The agrarian system of Moslem India

Bibliographic data

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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INTRODUCTION XV Akbar, the word Diwan had come to denote a person, not an institution. In public affairs the Diwan was now the Revenue Minister; and, since the Vazir dealt with revenue- business, for a time the two words, Vazir and Diwan, became in practice almost synonymous. In private business, Diwan denoted, doubtless by analogy, a man who managed a high officer’s financial affairs, and is conveniently rendered as ‘‘steward.” The Revenue Ministry was now called Diwanli, a term which does not appear in the earlier literature: and at this period the word was not applied to any other Ministry than that which dealt with the business of the revenue. As administrative organisation progressed, we find two further developments. Inside the Ministry, each depart- mental head came to be called Diwan. Outside it, a Diwan, or Revenue Officer, was appointed in each province; and when these provincial Diwans had been brought under the direct authority of the Minister at Court, a new implication was gradually imported. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, diwani, or the revenue administration as 2 whole, was contrasted with nizamat, or faujdari, terms which denoted the general administration, concerned primarily with the preservation of the peace. The appointment of the East India Company as Diwan of the province of Bengal led to a further change: the new Diwan found it desirable to establish its own court of justice, which was duly named Diwani Adalat, or ‘‘ the Diwani Court”; and, as the result of subsequent developments, at the present day diwani has almost entirely lost its older meaning of revenue-administration, and in current use signifies the civil courts of law. Diwan, as a synonym for Vazir, has survived in some Indian States, where the Chief Minister is so designated; elsewhere it is an honorific title, conferred by the Government, or adopted by prominent men of some communities, as the case may be. The word has thus travelled a long way from the time when a minister could be described as “‘sitting in the diwin.” It does not appear to me to be necessary to. justify at length the method of study which I have described: its justification is found in the facts, firstly, that there is no

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