The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c22.53

v4.c22.53

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 speculative 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 anything 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 agricultural 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.