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The Pargana Headman (Chaudhrī) in the Mogul Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

Casual references in the chronicles of the time show that the Turkish kings of Delhi recognized, and on occasion utilized, the local functionaries—the headmen and registrar accountants of villages and parganas—who formed an integral part of the Hindu administrative system. No references to these functionaries have been traced under the Afghan kings, but they reappear in the Mogul period, the literature of which enables us to form some idea of the position and duties, as then understood, of three out of the four. The village headman, renamed muqaddam, represented the village in its dealings with the officials, and he was required in particular to be active in agricultural development by bringing the waste land of the village under the plough. The village registrar-accountant, who retained his Hindī name of paṭwārī, kept the records and accounts of the village, and was required to assist the officials in the assessment and collection of the revenue. In the same way the registrar-accountant of the pargana, renamed qānūngo, kept the records of the pargana; and when assessment was made on the village as a unit, his estimate of its capacity to pay was one of the indispensable data. The remaining functionary, the chaudhrī or headman of the pargana, scarcely appears in the chronicles of the period, while the administrative literature contains practically nothing to show what he was expected to do, or how he was remunerated; indeed the only reference to him which has been traced in the Āīn-i Akbarī is the statement (Jarrett, ii, 228) that in the province of Berār the chaudhrī was known as desmukh. This statement shows that the chaudhrī was a familiar figure in the north, but it shows nothing more.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1938

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References

page 511 note 1 To prevent misapprehension, it may be explained that this designation has other meanings in towns and markets, and is also occasionally assumed as an honorific prefix to a person's name.

page 511 note 1 The form desājī has not been traced, and is perhaps an error for desāī, the Marāthī designation of the pargana headman.

page 515 note 1 See the index entries in the first twelve volumes of The English Factories in India (Oxford, 19061927)Google Scholar.

page 519 note 1 The authorities on which this paragraph is based are as follows. For Bengal, the Amini Report, pp. 103–110, as reproduced in Ramsbotham's, R. B.Studies in the Land Revenue History of Bengal (Oxford, 1926)Google Scholar. For Benares, , Selections from, the Duman Records (Benares, 1873), especially p. 41 and Appendix xxixGoogle Scholar. For the Ceded and Conquered Provinces, Selections from the Revenue Records of the North-West Provinces, 1818–1820 (Calcutta, 1866)Google Scholar and 1822–1833 (Allahabad, 1872). For Delhi, Records of the Delhi Residency and Agency (Lahore, 1911)Google Scholar. For the Punjab, Cust, R., Revenue Manual (Lahore, 1866), p. 62Google Scholar; and Trevaskis, H. K., The Land of the Five Rivers (Oxford, 1928), pp. 180, 257Google Scholar.

page 520 note 1 The quotations are from pp. 112, 113. I have modernized the spelling of Indian words.

page 520 note 2 The word “original” is, I think, incorrect. Originally the two offices were complementary, one executive and the other clerical; and the assimilation of their positions described by Elliott is a later stage.