The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s12.23

c19.s12.23

46. Perhaps the Mughal bureaucracy's dual alignment of military and financial offices, putting at least two officers in charge of each post, can be viewed more as an adaption to the fractional structure, than a purely rational division of tasks. Thus a provincial revenue officer could equally well intervene militarily, especially in the reserved crown domains. (For a not dissimilar alignment in the British Indian administration, see above, n. 2). The formation of semiindependent regional principalities, as in the case of Bengal or Hyderabad, started with a pulling together of both functions by the “protodynast” (see P. B. Calkins, “The Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling Group in Bengal, 1700–1740,” *Journal of Asian Studies* 29 [1969–70]: 799–806, esp. 802, on Murshid Quli Khan; see also Richards, *Mughal Administration*, 277, on Mubariz Khan in Hyderabad).