When good governance came to medieval India

The Mughals presided over one of the richest empires of its time for 150 years – from the return of Humayun from Persia in 1554 till the death of Aurangzeb in 1707. These rulers spent a fortune on raising architectural wonders throughout their domains. They commissioned elegant mausoleums for their dead, elaborate gardens for their pleasure, magnificent mosques for their worship, imposing halls for their meetings and decorated living quarters for their harems. However, when it came to works of public good, they accomplished little of significance. At a time when Europe was transforming from medieval communities to a modern educated entrepreneur-led society, the Mughals established few educational institutions, encouraged little scientific study, built few roads, constructed very few water works and established no hospitals. In short, they did nothing for public good the way we today understand it.

That is gross neglect: the world’s richest empire doing so little for its people. Not that they were unaware of the benefits of such schemes. The result of all this neglect was that at the end of their long rule, the Subcontinent had not made any great social or educational progress.



However, there is one bright exception where the state actually worked for the people, and that was during the rule of Sher Shah Suri. His reign now appears like a brief spring in a long barren spell. Despite remaining busy in consolidating his empire through incessant warfare in his short reign of five years, Sher Shah implemented administrative reforms, created a land revenue system, introduced new currency, provided a postal service, established law and order, constructed public buildings, furnished hostels for travellers (sarais) and laid a network of roads. Such groundbreaking works on a massive scale throughout his vast realm speak volumes about the energy, wisdom and drive of this ruler.

In the words of noted historian and British administrator Mountstuart Elphinstone in his History of India, “As Sher Shah was born, raised and educated in India, his claim to rule Northern India was based on firmer grounds and his endeavours to oust Mughals were justified” – as the later were at that time merely the latest of several invaders from the north-west. This rings true.

When the coin was presented to him, he exclaimed "Rupaiya!" meaning "beautiful form". Nearly five centuries later, the currencies of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Nepal and Indonesia are called Rupee or Rupaiya

Since Sher Shah’s grandfather had migrated from Sur to Hissar Firoza (in Delhi district), he was born a third-generation Afghan in India. The family’s links with their ancestral land had been severed, as there is no mention of Sher Shah or his father ever going back to Sur. In any case, contrary to some of the assertions, his family did not belong to any ruling family and were, in fact, small-time horse dealers. Sher Shah’s grandfather Ibrahim, a struggling horse dealer, migrated to India with his family including Sher Shah’s father Hassan, to find employment as a soldier in the armies of their fellow Afghan Lodhi Sultans of Delhi. Subsequently, Hassan acquired a well-paying jagir in Sasaram in the Rohtas district.

Sher Shah was born as Farid in 1486 AD in Sasaram, a town on the left bank of the River Sone, a southern tributary of the Ganges. It confluences with the latter at Patna at the same point where river Ghaghra, flowing in from the north through Faizabad, also meets the Ganges. As can be observed from this description, the area lies in the well irrigated rich farmlands of present-day Utter Pradesh and Bihar.

Sher Shah had a turbulent childhood. He was born of an Afghan lady, the eldest and perhaps only legitimate wife of his father, who had taken in three more slave girls raised to the status of wives. His father doted on his youngest wife and neglected Sher Shah and Nizam, the two sons from the first wife. When he turned 15, a bitter Sher Shah left his father’s home and went to Jaunpur, an important town on the northern bank of the Ganges. He took shelter with the local governor there.

During his stay of ten years at Jaunpur, Sher Shah applied himself to learning. He learnt Arabic and, in particular, read Arabic grammar. He memorised the 13th-century books Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi, and the Sikandarnama by Nizami. He loved to read books on the virtues of ancient kings. This education diverted him from military service, which was the preferred vocation of the Afghans. He is thus the lone empire-builder who became the founder of a ruling dynasty without being a soldier in his early life. Early in his life he acquired firsthand knowledge of revenue affairs, the distress of the cultivators and the corruption of the revenue collectors. It was commonly accepted that amongst all Afghan nobles in India, there was no one who was as learned, talented and wise as Sher Shah. He used this education and knowledge later to provide just and efficient foundations for his empire.

Each peasant was given a document called a patta, specifying the tax due, so that the revenue collectors could not cheat them. The term 'land on patta' continues to be used in UP, Haryana and Punjab

When his father learnt of the wisdom of Sher Shah, he reconciled with his son and appointed him as the administrator of his jagirs. According to Abbas Sarwani, in his Tarikh-e-Sher Shahi, before proceeding to take up his duties, Sher Shah wrote to his father, “Justice alone is the mainstay of Government and source of prosperity to the governed. [...] I know that some of your relatives who hold lands in the parganas and some of your collectors who collect rent there practise tyranny upon the people. [...] I shall make an example of them by heavy punishment, that others would take warning from them.”

The father was delighted to read this wise missive of his son and granted him full powers to run the affairs of the jagir. The year was 1511/12. For the next decade and a half, we find that Sher Shah had become an important player in the power politics of Bihar and Bengal with fluctuating fortunes. However, through his triumphs and adversity, Sher Shah gained knowledge of the people, chieftains and terrain between Delhi and Bengal – which prepared him for his eventual struggle against the Mughals.

Babur, three years senior in age to Sher Shah, overthrew the Afghan Lodhi dynasty in the first battle of Panipat and took Delhi in 1526. He then started expanding the boundaries of his empire eastwards to Bihar and southwards to Rajputana and Malwa. For a while, Sher Shah served under Babur. The Mughal patronage helped him in recovering his jagir from his stepbrothers. When Babur proceeded to Malwa, the Afghans of Bihar revolted. Sher Shah, too, joined the rebellion but when Prince Humayun came to quell the rebellion, he again accepted Mughal sovereignty.

This brings us to the year 1531. Babur had died after a short sickness. Humayun lacked the vigour of his father. The rebellion in Gujrat and Malwa forced him to campaign in that region. Sher Shah, who had gained strength in Bihar, rose up against Mughal rule. To safeguard his family, he sent them to a newly built fort in district Jhelum, called Rohtas fort – named after his home district of Rohtas in Bihar. Humayun abandoned Malwa and came east to subdue Sher Shah. However he was no match for the superior military genius of the Afghan. Sher Shah defeated the Mughals twice, first at Chausa in 1539 and then at Kanauj in 1540, forcing Humayun to flee from India to Iran. Sher Shah was then crowned the Sultan of India.

Sher Shah died after a brief reign of five years, during the siege of Kalinjar fort south of Allahabad. These five years were spent in warfare against Rajputs. Yet he found time to implement administrative and revenue reforms that Akbar the Great and subsequent Mughal Emperors adopted and that, in some form or the other, continue to serve the governments of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Akbar was so impressed by him that he commissioned his biography by Abbas Sarawani – the first life story of Sher Shah and a valuable source of information on his character.

We now recount the reforms introduced by this great ruler. One of the most enduring measures introduced by Sher Shah was in coinage. Sher Shah established the reformed system of currency that lasted throughout the Mughal period. It was maintained by the East India Company down to 1835 and was the basis of the British currency thereafter. Sher Shah abolished the inconvenient coinage of mixed metal and struck well-executed tri-metal pieces in gold, silver and copper. These were produced according to a fixed standard of both weight and fineness.

In 1542 he introduced a silver coin of 180 grains, of which 175 grains were pure silver and named it ‘Rupiah’. It is said that when the coin was presented to him, he exclaimed “Rupaiya!” meaning “beautiful form”. The name stuck and even today, nearly five centuries later, the currencies of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Nepal and Indonesia are called Rupee or Rupiya. That is a quarter of humanity using this term for their basic currency! He also introduced a copper coin named ‘dam’. To facilitate trade at smaller values, a Rupaiya had its halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths – a division that continued till after the mid-twentieth century, when it was finally overtaken by decimal system. The ratio between the rupee and the dam was 64 dams to a rupee.

Sher Shah introduced a gold coin weighing 169 grains or 10.95 grams and called it ‘Mohar’. It continued to be minted, with altered inscription, by the Mughals and then by the British till 1913. Some Indian states minted the coin till their accession to India in 1947.

Sher Shah introduced comprehensive land reforms. Before his rule, land revenue was levied on the basis of the estimated produce of the land. However, the produce varied from year to year and the system was unfair to farmers; something that Sher Shah knew well from his experience of having managed his jagirs.

Sher Shah introduced a fairer system of taxation. In the better productive lands, such as those of UP, Punjab and Bihar, half the land produce was fixed as tax whereas in less productive areas, such as Multan, the tax was fixed at one fourth of the land. Each peasant was given a document called a patta that specified the tax due on the specified land so that the revenue collectors could not cheat the farmers. Farmers had the option of paying land revenue in kind or cash. The term ‘land on patta’ continues to be used in UP, Haryana and Punjab. In case of damage to crops by the movement of soldiers, compensation was paid to the affected farmers.

This fair policy of land management was continued by the Mughals as well as by the British. Sher Shah believed that “Tyranny is unlawful in everyone, especially in a sovereign who is the guardian of his public.”

Sher Shah was no mere soldier: he was also a great administrator and an enlightened despot. He divided his empire into 47 sarkars, each of which was again subdivided into parganas.

One of the most enduring works of Sher Shah was the construction of the ‘Jarnaily Sarak’ now called the Grand Trunk Road. It extended from Sonargaon, near modern-day Dhaka in Bangladesh to the Indus River at Attock in modern-day Pakistan. A road existed on this route during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya also. However, in subsequent centuries, the road had fallen into disrepair and large tracts of it were abandoned. Sher Shah revived the road and planted large trees along its entire length, some of which survive even today. He dug wells and built caravanserais for the travellers along the entire route. Later the road was extended by the Mughals to Peshawar and Kabul. The road, with minor alterations of route, survives to our time.

Sher Shah made some other important roads as well, that include a road from Agra to Burhanpur in the Deccan, a road between Agra and Jodhpur with a branch to Chittor in Rajputana and a road linking Lahore with Multan. This was a substantial achievement in his short reign of five years.

Sher Shah established a post system along all these roads. He ordered that a change of fresh horses be made available at each caravanserai for this service. He introduced the principle of local responsibility for crimes. Civil crimes of a pargana were tried by an amir and the criminal offences by a qazi. To ensure the security of the route, the village headmen along the road were made responsible to catch thieves and highwaymen. If the culprit was not caught, the village headman was beheaded.

Sher Shah wanted to improve trade within the empire to improve the economic conditions of his people. He reduced the number of customs duty collection points to just two. Goods produced in Bengal or imported from outside had to pay customs at Sikrigali, at the border of Bengal and Bihar, while goods from West and Central Asia paid customs duty at the Indus. Within the empire, the movement of goods was free of taxes and levies.

Sher Shah was in real terms a ruler of the public. We don’t find any ruler in India of medieval times as welfare-conscious as he was. His reforms were retained first by the Mughals and then by the British. He got very little time to rule, yet, he occupies a place among the best administrators of medieval India. H.G. Keene commented, “No government, not even the British, has shown so much wisdom as this Pathan.”

Sher Shah not only removed all disorder from the administration which had arisen after the disruption of the Delhi Sultanate but also prepared a firm base for future administrators.

Several historians have described Sher Shah as the precursor of Akbar. He provided an efficient administration to a large part of northern India. Besides, he attempted certain measures successfully, which became good examples for Akbar. Akbar took great advantage of the measures adopted by Sher Shah in the administration of the army, justice, revenue, public services and control of nobility.

Sher Shah returned the conquered territories of the Rajput rulers after their submission. Akbar pursued this policy in a broader perspective. Sher Shah was tolerant towards his Hindu subjects in general and allowed them to perform their religious rites, fairs and festivals. He also maintained equal justice for all.

His place in history as a model administrator was ensured, mainly because Sher Shah adopted the principle that the duty of a monarch was not simply the maintenance of peace and order but a proactive attitude towards the welfare of the subjects.

Parvez Mahmood retired as a Group Captain from PAF and is now a software engineer. He lives in Islamabad and writes on social and historical issues. He can be reached at parvezmahmood53@gmail.com