The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c6.46.3

c6.46.3

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.