Provincial Administration under the Mughals
Subas and Subahdars
The Mughal empire was divided, for purposes of provincial administration, into a number of large units called subas (provinces), each headed by a governor known as the subahdar (sometimes also called sipahsalar or, in later usage, nawab). The number of subas varied over time: the empire of Akbar contained approximately 15 subas, the number grew to 20 or more in the late seventeenth century with the annexation of the Deccan sultanates, and the effective number of subas under imperial control contracted sharply in the eighteenth century as the successor states consolidated their autonomy.
The subahdar was almost always a high-ranking mansabdar appointed by the emperor, and the position was one of the most prestigious in the imperial service. The subahdar was the chief executive of the province, responsible for the maintenance of law and order, the supervision of revenue administration, the prosecution of military operations within or originating from the province, and the general enforcement of imperial policy. The subahdar commanded the provincial forces, presided over the provincial court, and corresponded directly with the emperor and the central ministers. The office carried substantial emoluments, and the subahdar’s jagir, calculated on the basis of his mansab and the revenue resources of the province, was typically one of the most valuable in the empire.
The appointment of the subahdar was an exercise of the imperial prerogative, and the emperor was, in principle, free to appoint, transfer, or dismiss the holder at any time. In practice, the political influence of the great noble families, the ambitions of the princes of the blood, and the strategic importance of the major provinces often constrained the emperor’s freedom of action. Under Akbar and his successors, the transfer of the subahdars was a regular feature of imperial policy, intended to prevent the consolidation of provincial power bases. By the eighteenth century, the policy had largely broken down, and many subahdars held their positions for extended periods, often in effect for life, and transmitted them to their sons.
The Provincial Government: Officers of the Suba
Each suba was, in principle, a miniature replica of the imperial government, with its own hierarchy of officials. The principal officers were the subahdar (governor), the diwan (provincial chief revenue officer), the bakhshi (provincial military officer), the sadr (provincial ecclesiastical officer), the qazi (provincial chief justice), the kotwal (chief officer of the provincial capital), and the mir bakhshi (in some provinces, an officer of the subahdar’s household cavalry).
The provincial diwan was, in many respects, the most important of these officers. The diwan was typically appointed by the central diwan and reported independently to the imperial capital, providing a check on the subahdar’s authority. The provincial diwan supervised the amils and shiqdars of the parganas, the qanungos of the districts, and the detailed records of land, revenue, and population that were the basis of the nasaq settlement. The provincial diwan was, in effect, the eyes and ears of the central government within the province, and the conflict between the subahdar and the diwan was a recurrent feature of provincial administration.
The bakhshi of the suba was the provincial military officer, responsible for the review and inspection of the mansabdari establishment within the province, the maintenance of the cavalry rolls, and the organization of military reviews and inspections. The sadr supervised the religious endowments, the appointments of qazis and muhtasibs, and the administration of the sadr grants. The qazi of the provincial capital presided over the chief sharia court of the province and supervised the qazis of the districts and towns. The kotwal of the provincial capital was responsible for the urban order, the regulation of markets, the supervision of weights and measures, and the registration of strangers.
The provincial administration was further subdivided. The suba was divided into a number of sarkars (districts), each headed by a faujdar (military-administrative officer), and the sarkars were subdivided into parganas (subdistricts), each headed by a shiqdar (executive officer) and a qanungo (revenue record keeper). The faujdar was appointed by the central government and reported directly to the emperor, providing an additional check on the subahdar’s authority. The faujdars were responsible for the maintenance of law and order within their districts, the suppression of banditry and rebellion, the pursuit of criminals, and the general enforcement of imperial regulations.
The Major Provinces of the Empire
The major provinces of the empire evolved over the dynasty’s history, but a relatively stable pattern emerged in the late sixteenth century and survived, with significant modifications, into the eighteenth. The principal provinces and their capitals were as follows.
Agra and Delhi were the twin cores of the empire, sometimes treated as a single province and sometimes as two. Agra had been the principal Mughal capital under Akbar and remained an important administrative centre under his successors. Delhi, the site of Shahjahanabad, the new capital founded by Shah Jahan in 1638, served as the principal seat of imperial government from the mid-seventeenth century. The province of Agra (or Delhi-Agra) covered the upper Ganges plain and the heartland of Mughal political power.
Lahore, with its capital at the city of Lahore, governed the western Punjab, the upper Indus, and the approaches to the Afghan frontier. The province was strategically important as a military base for operations in Central Asia and as a buffer against the Iranian and Afghan powers. The province was the home of several important noble families and contained some of the finest Mughal gardens, mosques, and forts.
Allahabad and Awadh (Oudh) governed the central and eastern Gangetic plain, the heart of the agrarian wealth of the empire. The province of Allahabad, with its capital at the sacred city at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna, was a major administrative centre. Awadh, with its capital at Lucknow (and later at Faizabad), was one of the richest provinces of the empire and the home of the influential Shia nawab family that governed it under the later Mughals.
Bihar and Bengal governed the lower Ganges plain, the deltaic region of Bengal, and the rich agricultural lands of the eastern provinces. Bengal, with its capital at Dhaka (and later at Murshidabad under the nawabs), was the wealthiest province of the empire, producing a substantial surplus of rice, silk, and cotton textiles. The revenue administration of Bengal was a major concern of the central government, and the province’s governors were among the most powerful in the empire.
Gujarat, with its capital at Ahmadabad, governed the rich commercial and manufacturing region of western India, with its major ports at Surat, Cambay, and Broach. Gujarat was a major centre of the textile trade, both internal and overseas, and the province’s customs revenue was an important source of imperial income.
Malwa, with its capital first at Mandu and later at Ujjain, governed the central Indian plateau, an important region of agricultural production and military recruitment. Ajmer, a separate province in the northwest, governed the Rajput heartland and the important city of Ajmer, the site of the tomb of the Sufi saint Mu’in al-Din Chishti.
Kabul governed the Afghan territories to the northwest of the empire, including Kabul, Ghazni, and Peshawar, until the loss of these territories to the Safavids and the Afghan tribes in the early eighteenth century. The province was strategically important as the base of operations for the Mughal Central Asian campaigns and as the principal corridor for overland trade and diplomatic exchange with Iran and Central Asia.
The Deccan provinces — Khandesh, Berar, Aurangabad, Bidar, Golconda, and Bijapur — were added to the empire in stages, principally under Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb. The annexation of the Deccan sultanates in the 1680s substantially expanded the empire’s territorial extent and imposed a heavy military and administrative burden. The Deccan provinces are examined in greater detail in the decline of the Mughal Empire pillar.
Revenue and Expenditure at the Provincial Level
The provincial budget was subject to the supervision of the central government, and the emperor’s farmans regularly prescribed the rates of revenue demand, the procedures for collection, the rules for remission in years of crop failure, and the procedures for the audit of the provincial accounts. The correspondence between the centre and the provinces was a major feature of Mughal administration, and the dar-ul-insha (imperial chancery) and the diwan’s office were the principal organs of this correspondence.
The Correspondence System and Intelligence Reporting
The Mughal state maintained an extensive correspondence system linking the imperial capital to the provinces. The dak chowkis (postal stations) along the principal highways of the empire carried the imperial farmans, the parwanahs of the central ministries, the reports of the waqia-navis (news reporters) stationed at the courts of the major provincial governors, and the letters of the provincial diwans to the central diwan. The Grand Trunk Road from Bengal to Kabul, the route from Agra to Ahmadabad, and the route from Delhi to the Deccan were the principal axes of this system.
The waqia-navis and the sawanih-navis were the eyes of the central government in the provinces, and their regular reports were a major source of information for the emperor and his ministers. The reports covered the activities of the provincial governors, the state of the harvests, the movements of merchants and travellers, the activities of foreign envoys, and the general political and economic conditions of the province. The system of intelligence reporting was an integral part of the provincial administration, and its decline in the eighteenth century was a major element in the broader decline of the Mughal Empire.
The Gradual Autonomy of the Provinces in the Eighteenth Century
The relations between the centre and the provinces were a constant source of tension within the empire. The subahdars were typically drawn from the highest ranks of the mansabdari hierarchy, and many were princes of the blood or members of the great Turani, Irani, Rajput, and Hindu noble families. The potential for provincial autonomy was always present, and the system of overlapping authorities, with the provincial diwan, the faujdar, the qazi, and the kotwal all reporting independently to the centre, was designed to prevent any single provincial officer from accumulating enough power to challenge the imperial authority.
The system worked reasonably well as long as the central government was strong, the emperor was energetic, and the principal provincial offices were held by reliable imperial servants. The long Deccan wars of Aurangzeb’s reign, however, imposed an enormous burden on the system, and the succession of weak and short-lived emperors in the early eighteenth century weakened the centre’s grip. The jagir crisis, examined on the mansabdari system page, eroded the financial basis of the imperial system, and the growing military power of the provincial governors, many of whom maintained their own armies, mint, and diplomatic establishments, led to the de facto autonomy of several major provinces. The nawabs of Awadh and Bengal, the nizams of Hyderabad, and the governors of several Deccan provinces all exercised effective independent authority from the early eighteenth century onward, and the post-Aurangzeb fragmentation of the empire is one of the central themes of the decline of the Mughal Empire pillar.
Sources
- Satish Chandra, Medieval India (2004), ch. 10.
- Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India (1986), on the subahs.