109The Position of Subadar An account of the classical position of the Mughal subadar (governor) is provided by Abul Fazl in the chapter on sipahsalar (ain-i-sipahsalar) in the Ain. But it is understandable that in practice the powers of the governor did not accord exactly with the Ain, as indeed it was not possible to maintain the theoretical position through the vicissitudes of a vast period of over a hundred eventful years between the compilation of the Ain and the death of Aurangzeb. In the course of the seventeenth century, however, there evolved a consensus regarding the functions and powers of the governor. The governor’s authority under no circumstances was to extend beyond the geographical limits of his province, which he held normally for not more than four to five years. On the strength of his high mansab—4000 to 5000 in the case of a large province and 3000 if the province was small—the governor had direct access to the emperor, but in several provincial matters he was under close surveillance of some central authorities. The revenues, the administration of jagir and khalisa and the provincial offices for branding of horses and verification of horsemen (dagh-otashiha) were under the control of the diwan and the bakhshi of the province who in turn were accountable to the diwan-i a‘la (wazir) and the mir bakhshi at the centre. The diwan, in particular, acted as a check on the governor. Similarly, the faujdars, the waqai‘nigars (news writers) and the amils and the diwans in the sarkars were independent of the governor. (p.59) The governor was also not allowed to go on a big military expedition on his own discretion.1

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110The Changing Position of the Governor

The period of our study, however, saw definite changes in the position of the governor. The process of these changes are discernible in certain regions right from the beginning of the eighteenth century, even though their pattern was not uniform throughout the empire. The developments in Bengal and the Deccan, for instance, which are known to have set the pace of struggle for a new form of provincial administration had little similarity with each other. In the case of the former the diwan assumed the dominant position,2 while in the Deccan it was the subadar who accelerated the processes of a new pattern of relationship between Delhi and the provinces. In Awadh and the Punjab, which we propose to examine in some detail, it was the subadar who emerged eventually as a virtually independent provincial ruler. Besides this similarity, the nature of the relationship of these provinces with the imperial centre was influenced by the political developments at the court as well as by the necessity for the extension of the governor’s control over certain important provincial offices.