The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.84

v4.c20.84

The complaints of the English traders against the local agents of the Mughul government were three: (i) The demand of an *ad valorem* duty on the actual merchandise imported, instead of the lump sum of 3000 rupees per annum into which it had been commuted during the viceroyalty of Shujā‘ in Bengal. The English also claimed that Aurangzīb's *farmān* of 25 March, 1680, entitled them, on the payment of a consolidated duty of 3½ per cent. at Surat, to trade absolutely free of customs at all other places in the Mughul empire. (ii) Exactions by local officers under the name of *rāhdārī* (internal transit duty), *peshkash* (presents), clerks' fee, and *farmāish* (supplying manufactures to order of the emperor free). (iii) The practice of high officials opening the packages of goods in transit and taking away articles at prices below the fair market value and then selling them in the open market. The two claims of the English under the first head cannot be defended on any reasoning. The custom duty was fixed throughout the empire at 2½ per cent. *ad valorem* for all except the Muslims, while in the case of the Europeans 1 per cent. was added to it (1679) in commutation of the *jizya*. As for the second and third grievances, such exactions had been declared illegal by Aurangzīb and were practised only in disregard of his orders. *Rāhdārī* had been abolished in the second year of his reign, while "benevolences" were condemned in the general order abolishing cesses (9 May, 1673). The "forcing of goods" by his grandson ‘Azīm-ush-shān for his private trade called forth the emperor's sternest censures in 1703. But the traders thus wronged by the local officers had no real means of redress; purity of administration was impossible in a society devoid of public spirit and accustomed to submit helplessly to every man in power; the emperor could not look to everything nor be present everywhere.