Diwan

Also called: Wazir, Dewan, Diwan-i-Kul · Topic: The Mughal Empire: Babur to Aurangzeb · NCERT: Class 8, Ch 2 "Reshaping India's Political Map"; Class 12, Ch 4 "Peasants, Zamindars and the State"

Meaning

The Diwan was the Mughal central minister in charge of finances: revenue (tax income), income in general, and spending. Each subah (province) also had its own provincial diwan.

• This matters because the Mughal state ran on land revenue. Whoever controlled revenue controlled the money for war, pay and buildings.
• UPSC often tests the Diwan together with the other three central ministers. They are easy to mix up.

Explanation

Background: why a separate finance minister

• The empire was very large. One ruler could not watch every corner.
• So Akbar reorganised the machinery of government for two goals:
• control: the centre must know what is happening.

• efficiency: work must get done quickly.

• His method was to split the work into fixed departments. Each department had a head, and each head answered to the emperor.

• Standard textbook accounts add one point. Before Akbar, the wazir (chief minister) held very wide powers. Under Akbar's system, finance became one department among several, headed by the Diwan. This is why the title Wazir or Diwan-i-Kul (chief diwan) is sometimes used for the office.

Main features: the Diwan among the four ministers

Minister	Portfolio
Diwan	finances: revenue, income and spending
Mir Bakhshi	military matters: pay and muster rolls (lists of men) of officers and troops
Khan-i-Saman	public works, trade, industry, agriculture + the royal household
Sadr	justice, religious and educational matters

• The Diwan looked after the money side of the state.
• The Diwan's office (daftar) oversaw the fiscal (money) system of the empire.
• Each minister had one clear portfolio (area of work). Revenue was kept apart from the army, the household and justice.

How it worked: centre, province and village

• Each subah copied the centre. The empire had twelve subahs, and each one had its own provincial diwan, bakhshi, sadr and other ministers.
• Checks and balances were built in.
• The revenue officer and the military officer in a province did not report to the same boss.
• Their records had to match.

• So one officer could not quietly cheat the state, because the other officer's accounts would expose him.

• Revenue reached the village, but rule did not.

• The state collected revenue from the village.
• It did not replace the village's own way of settling its affairs. Traditional self-governance continued more or less undisturbed.

• Exam phrase: Mughal rule was deep in revenue, shallow in village society.

• Link with mansabdari. Most mansabdars (rank-holders in the Mughal service) were paid through a jagir: a block of land whose revenue the officer collected as his pay. Revenue records, which were the Diwan's work, therefore also supported the pay of the whole nobility.

Results: Todar Mal and the zabt system

• Todar Mal was Akbar's finance minister. He is the best-known figure linked to this office.
• His method, step by step:
• He surveyed crop yields: how much each crop gives per unit of land.
• He surveyed prices: what each crop sells for.
• He fixed the tax crop by crop, not by rough guess.

• He had land measured systematically to find the cultivated area.

• His survey of yields, prices and area cultivated over a ten-year period became the base of the zabt system [2]. Zabt is a revenue system in which the tax demand is fixed in advance from measured land and averaged data.

• Zabt was applied in northern India, and in Malwa and parts of Gujarat [2]. It was not used everywhere, because survey work was slow and hard in some regions.
• Outcome:
• Revenue collection rose.
• The state knew its income in advance.
• So it could plan wars, salaries and building works.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the Mughal Empire, 1526–1707 (Babur to Aurangzeb). The four-minister system took its settled form under Akbar.
• Place: the central court, plus the twelve subahs, each with its own provincial diwan.
• Key people:
• Akbar, who reorganised the administration.
• Todar Mal, his finance minister, who designed the revenue survey.

• Abul Fazl, who recorded the system in writing.

• Evidence:

• Abul Fazl wrote the Akbarnama. The Ain-i-Akbari is its third and final volume [3].
• The third section of the Ain-i-Akbari covers the judicial and executive wings of the empire, land survey methods, tribal divisions, and the duties of the finance minister Todar Mal [2].
• The Ain-i-Akbari survives as a rare book and in published English volumes held in national digital collections [4].

Don't confuse with

• Mir Bakhshi: he handled the military side, meaning the pay and muster rolls of officers and troops. The Diwan handled revenue and spending. In "match the minister" questions, "pay of troops" points to the Mir Bakhshi, not the Diwan.
• Sadr: he handled justice, religion and education together. Courts and religious grants are not the Diwan's portfolio.
• Khan-i-Saman: he ran public works, trade, industry, agriculture and the royal household. "Agriculture" in his list is a trap. Land revenue belongs to the Diwan.
• Diwani (1765): this was the right to collect revenue in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, granted to the East India Company by the Mughal emperor. The word comes from the same office, but it was a grant made to a foreign company, not a Mughal ministry.

Prelims Hooks

• Diwan = finances; Mir Bakhshi = military; Khan-i-Saman = public works, trade, industry, agriculture and royal household; Sadr = justice, religion and education.
• The Mughal empire under Akbar had twelve subahs, and each had a provincial diwan.
• Todar Mal was Akbar's finance minister. His survey of yields, prices and cultivated area over ten years underpinned the zabt system [2].
• Zabt was applied in northern India, Malwa and parts of Gujarat [2]. It was not applied across the whole empire, which is a common trap.
• The duties of Todar Mal are described in the third section of the Ain-i-Akbari [2], which was written by Abul Fazl and is the third volume of the Akbarnama [3].
• Trap: Mughal revenue officials did not replace village self-governance. It continued largely undisturbed.

Mains Points

• Splitting power to keep control.
• Akbar separated finance (the Diwan) from the army (the Mir Bakhshi), the household (the Khan-i-Saman) and justice (the Sadr).
• The same pattern was repeated in every subah, and revenue officers and military officers in a province reported to different bosses.

• Result: no single noble controlled both money and soldiers. This was a design against revolt and fraud.

• Measurement built the state.

• Todar Mal's surveys of yields, prices and area [2] made revenue predictable, and the state grew stronger.

• For contrast, use the British Permanent Settlement: there the demand was fixed permanently and rights went to zamindars. Comparing the two shows how revenue design shapes rural society.

• Strong at taking revenue, light on village life.

• The Diwan's system reached every village for revenue but left village self-governance in place.
• Mughal administration was therefore centralised in design but decentralised in practice. This is a useful point for a balanced answer on how "centralised" the Mughal state really was.

Related concepts

• Mir Bakhshi
• Mir Saman
• Sadr-us-Sudur
• Qazi-ul-Quzat
• Muhtasib
• Subah
• Sarkar
• Pargana
• Faujdar
• Kotwal

Read more

• Administering the empire