In 1580 Todar Mal began a drastic experiment designed to completely restructure the Mughal agrarian revenue system. The revenue ministry under Todar Mal established a fresh, accurate revenue assessment to be placed against each village, pargana, revenue circle, district, and province. In forcing its agrarian system upon the variegated aristocracy of the North Indian plain, the Mughals began to compress and shape a new social class. The social class found itself becoming more dependent upon the state for its prosperity and for an essential aspect of its identity. Mughal success in the countryside relied upon the services of numerous local members of a gentry class whose interests and activities were both rural and urban. Akbar's new policy forced grantees to shift their holdings to selected parganas and districts within the central provinces of North India where these tax-free land grants could be better managed and controlled. Such grants provided a living to a substantial number of Muslim and non-Muslim gentry.