The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c22.69

v4.c22.69

It is uncertain when the Revenue Ministry adopted the practice of farming out the areas reserved for the treasury. Possibly this expedient dates in some regions from the closing years of Shāh Jahān, but in any case its main development must be attributed to the reigns of Aurangzīb and his successors. In Bengal, in particular, farms came into existence of a type hitherto unfamiliar in northern India. Assignments in this province were unpopular among the northern officers, so that an unusually large proportion of it was reserved for the treasury; and a practice grew up under which the collectors in the reserved areas undertook to pay a definite sum of revenue for their circles instead of accounting for the money actually received from the peasants. The sum to be paid for such a farm was not ordinarily varied from year to year, and came by degrees to be regarded as fixed; and the collector-farmers retained their circles indefinitely, and were allowed to transmit them to their heirs, so long of course as the revenue was duly paid. In this way, their position came to be indistinguishable from that of the existing chiefs, and the two classes were eventually described locally by a single name, that of landholder (*zamīndār*), a term which in the precise official language of the north had been applied to the latter only.