History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c38.s1: §1. Abolition of duties on grain and of abwabs.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c38.s1
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§1. Abolition of duties on grain and of abwabs.
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Immediately after his second enthronement, Aurangzib took two measures which had become pressing necessities. During the War of Succession the civil administration had broken down in most parts of the empire. Everywhere the strong were oppressing the weak and filling the country with disorder and tumult; the cultivators lost the fruits of their labour through robbery by the powerful or the ravages of war. In short, the economic ruin of many parts of Northern India was complete, and grain was selling at famine prices. The evil was aggravated by the inland transit duties; at every ford, ferry, hill pass or provincial boundary, toll of one-tenth of the value of the goods was taken on the passing merchandise as wages for guarding the roads. This system opened a wide door to oppression and unauthorized exaction, so that in popular speech a road-guard (*rahdar*) came to be called a road-brigand (*rahzan*). In the larger towns, like Agra, Delhi, Lahor and Burhanpur, a duty (called *pandari*) was levied on all articles of food and drink brought from outside for sale. In the crownlands alone the road-police tax (*rahdari*) yielded 25 lakhs of Rupees a year, and if we add to this the collection made in the tracts under the jagirdars and zamindars, and the perquisites of the office underlings, we shall not be far wrong in putting the total loss of the merchants under this head at a crore of Rupees, or one-twentyfifth of the gross land revenue of the State.
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Aurangzib abolished both the *rahdari* and the *pandari* in his demesne lands and requested the jagirdars and zamindars to do the same in their estates. This was done, at least for a time, and there was a free flow of corn to every place affected by scarcity, and the price of grain fell appreciably. This relief to the people came at a most opportune time. The devastation caused by the war did, no doubt, cease in 1660, but for a succession of years afterwards there was scanty rainfall and harvest failure in one province or another. Thanks, however, to the remission of the transit duty on grain, the dearth of one place was easily removed by the surplus produce of another.*
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∗ Remission of tax, *A. N.* 436-438; *K. K.* ii. 87-89, 212; *Storia*, ii. 171, 175 (oppression by customs officers); *Fathiyah-i-ibriyah*, Continuation, 128a-129b; *Mirat-i-Ahmadi* 262 & 265, merely copies *A. N.*; the *farman* of 1659 is given in *Bahar-i-sakhun*; another *farman* remitting *abwabs*, 29 April, 1673, is given in *Mirat*, 302. *Maraqat-i-Hasan*, 203, mentions the first *farman* without giving its
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A revenue officers' Guide-book written about the 33rd year of his reign mentions a large number of cesses, many of them trivial and vexatious—as abolished by Aurangzib, up to 1673. (*Zawabit-i-Alamgiri, f. 135a.*)
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Several of these had been abolished by Firuz Tughlaq as early as the 14th century and by Akbar about a hundred years before Aurangzib; but they had evidently been reimposed by later rulers, or had crept in through the illegal greed of the revenue underlings and local officials and landlords. Khafi Khan (ii. 88) says that nearly eighty cesses were abolished by Aurangzib, though he mentions only fourteen of these by name. He admits however, that they were continued by faujdars and zamindars in the far-off provinces in secret defiance of the Emperor's orders, and that only the *pandari* or ground-rent for the stalls in the open bazars at the capital and other large towns was really given up. The octroi duty on tobacco was abolished about 1666,* as it was an article of universal consumption and the tax was a
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schedule. Wilson's *Glossary*, 396, has *pandharapatti* for *pandari*. Strict order to enforce the remission, I. O. L. MS. 3301, *f.* 37a. The *abwabs* are fully treated in my *Mughal Administration*, ch. v.
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∗ The date is given by Manucci (ii. 175) who also gives an example of the oppression practised by the tax-gatherers. M.A. 530, in saying that they insulted the 'honour' (i.e., women) of the people, evidently refers to the incident narrated by Manucci.
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hardship on even the poorest and deprived him of his only solace after work, while the search for contraband tobacco by an army of excisemen led to great oppression, vexatious interference with the people and in many cases violation of the modesty of women.