The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c22.61

v4.c22.61

It has been said above that Aurangzīb’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 offices, 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to the crops from drought, frost, hail and other calamities, injuries which involved a reduction in the assessments originally made.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 conjecture, but the necessity for their issue is significant of the pressure which had been exerted to bring assessments up to the highest possible figure.