The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c4.7

c4.7

This task was left to the *jāgīrdār*, or holder of the *jāgīr*, and unless such a *manṣabdār* were a great noble or high in imperial favour, the assignment was made on the most distant and most imperfectly subdued provinces.¹ On the other hand, a chance of dealing with land and handling the income from it, has had enormous attractions in all parts of the world, and in none more than in India. Nobles and officers by obtaining an assignment of revenue hoped to make certain of some income, instead of depending helplessly for payment on the good pleasure of the Court. Then in negotiating for a *jāgīr* there were all sorts of possibilities. A judicious bribe might secure to a man a larger *jāgīr* than was his due; and if he were lucky, he might make it yield more than its nominal return. Many such considerations must have been present to their minds. Whatever be the true reasons, of this there can be no doubt, that the system was highly popular, and that the struggle for *jāgīrs* was intensely keen. As ‘Abd-ul-Jalīl of Bilgrām writes to his son: “Service has its foundation on a *jāgīr*; an employé without a *jāgīr*, might just as well be out of employ.” (“Oriental Miscellany”, Calcutta, 1798). A recent French writer, M. Emile Barbé, “Le Nabab René Madec,” 117, speaking of a *jāgīr* given in 1775, says: “Cette apparition des jaguirs dans l’Empire Mogol à son declin est un fait sociologique du plus haut interêt.” The system of *jāgīr* grants may be an interesting sociological fact — as to that I have nothing to say for or against; but it was not introduced into the Mogol Empire during its decline. *Jāgīrs* existed in that empire’s most flourishing days, having been granted as early as Akbar (Blochmann, *Āīn*, i, 261), while under Shāhjahān they existed on a most extensive scale.