Mughal Administration c5.s5.1

c5.s5.1

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.