MPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 15 of 100

Correct — option (2), Muhammad bin Tughlaq. He established the diwan-i-amir-i-kohi as a dedicated department of agriculture — the first such attempt by a Delhi Sultan to treat cultivation as a matter of separate state administration rather than leaving it purely to the general revenue machinery. Its declared purpose was to extend the area under cultivation, particularly in the Doab, by advancing takkavi loans to peasants for seed and implements and by encouraging superior crops and better methods, including a large state-run model farm. The scheme is remembered as an ambitious but poorly executed experiment: it coincided with, and was undermined by, the same sultan's Doab tax increases and a run of famine years, so the department's good intentions did not translate into the agrarian recovery it was meant to produce. It sits alongside his token-currency experiment and the transfer of the capital to Daulatabad as one of the three projects historians point to when discussing Muhammad bin Tughlaq's reputation as a ruler of bold ideas and disastrous execution.

• (1)Alauddin Khalji — Alauddin Khalji's administrative reputation rests on a different set of institutions — market-control regulations to fix the prices of grain and other goods, and an agrarian settlement that raised the state's share of produce and measured land more systematically (masahat) to fund his standing army. He did not establish the diwan-i-amir-i-kohi; that department belongs to Muhammad bin Tughlaq, roughly two decades later.
• (3)Balban — Balban's administration is remembered for centralising royal authority — the 'blood and iron' policy of crushing the Chahalgani nobility, insisting on rigid court ceremonial, and running an effective network of intelligence-gatherers (barids) to keep watch over his officers. Agricultural administration through a dedicated diwan was not part of his programme, and the diwan-i-amir-i-kohi postdates his reign.
• (4)Firoz Shah Tughlaq — Firoz Shah Tughlaq is genuinely associated with agrarian welfare — most famously the network of canals he dug, including one feeding the Yamuna, to extend irrigation — which makes him a tempting answer here. But that irrigation programme is distinct from, and later than, the diwan-i-amir-i-kohi, which was Muhammad bin Tughlaq's department; Firoz Shah is separately credited with departments such as the diwan-i-khairat (charity) and diwan-i-bandagan (slaves), not this one.

The diwan-i-amir-i-kohi was Muhammad bin Tughlaq's attempt to make agricultural expansion a direct object of state policy rather than an incidental effect of revenue collection — advancing capital (takkavi loans) to cultivators and running a model farm to demonstrate improved methods, aimed particularly at bringing the Doab's uncultivated land under the plough.

MPSC medieval-history questions frequently test which specific administrative department or institution belongs to which Delhi Sultan, because several sultans experimented with similarly named or similarly purposed offices across a short span of decades. The safeguard is a short list pairing each sultan with his signature institutions — market control and masahat for Alauddin Khalji, centralised ceremonial and the barid network for Balban, the diwan-i-amir-i-kohi and Doab taxation for Muhammad bin Tughlaq, and canals, charity and welfare departments for Firoz Shah Tughlaq.

• Muhammad bin Tughlaq (r. 1325–1351) established the diwan-i-amir-i-kohi, a separate department of agriculture.
• Its purpose was to expand cultivation, especially in the Doab, through takkavi loans to peasants and a state-run model farm.
• The scheme is usually discussed alongside Muhammad bin Tughlaq's other major experiments — the token-currency scheme and the transfer of the capital to Daulatabad — as evidence of ambitious but badly executed policy.
• Alauddin Khalji (market regulation, masahat), Balban (centralised ceremonial, the barid intelligence network) and Firoz Shah Tughlaq (canal-building, welfare departments) are each associated with different, later or earlier, administrative institutions.

• Confusing the diwan-i-amir-i-kohi (Muhammad bin Tughlaq's agriculture department) with Firoz Shah Tughlaq's separate irrigation and welfare institutions, because both sultans are associated with agrarian measures
• Assuming any administrative innovation from the Tughlaq period belongs to whichever Tughlaq sultan is more famous

MPSC tests the precise sultan-to-institution pairing for Delhi Sultanate administration, and draws wrong options from sultans of the same broad period whose reforms are easily conflated. A short sultan-by-sultan table of signature institutions is the reliable defence.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The diwan-i-amir-i-kohi, established by Muhammad bin Tughlaq, was a department primarily concerned with:

  • (a)Military recruitment and army pay
  • (b)Agriculture and cultivation, including loans to peasants
  • (c)Charity and welfare payments to the poor
  • (d)Regulation of market prices

  Answer(b) Agriculture and cultivation, including loans to peasants — the diwan-i-amir-i-kohi advanced takkavi loans and ran a model farm to expand cultivation, particularly in the Doab.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Delhi Sultan is chiefly associated with a network of canals feeding irrigation, including one to the Yamuna?

  • (a)Alauddin Khalji
  • (b)Balban
  • (c)Muhammad bin Tughlaq
  • (d)Firoz Shah Tughlaq

  Answer(d) Firoz Shah Tughlaq — remembered for his canal-building programme and welfare departments, distinct from Muhammad bin Tughlaq's earlier diwan-i-amir-i-kohi.