Rulers of India: Akbar

by G. B. Malleson

'Akbar,' writes that author, 'was the real founder of the empire of the Mughals, the first successful conqueror of Rájpút independence. To this end his virtues were powerful auxiliaries, as by his skill in the analysis of the mind and its readiest stimulant to action, he was enabled to gild the chains with which he bound them. To these they became familiarised by habit, especially when the throne exerted its power in acts gratifying to national vanity, or even in ministering to the more ignoble passions.' Unable, apparently, to comprehend the principle which underlay the whole policy of Akbar, that of conquering that he might produce union, and regarding him as he rightly regarded his Afghán and Pathán predecessors, Colonel Tod attacks him for his conquests. Yet even Colonel Tod is forced to add: 'He finally succeeded in healing the wounds his ambition had inflicted, and received from millions that meed of praise which no other of his race ever obtained.' I need not add that if to render happiness to millions is one of the first objects of kingship, and if to obtain that end union has to be cemented by conquest, the means sanction the end. Akbar did not conquer in Rájpútána to rule in Rájpútána. He conquered that all the Rájpút princes, each in his own dominions, might enjoy that peace and prosperity which his predominance, never felt aggressively, secured for the whole empire.

From the Rájá of Jodhpur, Udai Singh, at the time the most powerful of the Rájpút princes, Akbar obtained the hand of his daughter for his son Salím. The princess became the mother of a son who succeeded his father as the Emperor Sháh Jahán. In him the Rájpút blood acquired a position theretofore unknown in India. Of this marriage, so happy in its results, Colonel Tod writes that Akbar obtained it by a bribe, the gift of four provinces which doubled the fisc of Márwár (Jodhpur). He adds: 'With such examples as Amber and Márwár, and with less power to resist temptation, the minor chiefs of Rajast'hán, with a brave and numerous vassalage, were transformed into satraps of Delhi, and the importance of most of them was increased by the change.' Truly did the Mughal historian designate them as 'at once the props and ornaments of the throne.'

There surely could not be a greater justification of the policy of Akbar with respect to Rájpútána and its princes than is contained in the testimony of this writer, all of whose sympathies were strongly with the Rájpúts.

Whilst on the subject of the imperial marriages, I may mention that Akbar had many wives, but of these eight only are authoritatively mentioned. His first wife was his cousin, a daughter of his uncle, Hindal Mirzá. She bore him no children, and survived him, living to the age of eighty-four. His second wife was also a cousin, being the daughter of a daughter of Bábar, who had married Mirzá Nuruddin Muhammad. She was a poetess, and wrote under the nom de plume, Makhfí (the concealed). His third wife was the daughter of Rájá Bihárí Mall and sister of Rájá Bhagwán Dás. He married her in 1560. The fourth wife was famed for her beauty: she had been previously married to Abul Wásí. The fifth wife, mother of Jahángír, was a Jodhpur princess, Jodh Báei. As mother of the heir apparent, she held the first place in the harem. The sixth, seventh, and eighth wives were Muhammadans.

In the matter of domestic legislation Akbar paid considerable attention to the mode of collecting revenue. He found existing a system devised by Sher Sháh, the prince who had defeated and expelled his father. The principles upon which this system was based were (1) the correct measurement of the land; (2) the ascertaining the average production of a block of land per bíghá;⁴ (3) the settlement of the proportion of that amount to be paid to the Government by each; (4) the fixing of the equivalent in money for the settled amount in kind. Akbar proposed rather to develop this principle than to interfere with it. With this object he established a uniform standard to supersede the differing standards theretofore employed.

⁴ A bíghá is a portion of land measuring in the North-west Provinces nearly five-eighths of an acre. In Bengal, it is not quite one-third of an acre.

'This laudable regulation,' we are told in the Ain, 'removed the rust of uncertainty from the minds of collectors, and relieved the subject from a variety of oppressions, whilst the income became larger, and the State flourished.' Akbar likewise caused to be adopted improved instruments of mensuration, and with these he made a new settlement of the lands capable of cultivation within the empire. We are told in the Ain that he was in the habit of taking from each bíghá of land ten sers (about twenty pounds) of grain as a royalty. This was at a later period commuted into a money payment. In each district he had store-houses erected to supply animals, the property of the State, with food; to furnish cultivators with grain for sowing purposes; to have at hand a provision in case of famine; and to feed the poor. These store-houses were placed in charge of men specially selected for their trustworthy qualities.

The land was in the earlier part of the reign divided into three classes according to its fertility, and the assessment was fixed on the average production of three bíghás, one from each division. The cultivator might, however, if dissatisfied with the average, insist on the valuation of his own crop. Five classifications of land were likewise made to ensure equality of payment in proportion to the quality of the land and its immunity from accidents, such as inundation. Other regulations were carefully formed to discriminate between the several varieties of soil, all having for their object the fixing of a system fair alike to the cultivator and the Government.

Gradually, as I have above indicated, as the Government became settled, a better principle was introduced to fix the amount payable to the State. For this purpose statements of prices for the nineteen years preceding the survey were called for from the village heads. From these an average was struck, and the produce was valued at the current rates. At first these settlements were annual, but as fresh annual rates were found vexatious, the settlement was made for ten years, on the basis of the average of the preceding ten.

To complete this agricultural system, Akbar made at the same time a new division of the country for revenue purposes. Under this scheme the country was marked out in parcels, each yielding a karór (ten millions) of dáms, equal to twenty-five thousand rupees. The collector of each of these parcels was called a karórí. Whenever a karórí had collected the sum of two lakhs of dáms,⁵ he was required to send it to the Treasurer-General at head-quarters. It was found, however, after a time, that the arbitrary division based simply upon a mathematical theory produced confusion and disturbed ancient ways, of all others most congenial to the Hindus. After a trial, then, the artificial division was abandoned in favour of the ancient system of the people, under which the lands were parcelled out in conformity with the natural features of the country and the village system prevailing therein.