Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Revenue Reforms: Land Tax That Bankrupted the Empire
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about Aurangzeb's wars — the sieges, the marches into the Deccan, the endless campaigns. But there's another side to his reign that's just as destructive, maybe even more so in the long run: how he changed the tax system. Luna: Taxes? That's what brought down the empire? Lucas: Not entirely, but it's a huge part of the story. Aurangzeb didn't just inherit Akbar's revenue system and leave it alone. He overhauled it — especially the land tax, or kharaj. And he did it based on his own legal code, the fatawa e alamgiri, which pushed for heavier taxation on non-Muslim peasants. Luna: So he was using tax policy to enforce religious policy? Lucas: Exactly. Under Akbar, the land tax had been set at about one-third of the produce, roughly. It was high but manageable. Aurangzeb, under the influence of the Fatawa, pushed it up to half — 50 percent of gross produce. And that's not even counting additional cesses and local levies. The French jeweller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who travelled through the Mughal empire in the 1660s, noted that in some districts peasants were paying close to two-thirds of their harvest. Luna: Two-thirds? How did anyone survive? Lucas: Many didn't. Or they fled. The maasir i alamgiri records that in the Deccan, especially in Berar and Khandesh, whole villages were abandoned. Farmers simply walked away — left the land fallow and moved to areas under Maratha control where tax collectors couldn't reach them. The irony is that Aurangzeb's tax hikes, meant to fund his endless wars, actually shrank the tax base. Less land under cultivation meant less revenue, so he demanded even more from those who stayed — a vicious cycle. Luna: It sounds like he was squeezing a sponge that was already dry. Lucas: Exactly that. And it wasn't just the rate — it was how they collected it. Aurangzeb replaced the old system of revenue assessment based on actual harvest with a fixed cash demand. Peasants had to sell their grain at market, often at depressed prices because everyone was selling at once, just to get coin for the tax collector. If they couldn't pay, the amil — that's the revenue official — could seize their cattle, their tools, even their children as debt slaves. Luna: And the local zamindars — the landed gentry — did they push back? Lucas: Some did, but many actually collaborated. The zamindars were often the ones who collected the tax on the ground, and they took a cut. So when the burden got too heavy, peasants revolted against both the Mughal state and their own zamindars. There were major uprisings in the Punjab, in the Deccan, in Bundelkhand. And these weren't just Maratha rebellions — they were peasant jacqueries, whole regions rising up because they couldn't pay. Luna: The empire was eating itself from the inside. Lucas: Yes. Niccolao Manucci, the Venetian gunner who lived through Aurangzeb's reign, wrote about districts where the tax collectors arrived with troops, and if the village couldn't pay, they'd burn the grain stores and take the women. It's horrifying reading. And it created a permanent class of armed bandits — dispossessed peasants turned highwaymen — that the Mughals could never fully suppress. Luna: So the tax policy not only starved people, it also armed its enemies. Lucas: Precisely. And here's the part that really matters for the empire's collapse: Aurangzeb's revenue reforms centralised everything in the khalsa — crown lands — but the officials he appointed were often corrupt or incompetent. The amils skimmed off the top, sent false reports to court, and the emperor, sitting in his camp in the Deccan, had no idea what was really happening in the villages. The system rotted from the top down. Luna: It's like he was so focused on expanding the empire that he forgot to keep the heart beating. Lucas: Exactly. And you know, talking about all this — the way a single policy can unravel an entire civilisation — it's the kind of story that makes you appreciate how fragile these systems really are. If today's conversation was worth even a small cup of coffee to you, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just an option for those who want to keep these stories ad-free. Luna: Absolutely. It's a small way to support the research that goes into each episode. Lucas: So back to the tax system: by the end of Aurangzeb's reign, the revenue from land had dropped by nearly a third from what it was under Shah Jahan. The empire was bankrupt, and the tax collectors were more hated than any enemy army. That's the real tragedy of Aurangzeb — not just that he fought too many wars, but that he broke the economic engine that made the wars possible. Luna: And that's a lesson that echoes, isn't it? Lucas: It does. The Mughal Empire didn't fall to the Marathas or the British — it fell to its own revenue system, bleeding out village by village, season after season. And that's where we'll leave it for today.