Medieval Administration and Revenue System of Rajasthan

At a glance

1. 1Protection Officer 2022: the top officer after the ruler in medieval Marwar was the Pradhan, not the Diwan.
2. 2Protection Officer 2022: Lata or Latai was land revenue paid in crop, not in cash.
3. 3Protection Officer 2024: uddrang was a tax on produce.
4. 4Protection Officer 2024: the panchkula was a body of local administration, not of the central government, army or religion.

Parts of the system

Before the Mughals: early taxes and local bodies

• Udranga: a land tax taken as a share of the produce. G.N. Sharma takes it as probably the tax of cultivators who held their land by hereditary right; Altekar as the land tax itself, the same as bhaga.
• Laga: an impost, as distinct from bhaga, the regular land tax; the word is still in common use in Rajasthan.
• Mandapika: the office at a town, market or large village that collected market taxes and customs duties.
• Panchkula: a local body of five or more respected men that ran a village or a group of villages. It settled local disputes, dealt with land matters and registered land grants, and the state posted an official to work with it.

The ruler and his officers

The ruler appointed his ministers himself. The system was much the same across the states, though the names and order of the offices varied. Contact with the Mughals brought some new posts and Mughal names for old ones. In Marwar, Govind Das Bhati, adviser to Mota Raja Udai Singh and pradhan of Sur Singh, re-shaped the administration on the Mughal pattern.

Province, pargana and village

Land: who held it

Land was grouped as khalsa, havala, jagir, bhom and sasan, and the revenue from each differed from state to state.

• Bapoti: land held by right by the cultivator who tilled it. In Mewar's khalsa villages the holder of such land could sell, mortgage and inherit it as long as he paid the revenue.

Revenue methods

Revenue was taken in kind or in cash, and the method varied from state to state and even from jagir to jagir.

Levies on top of land revenue

Besides land revenue, the states and their jagirdars took many cesses.

• Lag-bag: the cesses and begar (unpaid forced labour) that jagirdars took from their people.
• Ghasmari: a tax for the use of grazing land.
• Sawar-kharch: a tax for the upkeep of cavalry.
• Chulha-barad: a tax on houses.
• Chanwari: a tax a jagirdar took on a daughter's marriage; the Bijolia chanwari is on the peasant movements page.

Jagir, jagirdar and the Mughal mansab

• Jagirdari: the ruler gave land to younger brothers and other kinsmen to live on, a system based on blood ties and clan feeling; later jagirs were also given for merit. Its beginning is uncertain, and it took clear form under Rajput rule.
• The jagirdar had the right to the revenue of his land and had to protect it, run its administration and give military service when called. He held administrative and judicial powers in it, including the power to impose taxes. A jagir could be forfeited or reduced if he overstepped.
• Jagir patta: the deed that recorded the jagir the ruler granted. In Marwar, from Mota Raja Udai Singh's time, a jagir was treated as lapsed on the jagirdar's death, and his successor had the patta renewed on paying a fee, the peshkash, later called hukumnama.
• Rekh: the annual payment a jagirdar made to the state, worked out from the revenue of the jagir as the state assessed it.
• Under the Mughals: after their treaties with the Mughals the rulers became mansabdars and depended less on their jagirdars, treating them as subordinates rather than brothers. A fixed tax was added to the service of war and peace, and the jagir patta recorded it.
• Mansab and jagir: a mansab was a Mughal rank, and most mansabdars were paid by a jagir whose estimated revenue matched their pay. A Rajput ruler's ancestral land was his watan jagir, counted against his pay; a jagir given for the balance was a tankhwa jagir.

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