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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Examine critically the agrarian and economic reforms of Alauddin Khalji. How did it strengthen the Sultanate?

  • UPSC 2011
  • The Fourteenth Century

Alauddin Khalji's agrarian and fiscal measures (1296-1316) cannot be read merely as a list of taxes and price controls; they were a coherent instrument of state-building, engineered to convert an unstable conquest-state, permanently menaced by Mongol incursions, into a militarily self-sufficient and administratively centralized power. The reforms strengthened the Sultanate along three interlocking axes —…

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What the full answer covers

  • Revenue Maximization as the Fiscal Foundation of the State
  • Breaking the Intermediaries: Removing a Structural Check on Royal Power
  • Deepening Administrative Reach: The Expansion of the Revenue Bureaucracy
  • The Fiscal-Military Payoff: Funding the Standing Army and Market Control
  • Critical Limits: Strength Bought at an Unsustainable Price

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