UPPSC 2019 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 52 of 150

Correct — D, 'Jarib — A type of tax' is the wrong pair. The jarib was not a tax at all: it was the measuring rod, or chain, used to survey agricultural land, and by extension the unit of area obtained from that survey. Land measurement was the foundation of Akbar's zabt system, because revenue was assessed on measured area under each crop. The earlier practice of measuring with a hempen rope (tanab) was unreliable — the rope stretched when wet and shrank when dry, so the same field measured differently in different seasons and the assessment could be manipulated. Akbar's administration replaced it with a jarib made of bamboo lengths joined by iron rings, which held a constant length whatever the weather, and standardised the linear unit as the Ilahi gaz, with the bigha defined as 3,600 square Ilahi gaz. So the jarib belongs to the vocabulary of survey and measurement, not to the vocabulary of taxation — which is why it is the odd pair out. The other three are correctly matched: the dam was the copper coin of the Sher Shahi and Mughal currency system, the desai was a hereditary local revenue collector, and the diwan headed the revenue establishment of a province.

• (a)Dam — Copper coin — Correctly matched, so it cannot be the answer. The dam was the copper coin of the currency system Sher Shah Suri put in place and the Mughals continued, alongside the silver rupiya and the gold ashrafi or mohur. Under Akbar forty dams made one rupaya, and the revenue figures recorded in the Ain-i-Akbari are stated in dams.
• (b)Desai — Revenue Collector — Correctly matched. The desai — like the deshmukh of the Deccan — was a hereditary local revenue official in Gujarat and the Deccan who collected the state's demand from a defined tract and kept a customary share for himself. The office was so entrenched that it survives today as a common surname.
• (c)Diwan — Revenue Chief of a province — Correctly matched. Under Mughal provincial administration the diwan headed revenue and finance in the suba. Crucially he was appointed by, and reported to, the imperial diwan at the centre rather than to the subadar — a deliberate separation of the purse from the sword designed to keep provincial governors in check.

Medieval Indian revenue vocabulary mixes three different kinds of words: coins (dam, rupiya, tanka, ashrafi), officers (diwan, desai, deshmukh, amil, qanungo, patwari) and instruments or units of measurement (jarib, gaz, bigha, tanab). Exam questions on this theme are usually solved by spotting a term that has been pushed into the wrong category, not by knowing an obscure detail. Akbar's revenue system — the zabt or dahsala bandobast associated with Raja Todar Mal — rested on measured land, a ten-year average of crop prices and yields, and a cash demand fixed per bigha for each crop, which is why standardised measurement mattered so much.

The trap here is purely phonetic. 'Jarib' sits close to a cluster of genuine medieval taxes — kharaj, jaziya, zakat, abwab, pesh-kash — and a candidate scanning quickly accepts 'a type of tax' as plausible. The defence is to sort each term by category before checking the pairing. Dam is a coin; desai and diwan are officers; jarib is the only measuring instrument on the list, and the option calls it a tax. Note also the useful pair of terms that surround the jarib in Mughal revenue records: jama, the assessed or estimated revenue, and hasil, the amount actually realised.

• Jarib = the measuring rod or chain used to survey land, and by extension a unit of area; not a tax.
• The hempen rope (tanab) was replaced under Akbar by a bamboo jarib joined with iron rings, so that measurements did not vary with the weather.
• The linear unit was the Ilahi gaz and the bigha was defined as 3,600 square Ilahi gaz.
• Dam = copper coin of the Sher Shahi and Mughal system; forty dams made one silver rupaya, and the Ain-i-Akbari records revenue in dams.
• Desai and deshmukh were hereditary local revenue collectors in Gujarat and the Deccan, remunerated by a customary share of collections.
• The provincial diwan headed revenue in the suba and answered to the imperial diwan, not to the subadar — a built-in check on the governor.
• Genuine Mughal-era levies to keep separate from measurement terms: kharaj or mal (land revenue), jaziya, zakat, pesh-kash and abwabs.

• Reading 'jarib' as a tax because it sounds like kharaj or jaziya — it is an instrument and unit of land measurement.
• Assuming the provincial diwan worked under the subadar. He was appointed centrally and reported to the imperial diwan, which was the whole point of the arrangement.
• Mixing up jama (assessed revenue) with hasil (revenue actually collected) — UPPSC has asked this distinction directly.

UPPSC almost always asks medieval administration as a NOT-correctly-matched pair or a two-list match of office against duty; UPSC prefers a single direct question naming one office — for instance, which officer headed the military department under Akbar — so the same vocabulary list serves both exams.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In Akbar's revenue administration the 'jarib' referred to

  • (a)a bamboo rod joined with iron rings, used to measure land
  • (b)a poll tax levied on non-Muslim subjects
  • (c)a copper coin worth one-fortieth of a rupaya
  • (d)a contract for farming out revenue collection

  Answer(a) A bamboo rod joined with iron rings, used to measure land — it replaced the hempen rope (tanab), whose length varied with the weather, and gave the standardised survey on which the zabt assessment rested.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under Akbar, forty dams were equal to

  • (a)one rupaya
  • (b)one mohur
  • (c)one tanka
  • (d)one ashrafi

  Answer(a) One rupaya — the copper dam was pegged at one-fortieth of the silver rupiya, and the Ain-i-Akbari's revenue statistics are consequently recorded in dams.