Who was 'Khareetadar'?
- (a)An officer who was trained in keeping accounts
- (b)Despatcher of royal decrees
- (c)Main custodian of royal palace
- (d)Chief Officer of Pargana
Correct — B, Despatcher of royal decrees. In medieval Indian administration the word 'khareeta' meant a formal letter or dispatch (traditionally kept in an envelope or cloth bag). The 'khareetadar' was therefore the officer in charge of handling and sending out the ruler's official correspondence and decrees. Ziauddin Barani's Tarikh-i-Firoz-Shahi records that under Muhammad bin Tughlaq a hundred or two hundred royal orders passed daily through the khareetadar's office for transmission to the provincial governors (walis and muqtas).
- (a)An officer who was trained in keeping accounts — Account-keeping was the work of finance/record officers (such as the mutasarrif or mustaufi), not of the khareetadar, who dealt with correspondence.
- (c)Main custodian of royal palace — Guarding and running the royal household was a separate palace office; it was not the function of the khareetadar.
- (d)Chief Officer of Pargana — The pargana (a sub-district) was run by local officials such as the amil and chaudhari — not by the khareetadar, who was a court-level despatch officer.
'Khareeta' denotes a royal letter or dispatch; the 'khareetadar' was the court functionary responsible for issuing and despatching the ruler's written orders and decrees to officials across the realm. The office reflects how the Delhi Sultanate ran a paper-based command system connecting the centre to the provinces.
The right answer follows straight from the meaning of the root word 'khareeta' (a letter/dispatch). The distractors describe genuine but different medieval offices — an accountant, a palace custodian and a pargana head — so the trap is to guess by 'important-sounding role' rather than by the term's meaning.
- 'Khareeta' = a royal letter/dispatch, kept in an envelope or bag.
- 'Khareetadar' = the officer who despatched royal decrees and correspondence.
- Barani's Tarikh-i-Firoz-Shahi notes 100-200 orders passing daily through the office under Muhammad bin Tughlaq.
- Part of the Delhi Sultanate's central administrative machinery linking the sultan to provincial governors.
The khareetadar was the despatch officer through whom royal decrees reached the provinces.
- Guessing by 'important role' instead of the meaning of 'khareeta' (a letter)
- Confusing the despatch office with revenue or household offices
UPPSC favours single-term identification questions on medieval administrative offices; anchor 'khareeta = letter/dispatch'.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The 14th-century historian who described the daily flow of royal orders through the khareetadar's office in his Tarikh-i-Firoz-Shahi was:
- (a)Amir Khusrau
- (b)Ziauddin Barani
- (c)Minhaj-us-Siraj
- (d)Ibn Battuta
Answer(b) Ziauddin Barani — author of Tarikh-i-Firoz-Shahi.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the Delhi Sultanate, the head of a province (iqta) was known as the:
- (a)Amil
- (b)Muqta / Wali
- (c)Qanungo
- (d)Patwari
Answer(b) Muqta / Wali — the governor of an iqta (province).