Lehs 204
Lehs 204
Lehs 204
The basic unit of agricultural society was the village,
inhabited by peasants who performed the manifold
seasonal tasks that made up agricultural production
throughout the year – tilling the soil, sowing seeds,
harvesting the crop when it was ripe. Further, they
contributed their labour to the production of
agro-based goods such as sugar and oil.
But rural India was not characterised by settled
peasant production alone. Several kinds of areas
such as large tracts of dry land or hilly regions were
not cultivable in the same way as the more fertile
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Source 2
Compare the
irrigation devices
observed by Babur with
what you have learnt
about irrigation in
Vijayanagara
(Chapter 7). What kind
of resources would each
of these systems
require? Which systems
could ensure the
participation of peasants
in improving
agricultural technology?
Fig. 8.2
A reconstructed Persian
wheel, described here
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Fig. 8.8 b
Discuss... Women carrying loads
Migrant women from neighbouring
Are there any differences in the access men and villages often worked at such
women have to agricultural land in your state? construction sites.
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4.1 Beyond settled villages
There was more to rural India than sedentary
agriculture. Apart from the intensively cultivated
provinces in northern and north-western India,
huge swathes of forests – dense forest (jangal) or
Fig. 8.9 scrubland (kharbandi) – existed all over eastern
Painting of Shah Jahan hunting India, central India, northern India (including the
nilgais ( from the Badshah Nama) Terai on the Indo-Nepal border), Jharkhand, and in
peninsular India down the Western Ghats and the
Describe what you see Deccan plateau. Though it is nearly impossible to
in this painting. What is the set an all-India average of the forest cover for this
symbolic element that helps period, informed conjectures based on contemporary
establish the connection sources suggest an average of 40 per cent.
between the hunt and Forest dwellers were termed jangli in
ideal justice? contemporary texts. Being jangli, however, did
not mean an absence of “civilisation”,
as popular usage of the term today
seems to connote. Rather, the term
described those whose livelihood
came from the gathering of forest
produce, hunting and shifting
agriculture. These activities were
largely season specific. Among the
Bhils, for example, spring was reserved
for collecting forest produce, summer
for fishing, the monsoon months
for cultivation, and autumn and
winter for hunting. Such a sequence
presumed and perpetuated mobility,
which was a distinctive feature of
tribes inhabiting these forests.
For the state, the forest was a
subversive place – a place of refuge
(mawas) for troublemakers. Once
again, we turn to Babur who says that
jungles provided a good defence “behind
which the people of the pargana
become stubbornly rebellious and
pay no taxes”.
4.2 Inroads into forests
External forces entered the forest in
different ways. For instance, the state
required elephants for the army. So
the peshkash levied from forest people
often included a supply of elephants.
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Source 3
What forms of intrusion into
the forest does the text evoke?
Compare its message with that
of the miniature painting in
Fig. 8.9. Who are the people
identified as “foreigners” from the
perspective of the forest dwellers?
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Source 4
What are the modes of
transport described in this
passage? Why do you think
they were used? Explain what
each of the articles brought from
the plains to the hills may have
been used for.
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Our story of agrarian relations in Mughal India will
not be complete without referring to a class of
people in the countryside that lived off agriculture
but did not participate directly in the processes of
agricultural production. These were the zamindars
who were landed proprietors who also enjoyed certain
social and economic privileges by virtue of their
superior status in rural society. Caste was one factor
that accounted for the elevated status of zamindars;
another factor was that they performed certain
services (khidmat) for the state.
The zamindars held extensive personal lands
termed milkiyat, meaning property. Milkiyat lands
were cultivated for the private use of zamindars,
often with the help of hired or servile labour. The
zamindars could sell, bequeath or mortgage these
lands at will.
Zamindars also derived their power from the fact
that they could often collect revenue on behalf of
the state, a service for which they were compensated
financially. Control over military resources was
another source of power. Most zamindars had
fortresses (qilachas) as well as an armed contingent
comprising units of cavalry, artillery and infantry.
Thus if we visualise social relations in the
Mughal countryside as a pyramid, zamindars clearly
constituted its very narrow apex. Abu’l Fazl’s account
indicates that an “upper-caste”, Brahmana-Rajput
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Source 5
Amin was an official responsible
for ensuring that imperial
regulations were carried out in
the provinces.
What principles did the
Mughal state follow while
classifying lands in its territories?
How was revenue assessed?
Map 1 Samarqand
The expansion of the Mughal Empire
Balkh
Babur’s reign, 1530
What impact do you think
Akbar’s reign, 1605
the expansion of the empire Kabul
Aurangzeb’s reign, 1707
would have had on land revenue
Qandahar
collection? Lahore
Panipat
Delhi
Agra
Amber
Ajmer Patna
Rohtas
Arabian Sea Goa Bay of Bengal
Sketch map not to scale
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Source 6 Source 7
What difference would each of the systems
of assessment and collection of revenue have
made to the cultivator?
Discuss...
Would you consider the land revenue system of
the Mughals as a flexible one?
The Mughal Empire was among the large territorial
empires in Asia that had managed to consolidate power
and resources during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. These empires were the Ming (China),
Safavid (Iran) and Ottoman (Turkey). The political
stability achieved by all these empires helped create
vibrant networks of overland trade from China to the
Mediterranean Sea. Voyages of discovery and the
opening up of the New World resulted in a massive
expansion of Asia’s (particularly India’s) trade with Fig. 8.11
Europe. This resulted in a greater geographical A silver rupya issued by Akbar
diversity of India’s overseas trade as well as an (obverse and reverse)
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Fig. 8.13
An example of textiles produced in
the subcontinent to meet the
demands of European markets
Discuss...
Find out whether there are
any taxes on agricultural
production at present in
your state. Explain the
similarities and differences
between Mughal fiscal
policies and those adopted
by present-day state
governments.
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Source 8
The Ain-i Akbari was the culmination of a large
historical, administrative project of classification
undertaken by Abu’l Fazl at the order of Emperor
Akbar. It was completed in 1598, the forty-second
regnal year of the emperor, after having gone through
five revisions. The Ain was part of a larger project
of history writing commissioned by Akbar. This
history, known as the Akbar Nama, comprised three
books. The first two provided a historical narrative.
We will look at these parts more closely in Chapter
9. The Ain-i Akbari, the third book, was organised
as a compendium of imperial regulations and a
gazetteer of the empire.
The Ain gives detailed accounts of the organisation
of the court, administration and army, the sources
of revenue and the physical layout of the provinces
of Akbar’s empire and the literary, cultural and
religious traditions of the people. Along with a
description of the various departments of Akbar’s
government and elaborate descriptions of the
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Source 9
List all the sources that Abu’l Fazl used to compile his
work. Which of these sources would have been most useful
for arriving at an understanding of agrarian relations?
To what extent do you think his work would have been
influenced by his relationship with Akbar?
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