Mughal History: What did 'Kotwal' do in the era of Mughals, what were the responsibilities?

Kotwal was an important post in the Mughal Sultanate, the special thing is that Emperor Akbar himself had decided what work Kotwal would do.

The Mughal Sultanate was ruled by the emperor, but to handle the vast empire, such an administration was needed to keep the situation under control. For this, there was division of departments, a head of each department was appointed, but he did not have rights in his hands. It could not take any decision independently. Their job was only to give advice to the king.

Everyone would be familiar with the Wazir in the Mughal Sultanate, but do you know that there were also Kotwals in the Mughalia Sultanate. Even at that time, the Kotwal was posted as the head of the police, but his duties were different. They have been mentioned in detail in the book named Meerate Ahmed. Let us understand what the Kotwal used to do in the Mughal period.

Kotwal used to do this work

In a book named Meerate Ahmed, the tasks set by Akbar for the Kotwal have been mentioned. It has been told that the Kotwal had to prepare a list of the place and the houses with the help of the clerks. They had to record that how many people are there in which house and what they do.

Only Kotwal used to find out that in which house how many people are artisans, how many are soldiers and how many are dervishes. Apart from this, spies were also spread in the empire, who used to come every day at a time and report to the Kotwal that what was happening in the empire?

Kotwal had to keep the details of every person's income and expenditure, he also had to keep an eye on whether any person was spending more than his income. When this happened, that person was considered accused of corruption.

If the price of any commodity is increasing rapidly in the market, then only the Kotwal had to fix the price of that commodity, he could complain about the rich who monopolized the market.

There was no cabinet in the Mughal Sultanate

In the ancient history of India, there is mention of many kings and their cabinet, but in the Mughal Sultanate, the administration was directly in the hands of the emperor. Especially during the reign of Emperor Akbar, many works were done in the field of administrative reform. There was no cabinet, but Akbar arranged for several departments for advice and consultation, but these were not allowed to take decisions independently. They had to inform the king before taking action on anyone. Only the emperor used to decide what action would be taken.