The Turkish conquest of India had its impact in various fields. It paved the way for the liquidation of the multi-state system in India. The political ideal of the Turkish Sultan was a centralised poliltical organization controlled by a monarch with unlimited powers and there was no place for feudalism in it.

The institution of Iqtas was employed for the purpose of breaking the feudal traditions of the various areas and for linking up the various parts of the empire to one centre. The Turkish Sultans gave India a Capital in the very heart of northern India. They also gave her a skeleton of an all-India administration by bringing the chief cities and the great roads under the control of the Government of Delhi.

As a result of the centralised monarchy in Northern India, there was a marked change in the political horizon. The political outlook became broader and the areas of isolation began to shrink. Sir Jadunath Sarkar says: “The intimate contact between India and the outer Asiatic world, which had been established in the early Buddhist age, was lost, when the new Hindu society was reorganised and set in rigidity liek a concrete structure about the Eighth century A.D., with the result that India again became self-centred and isolated from the moving world beyond her natural barriers. This touch with the rest of Asia and the nearest parts of Africa was restored by the Muslim conquest at the end of the 12th century.”

Another effect of the Turkish conquest of Northern India was what is described by Prof. Mohd. Habib as the “Urban Revolution”. The old “caste cities” of the Rajput period were thrown open to all types of people. The Turkish Government refused to recognise caste as the basis of social demarcation or as the principle of civic life. The working classes, labourers, artisans and the non-caste people of the un-privileged classes joined hands with the new Government in building new cities. As a matter of fact, the main strength of the early Turkish Sultan lay in these cities which placed the entire surplus of their working classes at the disposal of the Government.

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The Turkish conquest also had its effect in the military field. There was a change in the character and composition of the Indian Armies and the methods of their recruitment and maintenance. Fighting was not to be the monopoly of any one caste or group. Recruitment was thrown open to all properly trained soldiers. The soldiers in future came from all sources irrespective of their caste, creed or colour.

The feudal levies gave place to strong standing armies, centrally recruited, centrally paid and centrally administered. The foot soldiers in the Indian armies were replaced by the mounted fighting men (Sawaran-i-muqatala). More emphasis was put on mobility and striking force of the army and not its heaviness or crushing strength. It is these armies which were able to check the Mongolian invasions.

Trade received a new impetus. The uniformity of the legal system, the tariff regulations and the currency widened the activities of merchants and facilitated their movement from one place to another.

The Turkish conquest had also its effect on the language of administration. Before this conquest many dialects and languages were used for administrative purposes. The Turks introduced Persian at the higher level of administration throughout their territories in India. This brought about uniformity in the language of administration. To quote Amir Khusrau, “But the Persian speech (Guftar) uniform in Hindustan from the banks of the river Sind to the shores of the sea.

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Such a great language is our medium of expression and this Persian of ours is the original Persian. The Indian dialects different at every hundred Karohs but the Persian language is the same over an area of four thousand farsangs. Here is the Persian language in which pronunciation of words is in complete agreement with their orthography.”

The Turkish conquest gave a rude shock to the caste system and the idea of physical pollution among the people of India. The result was that those people of India, who suffered under the caste system, became the supporters of the new rulers.