Some historical figures are very polarising. Some of their decisions are ahead of their time, while some reek of madness, and the debate on whether to label such figures mad or a genius continues. A case in point is Muhammad bin Tughlaq.
One general and popular misconception is that only Mughals ruled India. The fact is, there were a host of clans, of which Mughals were the last. The Tughlaqs succeeded the Khiljis, to which Allauddin Khilji belonged. Last of the Khiljis, Mubarak Khan, was murdered by one of his generals, Khusrau Khan, who then declared himself the king. Muhammad’s father Ghiyasuddin defeated Khusrau and became the king, heralding the arrival of Tughlaq dynasty.
It began collapsing under Muhammad, who reigned from 1324 to 1351 AD. His reign became infamous for his rather eccentric ideas. Some of them, like the shifting of capital from Delhi to Devagiri, made sense geopolitically. But its implementation was haphazard. His efforts to unite India and increase taxations only resulted in more chaos and discontent. Thus, the term ‘Tughlaqi firman’, which means acting as per one’s whim, entered our lexicon.
The late Girish Karnad’s seminal play Tughlaq showed the ruler as someone who had great ideas in beginning, but towards the end, it resulted in chaos and ruin. Indeed, author Anuja Chandramouli says in the preface that she chose Karnad’s way. Thus, Muhammad Bin Tughlaq — Tale of a Tyrant is not a historical book per se. Historical fiction would be a better definition.
The book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with Muhammad’s early years and the latter parts deal with him as a ruler. It reads like a Shakespearean tragedy, of a flawed hero Muhammad, who is a man of brilliance, but is also capable of unspeakable cruelty (in one case a man was executed and his flesh was cooked). We get a good look at Tughlaq as a king, but the emperor as a private person seems somewhat shallow.
His is a life full of paradoxes, yet comparatively little time is given for their detailed exploration. Perhaps adding more pages would have improved the situation.
Don’t expect to read a historical treatise, considering its price, and you won’t be disappointed.
