Chachar

Topic: Mughal Agrarian Society and Economy · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Peasants, Zamindars and the State"

Meaning

Chachar was land that had lain fallow (left unsown) for three or four years. It was one of the four classes of land that Akbar's administration recorded in the Ain-i-Akbari. The classes showed how the Mughal state sorted land by how regularly it was farmed. This mattered because the class of a field helped decide how much revenue the state could claim from it.

Explanation

Background: why the state classified land

• Land revenue was the economic mainstay of the Mughal Empire. The state ran on what it took from farming.
• The revenue system worked in two steps:
• first, officials gathered information about lands and what they produced;

• then they assessed the revenue and collected it.

• To assess fairly, the state had to know how productive each field was. A field sown every year gave more than one left idle for years.

• So land was sorted into classes. Chachar was one of them.

The four classes of land in the Ain

Class	Meaning
polaj	cultivated every year, never left fallow
parauti	left fallow for a short time so the soil could recover
chachar	fallow for 3–4 years
banjar	uncultivated for 5 years or more

• The classes ran in order of how long the land stayed idle: polaj → parauti → chachar → banjar.
• Chachar was the third class. It sat between short-fallow land (parauti) and long-abandoned land (banjar).
• Only polaj and parauti were further graded good, middling and bad. Chachar did not get this three-way grading in the Ain.

How chachar was assessed

• The general rule was that one-third of the medium (average) produce was the royal dues (the state's share).
• Chachar gave less than regularly sown land, so it could not carry the full demand at once.
• Standard accounts of the Ain say chachar and banjar were assessed at lower rates.

• The rate rose step by step as the land came back into full cultivation.

• Why this made sense for the state:

• it encouraged peasants to bring idle land back under the plough;
• more cultivated land meant more revenue in later years.

Results and limits

• Classes like chachar let the state fix a jama (revenue assessed on paper) that matched each field's real condition.
• But what was actually collected, the hasil, depended on local conditions. The state maximised its claim on paper, but could not always realise it.
• The classification also shows the state's interest in extending cultivation. Fallow land was seen as a source of future revenue, not as wasteland.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the Mughal Empire, 16th–17th centuries, mainly under Akbar.
• Place: the Mughal provinces. Cultivated and cultivable land was measured province by province, and the totals appear in the Ain. Forests were left unmeasured.
• Key people:
• Akbar, whose administration set up the land classes;
• Abul Fazl, who wrote the Ain-i-Akbari;

• Todar Mal, the finance minister, who carried out a systematic land survey and surveys of crop yields and prices [3].

• Main evidence: the Ain-i-Akbari, the third volume of the Akbarnama by Abul Fazl. Its third section records the methods of land survey and the duties of Todar Mal [2][4].

• Later records: Aurangzeb's order of 1665 asked for cultivation records village by village and peasant-wise (asamiwar). This shows the state kept trying to track land in detail.

Don't confuse with

• Banjar: land uncultivated for 5 years or more. Chachar is fallow for only 3–4 years.
• Parauti: left fallow for only a short time to restore the soil, and graded good/middling/bad. Chachar was fallow for longer and was not graded this way.
• Polaj: cultivated every year, never fallow. It is the opposite end of the scale from chachar.
• Kankut / batai: these are methods of assessment (estimating or sharing the crop), not classes of land. Chachar describes the land's condition, not how the revenue was worked out.

Prelims Hooks

• Chachar = land fallow for 3–4 years. Banjar = 5+ years. Do not swap them.
• Correct order by length of fallow: polaj → parauti → chachar → banjar.
• Only polaj and parauti were graded good, middling and bad. Chachar and banjar were not.
• The four land classes are recorded in the Ain-i-Akbari by Abul Fazl, the third volume of the Akbarnama [2][4].
• Royal dues = one-third of the medium produce.
• Trap: chachar is a land class, not an assessment method like zabt, kankut or batai.

Mains Points

• Land classification shows a state built on detailed knowledge. Sorting land into polaj, parauti, chachar and banjar let the Mughals match their revenue demand to each field's real condition. It reflects the survey work of Todar Mal [3] and the record-keeping of the daftar (the office of the diwan, or finance minister).
• Chachar shows the state's interest in extending cultivation. Lower rates that rose step by step encouraged peasants to farm idle land again. More land under the plough meant more revenue in later years, so the policy served both the peasant and the treasury. The same balance appears in Aurangzeb's 1665 order, which named both kifayat (sound state finance) and the welfare of the peasant.
• The jama–hasil gap limits the argument. Classes like chachar helped the state fix its claim on paper (jama). What it actually collected (hasil) still depended on local conditions and local intermediaries. Use this to argue that Mughal revenue control was precise on paper but negotiated on the ground.

Related concepts

• Mughal land revenue system
• Jama
• Hasil
• Amalguzar
• Kankut
• Batai
• Khet-batai
• Lang batai
• Classification of lands under Akbar
• Polaj

Read more

• The land revenue system