The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c9.s4: Escheat
The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c9.s4
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Escheat
c9.s4.1
In short, the upper classes in the employment of the state were, by and large, ever busy in amassing wealth from all possible sources and enjoying it to their hearts content. But only during their life-time. At the death of a noble, all his property, movable and immovable, was reclaimed by the government.⁶⁷ Immediately on the death of the lord, writes Pelsaert, who has enjoyed the kings *jagir*, be he great or small, without any exception - even before the breath is out of his body - the kings officers are ready on the spot, and make an inventory of the entire estate, recording everything to the value of a single pice, even to the dresses and jewels of the ladies, provided they have not concealed them. Concealing was very difficult. As a rule all the possessions of a noble, and his transactions were managed by his *diwan* and many other subordinates and accountants. Hence they could not be kept secret. When the noble died all his subordinates were detained, ordered to show all books and papers to the kings officers, and if there was any suspicion about their disclosure, they were tortured till they told the truth. The king takes back the whole estate except in a case where the deceased has done good service in his lifetime, when the women and children are given enough to live on, but no more, while most of the servants were left on the street with a tom coat and a pinched face.⁶⁸
c9.s4.2
On the face of it, forfeiture of the property of a deceased noble looks unjust, but in reality it was not. Under the escheat system the king saved the corrupt Amir and himself the bother of instituting an enquiry and presenting a charge-sheet. He let the grandee undisturbed to enjoy his ill-gotten wealth as long as he lived, but after his death acquired it in full. In his discretion the king sometimes left part of the wealth as pension to the widow and heirs, but generally the sons of an Amir had to start life anew. It was a bull-dozer law, and applied to both the innocent and the guilty. But there were hardly any innocent grandees. They knew very well about the law, and therefore spent so lavishly while in office, that in addition to their great income, most of them took huge amounts as loan from the State Treasury and the king was justified in recovering the loan from their property.
c9.s4.3
And after all, as per the convention, the king was the heir of the Umara. The Mughal emperors seem to have followed the Delhi Sultans in making a claim upon their nobles as if they were their slaves. We have seen how a high officer of the title of Imadul Mulk, was declared by Firoz Tughlaq as Bashir is my property (as a slave) and so his property is mine. The Mughal claim to such succession is not elaborated in the *Ain-i-Akbari*, but is noticed by a number of European travellers from the time of Akbar onwards.⁶⁹ It was not declared in so many words but the Mughal nobles in status were not much better off than slaves. The grandees were prohibited from contracting marriage alliances without the emperors permission. The noble was obliged, whatever be his rank, to fall prostrate on the ground in obeisance to his master. Although the price paid in human dignity was terrible, yet he paid it as his position, his promotion, indeed his very existence depended on the pleasure of the king. Manucci, writing about the last years of Aurangzeb says: To get the *hazari* or pay of one thousand, it is necessary to wait a long time and work hard.⁷⁰
c9.s4.4
This is one side of the coin. The other is that whether foreign or Indian, the nobles maintained a measure of individual independence. The pleasure of enjoying oneself with vigour and liberty amidst the chances of war and of life; the delights of activity without degrading labour; and the taste of an adventurous career full of uncertainty, inequality and peril, instilled in them a passionate desire of personal independence. There was a degree of brutality and an apathy for the weak and the poor. Nevertheless, at the bottom of this mixture of brutality, materialism and selfishness, lay the love of independence. It drew its strength from the moral nature of man, from a desire to developed ones own personality which the upper class elites loved and cherished in medieval India as is found to be the case in all ages. Their status might have been that of a servant of the ruling power, but they themselves felt as mini-rulers in their own assignments, and carried their swords like whipping sticks. Pelsaert noticed that the houses of the nobles at Agra were hidden away in alleys and corners, and Bernier found that the dwellings of the Umara at Delhi were scattered in every direction. Manucci also observed that in Delhi many nobles are very pleased to have their dwellings far from the royal palace. The reason was that these people enjoyed the pleasures of idleness and womens company away from mutual suspicion and court intrigues, and had it not been for official and court duties, the grandees would never have bothered to leave their houses at all, in order to enjoy uninterrupted intimacy of their female beauties.⁷¹
c9.s4.5
The private and public life of the nobles, the system of seraglios, the widespread corruption, the custom of escheat, and so many other conventionalities of the upper classes, all left a legacy which is visible in many spheres of Muslim social life even now. Obviously, these cannot be discussed in any detail in a work of this size. A few observations, however, would indicate areas where such remnants of the legacy of Muslim rule could be found. For instance, because of escheat, writes Pelsaert, everything in the (Mughal) kingdom is uncertain. Wealth, position, love, friendship, confidence, everything hangs by a thread The nobles build (mansions) with so many hundreds of thousands, and yet (because of escheat) keep them in repair only so long as the owners live Once the builder is dead, no one will care for the buildings one cannot contemplate without pity or distress their ruined state.⁷² Many old Muslim *havelis*, which have survived and are still inhabited bear out Pelsaerts statement.
c9.s4.6
Mughal corruption was of two kinds-polite custom, and outright bribery and embezzlement. In the first, a person did not meet his senior or superior empty-handed; he presented some gift. This practice was not harmful. But the high corruption, bribery embezzlement, widely prevalent under Muslim rule, as averred by contemporary chroniclers and foreign visitors has never left the Indian scene, and the roots of the present day corruption may be traced to earlier times. Similarly, the sophistication associated with the Mughal court etiquette and the luxurious life of the harem is still to be seen in the graceful and refined behaviour of upper class Muslims, especially of their women. In the words of Jadunath Sarkar, the general type of Muhammadan population are more refined and accustomed to a costiler mode of life, while Hindus of the corresponding classes, even when rich, are grosser and less cultured. The lower classes of Hindus, however, are distinctly cleaner and more intellectual than Muslims of the same grade of life.⁷³ But let us here keep confined to upper classes.