HISTORY OF INDIA VI

ASSIGNMENT

Question :-Q Evaluate the socio-economic, political, and cultural milieu of the 18th century to
comment on the 18th century debate.

Submitted by- Anshika aAgarwal

Rollno. :- 1790

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The eighteenth century forms a watershed in Indian history, which was a witness to the demise of the
Mughal Empire and the ascendancy of the British colonial government. The predominant nineteenth-
century view of the eighteenth century as a ‘period of anarchy between the age of Mughal hegemony
and the imposition of Pax Britannica’ persisted until very recently. The eighteenth century occupies
an important position as an era of change and continuity in Indian society, polity, and economy. The
presupposed relationship between the decline of imperial power and general socio-economic and
cultural decline needs to be reconsidered.

The political, economic and social transitions witnessed in 18th century India have been subject to
great historical debate. Most historians view this century as marked by two important transitions:

(i) FIRST HALF OF THE 18th CENTURY: The decline of the Mughal empire and the rise of
regional political orders

(ii) SECOND HALF OF THE 18th CENTURY: Post the Battle of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764) a
transition in the society, economy and polity of India occurred, as the English East India Company
began to assume political control in north India.

The debate regarding the first half of the 18 th century revolved around the reasons for decline of the
Mughal Empire and the nature socio-economic change that followed. Two broad views can be
outlined:

(i) DARK AGE VIEW: The earliest view held that political collapse of the Mughal Empire in the
early 18 th century initiated a process of economic and social decline across India, and thus the 18 th
century was a “Dark Age”.

(ii) REVISIONIST VIEW: The second view held by Revisionists historians, viewed the period on its
own terms, looked at political turmoil in terms of regional assertiveness, due to economic prosperity
noted by them in the 18th century. Thus they studied the rise of regional polities and regional
economic prosperity to challenge the “Dark Age” view and the causal links it draws between political
and economic decline.

The debate regarding the second half of the 18 th century revolved around whether colonial rule had
roots in pre-colonial economy and society as Revisionists argue or if it marked a politico-economic
break with pre- colonial India as historians who propose the ‘Dark Age view’ argue.

The eighteenth century in Indian historiography has been a field of study that has evoked a
considerable debate. It has been suggested that the political flux of the century was indicative not of
the last days of a decaying Mughal empire but rather the emergence of regeneration and growth under
regional authorities. Therefore, the notion of the eighteenth century as a Dark Age needs to be re-
examined.

When we study the situation of the eighteenth century, three dates serve as landmarks. Firstly, the
death of Aurangzeb in 1707. Aurangzeb has often been seen as the harbinger of Mughal decline.
Although the Mughal Empire reached its territorial climax during his reign, Aurangzeb’s military
campaigns were a severe financial drain. The outbreak of agrarian revolts led by Marathas, Jats, Sikhs
and others and the assertion of autonomy by many provincial governors was becoming a threat to
central authority. Control of the peripheries soon began to lapse into the hands of regional and local
elites. Meanwhile the mansabdari crisis intensified factional conflict within the nobility. The invasion
of Nadir Shah in 1739 and then the raids of Ahmad Shah Abdali between 1751 and 1752 dealt a
further blow to the tottering Mughal Empire.

These multiple internal and external factors resulted in the rapid decline of Mughal rule during the 18
th century. The Mughal emperor was not even able to directly participate in the Battle of Panipat
(1761) in which the Afghans routed the Maratha army which proved to be a major setback for the
Marathas, just at a time when the English were beginning to shift from trade to dominion. Maratha
power however had a brief revival under their great leader Mahadaji Scindia in the 1770s and 1780s.
In 1784 Scindia won acknowledgment as protector of the Mughal emperor. It was only after
overcoming fierce Maratha resistance that the British occupied Delhi in 1803

The second defining date of the eighteenth century is 1757, the year of the Battle of Plassey, between
the Nawab Siraj-ud- Daulah of Bengal and the British East India Company. With this victory the East
India Company acquired effective political control of Bengal and Bihar. Following the Battle of
Buxar in 1764 the Company acquired the diwani (the right to the revenues) of Bengal to the company
in 1765.

The third date, which perhaps symbolically caps the period would be 1799 when Tipu Sultan, the
ruler of Mysore and opponent of British annexationist drives in South India died defending
Seringapatnam, effectively signalling the advent of a new military player in the Indian subcontinent –
the East India Company.

The decline of the Mughal Empire did not directly correspond with the rise of the British Empire as is
the common view. The demise of the Mughal Empire corresponded with the rise of several regional
powers. The period that followed the decline of the Mughal Empire was not a period of crisis or
anarchy but was marked by the rise of a new order with the coming of regional kings and small
potentates. These regional kingdoms persisted longer than the Mughal Empire itself. They respected
Mughal authority thereby making Mughal authority outlive the Empire itself.

These regional kingdoms included states with de facto autonomy like Bengal, Awadh, Hyderabad and
Arcot. Others were warrior states like the Sikhs and the Marathas. And the last category included the
local kingdoms that had acquired more substance during the period of the eighteenth century like the
Rajputs and the Afghan Sultanates.

The early view of the Nationalist historians on reasons for Mughal Decline and the “Dark Age”
character of the 18th century were presented by historians such as Jadunath Sarkar, Ishwari Prasad
and Sri Ram Sharma. They held the individual character of rulers and their administrative and
religious policies as responsible for Mughal decline. Prasad and Sharma held that the 18th century
was an economically crisis-prone period, a view echoed by Colonial historians as well. Jadunath
Sarkar held Aurangzeb’s religious policy and Deccan Campaigns responsible for imperial decline. He
said that peasant rebellions of the 17 th century were a “Hindu reaction’’ to Aurangzeb’s Muslim
orthodoxy, destroyed the Mughal polity and caused the subsequent decline of Mughal economy,
institutions and society.

From the 1950s, Marxist historians explained Mughal decline in materialist terms. Some arguments
revolved around the institutions of jagir(a territory assigned to a noble by the Mughal emperor for a
limited period of time, from which he could extract revenue as his salary in lieu for his service as a
noble)and mansab(the administrative rank a noble held, which corresponded to his jagir). Thus Satish
Chandra argued that structural flaws in the functioning of the Mughal institutions of jagir and mansab
led to a fiscal crisis in the late 17th century. The efficiency of these institutions depended on
availability, collection and distribution of revenue, when this began to falter from Aurangzeb’s time it
led to and heralded imperial decline.

M. Athar Ali holds that a shortage of jagirs caused by political expansion of the empire into less
fertile tracts of the Deccan and also an increase in the number of nobles, without a proportionate
increase in their jagirs led to administrative and economic decline. John. F. Richards critiqued Ali’s
view with his study of Mughal administration in the Deccan he concluded that there was no shortage
of usable jagirs in the region, and this couldn’t have led to an imperial crisis.

Satish Chandra revised his argument and put an economic spin on it. He like Ali held that jagirs
became few and infertile. Yet he linked this to an economic argument that, few and infertile jagirs led
to an increasing discrepancy in estimated revenue (jama) and actual revenue (hasil) which led to a
decreased ability of state officials to collect revenue regularly, thus fuelling a fiscal crisis.

Amongst the economic decline arguments Irfan Habib’s view is one of the strongest within the “Dark
Century” conceptualization. Habib says that Mughal Empire was highly centralization, from Akbar’s
time onwards. This centralization was seen in the universal land tax, systematic revenue assessment
and collection, with a share going to zamidars (local claimants) that operated, as well as highly
uniform revenue assignment tenures and revenue collections from far away territories of the empire.
Thus Habib says the administration was a dominant factor in the economy. Looking at the 18th
century, Habib argues for economic decline. He says from the late 17 th century as Francois Bernier
observed there was a process of economic decay in India, due to unrestricted authority of the jagirdars
who were assigned lands for unpredictably short tenures by the emperor. Accepting this view Habib
argued there was an increased pressure for revenue by jagirdars, which led to a flight of peasants from
land, peasant uprisings against the State and a breakdown in collaboration between jagirdars and
zamidars, as the zamidars became leaders of peasant uprising. This led to an agrarian crisis and
subsequent weakening of the political edifice. The zamidars emerged powerful now and shaped local
state formation. With regards to localization of power and administration Habib argues that
administrative checks collapsed in the early 18 th century, as seen by a passage from Khafi Khan
(1731) which talks of sale of tax farms becoming a general practice.

Athar Ali locates Mughal decline in a cultural context. He argues that the decline was caused by the
cultural failure of the ruling elite to respond to the superior technology and science that Europe
developed between 1500-1700. He says those regional polities in India, such as Mysore and the
Marathas which attempted to bridge this gap,failed. Haidar Ali and Mahadji Sindhia tried to organize
their armies on modern lines with French help. Later Tipu Sultan also tried to develop commerce and
production. Yet Ali says within the intellectual sphere they failed as they didn’t establish schools or
institutions to absorb western learning. Thus these regimes continued with the Mughal ideological
apparatus.
Looking at the economic context of the 18 th century, Ali argued that the new regional polities
preserved essential features of Mughal land revenue system yet combined possession of revenue
rights with private zamidari rights. Thus the fundamental nature of the State was still remained that of
a rent extracting one.

Both Athar Ali and Irfan Habib, argue that regional polities specially the Marathas and Sikhs
continued the exploitative tendencies seen under the Mughals. Their analysis explained regional
political realignment within the framework of the Mughal “agrarian system” and focused on revenue
structures. Yet Athar Ali, who is a proponent of decline like Habib, criticised Habib’s arguments also,
saying that they represent an old simplistic historical view, that the decline of the Mughal Empire was
a major socio-eco-political setback for India which enabled the British conquest to take place.

The view that the 18 th century was a “Dark Age” has been criticized by many historians, specially
the Revisionists who present the second view on this debate. Revisionist works focused on the socio-
economic functioning of regional polities and pioneered in depth studies on trade and mercantile
activity.

Historians Herman Goetz and Bernard Cohn focused on the society in the 18 th century. Goetz
analysed 18 th century music and architecture and argued for the resilience of Mughal society,
reflected in evolving music and architectural styles despite imperial decline. Cohn studies Banaras
and analysed efforts of Mughal zamidars and alimdars, who manipulated imperial and regional power
to carve out independent areas of power for themselves. These works also critiqued Irfan Habib’s
conception of the Mughal state as a centralized state as it is hard to conceive a centralized
bureaucratic model of state when economic and social markers outlive political decay as pointed out
above.

Within factors for the decline of the Mughal empire and state formation of regional polities, Muzaffar
Alam’s study critiqued Irfan Habib’s view that zamidars led uprisings of oppressed peasants which
were responsible for state formation. His study of Persian sources, to understand aspects of agrarian
uprisings in north India, focused on three regions-(i) Moradabad-Bareilly,(ii) Awadh and (iii)Banaras
region. He quotes the Ain-i- Akbari to show that various castes and communities held zamidari rights
in these regions, e.g.- Rajputs (who were dominant), Jats, Brahmans, Muslims, Afghans, Kayasthas
and Kurmis. Yet he says that not all these groups rose against the Mughals. He points out that due to
caste, clan and territorial distinctions, zamidars were not unified in their rebellion against the
Mughals, but were infact at war with one another. Alam also mentions that there were intra clan
clashes- eg: in Moradabad Madar Singh a Rajput fought against Debi Chand a fellow Rajput. Finally
critiquing Habib, Alam points out that zamidars who led raids expressed the anger of local ruling
classes, who had their military contingents and were rising in a context of local economic prosperity.
He also says at times, peasants resisted zamidars, since rural populations was a victim of zamidar
revolts. Alam also argues for a context of local economic prosperity which led to zamidar ascendency.

However Alam’s study has been critiqued from within the revisionist camp by John. F.Richards and
V.Narayana Rao who like Alam himself, point out his exclusive use of Persian sources which may
hamper evidence of resistance against Mughal rule found in vernacular sources. Athar Ali critiques
him for comparing Ain-i-Akbari’s jamadani figures with that of 18th century revenue figures, which
show a rise without adjusting them to the rise in prices in 18 th century. Ali says it’s incorrect to use
this as evidence for agrarian prosperity.

Other revisionists such as Ashin Das Gupta, B.R. Grover and Karen Leonard focus on regional shift
of trade and banking institutions, which earlier studies of Habib and Ali ignored. Das Gupta argued
that inland trade increased, even in a period of some decline, and corporate mercantile institutions
survived. He says though former ports like Surat and Masulipatinam declined with low international
trade, new colonial ports-Madras Bombay and Calcutta arose. B.R.Grover looked at rural commercial
production, found new provincial markets rose to absorb rural commercial production, thus
compensating the loss in foreign trade. Karen argues that merchant activity shifted from Delhi to
regional territories and led to local economic buoyancy.

Frank Perlin’s study of the Maratha state argued that the characteristic feature of Maratha state
building was high commercialization, which was not a function of state demand alone. He also says
that the new political orders arose due to an interrelationship between two force-(i)centralizing state
building and (ii)Local communal forces. Thus he says the administrative forms adopted by the “great
households” which controlled these States was of amassing lands under hereditary control through
acquisition of prebendal rights and former resumeable rights. This process was accompanied by the
rise of an accounting/record keeping class that served these households to enhance their familistic
administration. This also led to tension between this centralizing tendency of the state and older rights
of peasants. Peasants local assemblies (gota) to protect their interests. Yet paradoxically, there was a
linking of communal and prebendal properties of the peasant and royal court respectively as the great
households controlled economic power in the state. Thus these households benefitted from
development of regional and international trade. Perlin critiques the view that political decline led to
economic decline. He argues instead that political decentralization and localization of power went
hand in hand and this was seen in rise of new political orders (Marathas, Nizam’s in Hyderabad)
which went along with socio-eco reconfigurations.

One of the most important revisionist views was provided by C.A.Bayly. Bayly argues against the
Dark Age position. He argues that certain regions like Awadh and Banaras witnessed urbanization and
agricultural expansion. Regional centres like Bengal and Lucknow grew and so did the textile
industry. He also argues that indigenous capital didn’t shrink but was engaged in internal bulk and
luxury trade along new routes and in financing military and revenue machineries. He also points out
Mysore, southern Malabar, Hyderabad and Maratha territories also were nodes of agricultural stability
and state formation. Yet he doesn’t postulate a universal economic growth in the 18 th century. Some
areas of decline existed. He also critiques the views of Habib and Ali who ascribe decline only to
political factors and don’t explore ecological and economic forces.

Finally Burton Stein another revisionist, focused on formation of south Indian polity of Mysore,
presented a different view for the rise of this state. He attributed it to “military fiscalism” and the
subsequent thrust towards centralization, which resulted in the state being freed from control of the
local aristocracy and putting together an extensive tax base and a state organised around war. He
asserts that the 18 th century had a dynamic economy was there was a relocation and restoration of
high economic production even in war torn economy.

Therefore in conclusion we can say that in spite of the political upheavals and the drastic change in
political authority the eighteenth century did not witness any great change in terms of society and
economy. While the two were definitely influenced by political developments, there was a definite
continuity of old processes. At the same time associating political and imperial decline with an overall
economic and social decline prevents one from appreciating the new processes which emerged in the
period, albeit not in a pan-Indian context, but in a more regional fashion. Recent research and fresh
evidence have helped to dissolve some of the hardiest perennials of pre-colonial historiography with
respect tot he ‘Dark Age’ of Indian history. The eighteenth century needs to be viewed in a more
autonomous manner and not just as a dark and decadent period of transition between two great
imperial authorities in India.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1) Seema Alavi (ed.) - The Eighteenth Century in India