REVENUE ADMINISTRATION
(Alauddin Khalji's reforms)

What was the revenue system during the 13th century? We do not get a clear picture; even the exact magnitude of the revenue-demand under the llbarite rule is-uncertain. Perhaps the old agrarian system continued to function with the difference that the composition of the supreme appropriators of the surplus produce at the centre had changed, that is the Turkish ruling group had replaced qe previous receivers of the land revenue. However. some reconstruction can be made by projecting back the account of Barani about the situation prevailing in this respect under Sultan Alauddin Khalji's early rule. Briefly, we are told of three groups of rural isocracy ,khot. muqaddam, and chaudhuri-who collected land revenue (kharaj) from the peasants on behalf of the state. and deposited the same with the officials of the diwan-i wizarat. For this service,.they were allowed perquisites (haqq-i khoti) as remuneration by the state which consisted of being exempted from the revenue of a portion of land held by them. Also. they took something from the peasants as their share of the produce which Barani calls qismat-i khoti. Besides land revenue (kharaj), every cultivator had to pay house tax (ghari) and cattle or grazing tax (charai).Incidentally the choudhry might not hane been directly involved in the collection of the revenue because, according to Ibn Battuta, he was the head of "hundred villages" (pargana): this inference is reinforced. by the fact that Barani always employs terms 'like haqq-i khoti or uqadammmi, but never haqq-i chaudhrai. W.H. Moreland, however, uses the term intermediaries for all the three groups; and we shall be doing the Same henceforth.

What motivated Alauddin Khalji in introducing stern measures is explained by Barani in detail. In short, the intermediaries had become intractable-always in readiness for rebellion. The Sultan levelled the following main charges against them:

a) They did not pay the revenue themselves on that portion of their land which was not exempted from assessment; rather they shifted their 'burden' onto the peasantry, that is, they realised additional levy from the peasants besides the fixed demand of the state in order to pay their own dues.
b) They did not pay the grazing tax.
c) The ill-gotten 'exass of wealth' had made them so arrogant that they flouted the orders of the revenue officials by not going to the revenue office even when summoned to render accounts.
As a result, the Sultan had to strike at their resources for economic and political reasons. The measures taken by him were as follows:
i) The magnitude of the state demand was set at half the produce of the land. The land was to be measured (masahat), and the land revenue fixed on the yield of each unit of the area. The term used was wafa-i biswa (rvafa = yield, biswa = 1/20th of a bigha). Most probably, it was levied separately on the holding of each individual cultivator.
ii) The intermediaries and the peasants alike were to pay the same standard of the demand (50%) without any distinction, be they intermediaries or 'ordinary peasant' (balahar).
iii) The perquisites of intermediaries were disallowed.
iv) The grazing and the house tax were to be taken from the intermediaries’ also.
It can be seen, then, that one objective was to free the peasants from the illegal exactions of the intermediaries. That is exactly what Barani means when he says that the sultan's policy was that the 'burden' (bar) of the 'strong' (aqwia) should not fall on the 'weak' (zuafa). We know that this 50% demand was the highest in the agrarian history of India. On the other hand, though the peasanis were protected now from the economic oppression of the intermediaries, the former had to pay a higher rate of taxation than they did earlier. Since the rate was uniform in a sense it was a regressive taxation. Thus the state gained at the cost of the intermediaries, leaving the peasants in the lurch.

It is true that the intermediaries were eliminated from-direct revenue collection. but they were still expected to maintain law and order in the countryside and help the revenue officials without any remuneration or perquisites. The state's direct relations with the peasants resulted in an expansion of revenue officials called variously 'ummal, mutasarrij, mushrif, muhassilan, navisindagan, etc. Soon, large scale corruption and embezzlements surfaced among the revenue officials for which they were ruthlessly punished by the naib wazir, Sharaf Qaini, about 8 to 10 thousand officials were imprisoned. The process for discovering the deceit was simple: the bahi or the ledger of the village patwari was meticulously scrutinized by the auditors. The 'bahi contained every payment, legal or illegal, made to the revenue collectors, and these payments were then compared with the receipts. Corruption occurred in spite of the fact that Alauddin Khalji had raised the salary of the revenue collectors.

Barani gives an indication of the extent of the area where these measures were operative: it was quite a large area, covering the heart of his empire. But Bihar, Awadh, Gujarat and parts of Malwa and Rajputana are not mentioned. At any rate, it must be borne in mind that these measures were largely meant for the khalisa ("crown" or "reserve" land).

As for the mode of payment is concerned. Moreland thinks that ordinarily payment in cash was the gendral practice during the 13th century, and it had become quite widely prevalent by the 14th century. However, Alauddin himself preferred collection in grain. He decreed that the whole revenue due from the khalisa in the Doab should be realized in kind, and only half the revenue due from Delhi (and its suburbs) in cash. The reason for his preference for collection in grain was not only to have a
large reserve of grain stored at Delhi and other areas for contingencies (such as scarcity owing to drought or other factors), but also to utilize the storage as a lever for his price-fixation measures in the grain market.

Two important changes were introduced by Ghiyasuddin Tughluq:
a) The intermediaries got back their haqq-i khoti (but not qismat-i khoti). They were also exempted from the house and cattle tax.
b) the procedure of measurement (masahat) was to continue along with observation or "actual yield" (bar hukm.hasi1).


As for Muhammad Tughluq, there is a confusion that he enhanced the rate of land tax beyond 50%. It is also thought that after the death of Alauddin Khalji, the rate was reduced by the Khalji rulers which was later raised to the previous level by Muhammad Tughluq. Both these views are incorrect: the rate fixed by Alauddin was never sought to be tampered. What Muhammad Tughluq actually did was to impose
new cesses (abwab) as well as revive the older ones (for example, charai and ghari on the intermediaries). Apart from this, it seems that measurement alone was retained for assessment purpose. The matter aggravated when assessment in kind (grain) was carried out not on the principle of the "actual yield" but on the officially decreed yields (wafa-ifarmani) for each unit of the measured area. Again, for payment in cash, commutation was not done according to the market prices but on the basis of the rates as "ordered by the Sultan" (nirkh-i farmani). And, then, as Barani says, all these taxes and cesses were to be realized rigorouslv. The area covered under these regulations was the khalisa land in the Doab. The result was obvious: an unprecedented rebellion of the peasants, led by the intermediaries, occurred which led to bloody confrontations. Feroz Shah claims to have abolished twenty three cesses including charai and ghari.

Another development that took place, especially under the Tughluqs, was the practice of revenue-farming, that is, the task of collecting the revenue of some areas was sometimes given to contractors who perhaps gave a lump sum in advance for the right of revenue collection for a certain period. Under Feroz Shah, 'water tax' (haqq- i sharb) was taken from those cultivators who irrigated their land from the water supplied from the canals constructed by the state. It must be pointed out that in case of bad harvest, the state tried to adjust the land tax, and also gave agricultural loans to the peasants called sondhar in Muhammad Tughluq's reign.

What was the total estimated revenue during any period of the Delhi Sultanate? No such attempt seems to have been made before the reign of Sultan Feroz Shah Tughluq. 'Afif tells us that at the order of the sultan, Khwaja Hisamuddin Junaid determined the jama (estimated revenue) of the kingdom according to the "rule of inspection" (bar hukm mushahada). It took six years to do this job, and the figure arrived at was six kror and seventy-five lakhs tanka.


IQTA SYSTEM AND PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION

The territorial expansion and cdnsolidation of the Sultanate was a process which continued throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. It involved varying kinds of control in terms of territories: those brought under direct administration and those which paid tribute and remained semi autonomous. The expansion of the Sultanate and the difficulties involved in administering areas that were far away from the
centre shaped different kinds of control.

Iqta System

The initial Turkish conquests in the early 13th century displaced many local chiefs . In order to consolidate,the Turkish rulers made revenue assignments (iqta), in lieu of cash,'to their nobles (umma). The assignees (known as muqti and wali) collected revenue from these areas, defrayed their own expenses, paid the troops maintained by them and sent the surplus to the centre. lqta is an Arabic word and the institution had been in force in the early lslamic world as a form of reward for services to the State. It was used in the Caliphate administration as a way of financing operations and paying civil and military officers. The grant of iqta did not imply a right to the land nor was it hereditary though the holders of iqta tended to acquire hereditary rights in Feroz Tughluq's reign. These revenue assignments were transferable, the iqta-holder being transferred from one region to another every three or four years. Therefore, iqta should not be equated with the fief of medieval feudal Europe, which were hereditary and non-transferable. The assignments could be large (a whole province or a part). Assignments even to nobles carried administrative, military and revenue collecting responsibilities. Thus, provincial administration was headed by the muqti or wali. He had to maintain an army composed of horsemen and foot soldiers.

provincial and Local Administration

As the State became more settled and efforts were made for greater centralization, provincial administration also underwent a change. A separation between fiscal and fiilitary responsibilities started evolving. During the reign of Muhammad Tughluq, fiscal responsibilities were partially withdrawn from the muqtis or walis and placed under central officers. According to Ibn Battuta, the iqta of Amroha was placed under two officers, one called amir (possibly in charge of the army and administration) and the other as wali-ul kharaj (in charge of revenue collection). Muhammad Tughluq also ordered that the salary of the soldiers maintained by iqta- holders be paid by the diwan-i wizarar to prevent fraud by the officers.

Greater control also came to be exercised over fiscal matters. The diwan’soffice, at the centre, received and examined detailed statements regarding income and expenditure in the provinces. It supervised the work of the revenue officials in the provinces. The provinces had a sahib-i diwan, whose office kept books of account and submitted information to the centre. It was assisted by officials like mutrsasarrifs. The entire lower revenue staff was called karkun.

By the end of the thirteenth century. contemporary sources refer to an administrative division, known as shiqq. We do not have adequate information about the exact nature of shiqq. However. by the time of Sher Shah (1 540-1 545 A.D.) shiqq had emerged as a well-defined administrative unit, known as sarkar. Administrative officials, mentioned with respect to shiqq, were shiqqdar and faujdar. The demarcation of their duties is not very clear.
According to Ibn Battuta, chaudhuri was the head of hundred villages. This was the nucleus of the administrative unit later called pargana. The village was the smallest unit of administration. The functioning and administration of the village remained basically the same as it had existed in pre-Turkish times. The main village functionaries were khor, muqaddam (headman) and patwari . The judicial administration of the sub-division was patterned on that of the centre. Courts of the qazi and sadr functioned in the provinces. The kotwal mmaintained law and order. At the village level, the panchayat heared civil cases.

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