An example of firman or Royal Diktat was the one issued by Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar in 1717, exempting the British from the payment of customs duties in Bengal.
The term was first noted in 1922 by Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Prussia, regarding the Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated Germany.
However, the term came into popular journalism use during the years of the Cold War where there was talk of the politburo diktats from Moscow to describe and characterize the commands by the bureaucrats of the former USSR towards its satellite countries.
[5] Diktat is sometimes used in Europe to refer to directives of governments against large groups as in the case of the dispute between the European Union and Microsoft regarding license information on how Windows communicates over a network.
[7] Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of endangering the international order by trying to "remake the whole world" for its own, Putin excoriated the United States for escalating world conflicts by "unilateral diktat" and imposing sanctions that he said were aimed at pushing Russia toward "economic weakness", while he denied that Russia aspires to rebuild an empire or reclaim its Cold War-era stature as a superpower.