The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c22.59

v4.c22.59

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 headmen, 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.