The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c15.s1.37

c15.s1.37

The constant rearticulation of the balance demanded that the Mughals most of the time had to commit their forces in local situations, sometimes becoming submerged in them to the point where imperial officers were allied with "rebels" and vice-versa. The pervasiveness of the conflict of the inner frontier was such that they could often hardly do otherwise. Mawās areas were often, and on purpose, included in their jāgīrs. Since the forces of the imperial or provincial centers were either already engaged in particular campaigns or otherwise dispersed in local involvements, extra support was hard to get, so that the imperial officers, both in their jāgīrs and in their posts, were left to fend for themselves as best they could. They therefore had to adapt themselves to the ways of the "marches." There they had to tussle cheek-by-jowl with their opposite numbers, known in the imperial idiom as "malefactors," "rebels," and "non-chiefs" or as landholders (*zamīndārs*) and officers if they had somehow obtained an imperial sanction.⁴⁶ In other words, imperial officers had to operate in the same way as those they purported to rule, intertwining their military and administrative functions with financial and landholding interests in a situation where imperial pretensions could easily become more of a burden than a support.