Revenue system

1. Agrarian foundations and historical development

Land revenue, commonly called mal in administrative usage, was the principal fiscal resource of the Mughal state. It supported the court, administration and military establishment. The state's claim rested primarily on a share of agricultural production, although collection could occur in cash or kind. Cultivators, village headmen, zamindars and revenue officials all participated in the process. Consequently, imperial regulations worked through existing rural institutions rather than replacing them completely.

Mughal arrangements drew on earlier Sultanate practices and the reforms of Sher Shah Sur, who ruled from 1540 to 1545. Measurement, classification of agricultural land and schedules of demand were important precedents. Sher Shah is associated with pattas specifying the cultivator's liability and qabuli yats recording acceptance of that liability. Akbar's government adapted and expanded such practices through successive experiments rather than introducing a finished system at once.

The appointment of karoris in 1574–75 was one such experiment: officers were entrusted with revenue responsibilities in units intended to yield one crore dams. More lasting changes emerged around 1580 through the work of Todar Mal and other officials. Abu'l Fazl's Ain-i Akbari describes administrative classifications, revenue schedules and provincial resources, but it presents an imperial administrative ideal as well as evidence of actual practice.

2. Zabt, dahsala and classification of land

Zabt was a system of assessment based on measurement of cultivated area and prescribed rates for different crops. Under dahsala, average yields and prices over approximately the preceding ten years, conventionally 1570–1580, supplied the basis for calculating demand. The state's assessed share was generally one-third of average produce, converted into a cash rate using the relevant price data. Crop-wise schedules were called dastur or dastur-ul-amal.

Revenue circles grouped areas with broadly comparable agricultural conditions and prices. Officials applied the prescribed crop rates to the measured area under cultivation. Dahsala therefore did not mean that revenue was collected only once in ten years, nor did it permanently freeze demand. It was an averaging procedure intended to make annual assessment more predictable. Its effectiveness depended on reliable measurement, records, price information and access to markets.

Measurement employed the bigha as an area unit and the gaz as a length unit. Akbar standardised measurement through the Ilahi gaz. Bamboo measuring rods joined with iron rings reduced the distortions associated with ropes that stretched or contracted. Land was also classified by continuity of cultivation: polaj was regularly cultivated; parauti was temporarily left fallow; chachar remained uncultivated for three or four years; and banjar had been uncultivated for five years or more.

These categories primarily described cultivation history, not simply soil fertility. Productivity distinctions such as good, middling and bad land were separately relevant to estimating yields. Concessional or graduated demands on reclaimed land encouraged renewed cultivation. Zabt was especially important in the surveyed northern heartland, including areas around Agra, Delhi, Lahore and Allahabad, but was neither uniform nor universal throughout Mughal territory.

3. Alternative methods and regional flexibility

Batai, also called ghalla-bakhshi, divided the actual produce between the cultivator and the state. Division could occur after harvesting and threshing, by separating standing crops, or through division of harvested stacks. This method linked the state's receipts more directly to the actual crop, but supervision, storage and transport could make it administratively expensive. It remained useful where detailed measurement and dependable price schedules were difficult to maintain.

Kankut combined estimation with inspection or measurement. Officials assessed the likely harvest, sometimes checking estimates through sample cutting. It should not be confused with the physical division of the entire crop under batai. Nasaq broadly referred to assessment using previous revenue figures and established fiscal records, although its precise operation varied across periods and regions.

The coexistence of these methods reflected ecological, commercial and political diversity. Bengal's changing riverine landscape, frontier conditions and areas of irregular cultivation posed challenges to standardised assessment. Cash assessment also did not mean that every payment everywhere was necessarily made in cash. For examination purposes, distinguish the method of determining liability from the medium in which the liability was discharged.

4. Officials, zamindars and revenue assignments

The imperial diwan supervised revenue and financial administration, while provincial diwans managed these functions at the suba level. Amils or amilguzars undertook assessment and collection duties. At the pargana level, qanungos preserved knowledge of local revenue customs and records, while chaudhuris assisted revenue administration. Village patwaris maintained cultivation accounts, and muqaddams or village headmen mediated collection. Responsibilities could overlap and differed locally.

Zamindars possessed varied hereditary claims, local authority and rights to a share of revenue. Some were village-level intermediaries; others controlled extensive territories and armed followers. They were not simply salaried Mughal officials, nor were all of them owners of every field within their jurisdiction. Cultivators also possessed customary and often hereditary rights. The agrarian order contained overlapping claims rather than one uniform form of private ownership.

Khalisa revenues went directly to the imperial treasury. Jagir revenues were assigned, commonly to mansabdars, in lieu of salary obligations. A jagirdar normally received the right to collect specified revenues, not proprietary ownership of the soil. Transfers helped prevent officials from building permanent territorial bases. Madad-i ma'ash grants supported scholars, religious figures and other beneficiaries and must be distinguished from ordinary salary jagirs. Jama denoted assessed demand, whereas hasil denoted actual collections.

5. Economic significance, pressures and exam distinctions

Standardised assessment and documentation strengthened imperial resource mobilisation. Cash demands encouraged cultivators to sell produce and connected villages with merchants, moneylenders and urban markets. Yet commercialisation was not solely a product of taxation: expanding towns, crafts and long-distance trade also mattered. Revenue officials were expected to consider crop failure and support cultivation, including through advances, but remissions and relief depended on administrative capacity and local conditions.

Heavy demands, additional cesses, coercive collection and discrepancies between assessed and realised revenue could burden cultivators. Zamindars sometimes cooperated with the state and sometimes resisted it. In the later seventeenth century, warfare, expansion of the service nobility and difficulties in obtaining sufficiently productive assignments intensified jagirdari pressures. Historians debate their extent and importance; Mughal decline should not be reduced to a single revenue-related cause.

The Mughal system must not be labelled the British Permanent Settlement, Ryotwari or Mahalwari system. Permanent Settlement fixed the Company's revenue demand on zamindars in 1793 in its principal area of operation. Mughal dahsala instead used past averages to calculate rates. Likewise, mansab was a service rank, jagir a revenue assignment, and zamindari a varied set of hereditary local rights: the terms were related but not interchangeable.

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