No More Learning

Ahmad Shah without halting to rest his army continued the pursuit
of Jankoji as far as Narnaul, and halted there.
Malhar Rao Holkar had hastened to meet Jankoji and planned
with him a campaign to harass the Afghans in the usual Maratha
style. He crossed into the Duab and there received information of
a large convoy of supplies and treasure in the Farrukhabad district,
which the troops of Ahmad Khan Bangash were escorting to Ahmad
Shah Abdali's camp, and which he promptly attacked and plundered.
Ahmad Shah at once sent a force to punish Holkar's temerity. This
force rode from Narnaul to Delhi, a distance of over eighty miles,
in a day and a night, rested for a day at Delhi and marched again
in the evening, traversing thirty-three miles and reaching Holkar's
camp at Sikandarabad at dawn. Holkar was completely surprised,
and his troops were routed with great slaughter. He escaped with
only about three hundred men, mounted on bare-backed horses.
The Peshwa was encamped on the Manjra river, in the Mughul
dominions in the Deccan, when he heard of these disasters, and sent
his eldest son, Vishvas Rao, in nominal command of a large army
with Sadashiv Rao, known as the Bhao 1 or cousin of Balaji Rao,
as real commander-in-chief. The Bhao's claim to be the virtual leader
of the expedition into Hindustan was admitted in view of his recent
victories in the Deccan. 2 Vishvas Rao was understood to be destined
for the throne of Delhi, and his position in the campaign was analo-
gous to that of a Mughul prince of tender years appointed to the
nominal command in an important enterprise, the direction of which
was, in fact, in the hands of a great noble designated as his tutor
or guardian.
The great force advanced northwards, joined as it passed along
by Marathas, by parties of horse sent by a few of the Rajput chief-
1
1 Bhao is the Marathi for "brother”. Among all Hindus relationship on the
male side, however distant, is commonly described by the terms "brother”,
"uncle”, and “nephew". Fifth or sixth cousins of the same generation are
"brothers”. A remove of a generation changes the relationship to “uncle" and
"nephew".
2 See chap. XIV, p. 413.


## p. 447 (#485) ############################################

1
A LARGE MARATHA ARMY REACHES DELHI 447
tains, by vast numbers of Pindaris and by irregulars of all descrip-
tions. It seemed a national cause to Hindus, and Suraj Mal the Jat,
through the agency of Holkar, was induced to meet the army with
30,000 men.
Ahmad Shah Abdali had returned from Narnaul to Delhi and, as
the country to the west of the Jumna was suffering from recent
depredations of the Marathas, he crossed that river and encamped
for the rainy season within easy reach of the Afghans in the Duab
and Rohilkhand, at Sikandarabad, the scene of Holkar's recent defeat.
Najib-ud-Daula was sent to invite Shuja'-ud-Daula to join the Afghan
army, and, meeting him near Kanauj, easily persuaded him that the
cause of the Abdali was that of Islam. On 18 July he joined Ahmad
Shah's camp with his forces.
In July the Maratha army reached the neighbourhood of Delhi.
The rainy season was at its height and, the Jumna not being fordable,
Sadashiv Bhao decided to occupy the capital before attacking the
enemy.
Suraj Mal and Ghazi-ud-din were not prepossessed by the appear-
ance or the methods of the Maratha army, or by the personality of
its commander. They had taken no part in the operations which had
led to the surrender of the fort, and they now definitely and finally
deserted the Maratha cause and retired to the Jat fortress of
Ballabhgarh.
Sadashiv Bhao made strenuous but fruitless efforts to detach
Shuja'-ud-Daula from Ahmad Abdali, and when these failed tried
to arouse Ahmad's suspicion and to create discord. On 10 October
he deposed and imprisoned the puppet Shah Jahan III and enthroned
Mirza Javan Bakht, son of 'Ali Gauhar, appointing Shuja'-ud-Daula
as his minister. Ahmad Shah refused to be hoodwinked and Shuja -
ud-Daula to be ensnared, but correspondence still continued after
the oriental fashion, between him and the Bhao, and he was, through-
out the campaign, the Bhao's channel of communication with Ahmad
Shah.
In October, at the close of the rainy season, Sadashiv marched
from Delhi towards Sirhind, his object being, apparently, to raise
and occupy the Punjab and thus cut off Ahmad Shah's retreat. On
17 October he reached the fort of Kunjpura, six miles north-east of
Karnal, now held for Ahmad Shah. He took and plundered the fort,
and continued his march towards Sirhind.
Ahmad Shah Abdali, learning of his movements left Sikandarabad.
crossed the Jumna at Baghpat, twenty-five miles north of Delhi, and
marched in pursuit, and Sadashiv Bhao, turning back, halted at
Panipat, at which place Ahmad Shah arrived three days later.
1 Some of these probably now repented of their appeal to the Afghan. The
Marathas undoubtedly posed as the champions of Hinduism against the unclean
alien.
2 The enthronement of Javan Bakht was purely nominal.


## p. 448 (#486) ############################################

418 AHMAD SHAH, ‘ALAMGIR II AND SHAH 'ALAM
As Sadashiv Rao had violated Maratha precedent in the equip-
ment of his army, so he now violated their traditional rules of war
and displayed a consciousness of his inferiority by strongly entrenching
himself in the town of Panipat, though this plan was opposed by many
of the leaders, who wished to fight in the old Maratha manner.
For more than two months after the arrival of the Abdali's army,
skirmishes continued which culminated in a great battle on 14
January, 1761, already described in the last chapter. This, the most
desperate of the three contests fought on the field of Panipat, destroyed
the great Maratha confederation and, for a time, the power of the
Maratha chiefs. On the eve of the battle India from the Indus and
Himalaya almost to the extreme limit of the Peninsula was forced
to own, however unwillingly, their sway, and those tracts not im-
mediately administered by them paid them tribute, and their nume-
rous chiefs all owned allegiance to one man, the Peshwa. Various
chiefs, Mahadji Sindia in Gwalior, Raghuji Bhonsle in Nagpur and
Berar, Malhar Rao Holkar in Malwa, and Damaji Gaikwar in Gujarat,
recovered portions of the Maratha empire, but the Peshwa's authority
was broken and cohesion was lost. Maratha alliances and confede-
racies again vexed India, but all hopes of a Maratha empire were
destroyed at Panipat.
The conqueror's design of seizing the empire of India for himself
was frustrated by the clamours of his troops demanding arrears of
pay and an immediate return to Kabul. Before leaving India he
nominated 'Ali Gauhar, son of the murdered 'Alamgir II, as emperor
of Delhi, under the title of Shah 'Alam; Shuja'-ud-Daula was ap-
pointed minister, from which circumstance he and his successors in
Dudh were known to the British as Nawab Vazir, or “Nabob Vizier”,
until permitted, in 1819, to assume the royal title; and Najib-ud-Daula
was confirmed in the rank and appointment of Amir-ul-Umara.
Ghazi-ud-din disappeared from political life and according to some
accounts lingered in obscurity till 1800.
The third battle of Panipat closes the history of the Mughul Empire.
The destruction of the Maratha power did nothing to weld the various
states into which it had been broken or to restore the power and
authority of the emperor. Shah 'Alam was brutally blinded in 1788
by a Rohilla ruffian, Ghulam Qadir, and in 1803 was formally taken
under the protection of that power which the victory of Plassey had
already designated as successor of the Great Mughuls. His son
Akbar II (1806-37) lived and died a pensioner of the same power,
whose outraged authority sent his grandson, Bahadur II, to end his
days as an exile in Rangoon.


## p. 449 (#487) ############################################

CHAPTER XVI
THE REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL
EMPIRE
THE fiscal resources of the Mughul empire may be considered in
two main divisions-central and local. The local revenue, which
was apparently collected and disbursed without reference to the
central finance authorities, was derived from a bewildering variety of
petty taxes and duties levied on production and consumption, on trades
and occupations, on various incidents of social life, and most of all
on transport. There is nothing to be said for this mass of imposts
except that the system was accepted by the people as traditional,
that it prevailed outside the empire as well as within, and that it
can be traced back at any rate to the days of the Maurya rulers. In
the fourteenth century these imposts had been forbidden in the mass
by Firuz Tughluq as being contrary to Islamic law. The prohibition
was renewed on other 'grounds by Akbar, and it was repeated by
Aurangzib, but the effect of these orders was transitory, and the
system maintained itself up to the close of the Mughul period.
The central sources of revenue were by comparison few in number;
they may be classed as Commerce, Mint, Presents, Inheritance, Salt,
Customs, Poll-tax, and Land. From time to time the state took an
active part in commerce, but its operations were fiscally important
only when they involved a monopoly of particular commodities; these
monopolies ordinarily concerned munitions, such as lead or saltpetre,
but occasionally other articles were affected, the most noteworthy
case being the general monopoly of indigo created by Shah Jahan
in 1633, which, however, was quickly broken by the opposition of
the foreign buyers. The working of the mints was commonly farmed,
so that they must be regarded as a source of revenue; the yield is not
recorded, but it cannot have been large so long as the prescribed
standards of the currency were maintained.
Court etiquette required that presents of substantial value should
be offered to the emperor on various occasions, and ordinarily these
were worth much more than the presents given in return; an idea
of their fiscal importance can be formed from the fact that under
Shah Jahan, when the incidence was heaviest, the presents given at
the new year, the chief ceremonial occasion, totalled from one to
three million rupees in different years, from which must be deducted
the value, whatever it was, of what was given by the emperor in
return. As regards inheritance, the state claimed all the property
left by its officers, and the claim was extended on occasion to the
1 River tolls, and also exactions by assignees were prohibited by Jahangir.
29


## p. 450 (#488) ############################################

450
REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
estates of wealthy merchants; anything relinquished for the main-
tenance of families and dependants was a matter of favour. The whole
claim was formally abandoned by Aurangzib, but there are some
indications that his orders were not carried out in their entirety.
Income from this source necessarily fluctuated; a particular officer
might leave a really large sum, such as Asaf Khan's fortune of twenty-
five millions of rupees in the reign of Shah Jahan, but such great
accumulations were necessarily rare, while many officers died in debt
or left very little for the treasury.
There was no uniform system of taxing salt, and some important
sources were controlled locally; the mines in the Punjab and the salt
lake at Sambhar in Rajputana were, however, administered by the
state. The income from these sources was apparently brought to
account as part of the land-revenue, and cannot be stated in precise
figures, but on the basis of the available statistics it cannot have been
more than about one million rupees. Compared with the present
standards, customs duties were formally low, ranging from 5 per cent.
downwards, but in practice their incidence was seriously increased
by arbitrary over-valuation, and by extra charges for prompt clear-
ance of goods. Some idea of the magnitude of the customs revenue
can be formed from the fact that in the middle of the seventeenth
century the port of Surat, at that time by far the most important
source, was reckoned to yield half a million rupees a year, after the
cost of its administration had been met.
The jizya, or poll-tax, which according to strict Islamic law was
payable only by Jews and Christians, had been claimed by some
earlier Muslim rulers from their Hindu subjects. The claim was
formally abandoned by Akbar, and in the Mughul period it was first
asserted by Aurangzib. Under effective administration the yield
might have been substantial, but this condition was not present, and
probably was unattainable in the circumstances of the time; the
amount actually realised is not recorded in the published authorities
for the period.
All these sources of the central revenue, taken together, were quite
small when compared with the land-revenue, which was reckoned
at more than ninety millions of rupees in the latter part of Akbar's
reign, and at 220 millions in the larger empire of Shah Jahan. The
disparity is indeed sufficient to justify the practice traditional in
India, and adopted in the remainder of this chapter, of using the
word 'revenue" in the restricted sense of land-revenue. The burden
on the land was increased further by the levy of cesses, proportionate
to the revenue, or charged on the unit of cultivation, as the case
might be, some of them general and permanent, others local and
temporary; but the authorities say very little about these, and no
estimate can be formed of the aggregate addition which they made
to the burdens of the peasant. The remainder of this chapter is


## p. 451 (#489) ############################################

SOURCES OF REVENUE
451
devoted to Revenue in the restricted sense, beginning with a general
view of the agrarian system of the country, and then describing the
course of events during the Mughul period.
The Mughuls did not, as has sometimes been suggested, introduce
a new revenue system into northern India; they took over the system
which they found in operation, a system which in its main lines was
consistent with Islamic law, as well as with the sacred law of Hindu-
ism on which it was ultimately based. Under the sacred law occupation
of land for production involved a liability to pay a share of the produce
a
to the state, which determined within certain limits the amount of
the share, and regulated the methods of assessment and collection.
Under Islamic law a conqueror was authorised to dispossess infidel
occupants, and distribute their lands among his followers; but if he
permitted the infidels to remain in possession, as was usually done in
India, he was entitled to claim from them a share of the produce, to
be assessed and collected as he thought best, and to be applied for the
benefit of Muslims in general, or in practice as the revenue of the
state which he established. Thus the ordinary Indian peasant was
not necessarily affected by conquest; he remained on the land, but he
came under a new master, who might possibly increase his burdens,
or more probably fall in for the moment with the arrangements which
he found in existence. Under this system there were three questions
of immediate interest to both the parties—the amount of the share
claimed by the state, the method of its assessment, and the arrange-
ments for collecting the sums due; these three points will be noticed
in order but something must first be said of the position occupiea
by the peasant.
The face of the country was divided into villages in the Indian
sense of the word, which is very nearly that of the English "civil
parish", denoting a specific area of land, usually but not necessarily
inhabited, originating probably more
more or less at haphazard, but
defined and recognised for administrative purposes. Most villages,
though not all, were occupied and managed by what appears to be
a very old institution, a brotherhood or community of peasants,
acknowledging, and united by, the tie of common ancestry. Each
member of the brotherhood held in separate possession the land which
he cultivated, and enjoyed the fruits of his labour; but in the manage-
ment of the affairs of the village the members acted as a body, their
agents being the headmen, chosen from among themselves according
to the custom of the locality. The headmen could let to tenants the
land not required by members of the brotherhood, and they repre-
sented the village in its dealings with the administration; the extent
of their powers varied in different regions, but they were everywhere
important; and in those villages where a brotherhood did not exist,
headmen were usually appointed by external authority for the dis-
charge of similar functions. Each village had a hereditary registrar


## p. 452 (#490) ############################################

452 REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
or accountant, who maintained records of cultivation, receipts, and
payments, and assisted the headmen in the performance of the duties
which have just been described.
The villages were grouped into larger units known as parganas,
which were also recognised for administrative purposes. There was
a headman (chaudhri) in each pargana; his functions in the Muslim
period are not described in the authorities, but he received orders
from the administration, and exercised some sort of local jurisdiction.
There was also a registrar or accountant (qanungo) for the pargana,
the post was ordinarily hereditary, and its holder was the repository
of local agrarian knowledge, and, as the name implies, the interpreter
of local customs on whom foreign administrators relied.
The nature of the peasants' tenure cannot be described accurately
in the precise legal terms now in use. When a peasant not belonging
to the brotherhood was allowed by the headmen to cultivate land
in the village, the conditions of his tenure were primarily matters for
agreement between the two parties, and anything like uniformity
cannot be postulated; but it is probable that, while such agreements
were ordinarily made for a single year, the terms tended to be
repeated until they became customary in the eyes of both parties,
so that arbitrary ejectment or enhancement would have been viewed
with disfavour, provided always that the tenant paid the stipulated
sums. The amount of a tenant's payment was not usually fixed in
the lump, but was made up of the revenue due on his cultivation,
together with a proportionate addition representing the profit of the
brotherhood; and consequently it would vary with any alteration
made in the assessment of the village.
As regards the members of the brotherhood, there is no doubt that,
subject to due payment of the revenue, their connection with the
village was regarded as a settled fact; and if a village was deserted
owing to economic or administrative pressure, there was a general
understanding that the brotherhood could return and occupy it if
they chose to do so. Individual members of the brotherhood could
transmit their land to their heirs, and could transfer it by sale or
mortgage, but always subject to the fundamental condition that the
revenue due was paid. Under Hindu law a peasant could be ejected
for inefficiency, and possibly for other reasons also; no similar pro-
vision has been traced in the extant official documents of the Muslim
period, but these establish the fact that peasants could be flogged
for failure to produce adequate crops, while sale of a peasant's wife
and children, although not of the peasant himself, was a recognised
process for the recovery of arrears.
The explanation of this position, which appears so anomalous at
the present day, is to be found in the fact that neither Hindu text-
1 Known in northern India as patwari, in Gujarat as talati, in the Bombay
Deccan as kulkarni, and in Madras as karnam.


## p. 453 (#491) ############################################

THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM
453
writers nor Muslim administrators were concerned primarily with
peasants' rights. In Hindu law, the emphasis is on the peasant's
duty io cultivate land and pay the revenue; and the same idea
persisted throughout the Muslim period, when failure to cultivate,
or to pay was regarded as tantamount to rebellion. So long as a
peasant performed his duty, there would be no reason for displacing
him, while if he failed in his duty, his displacement would follow as
a matter of course, provided that a more efficient successor was avail-
able. The proviso is, however, important. During the Muslim period
competition for productive land was not general; in most places land
was waiting for peasants with the material resources needed for its
cultivation; and an inefficient peasant might be better than none at
all. In such circumstances the essence of successful administration
was to keep peasants on the land, not to turn them off it.
The operation of these ideas can be traced in documents issued in
the Muslim period by the Revenue Ministry, an organisation which
was, of course, controlled by the ruler of the time, but which appears
to have preserved its continuity during periods of violent political
change, and to have maintained a permanent departmental tradition
of its own. To attract peasants to vacant land, to induce peasants to
extend the area tilled, to secure improvement in the class of crops
grown, these were the permanent ideals, though in practice they
might often be masked by the need or the greed of the moment.
The texts are not absolutely in accordance regarding the share
of produce which a Hindu king might claim from the peasants
without sin, but the commonest figure is one-sixth, which might be
increased in emergencies to one-fourth, or even one-third. How far
practice conformed to theory in this matter is doubtful; some cases
which have been studied in detail indicate that the share actually
taken in particular Hindu kingdoms was nearer one-fourth than one-
sixth, but they are too few to form the basis of a confident generalisa-
tion. There is no similar arithmetical limitation in Islamic law; the
sovereign has a free hand, subject only to the warning emphasised
in the early texts that he should avoid discouraging production by
excessive burdens. In Muslim India it may be said in a general way
that the claim usually varied from one-third to one-half; and, in
the economic conditions which prevailed, it is probable that the lower
proportion was not far short of the danger-point, where production
would begin to be checked, while the higher proportion was almost
certainly injurious. There is nothing in the contemporary authorities
to show that any deductions were allowed before the produce was
divided, but it is not improbable that some small customary provision
was made in this way for charity and for the menial servants employed
in the village.
As regards methods of assessment, the primitive plan of dividing
the produce of each field at harvest is open to obvious practical


## p. 454 (#492) ############################################

454
REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
objections, and for an indefinite period the usual practice of the
country has been to estimate the yield of the growing crop, and
charge the grower on the estimate, dividing the produce only in
those cases—ordinarily very rare—where the accuracy of the estimate
is disputed. Under these arrangements, which are conveniently
described as Sharing, by division or by estimation as the case may
be, the grower's liability varies from season to season both with the
area sown and with the yield harvested. In the common alternative
called Measurement, a fixed charge, either in cash or in produce, is
made on each unit of area sown, and the grower takes the whole
risk, being in theory liable for the full charge even when the crop
has failed; but in practice it was usually necessary to remit a portion
of the state's claim in unfavourable seasons. These two methods
of assessment-Sharing and Measurement-persisted side by side
throughout the Muslim period, but at some uncertain epoch there
emerged a third, which may be called Contract; under it the indi-
vidual peasant came to terms with the assessor, or with the headman,
to pay a stated sum for his holding, independent of the area he might
sow or the crop he might reap, so that his position was substantially
that of a tenant at the present day. Finally, in some parts of the
country there was a fourth method, the Plough-rent, which is not
easy to reconcile with the terms of the sacred law, and is perhaps even
older; under it, a stated charge was made on each plough and team,
the unit of productive power, and the owner of the team was free
to cultivate as much land as he could, and in whatever way he chose.
Under each of these methods the demand on the peasant might be
made either in cash or in produce at the option of the state, the
amount of produce due being valued at current prices when payment
was required in cash. Collection in kind was doubtless the earlier
practice, but throughout the Muslim period cash payment was the
general rule, though produce continued to be paid in some backward
areas, and in two recorded instances cash payments were suspended
to meet financial emergencies.
The modern idea that collection of State dues should be made by
salaried officials directly from the person liable is not generally
applicable to India during the Muslim period. The practice existed,
and on occasion was enforced over wide areas by individual admini-
strators; but the general rule was to delegate the work of collection
to one class or another of a heterogeneous group, whom it is con-
venient to describe collectively as Intermediaries, and who in practice
frequently decided on the method of assessment to be applied within
their charge. The main classes of Intermediaries were Chiefs, Head-
men, Farmers, and Assignees.
Under Muslim rule large areas of the country were left in the
possession of Hindu chiefs who had, at any rate, a claim to sovereignty,
but had submitted to the Muslim rulers on terms which preserved


## p. 455 (#493) ############################################

METHODS OF ASSESSMENT
455
to them internal jurisdiction; these terms might include the payment
of a fixed tribute, or merely the personal service of the chief with his
troops, but in either case the Muslim administration did not ordinarily
interfere with assessment or collection of the revenue, so long as the
terms were observed. If a chief defaulted, the result was ordinarily
a punitive expedition, and either his displacement or a revision of
the terms previously in force; but so long as he remained loyal, he
enjoyed the revenue of his territories subject to the payment of the
stipulated tribute, if any.
The position of a chief depended partly on the accessibility of his
territory, and partly on the strength of his clan. In broken country,
remote from an administrative centre, even a petty chief might main-
tain himself for an indefinite period merely or mainly because his
possessions were not worth annexing; in the open plains a chief who
was the head of a numerous and martial clan settled in a compact
area might survive because his fighting strength made him a dangerous
enemy but a valuable ally. The chronicles tell us little of such chiefs,
but their importance in the Muslm period can be inferred from the
number who survived into the nineteenth century, not only in
Rajputana and Central India, where many of them were accepted
as princes, but also in large areas in Bihar and the United Provinces,
where they usually became landholders.
It was a common practice for the revenue assessors to come to
terms with the headmen year by year for the revenue to be paid
by the village as a whole; the sum to be paid was fixed on a con-
sideration of the productive resources of the village, but was not
assessed directly on the separate portions of cultivated land, or on
the individual peasants. When this arrangement was made, the
headmen distributed the burden of the revenue according to the
custom of the village, collected each peasant's quota, paid the authori-
ties in lump sums, and bore the brunt of official severity in case of
default.
The practice of farming the revenue of a village, or larger area, is
of old standing in India; the farmer engaged to pay a lump sum,
hoping to collect more from the peasants, and so make a profit for
himself. Almost up to the end of the Muslim period the duration
of such farms was very short, one year being an ordinary term; but
in the eighteenth century the duration tended to become indefinite,
and in practice the position might even become hereditary.
Assignment was, however, the most distinctive institution of the
period. Every officer of the State was entitled to receive an income
defined precisely in cash, out of which he had ordinarily to maintain
a specified force of cavalry, available for the service of the ruler at
any time; but for all the more important officers payment of this
income in cash was the exception. Ordinarily an officer's claim was
satisfied by assignment of the revenue of an area estimated to yield


## p. 456 (#494) ############################################

456 REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
the income due to him, and the assignee thereupon assumed the
administration of that area, assessing and collecting the revenue, and
endeavouring to obtain from it at least the amount of his claim, and
if possible something more. The assignee thus stood to the peasants
in the position of the state, and, subject to any restrictions imposed
on him by the authority, he had a free hand in the administration; he
could assess and collect the revenue of each peasant through his
servants, or he could deal with the headmen of the villages, or he
could hand them over to farmers. Throughout the Muslim period
the great bulk of the cultivated land was ordinarily in the hands of
assignees, but certain tracts, described as khalisa, were reserved to
provide the treasury with cash, and were managed by the Revenue
Ministry on one or other of the systems already described.
The foregoing analysis is necessary for descriptive purposes, but,
taken by itself, it might give a misleading idea of rigidity in what was
essentially a flexible structure. It was a simple and natural arrange-
ment for a salaried staff working at a distance to undertake to supply
a stated net income, instead of rendering complicated and detailed
accounts of receipts and expenditure, and collectors could thus easily
be transformed into farmers. A farmer holding for an indefinite term
could assume a position not distinguishable in practice from that
of a tribute-paying chief; a village headman might in favourable
circumstances become a village autocrat, and, by taking farms of
neighbouring villages, raise himself by degrees to a similar position;
and in periods when the central authority was weak such tendencies
might operate to transform the conditions prevailing over large areas.
From these preliminary explanations we may turn to the history
of the subject during the Mughul period. There is no formal descrip-
tion of the revenue system in force in northern India at the opening
of the sixteenth century; but incidental notices in the chronicles show
that under the Lodi dynasty the great bulk of the kingdom was held
in assignment by the Afghan leaders who constituted its effective
· strength. They show also that in practice the assignees enjoyed a free
hand in regard to assessment, as well as in the treatment of any
minor chiefs whose lands lay within their assignments; and the only
record of interference by the king is an order issued by Ibrahim
Lodi prohibiting the assignees from taking revenue in cash, an order
which appears to have been justified by the prevailing scarcity of
silver currency. In the absence of any record of a change, it may be
assumed that these arrangements persisted in their main lines under
Babur and Humayun, and the basis of Akbar's distinctive system is
to be found in the reorganisation effected by Sher Shah.
As depicted in the chronicles Sher Shah stands out as a masterful
and tireless administrator of the Indian type, attending personally
to every detail of the business of his kingdom, and introducing large
changes of system in what would now be thought a very summary


## p. 457 (#495) ############################################

SHER SHAH'S REORGANISATION
457
manner;. but his reign was too short to furnish a final test of the
suitability of the measures he introduced. He stands out also as the
only ruler of northern India who is known to have acquired practical
experience in the detailed work of assessing and collecting revenue,
for as a young man he had brought into order the assignment held
by his father from the Lodi dynasty. The chronicler's account of his
activities at this time shows that he had already accepted the prin-
ciples which later on he was to apply on a large scale in northern
India; he believed in maintaining direct relations with the individual
peasants, he distrusted the village headmen, and he regarded equitable
assessment and strict collection as the two essentials of revenue
administration.
The share of the produce which he claimed at this time is not on
record; but after his accession to the throne in the year 1540 the
general proportion taken from the kingdom, apart from one favoured
region, was one-third, and probably this was not an innovation, but
was a standard already familiar in practice. The method of assess-
ment adopted was measurement, the charge on each unit of area
sown being a stated weight of produce. The authorities do not indicate
a
clearly whether the peasants were now required to pay in cash or in
grain; the former is more probable, because Ibrahim's order for
grain-payments was the result of scarcity of currency, and this diffi-
culty must have disappeared under Sher Shah, who reorganised the
currency and coined both silver and copper in large quantities. The
distinctive feature of the new arrangements was the way in which
the demand on the peasants was calculated. Standard yields of each
staple crop were calculated or estimated-how this was done is not
recorded—separately for three classes of land, described as “good”,
"middling”, and “inferior"; the average of these figures was struck;
and one-third of the average was claimed as revenue from each unit
of area, whatever its actual yield might be. The effect was neces-
sarily to overcharge the bad land, and to undercharge the good;
in the case of wheat, for instance, the charge works out at about
24 per cent. of the estimated produce of “good” land, while on
"inferior” land it was 48 per cent. The inequality would, however,
naturally adjust itself by variations in the crops grown, so that exces-
sive charges would tend to be eliminated.
On one point of great practical importance the authorities are
ambiguous; it is uncertain whether these standard yields were calcu-
lated separately for each agricultural tract, or whether single standards
were adopted for the kingdom as a whole. If the latter course was
followed, over-pressure of the less productive regions must, in an
extensive kingdom, have led to a complete breakdown on the occur-
rence of unfavourable seasons; if the former, the arrangements might
have been reasonably successful; but, as has been said above, the
reign was too short for them to be adequately tested, and the political
7


## p. 458 (#496) ############################################

458
REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
instability of the years intervening between the death of Sher Shah
and the accession of Akbar was such as to mask the operation of
economic factors.
As regards the method of collection, Sher Shah granted assign-
ments as his predecessors had done; there is nothing on record to
indicate that he curtailed the freedom which assignees had pre-
viously enjoyed, though the general character of his administration
renders this not improbable. We may be confident that his methods
were followed closely in the tracts reserved for the treasury, and we
may conjecture that, to a varying extent, they prevailed also in
assignments.
The historical importance of Sher Shah's methods lies in the fact
that they formed the starting-point of the series of experiments in
administration which marked the first half of Akbar's reign. Much
information regarding these experiments is furnished by the authori-
ties, but they are in some respects incomplete, while their language
is highly technical; particular statements divorced from their context
may easily be misunderstood; and the account which follows, based
on study of the authorities as a whole, differs substantially from much
which has been written on the subject in the past. It deals in order,
first, with the experiments in assessment made in the heart of the
empire, from the Punjab to Bihar; next, with the practice in regard
to assignments; and then with the working of the arrangements finally
adopted for the empire as a whole.
In the early years of Akbar's reign the revenue was assessed by
measurement, and the demand made on the peasants was based on
a schedule of assessment rates which had been prepared under Sher
Shah: as has been said above, it is uncertain whether Sher Shah
used one schedule or several, but under Akbar there is no doubt
that only one was employed. From the outset the demand was made
in cash, the produce due under the schedule being valued at prices
fixed by order of the emperor. These arrangements could not be
made to work satisfactorily: nor is it possible that they could have
worked for long. Just at first, the prices fixed for valuing the produce
were uniform for the whole empire, and were apparently based on
those which ruled in the vicinity of the court. In the tenth year of
the reign varying local prices were substituted for the uniform scale
previously used; but this measure, though obviously an improvement,
did not suffice to remove the difficulties, and three years later the
use of Sher Shah's schedule was abandoned so far as the reserved
areas were concerned, though seasonal cash-rates continued to be
calculated from it, presumably for the use of assignees. For the
reserved areas a more summary procedure was introduced, which is
not explained in detail; probably it was assessment through the
headmen, though it is possible that in some cases farms were given.
These summary assessments must be regarded as a temporary


## p. 459 (#497) ############################################

ASSESSMENT UNDER AKBAR
459
mneacure, intended merely to tide over the emergency, for in the
fifteenth year of the reign (1570-71) new schedules of assessment
rates, applicable to all land whether assigned or reserved, were
brought into force throughout the country. According to my reading
of the authorities, the new schedules were of precisely the same form
as the old, showing the demand to be made on the peasant as one-
third of the average estimated produce; the difference lay in the
fact that the average produce was now estimated separately for each
pargana, and not for the empire as a whole, thus eliminating the
difficulties which had resulted from ignoring local differences in pro-
ductivity. The demand was still stated in terms of produce, and the
prices at which it was valued in each season required the emperor's
sanction.
These new schedules were worked out by the qanungos, each for
his own pargana, under the supervision of Raja Todar Mal, who was
now associated with Muzaffar Khan in the charge of the Revenue
Ministry, and was in practice its effective head. Todar Mal's early
history is obscure. He has been identified by some modern writers
with one Todar Khattri, who was employed by Sher Shah in building
the fort of Rohtas, and it has been assumed that he was connected
with the revenue administration from that time onward; but the
identification is not supported by anything in the contemporary
chronicles, and the mere name is scarcely an adequate basis for a
confident conclusion. In Akbar's reign he emerges first in the year
1565, when he was performing military duties; and from 1570 to
his death in 1589 he fills a conspicuous place in the chronicles, some-
times as a successful commander in the field, sometimes as the
Revenue Minister, to which post he returned from successive military
expeditions, always as a highly competent and exceptionally honest
officer, who at the same time was not easy to work with owing to
his ill-temper, obstinacy, and vindictiveness.
The assessment schedules which were introduced in 1570-71
remained in force for ten years, and apparently they were found
suitable, so far as the claim, stated in produce, was concerned; but
recurring difficulties in calculating the seasonal cash-demand even-
tually led to their abandonment. The prices at which the produce-
claim should be valued had to be sanctioned by the emperor,
separately for each region and for each season. The emperor was
constantly on the move, the distances to be covered increased with
the expansion of the empire, the issue of orders was delayed, and the
whole business of assessment and collection was thereby hindered,
to the inconvenience of everyone concerned; while, in addition, the
reports of local prices, on which the emperor's orders were based,
were suspected in some cases to be fraudulent. Akbar met the
emergency by deciding to discard schedules stated in produce, and
to fix assessment rates in cash, which could be applied, season by


## p. 460 (#498) ############################################

460
REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
season, to the area actually cropped without the need for recurring
references to the court.
For this purpose the parganas were grouped into what would now
be called assessment circles on the basis of agricultural homogeneity,
and for each circle a schedule of rates was framed showing the amount
of money to be demanded on the unit area of each crop, known as
bigha; the size of this unit varied within wide limits, but the bigha
to which the schedules refer was probably a little less than five-
eighths of an acre. The range of the rates was extensive; one schedule,
which may be taken as a fair sample, shows that small millets were
charged 11 dam, large millets from 25 to 30, barley 40, wheat 60,
sugarcane and indigo 120, and betel 220 dam, the dam being approxi-
mately one-fortieth of a rupee. Such figures make it easy to under-
a
stand why the Revenue Ministry consistently pressed for improvement
in the class of crops; a change from cereals to sugarcane for instance
would immediately double or treble the revenue due from the area
affected.
Contemporary descriptions of this reform are incomplete, but
apparently the method adopted was to strike an average for each
circle of the cash-demand rates which had been used within that
circle during the ten years for which Todar Mal's schedules had been
in operation. It is uncertain whether these averages were adjusted,
or were used as they worked out; but the schedules, in which the
rates are given in thousandths of a rupee, show that no attempt was
made to secure round or convenient figures for the recurring calcula-
tions, and it is probable that no formal adjustments were made.
With these schedules of rates stated in cash, the process of seasonal
assessment was simple. When the crops were showing above ground,
measuring parties were sent into the villages to record the areas
which had been sown. From these field records the total area sown
by each peasant was extracted, crop by crop, care being taken to
exclude areas where sowings had failed; the sanctioned assessment
rates were then used to calculate the total revenue due from that
peasant; and the sums due from each peasant were brought together
in an assessment statement for the village, on the basis of which col-
lections were made at harvest, though the rules provided for adjust-
ments required by injury to crops after the assessment had been made.
So far as the chronicles show, this method of assessment remained
in force until the end of Akbar's reign, but its application was not
absolutely rigid. One case is recorded where the sanctioned charges
were temporarily raised. Akbar's prolonged residence in Lahore had
resulted in a marked rise of local prices, and the revenue demand
was increased by 20 per cent, in the area affected, but this temporary
increase was discontinued when the emperor left the Punjab in the
year 1598.
No other increase of the same kind is recorded, but the
silence of the chronicles is not conclusive in such matters. On the


## p. 461 (#499) ############################################

ASSIGNMENTS UNDER AKBAR
461
other hand, a series of exceptionally good seasons occurring in the
country between Delhi and Allahabad from 1585 to 1590 led to such
a fall of prices that the revenue could not be paid, and large remis-
sions had to be granted—by assignees as well as in the lands reserved
for the treasury. There is no record of remissions having been made
in years when the crops were bad, and we may assume that this
eventuality was considered to be met by the standing provisions
mentioned above for the exclusion of areas where sowings had failed,
and for adjusting the assessment to meet subsequent injuries.
We now pass from assessments to assignments. In the opening
years of Akbar's reign, officers were ordinarily remunerated by
assignment, and a difficulty emerged which must always have been
latent in the system. An eastern autocrat was bound to be liberal,
if he was to retain the services of an adequate and competent staff;
and liberality was even more indispensable in the case of an autocracy
in the making, the position which Bairam Khan as regent for Akbar
had to face. It is no matter for surprise therefore that the cost of
establishment should have grown more quickly than the resources
of what was a relatively small empire, and that the Revenue Ministry
should have found itself unable to make assignments sufficient to
cover the salaries granted by the regent. The way in which the
difficulty was met was characteristic of the times. For the purpose
of allocating assignments the Ministry maintained registers, which
may be called “the Valuation of the Empire”, or more shortly, “the
Valuation”, showing the income which each local area might be
expected to yield, one year with another, to the assignee. When
orders for assignments could not be met in full, the figures in the
valuation were arbitrarily raised, so that the orders could be carried
out on paper, but the assignee would in fact be unable to realise
the income to which he was entitled. The inevitable result was dis-
satisfaction throughout the staff of the empire, and corruption inside
the Ministry
The original record having thus become worthless, Akbar in the
year 1566 ordered the preparation of a new valuation, which was
duly effected, but it went the way of the first, being corruptly
falsified; and by 1573 the dissatisfaction in the state service was such
that the emperor decided, with the concurrence, or perhaps at the
suggestion, of Raja Todar Mal, to pay salaries in cash, and to bring
practically the whole of northern India directly under the Revenue
Ministry. For this purpose the country was divided into circles, each
estimated to yield, when fully developed, a crore (karor) of dam
(250,000 rupees), and a staff of officials was posted to each circle
with instructions to press on agricultural development as quickly as
possible; the officer in charge of the circle was officially designated
'Amil, or 'Amalguzar, that is to say, Administrator, but popularly
he became known as Karori, a sobriquet derived from the nominal


## p. 462 (#500) ############################################

462 REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
extent of his charge, and eventually this designation passed into the
official language. These arrangements lasted for five years. In 1579–
80 a new valuation was made, calculated on the precise data furnished
by the ten years' operation of Todar Mal's assessment rates, and the
practice of assignment again became general, though this fact is not
formally recorded in the chronicles. The reasons for the change are
matters for conjecture. The most probable view is that the intro-
duction of cash salaries was intended from the first as a temporary
measure, pending the time when data for a trustworthy valuation
should become available; but in any case the reversion to the practice
of assignment may have been hastened by the occurrence of grave
scandals in the revenue administration.
The large and sudden extension of direct assessment and collection
was obviously an enterprise requiring careful supervision. This re-
quirement was provided at the outset, for the initial measures were
planned by Raja Todar Mal, and executed by the staff which he
had chosen; but shortly afterwards he was called away for military
duty, and the charge of the Revenue Ministry devolved on Khvaja
Shah Mansur, who, it may be assumed, followed the usual practice
of the period, and replaced the existing staff by his own nominees.
A period of corruption and extortion ensued, which brought the
revenue administration into disrepute, and operated to restrict culti-
vation, and thereby reduce the financial resources of the empire,
which it had been hoped to increase. When, after the execution of
Shah Mansur for treason in 1581, Raja Todar Mal resumed effective
charge of the Ministry, he issued orders for the prevention of such
malpractices in future, and at the same time took drastic action
against the officials suspected of misconduct, calling them to account
for the sums they had embezzled or extorted, and employing the
traditional procedure, under which a suspect was detained in prison,
and flogged, or otherwise tortured, periodically, until a satisfactory
settlement was reached.
These processes dragged on for some years, but were at last brought
to a close by the intervention of Akbar, who appointed Amir Fath-
ullah Shirazi as an imperial commissioner (Amin-ul-mulk) to dispose
of the cases pending in the Revenue Ministry, and in effect to be at
its head, though Todar Mal was not formally superseded. The com-
missioner performed his duties effectively, and drew up proposals,
which were sanctioned by the emperor, for reforming the procedure
of the Ministry in its relations with the local staff. This measure,
introduced in 1585, practically completes the revenue history of the
reign, so far as it finds a place in the chronicles. The only important
change recorded in later years was the decision, taken in 1596, to bring
the provincial revenue officers, now designated Diwan, directly under
the orders of the Ministry, thus relieving the viceroy of responsibility
for revenue administration, and originating the administrative dyarchy


## p. 463 (#501) ############################################

AKBAR'S REGULATION SYSTEM
463
which persisted until the collapse of the empire, with revenue busi-
ness (diwani) conducted independently of the general administration
(faujdari).
The result of the period of experiment which covered the first half
of Akbar's reign was to provide a workable revenue system for
northern India; but the system was not applied to the outlying
portions of the empire, each of which was treated as the local circum-
stances required. The standard, or "regulation", system may be
described as follows. The basis of the state's claim on the peasant
was still one-third of the produce, but the actual demand was made
in the form of a sum of money, varying with the locality and with
the crop, on each unit of area sown in each season. The bulk of
northern India was assigned, and the detailed conduct of assessment
and collection was in the hands of the assignees, who, however, were
bound by the sanctioned schedules of assessment rates. The area
reserved for the treasury was divided into circles, each in charge of a
karori or collector, who was under the orders of the provincial diwan,
himself responsible, at first to the viceroy, but afterwards directly
to the Revenue Ministry. The collector was required to deal with
established cultivation strictly in accordance with the regulation
system; but he was under constant pressure to increase the revenue
yielded by his circle by the two traditional processes, extension of
cultivation and improvement in the class of crops; and, in order to
attain these objects, he was allowed a considerable degree of latitude.
Thus he was authorised to reduce the standard rates on the more
remunerative crops, when this was necessary in order to secure an
increase in the area under them; he could make temporary reductions
in the schedules of rates in case of land which had gone out of cultiva-
tion, so as to stimulate its reclamation; for extension of tillage in
waste land he could agree to almost whatever terms the peasants
offered; and when the village headmen exerted themselves success-
fully with this object, he could allow them a substantial commission
by way of reward. When the assessments fell due, the peasants
were encouraged to bring their revenue personally to the local
treasury, though collecting agents were also employed in the villages;
and, speaking generally, it may be said that the distinctive feature
of the system was the direct relationship which it established between
the collector and the individual peasant, who was to be treated as
an independent unit, encouraged to increase production, and assisted
with loans for that purpose, but held firmly to the engagements into
which he had entered.
It will be obvious that the success or failure of this system must
have depended entirely on the quality of the administration. The
amount of detailed work, to be accomplished season by season under
the strict time limit imposed by agricultural conditions, was very
great; opportunities for extortion and oppression of individuals were


## p. 464 (#502) ############################################

464
REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
numerous; and if there was dishonesty or inefficiency at the centre,
the system must soon have broken down. There is no record of a
collapse, or of a recurrence of scandals like those which occurred
before the year 1581; but it must be borne in mind that our informa-
tion regarding the closing years of the reign is much less detailed than
for the earlier period. The most probable view is that, while the system
worked reasonably well under Akbar, it disappeared under his suc-
cessor, but definite evidence on this question is wanting.
This regulation system extended, broadly speaking, to the plains
of northern India, excluding the areas left in the hands of the Hindu
chiefs, that is to say, to the provinces of Multan, Lahore, Delhi
(excluding the Kumaun hills), Agra, Allahabad, and the bulk of Bihar;
but the southern parts of the two last-named provinces, bordering on
the unadministered region known as Gondwana, were excluded from
its operations, as was the hill-country lying between Bihar and
Bengal. The system was in force also in those parts of Ajmer which
were not left to the chiefs, and it is said to have been introduced in
Malwa, but the records regarding this province are obscure; the
eastern portion, bordering on Gondwana, and the western portion,
bordering on Ajmer, were left to chiefs, while apparently some
arrangements more simple than the regulation system were in force
over a large part of the remainder of the province.
In the outlying provinces, local practices were ordinarily continued.
In the northern mountains Kashmir, Kabul and Qandahar-these
practices were diversified, and too complex to be summarised in a
few words; here as elsewhere, the basic idea was to take a share of
the produce, but the share was ordinarily calculated by methods
which gave an approximation to the system of measurement. In
Sind one-third of the produce was claimed, and the demand was
assessed by sharing. The records regarding Gujarat are conflicting,
but can be interpreted on the hypothesis that measurement was prac-
tised for a time, and then superseded by assessment on the village as
a unit made with the headmen, or possibly with farmers. In Berar
and (probably) Khandesh such village assessments were the rule,
and the same statement holds good of Bengal (including Orissa);
contemporary authorities lend no support to the legend which was
current at the end of the eighteenth century that Todar Mal made
a detailed assessment on the individual peasants of Bengal. In most
of these provinces large areas were left in the hands of chiefs, and
thus were not assessed by the Revenue Ministry, or available for
assignment.
Precise information is wanting regarding the fiscal relations sub-
sisting between Akbar and those chiefs who retained jurisdiction
over their domains. It is possible that revenue was claimed, at least
from some of them, in the form of a stipulated annual tribute, as
had been the practice at earlier periods; but the obscure records


## p. 465 (#503) ############################################

GRANTS OF REVENUE
465
which alone are available for the territories of the more important
chiefs can also be interpreted on the theory that the emperor claimed
nothing beyond loyal service, including of course the periodical
presents which etiquette required, and that the Revenue Ministry
recorded a chief's territory as his assignment, valued at some arbitrary
figure for the formal completion of its records.
Before passing to the reign of Jahangir a few words may be said
regarding the practice of alienating revenue in grants made by way
of charity or favour. Such alienation was traditional. In Akbar's
time grants were officially described by the Turki name suyurghal,
but in the ordinary literature they appear as milk (domain), or
madad-i-ma'ash (assistance to livelihood), terms which are not dis-
tinguishable in practice. The usual form of grant was an are of
stated size, which at first seems to have consisted of land already
cultivated. Akbar made it a rule that one-half of the grant should
ordinarily be waste land, so that while the grantee could forthwith
collect the revenue due from the peasants on the moiety under
cultivation, he had to exert himself to bring the remainder of the
land under the plough in order to obtain the full benefit of the
emperor's liberality. The grants were professedly charitable, and, in
some cases at least, the formal document recited that the recipient
had no other means of livelihood, but in practice this limitation was
not strictly observed; they were made sometimes for the life of the
grantee, sometimes for two generations, and sometimes for an in-
definite term; but the records show that they could be resumed or
revised at any time at the discretion of the administration.
The business connected with these grants was transacted, not in
the Revenue Ministry, but in a separate department, which was
presided over by the Sadr, a high officer charged with supervision
of the administration of Islamic law. The Sadr exercised very exten-
sive powers, subject of course to the emperor's personal intervention;
and in practice the history of the office is one of profuse and some-
times corrupt liberality, punctuated by spasms of vigorous retrench-
ment. The tenure of a grant was thus insecure. A grantee might
find himself deprived of some or all the land he held as the result
of a change of policy, or of personnel; and on occasion he might be
affected by a general order like that which was issued shortly after
the year 1595, summarily reducing by one-half all the grants existing
in the province of Gujarat. On the other hand, influence and bribery
might secure undisturbed possession, or the retention of land in excess
of what had been granted; and such accounts as have survived of the
working of the department indicate a thoroughly inefficient and
corrupt administration. Some idea of the importance of these grants
can be formed from the fact that in the statistics included in the
Ain-i-Aktari the grants in the five northern provinces, from Lahore
to Allahabad, amount to about 312 per cent. of the total revenue.
30


## p. 466 (#504) ############################################

466 REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
Contemporary authorities furnish very little information regarding
the revenue system which was in operation under Jahangir, but the
general slackness and inefficiency which characterised the greater
part of his reign may safely be assumed to have left their mark on
a department which, as has been said above, depended for success
entirely on the quality of the administration, and this inference is
borne out by the fact that the income from the reserved areas fell
off seriously and progressively, so that, towards the close of the reign,
the accumulations in the treasury were being drawn on to meet
current expenditure. The most probable view is that Akbar's regula-
tion system was discarded during this reign, and replaced by village
assessments, made with the headmen or with farmers as circumstances
inight permit; and the silence of the chronicles is consistent with the
hypothesis that this change was not made formally or deliberately,
but came about gradually as the vigour of the administration declined.
The great bulk of the revenue continued to be assigned to officers
in the state service, and there are some indications that in practice
assignees now enjoyed a free hand in the management of their
holdings, so long at least as complaints did not attract the emperor's
personal attention. The system of managing assignments was not
uniform, for, while some officers assessed and collected the revenue
through a salaried staff, others handed the business over to specula-
tive farmers. The instability which characterised the administration
in general was particularly noteworthy in this branch. Assignments
were changed so frequently as to make it dangerous for ordinary
holders to pursue a constructive policy of development, or do any-
thing beyond extracting as much money as was possible; and there
is evidence that in some parts of the country the practice had grown
up of collecting one or more instalments of revenue in advance as a
sort of insurance against loss in the probable event of a sudden
transfer. Judging from the descriptions of foreign observers, among
others William Hawkins, the first Englishman known to have held
a Mughul assignment, the Revenue Ministry at this period must
have been a hotbed of intrigue and corruption, with the staff disposed
to reserve the most productive, or most easily managed, areas, but
willing to assign them for sufficient consideration, and with actual
or prospective assignees struggling to obtain, and to keep, whatever
suited them best, and to get rid of, or avoid, assignments which had
already been squeezed dry. The effect of these conditions must have
been to nullify any impetus that may have existed towards agricul-
tural development, and it is probable that the decline which occurred
in the receipts of the treasury was not due solely to embezzlement or
inefficiency, but resulted in part from an actual fall in agricultural
production.
The only definite change in practice recorded in this reign was
the introduction of the altamgha grant, a form of tenure which was


## p. 467 (#505) ############################################

THE REIGNS OF JAHANGIR AND SHAH JAHAN
467
already known in Central Asia but had not previously existed in
India. A deserving officer could hope to receive a grant under this
tenure of the village or pargana in which he was born, with the
promise that the grant, once made, should not be altered or resumed.
During the seventeenth century such grants appear to have been
made very rarely, but the institution is of historical interest for two
reasons. In the first place, it is the nearest approach to landowner-
ship which has been traced during the Mughul period; ordinary
grants were, as has been said above, liable to resumption or variation
at any time in the ordinary course of administration, but an altamgha
could be annulled only by the final authority of the emperor, or,
as modern jurists might say, by an Act of State. In the second place,
during the eighteenth century the original limitations on the tenure
came to be ignored, and the altamgha grants which were then made
profusely were subsequently recognised by the British government
as conferring a perpetual and transferable right to hold the land free
of revenue, the most complete form of landownership now existing
in the country
The lack of contemporary information regarding Jahangir's revenue
administration continues during the reign of his successor. It is
known that Shah Jahan reorganised the finances of the empire, and
provided that sufficient areas should be reserved for the treasury to
yield a recurring surplus after ordinary expenditure had been covered.
It is known also that he devoted his personal attention to finance,
and that he gave liberal rewards to collectors who had been successful
in working up the revenue of their circles. Further, it is recorded
that he issued general orders on the revenue system, but the text of
these has not been found, and the extant description of them is too
vague and eulogistic to be of any value to the historian. The nature
of the system favoured by him can, however, be inferred from docu-
ments of the early years of Aurangzib, which will be noticed below;
briefly, it may be said that the general rule was to assess the village
through the headmen at a sum calculated to yield the equivalent
of from one-third to one-half of the produce, and that this rule applied,
at least formally, to assigned as well as reserved areas. Assignment
continued to be the prevalent practice, and in 1647, the twentieth
year of the reign, revenue aggregating 190 millions of rupees was
assigned, while thirty millions were reserved for the treasury. No
records have survived to show how these figures were calculated, but
the most probable view is that the valuation of the empire had been
kept up to date in the Ministry, so that general re-valuations, such as
had been made under Akbar, were no longer required, the figures
for each local area being revised from time to time in the light of
recent experience.
In only one region of the empire do we know what was actually
done in the course of this reign. The Deccan provinces which were


## p. 468 (#506) ############################################

408
REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
organised after the conquest of Ahmadnagar were found to be in a
deplorable condition. They had suffered heavily in the terrible famine
of 1630-32, and the war of conquest had practically completed their
economic ruin, so that twenty years later the revenue accruing from
them was still insufficient to meet the expense of their administration,
During prince Aurangzib's second viceroyalty of the Deccan, which
began in the year 1652, a complete reorganisation of the revenue
system of these provinces was undertaken by an officer named
Murshid Quli Khan, who was appointed diwan of Daulatabad and
Telingana, and subsequently placed in charge also of Berar and
Khandesh
As the result of his work, three methods of assessment emerged in
this region. For some areas, presumably the tracts where agriculture
was in a primitive stage, he retained the plough-rents which were
traditional in the locality, the peasant paying a fixed annual sum
for each plough and team, and being free to cultivate as much land
as he chose in whatever way he found convenient. Elsewhere the
diwan introduced the two familiar systems sharing and measure-
ment-side by side, and it is probable that the peasants were allowed
the choice between them. The system of sharing adopted was of a
type well known in other Islamic countries but hitherto unfamiliar
in Muslim India. The share claimed was not uniform, but varied
with the nature of the crop and with the source of water; thus half
the produce was claimed for crops depending on the rains, one-third
for grain irrigated from wells, and from one-fourth to one-ninth for
the various high-grade crops such as sugarcane or poppy. Under
measurement, on the other hand, the assessment rates, which were
fixed in cash, were based on a uniform claim to one-fourth of the
produce, a distinctly low figure when judged by the standard of the
times. The lenient assessment was accompanied by active measures
to re-people and reorganise the ruined villages, and capital was
advanced when required, with the result that prosperity was for the
time being restored.
It does not appear that Murshid Quli Khan's achievements in
the Deccan had any reaction on the revenue administration in the
north. The system which prevailed there in the first few years of
Aurangzib's reign can be studied in the general orders issued under
his authority between 1665 and 1669, which describe the current
practice, and indicate that it was then no novelty, but had prevailed
long enough for the development of serious abuses. In certain,
unspecified, tracts where the peasants were exceptionally poor,
assessment was made by sharing, at rates varying from one-third
to one-half the produce, the standard recognised throughout the orders;
but as a rule the assessment was made annually in cash on the
village as a unit. At the beginning of each year the assessor
estimated the productivity of the village, having regard to recent
|


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AURANGZIB'S REVENUE SYSTEM
469
experience and to the standard figures recognised in the department,
apparently the figures for some particular year which had been
selected as being normal or typical. Using these data, the assessor
proposed to the headmen a lump sum to be paid for the year in the
instalments usual in the locality. The headmen could refuse the
proposed assessment, in which case the revenue was determined,
either by sharing or by measurement, on the season's crops; but it
must be borne in mind that these latter processes involved the
instrusion into the village of a measuring, or estimating, party, the
expense of which fell on the peasants, and which could be used effec-
tively to punish recalcitrants, so that in practice the assessor was in a
very strong position in his dealings with the headmen, and refusal of
his proposals was probably rare. The best safeguard for the village
lay in secrecy, so that the assessor should not be in a position to make
an accurate estimate of its production. Various methods of concealing
the facts appear in the later records as old-established practices; and
it may reasonably be said that the well-known reluctance of the
northern peasants to disclose their affairs to revenue officials has its
roots in the system of village assessments.
The duty of the revenue officials was not confined, however, to
ascertaining the yield of a village : they were required to stimulate
efforts for improving it. Peasants were to be urged and encouraged
to work their hardest; advances of capital and other favours were to
be given to those who did so; the recalcitrant were to be threatened
and flogged. Comparing this system with that which had been
employed under Akbar, three main differences emerge. In the first
place, the standard of assessment had been raised; the former average
of one-third had now become the minimum, while as much as one-
half of the produce might be taken. In view of the financial position,
it is probable that the maximum tended to become the standard,
and that it was during this period that the rule of claiming one-half
which was familiar throughout the eighteenth century, became
established over the greater part of northern India. In the second
place, the individual peasant was relieved from the charges, and the
possible exactions, incidental to the detailed measurements and
assessments of Akbar's time, and was left almost entirely in the hands
of the village headmen. In the third place, the pressure on the head-
men, and through them on the peasants, to pay the highest possible
revenue had undoubtedly increased; the standard of the demand
had been raised, but the actual claim tended to be the utmost sum
that the village could be made to pay. The traditional veneration
of the name of Todar Mal must be explained, not merely by the
fact that his administration was in itself equitable, but also by the
period of increased severity which followed it, so that the reign of
Akbar, viewed through the hardships of later times, came to bear
the aspect of a golden age.


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470
REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
In the authorities relating to northern India, the practice of
assessing villages as units first becomes prominent in the reign of
Aurangzib, but it would be a mistake to regard it as an innovation.
The most probable view, based on stray hints and casual expressions
in a literature which is far from complete, is that village assessment
was already practised before the Muslim conquest, and that it never
entirely disappeared. In the fourteenth century, and again in the
sixteenth, the state for a time entered into direct relations with
individual peasants, but probably village assessments were the rule
in the thirteenth and fifteenth, as they certainly were in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth. In an extensive kingdom assessment on
individuals could be carried out effectively only by a strong, wise,
and vigorous administration : in times when these qualities were not
available, the line of least resistance was to deal with villages as units.
It has been said above that Aurangzib's orders indicate the existence
of serious abuses. Apart from the ordinary incidents of unauthorised
cesses, levies and other exactions by local officers, the chief abuses
were two, one in the revenue office, the other in the village. Under
pressure to increase the revenue, the practice had grown up of
making sanguine assessments, more than could in fact be realised;
then, as the year progressed, reports would come in of injury to the
crops from drought, frost, hail and other calamities, injuries which
involved a reduction in the assessments originally made. The Revenue
Ministry considered, not unreasonably, that many of the calamities
reported were fictitious, devised in order to get the local officials out
of the difficulty caused by the original over-assessment, and stringent
orders were issued to ensure that the controlling officers should be
supplied with adequate information, and should closely scrutinise
all reports of the kind. The effect of these orders is matter for con-
jecture, but the necessity for their issue is significant of the pressure
which had been exerted to bring assessments up to the highest possi-
ble figure.
The other abuse was oppression of the weaker peasants by the
village headmen, who had to distribute the amount of the assessment
over individuals. The method of distribution in each village was
determined by local custom, but manipulation was always possible
in practice, and the Ministry suspected, again not unreasonably,
that headmen were favouring themselves and their friends, to the
prejudice of the peasants outside their circle. Records of the early
British period show that something of the sort was in fact an inevitable
incident of the system, not in all villages, but in some : the extent of
the evil at any particular period cannot be determined with pre-
cision; but its existence has to be borne in mind in any attempt to
estimate the relative advantages of the different systems of assessment.
In actual practice, direct dealing with individuals was probably on
the whole favourable to the weaker peasants, and unpopular with


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DEFECTS OF THE SYSTEM
471
the stronger, who could be made to pay their full share; village
assessment was doubtless an equitable system where a village con-
sisted of a homogeneous body of peasants, but where cliques or factioris
existed, the weak sometimes had to pay for the strong.
A distinctive feature of the orders issued by Aurangzib's Ministry
in 1668 was the stress laid on compliance with the principles and
traditions of Islamic law. The same attitude had been adopted by
Firuz Tughluq in the second half of the fourteenth century, but the
general practice in India had been to treat the revenue administra-
tion as a secular matter, lying outside the province of ecclesiastical
jurists. The practical effect of these orders was not, however, great.
The fundamental features of the existing revenue system were, as
has been said above, in accordance with the canons of Islamic law;
and Aurangzib's orders consist mainly of a digest of rulings on
questions affecting individual peasants which might come before
revenue officers for decision-questions relating to inheritance and
transfer of holdings, and the like. Their interest at the present day
lies in the formal recognition of the fact that a peasant had a claim
to retain his holding, and transmit it to heirs, purchasers, or mort-
gagees, subject always to the primary condition that the revenue
due from the holding was paid. The silence of these orders regarding
ejectment is noteworthy, but can be explained by the fact that at
this time the administration was not in a position to pick and choose
the most efficient cultivators; the great need of the period was to
keep peasants at work in sufficient numbers.
The detailed provisions in Aurangzib's orders leave no room for
doubt that in the opening decade of his reign the administration was
already seriously concerned about the scarcity of peasants and their
readiness to abscond, topics which do not emerge in the literature
of Akbar's time. They thus confirm in the essential points the descrip-
tion of the agrarian situation given by the French physician, François
Bernier, whose experience was gained during this period. His
observations, made during eight years' residence at the Mughul
court, led him to the conclusion that agriculture was declining in
consequence of the "execrable tyranny" which the peasants were
experiencing at the hands of officials, farmers, and assignees alike;
and that many of them were either absconding to other regions,
especially the domains of the chiefs, where conditions were more
tolerable, or were abandoning the land in order to work as servants
in the towns or with the army. It may be taken therefore as an
established fact that by this time the danger foreseen by the early
Islamic jurists had become a reality; that agricultural production
was being diminished by the excessive burden laid upon the peasants'
shoulders; and that the efforts of the administration to increase the
revenue were in fact leading in the direction of a progressive decline.
The system of annual village assessments which has been described


## p. 472 (#510) ############################################

472 REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
above persisted up to the end of the Muslim period, and was adopted
just at first by the British administration in northern India. Nothing
further need be said therefore regarding the assessment of the reve-
nue: the historical interest of the remainder of the period lies in the
changes which took place among the intermediaries, and the trans-
formation of a heterogeneous mass of chiefs, farmers, and grantees
into a class which in the British period was to become a homogeneous
body of landholders. The main factors in this change were the decline
in the practice of assignment, the extension of farming, and the
strengthening of the position of the chiefs.
The practice of assignment continued in operation throughout the
reign of Aurangzib, but early in the eighteenth century it lost the
popularity which it had hitherto enjoyed, and there are some indica-
tions that the officers of the empire preferred to be paid in cash by
the treasury, depleted as it was, an arrangement which had formerly
been regarded as implying something like a slur on the recipient.
Three factors can be distinguished as contributing to this result, but
they are in fact merely different aspects of the collapse of the Mughul
empire. In the first place, the progressive decline in agriculture
necessarily resulted in a progressive loss of revenue, so that it became
increasingly difficult for an assignee to realise his promised and
expected income. In the second place, as has been explained in an
earlier chapter, the emperor had been forced to grant the Marathas
a share (known as chauth)1 of the revenue of the Deccan provinces;
and this first charge on the declining produce, extended as it was to
other regions, left so much less for the assignee. In the third place,
the emperor was no longer able to guarantee the peaceable enjoy-
ment of an assignment, so that questions of possession had passed
from the forum of administration, and had to be decided by force
of arms. The decay of the system of assignment was therefore
inevitable.
The change may be looked at in another light. From the time of
Akbar onwards, the service of the state had been the only possible
career for men of talent, energy and ambition; and to such men it
offered ample or even extravagant rewards. It is true that they could
not hope to found wealthy families, because on their death their
accumulations ordinarily reverted to the state; but, if successful
themselves, they could be sure of obtaining for their sons and grand-
sons a good start in the same career, and, given the necessary per-
sonal qualifications, one generation might follow another in positions
of power and affluence. In the eighteenth century, the service of a
decaying empire ceased to attract, while a new avenue was opened
for ambition, an avenue which led in the direction of kingship, and
the revenue farm was one of the first stages on the road; it was now
better to be a farmer than an assignee.
1 See pp. 273 and 392 n. 1.


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FARMING OF THE REVENUE
473
It is uncertain when the Revenue Ministry adopted the practice
of farming out the areas reserved for the treasury. Possibly this
expedient dates in some regions from the closing years of Shah
Jahan, but in any case its main development must be attributed to
the reigns of Aurangzib and his successors. In Bengal, in particular,
farms came into existence of a type hitherto unfamiliar in northern
India. Assignments in this province were unpopular among the
northern officers, so that an unusually large proportion of it was
reserved for the treasury; and a practice grew up under which the
collectors in the reserved areas undertook to pay a definite sum of
revenue for their circles instead of accounting for the money actually
received from the peasants. The sum to be paid for such a farm was
not ordinarily varied from year to year, and came by degrees to be
regarded as fixed; and the collector-farmers retained their circles
indefinitely, and were allowed to transmit them to their heirs, so
long of course as the revenue was duly paid. In this way, their
position came to be indistinguishable from that of the existing
chiefs, and the two classes were eventually described locally by a
single name, that of landholder (zamindar), a term which in the
precise official language of the north had been applied to the latter
only.
These Bengal landholders were not, however, allowed to retain
the entire profit resulting from the economic recovery which followed
on the establishment of Dutch and British trade in this region after
the middle of the seventeenth century. The revenue due from them
was not formally enhanced, but it was supplemented from time to
time by the imposition of cesses and other additional demands,
amounting in the aggregate to an enhancement not far short of the
whole sum originally payable. It was in this way that the situation
developed which was found by the first English administrators in
Bengal-the bulk of the country held by a relatively small number of
landholders, who enjoyed practical freedom in their relations with
the peasants, and paid to the state dues which were in fact adjustable
at its discretion, but by methods which are not known to have been
practised elsewhere in Mughul India.
In the north large farms, held for an indefinite term, emerged
during the eighteenth century; and perhaps no other arrangement
was possible, when the revenue administration had ceased to be
effective, and assignments had lost their attractions. As was the case
in Bengal, these farms tended to be transmitted by inheritance, and
the annual payments tended to be repeated from year to year; but
the peculiar feature of Bengal-fixed basic payments, supplemented
by adjustable cesses—is not disclosed in the northern records, and
the most probable view is that in this region both parties regarded
the amount to be paid as variable, to be increased or reduced as
circumstances might permit, while the farmer looked forward to a


## p. 474 (#512) ############################################

474
REVENUE SYSTEM OF THE MUGHUL EMPIRE
time when he might be strong enough to refuse payment altogether,
and thereby establish himself as in fact an independent ruler.
Meanwhile, other independent, or practically independent, rulers
were emerging. As has been said above, the Hindu chiefs who were
included in the empire were men with traditional claims to sove-
reignty; and their traditional policy was to assert those claims when-
ever a suitable opportunity offered. This condition was fulfilled in
the eighteenth century; and while the old families were busily
engaged in strengthening their position, and were seeking to enlarge
their domains, sometimes by force, and sometimes by taking farms
of adjoining territory, adventurers and soldiers of fortune were pur-
suing a similar course, using as a base of operations any local influence
they might possess, as grantees or otherwise. We thus have various
classes-chiefs and farmers, adventurers and grantees—all following
the same road. For all classes alike the essential thing was to establish
so much authority over a local area that the peasants should be willing
to pay revenue in return for some measure of that protection which
the empire could no longer provide. Authority could be established
only with the aid of force, and successful force tended always to
enlarge the area of its operation.
The result of these tendencies was to produce the conditions which
prevailed when, at the opening of the nineteenth century, the country
which now forms the bulk of the United Provinces came under
British jurisdiction, and was found to be parcelled out in what were
then called taluqas (Arabic, taʻalluqa), or “dependencies", claimed
by various titles, if that term can be applied in such a situation, but
all resting on the basis of possession, maintained in the last resort
by force. Each holder of a dependency claimed to collect the revenue
from the peasants under his power, and each admitted liability to
pay a portion of his receipts to any superior authority strong enough
to insist on payment, the amount being a matter either for negotiation
or for determination by the will of the stronger party. The peasants,
on their side, recognised liability to pay revenue, ordinarily at the
rate of one-half of the produce, and were prepared to pay it to who-
ever was in a position to take it. The actual sum to be paid by the
peasants was usually fixed year by year by what may be called a
process of bargaining. The holder of a dependency could enforce
his views by the threat of detailed assessment: the peasants could
rarely adopt an attitude of frank opposition, but in the circumstances
of the time they could hope to mitigate the burden by concealing
the facts of productivity, and would go a long way to avoid such
detailed assessments as might bring these facts to light. There was no
scope for any constructive policy of development, nor was it possible
to look ahead. In some cases, the payments made by villages tended
to be repeated until they became customary, but the settlement was
still annual; the idea of an assessment fixed beforehand for a term


## p. 475 (#513) ############################################

THE LAST PHASE
475
of years was quite unfamiliar, and the arrangement was at first
unpopular when it was introduced by British administrators.
The final stages in the history of the Mughul revenue system have
been sketched in the foregoing paragraphs for the main tracts of
country where authority passed from what was left of the empire
to the East India Company. The changes which took place in the
tracts which passed from the Mughuls to other Indian rulers,
Marathas, Sikhs, or Rajputs, lie outside the scope of this chapter.


## p. 475 (#514) ############################################

CHAPTER XVII
BURMA (1531–1782)
ARAKAN
SHUT off from Burma by a hill range, Arakan has a separate
history, but it is the same in kind. She seldom had a strong central
government, and until 1437 Sandoway was independent.
The ease of sea communications renders it possible that Buddhism
reached Arakan earlier than the interior of Burma, and, although
unproved, the tradition which assigns the Mahamuni image to the
reign of one Sandathuriya A. D. 146–98 is not incredible. But accessi-
bility from the sea brought other things than Buddhism. Thus
Brahmanism is indicated by the word Sanda (Chandra), which ends
the name of every traditional king from 783 to 957, and by the fact
that medallions ascribed to these kings bear Shiva's trident and
Nagari script. After the tenth century the country was professedly
Buddhist, notwithstanding the spread of Islam, which by the thir-
teenth century had dotted the coast from Assam to Malaya with the
curious mosques known as Buddermokan. 2 Doubtless iť is Muslim
influence which led to women being more secluded in Arakan than
in Burma.
The capital was successively Thabeiktaung, Dinnyawadi and
Vesali down to the tenth century, Pyinsa (Sambawut) till 1118,
Parin 1118–67, Hkrit 1167–80, Pyinsa 1180–1237, Launggyet 1237-
1433 and Mrohaung (Mrauk-u) 1433–1785. All are in Akyab district,
Thabeiktaung on the Yochaung river, the others on or near the
Lemro river.
Like the rest of Indo-China, the country suffered chronically from
raids. Akyab district was exposed to the hill tribes and in the tenth
century Shans temporarily overran it. Settled government was the
exception. In the middle of the twelfth century even the Mahamuni
image could not be found, for it had been overgrown with jungle in
the prevailing anarchy. The Burmese under the Pagan dynasty
1044-1287 successfully established their suzerainty over north Arakan
but not over the south, and even in the north the kings merely sent
propitiatory tribute and continued to be hereditary kings, not
governors appointed by Pagan.
Between 1287 and 1785 there is not even the pretence of Burmese
1 Phayre, “Coins of Arakan, Pegu and Burma”, in International Numismata
Orientalia; Vincent Smith, Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum, Calcutta;
Duroisele, Catalogue of Coins in the Phayre Museum.