Administrative System of the Marathas c23.5

c23.5

A century passed ere a Muhammadan general led his conquering forces across the Vindhyas, but neither he nor his immediate successors could establish their permanent sway over the Deccan. The simultaneous establishment of a Muhammadan monarchy, that depended not a little on the loyalty of its Hindu subjects against the hostility of the Muhammadan Emperors of Delhi, and the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, contributed largely to the vitality of the indigenous institutions and they were allowed to flourish undisturbed not only in the autonomous village republics but also in the courts of independent or semi-independent Hindu chiefs who found a safe retreat in the impregnable hill forts of their native land. The old institutions therefore continued to exist under the Muhammadan rulers and so powerfully did they influence the administrative policy of Muslim kings that even the most careless comparison will be enough to establish beyond doubt the close affinity between the revenue regulations of Tipu Sultan of Mysore, a zealous follower of the Prophet of Mecca, and those of the Peshwas, the Brahman defenders of the Hindu faith. This was no mere accident, for if we compare the regulations set forth in the Hukum-namas of Coorg with the regulations of Tipu, the same resemblance will be evident. Our western critics will perhaps discover in this only another instance of the immobility of the unchanging East. But in which country, civilised or uncivilised, have old institutions completely died out? The national system of administration in every land has its root in the distant past, and such was also the case with the administrative institutions of the Peshwas. They have not however been mere blind imitators, they did not surrender their right of criticism when they turned for guidance to the old Shastras, but theirs was a work of reform as well as of conservation. Few rulers of course could, like Shivaji and the first Madhava Rao, shake off the superstitious veneration of their times and abolish the time-honoured customs that were either unjust or oppressive. But such reforms were from time to time effected and the Hindu system of government continued in the Bombay Presidency till the British conquest in 1818. Before the Marathas succumbed to their western rival, we find in their empire the same judicial system still in existence that prevailed in the days of Manu and Yajnavalkya, Narada and Brihaspati, Vishnu and Shukracharya; the same principle of revenue administration still in operation that had been advocated by the celebrated Kautilya three hundred years before Christ, the same village communities still flourishing that existed in the days of the great Buddha.