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Mughal retreat from coastal Andhra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

J. F. Richards
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Extract

The aim of this article is to describe and assess those political changes occurring in the Godavari region of coastal Andhra (i.e. the districts of Srīkākūlam, Rajamundry, and Elluru) as a result of Mughal conquest in the later 17th century. Previous to that event, the Muslim kingdom of Golconda with its capital at Hyderabad had ruled this predominantly Telugu-speaking region. But imperial occupation did not carry with it increased political and administrative consolidation. On the contrary, extension of the boundaries of the empire brought about a perceptible decline in Muslim state power as exercised from Hyderabad. At the same time Telugu warriors who had served the king of Golconda as troop commanders and local administrative intermediaries became self-sufficient rājas.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 110 , Issue 1 , January 1978 , pp. 50 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1978

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References

NOTES

1 Sherwani, H. K., Muhammad Qulī-Qutb Shah, New York, 1968, 108–15.Google Scholar

2 Bowrey, Thomas, A geographical account of countries round the Bay of Bengal: 1669–1679, ed. Temple, Richard, (The Hakluyt Society Series 2, Vol. 12), Cambridge, 1905, 124–5. Emphasis supplied.Google Scholar

3 This is an inference based on incomplete listings of parganas for Srīkākūlam in Mughal records made just after the conquest.

4 Figures for the numbers of villages come from an early-18th-century Mughal revenue manual, the “Deh-be-dehi Suba Farkhonda Bonyad”, State Archives of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, India.

5 Grant, James, “Political survey of the northern circars”, in Fifth Report from the Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company, Sessional Papers, House of Commons, 1812, Vol. VII, 666.Google Scholar

6 From the Machilipatnam district record office, Andhra Pradesh, India, “To Edward Saunders Esq. President and Members of the Committee of Circuit the humble Representative of Raja Culdindy Tripetty Rauze Bahauder Desmookee of Ellore Circar and Zemindar of Mugletore”, dated 11 June 1786, Mas. Dist. Rec. 3086, 614–5. I am indebted to my colleague Joseph Brennig for this reference. The document is part of the materials accumulated for James Grant's survey of the coastal districts cited above.

7 Master, Streynsham, The diaries of Streynsham Master, ed. Temple, Richard, London, 2 vols., 1911, II, 162.Google Scholar

8 Coll., I. J., I/1/9 to I/1/34, contains the first Mughal listing of deshmukhs and munīwārs for Hyderabad.Google Scholar

9 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 17 April 1687, 116.Google Scholar

10 ibid.

11 “Alamgīrī, Akhām-i”. State Archives of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, India, Persian MS 1358, f. 52a.Google Scholar

12 India Office Library, London, “Original Correspondence”, Fort St. George to London, 1 February 1689, No. 5698, 30.

13 “Akhām-i Alamgīrī”, f. 52a.

14 For the appointment of MuṣṬafā Qulī Khān see RFSG: Diary, 1 April 1692, 11.

15 For a full description of this point see ch. v in my forthcoming book, Mansabdārs and nāyaks: Imperial administration in the eastern Deccan, 1687–1724 (Clarendon Press).Google Scholar

16 India office Library, London, Factory Records, Vizagapatam, “Consultations” G/39/1, 4 September and 30 October 1694. The Dutch merchants also commented on Muṣṭafā Qulī Khīn's brutality. See K.A. 1408 (25.4.1692) f. 698.Google Scholar

17 India Office Library, London, “Kyfyat of Vizianagarum Zamindary”, Elliot Collection: Eur. MS F. 46, 256–7. Madava Varma's lands yielded an assessed tax of 5,207 rupees. Approximately half went to support him and his troops and the remainder went to the state.

18 RFSG: Diary, 15 October 1689, 86. Ibid., 7 December 1689, 95–6.

19 Vizagapatam “Consultations”, 26–7 August 1694. Simon Holcome, head of the British trading station at Vishakapatnam, provides a near daily account for the first eight months of the rebellion. Unless otherwise cited, the following narrative relies on this source.

20 On 27 October 1694, Holcome received reports that “last night Razuma [modern Razum, located just north of Srīkākūlam] a great Town & 3 or 4 adjacent villages were robb'd & burnt & some of ye chiefs of ye inhabitants of Razuma were beheaded”. Vizagapatam “Consultations”.

21 Madras Presidency, Records of Fort St. George: Public despatches to England, I, Madras, 1915, 23 June 1695, 20.

22 Akh., 39 (6 Zelhejja), 45. Muṣṭafā Qulī Khān defended his record in the same newsletter.

23 ibid.

24 Vizagapatam, Consultations, 21 October 1694.

25 Akh., 39 (6 Zelhejja), 45.

26 Akh., 39 (9 Rabi II), 112. Records the sending of assistance by Jan Sipar Khān to Muṥṭafā Qulī Khān.

27 RFSG: Despatches, 10 February 1696, 48.

28 “Kyfyat of Vizianagarum Zamindary”, 156–7;Google ScholarGrant, , op. cit., 666.Google Scholar

29 RFSG: Diary, 25 October 1697; I. J. Coll., I/13/669.

30 RFSG: Diary, 31 January 1698.

31 Das, H. H., The Norris embassy to Aurangzib, Calcutta, 1959, 145;Google ScholarRFSG: Diary, 29 April 1698, 48.Google Scholar

32 Akh.,43 (19 Zelhejja), 111.

33 Das, , op. cit., 146.Google Scholar Norris put the annual payment required from Faqīrullāh Khān at £400,000 English money. This, if converted at 2s. 3d. (the rate supplied by Norris), equals 3,520,000 rupees. See p. 127 for his discussion of the currency. By this date nearly all the coastal districts were classified as khāliṣa for revenue purposes.

34 Das, , op. cit., 146;Google ScholarRFSG: Letters to FSG, 30 June 1700; 9 September 1700. The British merchants describe Mahdī Khān Bek as “nearly related” to Jan Sipar Khān, which could mean kinship as well as a close personal relationship.

35 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 30 January 1700, 19; 7 February 1700, 25.

36 Das, , op. cit., 152.Google Scholar

37 Das, , op. cit., 149.Google Scholar

38 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 28 April 1700, 50.

39 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 17 May 1700, 63.

40 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 4 September 1700, 90.

41 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 10 December 1700, 135.

42 RFSG: Diary, 7 March 1702, 26; ibid., 6 April 1702, 32.

43 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 22 February 1703, 23.

44 I. J. Coll., I/12/338; I/16/632.

45 On 30 March 1699 the British merchants at Madapollam bought a compound and storehouse and a house with another compound for 680 gold pagodas from “Rangarays Gov. of Madapollam son of Colindee Ramarays Proprietor & Governor of ye Country of Ellore”. India Office Library, London, Factory Records, Masulipatam, “Proceedings of the Old Company”, 1699–1700, G/16/13, p. 41. Six years before, the British merchants at Vishakapatam had noted in their journal that “Meer Saibe”, the governor of Madapollam, was the son-in-law of Muṣṭafā Qulī Khān. Vizagapatam, “Consultations”, 28 July 1693.

46 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 5 September 1700, 84–5.

47 I. J. Coll., I/19/452. The total assessment was raised slightly to 553,250 rupees in 1698, up from 531,914 rupees.

48 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 5 September 1700, 84.

49 ibid., 29 October 1700, 94.

50 K. A. 1570, (10.10.1703), Second Part, f. 28.

51 Akh., 47 (18 Shawal), 205b; (28 Zelqadda), 78–9a; (1 Zelhejja), 80b. See Sarkar, Jadunath, History of Aurangzib (Calcutta, 5 vols., 1912–1930), IV, 387–9, V, 214–34, for an account of the Bedars.Google Scholar

52 RSFG: Letters to FSG, 22 February 1703, 23. The Koldinder statement of 1786 comments that the Mughal officers at this time were “so oppressive that all the Zemindars rose against them, and drove them out of the Country”, Mas. Dist. Rec. 3086, 616.

53 ibid., 3 July 1703, 94.

54 ibid.

55 ibid., 5 August 1703, 101; 13 August 1703, 106.

56 ibid., 22 September 1703, 106; 10 December 1703, 140. K.A. 1570, (7.10.1703), f. 280.

57 K.A. 1584, (2.2.1704), f. 116.

58 ibid.

59 William Tillard, the British factor at Machilipatnam, wrote that “tis believed that the severall ffusdars under Rustamdell consent to their [the Marāthās] Pillageing the Country …”. RFSG: Letters to FSG, 13 March 1704, 12–13.

60 ibid., 31 March 1704, 18.

61 ibid., 17 April 1704, 37.

62 ibid.

63 Ananda Razu obtained Sambham and Toleru parganas carved out of the large hawīlī pargana surrounding Srīkākūlam town, as well as three additional villages and a small piece of territory near Kasimkota. (“Kyfyat of Vizianagarum Zamindary”, 259;Google ScholarGrant, , op. cit., 670.Google Scholar) Timma Razu took over 71 villages forming a pargana located on Nagaur, the great deltaic island in the Godavari. (Grant, , op. cit., 666.Google Scholar) Ranga Razu “by his good management and fidelity to government, was rewarded with the zemindarry rights” over nearly 200 villages. (Grant, , op. cit., 662.Google Scholar) James Grant secured his information from the heirs of these men in the 1770's.

64 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 4 April 1704, 18. Rustam Dil Khān seems to have made this grant in the course of his deliberations at Vishakapatnam.

65 Mas. Dist. Rec. 3086, 616.

66 ibid.; also RFSG: Diary, 19 August 1714, 109–10.

67 Grant mentions that the Vauchevoy Razus of Peddapuram were kin to the Pusapatis of Vizianagram. (Grant, , op. cit., 665.Google Scholar) A British report of 1714 states that Ananda Razu had married the daughter of Koldinder Ranga Razu. (RFSG: Diary, 19 August 1714, 110.)

68 K.A. 1637, (31.3.1707), fs. 36–7. The “Kyfyat of Vizianagarum Zamindary” (p. 259)Google Scholar states that Ananda Razu obtained Bimlipatam pargana from Rustam Dil Khān's successor at a pesh kash of 9,450 rupees.

69 RFSG: Letters to FSG, 14 June 1707, 2. Inserted words are from the editor of the text.

70 K.A. 1653, (11.8.1708), f. 498. Of the “diverse groote land pagters” these two were the foremost.

71 Grant, , op. cit., 662, 665–6, 669–70.Google Scholar