Abstract and Keywords
This chapter focuses on the inability of the Mughal empire to resolve and coordinate with local interests—the factors which had made the empire significant in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The clashes among the nobility were symptomatic of this rather than its cause. By now, for the zamindars the Mughal centre was of not much utility due to better ties within neighbouring regions. They defied the Mughals in frequent uprisings which hastened the decline of Mughal power. Another sign of the assertion of local elements was the defiance of imperial regulations by the madad-i ma‘ash holders, who had been the ideologues and traditional supporters of the Mughal state and had occupied some local offices; and the conflict between the zamindars and the madad-i ma‘ash holders. It considers the policy of strengthening the loyalist zamindars and the appointment of the new ones to replace the rebellious ones. It details how the zamindar uprisings, as well as the developments in the wake of the newly acquired position of the madad-i ma‘ash holders resulted in the dislocation of jagir administration in the province. In response the Mughal centre tried to strengthen the jagirdars and therefore the revenue administration against the local potentates. However, this resulted in new problems. In absence of a strong centre the jagirdars started defying the centre and formed alliances with the local potentates further eroding Mughal power.
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141The Zamindars, the Madad-i Ma‘ash Holders and Mughal Administration in Awadh
c. 1707–1722
Keywords: Mughal empire, nobility, imperial power, zamindars, madad-i ma‘ash holders, jagir
administration, jagirdar, local potentates
INTERNAL STRIFE AMONG THE NOBILITY accelerated the decay of Mughal power and was the first grave manifestation of the chain of events leading to the breakdown of the imperial structure. But the problem of the nobility was, in a very large measure, symptomatic of rather than causal in the process of the disintegration. As a major source of the empire’s strength in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries lay in its success against the local roots of power and, no less than this, in its ability to coordinate its interests with those of the local elements, its weakness in our period is to be seen in the perspective of its failure to resolve its conflicts with them.
By the time the Mughals established their power in India, the land and its wealth had come to be in full control of the large and small family and kin groups. These groups constituted the local political and administrative elites and were also agencies through which the countryside was integrated into the larger outer world. They all enjoyed claims over the surplus produced by the peasants in accordance with a structure of graduated proprietary rights over the land. The power of these groups had by and large been identified with (p.95) territories.1 In the Mughal sources they have been referred by the generic term of zamindars (the holders [of the rights over the produce] of the land). This term implied a range of highly variegated dominant rural classes and was inclusive of even the so-called rajas who had an ‘autonomous’ control over the territories under their jurisdiction.
The origins of the power of the zamindars were independent of the Mughal system. But the zamindars who were integrated into the empire evidently grew in strength and influence in the wake of the political and economic unification under the Mughals. They were an important constituent of the Mughal state power which in turn also depended, in a very large measure, upon their absorption into the Mughal system. As they aligned with the Mughals they increased their position both by acquiring additional assigned rights over their territories and outside and also by depressing the rights of those who failed to come to terms with the paramount Mughal power.2
However, the zamindars also competed with the empire even after they had been a part of it. They were ever ready to shift alignments provided there was no threat to their hereditary properties or assigned positions. The different elements of the ruling class likewise the zamindars in the region served the empire as long as they recognized that only under the hegemony of a political paramount and through political unification could they promote their interests. As the region developed and its economic ties with other regions appeared to be strong enough to be sustained, the regional elements began to struggle for greater exercise of power. Against this background is to be seen the internal strife among the nobility at the centre as also the governor’s endeavour for
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142The Zamindars, the Madad-i Ma‘ash Holders and Mughal Administration in Awadh
c. 1707–1722
additional authority. For the governor had to encounter and adjust to the demands of the region under his jurisdiction.