History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v1.c12.56

v1.c12.56

The financial wrangle between father and son dragged on for years. Shah Jahan wished to put a stop to the drain of money to the Deccan, and here was Aurangzib asking for cash from other provinces in the place of *jagirs* in the Deccan! The *jagirdars* whose lands he had appropriated by Imperial sanction, intrigued at Court and persuaded the Emperor that the Prince was realising from these fiefs more than his sanctioned pay, while the ousted officers, with only sterile *jagirs* left to them, were starving. An incorrect reading of the revenue papers deepened the same conviction in the Emperor's mind and he angrily wrote to Aurangzib: "It is unworthy of a Musalman and an act of injustice to take for yourself all the productive villages of a *parganah* and to assign to others only the less productive lands. I order you to take half a lakh worth of less productive land in the *parga-* nah of Asir, and decrease your cash stipend by the same amount, so that your actual income [may be made normal.]” Aurangzib replied in a tone of righteous indignation, “I have never in my life acted unjustly, but always tried to please God and His vicegerent on earth. You have censured me for this lakh of rupees......I have not myself taken away these lands; but the revenue officers of your Majesty's Court, by your order before I left for the Deccan, transferred them from Shaista Khan to me at the same [estimated] revenue. I wonder why the revenue officers, especially the wazir who has a retentive memory, did not point this fact out to you....... Contrary to the usual practice, your Majesty has, without making an inquiry or calling for my explanation, and on merely receiving a complaint, passed orders [in this case] and brought the term Musalman into use in connection with his perishable affair! I am helpless. As they have made you believe that I am getting more than my fixed salary, and you have ordered half a lakh of rupees to be deducted from my cash stipend,—what need is there of giving me anything in exchange [of the latter]?”*