Local Administration in the Mughal Empire: Sarkar, Pargana, and the Village

The local administration of the Mughal empire was a layered system in which the subah or province, the sarkar or district, the pargana or sub-district, the qasbah or town, and the village were successive units of governance, each with its own officers and each linked to the central government by a chain of reports and orders. The system was developed under Akbar, codified in the Ain-i-Akbari, and maintained in substantially the same form until the breakdown of the empire in the eighteenth century. The present page treats the sarkar, the pargana, the qasbah, the village, the officers of each unit, the role of the village panchayat, and the role of the mahajan. The provincial framework is treated in the Mughal provinces page, and the bureaucratic apparatus is examined in the Mughal bureaucracy page.

The Sarkar: The District

The sarkar was the principal unit of local administration below the subah or province. The Ain-i-Akbari of Abu’l Fazl enumerates several hundred sarkars across the empire, and the sarkar was the basic unit for the assessment of the land revenue, the collection of the mansabdari returns, and the transmission of imperial orders. The number of sarkars in a subah varied from a dozen or so in the smaller provinces to several dozen in the larger, and the sarkar corresponded, in most regions, to a traditional cluster of parganas with a long history of association.

The principal officer of the sarkar was the faujdar, the military-administrative officer appointed by the emperor or the provincial governor. The faujdar was responsible for the maintenance of order, the suppression of banditry and rebellion, the pursuit of criminals, the enforcement of imperial orders, and the protection of the roads. The faujdar was generally a mansabdar of middle rank, between mansab 500 and mansab 2000, and held a jagir sufficient to maintain his contingent.

The faujdar was assisted by a number of subordinate officers. The qanungo of the sarkar was responsible for the maintenance of the land records, the registers of the parganas, the assessment of the revenue, and the verification of the cultivators’ obligations. The qazi of the sarkar was responsible for the administration of justice, treated in the Mughal justice system page. The kotwal of the principal town of the sarkar was responsible for the police of the town, the regulation of the bazaar, and the maintenance of public order.

The Pargana: The Sub-District

The pargana was the basic fiscal and revenue unit, smaller than the sarkar and larger than the village. The Ain-i-Akbari enumerates several thousand parganas across the empire, and the pargana was the unit on which the zabti assessment was made, the unit in which the qanungo’s register was kept, and the unit in which the amil or revenue collector operated. The pargana typically contained from fifty to a hundred villages.

The principal officer of the pargana was the amil, the revenue collector appointed by the diwan of the sarkar or the subah. The amil was responsible for the assessment of the revenue in each village, the collection of the demand, the transmission of the proceeds to the treasury, and the maintenance of the pargana’s records. The pargana was, in this sense, the working unit of the revenue administration, and the zabti reforms treated in the Akbar’s revenue reforms page were implemented at the pargana level.

The Qasbah: The Town

The qasbah, the principal town of a pargana or a sarkar, was the centre of the local administration, the market, the religious life, and the social activity of the surrounding area. The qasbah was generally a small or medium-sized town, and the qasbah contained the qazi’s court, the kotwal’s office, the sarai or inn, the jami’ masjid or congregational mosque, the bazaar or market, and the residences of the notables. The qasbah was the principal point of contact between the rural and the urban sectors.

The Village

The village was the basic unit of rural administration and the basic unit of rural life. The Mughal village was, in most regions, a substantial settlement of cultivators, artisans, and service castes, governed by a customary authority. The village was the unit on which the zabti assessment was made, and the village’s area, soil class, and revenue demand were recorded in the wajib-ul-arz.

The principal officer of the village was the muqaddam or village headman, the patel in the Maratha country, the lambardar in the Punjab, and the pradhan in the Deccan. The muqaddam was generally a hereditary office, and the muqaddam’s family was usually the principal landholding family of the village. The muqaddam was responsible for the collection of the revenue from the cultivators, the transmission of the demand to the amil of the pargana, the maintenance of the village records, the supervision of the village servants, and the representation of the village in the external affairs. The muqaddam’s position was, in theory and to a substantial degree in practice, hereditary, and the muqaddam’s authority was reinforced by custom, by the mansab rank in the case of the larger headmen, and by the support of the qanungo and the amil.

The muqaddam was assisted by the patwari or village accountant, the chowkidar or watchman, the puhan or village priest, the mulla or village mullah, and the mirasi or hereditary keeper of the village records. The combination of the hereditary officers and the customary services was the working basis of the village administration.

The Village Panchayat

The principal mechanism of internal governance in the village was the village panchayat, the council of the elders. The panchayat was not, in the formal sense, an organ of the imperial administration, but the panchayat was the principal mechanism of dispute resolution, the regulation of village life, and the enforcement of custom. The panchayat consisted of the muqaddam, the leading cultivators, the heads of the principal castes, the village puhan or priest, and the village mulla.

The panchayat’s authority extended to the resolution of disputes within the village, the settlement of inheritance questions, the regulation of the common land, the distribution of the irrigation water, the arrangement of marriages, the maintenance of the village temple or mosque, the organization of the village festivals, and the punishment of minor offences. The imperial government generally deferred to the panchayat in matters of local custom, and the panchayat’s decisions were treated as the working law of the village in the great majority of civil and minor criminal cases.

The Mahajan: The Merchant Community

A second important local institution was the mahajan, the merchant and money-lending community. The mahajan was the principal mechanism of commercial and financial activity in the village and the qasbah. The mahajan was a hereditary community, generally drawn from the trading castes, and the mahajan maintained a network of agents in the villages of the pargana and the sarkar. The mahajan was the principal source of credit to the cultivator, advanced cash against the harvest, and purchased the produce for sale in the regional market. The mahajan maintained its own courts of arbitration for commercial disputes, regulated the weights and measures, and was a parallel authority in the qasbah and the pargana.

The Relationship with the Central Government

The local administration was linked to the central government by a chain of reports and orders. The qanungo of the pargana reported to the qanungo of the sarkar, the qanungo of the sarkar reported to the diwan of the subah, and the diwan of the subah reported to the imperial diwan in the capital. The chain of reports, the waqia and the sawanih treated in the Mughal intelligence network page, was the principal means by which the central government was kept informed of provincial and local events. The chain of orders, the farman and the parwana treated in the imperial orders page, was the principal means by which the central government transmitted its will to the localities.

The chain was, in theory, vertical: the emperor’s orders went down through the wazir, the diwan, the subahdar, the faujdar, the amil, the qanungo, and the muqaddam, and the reports went up through the same chain. The chain was, in practice, supplemented by horizontal and diagonal connections: the waqia-navis reported directly to the centre, the jasus network was parallel to the formal chain, and the ghisibarda or inspector was sent from the centre to the provinces. The effectiveness of the system depended on the careful maintenance of all three.

Sources

• I.H. Qureshi, The Administration of the Mughal Empire (1966), chs. on the sarkar and pargana.