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Mughal Administration c5: Chapter I. The Government : Its Character and Aims

Mughal Administration c5

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Chapter I. The Government : Its Character and Aims

§ 1. The aspects of Mughal administration studied in this book.

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We are all familiar with the history of the Mughal Empire in India,—the long story of the successive Emperors, their wars for the throne of Delhi, their campaigns against their rebellious vassals and independent neighbours, and their expeditions beyond the natural frontiers of India. We know much about the private lives of the Emperors, the ceremony and splendour of their Courts, and the condition of the roads, from the writings of the many European visitors to our land. But their administrative system has not yet been subjected to a detailed study on the basis of the original Persian records.

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This is a task of admitted difficulty, partly because so many of the records have perished in the course of time, but mainly because it is only men experienced in the actual conduct of modern Indian administration, who can go to the very heart of the Mughal system and make the dead past live again naturally took over the Mughal system then prevailing among the people, made in it only the most necessary changes, and while retaining its old framework, they very reluctantly and slowly added such new elements as the safety and prosperity of the country demanded from time to time. This was the true character of the Anglo-Indian administration of Bengal and Bihar under Warren Hastings. Under his successors, after many intervals of repose, the administration has again and again departed from its Mughal original. But the new has been built upon the old; our present has its roots in our past.

§ 3. The aims of the Mughal State.

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Before we can understand the Mughal administrative system correctly, it is necessary for us to realize its nature and aims.

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By its nature it was a military rule and therefore necessarily a centralized despotism. To the Muslim portion of the population the sovereign was the head of both Church and State, and therefore for them he undertook socialistic functions. But towards his non-Muslim subjects he followed the policy of the individualistic minimum of interference, *i.e.*, he contented himself with discharging only the police duties and the collection of revenue. The support of public education was not a duty of the State,—indeed it was recognized as a national duty even in England as late as 1870. According to Hindu and Muhammadan political thought alike, education was the handmaid of religion. If the king spent anything on education, it was not an act of State, but a private religious benefaction for acquiring personal merit in the next world. Some schools were subsidized by the Padishahs, but it was only because they were attached to mosques or taught by families of holy men already in receipt of imperial bounty, or, in other words, because they served as seminaries for training ulema (theologians) for the service of the State Church. [Cf. Ency. Islam, iii. 170.]

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Similarly, the encouragement of art and literature was a purely personal matter with the king; its aim was to procure for him personal recreation or glorification, and not to promote national culture. Here the head of the State was exactly on the same footing as a rich private citizen and he recognized no higher obligation to his people.

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In short, under Mughal rule the socialistic activities—I use the word in its broadest sense,—of a modern State were left to the community, to society or the caste brotherhood, and the student of Indian administration has to pass over them in silence.

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The aim of the government was thus extremely limited, materialistic, almost sordid.

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A minute study of the history of the Mughal empire in India on the basis of State papers and other original sources, impresses us with certain features as broadly characteristic of the administration.

§ 4. The imported foreign elements in the Mughal administrative system.

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First, the Mughal governmental system took its colour from the race and creed of its sovereigns. They were a foreign Muhammadan dynasty who settled in India eight centuries after Islam had been adopted in certain countries outside India and a new administrative type had been developed in those countries.

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Our Turkish conquerors brought with themselves to their new home the type of administration which had long been known to extra-Indian Muslim countries as the model, and which had been proved by the experience of centuries as the most successful, viz., the administrative system of the Abbasid Khalifs of Iraq and the Fatimid Khalifs of Egypt. The Mughal administration presented a combination of Indian and extra-Indian elements; or, more correctly, it was the Perso-Arabic system in Indian setting.

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The principles of their government, their church policy, their rules of taxation, their departmental arrangements, and the very titles of their officials, were imported ready-made from outside India. But a compromise was effected with the older native system already in possession of the field and familiar to the people governed. The details of the imported system were modified to suit local needs. The existing Indian practice and the vast mass of Indian customary law were respected so far as they did not run counter to the root principles of all Islamic governments; and in all non-essential matters, in the spectacular side of politics,* and, generally speaking, in village administration and the lower rungs of the official ladder, the Indian usage was allowed to prevail, while the foreign model swayed almost exclusively the Court (which was a personal matter for the sovereign) and the higher official circles, (who drew their inspiration from Persia and Egypt).

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This foreign element in the Mughal administration can be easily illustrated from the provincial administration. As Professor C. H. Becker of Hamburg writes: "In the early centuries of Arab rule two political functions were sharply distinguished [in Egypt, viz.,] the governorship and the treasury. The governor, [called] *āmir*, had control over the military and police only...Alongside of him was the head of the treasury, [called] the *‘āmil*...These two officers had to keep a strict watch on one another. As head of the military and executive, the *amir* was the first [in authority], but they were equal in rank and the administrator of the treasury even had the greater influence [over the sovereign.]" (*Encyclopædia of Islam*, ii. 13.)

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Now, this was exactly the relation between the *subahdar* or provincial governor and the *diwan* or revenue chief of the province. A concrete illustration of the official antagonism between the two and their mutual recriminations to their master—for, it was the duty of each, in the words of Prof. Becker, "to keep a strict watch over the other,"—can be found in the account of the History of Orissa in the 17th century, based on contemporary official papers, published in my *Studies in Aurangzib's Reign*, xiv §15.

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∗ Lord Clive performed the *punyāh* ceremony at Murshidabad! Here we have a Hindu revenue usage coming down from very ancient times through the Muhammadan age to the early British period.

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So, too, in the division of the administration into departments the model of Islamic lands outside India was followed.

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The second characteristic is that the Government was military in its origin, and though in time it became rooted to the soil, it retained its military character to the last. Every official of the Mughal Government had to be enrolled in the army list; he was given a *mansab* as the nominal commander of so many horsemen, which determined his pay and status. Civil servants, judges of Canon Law, superintendents of post, excise or customs, and even clerks and accountants of the higher grades, were all ranked as *mansabdārs*, *i.e.*, members of the army. Their names were arranged in the gradation-list of the army, they were paid by the *Bakhshis* or military paymasters and their promotion took the form of an increase in their nominal command. From this it followed that the Treasury or spending department of the Government was only one for the civil and military services alike, or in strict theory there was no civil Treasury at all. We should, however, remember that though the salary-bills were passed by the *Bakhshis* or military paymasters, the actual payment (except to the field army during a campaign)

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was made by the Diwān, who was reckoned as a civil officer.

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Thirdly, the main point to be noted about the land revenue system of Mughal India is its long and close adherence to the old practice, procedure and even tradition of the country. Indeed, the early Muhammadan conquerors very wisely retained the old Hindu revenue system intact, employed the old Hindu revenue officials, and seldom interfered with the working of this department so long as the land-tax was regularly collected and there was no striking default or peculation.

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This remark is true of the land revenue alone, which has always been the most traditional and conservative branch of Government activity in India. But in the case of the other sources of State income, the Quranic law and the practice of older Islamic States outside India exercised their full influence, and we find in Indo-Muhammadan history repeated attempts to adjust the actual practice of the Government in the revenue department to the theory of the Canon Law of Islam in this matter.∗ Thus, the entire revenue system of the Mughal empire as it was developed in the 17th century was a resultant of two forces,—the time-honoured Hindu practice and the abstract Arabian theory.

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∗ E.g., Firuz Shah Tughlaq (in Elliot, iii. 377.)

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Between these two discordant elements the compromise was not always happy or successful, and the dead weight of Indian usage in the end proved too heavy for the orthodox zeal of Quranic purists.

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like Firuz Shah Tughlaq or Aurangzib. When they closed their eyes, or even in their lifetime, after a brief span of strict adherence to the Quranic precept and abolition of "innovations" (bida't), things fell back into their old traditional grooves. The subject will be more fully discussed in a subsequent chapter.

§ 5. The State as a manufacturer.

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Fourthly, in Mughal India the State was the largest manufacturer, or rather the only manufacturer on a large scale in respect of several commodities. The modern practice of Government buying ready-made goods in the open market, or giving orders for large quantities to contractors, would not have answered in those days of cottage industries, when production on a large scale by private capitalists with a view to sale was unknown. The State was, therefore, forced to manufacture the commodities it needed.

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And its need was very large. Twice every year, in the rainy season and the winter, a robe (khilat) suitable for the season was presented by the Emperor to every mansabdar, and the number of mansabdars in 1690 is given as nearly 7,500 who were paid in cash and 7,000 who held jagirs. (Z. 15a.) For the higher nobles, one suit of the robe of honour consisted of several articles of apparel. In addition to these two seasonal gifts, the princes of the blood, the vassal Rajahs and many of the mansabdars and Court officials received robes of honour at the two birthdays of the Emperor (viz., according to the lunar and the solar calculations), the lunar anniversary of his coronation, the two I'ds, and down to Aurangzib's reign on the old Persian New Year's Day, when the Sun enters the Aries (nau-roz). As a matter of rule, *khilats* were also bestowed on most persons when they were presented at Court or took leave, or were appointed to posts, and, for some time in Aurangzib's reign, on converts to Islam.

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It will thus be seen that the imperial Government had to keep a vast stock of cloth and ready-made robes for its need during the year. Their supply was assured by the State maintaining many factories (*kārkhānahs*) of its own in the principal cities of the empire, where skilled workmen were brought together (sometimes from distant provinces), placed under a Government superintendent (*dārogha*), paid daily wages, and made to produce their handicrafts which were duly stocked in the stores.

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The same thing was done with regard to various articles of consumption and luxury required by the Emperor's household. It was the business of the *Khān-i-sāmān* or Lord High Steward to buy such goods as were available in the market and manufacture the others well in advance of the time when they would be required. A detailed study of the *karkhanahs* will give us an idea of the immense field of State activity in the industrial sphere.

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Fifthly, the Mughal Government was a highly centralized autocracy. The Crown was the motive power of the entire administrative machinery. Where the Government is absolute, the supreme authority concentrated in one man's hand, the territory large, the means of communication between the districts slow and difficult, the transfer of local officers frequent, and no political life or local initiative left to the people,—there the natural consequence is the multiplication of official correspondence and the growth of a vast mass of written records. The Mughal Government, except in the actual conducting of campaigns, was a *kāghazi rāj*, i.e., paper Government. Its officers had to maintain many books, such as copies of correspondence, nominal rolls, descriptive rolls, history of the services of officers, newsletters and despatches received, as well as accounts in duplicate or triplicate, summary or full,—besides keeping an army of spies and couriers for the information of the central Government.

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As an experienced Anglo-Indian administrator remarks in criticising the system described in the *Ain-i-Akbari*,—"Akbar was a master of detail: but here [in the *Ain*] detail is pushed to the extreme... It is everywhere assumed that the control of business depends on the compilation of appropriate registers, which is one of the besetting delusions of the native official of our days." (W. Crooke's *N. W. Provinces*, p. 101.)

§ 6. Law and Justice.

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Sixthly, its attitude towards law and justice was opposed to modern conceptions. One of the most essential functions of a modern State is the administration of justice and the maintenance of order. Herein the Mughal Government was weakest and least capable of improvement and expansion with time. It, no doubt, undertook to defend the country from foreign invasion and internal revolt, and to protect life and property in the cities by its own agents. But the policing of the vast rural areas was left to the locality; it was done by the local *chauki-dārs* who were servants of the village community and maintained by the villagers themselves out of the village land or by a share of the crops, and who were not considered as officers paid and supervised by the State. Instead of the Mughal Government undertaking responsibility for rural peace and security, it made the villagers responsible for the safety of their own property and that of travellers in the neighbouring roads. There was, no doubt, a Government agent there, *viz.*, the *faujdār*; but his jurisdiction was too large to allow him to attempt the supervision of the police of all the villages in that region. His recognized duty was to prevent or punish wide-spread or notorious acts of violence, such as rebellion by local *zamindars*, organized raids by large gangs of robbers, or the withholding of land revenue on a large scale.

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As regards justice, the Mughal Emperor loved to pose as the fountain of justice and followed the immemorial Eastern tradition that the king should try cases himself in open Court. The subject will be more fully treated in a subsequent chapter.

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§ 7. The State declines all socialistic functions.

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Of the provincial administration little need be said. The work at the head-quarters of the province, *viz.*, that of the local *subahdar*, *diwan* and *qazi* followed the well-known lines of their counterpart at the imperial Court. As has been well remarked by a European writer, "Every subahdar tried to play the Padishah in his own province."

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But of the political and economic life of the people, especially in the villages, no account has survived, and for a sufficient reason. The State in those days, as I have already pointed out, contented itself with the police duties and revenue collection,[*] and did not undertake any socialistic work, nor interfere with the lives of the villagers, so long as there was no violent crime or defiance of royal authority in the locality. Every village was left free to continue the noiseless even tenor of its life along the old grooves, untroubled by the Government, if it did not trouble the Government. The State refused to take the initiative in social progress, or the economic development of the people (as distinct from the domains of the Crown or *khālsa sharifa*, where it was like a private landlord), or the promotion of literature or art (except for the Emperor's personal gratification), or the improvement of communication (except for military purposes). All these things, where done at all, were done by private enterprise. Where there was any organized village community the initiative in these matters was taken by the headman or council of village elders; in all other places, the centre of local life was the zamindar or petty Rajah.

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The policy of benevolent interference and paternal guidance of the lives of the people adopted by the Buddhist Emperor Asoka in his empire 250 years before the birth of Christ, was not attempted by any Mughal Emperor except Akbar. Wherever the Mughal local officers showed too active an interest in local life (outside the provincial capital), it was against superior orders and in consequence of a corrupt love of gain or spirit of partisanship. And the result of such interference was always bad.

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∗ "Administrative nihilism," as Huxley called it, or "anarchy *plus* the policeman."

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Large empires of the mediæval stationary type of civilization and inhabited by diverse tribes, like the Chinese Empire, have held together, only because the central Government has wisely let the rural areas alone, giving to the people of each district freedom to live their lives according to immemorial usage if they supplied the fixed quota of local troops and their fixed share of the revenue of the State.

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There was, therefore, something like local autonomy. But the geographical units enjoying such autonomy were so small and their activities were so purely municipal and social, that it would be more correct to say that the villages and small towns of the Mughal empire enjoyed parochial self-government rather than local autonomy. A people who do not possess political freedom and power of self-taxation for national (as distinct from sectarian or caste) purposes, cannot be said to enjoy local autonomy.