Administrative System of the Marathas c11.9

c11.9

The great foreigner, who had served his adopted country so well, had to work almost under the same circumstances as Shivaji. While defending his master's tottering kingdom against the Mughal onslaughts, the great Abyssinian had to recognise its exhausted resources. He worked with an open mind and adopted the revenue system of his enemies. On the eve of its fall the Nizamshahi kingdom enjoyed a set of excellent regulations, but there was no one after Malik Ambar to work them out. Like Todar Mall he divided the arable lands into four separate classes according to fertility and ascertained their produce, roughly it is true, and fixed the assessment once for all. He, however, did not want the peasants to pay in kind. While a fixed permanent assessment was made, a commutation or money price was also fixed for ever. After fixing a money rent Malik Ambar turned his attention to the collecting agency. With one stroke of his pen he did away with the intermediate revenue agency which had been gradually assuming the character of a farming system. He then made the Patils and other revenue officers hereditary, but at the same time made them responsible for the full realisation of the government dues.⁵ Such in short was Malik Ambar's revenue system and as some of Shahaji's jagirs had previously formed part of the Nizamshahi dominions, the people there were not unfamiliar with it. Nor was there any lack of officials who had seen it in its actual working. Dadaji Konddev, when he reclaimed the waste lands of his master's jagir, did nothing but revive the wise regulations of the great Abyssinian.⁷