The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c6.46

Language: English

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rest of his life without any reference to the Mughal Government but he had spent his boyhood in the Mughal camp and had learnt to regard the Emperor of Delhi as the rightful sovereign of the whole of India. Moreover, both he and his cousin of Kolhapur were eager to strengthen his cause by enlisting on his side the moral support of the Mughal power, the visible sign of which was to be an imperial *farman* for the *chauth* and *sardeshmukhi* of the six *subhas* (provinces) of the Deccan, which the Maratha prince might then regard and cherish as his *watan*. The ministers at Delhi were eager to take full advantage of the internal dissension prevailing among the Marathas by procrastinating and postponing the issue of the *farman* sought by the rival parties; but the men on the spot found it difficult to maintain peace and order and to protect the peasant on whose labours the state revenues mainly depended, without coming to some sort of understanding with the Marathas. Daud Khan, therefore, consented to pay *chauth* to the Maratha Chhatrapati with one important proviso—the *chauth* was to be collected for the Marathas by the Mughal revenue officers. By this arrangement the Marathas would be unable to interfere with the peasantry or the internal administration of Mughal territory.

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This proposal, so necessary in the circumstances, did not meet with the approval of the Emperor and his ministers, and Chinkulich Khan, the next governor, was not disposed to accept the policy laid down by his predecessor in the office. Syed Hussain Ali, who replaced Chinkulich, at first made a determined but ineffectual effort to check Maratha depredations, and shortly afterwards political events at Delhi, which need no reference here, compelled him to purchase Maratha alliance at any price. Khafi Khan says that Hussain Ali came to an understanding with ‘Balaji Bishwanath and Jamnaji’ (Chimnaji?) through the mediation of Shankraji Malhar, a Maharashtra Brahman, who had once held an important office under Rajaram Chhatrapati. ‘There was to be paid to the officers of Raja Shahu’, says Khafi Khan, ‘a fourth of what *amins*, *kroris* and *shikkdars* collected as land revenue, and as *sair* from the government lands and from *jagirdars*. It was also settled that, in addition to the fourth share which they were to get from the receipts of the *jagirdars*, they were to receive from the *raiyats* ten per cent as *sar-deshmukhi*. Altogether they were to receive thirty-five per cent upon the total collections, (and also) upon the abwubs called faujdari, shikkdari, ziyafat, and other charges, as shown in the gross account of the collections.

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According to this account they were to receive nearly half the total revenue recorded in the government rent-roll, and (the collections) thus shared by the domineering collectors of Raja Shahu. This arrangement, by which they were to collect all taxes, fell very hard upon the raiyats, and the government officers and jagirdars; for in every district there were two collectors—one called the kamaishdar, the other the gumashta of sar-deshmukhi. On the roll of the collection the signature of the sarristadar of the sar-deshmukhi was first placed, and what was required by the rules on that account was to be taken separately.¹ Thus the Marathas obtained their desire, the right of collecting chauth on their own account and by their own agents; and although their demand was sometimes excessive, the arrangement, as Khafi Khan shows, had certain redeeming features. ‘In some places, e.g., Berar and Khandesh, the Marathas took one third leaving one third to the raiyat and one third to the jagirdars and villages formerly rendered desolate were now restored to cultivation.’² But if this purchase of Maratha protection was to the advantage of the cultivator, the presence of the Maratha tax collector in the Mughal provinces was incompatible with the sovereign rights of an independent power. It inevitably led to the further expansion of Maratha territory by the gradual absorption of the chauth-paying districts.

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It was on this account that Nizam-ul-Mulk found it necessary to purchase their departure from his immediate neighbourhood. ‘Nizam-ul-Mulk so arranged that instead of the chauth of the suba of Haidarabad, a sum of money should be paid from his treasury; and that the sar-deshmukhi, which was levied from the raiyats at the rate of ten per cent should be abandoned. He thus got rid of the presence of the kamaish-dars of the chauth, and the gumashtas of the sar-deshmukhi and the rahdari, from which latter impost great annoyance had fallen upon traders and travellers.’³