Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c37.s5.4

v3.c37.s5.4

His greatest defect was that he was no administrator. Himself illiterate, he lacked the no less unlettered Akbar's royal gift of choosing the ablest heads for the civil departments, charging them with the basic principles of his administration and seeing that his orders were in general being carried out. Thus it happened that during his two years of unchallenged power over the Central Government, and before that in the management of his jagirs, the revenue administration went to pieces and the resources of the State were neither increased nor husbanded. The great drought and famine which began in upper India in 1780 cannot be held as the true explanation of this failure. Insolvency dogged his steps throughout life and hampered his work at every stage, in spite of his gains in tribute and spoils of war. The reason was that he had no capacity for civil administration, and helplessly left the revenue management of the country in the hands of his Kashmiri Brahman diwans, who in the opinion of the Indian world in that age were a pale reflection of their Muslim fellow-provincials in low cunning and love of peculation.