Tugluq-ism

Muhammad bin Tughluq was the emperor or "Sultan" of Delhi during 1325-1351. He is repititvely described in history as "inhuman eccentric". The medieval era "subjects" of Tughluq did not had institutions. The institutions to offer even the appearence of protection from hyper-eccentricity of the emperor.

Part of hyper-eccentricity of Tughluq was inflicting atrocities on the subjects of newly conquered lands. He ordered the massacre of all subjects of city of Kannauj. This was apparently for he did not like the religion they practiced. Never mind that a vast land which he already ruled then, had practitioners of the very same religion in large numbers. Never mind that he had bestowed accolades on priests of the same religion on other parts of the land that he ruled. He just got eccentric and ordered mass murder without discrimination of woman or children, old or ailing folks.

In the hight of his hyper-eccentricity, Tughluq declared his capital to be Daulatabad changing it from Delhi in 1327. He ordered everyone to move from Delhi to the newly declared Daulatabad. On the way to Daulatabad many woman, children, ailing and even able bodied men died of hunger and exhaustion. He minted coins with Daulatabad as capital. Next in 1335, he again shifted the capital to New Delhi. The shift in capital for many years left Delhi void with lack of people. Importantly the Daulatabad coins had become semi useless. Gold and silver coins were made into ornaments and retained value but not so much for coins of other metals.

In 1334 there was bubonic plague and many people fell ill including Muhammad bin Tughluq. He did little precaution and that led to death of many of his soldiers. He and his army became weak and that led him to contemplate and move his capital from Daulatabad to Delhi again a year later in 1335.

Tughluq had his "tughluqi" days. On most days he will be hyper-eccentric, saying one thing one day and exact opposite thing next day or a few days later. Unfortunately, there was no institutionalized policy making and non existence of protective layers for "subjects" during the regimes of medieval emperors. This not only resulted in hardship, misery and deaths of poors but even nobels and elites of those days. We should be reminded that only one "Tughluq" with "tughluqi" mindset can inflict so much misery and hardships if he is an emperor!