154 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA
or technical meaning up to the middle of the seventeenth
century, when the Badshahnama was written. In the
Maasir-i Alamgiri, which was completed in 1710, there
are signs of specialisation, while Khwafi Khan, writing
some years later, used the word definitely in the special
sense which was current in the North at the opening of the
British period, that is to say as denoting a tract of country
held in possession, whatever the nature of the title! An
official or a Chief, an assignee, or even a foreign power,
could have a Dependency in this special sense, for possession
was coming to be the only thing that mattered. In the
next chapter we shall have to record the results which
ensued when British officers came to administer Northern
India, and tended, not unnaturally, to regard Dependencies
of all sorts as held in the same tenure; here it must suffice
to note that the term, in its special sense, came into promi-
nence in the period of disorganisation, when the value of
rights or claims depended mainlv on the power to enforce
them
Among the various holders of Dependencies, we have seen
already that assignees had lost the leading position they
occupied in the middle of the seventeenth century. Mean-
while other classes of Intermediaries had increased in im-
portance. The decay of the central administration neces-
sarily strengthened the Chiefs; and this term must now be
extended to Moslems, since men of this religion had in fact
established themselves in positions not to be distinguished
from those of Rajas or Rais. Strong Viceroys might become
de facto Kings, as happened in Oudh, in Rohilkhand, and in
Farrukhabad; and officers of lower rank might in the same
way establish themselves as practically independent within
a smaller area. Farmers also had similar opportunities,
which were increased by a prolongation in the terms for
which farms were given. and by the practice of accepting
! Khwiafi Khan in his first volume applies the word indifferently to the
area held by an assignee (i. 266, 324); by a Chief—Jodhpur (i. 288), and
Jhajhar Bandela (i. 516); and by a foreign power— the taluq of the
Portuguese’ (i. 469). Its use becomes more common in the second
volume, when he was writing of his own time: e.g. ‘zamindars in their
own taluqs’ (ii. 89); the taluqs of ussignees (114): ‘‘the talua of the
Faujdir of Mulher’ (277)
