History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c85.s6.4

v5.c85.s6.4

The result of this policy was that the imperial officers, whether holding jagirs in the older or the newly conquered provinces, all alike starved on account of the rent collection of their fiefs always falling into arrears. Thus, a vicious circle was formed: political disorder (to which we must add a wrong system of land administration) led to less and less money coming from the jagirs; this diminished income forced the governors to keep fewer and fewer men* in their pay; the decrease in their armed strength encouraged greater lawlessness among the people, from which followed a further impoverishment of the peasants and falling off in the land revenue. The evil was universal throughout the Deccan, and also very noticeable in Bundelkhand, Malwa, and parts of Allahabad and Oudh.