The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c11.132

c11.132

We do not hear of any change until the days of Sher Shāh, when Elliot’s translation of ‘Abbās Sarwānī tells us that one share was to be given to the cultivator and a half to the headman.¹ This may imply that a third was claimed by the state as its share. The manuscripts in general do not support this assertion, which seems to be based on some exceptional copy. To counterbalance this doubt is advanced Sher Shāh’s schedule incorporated in the Ā’īn-i-Akbarī; but the language of the Ā’īn does not justify the conclusion that Sher Shāh demanded a third.² A critical examination of the passage lends weight to the opinion that Abū’l-Faḍl is referring to Sher Shāh’s figure of average produce as the lowest available in the empire at that time. Besides, Sher Shāh asked Haibat Khān, governor of Multān, to levy a fourth of the produce as revenue and to charge no other taxes or cesses. It is, however, argued that Multān was treated with exceptional leniency in view of its previous devastation.³ The reduction of the rate of the land revenue would be a highly exceptional favour; besides, the language of the chronicler implies that the concession lay in the exemption from a number of taxes, not in the reduction of the land revenue.⁴ There is evidence to show that it was Akbar who first demanded a third of the produce. Akbar’s ancestor Tīmūr realized a third of the produce as land revenue in some of his domains.⁵ He was not in India long enough to influence agrarian administration. We, however, know that Bābur demanded a hundred and thirty instead of a hundred.¹ This would raise the demand roughly to a fourth of the produce; thus Sher Shāh's demand from the people of Multān was not exceptional. It was, therefore, Akbar who raised it to a third. Abū'l-Faḍl finds it necessary to justify this measure by saying that Akbar abolished various taxes including the jiziyah.² It is not improbable that the kharāj was some times considered to cover the jiziyah as well.³