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 I. Antecedents

Collection:: Economics Books

ANTECEDENTS rq Shams Afif, and pargana becomes thenceforward the usual Persian phrase, though gasba retains its place as an occasional synonym. In Hindu times there were headmen and accountants for parganas and for villages. These positions continued to exist under the Moslems, but while two of the old designa- tions were adopted, for the others substitutes wereintroduced. The pargana-headman remained the chaudhri, the village- accountant remained the patwdri: the village-h~adman, on the other hand, was re-named mugaddam. and the pargana- accountant became gdnitngo. This diversity of practice is, I think, significant of the conditions in which the fusion of the Hindu and Moslem systems took place. So far as we can see, there was no attempt at systematic re-naming: if an Arabic or Persian equivalent lay ready to hand, it was employed, while a convenient Hindi designation might survive: a Persian name first adopted might give way to Hindi in course of time, and one Persian name might be displaced by another. The facts point to a fusion worked out by practical men, and not by theoretical jurists, men whose immediate object was to get in the revenue, and who, we may suspect, were ready to follow the line of least resistance, rather than seek for guidance from the Qazis and other professed expounders of Islamic law. This view is borne out by what we know of the attitude of the early Moslem Kings of Delhi. I have not found precise information on this point for the first half century, but regarding Balban, who was first deputy, and then actual, King for a total period of nearly forty years, we know? that in matters of administration he did what he thought was best, whether it was technically lawful or not. Alauddin Khalil explicitly claimed the same freedom, and exercised } Chaudhri and patwdri appear in Barni, 288. The specialisation ot the word mugaddam was apparently gradual: in some passages. in Barni it seems to point definitely to village-headmen, but in others it retains its gencral sense of ‘prominent men’: it had become definitely specialised in the sixteenth century. The first reference I have found to the ganiingo isin T. Sher Shahi (Elliot, iv. 414), but he appears there as an old-established institution. t For BRalban’s attitude, see Barni, 47; for Alduddin, td. 290if; for Muhammad Tughlaq, id. 401, 492. For Firdz, see Afi, 99, 129, and bassim

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