Military and Police Administration in the Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire stretched across nearly the entire Indian subcontinent at its zenith, and holding such a vast territory together required two powerful instruments: a formidable army and an efficient policing system. Together, the imperial military and the local law-enforcement machinery ensured that emperors could project power on the battlefield while also keeping peace in bustling cities and quiet villages. Understanding how these two systems worked reveals much about how medieval rulers governed millions of subjects without the benefits of modern technology or communication.

The backbone of Mughal military power: the mansabdari system 🔗

At the heart of the Mughal army was the mansabdari system, an organisational framework that linked military rank, salary, and administrative duty into a single hierarchy. The word mansab is Arabic for “rank” or “position,” and those who held a mansab were called mansabdars. The system was formally organised by Emperor Akbar around 1571, though elements of it had existed in earlier regimes such as those of Alauddin Khalji and Sher Shah.

Akbar used the mansabdari structure to transform what had been a loose confederation of Muslim nobles into a multi-ethnic bureaucratic empire that integrated Muslims and Hindus, particularly the Rajputs. This was a political masterstroke because it tied the loyalty of diverse nobles directly to the emperor rather than to any regional power base. Mansabdars could be transferred from one assignment to another, and revenue collection was often diverted straight to the treasury, which meant officers had little opportunity to build up private armies or entrenched local followings.

The 33 grades and the zat-sawar classification 🔗

Every mansabdar was assigned a numerical rank, and according to imperial records, there were 33 grades of mansabdars in practice. The ranks ran from a low of 10 to a high of 5,000 for nobles, though Akbar later raised the ceiling to 7,000. The highest ranks were reserved for princes of royal blood.

Each rank carried two components. The first was zat, which indicated the officer’s personal status and determined his salary. The second was sawar, which specified the number of cavalrymen the mansabdar was expected to recruit and maintain. A mansabdar of 5,000 zat with 5,000 sawar was obligated to keep a cavalry force of that strength ready for imperial service. Akbar also introduced special ranks known as du aspa and sih aspa, which allowed a mansabdar to maintain double or triple the number of horsemen for a given pay grade.

Salaries paid in cash or jagirs 🔗

Mansabdars received their remuneration in one of two forms. Some, particularly officers of the infantry and artillery, were paid in cash (naqd) directly from the imperial treasury. The more common arrangement, however, was the jagir, which was an assignment of the land revenue of a specified number of villages or a pargana. The land of the empire was broadly divided into khalisa, whose revenue went to the royal treasury, and jagir, whose revenue was assigned to mansabdars in lieu of salary.

The four branches of the Mughal army 🔗

The army itself was generally divided into four main branches, each with its own character and tactical role.

Cavalry: the prestigious striking arm 🔗

Cavalry was the pride of the Mughal military. The Mughal army depended heavily on war elephants, warhorses, and bulls to transport artillery, and cavalry warfare gradually replaced the logistically difficult elephant-based combat of earlier eras. Horses were mostly imported from Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Central Asia, with roughly three-quarters of the army’s warhorses coming from outside the subcontinent.

Cavalry itself was split into two categories. Bargirs were soldiers whose weapons and horses were supplied by the state, while Silehdars brought their own horses and equipment. Rajputs, who had traditionally fought on foot, were gradually trained as cavalry under Mughal service.

Infantry: foot soldiers, musketeers, and swordsmen 🔗

The infantry was structured into several specialised groups. The Banduqchis were musketeers and gun-bearers, mostly drawn from Hindu communities such as the Bundelas and Karnatakas who had developed reputations as marksmen. The Shamsherbaz were elite heavy infantry swordsmen, some serving as palace guards while tens of thousands were assigned to field armies and used particularly in sieges, where they exploited breaches opened by artillery or explosives. European observers often remarked that Mughal infantry lacked the drill and organisation of their cavalry counterparts, since the ruling military culture viewed foot soldiers as secondary to the horseman.

Artillery: the topkhana 🔗

The artillery branch, known as topkhana, was unique because it did not fall under individual mansabdars but was kept directly under imperial control, with its own commander. Babur introduced gunpowder artillery effectively at the First Battle of Panipat, and his successors expanded it steadily. Babur’s artillery came in two varieties: the heavy kazan, which could hurl projectiles of 20 to 25 pounds, and the lighter, more mobile zarb-zan, which fired smaller shot but could be repositioned quickly.

Heavy cannons were expensive and hard to move, requiring teams of elephants and oxen to drag them across the countryside. The Mughals also developed zamburaks, camel-mounted swivel guns that provided unusual mobility on the battlefield. Historians such as Marshall Hodgson and William H. McNeill termed the Mughals a “gunpowder empire”, placing them alongside the Ottomans and Safavids in that category.

War elephants and the navy 🔗

Elephants remained a symbol of imperial prestige even as their battlefield role diminished. Akbar kept between 5,000 and 7,000 war elephants, and a Jesuit observer in 1581 recorded that Akbar used around 500 elephants and 28 cannons in a single engagement. The Mughal navy, called Amla-e-Nawara, was less celebrated than the land forces but maintained substantial fleets. In Dhaka alone, the Mughal naval fleet reportedly included 768 ships crewed partly by Portuguese sailors and supported by thousands of artillery personnel.

The challenges of size and slowness 🔗

The Mughal army was enormous. By Jahangir’s reign, imperial records indicate the empire maintained over 340,000 cavalry troopers, and some estimates place the total force, including the contingents of mansabdars and feudatories, at several million men. But this sheer scale came at a price. Moving such a force required elaborate logistics, thousands of pack animals, camp followers, and supply trains.

During Jahangir’s reign in particular, the army’s size and complexity frequently hampered swift action. Campaigns took weeks to mobilise, and the emperor himself often accompanied the army with a mobile capital that functioned almost like a travelling city. When speed mattered most, as in responding to sudden rebellions or protecting distant frontiers, this bulk proved a real liability. Pay disputes added further friction. Soldiers were often paid in arrears, and disturbances by troops demanding their dues became a frequent sequel to the disgrace or sudden death of a commander in later Mughal history.

The police system: keeping peace in cities and villages 🔗

If the army projected imperial power outward, the police system ensured order within. Policing in the Mughal Empire operated at multiple levels, from the village through the district to the city, and each level had its own officials with clearly defined duties.

The Kotwal in cities 🔗

In urban areas, the central figure was the Kotwal. The word comes from kot (fort) and wal (keeper), and the Kotwal functioned as a combination of police chief, magistrate, and municipal administrator. Under Akbar, the Kotwal’s duties were codified in the Ain-i-Akbari compiled by Abul Fazl. These duties included maintenance of security through watch and ward, imposing curfews at night, maintaining registers of houses and roads, conducting periodic censuses, watching over income and expenditure, overseeing markets and prices, and regulating animal slaughter.

The Kotwal divided his city into quarters and assigned an assistant to each, who reported daily arrivals and departures. He kept a small network of spies and detectives to track down thieves and recover stolen property, and was personally liable for losses he could not recover. He also fixed local prices, checked weights and measures, and maintained inventories of the property of persons who died without heirs. Residents leaving their houses were required to inform the mir-i-mohalla (ward headman) so that theft could be prevented, and unauthorised persons entering a neighbourhood had to be housed separately in an inn.

The Faujdar at the district level 🔗

Between the city and village lay the Faujdar, the officer responsible for law and order in a sarkar (district). The Faujdar’s primary duties were policing the roads, suppressing disorder, and collecting state dues from rebellious villages, by force when necessary. Travellers were required to halt their journeys by sunset, and if robbery occurred during the day, the state accepted responsibility; if it happened at night, the traveller was held at fault for not stopping in time.

Village-level policing 🔗

In the countryside, the Mughals largely allowed the older Hindu system of village policing to continue. The Muqaddam, or village headman, was responsible for maintaining order, reporting crimes to higher authorities, and resolving local disputes. He was supported by the Patwari, who kept village accounts, and by Chowkidars, who served as night watchmen patrolling villages and agricultural lands. Villagers were held collectively responsible for any theft or crime committed within their boundaries, and were expected either to recover the stolen property or compensate the victim. Rural disputes were often resolved through village panchayats, with imperial officials intervening only for serious crimes.

Spies, intelligence, and market regulation 🔗

The Mughal policing apparatus was tightly interwoven with a sophisticated intelligence network. Kotwals supervised spies and informants, while the imperial system employed Waqia-navis (official news reporters), Harkaras (couriers and information gatherers), and Sawanih-nigars (confidential reporters who bypassed regular channels) to keep the emperor informed about everything from potential rebellions to local grievances.

Market regulation was another critical function. The muhtasib, a censor of public morals and supervisor of markets, worked alongside the Kotwal to ensure fair trading practices. Proactive policing supported the growth of commercial hubs like Agra and Delhi, where regulated markets and secure thoroughfares enabled sustained economic expansion across diverse populations. This balance of security and commerce was a deliberate policy, and the Ain-i-Akbari instructed Kotwals to maintain public order while avoiding unnecessary harshness.

The judicial connection 🔗

Policing was not separate from justice in the Mughal system; the two were intertwined. Aggrieved subjects could take grievances to the Kotwal, the Faujdar, or the Subahdar (provincial governor), and in some cases directly to the emperor. Jahangir famously installed a “chain of justice” in the Agra fort that any aggrieved subject could shake to get the emperor’s attention, bypassing the inefficacy of officials below him. The police officials thus served a dual role as enforcers and as lower-tier magistrates, handling minor offences themselves and referring serious matters upward.

Legacy and lasting influence 🔗

The administrative genius of the Mughal military and policing systems lay in their combination of central control with local flexibility. The mansabdari system produced a loyal, mobile officer corps whose interests were tied to the emperor rather than to any region. The policing framework, meanwhile, extended imperial authority down to the smallest village without requiring a vast centralised force.

Both systems declined in effectiveness during the later Mughal period. The mansabdari system suffered from inflated ranks, dwindling jagirs, and chronic pay arrears, while policing became exploitative as imperial oversight weakened. Yet the influence of these institutions endured. British colonial authorities adopted and modified aspects of the Kotwal framework, and the thana-based local policing structure that underpins modern policing still echoes the localised command model of the Mughal era. The muqaddam-patwari-chowkidar trio at the village level also survived into British administration and beyond, shaping rural governance long after the Mughals were gone.

What do you think? Was the sheer size of the Mughal army a strength that let it dominate the subcontinent, or a weakness that slowed its response to new threats? And how much of our modern local-governance architecture, from the thana to the village chowkidar, can we trace back to Mughal institutional design?

References

1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/mansabdar
2. https://www.vedantu.com/general-knowledge/mansabdari-system
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Mughal_Empire
4. https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Army_of_the_Mughal_Empire
5. https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Kotwal
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_the_Mughal_Empire