156Conflict between the Madad-i Ma‘ash Holders and the Zamindars

The madad-i ma‘ash holders could not effect any radical change in the legal status of their holdings, even though they controlled some offices on account of heredity. The nature of their land-holdings was still characterized as ariyat. However, their aspirations and privileges which often encroached on the rights of the ancient landholders exacerbated the conflict between them and the zamindars.

It becomes meaningful, in this context, to see that towards the end of the seventeenth century, in a number of cases the zamindars’ hostility began to be directed against the local Muslim gentry, the Saiyids and the religious divines (shurafa-o-sadat and mashaikh). A military expedition against Lal Sahi, the zamindar of Manohargarh in Baiswara had to be undertaken on the petition of jagirdar’s agent and the shurafa. The shurafa of village Ganjora or Ganjpura in pargana Saipur suffered seriously at the hands of the Chauhan zamindars. A list of the excesses committed by Rajsahi and Jethi, the zamindars of pargana Harha, includes serious offences against the Saiyids (capture and harassment). According to one report, the zamindar of Ghaffarnagar devastated the Saiyid settlements in the territory of his zamindari.88 According to yet another report, seven zamindars of Kothi and some other villages in pargana Sidhaur in sarkar Lucknow lost their zamindaris to one Mirza Muhammad Tahir, since they had begun to make illegal exactions from the Saiyids. Their (p.121) zamindaris were restored to them only after they had given a bond not to impose levies any longer upon the holdings of the Saiyids.89

The letters of Rad Andaz Khan, the faujdar of Baiswara, in the last years of Aurangzeb’s reign strongly suggest that the zamindars’ clashes with revenue grantees were a major source of disturbance in the villages. Again in June 1713, over five hundred Rajputs of a neighbouring village invaded the village of Ahrora, a madad-i ma‘ash of the Saiyids in pargana Husampur. A number of the

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157The Zamindars, the Madad-i Ma‘ash Holders and Mughal Administration in Awadh

c. 1707–1722

resident Saiyids of the village were killed, and their houses, libraries and other properties were set on fire. Five of their women were burnt alive, and the surviving women and children of their community were driven out barefooted. Simultaneously, the villages of Badholia, Kamalpur, Kanhatta and Malbari which were in the milkiyat and zamindari of the Saiyids were completely devastated, and the graveyards of their ancestors, the mosques and the madrasas were levelled to ground.90

In the regions where the rebellious zamindars held sway, the madad-i ma‘ash holders could hardly afford to stay. As a result of the domination of the Gaur zamindars, the Muslim gentry including the Saiyids of Khairabad, along with the students of their madrasas had to migrate from their home town to the territory of the Bangash Afghans across the Ganga in Farrukhabad. For about ten to twelve years they wandered homeless. At the beginning of Safdar Jang’s governorship, when an arrangement with the Gaurs of Khairabad was finally made, Muhammad Khan Bangash recommended to the governor the restoration, to them, of their houses and other properties in Khairabad.91

These incidents cut across religious affiliations. The zamindars of pargana Sidhaur who were punished for their offences against the Saiyids included three Afghans, namely, Nasir Khan, Rustam Khan and Haisham Khan.92 Further, there is evidence for a Muslim zamindar’s (p.122) clash with Muslim grantees. On April 9 1691, Mulla Qutb-ud-Din of Sahali, father of the better-known Mulla Nizam-ud-Din, founder of the famous madrasa at Firangi Mahal in Lucknow, was killed by the Muslim zamindars of the parganas of Sahali and Fatehpur in sarkar Lucknow.93 Again, the case of the madad-i ma‘ash grantees of Jais in sarkar Manikpur of suba Allahabad which also offers an exception to the general trend of their conflict with the zamindars, shows that these clashes were concerned little with religious beliefs and practices. The madad-i ma‘ash holders of Jais are said to have fought with Balbhadra Singh, the zamindar of Tiloi against the zamindar of Pratapgarh in pargana Arol of sarkar Manikpur. It is also said that Mohan Singh, a recalcitrant zamindar of the early-eighteenth century used to say with pride that his zamindari had the backing of the blessings of Shah Ata Ashraf, a descendant of the celebrated saint of Sultanate period, Shah Jahangir Ashraf. Ata Ashraf is also reported to have been the first to apply the tika on Mohan’s forehead.94 There are also instances of support offered by Rajput zamindars to Muslim madad-i ma‘ash holders in the latter’s struggles against the bigger grantee-cum-zamindar. The qazi of the pargana of Husampur, for instance, who seems to have been sacked due to his allegedly improper behaviour with Mir Saiyid Ahmad and Mir Saiyid Muhammad Arif, the revenue grantees-cum-zamindars of sarkar (p.123) Bahraich, is recorded to have made encroachments upon the village of Katora in the zamindari of the Mirs. For this he was instigated and supported by Ram Singh, the zamindar of Dasmandi who

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