Dewan

Etymology

The word is Persian in origin, and was loaned into Arabic. The original meaning was "bundle (of written sheets)", hence "book", especially "book of accounts," and hence "office of accounts," "custom house," "council chamber". The meaning divan "long, cushioned seat" is due to such seats having been found along the walls in Middle Eastern council chambers.

Council

The word first appears under the Caliphate of Omar I (A.D. 634–644). As the Caliphate state became more complicated, the term was extended over all the government bureaus.

The divan of the Sublime Porte was the council or Cabinet of the state. In the Ottoman Empire, it consisted of the usually (except in the Sultan's presence) presiding Grand Vizier and other viziers, and occasionally the Janissary Ağa.

In 19th Century Romania the Ad hoc Divan was a body which played a role in the country's development towards independence from Ottoman rule.

In Javanese and related languages, the cognate Dewan is the standard word for council, as in the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat or (Indonesia's Council of People's Representatives) and Dewan Negara (Senate of Malaysia).

Title

During the effective rule of the Mughal empire, the Dewan served as the chief revenue officer of a province.

Later, when most vassal states gained various degrees of self-determination, the finance — and/or chief minister and leader of many princely states (especially Muslim, but also many Hindu, including Baroda, Hyderabad, Mysore, Kochi, Travancore — referred as Dalawa until 1811) became known as a dewan. See Oswal, Tandon

Exceptionally, a ruler was himself titled Dewan or a loftier variation, notably :

As a title used in various Middle kingdoms of India, Diwan denoted the highest officials in the court after the king; the suffix '-ji' is added as a mark of respect in India.. In the major Maratha kingdoms of Baroda (ruled by the Gaekwad), Gwalior (ruled by Scindias or Shinde), Indore (ruled by Holkar), and Nagpur (ruled by Bhonsle, but not from the Chhatrapati Shivaji family), the highest officer after the king was called the Diwan. One of the example was - Shrimant Diwan/Rao Bahadur Atmaram Kulkarni was the Diwan ( Prime Minister)of Jamkhandi state ["The Marathas: 1600 to 1818" by Stewart Gordon, Cambridge University Press]. In the 19th century the British Parliament established in British India a supreme court for revenue matters (non-criminal matters) named the "Sudder Dewanny Adawlut", which applied Hindu law.

Derived and compound titles

Diwan Deo was the hereditary title borne by the Chief Minister of Cooch, held by a junior branch of the ruling Narayan dynasty.

Nowadays, the title is used amongst certain upper-middle-class families in South Asia; several landlords in villages and provinces across the subcontinent have names prefixed with this title. The title, in its variant form "Dewan", is especially common amongst Muslim land-owners in Bengal and the Punjab.

Diwan also became a surname of high caste Hindus or Sikhs in Punjab.

Diwani

After the Battle of Plassey when the Nawab of Bengal Sirajuddaulah surrendered his dominions to the East India Company in 1757, the Moghul King granted the Company the Diwani (the right to collect revenue) in Bengal and Bihar in 1765. The term Diwani thus referred to British (fiscal) suzerainty over parts of India during the early British Raj.

French India

In French India, one of its constituent colonies, Yanaon, had Zamindar and Diwan. They were active in its local and municipal administration during French rule. The Zamindar of Yanam was given a 4 gun salute by French counterparts.