Mughal Administration c9.s7.14

c9.s7.14

The evil custom of local governors and even faujdars opening the packages of traders on the road and taking out whatever they liked at prices fixed at their own caprice, was known as early as Jahangir’s reign and was definitely forbidden by that Emperor in one of his twelve rules. [Elliot, vi. 496.] But the practice continued, as we know from the European travellers in India. As late as the beginning of the 18th century we find Aurangzib writing a stinging letter of censure to his grandson Azim-ush-shan, the governor of Bengal, for conducting such unfair private trade (sauda-i-khās.) [Rivaz-us-salatin. Eng. tr. 246, and I.O.I.MS. 3021, In fact, in mediæval India, the corrupt greed of the ill-paid officials found unchecked indulgence from the system of public taxation, which was crude, not clearly defined nor sufficiently made known to the public, but often varied from reign to reign. The timidity of the common people and the weakness of the central Government and its lack of a sufficient number of trusty agents left the population helpless under official extortion. The same commodity was subjected to taxation twice or thrice over, in spite of the Emperors' prohibition.