Mughal Administration c13.s5: § 5. Effect of the system of escheats.
Mughal Administration c13.s5
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§ 5. Effect of the system of escheats.
c13.s5.1
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.
c13.s5.2
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.
c13.s5.3
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.
c13.s5.4
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.
c13.s5.5
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.