History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c84.s1.t3: § 4. Miserable condition of Bengal at Aurangzib's accession.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c84.s1.t3
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§ 4. Miserable condition of Bengal at Aurangzib's accession.
v5.c84.s1.t3.1
The supine administration of Prince Shuja during his nine years' viceroyalty (1649-1658), the internal disorder and foreign invasion to which the province became subject when he marched west to fight for the throne of Delhi, the war of succession between him and Aurangzib's generals in the Malda district, and immediately following these Mir Jumla's disastrous invasion of Assam, had created as their after effect a great deal of popular misery, as the administration had grown slack and corrupt through the want of superior control and supervision and the absorption of the head of the province in war for years together. Disorder, oppression and illegal exaction had become widespread, and the sufferers could find no redress. This misery is graphically,—if also in a querulous and exaggerated form,—set forth in Shihab-ud-din Talish's memoirs, in the following language: "The mansabdars were given jagirs scattered over several parganahs, and this multiplicity of partners [in the land revenue] led to the oppression of the peasants and the ruin of the villages. Large sums were wasted [in the cost of collection]... It was not good for the same place to have two masters (viz., the jagirdar's and the Government collectors)... Mir Jumla had confirmed in his own jagirs many men celebrated for piety and some holding imperial *farmans*, for the enjoyment of rent-free grants of land or pensions. All other men who had been enjoying such grants &c., in the Crownlands or the fiefs of the jagirdars,......had their grants cancelled by the Sadr. It was ordered that these *aimadars* should take to cultivation and pay revenue for the lands they had been enjoying, [like ordinary peasants.] In enforcing this harsh order, these poor creatures were not given any respite...... So, the land has become waste, and the aimadars impoverished and distressed." [Continuation, *f.* 118.]
v5.c84.s1.t3.2
Another cause of popular suffering was the defenceless condition of the province on water. During the late interval of confusion and anarchy, the flotilla (*nawwara*) of Bengal had been neglected. "During Prince Shuja's governorship, the extortion and violence of the collectors ruined the villages (yielding 14 lakhs a year) assigned for the support of the flotilla. Many naval officers and workmen holding jagir or cash stipend, were overcome by poverty and starvation......Many naval officers and men perished in the Assam expedition of Mir Jumla ; so that at that nobleman's death the *nawwara* was in utter ruin......Its only remnants were a few broken and rotten boats." [Ibid. 113a.] This unprotected condition of the Bengal sea-board increased the audacity of the half-breed Portuguese pirates of Chatgaon, and the riverside tracts of Noakhali and Barisal, and even Dacca, were ruthlessly devastated by them year after year.