Mughal Administration c5.s5.9

c5.s5.9

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.