Mughal Administration c9.s7.12

c9.s7.12

As late as 1665, we learn from Aurangzib’s *farman* dated the 20th November of that year, that the magistrates and other officers in Gujrat used to buy and sell on their own account by force, paying less than the market price to the vendors and exacting an unfairly higher price from the traders on whom they forced their goods. "Mutasaddis (collectors), seths (leading merchants) and desais (headmen) in many parganahs when the new harvest is marketed do not allow the public to buy it, but take up the whole of it themselves, and out of it they force on the traders whatever is rotten or spoilt, taking the price of good grain....... Governors and rich men cultivate every kind of kitchen vegetable and fruit in their own gardens and in those of the State, and force them on the vegetable-sellers at double the fair price... In Ahmadabad and the parganahs of that subah certain men have taken in farm (ijāra) the monopoly of buying and selling rice, and nobody can deal in that grain except with their consent; hence, rice has become dear in Gujrat." [Mirat, i. 260.]