The agrarian system of Moslem India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1804119261

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-188010

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Moreland, William Harrison http://d-nb.info/gnd/172263670

Title:: The agrarian system of Moslem India

Edition:: 2. ed. Reissue (d. Ausg. Cambridge) 1929; [Reprint]

Place of publication:: Delhi

Publisher:: Oriental Books, Munshiram Manoharlal

Year of publication:: 1968

Scope:: XVII, 296 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VC. The seventeenth century

Collection:: Economics Books

126 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA may have varied from time to time, this statement applies in general terms to the whole of the period under considera- tion. It may be worth while to summarise at this point a sketch of the financial history of the century which 1s given in the biographical dictionary! known as the Maasir-ul Umra: it is not a first-hand authority for this period, and the exact figures may be open to question; but the matter contained in the sketch is not likely to have been invented, and probably it represents the truth in substance, if not in every detail. According to this authority, under Akbar the rapidly increasing Imperial expenditure was more than covered by the growth of the Empire, and reserves in cash were accumulated. Jahangir neglected the administration, fraud became rife, and at last the annual income from the Reserved tracts fell to 50 lakhs of rupees, while the annual expenditure was 150 lakhs, and the accumulated treasure was drawn on for large sums. Shahjahan. on his accession, put the finances on a sound basis: he reserved tracts cal- culated to yield 150 lakhs as income, fixed the normal expenditure at 100 lakhs, and had thus a large recurring balance for emergencies. Expenditure rose far above this limit, but careful administration raised the reserved income to 300 lakhs (the figure given above) by 1647, and to nearly 400 lakhs by the end of the reign. Aurangzeb at first endeavoured to maintain the balance between income and expenditure, but his long wars in the Deccan were ruinous, and at his death only 10 or 12 krors of rupees were left in the treasury, a sum which was rapidly dissipated by his SUCCEeSSOrS. So far as Jahangir is concerned, this account is closely in accordance with what we know from the chronicles, and from the observations of foreign residents in India. For the latter part of his reign, he left the administration entirely in the hands of his wife and her brother, a position which would naturally result in extravagance and in- efficiency; and his detachment from financial questions is apparent in the silence of his Memoirs as to what was going I Maasirulumra, II. 813 ff. The bibliographical note in Elliot (viii. 1 87) shows that the authorship of the dictionary is composite, but no part of {t is earlier than the eighteenth century, and it was compiled in the Deccan not in Northern India.

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