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possibly met the challenges, (p.43) as it happened in Awadh, by institutionalizing the ijara practice and by accepting the ijaradars (revenuefarmers) as an official category of revenue collectors. Raja Ratan Chand who hailed from a trading community and held a key position during the years of the Saiyid Brothers’ ascendancy in Farrukh Siyar’s reign, appreciated the problem, and appears to have made attempts at institutionalizing the ijara practice. But he was accused by the old nobles of having converted state craft into shopkeeping.58 And in an atmosphere of distrust at the court, the accusation carried credibility with the emperor.59

In effect, ijara implied a greater burden on the lower categories of the revenue payers. Ijara implied fiscal and administrative control over the revenues of men motivated by gains, without any checks and supervision to which a government official, albeit theoretically, was subjected. An instance from Etawah would probably illustrate the implications of the ijara. The qazi (judge) of pargana Jalesar pressed upon the grain dealers to sell foodgrain (wheat) at the rate of 12 sers a rupee. In protest the grain dealers closed their shops and expressed their inability to follow the qazi’s directive. For ‘the deputy of Kalyan Singh’, as they are reported to have presented to the qazi ‘has farmed out the rahdari (road toll) on Rs 6000 to Jagat who is tyrannically levying 4 annas per ox-load’.60 Of whatever benefit to the individual nobles, the ijara practice thus also tended to alienate revenue payers from the Mughal government, until it was reformed by some new subadars (governors) and evolved as an institution with such responsibilities as those of a government office.

Towards the close of the second phase of our period it was not only the nobility but also minor state officials, zamindars, traders and money (p.44) changers who had almost lost faith in Mughal government. While the nobility’s indifference to state affairs further impaired the imperial organization, the zamindar revolts and subsequent developments caused an irreparable blow to the credibility of the government. The challenges to the Mughal state—zamindar revolts and increasing practice of ijara probably indicated the beginning of a trend towards a transition in political power. These challenges could not be solved militarily. The situation could perhaps have been brought under some control if there was no aversion to change in the pattern of government. To the majority of the dominant ruling sections of the Mughals state craft still meant swordsmanship and a benevolent despotism. The factional politics at the court also contributed to the atmosphere in which any drift from the existing institutional structure of the government was resisted. The Nobility Against this backdrop it becomes perhaps more meaningful to examine the nobles’ struggle for unprecedented control of imperial offices at the court as well as in the provinces. During his viceroyalty of the Deccan, Husain Ali Khan is reported to have paid little respect to imperial orders. He appointed his own

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men to the offices of the qiladars (fort commandants) which had so far been under the control of the emperor.61 The revolts of Nizam-ul-Mulk and Chhabele Ram in Malwa and Allahabad and the defiance of the governor of the Punjab indicated the emerging change in the attitude of the provincial governors to the central government.

A measure of the alienation of the nobles from the emperor is also illustrated from the disappearance of the personal element in their relationship. The Mughal emperors were markedly different from their contemporaries in Persia in their attitude towards the nobility. Whatever the stand of the nobles may have been during the wars of succession, once a Mughal prince occupied the throne, he treated them with equal magnanimity. This convention was laid aside first in Jahandar Shah’s reign. The reign of Farrukh Siyar began with an indiscriminate elimination of even those nobles whom his friends and supporters (p.45) among the nobility suspected to be a potential threat to their position and ambition. In Jahandar Shah’s reign, Rustam Dil Khan and Mukhlis Khan, for instance, were killed at the instance of Zulfiqar Khan while a number of the other nobles were ordered to be put in prison. On Farrukh Siyar’s accession, Zulfiqar Khan, Hidayatullah Khan and Saiyidi Qasim were killed and many others were imprisoned. Contemporary chroniclers ascribe a number of executions and the severities to the influence of Mir Jumla.62 Farrukh Siyar’s alleged letters to Ajit Singh in 1713 and to Daud Khan Panni in 1715 showed how the emperor was also implicated in the conspiracies against the nobles.63 ‘The fear of [being strangled by] the thong was so much ingrained in the heart of the nobles that whenever they intended [to go to] the court, they bade adieu to their wives and children’.64 In consequence, the traditional ties of mutual confidence and affection between the emperor and the nobles were further broken. The emperor was almost totally isolated. It was only after a violent shock in the unprecedented deposition and brutal killing of Farrukh Siyar that they were again bound to the person of the emperor. This was, however, on their own terms and permitted only the symbolic existence of the imperial framework.