Aspects OF THE Mughal Administration PDF

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After the arrival of Muslim rulers in India, who brought with them a distinct system of governance and administration shaped in the frame of Turko-Persian traditions, it is likely that the Mauryan system of administration continued in use, with minor modifications from time to time, for almost the e...

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ASPECTS OF THE MUGHAL ADMINISTRATION After the arrival of Muslim rulers in India, who brought with them a distinct system of governance and administration shaped in the frame of Turko-Persian traditions, it is likely that the Mauryan system of administration continued in use, with minor modifications from time to time, for almost the entire period of history. While Muslim monarchs' administrative structures were quite similar, the Mughal rulers' administrative structure took on a distinctive character after the kingdom was united under their reign. Having arrived in India from Central Asia with their own set of administrative arrangements, which were presumably not significantly different from those established by the country's previous Muslim rulers, the Mughal rulers, particularly Akbar, brought about an amalgamation of the administrative system then in place with his own perspectives and innovations in the field, resulting in the development of an administrative system in the country that was distinctively Mughal. In the Indian context, this administrative framework, known as the Perso-Arabic system , was rooted in the personality of the monarch and based on the strength of the military to generate its operational vitality. Just like in the Mauryan empire, king Akbar served as the foundational figure in the Mughal administrative system, in whose personality rested the sovereignty of the kingdom and from him flowed all the authorities and functions of the state, similar to the system that prevailed in that empire. In addition to exercising his sovereign administrative powers primarily, if not exclusively, through the appointment and removal of the empire's highest civil and military officials, the king's primary method of communicating his decisions was through the issuance of declarations of farmans, which were signed by him and bearing his seal. Despite being endowed with autocratic powers, the king used to carry out his administrative obligations in a decentralised way through his loyal lieutenants known as Wazirs and Diwans, who were appointed by the king himself. Without bearing any relation to the modern-day concept of a Council of Ministers, the Mughal king did, however, have a number of capable advisors who were appointed solely at the pleasure of the king. This group of officials acted more in the capacity of personal counsellors to the monarch rather than possessing any formal position of authority in the administrative structure, and their advice to the king was solely optional,

and could only be implemented with the approval of the king. As a result, scholars referred to them as secretaries rather than ministers since they had little or no influence over the king's policy decisions other than to prod him in the right direction and offer moderate preventive advise. Despite the fact that the emperor's supremacy in the empire precluded any sort of culpability on his part for any of his administrative blunders, he remained cautious in order to minimise any sort of unnecessary strain on the populace as a result of his administration's mistakes. Unlike junior officials, who were held accountable to the heads of their respective departments, advisers were held accountable only to the intentions of the monarch. The final authority to penalise for administrative lapses remained with the king in the case of the advisors. This resulted in a top-down administration structure, with the monarch serving as a sort of almighty, with the support of a large number of advisors and departmental heads to carry out the king's judgments throughout the entire empire.

Fundamental parts of the administrative structure that operated throughout the Mughal period were separated into departments, each of which was headed by a high-ranking official from the imperial administration. However, the selection of various officials as the heads of various departments did not take place in accordance with some basic principles of personnel management, but rather on the basis of the king's sweet will and the mansab held by an officer in the field. When it came to the Mughal administration, mansab was an all-too-familiar concept, derived from military jargon and designating an officer's official status and profit in the event that he was needed to serve the monarch with a set number of men in the event of a national emergency. Consequently, the elite corps of officers in the Mughal administration was composed of mansabdars of various ranks, and they can be considered the forerunners of today's gazetted civil services. The appointment of these mansabdars was entirely in the hands of the monarch, who held the position only for their own lifetimes, with no claim to the mansab in perpetuity. Although the monarch used to evaluate merit when awarding mansabs from time to time, the most of the time, the patronage was reserved for individuals who had demonstrated their loyalty and effectiveness in the king's eyes by performing well in their previous positions of authority.

The mansabdars were generally officials who learned the art of administration by real performance of the duty over a period of time, as opposed to those who had formal training in the task. The mansabdari system began to fade away with the decline in the quality of the Mughal administration, though the British attempted to emulate the system during their colonial rule by bestowing various titles on individuals such as Zamindars, Rai Bahadur, and Khan Bahadur, amongst others, during their reign. However, with the establishment of a democratic and equal socio-political order in the country following the country's independence, the entire concept of awarding privileged positions to a select persons on the basis of their specific services to the government was abolished.

While the personnel administration of the Mughal empire did not find favour with the British, and was eventually abolished entirely in independent India, the characteristics of the provincial administration of the Mughal rulers continued to exist in one form or another in many parts of the country, despite the fact that it was clearly elitist and discriminatory in nature. During the British period, the country was split into numerous presidencies, which were later transformed into the modern-day states and union territories of India, following the pattern of the Mughal provinces known as subah. During the Mughal period, each subah served as an independent unit of governance, under the overall supervision of a senior official known as the subedar, who was tasked with the responsibility of carrying out what may be termed as the province's law and order tasks. There was an officer known as the provincial diwan who served in a similar capacity to the subedar and was tasked with the special responsibility of tax collection in addition to overseeing the appointment of other provincial officials and maintaining the provincial fort. As a result, we have a clear delineation of the functional domain of the two officials who are in charge of the law and order and revenue departments, respectively, despite the fact that placing both officers on an equal footing appeared to violate the principle of unity of command and was fraught with the dangers of a clash of personalities between the two high dignitaries. The two executives were also given the authority to appoint a number of people at lower levels of the province's administration in order to carry out their responsibilities effectively. As a result, whereas the subedar's primary assistance was the officer known as the fauzdar, the diwan's primary assistants were the officers known as amins, kroris, and tahsildars.

In terms of administrative units that are strikingly similar to the system that existed during the time of the Mughal empire, the local or district administration stands out as one of the most notable examples. Just as in modern times, when each state's administrative units are divided into various districts as its primary administrative unit, a subah was divided into various administrative units known as sarkars, which were further subdivided down the line into different parganas (sub-division level), mawdahs (host of villages), and naglahs (administrative unit) (small hamlet). In a number of states across the country, such as Uttar Pradesh, these administrative divisions are still in existence. The administration of the sarkar was divided into two basic categories, similar to the way it is organised today: law and order and revenue collection and collection. In contrast to the fauzdar, who was in responsible of maintaining law and order in the sarkar, amin was in charge of collecting revenue from the cultivators, with the assistance of the official known as khazandar in collecting money from the growers. Shigar was the officer-in-charge at the pargana level in the olden days, and his modern-day counterpart is known as the parganadhikari (parganadhikari = parganadhikari). His chief field aides were (and still are) referred to as qanungo, and they were in charge of surveying, assessing, and collecting revenue in the field. Patwaris were, and continue to be, the lowest-ranking revenue officials tasked with the responsibility of carrying out the actual ground-level actions in a village and listening to the grievances of the villagers on issues connected to the collection of tax on their behalf. The officials with almost the same nomenclature who served the people during the Mughal period when the king was confined to his palace served as the king's representative in the minds of the common people. Today, with the advent of democratic decentralisation, though people's representatives have become an important link between the government and the people, the officials with almost the same nomenclature have served as the backbone of the revendication movement.

The law and order administration of the Mughal empire was also the forerunner of the contemporary day police system, despite the fact that the British made significant alterations to the system over the long period of their control in India. Because the king was personally responsible for the safety and security of the kingdom against external attack and internal upheaval, there was no official at the central level who was particularly tasked with the responsibility of overseeing the empire's law and order concerns. When necessary, the king's prime minister, known as vakil, would assist him, primarily in advising capacities, on issues pertaining to the kingdom's internal affairs, according to the tradition. Although law and order was delegated to several officials at the provincial level and lower, the fauzdar was the most significant official in the province. Despite the fact that he was tasked with a number of additional responsibilities, his most significant job centred on the maintenance of peace and order in the province, a failure to which was regarded as a serious lapse on the part of the fauzdar. The exclusion of the large rural areas of a sarkar from the point of view of assigning a specific person responsible for the topic was a significant flaw in the law and order administration of the Mughal rulers during their reign. A kotwal was appointed by the fauzdar to be in charge of maintaining law and order in the Sarkar, rather than the urbanised regions serving as the administrative unit. The onerous job of maintaining law and order in rural areas was entrusted to the chaukidar, who was paid and maintained by the local community out of their own means, leaving the great majority of the population to fend for themselves. As a result, it appears that the subject of maintaining law and order was one of the most neglected parts of the civil administration of the Mughal monarchs during their reign.

In contrast to the abysmal state of the administration of law and order in the Mughal empire, the revenue administration of the empire was a well established and well-knit organisation. In reality, the concern for income administration could be seen in the nature of the obligations assigned to everyone from the king down to the lowest ranking official in the kingdom. The diwan or wazir used to be the state's chief revenue official, reporting to the king and working under his overall direction. The wazir, who was aided by a number of subordinate officials,

provided advice to the monarch on the fundamental policy aspects of the kingdom and oversaw the day-to-day operations of the revenue or finance division. The provincial diwans, who were selected by the monarch but who were subordinate to the wazir in terms of their day-to-day operations, came later in the succession. Although the official known as krori, or the collector of the revenue of one crore dam, was tasked with increasing the kingdom's revenues, it was he who was actually in charge of doing so. Following several combinations and permutations, it appears to have formed the office of the collector in modern times, which appears to have originated as a krori position. The amin, who was in charge of the assessment of the revenue, and the fotahdar, who was in charge of collecting the revenues from the villages in the traditional sense, were the two officers who assisted krori in the fulfilment of his revenue tasks. More advanced in his position, the qanungo was entrusted with the responsibility of surveying all landed property, keeping a record of tax payers, and being well-versed in the rules and regulations pertaining to revenue. In contrast, the patwari was in charge of extending the reach of the revenue department all the way down to the common tax payers by keeping in touch with them and providing them with any information or messages pertaining to revenue matters. While the Mughal government was primarily concerned with revenue collection, the neglect of law and order functions demonstrates that the Mughal administration was concerned with a more comprehensive image of civil administration during the mediaeval period.

In the end, the Mughal administration truly supplied the British with a foundation upon which to develop an anglicised system of administration that was suited for carrying out the tasks of the colonial state. Considering the Mughal administration in the context of the state's minimum role, it appears that the administration was solely concerned with the performance of those activities that were necessary to ensure the survival of the state itself.

As a result, it should come as no surprise that the collection of revenue was the most important preoccupation of administration during the Mughal period, and that a highly elaborate and finely tuned administrative structure was in place to ensure its proper conduct. Beyond that, the only other department that appeared to be receiving direct attention from the ruler appeared to be the administration of law and order, which was essential for the survival of the state itself. The administration of law and order, however, was only second in importance to the administration of land revenue, despite the fact that the two appeared to be coterminous in the normal course of events. Although there were a number of flaws in the Mughal administrative structure, staffing pattern, and functional dynamics, the rulers of the time should be commended for having the vision and determination to conceptualise and implement a system of administration that was capable of holding the vastly expanded borders of the empire and providing a semblance of civilised life to the people by discounting any possibility of chaos afoot....