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Mughal Administration c13: Chapter IX. The Position of the Aristocracy

Mughal Administration c13

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Chapter IX. The Position of the Aristocracy

§ 1. Escheat of every noble's property.

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European travellers were struck by a peculiar institution in the Mughal empire, *viz.*, the seeming absence of hereditary property among the nobility. As Captain Hawkins remarked in 1608,

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"The custom of this Mughal Emperor is to take possession of his noblemen's treasure when they die, and to bestow on their children what he pleaseth ; but commonly he dealeth well with them, possessing them with their father's land, dividing it amongst them : and unto the eldest son he hath a very great respect, who in time receiveth the full title of his father." (Purchas, iii. 34.)

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Here we must bear in mind that with the exception of vassal kings and zamindars there were no hereditary landholders in Mughal India. All the nobility were mere servants of the State and held their fiefs on service tenure ; their lands, naturally, lapsed to the State on their death. But why was their personal property escheated?

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Bernier stigmatises this custom as barbarous and describes its effects thus :

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"The barbarous and ancient custom obtains in this country, of the king's constituting himself sole heir of the property of those who die in his service." (P. 163.)

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"As the land throughout the whole Mughal empire is considered the property of the sovereign, there can be no earldoms, marquisates or duchies. The royal grants consist only of pensions either in land or money [*i.e., jagir* and *tankha,*] which the king gives, augments, retrenches, or takes away at pleasure......The *umarahs* of Hindustan cannot be proprietors of land, or enjoy an independent revenue, like the nobility of France. Their income consists exclusively of pensions which the king grants or takes away according to his pleasure. When deprived of this pension they sink at once into utter insignificance." (Pp. 5, 65.)

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"The king being heir of all their possessions, no family can long maintain its distinction, but after the *umarah's* death is soon extinguished, and the sons, or at least the grandsons, reduced generally to beggary and compelled to enlist as mere troopers in the cavalry. The king, however, usually bestows a small pension on the widow, and often on the family, and if the *umarah's* life be sufficiently prolonged, he may obtain the advancement of his children by royal favour." (Pp. 211-212.)

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We find in the letters of Aurangzib such passages as the following, which may startle the reader unaware of the real state of things in that age: "Amir Khan [the governor of Afghanistan for 20 years] is dead. I, too, shall die. Write to the *diwan* of Lahore to attach the property of the deceased with extreme diligence and effort, so that nothing great or small, not even a blade of grass, may escape. Get information from outside sources and take possession of everything found at any place whatever, as this is the rightful due of God's slaves." (*Ruqaat-i-Alamgiri*, letter 99.)

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There was a regular department of the State, called *Bait-ul-mal*, where the property of all persons dying without heirs was deposited. The property of the nobles and officers of the State after their death was also escheated and kept in this department.*

§ 2. Reason of the escheat of private property after death.

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The reason alleged for this act of seeming spoliation was that all officers were in debt to the Government, having taken money and things in advance or enjoyed the revenue of their jagirs, without clearing their account with the State by setting off against these advances the amounts earned by them by their services and the number and equipment of the men kept in arms by them for the Emperor. Such making out of military accounts was a very slow affair and was hardly ever completed in the life-time of any officer. Again, the exact salary earned by a general could be ascertained only after he had brought his contingent to the muster (*dagh wa tashiha*), when the horses were passed and branded and the retainers were identified by their descriptive rolls (*chihra*). This took time and was never satisfactorily done except in peace time. We often read of officers being excused the *dagh* ; *i.e.*, paid without holding the regular muster and inspection of their troops, in times of pressing need or trouble.

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∗ The *Manual of Officers' Duties* and *Mirat*, ii. 185, call the latter kind of property *amual*, so that the whole department was called *Bait-ul-mal wa amual*.

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Military accounts,, especially in an age when wars are frequent, are naturally kept very badly and take many years to be written up and audited. Even under the East India Company, as late as the middle of the 19th century, the salaries of the English soldiers who had taken part in the First Sikh War remained unadjusted for a long time, and they were paid in full only after three or four years. (Bancroft's *From Recruit to Staff Sergeant.*)

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In Mughal India the case was worse. The dilatoriness and dishonesty of the clerks of the military pay-office were the despair of the soldiery. Shihabuddin Talish, an officer under Mir Jumla and Shaista Khan in Bengal (1659—1665), draws a vivid picture of the trouble which the soldiers had to undergo on this account. He writes, "I strongly hope that some one would fully and freely report to the Emperor the distress among the soldiery and the fact of their being harassed and crushed by the oppression of the thievish clerks......The army is treated by the Hindu clerks and drowsy writers as more degraded than a fire-worshipping slave and more unclean than the dog of a Jew." Then follow graphic details of how the stipend-holders "had to flay themselves in the *kachari* before they could get their dues." [Bodleian MS. 589, *f.* 129*b*-131*a*.]

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Manucci illustrates the power and insolence of the clerks of the military pay-office by means of this anecdote :

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“In Shah Jahan’s time a soldier went to his pay and the official could not attend to him once as he was busy. The angry soldier threatened him at once saying he should have to smash his teeth with his sword. The official said nothing, and paid him......The sharp-witted scribe, to get his revenge for the menace, wrote in the book where was entered the soldier’s descriptive roll that he had lost two of his front teeth......Some months elapsed and the soldier appeared again for his pay. The clerk opened the book, and found by the description that he was not the man entitled to that pay, for he had two front teeth more than were recorded in the descriptive rolls. The soldier was put to confusion ......he was obliged to have two front teeth extracted to agree with the record, and in that way got his pay.” (*Storia*, ii. 449.)

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Thus the military accounts could never be cleared, and no officer’s exact dues and liabilities to the State could be ascertained in his life-time and hardly even after his death. Under the circumstances the safest course for the Emperor was to escheat the dead man’s property immediately after his death, and then think of settling his account with the Government Treasury.

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Thus, Maharajah Jaswant Singh, owed a heavy sum to the State, and in 1670, when he was appointed *subahdar* of Gujrat for the second time, it was stipulated that he would refund to the State two *lakhs* of Rupees every year, till his debt was cleared. (*Mirat-i-Ahmadi*, i. 277.)

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In 1678 the Emperor learnt from the *diwan* of Bengal that Shaista Khan, the viceroy of the province, had drawn from the Treasury one *kror* and 32 *lakhs* of Rupees in excess of his pay for twelve months. The amount was ordered to be entered as a loan to him. (*Masir-i-Alamgiri*, 170.) Again, in 1683 the *diwan* reported that the Emperor had ordered 52 *lakhs* of Rupees spent in the Assam expedition to be recovered from Shaista Khan, but that nobleman had replied that only 7 *lakhs* had been so spent and that the rest of the amount was an advance for Bengal. The Emperor then modified his order, by demanding the refund of 7 *lakhs* only. (*Ibid*, 234.)

§ 3. Emperors' ordinances about escheat of nobles' property.

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Thus, we find that it was the invariable practice of the Mughal Government to confiscate to the State, at least temporarily, the property of every one of its servants immediately after his death. Though it was in effect an act of spoliation, the theory was not so shamelessly immoral. The Emperors never claimed to be heirs of any dead subject's property unless he died without leaving personal issue or legal heirs. [And even then, in theory the property belonged to the Muslim community and not to the sovereign himself.] They only wanted to ensure the payment of their dues from the dead man, who had been their servant and taken advances and loans from them.

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Among the twelve ordinances issued by Jahangir on his accession in 1605 was one to the following effect: "When any infidel or Musalman died in any part of my dominions, his property and effects were to be allowed to descend by inheritance, without interference from any one. When there was no heir, then officers were to be appointed to take charge of the property, and to expend it according to the law of Islam, in building mosques and sarais, in repairing broken bridges, and in digging tanks and wells.” (Tuzuk, 4.) But it is not clear from this whether he gave up the system of confiscating the property of deceased servants of the State, especially if they had running accounts with the Treasury. Aurangzib’s *farman* on the subject, dated 24th July 1666, is more explicit. He instructs the provincial *diwans* thus: “Whenever a servant of the State dies leaving no heir and owing nothing to the Treasury on account of advances (*mutaliba*) made to him, deposit his property with the store-keepers of the *Bait-ul-mal*. If he owes anything to the State, then take only the amount due and place the rest of his property in the *Bait-ul-mal*. If he has left any heir, attach his property three days after his death. If the property exceeds the amount of his debt to the State, take that amount only and deliver the balance to his heir after the latter has legally established his right. If the dead man owed nothing to the State, give his whole property to his heir, after legal proof.” (*Mirat-i-Ahmadi*, i. 266.)

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This is a very upright and reasonable rule. Manucci, however, asserts that it was never really followed by Aurangzib. He says of this Emperor:

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“He seizes everything left by his generals, officers, and other officials at their death, in spite of

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his having declared that he makes no claim on the goods of defunct persons. Nevertheless, under the pretext that they are his officers and are in debt to the Crown, he lays hold of everything. If they leave widows, he gives them a trifle every year and some land to furnish a subsistence." (*Storia*, ii. 417.)

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A careful examination of the records of Aurangzib's reign shows that Manucci's charge is not true. No doubt there was heart-breaking delay in adjusting and auditing the running account of every dead nobleman with the State, and during this prolonged interval his property was kept under lock and seal in the *Bait-ul-mal*, but not intentionally for ever nor out of an unjust love of spoliation. Thus, we read that when Shaikh Muhiuddin, the *Sadar* of Gujrat and *amin* of *jaziya*, died, his property was not confiscated because his son Akramuddin stood security for his father's dues to the Public Treasury. (*Mirat-i-Ahmadi*, 319.)

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That Aurangzib's ordinance of 1666 was not a false pretence, can be inferred from the fact that in the latter days of the empire, it is stated among the duties of the *buyutat* that he was the officer for attaching and making a list of the property of deceased persons in order to secure payment of the dues of the State as well as to safeguard the property for the heirs of the deceased.

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Again, the *Zawabit* gives a list of the properties actually under escheat in the year 1691; and here we find only the properties of noblemen who had died within the preceding eight years and not earlier (69a-71b.) This may be easily explained by the supposition that the accounts of these nobles had not yet been completely made up, and the escheat was therefore provisional or *pendente lite*.

§ 4. Principles involved in the rule of escheat.

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From a careful study of the Mughal practice of escheating noblemen’s property after their death and Aurangzib’s rules and actual practice in this matter, I am impressed by the belief that here we have the Quranic law of the sacredness of private property superimposed upon an older and alien institution, namely the communal ownership of all property among a nomadic tribe.

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The Turks, as the so-called Pathan and Mughal rulers of Delhi really were by race, were originally a nomadic people and they retained the essential characteristics of nomads to the end, though thinly veiled under the pomp and institutions of empire. Such a tribe migrates from pasture to pasture, conquers fresh lands and accumulates plunder and slaves under the leadership of their chieftain and with the solidarity of a family and an army in one. Their chieftain is the patriarch of the clan, and the individual members of the tribe (or, more correctly, the heads of the different families) are merely the limbs of the great trunk of the tribe. They derive their strength from the tribe and render up their acquisitions to it as the property of the tribe. The tribe might gain accessions to its number from outside by marriage (as among the Brahuis) or by the adoption of slaves, but the newcomers are made a part and parcel of the tribe as if born to it.

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The most adventurous spirits among the tribe, when settled in a country like India, received an advance of men and money from their chieftain, carved out conquests or brought in plunder, and enjoyed these during their lifetime. But when they died, all their acquisitions legally lapsed to the Government, because they had really been the factors or *entrepreneurs* employed and financed by the tribal State. This practice and tradition of the homeland of Turan continued under the Mughal empire in India. There was no nobleman who was not a servant of the State, a holder of *mansab* or rank in the army. He received advance of money (*musaidat*) and materials (*ajnas*) or other payment on account from the Public Treasury, and his business was to achieve fresh gains for the State by employing these means, and in the end he was to be rewarded by his grateful employer with a share of the profits. Therefore, all his acquisitions were legally bound to revert to the State, as the earnings of a Christian monk must to the order to which he belongs, and those of an *entrepreneur* of industry must to the fund of the joint-stock company that he serves. By the essence and fundamental theory of the Turkish social and political organisation, private property on the part of a State official was as inconceivable as that of a Catholic monk or a factory manager within the factory.

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The whole history of the Muslim period in India—in the Deccani States as well as in the Delhi monarchy—illustrates the expansion of Islamic dominion through the individual efforts and initiative of private adventurers, financed by the State and backed by all its regular forces in the case of a reverse,—and rarely through the operation of the salaried servants of the Crown acting under the direction and control of the central Government.

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Therefore, the State claimed what was left of a life’s acquisitions due to its own sanction, money aid, and armed support. The empire was communal property, and the Amir, Sultan or Padishah, as the Commander of the Faithful, was entitled to escheat all the earnings of the officers in this army of Islam. He was only the trustee of the rights of the Sovereign Congregation (jamait) of true believers, as the tribal patriarch had been in the days before their conversion to Islam. Whether the nomadic society was patriarchal (as before Islam), or theocratic (as under Islam), property was equally communal.

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This basic idea of the Turkish State could not be reconciled with the more modern notions of the sacredness of private property and the responsibility of the king before God to see that none was robbed of his heritage,—which are a part of Islamic private law. And Aurangzib’s regulations represent an attempt at a compromise between the two, and the final abandonment, in outward profession at least, of the nomad idea of communal property and the adoption of the modern idea of individual private possessions,—i.e., the conversion of mere agents of the State into private owners. It would, in my opinion, be unhistoric to suppose that these escheats were originally due to a wicked desire of the autocratic sovereign to seize his subjects' rightful property when they were no longer alive to defend it.

§ 5. Effect of the system of escheats.

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Whatever the origin of the custom of escheat may have been in theory, its practical effect was, all the same, most harmful. It has been defended by a modern writer as tending to keep up the efficiency of the Government by extinguishing a parasite class living on hereditary wealth, and forcing everybody to go through a struggle for the survival of the fittest. But a little reflection will show that this was really not the case. One effect of the escheat system was to induce the nobles to live extravagantly and squander their all on women, show and unproductive luxury during their life-time, as they knew very well that they could leave nothing to their family, and the Emperor alone would profit by their abstinence. The material waste and moral degradation of the highest class in society were, therefore, deplorable.

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Again, the insecurity of the nobles' fortunes prevented the accumulation of private capital and the economic growth of the country which depends on capital. The general level of civilisation and culture, too, was lowered, because each generation had to work from the bottom upwards, instead of benefiting by the acquisition and progress achieved by its predecessor.

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Sometimes, the people proved more than a match for the extortionate State. We read of certain nobles' personal property being secretly given away by them to their children or cunningly hidden shortly before their death.

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In the case of some others their effects were looted by their servants and neighbours before the Emperor's agents could come to attach them. We even read of Amir Khan's widow offering fight to the imperial officers who demanded the surrender of her husband's property.

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The political effect of the escheat system was most disastrous. It prevented India from having one of the strongest safeguards of public liberty and checks on royal autocracy, namely, an independent hereditary peerage, whose position and wealth did not depend on the king's favour in every generation, and who could, therefore, afford to be bold in their criticism of the royal caprice and their opposition to the royal tyranny. It also made the Mughal nobility a selfish band, prompt in deserting to the winning side in every war of succession or foreign invasion, because they knew that their lands and even personal property were not legally assured to them, but depended solely on the pleasure of the king *de facto*. A baronage like that which extorted Magna Carta from King John, or cheerfully courted exile, confiscation and even death under the banners of King Charles I, was impossible in the Mughal empire. Mediæval India had no independent nobility or trading class to act as a barrier between the Emperor at the top of society and the poor peasants and common people at the bottom. Such a Government is most unstable and unsound, from the political and economic points of view alike.

§ 6. The Bait-ul-mal or Store of Escheats.

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The *Bait-ul-mal* was the Store Department where, strictly speaking, only the property of persons dying without heïrs should have been kept, but where in actual practice, as we see from Aurangzib’s regulations, the escheated property of noblemen was also deposited. In Islamic theory, this *Bait-ul-mal* belonged to God and its contents could be spent only in works of charity and not on the Emperor’s personal expenses nor on the general needs of the Government. [*Encyclo. Islam*, i. 598.]

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As Aurangzib writes in one of his letters, “The Khalifa of the Age (*i.e.*, the reigning sovereign of the country) is the trustee [not ‘owner’] of the *Bait-ul-mal*.” [*Ruqaat* No. 107.] And, again, in two other letters, “It is my duty to increase the property of the *Bait-ul-mal*” and “All presents made (to the sovereign) appertain to the *Bait-ul-mal*.” [Irvine MS. 350, No. 29 ; I.O.L. M.S. 3301, No. 102.]

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Practical effect was given to this theory late in his reign. We read that in 1690 he issued an order appointing the provincial *qazis* as the *amins* or trustees of the branch *Bait-ul-mal* of their province. Thus, the *qazi* of Ahmadabad was ordered to present to the *faqirs* and other beggars of the city 150 coats (*qaba*) and the same number of blankets, priced Rs. 1½ and 8 annas each respectively, every winter. (*Mirat.* i. 338.) The amount of Rs. 6000 was spent on the clothing of the poor in that city ; but there were other occasions for charitable gift out of this fund.

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The information at our disposal does not enable us to distinguish between the limits of work of the *Bait-ul-mal* and those of the other charity fund which the Emperor used to place in the hands of the *Sadar* or Civil Judge and Almoner. The *zakat* or tithe of 2½ per cent on the incomes of Muslims had to be devoted solely to pious works, such as maintaining Islamic scholars, students of theology, monks and beggars, giving dowries to maidens, &s. Strictly speaking, the *zakat* ought to have been paid into the treasury of the *Bait-ul-mal*, because the king could not lawfully touch any portion of it for his own use. Manucci tells us that in the closing years of Aurangzib's reign, when the Deccan war had exhausted his treasury and he was beset by financial embarrassment, the Emperor at first wished to open and use the contents of the great storehouses filled with goods left by deceased persons, or with property collected in Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan's time from the men, great or small, who had been servants of the State. But afterwards he ordered these storehouses not to be opened—lest the officials should steal more than half of the things in his absence from his northern capitals. (*Storia*, ii. 255.)

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The *Manual of Officers' Duties* clearly distinguishes between the *amual* or confiscated property of officers who died indebted (*mutalibadar*) to the State and which therefore rightfully belonged to the Public Treasury, and the *Bait-ul-mal* or store-house of the property of heirless persons, which rightfully belonged to God and could be spent on charitable purposes only. But Aurangzib's extensive correspondence never mentions such a department as *amual* and only speaks of depositing the escheated property in the *Bait-ul-mal*. Moreover, the *Manual* shows that the three departments of *ajnas* (i.e., Government stores kept for being advanced to the subahdars and generals on loan), *amual* (i.e., the escheated property of such officers after death), and *bait-ul-mal* (or the effects of persons dying without any heir),—were placed under one superintendent (*darogha*) and one set of accountant, store-keeper and watchmen. Munitions were supplied to the officers from this department on account. Hence, it appears that the surplus powder, shot, lead and water-proofs (*mom-jama*) of the artillery department were kept in the *ajnas*.

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The instructions issued to a newly appointed *darogha* of this stores department as to his duties are to be found in the *Manual*, pp. 90-92.

§ 7. Nobles' families held by the Emperor as hostages.

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The sovereign had another hold upon the nobility in Mughal times. The peerage consisted largely of able adventurers from Central Asia and Persia and a few from the Turkish empire. The Persians were most highly valued for their polished manners, literary ability, and capacity for managing the finance and accounts. There was always a keen desire on the part of the Mughal emperors to seduce to their service the higher officers of the Shah of Persia and the Sultan of Turkey because, as Aurang-zib frankly says, the Persians were intellectually far superior to the Indian Muhammadans, while the western Turks brought with them something of European culture and science. For such officers, when they fell into disgrace in their homeland or dreaded the wrath of their native sovereign, a flight to India opened a road to honour, power and wealth far surpassing what they had enjoyed at home. This stream of recruits, who contributed much to the success and glory of the Mughal empire, naturally dried up on account of the increasing anti-Shia spirit displayed by Aurangzib in his latter years and the preponderant Sunni majority of the Indian Muslim population, and partly also on account of the rapid decay of the royal power and civilisation of Persia under the later Safavi Shahs at the end of the 17th century. But so long as it lasted, high-born Persian and Arab refugees in India were welcomed and the Emperors were glad to marry their sons and grandsons to the daughters of these newcomers.

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The latter, however, had to give hostages for their fidelity to their new master. No Persian or Turkish refugee was confirmed in any high post or promoted to independent command, so long as he did not bring his family from his native land and settle them in India, for that was the surest means of preventing their escape from this country. They had also to place one of their sons as their representative (*wakil*) at Court, really as a hostage for their good conduct during their absence in the provinces. The Hindu Rajahs had to do the same.