The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c14.92

c14.92

Ibn Baṭṭūṭah says that there were, in each ṣadī, a chaudharī who was the head of the Parganah officials. Hindus and a mutaṣarrif who collected the revenue.⁶ The statement implies that the chaudharī was selected, in some manner, to represent the peasants; probably the notables were consulted before the appointment was made. In many instances, the post would be hereditary; but the idea of some kind of an election should not be dismissed entirely, for certain professional and caste brotherhoods elect their chaudharīs even now. We read of the qānūngū under the Afghāns; this officer was the keeper of previous schedules of assessment.⁷ Ibn Baṭṭūṭah does not mention the subordinate staff without whom the mutaṣarrif could not work. Baranī mentions the staff, but does not go into details.⁸ To the mutaṣarrif, whom he also calls the ‘āmil, Baranī adds the mushrif, the muḥaṣṣil, gumāshtahs, sarhangs and “the staff in the offices.”⁹ The mushrif was the inspector who actually saw the crops and determined the government share; it was his duty to adjudicate impartially between the state and the peasant. The muḥaṣṣil received the payment made in cash or kind by the peasants.¹ A gumashtah is an agent; the sarhangs, like the modern chaprāsīs, served peasants or muqaddams with official orders or summonses.² Baranī also uses the word kārkunān, which could hardly have been employed in a non-technical sense, for the chronicler knew the administrative jargon of the day too well. In view of later evidence, they would be the clerks who kept the accounts. Under the Afghāns, the shiqq disappeared from at least the major portion of the Sultanate, and the ‘āmil or the mutaṣarrif came to be known as the shiqqdār.³ Under Sher Shāh Sūr one finds practically the same administrative machinery for a parganah; there is the shiqqdār, the head of the local administration, the mushrif, now also called the amīn or the munṣif, the treasurer and the kārkuns. The fact that the mushrif was now known as the amīn, the holder of a trust, or the munṣif, a judge, throws a favourable light on the ideals of the administration. He was not a publican to extract the uttermost for Cæsar, but was regarded as an impartial adjudicator between the state and the peasant. The muḥaṣṣil now becomes the foṭaḥdār, khazānchī or khazānahdār, all synonyms for ‘treasurer.’ The kārkuns still remain, keeping the books both in Hindī and in Persian, so that the peasant and the state could know where they stood regarding their financial transactions.⁴