Mughal Administration c9.s3: § 3. Illegal imposts on peasants condemned by the Government Head.
Mughal Administration c9.s3
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§ 3. Illegal imposts on peasants condemned by the Government Head.
c9.s3.1
The natural tendency of the ryot to withhold or refuse the payment of revenue and the failure of the State to give him a clean slate every three or five years by writing off his arrears, were the chief causes of trouble in the Mughal revenue department. The evil was aggravated by the greed of the revenue underlings and of some of the Emperors even. When I discuss the list of ābwābs or unauthorized exactions from the people in Mughal times, the reader will perceive the wonderful fertility of the human brain in devising means for squeezing money out of the people,—at birth, throughout life, and even after death. Several of these ābwābs were not directly paid by the peasant ; several of them affected the smaller dealers and townspeople too. But as our population is predominantly agricultural and most of the articles for sale came from the land, the weight of the ābwābs pressed most heavily on the ryots.
c9.s3.2
∗ Cf. Abu Yusuf, 76:—"I have not found anything more fruitful for the Treasury and less inconvenient for the people subject to the land-revenue, [more] effective in protecting them from the abuses to which they render themselves liable by passing the burden from one to another among themselves, and more suitable for saving them from ill-treatment by the administrators and collectors,—than a just and light payment in kind (muqāsama, division of crops) : the prince finds in it his satisfaction, the tax-payers a benefit and a guarantee against mutual injustice consisting in shoving off the tax from one to another."
c9.s3.3
It is only fair to add that in respect of the ābwābs, there was a clear conflict of policy between the Emperors on the one hand and the revenue collectors on the other. The Emperors are for ever issuing orders to their officers to show leniency and consideration to the peasants in collecting the revenue, to give up all ābwābs, and to relieve local distress ; and the revenue officers are as often squeezing everything out of the peasants except the barest subsistence. A solemn proclamation is issued by one Emperor abolishing all ābwābs and urging all his officials, "at present and in future" to obey these instructions. But these very ābwābs crop up again and have to be abolished by his successor with another proclamation, which has exactly the same efficacy as the first. This was the experience of other Islamic countries, such as Egypt, also. (See *Encyclo. Islam*, iii. 176-177, under *Maks.*)
c9.s3.4
The policy of the supreme head of the Mughal Government not to practise any exaction on the ryot is manifest from the contemporary histories and letters, and can be proved to have been a reality and not merely a pious wish. Several instances are recorded in the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzib in which harsh and exacting revenue collectors and even provincial viceroys were dismissed when the complaints of their subjects reached the Emperor's ears. A characteristic anecdote to the same effect is told in India Office Library Persian Manuscript No. 370, interleaf facing folio 68. It clearly illustrates Shah Jahan's eagerness to do justice and even liberality to the peasantry, and I shall narrate it here.
c9.s3.5
"One day," so runs the story, "Shah Jahan was looking through the revenue returns of his empire and discovered that in a certain village the revenue for the current year was entered as higher by a few thousands [*dām*?] than that of past years. Immediately he ordered the High Diwan Sadullah Khan to be brought to the Presence for explaining the difference. Sadullah Khan was then sitting down in his treasury with an open bundle of revenue papers before him and his eyes dozing in consequence of his daily and nightly attention to the business of his department. The royal messengers brought him to the Emperor in exactly the same condition [and dress] that he was in. Shah Jahan asked him for the cause of the increase in the assessment. After a local inquiry it was found out that the river had receded a little and a new tract of land had risen above water-level, causing an addition to the area of the village and the income of the State. On the Emperor asking whether the land in question was *khālsa* or *āima*, a further inquiry was made and it was found to adjoin a piece of rent-free grant of land (*aima.*) Then Shah Jahan cried out in wrath, ‘The water over that tract of land has dried in response to the lamentations of the orphans, widows and poor [of the place] ; it is a divine gift to them, and you have dared to appropriate it to the State ! If a desire to spare God’s creation had not restrained me, I should have ordered the execution of that second Satan, the oppressive faujdar [who has collected revenue from this new land.] It will be enough punishment to dismiss him as a warning to others to refrain from such wicked acts of injustice. Order the excess collection to be immediately refunded to the peasants entitled to it.’ ”
c9.s3.6
This anecdote may not have been true, but it is *ben trovato*, it shows the atmosphere and the public belief in Shah Jahan’s kindness to his subjects.