In Indian History Tughlaq and Tughlaqisation are considered synonyms. To be particular, it is Muhammad Bin Tughlaq who is named as Pagal Raja (The Mad King). It is not madness, but a story of Ambition vs Failure, a story of Rule, Ruler and Ruled and hitherto. There are few questions which are arising, these are:-
- Who is Muhammad Bin Tughlaq?
- Why is he considered as Pagal Raja?
- And what is Tughlaqisation?
- Why is it crucial to coin Tughlaqisation to explain the present scenario?
Let’s answer these questions.
Muhammad Bin Tughlaq
The ruler who ruled the largest area among the rulers of Delhi Sultanate, successor of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq ascended the throne in the year 1325. He was among the few rulers who learned and understood complex subjects like Mathematics and Astronomy. He expanded his territory to Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu. A ruler full of ambition, personality with intellect and filled with innovative ideas, known for his bold policy actions. But on the other hand criticized for implementation of these policies. A character in the medieval history of India who was admired by the historians but he was among the rulers who were mostly criticized.
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Policy Actions and Failures
Being a ruler, actions are always counted with the perspective of Governance. For any ruler or in general, taking bold action is a feature of high caliber. In a Monarchy or single party ruled Democracy it is quite easy. These may be hard or easy but these policy actions are very important to coin the word Tughlaqisation.
Transfer of Capital
After occupying a large territory of Southern India, Tughlaq decided to transfer his capital from Delhi to the central part of his jurisdiction that was Daulatabad. A broad road was constructed between Delhi and Daulatabad. Various officials as well as slaves were transferred to Daulatabad. Many historians claim that it was the fear from Mangools, that’s why he transferred his capital.
Maybe it was an innovative step, many States use multiple capitals for administrative convenience but this step backfired on him. Because huge money was invested on construction of roads, administrative setup and housing. People suffered from shortage of food, many died due to hunger. In the end he has to retain Delhi as capital.
Token Currency And Demonetization
The currency is made up of material whose value as material is very low but when used as currency, it is highly valued. Today we use Paper as a Token Currency. Tughlaq introduced Brass and Copper as a token currency in the place of Gold and Silver. Because of the shortage of silver. The step was very innovative. The whole economic system of the world is dependent on such a token currency.
Tughlaq and his minister lack economic expertise. So, this step also backfired because the token currency is valued the same as Gold and Silver, minting of currency became very easy, and the economic system is not able to fight counterfeiting of currency. This leads to the collapse of the economic system. And the token currency was demonetized.
The Taxation Policy
This policy was particular to the Ganga Yamuna Doab region (The region between the Ganga and Yamuna river). He increased the tax in this region, because this region is one of the most fertile lands in the world.
This time it was not the execution problem or planning issue. But this weather betrayed him and the Doab region suffered from Famine. People are not able to pay huge amounts of taxes and this leads to unrest among people.
Policy of Conquest
Tughlaq wants to conquer the extreme south of the Indian subcontinent. So, his military expedition became costlier. He was not able to generate revenue out of war. Again it leads to unrest among people.
Even with visionary perspective, the backfiring of these policy actions and present scenario created a curiosity among us to coin a term Tughlaqisation.
Tughlaqisation
The name of the article, “one word, that is complete action” has its full meaning in it. But to explain this word we have to see some prerequisites. These are:-
- Political power:- The individual who is taking a decision has enough Constitutional Power to take the decision. For example in present Indian context Supreme Court, Prime Minister and somehow Chief ministers. These posts are eligible for Tughlaqisation.
- Innovative Vision:- The most important thing behind any bold action is innovation. Because implementation of innovation in common society is treated as bold action.
- Majority support:- In Monarchy no one questions the order of the King. At present democratic setup if the Prime minister or any post which were not answerable or not willing to answer because majority of people and Members of Parliament having faith or belief in him. So, making decisions becomes quite easy.
- And Obsession for the decision:- In other word it is the Sanak for a particular decision. For such a big socio-economic society like India, debate and discussion is very important before any decision. If this part is escaped and the decision has been taken anonymously, without thinking about complexity. Then the Action moved towards Tughlaqisation.
With these prerequisites, if a particular result appears then we call it Tughlaqisation.
- Failure of the Policy:- Tughlaq’s bold decisions turned out to be a failure, that’s why we created a satirical term on his name as Tughlaqisation. So, failure of the policy is an important outcome, without which the process cannot be completed.
- Changing the Objective of policy:- At present democratic setup it is too harsh for a political party to claim its failure. So, political parties try to change the objectives of the policy. So, we are also going to calculate changing of policy objectives as failure.
Conclusion
In short, we can say that, Tughlaqisation is a process involving Power Holder with majority support to take innovative action without debate and discussion, and the power holder is obsessed with his decision. This leads to failure of policy, murder of innovation and wastage of money and resources of the Country.