Mughal Administration c13.s1: § 1. Escheat of every noble's property.
Mughal Administration c13.s1
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§ 1. Escheat of every noble's property.
c13.s1.1
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,
c13.s1.2
"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.)
c13.s1.3
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?
c13.s1.4
Bernier stigmatises this custom as barbarous and describes its effects thus :
c13.s1.5
"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.)
c13.s1.6
"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.)
c13.s1.7
"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.)
c13.s1.8
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.)
c13.s1.9
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.*