The Watan Jagirs

Introduction

During the Mughal era, the Mughals established the idea of Watan jagirs, where Watan denotes the realms of the local kings in that region and jagir denotes the land gift. After repeated conflicts with the Mughals, these regional kingdoms, in a sense, recognized their suzerainty over them. Akbar, who understood the value of Rajput support in enabling him to consolidate and expand his kingdom, initiated this watan jagir policy throughout his rule. He, therefore, made an effort to win the Rajputs’ allegiance by putting the Watan Jagir philosophy into practice by providing them with important posts with lots of autonomy.

What is Watan Jagir?

The Rajputs remained the Mughals’ greatest obstacle to extending and establishing their empire during this time. Mughals devised the concept of Watan jagirs to address this. Even though the Mughal kings prevailed in the fight, they did not acquire the kingdom of the victorious ones under this system. Instead, the king of that particular region or province was permitted to continue ruling his kingdom as long as he was willing to submit to the Mughal emperor. According to this idea, a king continued to rule his kingdom while the Mughal emperor was in charge. These monarchs eventually received a significant amount of authority in their watan jagirs.

One of the intriguing things about this watan jagir was that it wasn’t hereditary, so if the king of a watan jagir dies, his successor won’t get the entire watan; instead, the portion of it will be given to him by his mansab. The Mughals used to exert authority over Rajput monarchs in this manner.

How did Watan Jagirs rise under Rajputs

Gaining the respect and confidence of the Rajputs was crucial for the Mughals to grow their empire. As a result, the Mughals made an effort to win the support of the Rajputs by deepening their relations with them, giving them important positions in the government and army, adopting non-interference policies in their internal matters, and giving them watan jagirs. Rajput-Mughal ties were well-managed before Shajahn’s rule, but things started to deteriorate after Aurangzeb assumed the throne of the Mughals. And this started to worry both the Mughal elite and the Rajput kings.

Although Watan Jagir was first implemented by Akbar, it was effectively entrenched under Jahangir’s rule. Rajput’s rajas of Amber and Jodhpur, for example, received great autonomy to rule their watan. Some of these Rajput rajas provided the Mughals with steadfast service. They received outside jagirs (the nearby ones) or subas as payment for their service, in addition to their watan jagirs. The Subedari of Gujarat and Malwa were greeted by Raja Ajit Singh of Jodhpur, and the Subedari of Malwa was held with Sawai Raja Jai Singh of Amber.

As Mughal power waned, these Rajput monarchs began expanding their domains by conquering the regions surrounding their watans, which were portions of imperial or Mughal lands. The Rajputs of Jodhpur’s conquest of Nagpur and Amber‘s takeover of Bundi are two instances of this type of expansion.

Roles and Duties

• Chiefs from the Rajput tribe held important positions in the Mughal era. Raja Todarmal, Birbal, Man Singh, and other significant Rajputs from the Mughal government and army are a few noteworthy instances. 
• During Akbar’s rule, Raja Todarmal was in charge of the revenue administration. In the area of revenue administration, he made changes. As a result, the entire revenue structure he created was known as “Todar Mal’s Bandobast.” 
• Birbal, the emperor’s principal advisor and the head of the Mughal army, was another significant Rajput in Akbar’s court. Another significant general in the Mughal army was Raja Man Singh.

Rise and Decline

• The Mughal-Rajput relations were badly harmed by Aurangzeb’s accession to the throne since his predecessors had done a great job of maintaining them because they understood how significant the Rajputs’ assistance was to the expansion of their empire. 
• The policies of Aurangzeb underwent numerous revisions. The ‘watan jagirs’ territories granted to Rajput kings were taken away, they were denied crucial positions, and the government began meddling in their internal and religious issues. 
• These were all offences by the Rajputs. They then began planning an attack on the Mughals. Rajputs began to lose prominence in this way.
• At the same time, Rajputs and Mughals were being overthrown by Marathas, who had begun to take control of the position. Thus, the Rajput influence as well as the subsequent Mughals came to an end, and the Maratha confederacy emerged in India.

Summary

Due to a pressing political need for two of the major governing elites of northern India to strengthen their positions, Mughal-Rajput relations emerged during the sixteenth century. The allocation of watan jagirs to Rajput rulers with some authority was a significant step toward this arrangement. These Rajput kings gradually began expanding their watan jagirs by annexing the surrounding lands. But as the empire continued to grow, this partnership began to experience problems by the seventeenth century. Both the collapse of the Rajputs and the declaration of the independent regional kingdom were facilitated by internal strife among the Rajputs. In the end, the dominance of the Mughal-Rajput ties faced a significant threat from the advent of the Maratha.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

 1.Who were the Rajputs?
Ans. The Kshatriya clan of the Varna system gave rise to the Rajputs. These Rajputs were primarily warriors who participated in conflicts and battles. They are responsible for the area’s defence.

2. How did Aurangzeb’s religious policy offend the Rajputs?
Ans. Since the Rajput kings were all Hindu, Aurangzeb sought to convert all of India to Islam. He conducted numerous actions against Hindus to achieve this purpose, including the imposition of Jaziyah, the destruction of temples and idols, and discriminatory tolls for Hindu traders. The Rajput kings were upset by all of these actions, and they began to lose faith in the Mughals.

3. What were the revenue reforms known as Todarmal Bandobast?
Ans. A tool called a jarib was used to measure the land. According to its quality, the land was split into good, intermediate, and terrible areas. One of the goods had a fixed revenue over ten years. The collection of taxes had to be done kindly. The payment was cancelled in the event of a natural calamity.