Akbar's tion of the Empire. Army reforms. Akbar not only subdued all India to the north of the organiza Vindhya Mountains, he also organized it into an Empire. He partitioned it into Provinces, over each of which he placed a Governor, or Viceroy, with full civil and military control. This control was divided into three departments-the military, the judicial, including the police, and the revenue. With a view to preventing mutinies of the troops, or assertions of independence by their leaders, he reorganized the army on a new basis. He substituted, as far as possible, money payments to the soldiers, for the old system of grants of land (jágírs) to the generals. Where this change could not be carried out, he brought the holders of the old military fiefs under the control of the central authority at Delhi. He further checked the independence of his provincial generals by a sort of feudal organization, in which the Hindu tributary princes took their place side by side with the Mughal nobles. Akbar's system of justice, The judicial administration was presided over by a lord justice (Mir-i-adl) at the capital, aided by Kázis or law-officers in the principal towns. The police in the cities were under a superintendent or kotwál, who was also a magistrate. In country districts where police existed at all, they were left to the management of the landholders or revenue officers. But throughout rural India, no regular police force can be said to have existed for the protection of person and property until and police. after the establishment of British rule. The Hindu village had its hereditary watchman, who in many parts of the country was taken from the predatory castes, and as often leagued with the robbers as opposed them. The landholders and revenue-officers had each their own set of myrmidons who plundered the peasantry in their names. Akbar's revenue system. Akbar's revenue system was based on the ancient Hindu customs, and survives to this day. He first executed a survey to measure the land. His officers then found out the produce of each acre of land, and settled the Government share, amounting to one-third of the gross produce. Finally, they fixed the rates at which this share of the crop might be commuted into a money payment. These processes, known as the land settlement, were at first repeated every year. But to save the peasant from the extortions and vexations incident to an annual inquiry, Akbar's land settlement was afterwards made for ten years. His officers strictly enforced the payment of a third of the whole produce, and Akbar's land revenue from Northern India exceeded what the British take at the present day. land revenue. From his fifteen Provinces, including Kábul beyond the Afghan frontier, and Khandesh in Southern India, Akbar Akbar's demanded 14 millions sterling per annum ; or excluding Kábul, Khándesh, and Sind, 12 millions. The British land-tax from a much larger area of Northern India was only 113 millions in 1883.1 Allowing for the difference in area and in the purchasing power of silver, Akbar's tax was about three times the amount which the British take. Two later returns show the land revenue of Akbar at 16 and 17 The Provinces had also to support a local militia (búmí bhúmi) in contradistinction to the regular royal army, at a cost of at least 10 millions sterling. Excluding both Kábul and Khandesh, Akbar's demand from the soil of Northern India exceeded 22 millions sterling per annum, under the two items of land revenue and militia cess. There were also a number of miscellaneous taxes. Akbar's total revenue is estimated at 42 millions.2 millions sterling. His total = Namely, Bengal, £3,816,796; Assam, £385,504; North- Western Provinces and Oudh, £5,700,816; and Punjab, £1,889,807: total, £11,792,923.—Administration Reports (1882-83). 2 PROVINCES OF THE DELHI EMPIRE UNDER AKBAR, CIRC. 1580. Land-tax in Rupees. revenue. The land revenue was returned at 16 millions sterling in 1594, and £17,450,000 at Akbar's death in 1605. The aggregate taxation of Akbar was 32 millions sterling; with 10 millions for militia cess (búmí); total, 42 millions sterling. See Thomas' Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire, PP. 5-21 and p. 54 (Trübner, 1871). These and the following conversions 8,071,024 The large totals of Mughal taxation. Since the first edition of this work was written, the author has carefully reconsidered the evidence for the large revenue totals under the Mughal Emperors. The principal authority on the subject is Mr. Edward Thomas, F.R.S., who has summed up the results of a lifetime devoted to Indian numismatics, in his Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire from A.D. 1593 to A.D. 1707. No one can study that work without acknowledging the laborious and accurate research which Mr. Thomas Are they to has devoted to the points involved. His results were accepted without reserve in the first edition of The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Since the publication of this work, however, the author has received several communications from Mr. H. G. Keene, questioning the soundness of Mr. Thomas' conclusions. Those conclusions point to a comparatively heavier taxation under the Mughal Emperors than under British rule; and have been made the basis of contrasts flattering to the British administration. The author felt it, therefore, incumbent on him to submit Mr. Keene's views to the scrutiny of the two most eminent numismatists now living, namely General Cunningham and Mr. Edward Thomas himself. be relied on? General ham's view. Mr. Thomas, after examining the counter-statements, adheres to his former conclusions. General Cunningham is Cunning inclined to think that the great totals of revenue recorded by Muhammadan writers, could not have been actually enforced from India at the different periods to which they refer. He thinks that individual items may be reduced by a technical scrutiny. But that scrutiny only affects certain of the entries. He rests his general conclusion on wider grounds, and believes that the revenues recorded by the Muhammadan writers represent rather the official demand than the amounts actually realized. The following pages will reproduce Mr. Edward Thomas' conclusions, as revised by himself for the first edition of this work. But they are reproduced subject to the considerations stated in the present paragraph. are made at the nominal rate of 10 rupees to the pound sterling. But the actual rate was then about 8 or 9 rupees to the . The real revenues of the Mughal Emperors represented, therefore, a considerably larger sum in sterling than the amounts stated in the text and footnotes. The purchasing power of silver, expressed in the staple food-grains of India, was two or three times greater than now. 1 This monograph was written as a supplement to Mr. Thomas' Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi. (Trübner & Co., 1871.) * See General Cunningham's Letter, dated 5th July 1883, printed in the paper On some Copper Coins of Akbar,' in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. liv. Part I., 1885. REVENUES OF THE MUGHAL EMPERORS AT THIRTEEN VARIOUS PERIODS FROM 1593 TO 1761,1 FROM A SMALLER POPULATION THAN THAT OF BRITISH INDIA. GROWTH OF MUGHAL REVENUES. 299 1697-1761 the century from its practical foundation by Akbar to its final expansion under Aurangzeb in 1697, and thence to its fall in from Muhammadan authorities and European travellers, during A.D. Mughal Empire in India, as compiled by Mr. Edward Thomas revenues, It may be here convenient to exhibit the revenues of the Mughal 1761 1 The above Table is reproduced from Mr. Edward Thomas' Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire, published in 1871. Mr. Thomas Rájá Todar Akbar's Hindu minister, Rájá Todar Mall, conducted the Mall. revenue settlement, and his name is still a household word Abul Fazl. among the husbandmen of Bengal. Abul Fazl, the man of letters and Finance Minister of Akbar, compiled a Statistical Survey of the Empire, together with many vivid pictures of his master's court and daily life, in the Ain-i-Akbari—a work of perennial interest, and one which has proved of great value in carrying out the Statistical Survey of India at the present day.1 Abul Fazl was killed in 1602, at the instigation of Prince Salim, the heir to the throne. SALIM, the favourite son of Akbar, succeeded his father in Jahangir, 1605, and ruled until 1627 under the title of JAHANGIR, or Emperor, Conqueror of the World. The chief events of his reign are summarized below.2 His reign of twenty-two years was spent in reducing the rebellions of his sons, in exalting the influence 1605-27. The old translation is by Gladwin (1800); the best is by the late Mr. Blochmann, Principal of the Calcutta Madrasah, or Muhammadan college, whose early death was one of the greatest losses which Persian scholarship has sustained in this century. 1606. Flight, rebellion, and imprisonment of his eldest son, Khusrú. 1610. Malik Ambar recovers Ahmadnagar from the Mughals, and re-asserts independence of the Deccan dynasty, with its new capital at Aurangábád. 1611. Jahangir's marriage with Núr Jahán. 1612. Jahangir again defeated by Malik Ambar in an attempt to recover Ahmadnagar. 1613-14. Defeat of the Udaipur Rájá by Jahángír's son Sháh Jahán. Unsuccessful revolt in Kábul against Jahangir. 1615. Embassy of Sir T. Roe to the Court of Jahángír. 1616-17. Temporary re-conquest of Ahmadnagar by Jahangir's son Shah Jahán. 1621. Renewed disturbances in the Deccan; ending in treaty with Sháh Jahán. Capture of Kandahár from Jáhangir's troops by the Persians. 1623-25. Rebellion against Jahángír by his son Sháh Jahán, who, after defeating the Governor of Bengal at Rájmahál, seized that Province and Behar, but was himself overthrown by Mahábat Khán, his father's general, and sought refuge in the Deccan, where he unites with his old opponent Malik Ambar. 1626. The successful general Mahábat Khán seizes the person of Jahangir. Intrigues of the Empress Núr Jahán. 1627. Jahangir recovers his liberty, and sends Mahábat Khán against Shah Jahan in the Deccan. Mahábat joins the rebel prince against the Emperor Jahangir. 1627. Death of Jahangir. Materials for Jahangir's reign: Sir Henry Elliot's Persian Historians, vols. v. vi. and vii.; Elphinstone, pp. 550-603. |