Administrative System of the Marathas c18.s10: 11. The Financial Arrangement
Administrative System of the Marathas c18.s10
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11. The Financial Arrangement
c18.s10.1
We may now turn to the financial arrangement of our rural republics. Above all they had to pay the government dues as a matter of course; and their land-tax was fixed conjointly by the Patil and a government officer after actual survey and inspection for a fairly long term. But as the village had its own special needs, it had to raise money to meet them. Says Elphinstone—"The maintenance of the Village Temple; (in the deed of sale executed by Mhalsabai we have seen that in her village there was a temple of Shri Matandji—the sun-god) its fixed and authorized pensions, and annual charities; its ceremonies and religious festivals; its alms to beggars and entertainment to guests, etc., and the fees of peons stationed in the village, entail a number of expenses on the community, which, unless allowed for from the Government revenue (which is very rare) are defrayed by a tax on the village." This extra tax fell on the cultivators, and the major portion of the burden was (as has formerly been mentioned) borne by the Mirasdars. The charges for the temple, charity and festivals were permanent and more or less constant, and were therefore raised by a permanently fixed tax called *Salabad* while the less constant and uncertain but none the less recurring charges were met by an extra assessment called *Sadar Warid patti*. In addition to these recurring expenses there were non-recurring ones, the most important of them in those insecure times being that incurred by the repair of the village wall (for which government sometimes sanctioned a grant) and the purchase of forbearance of an insurgent or an enemy, against whose arms the villagers were helpless. The government was sometimes ready to make some remission of revenue for the second item, but a total remission, or concession even to the amount of contribution paid by the villagers, was absolutely unknown. In such cases if the amount was very heavy a public debt was contracted, and gradually paid off by an annual assessment included in the *Sadar Warid patti* or mortgages or grants of land on the part of the villagers. These grants, known as *Gaon Nisbat Inam*, were enjoyed rent-free by the creditors. If small in area no rent was charged for these inams; but if big, rent was paid by the villagers in common.²⁴ So the Peshwa's government allowed the Maratha villages a free hand in financial matters. In fact, the village communities enjoyed real self-government within the empire. If the village officers were not elected by the villagers, neither were they appointed by the government, and although they had to obey the orders of the government, the very nature of their communities put them under the moral influence of public opinion, as they were paid directly by the villagers. Industrially the Maratha villages were self-contained and self-sufficient. The paternal supervision exercised by the Peshwa's officers on the whole secured the material welfare of the rural communities and was not therefore unnecessary. We shall next try to see how this paternal supervision was exercised by the government of a benevolent despot.
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²⁴ Elphinstone: Report on the Territories recently conquered from the Peshwa (2nd Edition), pp. 19-20.
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DISTRICT AND PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS