Qanungo

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Qanungo even Qanungoh , Kanungo , eigtl. Erläuterer of the law , of Arab. کانون, qānun , Turkish and hindi kānūn (in Devnagari कानून), literally "law", is a term used in northern India , in Pakistan and Bangladesh since the high Middle Ages (13th century) for the registration of real estate Local officials entrusted for tax purposes at the administrative level of the Parganas , who often belonged to one of the higher Hindu castes ( Brahmins , Khatri , Kayastha, etc.); Title and office became hereditary in families.

Origin and development of the office

In addition to the Qanungo, the smallest control unit in the Parganas was a Shiqdar as an officer of the military police and an Amīn ( Munsiff ) as a civilian police officer. At the village level, however, a patwari (village clerk) did the administrative work.

Already under the Muslim Sultanate of Delhi , then increasingly under the Mughals , especially after Akbar's reforms , and still in British India , the Qanungo were, along with the Chaudhurys , the village chiefs, influential mediators between the higher state authorities and the landowners (including Zamindars ) and the peasants, until they lost their influence in the course of the Indian uprising from 1857 to 1858, decried as corrupt, depraved and tyrannical .

The Qanungos owned by the management of the land registers , control, production and others register a complete view of the agricultural ownership and income of their district. Since Akbar I, their office had been equipped with a fixed salary in the form of income allocations, later with a fixed tax component, somewhat lower than that of the Chaudhuris.

Qanungo ( Kanungo ) is a family name today .

Curiosities

The term does not appear in the relevant directory of Anglo-Indian terms, the Hobson-Jobson .

supporting documents

  1. ^ EI (2009), Index Volume, p. 310; EI Vol. 8 (1993), p. 271 sv Pargana
  2. ↑ Kánungo is held as an honorary title by the Káyasth in Bengal; Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, p. 420
  3. ↑ CCDavies, EI vol. Viii, p. 270 f. - On the social standing of the Patwari, which was lower than that of the Qanungo, see Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, vol. i, p. 445
  4. ^ Richards, Mughal Empire, p. 82
  5. ↑ Banglapedia sv Qanungo

literature

  • John F. Richards: The Mughal Empire . In: The New Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, 5. Cambridge: OUP 1993, p. 82
  • Encyclopaedia of Islam (EI), Index volume. Suffer. Boston: Brill 2009. p. 310 sv kanungo
  • CC Davies: Pargana . In: The Encyclopedia of Islam (EI), Vol.viii. Suffer. Boston: Brill 1993. pp. 270-271
  • HH Risley: The Tribes and Castes of Bengal. Ethnographic glossary. Vol. I. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press 1891. (Reprint 1998), p. 420 vs Kánungo

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