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Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c8.s3: 4.3. Kharaj

Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c8.s3

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4.3. Kharaj

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Kharaj was the land tax. In an agricultural country like India, it comprised the major source of the revenue of the state. The early Muslim invaders like the Arabs in Sindh and Turks in Hindustan were mainly soldiers. They were busy in conquest. They had neither the time nor the inclination to introduce any changes in the Hindu agrarian system prevailing in India. For about a hundred years of Muslim rule (c. 1200-1300), the- sultans appear to have continued with the prevailing land tax system.

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*Land tax in pre-Muslim India*

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It is difficult to assess exactly the portion of produce taken by the state during the Hindu period. The country was vast and divided into a number of states. There could not have been a uniform rate of tax or a uniform method of collection throughout the country. Modem research, however, has been able to give us a tolerably correct picture of the pre-Muslim times. In the early Hindu period the king charged 1/6 of the produce as land tax. The tax was not rigid but flexible. According to the Hindu theories of finance as expounded in the Smriti and Niti the state demand could vary from 1/12 to 1/6 of the produce. Kautilya advocates even 1/4 if there were irrigation facilities. The king was entitled to a tax as he protected the people. Thus it was not actually a tax but a wage (*vetana*) given to the king by the people for protecting them.⁹⁰ But even those who did not pay anything were equally entitled to protection.⁹¹ One fact to be remembered in this connection is that in all Dharma Sutras great emphasis is laid on the duty of the king as a protector of the people.⁹²

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In later Hindu India, say between the death of Harshavardhan and the conquest of Muhammad Ghauri (c. 650-1200 CE), again the Hindu theories and practices of taxation continued to prevail. Medieval writers and commentators on Smriti and Niti like Medhatithi and Shukra, however, permit a higher portion of the produce as the share of the state. Shukra even permitted up to 50 per cent if the lands were irrigated by canals, tanks and wells.⁹³ Chandreshwar, another medieval writer, says that the king should only take such an amount as is necessary for the needs of the government and may not be felt oppressive by the subjects.⁹⁴ These figures and statements show that the incidence of taxation on the people seems to have grown with the passage of time, but 1/6 was the ideal and any divergence from it did not do credit to the ruler. Alberuni, who had made a thorough study of the conditions in India, also mentions 1/6 as the revenue of the state.⁹⁵

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The theoretical aspect apart, there are some definite data available about this period. Hiuen Tsang testifies to the low incidence of land tax in Harsha's time (d. 647).⁹⁶ The Rashtrakutas (750-1000 CE) who ruled over a major portion of the Deccan peninsula and whose sphere of influence extended into the Malwa country stretching up to Prayag (Allahabad) in the north, took about 20 percent of the gross produce on land.⁹⁷ This tax included the *uparikara* or *bhogkara* which may safely be identified with the *khuti* (or collection charges) under the Sultanate. A refreshing reference in this regard is that 15 per cent of this revenue was returned to the village for its own needs.⁹⁸ Writing about the Rashtrakutas, al-Idrisi (12th century) says that the "Kingdom is vast, well-peopled, commercial, and fertile. It pays heavy taxes so that the king is immensely rich."⁹⁹ It is not known whether al-Idrisi meant the land tax to be high or the customs duties, as then trade flourished well in the Deccan and we know from Ibn Battutah that duties in the first half of the fourteenth century were as high as 25 per cent of the commodity. Farther south, in the Chola kingdom, the land tax together with tolls and octrois was 4/15 or about 25 percent on the gross produce in Rajadhiraj's time( 1035-1053 CE).¹⁰⁰

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The above discussion focuses on a few salient features of taxation in the Hindu period. The fundamental principle was that the royal revenues should be collected diligently and prudently but without harshness, protecting the people and their welfare in every possible way. In the ancient or Hindu period there is no mention of peasants forsaking cultivation, abandoning their fields and escaping into forests because of excessive taxation as became common during the medieval period. Nor is there any evidence of people being reduced to such straits as to sell themselves and their families into slavery as bonded labourers, a phenomenon which had become common under Muslim rule.

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*Kharaj under early Sultans*

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The early invaders and rulers like Muhammad Ghauri, Qutbuddin Aibak and Shamsuddin Iltutmish carried on with the prevailing system of taxation. Iltutmish, however, divided the newly conquered kingdom into *iqtas* and distributed most of them among his nobles and soldiers for their maintenance keeping some portion for his personal expenses and that of his harem.¹⁰¹ At this stage of the history of the Sultanate much wealth was obtained through Khams or the state's share of war booty and tribute from vanquished princes, and there was hardly any financial problem.

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Sultan Ghiyasuddin Balban (1246-66-86) was faced with the task of encountering Mongol invasions. This menace on the one hand put a check on his expansionist ambitions curtailing income from war booty, and on the other his expenditure on the army was considerably increased. Balban used to say that "I have devoted all the revenue of my kingdom to equip my army, and I hold my forces ready and prepared to receive the (the Mongols)."¹⁰² Even then Balban did not feel the need to tax the peasants heavily. He followed a moderate policy regarding collection of land revenue. He ordered that "excessive (tax) should not be tried to be levied from obedient and submissive *raiyyat*... In collecting Kharaj, a middle course should be adopted. Neither should the demand be so high that the agriculturists should become paupers, nor should it be so little that because of their easy life born of prosperity, they become prone to recalcitrance and disobedience... The king felt that the army and the raiyyat should be placed on equal footing so that, year after year, with the salary of the one class and cultivation by the other, they could live with frugality and contentment."¹⁰³ The inference is difficult to resist that during the first hundred years of the Sultanate, "the Muslim was merely a tax receiver and took little direct part in the production and increase of the country's agricultural wealth."¹⁰⁴

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According to Muslim law land tax collected from Muslims was called Ushr and that collected from non-Muslim was Kharaj.¹⁰⁵ The rate of Ushr was 10 per cent- of the produce and for Kharaj it was 20 per cent. However, we find very few recorded instances of Muslim cultivators. Kharaj could be raised up to 50 per cent.¹⁰⁶ Under Qutbuddin Aibak land tax was 20 per cent.¹⁰⁷ We have no figures for the reigns of Iltutmish and Balban, but taking into account the rates prevailing in the times of their predecessor Aibak (20 per cent) and successor Alauddin Khalji (50 per cent) it may safely be presumed that it was around 33 per cent in their reigns.

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*A Grinding Tax Structure* The Sultanate of Delhi had completed about a hundred years when Alauddin Khalji ascended the throne. His problems were many. Most parts of the country were independent. Hindu Rajas were powerful and unsubdued. Muslim nobles were rebellious. The Mongols were knocking at the gates of Hindustan time and again. Alauddin Khalji needed a large army to deal with these problems. To maintain a large army he needed money and so this Sultan raised the land tax (Kharaj) to fifty per cent. Under his predecessors, it does not seem to have been above one-third of the produce. Furthermore, under Alauddin's system all the land occupied by the rich and the poor "was brought under assessment at the uniform rate of fifty per cent". This measure automatically reduced the chiefs practically to the position of peasants. Since his aim was to strike at the major source of power, the wealth, of the Hindus,¹⁰⁸ he also levied many other taxes like house-tax and grazing tax. According to the contemporary chronicler Ziyauddin Barani, all milk-producing animals like cows and goats were taxed. According to Farishtah, animals up to two pairs of oxen, a pair of buffaloes and some cows and goats were exempted.¹⁰⁹ This concession was based on the principle of *nisab*, namely, of leaving some minimum capital to enable one to carry on with one's work.¹¹⁰ But it was hardly any relief, for trustworthy persons informed the chronicler Shams Siraj Afif that in former reigns (obviously a reference to Alauddin's days) if an Amil left one cow with the peasant (*raiyyat*), another used to take possession of that also.¹¹¹ The payment of Kharaj, however, did not entitle the Hindu peasant to protection of the state. For protection and safety he had to pay an extra tax, Jiziyah, as we have seen before. So besides Kharaj, there were taxes like *kari*, (derived from Hindi word *kar*), *charai* and Jiziyah. Poll tax, tax on cattle etc. defy classification because they are entirely arbitrary.

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Muslim jurists knew that if the collectors were not satisfactorily paid they would resort to corrupt practices. Therefore Islamic scriptures made a provision for a fair payment to them. As per the Hadis an Amil (collector) could obtain from the *bait-ul-mal* (treasury) expenses of one wife, one servant if he did not have one of his own and a house (if he did not already possess one). Besides this if he took anything more "it is theft, embezzlement."¹¹² But the Amils in Hindustan collected much more than was actually due. The land revenue system was exceedingly complex. There was no uniformity either in the period for which the tax was assessed or in the basis of assessment. The basis of assessment in some cases was the "total assets" of an estate; in others, it was the economic rent, the net produce etc. The local official was allowed considerable discretion. The rent was always enhanced. It was common for jagir owners to exact miscellaneous payments and services from the peasants.

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In short, a substantial portion of the produce was taken away by the government as taxes and the people were left with the bare minimum for sustenance. For the Sultan had "directed that only so much should be left to his subjects (*raiyyat*) as would maintain them from year to year... without admitting of their storing up or having articles in excess". It is from this point of time that the Indian peasant was made to maintain himself and his family from one harvest to the next. In the coming years and centuries, there is repeated mention in the chronicles about the rulers' directives to protect the peasant from undue exactions which seems to have become the common practice. Sultan Alauddin's rigorous measures were taken note of by contemporary writers both in India and abroad. In India contemporary writers like Barani, Isami and Amir Khusrau were inclined to believe him to be a persecutor of the Hindus. Foreigners also gathered the same impression. Maulana Shamsuddin Turk, a divine from Egypt, was happy to learn that Alauddin had made the wretchedness and misery of the Hindus so great and had reduced them to such a despicable condition "that the Hindu women and children went out begging at the doors of the Musalmans."¹¹³ The same impression is betrayed in the writings of Isami and Wassaf.¹¹⁴ While summing up the achievements of Alauddin Khalji, the contemporary chronicler Barani mentions, with due emphasis, that by the last decade of his reign the submission and obedience of the Hindus had become an established fact. Such a submission on the part of the Hindus "has neither been seen before nor will be witnessed hereafter". In brief, not only the Hindu Zamindars, who had been accustomed to a life of comfort and dignity, were reduced to a deplorable position, but the Hindus in general were impoverished to such an extent that there was no sign of gold or silver left in their houses, and the wives of Khuts and Muqaddams (Zamindars) used to seek sundry jobs in the houses of the Musalmans, work there and receive wages.¹¹⁵ The poor peasants (*balahars*) suffered the most. The fundamentalist Maulana Ziyauddin Barani feels jubilant at the suppression of the Hindus, and writes at length about the utter helplessness to which the peasantry had been reduced because the Sultan had left to them bare sustenance and had taken away every thing else in Kharaj (land revenue) and other taxes.¹¹⁶

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But there was much greater oppression implicit in this measure. it was difficult to collect in full so many and such heavy taxes. "One of the standing evils in the revenue collection consisted of defective realization which usually left large balances,"¹¹⁷ and unrealised balances used to become inevitable. Besides, lower revenue officials were corrupt and extortionate. To overcome these problems, Sultan Alauddin created a new Ministry called the Diwan-i-Mustakhraj. The Mustakhraj was entrusted with the work of inquiring into the revenue arrears, and realizing them.¹¹⁸ We shall discuss about the tyranny of this department a little later; suffice it here to say that in Alauddin's time, besides being oppressed by such a grinding tax-structure, the peasant was compelled to sell every maund of his surplus grain at government controlled rates for replenishing royal grain stores which the Sultan had ordered to be built in connection with his Market Control.¹¹⁹

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The contemporary chronicler Ziyauddin Barani writes that Alauddin Khalji was an ill-tempered and tyrannical king. He had no learning and he did not associate with the ulema. Sultan Balban respected the ulema and used to consult them often. After returning from Bengal he went to their houses personally and informed them of his success.¹²⁰ Firoz Tughlaq also used to visit them in their houses. But Alauddin Khalji did not associate with the clerics. ¹²¹ When necessary, he consulted with his nobles but not with the ulema.¹²² Barani wrote in old age. Though his memory remained unimpaired, a little confusion with regard to chronology in his narrative was natural in advanced age. Alauddin's three most trusted nobles and counsellers, namely, Nusrat Khan, Zafar Khan and Ulugh Khan had died by 1301, while his draconian measures, euphemistically called "reforms" were brought into operation mainly between the siege of Ranthambhor and expedition to Chittor (1301-1303).¹²³ Therefore, he surely deliberated with the ulema in matters of law. A few scholars like Qazi Ziyauddin of Bayana, Maulana Zahir Lang and Maulana Mushayyad Kuhrami were nominated to be present at dinner time. Qazi Mughisuddin of Bayana also used to come occasionally.

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During the days when taxes were being assessed and collected with great strictness. Alauddin once inquired of Qazi Mughisuddin about the status of the Hindus in a Muslim state, whether they were Kharaj-guzar of Kharaj-deh, *payers* or *givers* of Kharaj. The Qazi expositioned their legal status thus: "By the ecclesiastical law the term Kharajguzar is applicable to a Hindu only, who as soon as the revenue collector demands the sum due from him, pays the same with meekness and humility, coupled with the utmost respect... and should the collector choose to spit into his mouth, opens the same without hesitation, so that the official may spit into it. The purpose of this extreme humility on his part and the collector's spitting into his mouth, is to show the extreme subservience incumbent on this class, the glory of Islam and the orthodox Faith, and the degradation of the false religion.124 God Almighty himself (in the Quran) expressly commands their complete degradation, in as much as these Hindus are the deadliest foes of the true Prophet. Mustafa, on whom be peace, has given orders regarding the slaying, plundering, and imprisoning of them, ordaining that they must either follow the true faith, or else be slain or imprisoned and have all their wealth and property confiscated. With the exception of the Imam-i-Azam (Abu Hanifa)... we have no other great divine authority for accepting the poll tax (Jiziyah) from a Hindu; for the opinion of the other learned men is based on the *hadis* 'Either death or Islam'."

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Kharaj was originally applied to a land tax or tribute realised from non-Muslim tribes.125 After the defeat of Jews at Khaibar (628 CE) they became "the first Zimmis, or members of a subject caste, whose lives were to be guaranteed, but whose earnings were to support the Believers."126 These Jews were the first Kharajguzars in Islam. Later on Kharajguzars were found in whatever countries the arms of Islam conquered. The Kharajguzars were Zimmis who had submitted to absolute obedience to the Islamic state. As non-Muslims they were Kafirs who could not be accorded any rights. But as Kharajguzars they were/are granted some minimal rights solely in view of their accepting and submitting themselves to the suzerainty of Islam. Thus Qazi Mughisuddin described the status of Kharajguzars fairly correctly."127

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This exposition of the Quranic injunctions happened to square so much with the steps which the Sultan had already taken, albeit totally in ignorance of the law, that he burst out into a laughter of approval of the Qazi's views and informed him with great gusto that "I have established laws... so that under the fears of my command they would all escape into a mouse hole; and now you tell me that it is inculcated in the Divine law that the Hindus should be made obedient and submissive in the extreme... Rest assured, that the Hindu will never be submissive and obedient to the Musalmans until he becomes destitute and impoverished..." So, as mentioned before, the Sultan made them destitute. Destitute to the extent that the peasants sometimes paid Kharaj by selling their wives and children.¹²⁸ It is one thing to raise taxes and be happy. But to gloat over the impoverishment of the Hindus, both by the kings and chroniclers, is because of the ideology which advocates degradation of non-Muslims. Barani is the first and probably the only Muslim chronicler in the fourteenth century to mention the sale of families for defraying land tax. As we shall see, in later centuries foreign travellers were so shocked at this inhuman cruelty that they mention the fact repeatedly. The sale of peasants meant that they were reduced to the position of bonded labourers as slaves for life. When they we're free (whatever the extent of their freedom), the government got 50 to 75 per cent of their produce. When they became bonded labourers the sultan got cent per cent of the produce earned by their exertions. Of course some coarse grain was given to them to keep them alive to continue to work in the fields.

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After Alauddin's death (CE 1316) most of his measures seem to have fallen into disuse, but the peasants got no relief, because Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq who came to the throne four years later (CE 1320) continued the atrocious practice of Alauddin. He also ordered that "there should be left only so much to the Hindus that neither, on the one hand, they should become arrogant on account of their wealth, nor, on the other, desert their lands in despair".¹²⁹ In the time of Muhammad bin Tughlaq even this latter fear turned out to be true. The Sultan's enhancement of taxation went even beyond the lower limits of "bare subsistence". For the people left their fields and fled. This enraged the Sultan and he hunted them down like wild beasts.¹³⁰ Still conditions did not become unbearable all at once.

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The reign of Muhammad bin Tughlaq started off well so far as the collection of Kharaj was concerned. The contemporary chronicler writes with satisfaction that Kharaj of far-flung regions like Gujarat, Malwa, Devagiri, Telang, Kampila, Dwarsamudra, Malabar, Tirhut, Lakhnauti, Satgaon, Sunargaon was collected with as much ease as that of Doab and brought (after deduction) to the treasury located in Hazar Situn in Delhi. The *walls*, *iqtadars* and administrators were kept under strict watch so that they collected the Kharaj from Rais and Raigans in full. The officers and retainers of the latter were treated with rigour and not a *kouri* or dirham was condoned. In three or four years, however, the situation changed because of the dislike of the people for the Sultan so that except Devagiri and Gujarat no other region remained under full control. Kharaj could not be realised in full. There was rebellion everywhere. This was due mainly to the enhancement of Kharaj in the Doab to ten or twenty times, which obviously means 10 or 20 per cent. Production and realisation went down. The rich became recalcitrant and the poor became destitute. People of other regions, fearing the fate of Doab people, fled and hid themselves in the jungles.¹³¹

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It is difficult to surmise if the condition of the peasants was better or worse when the ruler at the centre was strong or weak. Under strong kings like Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughlaq, the people of course suffered. But their condition was no better, say, under the weak Saiyyads (C. 1400-1450) when revenue was regularly or irregularly collected through military expeditions.¹³²

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*Kharaj under the Mughals*

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If Sher Shah was "considerate" to the agriculturists, Babur and Humayun, could give little time and attention to agrarian and fiscal matters. Like Alauddin Khalji in the Sultanate period, Akbar was the first Mughal emperor to introduce novel principles and improved practices in land revenue administration. During his fifty years of reign a number of measures were adopted from time to time. Some important ones were Todar Mall's settlement of Gujarat which was later extended to most of Northern India, the introduction of the institution of Karoris - the principles of ten years settlement, classification of lands (into *polaj*, *parauti*, *chachar*, *banjar*) for assessment of revenue and so on - but that was to get maximum from the peasantry. For in the Mughal period the condition of the peasantry became more and more miserable; if there was any progress it was in the enhancement of taxation. According to W.H. Moreland, who has made a special study of the agrarian system of Mughal India, the basic object of the Mughal administration was to obtain the revenue on an ever-ascending scale. The share that could be taken out of the peasant's produce without destroying his chances of survival was probably a matter of common knowledge in each locality. In Akbar's time, in Kashmir, the state demand was one-third, but in reality it came to two-thirds.¹³³ The Jagirdars in Thatta (Sindh) did not take more than half. In Gujarat, according to Geleysen who wrote in 1629, the peasant was made to part with three-quarters of his harvest. Similar is the testimony of De Laet, Fryer and Van Twist.¹³⁴ During Akbar's reign, says Abul Fazl, evil hearted officers because of sheer greed, used to proceed to villages and *mahals* and sack them.¹³⁵ But they alone were not to blame. The policy of the government was to exact land tax in full whatever the circumstances. There were no remittances, no concessions. For example, "When either from excessive rain or through an inundation, the land falls out of cultivation the husbandmen are, at first, in considerable distress. In the first year, therefore, but two-fifth of the produce is taken: in the second three-fifth; in the third, four-fifth and in the fifth, the ordinary revenue. According to difference of situation, the revenue is paid either in money or in kind. In the third year the charges of 5 per cent and one *dam* for each bigha are added."¹³⁶ Tables of various harvests in provinces meticulously prepared by Abul Fazl confirm his above statement. The burden of arrears went on multiplying and the peasant was crushed under it. Conditions became intolerable by the time of Shahjahan when, according to Manucci, peasants were compelled to sell their women and children to meet the revenue demand.¹³⁷ Manrique (1628-43) writes that the peasants were "carried off... to various markets and fairs, (to be sold) with their poor unhappy wives behind them carrying their small children all crying and lamenting..."¹³⁸ Bernier too affirms that the unfortunate peasants who were incapable of discharging the demands of their rapacious lords, were bereft of their children, who were carried away as slaves.¹³⁹ Here was also confirmation of the practice of bonded labour in India.

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Collection of Kharaj was accomplished through many other objectionable methods, some leading to great suffering to the people. From the allotment of Jagirs to *ijaradars* to the actual collection of taxes it is an unmitigated story of sordid corruption and tyranny for which both the tax collector and the king were equally responsible. Manucci describes the process thus: "When any hungry wretch takes it into his head to ruin the kingdom, he goes to the king and says to him: 'Sire; if your majesty will give me the permission to raise money and a certain number of armed men, I will pay so many millions. The king then asks how it is intended to raise the money. It is by nothing else than the seizure of everybody in the kingdom, men and women, and by dint of torture compelling them to pay what is demanded. Such financiers are hateful and avaricious men. The king generally consents to their unjust proposals, as he thereby satisfies his own greed; he accords the asked-for permission, and demands security bonds."[140] Elsewhere Manucci adds that "If the tax contractor pays twenty-five thousand rupees to the crown, he must have at least recovered one hundred thousand. They always keep back three-fourths for themselves and pay in one-fourth only to the royal treasury."[141]

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On the allotment or transference of a jagir on the above lines, the allottee officer carried the royal *farman* to assume his charge. The *farman* bore the royal seal with the counter mark of the chief Wazir,[142] but by the time of Aurangzeb such *farmans* appear to have lost authority. For, when the allottee carried the letter of conferment, he was not given charge of the jagir until and unless a present or bribe was given to one already in possession of the land. Needless to say that the giver of the bribe collected the amount from the cultivator in course of time. As has been well said, the essence of imperialism is exploitation. It protects vested interests. The only interest that it does not protect is that of the masses, of the peasantry and the workers. To protect them can only mean to protect them against exploitation. Imperialism, of which the essence is exploitation, cannot afford such protection.

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The great lords and petty contractors (*iqtadars*, *jagirdar*, *faujdars*, and *ijaradars*) collected the land revenue through their retainers. These retainers or troopers were hired by the nobles for a temporary period and were known as sib-bandis (or irregular levy) under the Mughals.[143] They were not considered eligible for musters and were generally regarded with some contempt when compared with the regular soldiers or *tabinan*. These quasi-troops behaved like modem *dadas* employed by their dons and they went to any length in perpetrating atrocities on the peasants and the common people. They entered the houses of the ryots and in many cases occupied them. Often through them girls of the family were abducted and forcibly married to their masters. This marriage also entitled the master to inherit the property and thereafter he cultivated (another man's) land on his own behalf. Their cruelties were a common knowledge. Even the royal scribe Jahangir describes this process in *Tarikh-i-Salim Shahi*.¹⁴⁴ On accession to the throne emperor Jahangir promulgated his famous twelve ordinances. One of these said that a government collector or Jagirdar should not without permission intermarry with the people of the *pargana* in which he might be; that the Jagirdars should not forcibly take the ryot's lands and cultivate them on their own account and that they should not take possession of any one's house.¹⁴⁵ In candid language girls of the ryots were non-chalantly abducted mainly through the exertions of hired retainers. This was also possible because the Jagirdar sometimes paid his own soldiers and retainers by allotting them a share of his revenue. In a note in the English translation done by Henry Elliot, he says that "these perpetual repetitions of the same edicts shows either the very weak authority of the original promulgators or the vain-glory of their descendents, in assuming to themselves credit to which they were not entitled."¹⁴⁶ For as Manucci observed, the king knew how the money was intended to be raised. The retainers or *sih-bandis* were employed with his knowledge and permission, and the collection helped satisfy the king's own greed.

Cites (4)