Administrative System of the Marathas c27.s3.31

c27.s3.31

It was not infrequently that the Marathas accepted the policy or principles, good, bad, or indifferent, as they had been transmitted by their Muhammadan predecessors. One such instance is found in the Maratha custom of compensating aggrieved peasants and villagers for *paymalli* or loss caused by the Peshwas' forces when encamped near a village by treading on the crops in the neighbouring fields. Abdul Hamid Lahori, the author of *Badshah Nama*, tells us that such *paymalli* compensation was paid by Emperor Shah Jahan in the seventh year of his reign. "His Majesty's sense of justice and consideration, for his subjects," says Abdul Hamid, "induced him to order that the *Bakshi* of the *ahadis* with his archers should take charge of one side of the road, and the *Mir-atish* with his matchlock-men should guard the other, so that the growing crops should not be trampled under foot by the followers of the royal train. As, however, damage might be caused *daroghas*, *mushrifs* and *amins* were appointed to examine and report on the extent of the mischief, so that raiyats, and jagirdars under 1000, might be compensated for the individual loss they had sustained." ¹⁰ It may however appear from the language of Abdul Hamid that this compensation was a pure act of kindness and grace on the part of Shah Jahan, and not an obligation. Of course there is no obligation for an autocrat, but it was really a common practice of the Delhi Emperors and was continued by Shah Jahan's successors. Irvine says, "Even in the best time of the monarchy and under the strictest commanders the course of an army was marked by desolation. There were great destruction of growing crops when the army passed through a fairly cultivated country. Compensation under the name of *paemali* "foot treading," was certainly allowed, according to the rules, in the shape of a remission of revenue on the land injured, but this must have been a very incomplete indemnification for the loss of the crop." ¹¹ It was "in the shape of a remission of revenue on the land injured" that the Peshwas' Government paid the *paemali* compensation, and there is reason to believe that in their case too the remission bore but a poor proportion to the loss sustained. It is, therefore, clear that in this instance at least the Marathas meekly followed the Mughal example which so far as the compensation itself was concerned was a laudable one. But the compensation naturally reminds one of the cause of the loss. It was as Irvine informs us the "great destruction of growing crops" by the Mughal forces, which could not be prevented by the strictest commander even in the best days of the monarchy.¹² So the Marathas were not the only offenders. Desolation was caused and growing crops had been destroyed by the Mughal forces too even while passing through the imperial territories in peaceful times, but the Maratha horseman has earned his unenviable notoriety as a plunderer and robber, because perhaps he was more thorough, more quick, more cunning and not because he was more ruthless, or less amenable to discipline than his Mughal brother.