The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c22.26

v4.c22.26

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 arrangement 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.