Pargana or parganah, also spelt pergunnah during the time of the Delhi Sultanate, Mughal Empire and British Indian Empire, [1] is a former administrative unit of the Indian subcontinent. Each parganas may or may not be subdivided into pirs. [2] Those revenue units are used primarily, but not exclusively, by Muslim kingdoms. After Indian independence the parganas became equivalent to Block/ Tahsil and pirs became Grampanchayat.
Parganas were introduced by the Delhi Sultanate. As a revenue unit, a pargana consists of several mouzas , which are the smallest revenue units, consisting of one or more villages and the surrounding countryside.
Under the reign of Sher Shah Suri, administration of parganas was strengthened by the addition of other officers, including a shiqdar (police chief), an amin or munsif (an arbitrator who assessed and collected revenue) and a karkun (record keeper).
In the 16th century the Mughal emperor Akbar organised the empire into subahs (roughly equivalent of state or province), which were further subdivided into sarkars (roughly the equivalent of districts), which were themselves organised into parganas (roughly the equivalent of district subdivisions such as tehsil). In the Mughal system, parganas served as the local administrative units of a sarkar. Individual parganas observed common customs regarding land rights and responsibilities, which were known as the pargana dastur, and each pargana had its own customs regarding rent, fees, wages, and weights and measures, known as the pargana nirikh. [3]
Pargana consisted of several tarafs, which in their turn consisted of several villages plus some uninhabited mountain and forest land. [4] During the reign of the Bahmani Sultanate in the Deccan, tarafs represented the provinces of the sultanate and its main territorial division. Tarafs were ruled by a tarafdar, the provincial governor, who held a significant amount of autonomy. [5] [6] [7]
As the British expanded into former Mughal provinces, starting with Bengal, they at first retained the pargana administration, but, under the Governorship of Charles Cornwallis, enacted the Permanent Settlement of 1793, which abolished the pargana system in favour of the zamindari system, in which zamindars were made the absolute owners of rural lands, and abolished the pargana dastur and pargana nirikh. British administration consisted of districts, which were divided into tehsils or taluks. Parganas remained important as a geographical term, persisting in land surveys, village identification and court decrees.
The pargana system persisted in several princely states, including Tonk and Gwalior. Parganas disappeared almost completely after the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, although the term lives on in place names, like the districts of North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas in India's West Bengal state.
The Sultanate of Golconda was an early modern kingdom in southern India, ruled by the Persianate, Shia Islamic Qutb Shahi dynasty of Turkoman origin. After the decline of the Bahmani Sultanate, the Sultanate of Golconda was established in 1518 by Quli Qutb Shah, as one of the five Deccan sultanates.
The Sultanate of Bijapur was an early modern kingdom in the western Deccan and South India, ruled by the Adil Shahi or Adilshahi dynasty. Bijapur had been a taraf (province) of the Bahmani Kingdom prior to its independence in 1490 and before the former's political decline in the last quarter of the 15th century. It was one of the Deccan sultanates, the collective name of the five successor states of the Bahmani Kingdom. At its peak, the Sultanate of Bijapur was one of the most powerful states in South Asia, second to the Mughal Empire, which conquered it in 1686 under Aurangzeb.
Muslim Rajputs or Musalman Rajpoots are the descendants of Rajputs in the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent who generally are followers of Islam. They converted from Hinduism to Islam from the medieval period onwards, creating various dynasties and states while retaining Hindu surnames such as Chauhan. Today, Muslim Rajputs can be found mostly in present-day Northern India and Pakistan. They are further divided into different clans.
Jalalabad (Jalālābād) is a town and a nagar panchayat in Shamli district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is a historical town situated on Delhi Saharanpur road. Dating back to the Mughal period, situated close to the borders of Haryana and Uttarakhand states, and surrounded by a very fertile agricultural region namely famous for plentiful yields in grains and fruits, Jalalabad is internationally famous for its wood carving work cottage industry. It is a thriving market of local agricultural produce, including basmati rice and mangoes. A variety of agro-based industrial enterprises - such as textile, sugar, paper and cigarette factories - are located around it. It is 41 km from Saharanpur and 40 km from Muzaffarnagar.
Prof Haroon Khan Sherwani (1891–1980) was an Indian historian, scholar, and author. Maulana Azad National Urdu University had created Centre for Deccan Studies in his honor.
The Berar Subah was one of the Subahs (provinces) of the Mughal Empire, in Central India from 1596 to 1724. It bordered Golconda, Ahmandagar, Kandesh and Malwa provinces as well as the independent and tributary kingdoms to the east.
Mahmud Gawan was a Persian statesman who served as the chief minister, or Peshwa of the Bahmani Sultanate from 1458 and de facto ruler as prime minister from 1466 until his death in 1481. Mahmud Gawan, from the village of Gawan in Persia, was well-versed in Islamic theology, Persian, and the sciences and was a poet and a prose writer of repute.
The Malwa Subah was one of the original twelve Subahs (provinces) of the Mughal Empire, including Gondwana, from 1568-1743. Its seat was Ujjain. It shared borders with the autonomous and tributary chiefdoms in the east, as well as Berar, Kandesh, Ahmadnagar (Deccan), Gujarat, Ajmer, Agra, and Allahabad subahs.
The Bengal Subah, also referred to as Mughal Bengal, was the largest subdivision of Mughal India encompassing much of the Bengal region, which includes modern-day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and some parts of the present-day Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha between the 16th and 18th centuries. The state was established following the dissolution of the Bengal Sultanate, a major trading nation in the world, when the region was absorbed into the Mughal Empire. Bengal was the wealthiest region in the Indian subcontinent.
Kampel is a panchayat village in the Indore block of the Indore district, Madhya Pradesh, India. It was the headquarters of a pargana in Mughal Empire before the administrative center of the region was shifted to Indore city under the Holkars of the Maratha Empire.
Rao Nandlal Chaudhary was a Gaur Brahmin and the chief of the Zamindars of Kampel, near Indore. Under the suzerainty of the Mughals, he controlled Kampel and some of its surrounding area including Indore. He accepted the suzerainty of the Marathas, after the Nizam acceded to the Peshwa's demands in 1724.
The Greater Sylhet region predominantly included the Sylhet Division in Bangladesh, and Karimganj district in Assam, India. The history of the Sylhet region begins with the existence of expanded commercial centres in the area that is now Sylhet City. Historically known as Srihatta and Shilhatta, it was ruled by the Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms of Harikela and Kamarupa before passing to the control of the Chandra, Sena and Deva dynasties in the early medieval period. After the fall of these Buddhist and Hindu principalities, the region became home to many more independent petty kingdoms such as Jaintia, Gour, Laur, and later Taraf, Pratapgarh, Jagannathpur, Chandrapur and Ita. After the Conquest of Sylhet in the 14th century, the region was absorbed into Shamsuddin Firoz Shah's independent principality based in Lakhnauti, Bangladesh. It was then successively ruled by the Muslim sultanates of Delhi and the Bengal Sultanate before collapsing into Muslim petty kingdoms, mostly ruled by Afghan chieftains, after the fall of the Karrani dynasty in 1576. Described as Bengal's Wild East, the Mughals struggled in defeating the chieftains of Sylhet. After the defeat of Khwaja Usman, their most formidable opponent, the area finally came under Mughal rule in 1612. Sylhet emerged as the Mughals' most significant imperial outpost in the east and its importance remained as such throughout the seventeenth century. After the Mughals, the British Empire ruled the region for over 180 years until the independence of Pakistan and India. There was a complete list of the different amils who governed Sylhet which was recorded in the office of the Qanungoh of Sylhet. However, most complete copies have been lost or destroyed. Dates from letters and seal traces show evidence that the amils were constantly changed. In 1947, when a referendum was held, Sylhet decided to join the Pakistani province of East Bengal. However, when the Radcliffe Line was drawn up, Karimganj district of Barak Valley was given to India by the commission after being pleaded by Abdul Matlib Mazumdar's delegation. Throughout the history of Sylhet, raids and invasions were also common from neighbouring kingdoms as well as tribes such as the Khasis and Kukis.
Khawāja Uthmān Khān Lōhānī, popularly known as Khwaja Usman, was a Pashtun chieftain and warrior based in northeastern Bengal. As one of the Baro-Bhuyans, he was a zamindar ruling over the northern parts of Bengal including Greater Mymensingh and later in South Sylhet. He was a formidable opponent to Man Singh I and the Mughal Empire, and was the last of the Afghan chieftains and rulers in Bengal. His defeat led to the surrender of all the remaining Pashtuns as well as the incorporation of the Sylhet region into the Bengal Subah. He is described as the most romantic figure in the history of Bengal. His biography can be found in the Baharistan-i-Ghaibi, Tuzk-e-Jahangiri as well as the Akbarnama.
Taraf, previously known as Tungachal, was a feudal territory of the Sylhet region in Bengal and was under many petty kingdoms in different periods of time. It was part of what is present-day Habiganj District in Bangladesh.
The Greater Noakhali district region predominantly includes the districts of Noakhali, Feni and Lakshmipur, although historically included the island of Sandwip in Bay of Bengal. The history of the undivided Noakhali district region begins with the existence of civilisation in the villages of Shilua and Bhulua. Bhulua became a focal point of Bengal during the Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms of Pundra, Harikela and Samatata leading it to become the initial name of the region as a whole. The medieval Kingdom of Bhulua enjoyed autonomy under the Twipra Kingdom and Bengal Sultanate before being conquered by the Mughal Empire. At the beginning of the 17th century, Portuguese pirates led by Sebastian Gonzales took control of the ara but were later defeated by Governor Shaista Khan. Affected by floodwaters, the capital of the region was swiftly moved to a new place known as Noakhali, from which the region presently takes its name. By 1756, the British East India Company had dominated and started to establish several factories in the region. The headquarters was once again moved in 1951, to Maijdee, as a result of Noakhali town vanishing due to fluvial erosion.
The Greater Jessore region predominantly includes the districts of Jessore, Jhenaidah, Narail and Magura in Bangladesh, as well as the Bangaon subdivision of India. Nestled close to the Sundarbans, the region experienced human settlement early on. It served as the capital city of the Samatata realm and passed through several Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms such as the Palas and Senas. Jessore was ruled by Khan Jahan Ali of Khalifatabad, under the Muslim Sultanate of Bengal, who is credited with establishing the Qasbah of Murali and urbanising the region through advancements in transportation and civilization. Jessore later came to be ruled by various chieftains such as Pratapaditya and became familiar to contemporary European travellers as Chandecan before being annexed to the Mughal Empire in the seventeenth century. By 1757, the British East India Company had dominated and started to establish themselves in the region. British rule lasted up until 1947, with Jessore coming under the Provisional Government of Bangladesh from 1971 onwards.
Rajahmundry Circar or Rajahmundry Sarkar was one of the five Northern Circars in the Golconda Sultanate, Deccan subah of Mughal empire and later in the Nizam's dominion of Hyderabad. The Northern Circars were the most prominent ones in the Deccan subah. Eastern Ghats near Pentakota village were considered the northern limit of the Rajahmundry Circar while the southern limit was demarcated by the Godavari river.
Sawānih-i-Deccan was a work was compiled by Munim Khan al-Hamdani al-Aurangabadi in 1197 A.H.. It is an unpublished manuscript in Persian and gives statistics of revenue accounts of the six subas of the Deccan with a historical account of the Asaf Jahis or Nizams of Hyderabad. Munim Khan was a military commander during the regime of Asaf Jah II. This work gave more insight about the regime of Asaf Jahis between 1724 A.D. and 1783 A.D. It also describes the administrative divisions and revenue of the Mughal Deccan during the last years of Aurangzeb's regime. A detailed list of Sarkars, Mahals (Parganas) and Villages along with their revenue was mentioned.
The government of the Mughal Empire was a highly centralised bureaucracy, most of which was instituted during the rule of the third Mughal emperor, Akbar. The central government was headed by the Mughal emperor; immediately beneath him were four ministries. The finance/revenue ministry was responsible for controlling revenues from the empire's territories, calculating tax revenues, and using this information to distribute assignments. The ministry of the military (army/intelligence) was headed by an official titled mir bakhshi, who was in charge of military organisation, messenger service, and the mansabdari system. The ministry in charge of law/religious patronage was the responsibility of the sadr as-sudr, who appointed judges and managed charities and stipends. Another ministry was dedicated to the imperial household and public works.
Malik Hasan Bahri or Nizam-ul-Mulk Bahri was a noble of the Bahmani Sultanate in India who served as the prime minister from 1481 until his murder in 1486. He was the father of Malik Ahmad Nizam Shah I, founder of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate, one of the secessionist kingdoms from the Bahmani Sultanate, and its ruling dynasty's primogenitor.