History of India Page 1 of 12

HISTORY

Subject : History
(For under graduate student.)

Paper No. : Paper - III

History of India

Unit : Unit – 2
Polity

Topic No. & Title : Topic - 1

Evolution of Administrative
System

Lecture No. & Title : Lecture – 2

Mansabdari : 2

Introduction

The Mansabdari was a unique system devised by the

Mughals in India. Mansabdari, introduced by Akbar was a
single service, combining both civil and military
responsibilities. Their salary could be paid in cash but
generally it was paid by the grant of a jagir, which
implied the right to collect all the payments due to the
state.
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Crisis

A Mansabdar was supposed to get 12 months’ pay but as

the actual collection of revenue fell below the estimated
target, the mansabdar was unable to get his full pay. This
in turn made it difficult for him to pay for the full
contingent of horses allocated to him. Shah Jahan
attempted to solve this problem by introducing reforms
of do-aspa-o-sih-aspa.

Shah Jahan’s reform

Shah Jahan decided that mansabdars would be paid

salary on a monthly basis, whereby some would get 3
months' salary or 4 months’ salary or even salary for 8
months. They would thus be required to keep a smaller
contingent and likewise have less military power.

Shah Jahan even drew up a table of such monthly

payments, but there was no arithmetical proportion
oraccuracy in the way the monthly payments were
calculated which reveals that it was fixed in an arbitrary
manner. According to the table a person entitled to 8
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months salary would get 40 rupees a month, & a person

entitled to 1 months salary would get 2 rupees less i.e.
Rs.38. But a person entitled to 9 months’ salary would be
getting a far lesser amount.

The salary of the ‘Sawar’ was also reduced per unit

requiring him to keep smaller cavalry. Aurangzeb
continued this method and further reduced the salary of
the ‘Sawar’ contingent. But often there was no
connection between the 'zat' or rank of a mansabdar and
the 'sawar' he was entitled to -- both were arbitrarily
fixed.

Khorak-i-daoah & Do-dami

A mansabdar had to pay a certain amount of money to

the Mughal emperor towards the maintenance of the
Imperial stables and the food of the animals there.
Generally it was fixed at one-fourth of the salary but it
varied from ruler to ruler. This payment was known as
the Khorak-i-daoah.

Aurangazeb abolished the khorake-i-daoah and

introduced the Do-dami, according to which two dams (a
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rupee was considered equal to about 40 dams) per

rupee were deducted for the elephants of the Mughal
Emperor. Morever in case a Mansabdar failed to maintain
the full contingent of horses, he was liable to pay a fine
of two mehers per horse. Every mansabdars had to get a
certificate from the branding office (Dagh office) twice a
year, as a guarantee that he was indeed maintaining the
requisite contingent of horses. A mansabdar who failed to
procure the certificate was given a six month extension,
but if he failed again this fine was imposed. Thus there
were certain restrictions so far as the salary collection of
the Mansabdars were concerned.

The Law of Escheat and The System of Mutaliba

The Law of Escheat was an old Arab Custom which stated

that if a person did not have a male heir his property
would go to the State after his death. This law continued
till the late 9th century when the Caliph Mustasim
abolished it. This law existed in some form under the
Delhi Sultanate, but under the Mughals it was used to
confiscate the property of the Mansabdar by the state
upon his death.
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The Mughals proceeded a step further and introduced the

system of Mutaliba, which stipulated that it was owing to
the generosity of the Mughal Emperor that a Mansabdar
had received his rank, which in turn had provided him
with the opportunity of becoming affluent and of
amassing a huge property. This in turn made the
Mansabdar indebted to the Mughal Empire, as such his
property must be reverted to the Mughal Empire, as
repayment for the largesse he has enjoyed till then.
There are some cases on record where the entire fortune
of the Mansabdar was confiscated while there are some
instances where a portion of the fortune was returned to
the inheritors depending on the sole discretion of the
Mughal emperor. No fixed principle applied to how much
the portion would be. The Mughal Emperor even ignored
the suggestions of the Qazis on this matter. It is
interesting to note that Aurangzeb had even confiscated
the property of the British East India Company when the
President of Surat died, leading to war. Aurangzeb issued
2 farmans in connection with the implementation of the
system of Mutaliba. In 1666 he issued a farman stating
that if there was no legal male heir, a certain amount of
property would be returned. Shah Jahan had earlier
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declared that 50% of the property would be returned. In

1691 Aurangzeb went on to issue a 2nd farman stating
that if the son of a Mansabdar was working as an officer
of the state, his property should not be confiscated, as
long as he lived. On the whole the system was wholly at
the discretion of the Mughal Emperor himself.

Recruitment and Promotion of The Mansabdars

Procedures for recruitment and promotion are well laid

down. The Mughal Emperor directly recruited the
Mansabdars and fixed the salary. Mansabdars were also
appointed on the basis of recommendations of governors,
princes and even military commanders. After the
emperor approved the appointment, it went to the
Diwan, then the Mir Bakshi (person in charge of military
organization) and finally to the Wazir who issued the
order of appointment with his seal underneath that of the
Mughal Emperor. The procedure for promotion was
similar to this.

The ‘zat’ rank indicated the personal pay and status of a

noble while the sawar rank applied to the actual number
of horsemen he was expected to maintain. The zat rank
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also indicated the number of horses and elephants and

beasts of burden and carts a mansabdar was expected to
maintain. Since the nobles were frequently on the march
or under transfer the maintenance of such a transport
corps was essential. Generally the rule was that one had
to move up to higher ranks from lower ones. But there
were exceptions as in the case of Mir Jumla’s son,
Mohammad Amin who started at a higher level as a
Mansabdar.

Racial Composition of the Mansabdars

There exists a lively debate regarding the racial

composition of the Mansabdars, while Bernier the French
traveller of the mid 17th century stated that the Mughal
Emperor favoured Persian and white faced people, the
early English writers of the 19th Century opined that
there was no clear policy of the Mughal Emperor on the
matter. Akbar & Jahangir appear to have favoured the
Hindu Rajputs and Persians. Religious bias does not seem
to have swayed the decisions of the Mughal Emperor so
far as recruitment of Mansabdars was concerned, aptly
illustrated by the appointment Shiite Persians by
theSunni Mughal Emperor. This applies to Aurangzeb in
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the first 20 years of his reign (1658-78) as well. The

appointment of Raja Jaswant Singh as the
governor/subehdar of a province by Aurangazeb in itself
refutes the opinions of 19thC. English historians and
Indian historians like Jadunath Sarkar who had dubbed
him as being anti-Hindu,and shows on the contrary that
he was quite liberal in his outlook towards Hindus.

It was only after 1678 that Aurangzeb introduced the

Jizya (toll tax) and pilgrimage tax on the Hindus and
started restricting the appointment of Rajputs to high
posts.

Hindu Mansabdars under the Mughals

Statistics of the recruitment of Hindu Mansabdars
under the Mughals

During the reign of Akbar, considered to be the epitome

of religions toleration and one who integrated the Rajputs
into the Mughal Mansabdari system,the Hindu
Mansabdars of over 1000 zats was roughly 21.5% of the
total Mansabdars in 1595.Between 1628 (just after
Jahangir’s death) and 1658 (before the reign of
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Aurangzeb) a slight increase in the recruitment of Hindu

Mansabdars may be noted with the figure being 22.4%.

Interestingly during the first 20 years of Aurangzeb’s

reign (1658-78) when he was considered to be tolerant
the percentage dropped to 21.0%. Surprisingly during
that phase of his rule when Aurangzeb was considered by
many to be the most orthodox and anti-Rajput, the
percentage of Hindu Mansabdars rose to 31.6%.

In order to comprehend the situation one must take care

to note, that although Akbar certainly appointed Rajputs
as Mansabdars, but 68% of the Hindu Rajputs he
selected, were from one family alone – that of the
Kachoa family of Amber. Akbar had married the daughter
of Raja Bihari Mal of Amber and so this family secured
most of the Mansabs. Thus Akbar’s move was indeed a
limited one. Jahangir expanded this policy to some extent
to include the Sisiodias, Bundelas etc.and Shah Jahan
expanded it further.

There were two factors that guided Aurangazeb so far as

recruitment of Mansabdars was concerned, of which none
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was religious in nature. Firstly, a war began between the

Rajputs and Aurangzeb following a disagreement
regarding the latters’ choice of Jaswant Singh’s heir.
Secondly, as Aurangzeb spent his last 20 years in the
Deccan( which he had invaded), he started appointing a
large number of Hindu Marathas as Mansabdars, instead
of Rajputs, as it was a military necessity and not out of
any religious perceptions. In a similar way we find that
the Sunni Afghans was getting more Mansabs under
Aurangzeb, while the Sunni Iraqis were losing ground in
this matter, which proves that there was always a
definite policy dictating the recruitment of Mansabdars,
and religious considerations played no role in this matter.

The wealth of Mansabdars

The Mughal Empire was quite rich, but this wealth was
not distributed equally among the Mansabdars. Studies
have shown that only 5.6% of the Mansabdars controlled
70% of the revenue of the empire. Moreover, only 0.9%
of the 5.6% Mansabdars controlled more than 37% of
this wealth, which reveals that wealth was concentrated
in the hands of a few Mansabdars only, who happened to
be princes and nobles . Thus it is incorrect to say that all
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the Mansabdars were living in luxury. They were

definitely not poor but neither were all of them rich.

The Crisis of the Mughal Mansabdari System

Modern research work by Satish Chandra, Nurul Hassan

and Athar Ali have pointed more towards the crisis in the
Jagirdari System. But it is noteworthy that there was a
crisis in the Mansabdari System as well, which
accelerated the crisis in the Mughal Empire. During the
later years of Aurangzeb no new mansabdar was
appointed and there was hardly any jagir left to be given
to them. One contemporary chronicler commented that
while it was difficult to get the position of a Mansabdar it
was impossible to get possession of a jagir, unless one
had an exceptionally strong army. This reveals that the
Mansabdari system was no longer tenable. But was this
due to its inherent problems, or due to external causes or
simply becauses it was a machine that had finally run its
course?

The Mughal Mansabdari system served its purpose in the

17th and early 18th Centuries, but it could not cope with
modern technology and crumbled before the onslaught of
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Nadir Shah. This revealed that it could no longer perform

its historical role which lay in its military power. This was
all the more significant as 70% of the entire revenue of
the Mughal nobility went towards maintenance of the
army contingents. The system failed as it was unable to
change itself to meet new challenges. Thus the
Mansabdari crisis constituted one of the aspects of the
crisis facing the Mughal Empire.