88Imperial Decline and the Province The decay in imperial administration was exacerbated by the adverse circumstances which followed the droughts in the 1720s and also by the increase in number and intensity of the zamindar risings. According to the author of the Tarikh-i Muzaffari, 1134/1721–2 was a year of good harvest and the prices of foodgrains which had been soaring spirally for the last few years came down.67 This statement is to be accepted with certain reservations. The author of the Tarikh-i Muzaffari, not unlike many other chroniclers of the period, has obvious prejudices against the Saiyid Brothers and describes the conditions that followed the eclipse of their power and which brought relief to a section of the nobility as a general relief for all. On the contrary, the plight of the people and disruption all over the country were given as major reasons for the proclamation abolishing the jizya in 1722.68 Towards the middle of the third decade, the food shortage in and around Delhi seems to have become very acute.69 Though this unusual situation did not continue, from a general statement of the Mirat-ul- Haqaiq it can be inferred that the prices of foodgrains in quite a large part of northern India in the late 1720s and the 1730s continued to rise.70 Further, the Maratha raids in the 1730s must have caused considerable dislocation of agrarian production.

(p.49) Moreover, it is not only that we have new categories in the list of zamindars who spearheaded rural disturbances, according to our sources, the chief targets of these disturbances were now the Mughal revenue collectors (amils). The Gujars of chakla Etawah, for instance, are for the first time mentioned as rebels in 1722.71 The ri‘aya of the jagirs of the Saiyids of Barha who had hitherto been cowed down so successfully, dispossessed the amils and misappropriated the revenue of the kharif crop.72

Irregularities in the offices and the institutions which had direct connections with provincial and local government bore more disastrous consequences for imperial unity than did even the decay in the office of the wazir. The gap between the provincial and local officials and the centre must have increased enormously when ‘the emperor’s favourites’ occupied offices crucial for provincial government. As darogha of dak, (p.50) Koki Jio’s brother, Ali Ahmad Khan had control over the channels of information from the provinces. On the other hand Zafar Khan, another favourite of the emperor, was vakil of many nobles posted in the provinces while Hafiz Khidmatgar Khan, a personal attendant of the emperor, influenced the fortunes of the provincial governors.

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89Breakdown of Imperial Organization

Added to it was the fact that Zafar Khan also held the charge for the maintenance of the army on the ever vulnerable north-western borders.

These factors together with the steadily increasing vulnerability of the centre in the face of the zamindari unrest combined to set in motion a new type of provincial government. The court needed money from the governors to maintain both its functional structure and the necessary pomp arid majesty. As militarily it was not in a position to enforce its regulations in the empire, different provinces in proportion to their internal conditions, geographical distance from Delhi and ambition and the capacity of their governors gave a new shape to their links with the court. The Mughal court’s chief concern at this stage was to ensure that the flow of the necessary revenue from the provinces and the maintenance of at least the semblance of imperial unity were not disrupted. Not surprisingly then, one or two governors who obtained governorships on the payment of a heavy sum as peshkash (present) to the court, gave these on ijara to someone else.73