202 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA

arrangement would necessarily offer a prospect of remuneration
 for headmen or farmers, sufficient at least to
make it worth their while to enter into it. Inside the
village, this Demand would be realised by the headmen from
the individual peasants by a charge on the plough, or by
Sharing, or by Measurement, according to whatever custom
might have grown up in the locality; and it would be open
to the King or Chief at any time to dispense with the headmen
 or farmers, and enter into direct relations with the
péasants on the basis of the customary method. whatever
it might be.
In such an environment, the establishment of Moslem
rule would take one of two forms. If the Hindu King or
Chief submitted, and agreed to pay tribute, things would
go on as before, except that the Chief, no longer a King,
would probably try to recover the amount of the tribute
from his villages by increasing the Demand on them, a
process which would be possible in some conditions, if not
in all. If the King or Chief did not submit, and lost his
position by conquest, the conquerors would step into his
place, and would probably continue the existing relations
with the villages as the line of least resistance, until circumstances
 arose which called for a change.
The first recorded change is that which was made by
Alauddin Khalji; and the motives by which he was influenced,
 as they are indicated by the chronicler, are
consistent with the view that the position which I have
sketched hypothetically prevailed in fact during the
thirteenth century. The Chiefs and headmen, we are told,
were retaining a share of the income of the kingdom which
rendered them politically dangerous, while the burden of
the Demand was unequally distributed as between the strong
and the weak. Consequently Alauddin set Chiefs and headmen
 aside, and entered into direct relations with the
peasants of a large portion of the kingdom, selecting for
general adoption one of the various methods of detailed
assessment which prevailed at the time.
In the circumstances of the period, his action must be
regarded as the four de force of an exceptionally strong
administrator. and his svstem died with him. A verv few