Village panchayat in Mughal India

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

Meaning

The village panchayat in Mughal India was an assembly of village elders who usually held hereditary rights over property in the village. It was headed by the headman (muqaddam or mandal). It made rules for the village and settled its disputes, and its decisions were binding on every villager.

It matters because it shows how a Mughal village actually ran from day to day. Through the panchayat, a small group of propertied men controlled caste, money and justice. Yet the same body was also where poor peasants could complain against excess taxes and forced labour.

Explanation

Background: a village made of unequal parts

• A Mughal village had three constituents:
• the cultivators
• the panchayat (village assembly)

• the headman, called muqaddam or mandal

• Cultivators were heterogeneous (mixed and unequal). Caste divided them.

• Majur (menial labourer castes) stayed poor even though land was plentiful. Caste rules, not a shortage of land, kept them down. NCERT compares them to "the Dalits of modern India".
• A village usually held 5 to 25 jatis. A jati is a regional group that marries only within itself (endogamous). So the "elders" in a panchayat never spoke for one single caste. [2]
• Village assemblies were an old Indian institution. They are named in the Rigveda, Manu-smriti, Ramayana, Mahabharata and Arthashastra. The Mughal panchayat continued this long tradition. [3]

Who sat in it and who led it

• Membership: elders with hereditary rights over property in the village. Membership was not open to all.
• Mixed membership: in villages with many castes, the panchayat also had members from several castes.
• An oligarchy (rule by a small, powerful group):
• Menial castes had no seat.

• So the people who most needed protection were not part of the decisions.

• The headman (muqaddam/mandal):

• He was chosen by the consensus (general agreement) of the village elders.
• The zamindar then had to ratify (approve) the choice. The Mughals used the word zamindar for every rural intermediary, from a village headman up to a powerful local chief. [4]
• The elders could dismiss him if they lost trust in him.

• His main job was to supervise village accounts with the patwari (village accountant).

• The headman's corruption:

• Dishonest headmen under-recorded their own revenue (wrote down less tax than they really owed).
• The village's total tax demand stayed the same.
• So the smaller cultivators paid the shortfall.

What the panchayat did

• Ran a common fund built from villagers' contributions. It paid for:
• hospitality for revenue officials on tour
• relief during calamities such as floods or crop failure

• public works too costly for one peasant, such as bunds (small earth dams) and canals

• Policed caste boundaries:

• In eastern India, every marriage needed the mandal to be present.
• Punishments, from mild to severe:
  • fines
  • expulsion from the community, usually temporary

• An expelled person became an outcaste. He lost the right to practise his profession, so he lost his living.

• Acted as the judge for the caste: the panchayat was the main judging and licensing body in a caste's self-government. It decided who was in and who was out. [3]

The panchayat as a court of appeal, and its limits

• Poor peasants sent collective petitions against:
• excessive taxation

• begar (forced, unpaid labour) demanded by "superior" castes or by state officials

• These petitions rested on custom. Custom said a peasant had a right to a subsistence minimum (the least he needed to survive).

• The panchayat usually brokered a compromise, a middle settlement between the two sides.
• When compromise failed, peasants used desertion:
• They left the village.
• This worked because land was plentiful and labour was scarce.
• Zamindars and the state competed for cultivators, so losing peasants cost them money. This put a limit on how far anyone could oppress them.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: 16th–17th centuries, under the Mughal Empire.
• Regions named in the sources:
• Rajasthan and Maharashtra: archives keep peasants' petitions against excessive tax and begar.
• Eastern India: marriages needed the mandal to be present. The Sadgops and Kaivartas moved up into peasant status.
• Marwar (Rajasthan): a 17th-century manual lists Rajputs as peasants, working alongside Jats.
• Vrindavan region (Agra area): the Gauravas claimed Rajput status.

• Bihar: the mallahzadas were compared to slaves.

• Key people in the village: the elders, the muqaddam/mandal, the patwari, and the zamindar who ratified the headman.

• How we know:
• village and state records from Rajasthan and Maharashtra, especially the petitions
• the 17th-century Marwar manual
• NCERT Class 12, Ch 4, "Peasants, Zamindars and the State"

Don't confuse with

• Jati panchayat: this was a council of one caste, not of the whole village. In Rajasthan jati panchayats settled civil disputes between castes, land claims, marriage rules and ritual precedence (who stands where in a ritual). The state accepted their decisions except in criminal justice.
• Muqaddam/mandal vs patwari: the muqaddam was the headman, chosen by the elders and ratified by the zamindar. The patwari was the village accountant, who kept the accounts with him.
• Zamindar: the zamindar was a rural intermediary who held superior rights over land and collected revenue. He stood above the panchayat and ratified the headman. He was not a member chosen by the village. [4]
• Modern Panchayati Raj: today's panchayats are elected, and every adult can vote. The Mughal panchayat was a hereditary, propertied oligarchy that kept menial castes out.

Prelims Hooks

• The three constituents of the Mughal village community were the cultivators, the panchayat and the headman (muqaddam/mandal).
• The headman was chosen by the village elders, ratified by the zamindar, could be dismissed, and kept accounts with the patwari.
• The panchayat's common fund paid for hospitality to revenue officials, calamity relief, and bunds and canals.
• In eastern India, a marriage required the mandal's presence. Punishments were fines and temporary expulsion, and expulsion cost a person the right to his profession.
• Begar means forced unpaid labour. Petitions against it survive in records from Rajasthan and Maharashtra.
• Trap: the panchayat was not open to all villagers. Menial castes had no seat, and membership needed hereditary property rights.

Mains Points

• The village was not an equal "little republic".
• The panchayat was an oligarchy of propertied elders that kept menial castes out.
• Headmen moved their own tax burden onto smaller cultivators.

• Any answer praising village self-government should add this qualification.

• There were parallel layers of justice and welfare.

• The layers were the jati panchayat, the village panchayat, the zamindar and the state. The state kept criminal justice for itself.
• The common fund made the village a small unit of collective insurance and public works, not only a unit that paid taxes.

• This continued an ancient tradition of village assemblies. [3]

• Peasants' bargaining power came from economics, not from the panchayat alone.

• They had petitions against tax and begar, a customary right to a subsistence minimum, and the threat of desertion.
• Together these were a real but limited check on oppression, and they worked because land was plentiful and labour was scarce.
• Contrast this with the period after the Permanent Settlement (1793), when peasants lost this way out.

Related concepts

• Village community in Mughal India
• Caste mobility in rural Mughal India
• Begar
• Muqaddam
• Patwari
• Jati panchayat

Read more

• Village community I: caste, panchayats and headmen