contempt towards the
m
'menial' castes is shown by Ziya Barani's use of the words " bhangri , bhangi ,
"o khurafati " as abuses against a rebel officer,23 bhangri and bhangi being
>
popular words of contempt for the caste of sweepers or scavengers.24
Since Barani himself was an important spokesman of the Sultanate
bureaucracy with a very definite view of social hierarchy, which he believed
it was the duty of the state to protect,25 a few words may be devoted here to
the question of how far his views were affected by the caste system. There is
no question that within Islamic thought there was a strong hierarchical
streak, which, for example, greatly distinguished between the free-born
and the slave. Thus Barani, while describing the great Slaves of Iltutmish to
whose ranks his favourite Sultan, Ghiyasuddin Balban, belonged, held that
these slaves were intrinsically low-born, being "vain fellows and pur-
chased ones".26 Or, when he blamed Alau'ddin Khalji for promoting low-
born ones, their categories had nothing to do with caste - the upstarts were
"worthless persons (?), clerks, low-born revenue-collectors ( shiqdaran )
and foolish slaves".27 But, as his words of abuse for Nizam Mayin show, he
was not above incorporating the lower castes among the detestable, low-
born officials that Muhammad Tughluq (1324-51) promoted in his last
days. The entire passage is worth quoting:

He so far raised the low-born Najaba, son of a minstrel, that his station
surpassed those of most nobles and gave Gujarat, Multan and Badaun
to him; and so also he raised to greatness Aziz Khammar (Distiller),
and his brother, and Firoz the barber; Manka, the cook; Mas'ud the
Distiller, and Ladha, the gardener; and such other gems of manikins
and gave them posts and territories; and Shaikh Babu, son of a nayak ,28
the weaver, he gave a place near himself and raised the status and
position of such a manikin among men; and into the hands of Pira the
mali (of gardener caste), who belongs to the meanest and basest of the

6 mean and base in India (lit. Hind and Sind) put the charge of the

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 The Medieval State and Caste

(/>
Finance Ministry ( Diwan-i Wizarat ), putting him above the
=r highest

nobles, commanders, governors, and principal revenue-assignees;

a>
(0
and to Muqbil, the slave of Ahmad Ayaz, who in both external
D looks
and inner self was a shame to all salves, he granted the
2 deputy-
o
ministership of Gujarat, which is a position to be filled by othe great
to
Khans and ministers of repute. ...29 <

Here, scorn for slaves is mixed with contempt for the low castes, so that two
traditions of hierarchy are combined.
Barani's theory of the cycle that beset the Delhi Sultanate, in which the
rise of each generation of upstarts tended to supplant another by reason of
the ruler's need to protect his power from the pretensions of the existing
nobility, cannot be dismissed as the mere fantasy of a disappointed
careerist.30 There is no reason to doubt the specific instances he gave,
especially from Muhammad Tughluq's reign, of which he was a well-
placed witness, having been one of the Sultan's personal aides ( muqarrab )
for some twenty years. But such cases of promotion of the 'low-born' did
not follow from any deliberate policy of the state against class or caste
hierarchy. Barani himself quoted Sultan Muhammad Tughluq as repeat-
edly saying that "the low-born crew are disloyal, untrue to salt, ungrateful,
mischievous and evil", and so to be perceived as a greater enemy than any
idol (by a Muslim).31 And yet, says Barani, the same Sultan in practice
promoted such men. Clearly, the deviation from the proclaimed course
was due to the exigencies of polity, and not because of any demands of faith
or equity. As Barani tells us, the established military elite, amiran-i sada
('centurions'), were turning into rebels all over the country;32 and we can
then see why the Sultan should have relied more and more on strata
outside the established 'political' classes. There was no desire at all to
declare a war against either the caste system or the perceptions of hierarchy
in the Islamic tradition. Both continued to be regarded as permanent
features of the society on which the Sultanate rested.

Shireen Moosvi is a Professor at the Centre for Advanced Study in History,

Aligarh Muslim University.

Notes

1. As is well-known, this first occurs in the Nasik inscription of Vasishthiputra

Pulamavi, the Satavahana ruler, c. ad 150, the Prakrit phrase being chatu-vana-
sankarasa ( Epigraphia Indica , Vol. VIII, pp. 60ff.)
2. My reading on which this statement is based is limited to Sten Konow,
Kharoshthi Inscriptions (= Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum , Vol. II),7 and K G

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 Social Scientist

Krishnan (ed.), Prakrit and Sanskrit Epigraphs , II, Mysore, 1989. The more
o
(N recently discovered inscriptions in Bactrian in Afghanistan are not relevant to the
4-> issue here.
(/>
D
00
3. A classic exposition of these developments will be found in Wellhausen, The
D Arab Kingdom and its Fall , English translation by Khuda Baksh.
<
I 4. Chachnama , edited by Muhammad Daudpota, Hyderabad-Deccan, 1938.
X
5. Ibid., p. 222.
D
6. Ibid., p. 210.
00
7. Sii-Yu-Ki, Buddhist Records of the Western World, II, translated by Samuel Beal,
I pp. 273-74.
in
8. Chachnama , pp. 47-48.
O 9. Ibid., pp. 214-16.
z 10. H M Elliot and J Dowson, The History of India as Told by its Own Historians , I, p.
128.
o
m 11. Sachau, AlberunVs India , I, pp. 99-104.
"o 12. Prakrit for rajaputra.
> 13. Kaikaus, Qabus-nama , Tehran, 1352 solar, pp. 116-17.
14. Abu'l Fazl Baihaqi, Tarikh-i Baihaqi , edited by Ali Akbar Faiyaz, Meshed, 1383
solar, pp. 385ff.
15. Kalhana, Rajatarangini , VII.38-43, translated by A Stein, I, p. 270.
16. Travels oflbn Battuta , translated by Hamilton Gibb, Vol. Ill, pp. 596-97.
17. Ziya Barani, Tarikh-i Firozshahi , Bib. Ind. edn, p. 120.
18. As described by the Arab geographers: cf. G Le Strange, Lands of the Eastern
Caliphate , p. 331.
19. Sams Siraj Afif, Tarikh-i Firozshahiy Bib. Ind. edn, pp. 382-83.
20. Nuh Sipihr , edited by M Wahid Mirza, London, 1950, pp. 162-63.
2 1 . Palam Baoli inscription, text and translation in Pushpa Prasad, Sanskrit Inscrip-
tions of Delhi Sultanate , Delhi, 1990, pp. 9, 13.
22. Barani, Tarikh-i Firozshahiy p. 287.
23. Ibid., p. 487.
24. See Platts, s.v. bhangi. Khurafati means fool, knave, one who speaks foolish
nonsense.

25. Cr. Irian hlabib, 1 wo Indian lheorists ot the btate: barani and Abu 1 razl , in D
N Jha and E Vanina (eds.), Mind over Matter , New Delhi, 2009, pp. 15-29.
26. Barani, Tarikh-i Firozshahiy p. 27.
27. Ibid., p. 405.
28. So printed. But it could be payaky an unmounted trooper.
29. Barani, Tartkh-t Firozshahiy. 505.
30. See Irfan Habib, 'Barani's Theory of the Delhi Sultanate', Indian Historical
Review, Vol. 7, Nos. 1-2, 1980-81, pp. 99ff.
31. Ibid., pp. 504-05.
51. Ibid., pp. Mo- 1 /.

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