Mughal Administration c13.s2: § 2. Reason of the escheat of private property after death.
Mughal Administration c13.s2
- Language
- English
§ 2. Reason of the escheat of private property after death.
c13.s2.1
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.
c13.s2.2
∗ 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*.
c13.s2.3
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.*)
c13.s2.4
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*.]
c13.s2.5
Manucci illustrates the power and insolence of the clerks of the military pay-office by means of this anecdote :
c13.s2.6
“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.)
c13.s2.7
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.
c13.s2.8
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.)
c13.s2.9
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.)