Chapter - I

Introduction
 INTRODUCTION

Under Mughals, the province of Gujarat had a special status of its own.

It was one of the most flourishing regions of India and was the most

urbanized.1

With the conquest of Gujarat, the Mughal Empire came for the first

time into possession of a considerable number of seaports, great and small,

some of them like Surat and Cambay, enjoying a large foreign trade and

visited by mariners and traders from all over the world. With the arrival of
Dutch and English East India Companies in the seventeenth century, the

mercantile activities in the region of Gujarat became even more brisk. A

variety of commodities were exported from Gujarat ports like cotton textiles,
indigo, saltpeter, spices, etc., the first two being most significant. To purchase

these items, European Companies brought bullion in large quantities to India

through Gujarat ports making the Mughal Empire one of the biggest importers

of bullion mostly silver outside Europe in the seventeenth century. The

quantity of this influx and its impact on Mughal economy especially on

mintage of silver coins has been studied and debated by modern scholars.2

During the medieval period, Gujarat was well known for its

manufactures. Ahmadabad, Surat, Baroda and Broach were major

manufacturing centre of cotton textiles. Silk-weaving, using Bengal silk, was

done in Ahmadabad, Surat and Cambay. Indigo was produced in Sarkhej, near

Ahmadabad, but was refined in Cambay. In addition, it also had a strong

1 Shireen Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire, c.1595, Delhi, 1987, p.315.
2 Aziza Hasan, Silver Currency output of the Mughal Empire, IESHR , IV, I,1969, pp.85-116;
Shireen Moosvi, Silver Influx, Money Supply, Prices and Revenue Extraction in Mughal
India, JESHO, XXX, I, 1987, pp.47-94; Najaf Haider, Precious Metal Flows and Currency
Circulation in the Mughal Empire, JESHO, XXXIX, 3, 1996, pp.289-304.
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handicraft industry, making weapons, furniture and jewellery. Gujarat also

supplied a great variety of drugs and medicinal products to the rest of India

and abroad.3

The administration of ports was unique to the provincial administration

of Gujarat as it was not found in non-coastal provinces of Mughals. The brisk

foreign trade from these ports became an important source of income for

Mughal Empire. So for these port cities, Mughal Empire came up with

different apparatus of administration with officers like mutasaddis,

shahbandars etc.

Barring the ports of Gujarat especially Surat and Cambay, sources of

the period do not provide consistent and enough information about the ports

under Mughals in other non-coastal provinces. In the light of this meagre

information, the study of port administration in Gujarat becomes even more

important. It can be assumed that the structure of administration which the

Mughals established at Gujarat ports especially Surat was broadly applicable

to ports in other provinces.

The province of Gujarat is also important in terms of Agriculture and

land revenue system. There is no uniform opinion regarding the method of

land revenue assessment in Mughal Gujarat. This province was very

extensively cultivated and revenue incidence in money terms was high,

suggestive of high productivity in cash crops like cotton, indigo etc.4

3 For more details, see Surendra Gopal, Commerce and Crafts in Gujarat,16th and 17th
Centuries, New Delhi, 1975, pp.186-217. Also see , The Cambridge Economic History of
India, I,c.1200-1750 , eds. Tapan Raychaudhury and Irfan Habib, Cambridge, 1982, pp. 261-
307.
4 I.Habib, Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707, New Delhi, 1999, pp.234, 265-267;
Shireen Moosvi, The Economy of Gujarat, c.1600: The A’in’s Statistics, PIHC, 44th session,
Burdwan, 1983, Delhi, 1984, pp.224-233.
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To cater to the needs of mercantile activities, the Mughals established

mints in the province of Gujarat. Among a number of mints, Ahmadabad and

Surat were successively the largest mints of the Empire-former in the last

quarter of the sixteenth century and the latter in the seventeenth century.

Mints were also a source of considerable income to the state, so their proper

organization was an administrative necessity.

The present study of administration of Gujarat under Mughals is

important in the sense that the attempt is to take into account the general

features of Mughal provincial administration marking out such features as

were unique to the province of Gujarat like port administration, mint

administration etc. The attempt would also include an assessment of degree

and level of penetration of Mughal administration into the Gujarat province.

Lastly, the present research would also take into account that whether the

administrative structure imposed by the Mughals in Gujarat was an exact

replica of administration as prevalent in other Mughal subas or had variations.

Sources

The province of Gujarat under Mughals is fortunate in terms of source

material. These sources are enormous as well as varied. They include Persian

works (like official histories, administrative manuals, memoirs, collection of

letters etc), English and Dutch Factory records, travellers’ accounts etc. In

addition to these literary sources, there is epigraphic and numismatic

evidence.

As far as the use and utilization of these sources is concerned, almost

all the sources are utilized or are being in the process of utilization for writing

history of the region and province from different angles. For instance,
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M.N.Pearson has made use of Portuguese sources for the history of Gujarat

Sultanate and early phase of Mughal Empire in the region of Gujarat and

western India in his various works.5 On the other hand, Ashin Das Gupta has

exploited Dutch sources for his study of Surat Port and trade and commerce

of the region.6 The regional Persian chronicles both official and unofficial,
like Tabaqat-i Akbari, Mir’at-i Sikandari and Mir’at-i Ahmadi, as the basic

sources for any study of Gujarat, have been widely used for various studies

concerning the Gujarat, especially for political and administrative history.

Same is the case with the English Factory Records. But still, there are archival

sources in Persian for the region of Gujarat of the 17th and 18th centuries

which are yet to be utilized for writing the history of administration of Gujarat
province under Mughals.

In this category, comes the Akhbarat which are often translated as

newsletters. They are really reports of the public proceedings at the courts of
the Mughal Emperor and headquarters of Provincial Governors, recorded by

wakils or agents of nobles and high officials. Though not strictly “official”,

these served as important source of information for contemporary historians,

both official and unofficial.

These Akhbarat are in ‘shikast’ Persian which is difficult to read and

understand. The Akhbarat we concern ourselves with are those sent by the

wakil or agent of the Amber ruler, Jai Singh Sawai, to his master from Prince

A‘zam’s headquarters at Ahmadabad. Prince A‘zam was Governor of Gujarat

5 M.N.Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat: The Response to the Portuguese in the
Sixteenth Century, New Delhi, 1976.( It is his pioneer work. His many books include
Pilgrimage to Mecca: The Indian Experience, The Portuguese in India, India and The Indian
Ocean 1500-1800 jointly edited with Ashin Das Gupta, The World of the Indian Ocean, 1500-
1800:Studies in Economic, Social and Cultural History).
6 Among many books, his pioneer work is Indian Merchants and Decline of Surat ,c. 1700-50,
Wiesbadan, 1979.
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from R.Y.46 to 50 (1701-1705 AD). The extant Akhbarat cover only the

period R.Y.s 46-47 (1702-04). The originals are in the library of the Royal

Asiatic Society, London (Morley 133).7 These daily reports cover a variety of

subjects concerning provincial administration such as orders regarding

various administrative matters (problems of law and order, collection of

tribute from chiefdoms, administration of refractory areas etc.); appointments

to posts, transfers, degradations and dismissals of officials, or their

reinstatement, or their leave or posting; grant of robes of honour, presentation

of gifts, administration of justice; working of Jagir, mansabdari, branding

and verification systems; complaints concerning a wide range of matters

(against officials, jagirdars etc.); information on provincial finance etc.

For Surat and its administration, there is an extremely important source

in the form of a collection of documents that was compiled by an anonymous

middle or low ranking official in Surat towards the middle of seventeenth

century. These documents concern Surat and neighbouring localities and

provide extremely important and useful information on its administration,

commerce and socio-political life. From administrative point of view, it

provides information on the working of land revenue administration, port

administration and judicial administration as prevailed under Mughals among

other information.

These documents are in ‘shikast’ Persian and their only extant copy is

available at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.8

7 Also available at the Centre of Advanced Study in History, AMU, microfilm no.34, the sheets
marked A1 to A231.
8 I have consulted the microfilm copy of these documents available at the Centre of Advanced
Study in History, AMU (microfilm no. 470).
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The other sources which are yet to be utilized adequately for study of

Gujarat under Mughals includes a collection of contemporary documents

from Cambay and Mir’at-ul Haqaiq, the dairy of a retired Mughal official in

Surat, I‘timad Ali Khan, written in 1727. The former is found in the National

Archives of India (New Delhi) and are more than fifty in number. It includes

papers concerning transactions of property, disputes of property, marriage

deeds, etc. The latter is another very important source for the study of Mughal

administration in the Gujarat.9 Although, it is a later source when Mughal

Empire began to loose its sheen, yet it is important in the sense that it contains

official papers and revenue statistics and taxes at Surat and Cambay, among

other information. But the most important part of this source is the author’s

dairy, who, as a low medium level bureaucrat in Mughal India, held around

twenty administrative posts, spanning over a period of thirty years.

9 The only extant copy of the manuscript is found in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Fraser
Collection, 124. I have consulted the microfilm copy available at the Centre of Advanced
Study in History, AMU (microfilm no.127).