Irfan Habib, ‘Agrarian System Of Mughal India,’ 1958

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عرفان حبیب، «مغل ہندوستان کا طریق زراعت (۱۷٠۷-۱۵۵۶)»، مترجم جمال محمد صدیقی (نئی دہلی: نیشنل بک ٹرسٹ، انڈیا، ۱۹۷۷)۔

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Irfan Habib, “The Agrarian System of Mughal India (1556-1707)” [1958] (New York: Department of History - Aligarh Muslim University, Asia Publishing House, 1963).

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باب اوّل: زراعتی پیداوار

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Chapter I: Agricultural Production

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فصل ۔ ۱ ۔ رقبۂ کاشت

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1. Extent of Cultivation

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ہندوستان کے وسیع میدانوں، وادیوں، اور پہاڑوں ڈھلانوں پر زراعت کے وسیع رقبے ہندوستانی کسان کی اس سخت جد و جہد کا نتیجہ ہیں جو وہ قدرت کو مسخر کرنے کے لئے ہزاروں سال سے کرتا آ رہا ہے ۔ اس کی کدال اور ہل کی زد میں آ کر جنگل و بیابان پامال ہوئے، پنپے اور پھر پامال ہوئے اور الٹ پھیر کا یہ لامتناہی چکراسی طور پر چلتا رہا ۔ چنانچہ ہندوستانی تاریخ کے ہر دور میں مخصوص سیاسی اور فوجی حدود کے پہلو بہ پہلو، جنگلوں اور ریگزاروں کی مخصوص حدیں بھی ملتی ہیں ۔

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The cultivated expanse of the Great Plains, the valleys and hill-slopes of India has been created in the course of a stubborn struggle against Nature, which the Indian peasant has carried on for thousands of years. Forest and waste have retreated, recovered and again retreated, in endless cycles, before the hoe and plough. Every period in Indian history has had, therefore, its “forest line” and desert frontier, besides its military and political boundaries.

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ہندوستانی تاریخ کے کسی بھی پہلو کے مطالعہ کے لئے انسانی قلمرو اور قدرت کے در میاں اس حد بندی کو بڑی اہمیت حاصل رہی ہے ۔ چونکہ اس سے مزروعہ علاقے کی حد بندی متعین ہوتی آئی ہے، لہٰذا یہ ہمیشہ ملک کے مختلف حصّوں میں آبادی کی افزایش کی نشاندہی یا بھی ذریعہ بنی ۔

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For the study of Indian history in any of its aspects, the boundary-line between Man’s domain and Nature is obviously of great importance. It defined the area under cultivation and, therefore, was always an index of the growth of population in different parts of the country.

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اسی طرح ہم اس حد بندی کو ایک مخصوص طریقۂ پیداوار اور معاشی تنظیم کے وجود سے بھی متعلق کر سکتے ہیں ۔ کدالی کھیتی، کاشت بہ نقل مکانی اور کاشت بہ استقرار مکانی، یہ سب پیداواری تکنیک میں ارتقا کے مختلف تاریخی مراحل تھے جن کا تعین بیشتر اس امر سے ہوتا تھا کہ کس قدر قابل کاشت زمین الگ الگ دور میں تازہ آبادکاری کے لئے دستیاب ہو سکتی تھی ۔

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It might equally be related to the existence of particular systems of production and economic organization. Hoe-cultivation, migratory agriculture, permanently settled cultivation were all historical stages in the evolution of productive techniques, largely determined by the extent to which virgin land was available for fresh occupation in the respective periods.

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اس لیے مغلیہ ہندوستان کے زرعی نظام کے متعلق ہمارے مطالعہ کا آغاز اس جائزہ سے ہونا چاہئے کہ اس دور میں مزروعہ آراضی کا رقبہ کس قدر تھا۔ اس مسئلہ پر ہمعصروں کے عمومی انداز کے بیانات، بدقسمتی سے ہمارے لیے کچھ زیادہ معادن ثابت نہیں ہوتے کیونکہ یہ یا تو مبہم ہیں یا مبالغہ آمیز اور اکثر بے ربط بھی۔ ہمارے مآخذ میں، مملکت کے مخصوص علاقوں میں مزروعات کے متعلق کہیں کہیں اطلاعات ملتی ہیں اور یہ غالبًا زیادہ معتبر ہیں لیکن ان میں اہم ترین اس دور کے پیمائش شدہ رقبوں اور مواضعات کی تعداد کے اب تک محفوظ شماریاتی اندراجات ہیں اور ہم انہیں اپنے جائزہ کی قرار دے سکتے ہیں۔

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Our study of the agrarian system of Mughal India should, therefore, begin with a survey of the extent of the cultivated area in our period. General statements made on this subject by contemporaries are unfortunately not very helpful, for they are either vague or exaggerated and quite often mutually inconsistent. There is sometimes information in our sources about the state of cultivation in particular areas and here, perhaps, we are on surer ground. But most important of all, statistical records of measured areas and numbers of villages have survived from our period and it is possible to use these as the basis of our survey.

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ابو الفضل کی تصنیف "آئین اکبری" کے اس باب میں جس کا عنوان "آئین دوازده صوبہ" ہے، علاوہ بنگال ٹھٹھہ اور کشمیر، ہندوستان کے تمام شمالی صوبوں کے رقبوں کے مفصل اعداد و شمار موجود ہیں۔ یہ اعداد و شمار اکبر کے دور حکومت کے چالیسویں سال یعنی ۱۵۹۵-۶ء سے متعلق ہیں۔ ہر صوبہ کی پیمائش شدہ زمین (زمین پیمودہ) کے رقبہ کا بیگھوں میں شمار دیا گیا ہے۔ اسکے بعد جدولوں میں اواضی کے خانہ کے تحت ہر سرکار (صوبہ کی علاقائی تقسیم) کے لیے ایک اندراج دیا گیا ہے۔ اس کے بعد سرکار کے ہر محال یا پرگنہ کے لیے علیٰحده علیٰحده اعداد دیئے گئے ہیں۔ آئین اکبری کے کے یہ وقیع اندراجات مغلیہ دور میں بے نظیر رہے لیکن شماریات کی نسبتًا ایک اجمالی ترتیب اورنگزیب کے دور حکومت کے اواخر میں بھی عمل میں آئی۔

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The chapter entitled “Account of the Twelve Provinces” in Abū-l-Fażl’s “Ā’īn-i Akbarī,” contains detailed area statistics for all North Indian provinces, except Bengal, Thatta and Kashmir. These statistics are assigned to the 40th year of Akbar’s reign, or 1595-6. For each of the provinces a figure is given in bīghas for what is called zamīn-i paimūda or “measured land.” Then in the Tables, under a column headed arāżī or “land,” an entry is provided against each “sarkār” (the territorial division of a province or “ṣūba”); following this, figures are entertained separately for all the “maḥals” or “parganas” composing the sarkār. The great record of the “Ā’īn” remained unique in Mughal times, but statistics, though of a more summary kind, were compiled in the later years of Aurangzeb.

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ان میں سے ایک جدول میں جو دو یا تین مخطوطات میں ابھی تک محفوظ ہے ہر صوبہ کے رقبہ کے شماریات کے ساتھ ساتھ مواضعات کو پیمودہ، اور غیرپیمودہ زمروں میں تقسیم کر کے ان کی تعداد پیش کی گئی ہے۔ رائے چترمن کی کتاب موسومہ "چہار گلشن" مصنفہ ۱۷۵۹-۶٠ء میں ہر سرکار کے مواضعات و رقبہ کے متعلق علیٰحده علیٰحده اطلاعات فراہم کی گئی ہیں۔ چونکہ اس تصنیف کے اعداد و شمار، مذکورہ بالا شماریات میں مندرج صوبوں کے اعداد سے اکثر و بیشتر قریبی مطابقت رکھتے ہیں، لہٰذا یہ امر یقینی معلوم ہوتا ہے کہ درحقیقت "چہار گلشن" میں ان ہی اعداد و شمار کی نقل کر دی گئی ہے جو عہد عالمگیری کے اواخر میں یا اس کے فورًا بعد مرتب کیے گئے تھے۔

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One table surviving in two or three manuscripts, gives the “raqba” or area statistics for each province, together with the number of villages, divided into those measured and unmeasured. In a work known as the “Chahār Gulshan,” written by Rāi Chaturman in 1759-60, information about the area of villages is also provided separately for each sarkār. Because its figures often conform quite closely to those given for the provinces in the statistical table mentioned above, it seems certain that the “Chahār Gulshan” has really reproduced statistics prepared in the last years of Aurangzeb, or very shortly afterwards.

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آئین اکبری میں رقبہ کے اعداد "بیگھۂ الہٰی" میں ہیں جبکہ اس کے بعد کے اعداد و شمار کا بیگھہ غالبًا "بیگھۂ دفتری" ہے جو "بیگھۂ الہٰی" کا دو تہائی تھا اور جس کا استعمال عہد شاہجہانی سے شروع ہوا۔ زیرنظر کتاب کے ضمیمۂ الف میں جو سندیں جمع کی گئی ہیں ان سے واضح ہوتا ہے کہ ایک بیگھۂ الہٰی ۵۹. ایکڑ یعنی عملًا ایک ایکڑ کے ۳/۵ حصہ کے مساوی ہوتا تھا۔

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The area figures in the “Ain” are given in the “bigha-i Ilāhī,” while the unit used in the later statistics is presumably the “bigha-i daftarī,” which was two-thirds of a bigha-i Ilahi and came into use in the reign of Shahjahan. The evidence brought together in Appendix A of this book suggests that the bigha-i Ilahi was 0.59 acre, or, for all practical purposes, three-fifths of an acre.

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دور مغلیہ اور زمانۂ حال کے اعداد و شمار کو اس طرح رقبہ کی ایک مشترک اکائی میں تبدیل کیا جا سکتا ہے لیکن صحیح موازنہ اس وقت تک ممکن نہ ہو گا جب تک ہمیں کسی حد تک یہ اطمینان نہ ہو جائے کہ مغلیہ شماریات میں مندرج "آراضی پیمودہ" سے کیا مراد تھے۔ حکومت مغلیہ زمین کی پیمائش بنیادی طور پر تشخیص مالگذاری کے مقصد سے کراتی تھی۔ لیکن جیسا کہ آ گے چل کر باب ششم میں ہم دیکھیں گے کہ زمین کی پیمائش کی بنیاد پر مالگذاری کی تشخیص کا یہ طریقہ ہر زمین پر ہر جگہ رائج نہ تھا۔ یہ امر واقعہ ہے کہ عہد عالمگیری کے شماریات میں بمقابلہ آئین اکبری کے زمانے کے شماریات کے عمومًا رقبہ میں کافی اضافہ ملتا ہے اور پھر بھی اولذکر دور کے شماریات میں تمام صوبوں میں مواضعات کی کثیر تعداد "غیرپیمودہ" دکھائی گئی ہے۔ اس سے یہ بات صاف ہو جاتی ہے کہ نہ تو آئین اکبری کے زمانہ میں اور نہ اس زمانہ میں جب ان اعداد و شمار کی ترتیب عمل میں آئی تھی، کسی بھی صوبہ کی کل زیر مالگذاری آراضی کی مکمل پیمائش ہوئی تھی۔ بہ الفاظ دیگر، دونوں اعداد و شمار نامکمل ہیں۔ صرف بعد کے اعداد و شمار میں دیئے ہوئے "پیمودہ" اور "غیرپیمودہ" مواضعات کے باہمی تناسب سے ہی اس بات کا تھوڑا اندازہ لگایا جا سکتا ہے کہ ایسی زمین کا مجموعی رقبہ کیا رہا ہو گا جو اسوقت کے معیار کے مطابق ناپی جا سکتی تھی۔

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The area figures of Mughal times and of recent times can thus be all converted into common units of area. But a proper comparison is impossible unless we know with some certainty what the “measured area” of the Mughal statistics represented. The Mughal administration measured the land primarily for assessing the revenue upon it. But as we shall see in a later Chapter (VI), the method of revenue-assessment by measurement was by no means universal. Indeed, the fact that the statistics of Aurangzeb’s reign, while generally showing considerable increase in area over the “Ain’s” figures, put down a large number of villages as unmeasured in all provinces, makes it clear that neither at the time of the “Ain,” nor when these statistics were compiled, did measurement cover the entire revenue-paying area in any province. In other words, both the statistics are incomplete. Only in the case of the later statistics, can the stated proportion between measured and unmeasured villages offer some guidance about the total area of land that, according to the standards of the time, could have been measured.

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مغلیہ دور میں پیمائش شدہ آراضی کی نوعیت کے متعلق مورلینڈ کا خیال ہے کہ ہمیں اسے جدید شماریات کی رُو سے کل زیر فصل رقبہ، قرار دینا چاہئے۔ یقینًا مغلیہ آراضی پیمودہ میں کل زیر فصل شامل ہوتی تھی۔ لیکن غالبًا یہ کہنا زیادہ مناسب ہو گا کہ ایسی آراضی کے حدود میں وہ تمام زمین شامل ہوتی تھی جس پر تخم ریزی کی گئی ہو کیونکہ اس ضمن میں وہ زمین بھی شامل کی جاتی تھیں جن کو "نابود" کہتے تھے، یعنی وہ زمین جس پر تخم ریزی تو ہوئی ہو مگر فصل کامیاب نہ ہو سکی ہو۔ ایسا معلوم ہوتا ہے کہ پیمائش کا کام صرف ایسی زمینوں تک ہی محدود نہ رکھا جاتا تھا جس پر واقعی کھیتی کی گئی ہو بلکہ اس عمل کے دائرہ میں وہ زمینیں بھی آ جاتی تھیں جو قابل کاشت تصور کی جاتی تھیں۔ چنانچہ عہد عالمگیری میں یہ شکایت مستقل سننے میں آتی ہے کہ مقامی افسران جو اعداد و شمار بھیجتے تھے وہ قابل کاشت زمینوں کے متعلق ہوا کرتی تھیں اور علیٰحده طور پر ایسی زمینوں کے متعلق نہیں جو واقعتہً زیر کاشت ہوں۔ کچھ ناقابل کاشت زمینوں مثلًا وہ جن پر آبادی، تالاب، نالے اور جنگل ہوں وہ بھی پیمائش میں آ جاتی تھی۔ لیکن ہم یہ فرض کر سکتے ہیں کہ اس نوعیت کی پیمائش مواضعات اور آبادیوں کے نواح تک محدود رہتی ہو گی اور بڑے جنگلوں اور بیابانوں کو اس میں شامل نہ کیا جاتا تھا۔ اس لیے یہ رقبہ معمولًا پیمائش شدہ رقبہ کا بہت ہی مختصر جزو رہا ہو گا۔

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As to the kind of land covered by measurement in the Mughal period, Moreland has suggested that we should identify it with the “total cropped area” of modern statistics. It included this certainly, but we should speak more properly, perhaps, of the area sown, since the measured area also included the “nābūd,” or area affected by crop failure. However, measurement does not seem to have been confined to land actually cultivated and was extended also to land regarded as cultivable. Indeed, in the reign of Aurangzeb we hear of it almost as a standing complaint that the local officials only sent returns for the cultivable land and not, separately, for the land actually cultivated. Some uncultivable land, such as the land under habitation, tanks, nālas, and jungle, was also measured. But we may assume that such measurement was confined to the limits of villages and settlements and not extended to large forests or wastes, so that it must normally have accounted for a very small portion of the measured area.

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لہٰذا مغلیہ کاغذات میں مندرج پیمودہ آراضی اجمالی طور پر دور حاضر کے شماریات کے ان تین زمروں کی زمینوں کے مترادف ہے۔ رقبہ جس پر فصل کھڑی (یا جس پر تخم ریزی ہوئی) ہو، حالیہ پرتی اور پرتی کے علاوہ دیگر قابل زراعت ویرانے۔ ظاہر ہے کہ جہاں ایسی زمین جس پر واقعتًہ فصل آگی ہو صحیح طور پر متعین کی جا سکتی ہے، وہاں اصطلاح "قابل زراعت" کے متعدد مفہوم ہو سکتے ہیں اور یہ بتانا مشکل ہے کہ دور مغلیہ اور دور حاضر کے مرتبین شماریات نے اس مفہوم کو متعین کرنے کے لیے کوئی یکساں معیار قائم کیا تھا یا نہیں بلکہ حقیقت تو یہ ہے کہ بھی نہیں کہا جا سکتا کہ ان دونوں ادوار میں کوئی بھی یکساں معیار قائم کیا گیا۔ پھر بھی یہ بات زیادہ ترین قیاس معلوم ہوتی ہے کہ مغلیہ اور برطانوی دونوں ادوار کے مقامی افسروں کا یہی رجحان رہا ہو گا کہ صرف ایسے ویرانوں کو قابل کاشت قرار دیں جو بحالت موجودہ کسی زیر کاشت زمین سے متصل واقع ہوں نہ کہ وہ ویرانے جو اپنے اندر قابل زراعت بنائے جانے کی صلاحیت رکھتے ہوں یعنی مثلًا ایسے ویرانے جو بڑے بڑے جنگلوں کو کاٹ چھانٹ کر صاف کئے جانے کے بعد یا کسی بعید مقام سے نہروں کو ان کے پاس پہنچا دیئے جانے کے بعد قابل زراعت ہو سکیں۔ لہٰذا یہ کہا جا سکتا ہے کہ عام طور پر قابل کاشت ویرانے جو اس طور پر متعین کئے جائیں (یعنی جو فی الحال کسی مزروعہ زمین کے متصلًا واقع ہوں - مترجم) ان کے رقبے اور اس زمین کے رقبہ میں جو واقعتًہ زیر کاشت ہو معمولًا ایک معین تناسب موجود ہو گا۔ اگر یہ نقطۂ نظر تسلیم کر لیا جائے تو پھر مغلیہ دور کے پیمائش شدہ رقبہ کے شماریات کا دور حاضر کے قابل کاشت رقبہ کے شماریات سے موازنہ کرنا مفید ہو گا کیونکہ ایسا کرنے سے درمیانی مدت میں کاشت کے رقبہ میں جو تبدیلیاں ہوئیں ان کا ایک سرسری اندازہ لگایا جا سکے گا۔

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The measured area of the Mughal records then corresponds broadly to the area covered by three categories in modern agricultural statistics: “The area cropped (or sown),” “current fallows” and “cultivable wastes other than fallows.” It is obvious that while the land actually cropped can be precisely determined, the word “culturable” is open to many definitions and it is difficult to say whether the Mughal and modern statisticians used the same criteria, if, indeed they have either of them used any uniform criteria at all. Nevertheless it would seem likely that the tendency of local officials, both in the Mughal and the British periods would have been to classify only that waste as cultivable, which stood on the margin of cultivation under the existing conditions rather than what might be ideally cultivable, that is, cultivable if, for example, large forests were cleared or canals brought from a distance. Generally speaking, therefore, the area of cultivable waste so determined will usually bear a more or less fixed proportion to the area actually cultivated. If this view is accepted, a comparison of the measured area statistics of the Mughal period with the figures for the cultivable area from recent times will become useful, for then it can be taken as a rough indication of the changes that have taken place in the actual extent of cultivation in the intervening period.

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دونوں ادوار کے اعداد و شمار میں دیئے ہوئے مواضعات کی تعداد کے باہمی تقابل میں کسی الجھن کے پیدا ہونے کا خطرہ نسبتًا بہت کم پایا جاتا ہے۔ مواضعات معمولًا مرئی اور نمایاں اکائیاں ہوتے ہیں اس لیے یہ توقع کی جا سکتی ہے کہ ان کا ہمیشہ صحیح شمار کیا جا سکتا ہے۔ تاہم بہ اعتبار آبادی و رقبہ ایک مقام اور دوسرے مقام کے مواضعات کی اوسط جسامت میں فرق ہو سکتا تھا۔ لیکن ہمارے لیے ان میں ایک صدی اور دوسرے صدی میں جو فرق ہوتا تھا وہ زیادہ اہم ہے۔ لہٰذا صرف مواضعات کے اعداد و شمار کے باہمی تقابل سے ہمیں مغلیہ دور کے مزروعہ رقبہ کا تخمینہ لگانے میں براہ راست کوئی مدد نہ مل سکے گی۔ البتہ ان اعداد کا دوسری معلومات، خصوصًا رقبہ کے اعداد و شمار کے ساتھ ملا کر مطالعہ ہمارے لیے تائیدی وقعت کا حامل ہو سکتا ہے۔

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There is far less danger of confusion in comparing the numbers of villages given in the statistics of the two periods. Villages are usually visibly distinct units and one may expect that they could always be counted with precision. However, the average size of the village, in population and area, might vary from locality to locality and, what is more important for us, from century to century. A comparison of the village statistics alone, therefore, cannot directly help us to form an estimate of the cultivated area in the Mughal period. But when set alongside other information, especially the area statistics, it might have some corroborative value.

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دور مغلیہ اور دور حاضر کے شماریات کے کسی بھی تقابلی مطالعہ کے لیے ضرور ہے کہ سلطنت مغلیہ کی علاقائی اکائیوں کے حدود صحیح طور پر متعین کیے جائیں۔ آئین اکبری میں گنگا کی وادی کے صوبوں کے تحت محالوں کی جو فہرست درج ہے ان کے جائے وقوع کے متعلق مفصل تحقیقات اس وقت موجود ہیں۔ لیکن سلطنت مغلیہ کے بقیہ حصّوں کے صوبوں اور سرکاروں کے حدود کا تعین بہت ہی سرسری طور پر اور بعض صورتوں میں محض عارضی طور پر کیا جا سکتا ہے جو آئین اکبری میں مندرجہ فہرست کے زیادہ معروف اور بہ سہولیت قابل شناخت مقامات کی بنیاد پر ممکن ہے۔ صوبجات دکن میں حدود کے تعین کے سلسلہ میں اٹھارہویں صدی کی تصنیف موسومہ "دستور العمل شاہنشاہی" سے بھی مدد لی گئی ہے کیونکہ اس میں اس علاقہ کے محالوں کی فہرست دی ہوئی ہے جو مملکت میں آئین اکبری کے ما بعد زمانہ میں شامل کئے گئے۔

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For any comparative study of the Mughal and modern statistics, it is essential that the boundaries of the territorial units of the Mughal Empire be accurately determined. At the moment, detailed studies are available for the location of mahals listed in the “Ain” under the provinces of the Gangetic Valley. But for the rest of the Empire, the boundaries of the provinces and sarkars can only be laid down very roughly, and sometimes even tentatively, on the basis of the better known or easily identifiable places in the “Ain’s” lists. For the Dakhin provinces, an 18th century work, the “Dastūr-al ‘Amal-i Shāhinshāhī,” has also been used here, since it gives lists of mahals in territory added to the Empire after the time of the “Ain.”

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واضح رہے کہ مغلیہ مملکت کی علاقائی تقسیموں کے حدود مستقل طور پر ایک سے نہیں رہے ان حدود میں متعدد اہم تبدیلیاں ہمارے علم میں ہیں جو بمقابلہ شمالی ہندوستان کے دکن میں زیادہ پیش آئیں کیونکہ وہ علاقہ فوجی اقدامات کا مستقل جولاں گاہ بنا ہوا تھا اور مملکت میں تھوڑا تھوڑا کر کے شامل کیا گیا۔ خاص طور پر عہد عالمگیری کے شماریات سے رجوع کرتے وقت ہمیں ان تبدیلیوں کو ضرور یاد رکھنا چاہئے۔

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It should also be borne in mind that the boundaries of Mughal territorial divisions did not remain fixed. Several important changes are known to have taken place, though they were more numerous in the Dakhin, the scene of constant military operations and piecemeal annexations, than in Northern India. These must be taken into account especially when referring to the statistics of Aurangzeb’s reign.

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ہرچند کہ مملکت مغلیہ کی علاقائی تقسیموں کی بالکل صحیح حدبندی کے لئے ہمیں اس وقت کا انتظار کرنا ہو گا جب اس دور کے تمام یا بیشتر محالوں یا پرگنوں کے حدود نقشوں پر متعین ہو جائیں، پھر بھی ہم غلطی کی گنجائش کو علاقوں کے صرف ان بڑے بڑے ٹکڑوں کو اپنے پیش نظر رکھ کر جن کی نسبتًا زیادہ صحیح طور پر حدبندی کی جا سکتی ہے کافی کم کر سکتے ہیں۔ اس طور پر زیادہ صورتوں میں ایسی ترتیب قائم کی جا سکتی ہے کہ ایسے دو بڑے ٹکڑوں کے در میان مشتبہ علاقوں کا رقبہ بمقابلہ اس رقبہ کے جو ان میں سے ہر ایک کا قطعی طور پر معلوم ہے بالکل ناقابل لحاظ ہو جائے۔ اس طریقۂ کار سے بھی اگرچہ فی الوقت مغلوں کے صوبجات لاہور اور ملتان کے در میان صحیح حدبندی تو ضرور مشکل ہو گی لیکن ان علاقوں کے حدود جو پورے صوبۂ لاہور اور صوبۂ ملتان کی سرکار ملتان اور دیپل پور میں شامل تھے اچھی خاصی صحت کے ساتھ متعین کئے سکیں گے۔ واضح ہے کہ یہ بھی ایک استثنائی صورت ہو گی کیونکہ بیشتر مغلیہ صوبوں اور ان کی سرکاروں کے اکثر مجموعوں کو جدا جدا منفرد ٹکڑے تصور کر کے نقشہ پر ان کے حدود بغیر کسی سنگین غلطی کے خطرہ کے متعین کئے جا سکتے ہیں۔

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Though complete accuracy must await the time when all or almost all the mahals or parganas of Mughal times are plotted on the map, the margin of error can still be very greatly reduced by considering only large blocks of territory, placed within limits that can be defined with relatively greater exactitude. In most cases it can be so arranged that the area of the doubtful territory between two such blocks is almost insignificant in comparison to the area known to be definitely covered by either of the blocks. Thus, though it may be difficult at present to establish accurately the boundary between the Mughal provinces of Lahor and Multan, the limits of the territory covered by the Lahor province and the sarkars of Multan and Dipalpur of the Mullan province can be laid down with tolerable certainty. Even this case is exceptional and most Mughal provinces and often groups of sarkars within them, can be separately treated as blocks and their boundaries put on the map without very serious danger of error.

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ہم دور حاضر کے شماریات کے متعلق یہ مطالبہ کرنے میں کہ وہ مفصل اور نیز مکمل ہوں حق بجانب ہوں گے۔ حالانکہ ضلعوں سے چھوٹی علاقائی تقسیموں کے متعلق زرعی شماریات اور مردم شماری کے گوشوارے بھی شائع ہو چکے ہیں۔ لیکن چونکہ اس وقت ہمارے پیش نظر صرف بڑے علاقے ہیں لہٰذا ضلعوں کے سالانہ زرعی اعداد و شمار کے سلسلوں کو کافی تصور کیا گیا۔ پس مواضعات کے لیے مردم شماری کی رپورٹوں میں مندرج ضلع وار شماریات مصرف میں لائے گئے ہیں۔ ہندوستانی ریاستوں کے متعلق خصوصًا ابتدائی برسوں کے زراعت اور مردم شماری دونوں ہی کے اعداد و شمار اکثر نامکمل ہیں، اس لیے ان کے متعلق بعد کے برسوں یا امپرئیل گزیٹیئر کے اعداد و شمار سے معلومات حاصل کئے گئے ہیں۔ واضح رہے کہ معمولًا ہماری یہ کوشش رہی ہے کہ موجودہ صدی کے اوائل کی قریبی مدت کے شماریات کو استعمال کیا جائے۔ کچھ تو ایسا اس لئے کیا گیا ہے کہ اس نوعیت کے تقابلی مطالعوں کے پیشرو مورلینڈ نے اسی مدت کے اعداد سے کام لیا ہے اور کچھ اس یقین کے تحت کہ چونکہ یہ وہ مدت تھی جبکہ ہندوستان برطانوی حکومت کے معاشی اثرات کو اپنی غیرمخلوط شکل میں محسوس کر رہا تھا۔ لہٰذا سابقہ حکومتوں کے بہترین ایام کے حالات سے تقابل کے لئے یہ بہت ہی موزوں ہو گی۔

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From modern statistics one is entitled to demand details as well as completeness. Agricultural statistics and census returns for divisions below the level of districts have been published. But in the present study, for the reason that we are only considering large areas, the series of “Agricultural Statistics,” giving annual returns for districts, has been considered adequate. For villages the numbers given district-wise in the census reports have been used. Both the agricultural statistics and censuses are often incomplete, especially in the earlier years, in respect of the princely states. In such cases information from later returns, or from the “Imperial Gazetteer,” has been drawn upon. It will be noticed that as a rule, our attempt has been to use figures from the period around the beginning of the present century. This has been done partly because Moreland, who was the pioneer in such comparative study, worked with the figures of this period and partly under the conviction that this was the time when India felt the full economic effects of British rule in their most unalloyed form and so provides a good vantage point for comparison with conditions in the best days of the earlier Empire.

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ہمارے علاقائی جائزہ کی ابتدا کے لئے بنگال سب سے زیادہ موزوں رہے گا، کیونکہ یہ مملکت کا بعید ترین مشرقی صوبہ تھا۔ اس صوبہ کے اعداد و شمار رقبہ، آئین اکبری میں نہیں پائے جاتے اور دور عالمگیری کے اندراجات میں اس کے مواضعات کی ایک بہت ہی مختصر تعداد بطور "پیمودہ" دکھائی گئی ہے۔ دور عالمگیری میں، بہ استثنا کامروپ اس صوبہ میں ۱٠۹۹۲۳ مواضعات اور ۱۸۸۱ء میں اسی علاقہ میں ۱۱۶۱۵۳ مواضعات تھے۔ ان ایام کے گوشواروں سے یہ بات قطعی طور پر واضح ہوتی ہے کہ صوبہ کا بیشتر علاقہ آباد تھا۔ آئین اکبری میں مندرج محالوں کی فہرست کی جانچ کے بعد بلاکمین نے یہ نتیجہ اخذ کیا ہے کہ دور مغلیہ میں اس کے دنوں (۱۸۷۳ء) کی طرح کاشت کا سلسلہ سندربن کے ڈیلٹائی علاقہ تک پھیلا ہوا تھا۔ دور مطالعہ کے بیشتر ایام میں ڈیلٹائے سندربن کے مشرقی علاقے موگھہ قزاقوں کو سفاکانہ غارتگری کا شکار اور غیرآبادی رہے۔ ضلہ باقرگنج (بیکرگنج) میں وسیع پیمانہ پر دوبارہ آبادکاری کا سلسلہ ۱۶۶۵-۶ء میں اراکان کی کامیاب مہم کے بعد ہی شروع ہو سکا، حالانکہ جزیرۂ سندیپ کو ایک باغی سردار پہلے ہی آباد کر چکا تھا۔ بمقابلہ حال کے اس وقت مزید مشرق کی طرف جنگلات کا سلسلہ غالبًا زیادہ وسیع تھا۔ موگھوں کے دور میں علاقۂ چٹگانوں (چٹگانگ) بہت گھنے جنگلوں سے ڈھکا ہوا تھا، اس لئے مغلوں کے تحت اس علاقہ کے جنگلوں میں بازیابی کا کام بہت مختصر پیمانہ ہی پر ہو سکتا تھا۔ اٹھارہویں صدی تک ضلع سلہٹ میں گھنے جنگل موجود رہے اور ممکن ہے کہ بھوال یا مادھوپور کے جنگل نسبتًا زیادہ وسیع رہے ہوں۔

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For our regional survey, Bengal as the easternmost province of the Empire, may best serve as the starting point. The “Ain” does not provide any area statistics for this province and only an insignificant number of its villages is entered as “measured” in the statistics of Aurangzeb’s reign. Excluding Kamrup, there were 109,923 villages under Aurangzeb, compared with 116,153 in the corresponding territory in 1881. It would, indeed, seem from contemporary statements that most of the province was fully occupied. Blochmann came to the conclusion, from an examination of the mahals listed in the “Ain,” that cultivation then extended as far down to the deltaic Sundarbans as in his own day (1873). The eastern parts of the delta were, however, mercilessly ravaged and depopulated for the greater part of our period by the Magh pirates. An extensive resettlement in the Bāqirganj (“Backergunge”) district began only after the successful expedition of 1665-6 against Arakan, though the Sandwip Island had already been colonised by a rebel chieftain. Further to the east the forests were probably considerably more extensive than now. In the Chātgāon (“Chittagong”) territory, heavily overgrown with forest under the Maghs, the extent of reclamation under the Mughals could only have been slight. There were dense forests in the district of Sylhet down to the 18th century; and it is possible that the Bhowal or Madhupur jungle covered a wider area.

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بدقسمتی سے اوڑسہ کے متعلق وثوق کے ساتھ کوئی نتیجہ اخذ نہیں کیا جا سکتا۔ اس دور میں اس کے صحیح حدود اربعہ متعین نہیں کئے جا سکتے اور اس کے متعلق دور حاضر کے مطبوعہ شماریات بھی یا تو نامکمل ہیں یا اس کے کثیر التعداد چھوٹی چھوٹی ریاستوں کے بارے میں وہ کافی مفصل نہیں ہیں۔

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Unfortunately nothing can be deduced for Orissa with any confidence. Its exact limits in Mughal times cannot be laid down and modern statistics are also either incomplete, or, in their published form, not detailed enough for the large number of petty states in the region.

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دور عالمگیری کے شماریات میں بہار کا رقبۂ پیمودہ دیا گیا ہے۔ اس رقبہ کو اگر بیگھۂ دفتری سے بیگھۂ الہٰی میں تحویل کیا جائے تو یہ آئین اکبری میں مندرجہ رقبہ کے تین گنے سے زائد ہوتا ہے۔ لیکن باوجودیکہ پیمودہ مواضعات کی تعداد، کل مواضعات کی تعداد کے نصف سے زائد دکھائی گئی ہے، پھر بھی دور عالمگیری کا رقبہ ۱۸۹۹-۱۹٠٠ء میں مندرج کل قابل زراعت رقبہ کا بقدر ایک چہارم ہی ہوتا ہے۔ اس کا ایک سبب تو یہ ہو سکتا ہے کہ مغلوں نے پیمائش کے عمل کو صرف دریائے گنگا کے کنارے کنارے کے تنگ اور گنجان آباد علاقہ کے مواضعات تک محدود رکھا ہو اور یہ مواضعات بمقابلہ اس علاقہ کے باہر کے مواضعات کے جسامت میں چھوٹے رہے ہوں۔ لیکن پھر بھی رقبہ میں جو فرق رہ جاتا ہے وہ زیادہ معلوم ہوتا ہے۔ اس صوبہ کے مواضعات کی دی ہوئی تعداد عملًا وہی ہے جو ۱۸۸۱ء کی مردم شماری میں ملتی ہے۔ "چہار گلشن" کے اندراجات سے پتہ چلتا ہے کہ یہی حال ان چار سرکاروں کا بھی تھا جو کلیتًہ دریائے گنگا کے شمال میں واقع تھے، اگرچہ مونگیر جو بہ سمت مشرق اس صوبہ کی آخری سرکار تھی اور جس کا علاقہ گنگا کے پار ترائی کے علاقہ تک پھیلا ہوا تھا کے مواضعات کی تعداد نسبتًا بہت کم ہے۔ لہٰذا ہمیں یہ تصور نہ کرنا چاہئے کہ اس حصّہ میں ترائی کے جنگلوں کا مکمل غلبہ رہا ہو گا۔ آئین اکبری میں مندرج کچھ محال نیپال کے اندر بالکل دامن کوہ میں واقع تھے جبکہ زیادہ جنوب میں واقع وسیع رقبوں کا کہیں ذکر نہیں ملتا اور ایسے رقبے ان دنوں بظاہر جنگل تھے۔ اس وقت کے بیابانوں کا کافی رقبہ صاف کر لیا گیا ہے لیکن ساتھ ہی ساتھ یہ بھی پتہ چلتا ہے کہ اس وقت کے صاف کئے ہوئے کچھ علاقے اب پھر جنگل بن چکے ہیں۔

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For Bihar, Aurangzeb’s statistics show a measured area, which on conversion from bigha-i daftari to bigha-i Ilahi, amounts to more than three times the area shown in the “Ain.” But though over a half of the total number of villages are shown to have been measured, the area under Aurangzeb still came to a fourth of the total cultivable area recorded in 1899-1900. This may be explained partly by the possibility that the Mughals confined their measurement to villages in the narrow and densely populated belt along the Ganga, which would have been smaller in size than the villages lying outside it. But the difference in area would still seem to be substantial. The total number of villages assigned to the province was, however, practically equal to that counted by the 1881 Census. The “Chahar Gulshan” shows that this applied also to the case of the four sarkars situated wholly to the north of the Ganga, though the figure for the easternmost sarkar, Mungir, which also stretched across the river into the Tarai is much smaller. It is not to be imagined, therefore, that the Tarai forest held an undisturbed sway in this region. Some mahals listed in the “Ain” lie close under the hills in Nepal, while large areas more to the south are unaccounted for and were then apparently under forest. Large tracts have been cleared that lay then in wilderness, but there have been clearings too which are now overrun by the jungle.

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بہار کے مغرب میں الہ آباد اور اودھ کے دو صوبے واقع تھے۔ اول الذکر میں دریائے گنگا کے دونوں جانب کے وسیع علاقے جو جنوب میں بگھیل کھنڈ اور بندیل کھنڈ کے اندر دور تک پھیلے ہوئے تھے اور دریائے گنگا اور جمنا کے دوآبہ کے زیریں اور نیز دریائے گنگا اور گھاگرہ کے دوآبہ کے علاقے شامل تھے۔ صوبۂ اودھ اس کے شمال میں دریائے گنڈک تک بہ سمت مشرق اور دریائے گانگا تک بہ سمت مغرب پھیلا ہوا تھا۔ آئین اکبری کے دور تصنیف میں ان دونوں صوبوں کے زیر کاشت رقبہ کا ایک بہت ہی مختصر حصّہ پیمائش شدہ تھا۔ لیکن بظاہر اگلی صدی میں پیمائش کا دائرہ عمل کافی وسیع ہو گا۔ دور عالمگیری کے شماریات سے واضح ہوتا ہے کہ صوبۂ الہ آباد کے عملًا سبھی مواضعات زیر پیمائش آ چکے تھے۔ اس وقت اس صوبہ کا رقبۂ زیر پیمائش ۱۹٠۹-۱٠ء کے قابل کاشت رقبہ کا تقریبًا نصف تھا اور صوبۂ اودھ کے مواضعات میں ایک تہائی سے کافی زیادہ غیرپیمائش شدہ تھے اور پیمائش شدہ رقبہ ۱۹٠۹-۱٠ء کے رقبہ کا تقریبًا دو بٹہ پانچ تھا۔

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To the west of Bihar lay the two provinces of Ilāhābād (“Allahabad”) and Awadh. The former covered large blocks of territory on both sides of the Ganga, stretching deep into Baghelkhand and Bundelkhand and also including the lower portions of the Ganga-Jamuna Doab and of the Ganga-Gaghra Doab. Awadh extended to its north, from the river Gandhak in the east to the Ganga in the west. Only a very small part of the cultivated area of the two provinces had been measured in the time of the “Ain.” But measurement seems to have been considerably extended in the following century. Aurangzeb’s statistics show that practically all the villages of the Ilahabad province were covered by measurement. The measured area then was about half the cultivable area reported in 1909-10. In Awadh well over a third of the villages were unmeasured and the measured area came to about two-fifths of the 1909-10 figure.

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دور مغلیہ میں ان دونوں صوبوں کے مواضعات کے دیئے ہوئے اعداد، ۱۸۸۱ء کی مردم شماری میں مندرج اعداد سے بہت زیادہ تھے۔ یہ اضافہ الہ آباد کی تعداد میں بقدر ایک تہائی اور صوبۂ اودھ میں بقدر ایک نصف ملتا ہے۔ لیکن سرکار گورکھپور کے مواضعات کی تعداد تقریبًا وہی تھی جو اس علاقہ کی مردم شماری مذکور میں درج ہے، یعنی سرکار گورکھپور کے مواضعات کو اودھ کے دیگر حصوں کی طرح موجودہ زمانہ کی مردم شماری کے بالمقابل عددی فوقیت حاصل نہ تھی۔ اس سے ظاہر ہوتا ہے کہ یہ سرکار غالبًا کاشتکاری میں زیادہ پسماندہ تھی۔ یہی نہیں، بلکہ صوبہ دار اودھ نے تو عہد عالمگیری کے سینتالیسویں برس میں اس علاقہ کو "بالکل ویران" بتایا ہے۔ اس سرکار کا بیشتر حصّہ ترائی پر ضرور مشتمل رہا ہو گا۔ ٹیورنیر کے ایک بیان سے یہ معلوم ہوتا ہے کہ شہر گورکھپور کا تمام تر شمالی حصّہ جنگل تھا۔ ہمارے علم میں بھی ہے کہ اس علاقہ میں گذشتہ صدی کے اوائل تک یہاں پرانے جنگلات کا تسلط قائم رہا۔ پھر انہیں صاف کر کے زمین کو مصرف میں لانے کا ایک عام عمل شروع ہوا۔ اس وقت جنوب میں دریائے گھاگرہ کے اس پار جنوب میں ٹونس ندی کے کنارے کنارے ضلع اعظم گڑھ کے مشرقی حصّہ میں ایک گھنا جنگل تھا جس کے اب کوئی آثار نہیں ملتے۔ لیکن یہ جیال کہ اس جنگل کا سلسلہ آ گے بڑھ کر جونپور اور الہ آباد کے در میان تک پھیلا ہوا تھا ہمارے مآخذ کے متعلق ایک غلط فہمی کی بنا پر ہے کیونکہ دیگر ذرائع سے معلوم ہے کہ حقیقتاً ایسا نہ ہو سکتا تھا۔

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The numbers of villages assigned to the two provinces are considerably larger than the numbers recorded in the 1881 Census – larger by one-third in Ilahabad and by about one-half in Awadh. But the sarkar of Gorakhpur contained about the same number of villages as counted in its territory in 1881; that is to say, it did not have the same numerical superiority in villages over the present day, which the other parts of Awadh possessed. It was, therefore, probably more backward in its cultivation. Indeed in the 47th year of Aurangzeb, the governor of Awadh described this sarkar as “absolutely desolate.” Much of it must have been covered by the Tarai forest. From a statement by Tavernier it would appear that all was forest north of the town of Gorakhpur. And we know that the forest retained its old domain up until the beginning of the last century, when, at last, a general process of reclamation began in this region. Across the Ghagra to the south, a dense forest existed along the Tons river in the eastern parts of the A‘zamgarh district, where there are now no traces of any jungle. But the belief that the forest extended so far as to interpose between Jaunpur and Ilahabad is based on a misunderstanding of the original evidence and we know otherwise that this could not have been the case.

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صوبۂ آگرہ وسطی دوآبہ اور دریائے جمنا کے داہنے طرف کے علاقہ کے ایک بڑے حصّہ پر دریائے چمبل کے بہ سمت شمال اور جنوب دونوں طرف واقع ہے مشتمل تھا۔ دور عالمگیری میں اس کے تقریبًا تمام مواضعات پیمائش شدہ تھے، حالانکہ (تیجارہ اور نارنول کو جو صوبۂ دہلی کو منتقل کر دئے گئے علیٰحده کر کے) اس کا تحریری رقبہ اسی قدر تھا جو آئین اکبری میں درج ہے۔ یہ رقبہ ۱۹٠۹-۱٠ء کے کاغذات میں مندرج اسی علاقہ کے قابل زراعت رقبہ کے تقریبًا پانچ بٹہ چھ جصّہ کے مساوی ہے۔ اس طور پر مورلینڈ نے آئین اکبری کے اعداد و شمار کا وسطی دوآبہ کے زیرفصل رقبہ کے موجودہ اعداد و شمار سے باہمی موازنہ کرنے کے بعد جو نتائج اخذ کئے ہیں ان کا اطلاق عملًا پورے صوبۂ آگرہ پر ہوتا ہے۔ کاغذات عالمگیری میں اس صوبہ کے مواضعات کی تعداد اس تعداد سے جو ۱۸۸۱ء اور اس کے بعد کی مردم شماریوں میں درج ہے تقریبًا ایک تہائی زیادہ ہے۔

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The Agra province comprised the central Doab and a big block of territory on the right side of the Jamuna, both north and south of the Chambal river. Almost all its villages were under measurement during the reign of Aurangzeb, though the area recorded was about the same as in the “Ain” (making allowance for the transfer of Tijara and Narnaul to Dehli). It amounted to about five-sixths of the cultivable area reported for the corresponding territory in 1909-10, so that the result for the whole province is practically the same as obtained by Moreland from a comparative study of the “Ain” and modern “cropped area” statistics, relating to the central Doab. The number of villages assigned to the province in Aurangzeb’s record was about one-third larger than the figure derived from the 1881 and later censuses.

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ان شماریات سے یہ مجموعی شکل سامنے آتی ہے کہ اس صوبہ کی تقریبًا تمام زمین مصرف میں لائی جا چکی تھی۔ اس کی تصدیق پلسارٹ کے اس بیان سے بھی ہوتی ہوتی ہے کہ آگرہ کے علاقہ میں ایندھن اور درختوں کی انتہائی کمیابی تھی۔ اس وقت کی تحریروں میں دریائے جمنا کے نواح میں ایک ویران خطہ کی موجودگی کے حوالے ملتے ہیں جہاں اس وقت شیر کا شکار ہو سکتا تھا اور جہاں پہنچکر باغی کسان پناہ تلاش کیا کرتے تھے۔ اس علاقہ سے مراد پہاڑیوں کی وہ مشہور رگھاٹیاں ہیں جو غالبًا آج بھی اسی وقت کی طرح ویران ہیں۔

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The general picture of almost full occupation of the land, which these statistics present, is confirmed by Pelsaert, who says that in the Agra region there was a great shortage of firewood and trees were scarce. The references to a desolate zone near the Jamuna, where tigers could be hunted and rebellious peasants sought refuge, apply to the famous ravines which are, perhaps, still as wild as then.

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صوبۂ دہلی، تین نمایاں جغرافیائی اکائیوں پر مشتمل تھا یعنی وہ علاقہ جو اب روہیلکھنڈ کے نام سے موسوم ہے، دوآبہ کا بلائی حصّہ اور ہریانہ کا علاقہ۔ عہد عالمگیری تک اس صوبہ کے تقریبًا کل مواضعات زیر پیمائش لائے جا چکے تھے اور (بشمول تیجارہ اور نارنول) اس صوبہ کے رقبہ میں آئین اکبری کے اعداد سے ایک تہائی کا اضافہ بھی ہو چکا تھا اور علاوہ اس کے کل رقبہ ۱۹٠۹-۱٠ء کے کاغذات میں مندرج قابل زراعت رقبہ کے تقریبًا چار بٹہ پانچ حصّہ کے مساوی تھا۔ ساتھ ساتھ دور عالمگیری کے کاغذات میں مندرج مواضعات کی تعداد ۱۸۸۱ء کی مردم شماری کے اعداد سے تقریبًا بقدر نصف زائد تھی۔ "چہار گلشن" کے مطابق حالات حاضرہ سے موازنہ کی صورت میں دوآبہ اور روہیلکھنڈ کے ما بین اس نوعیت کا کوئی خاص فرق نہیں ملے گا جیسا کہ مورلینڈ نے اپنے آئین اکبری کے اعداد و شمار کے جائزہ کے سلسلہ میں اشارہ کیا ہے۔ ہمعصر تصانیف میں کچھ ایسے اشارات ضرور ملتے ہیں جن کی مدد سے ہم شمال میں جنگلات کے تخمینی حدود کا پتہ چلا سکتے ہیں۔ ہم جانتے ہیں کہ سرکار بدایوں کا محال گولد جو موجودہ ضلع شاہجہانپور کے ایک بہت بڑے علاقہ پر مشتمل تھا اور اس کا سلسلہ کھیری تک چلا گیا تھا، آئین اکبری کی تصنیف کے دنوں میں تقریبًا کلیتًہ غیر پیمائش شدہ تھا۔ لیکن ۱۱۱۹ فصلی یا تقریبًا ۱۷۱۱ء تک اس محال میں دس ٹـپّے اور ۱۴۸۴ مواضعات شامل ہو گئے تھے۔ ممکن ہے کہ اس کا سبب یہ ہو کہ یہ علاقہ پہلے مقامی سرداروں کے قبضہ میں رہا ہو اور اسے ان سے چھین کر اب مملکت مغلیہ کے باضابطہ زیر انتظام لایا گیا ہو۔ لیکن ساتھ ہی اس اضافہ کا یہ سبب بھی ہو سکتا ہے کہ اس علاقہ کے جنگلات کو صاف کر کے زیر کاشت لایا گیا ہو۔ بہر حال، اس کا جو بھی سبب ہو، بعد کے کاغذات میں اس محال کے مستقل مواضعات کی کثرت تعداد دیکھ کر یہ نتیجہ اخذ کیا جا سکتا ہے کہ دور زیر مطالعہ کے زبر اختتام تک اس محال میں جنگلات کو زیر کاشت لانے کا کام تقریبًا مکمل ہو چکا تھا۔ اس کے مزید شمال مغرب میں معلوم ہوتا ہے کہ آنولہ کے چاروں طرف جنگلات کا ایک حلقہ تھا۔ جو اب تقریبًا ناپید ہو چکا ہے۔ اس دور میں علاقہ رام پور کے جنگلات بظاہر اچھی طرح صاف کیے جا چکے تھے۔ لیکن ضلع نینی تال کے میدانوں میں اٹھارہویں صدی کے اوائل تک گھنے جنگل موجود رہے۔ برخلاف اس کے وادئ دون میں "آباد مواضعات اور محالات" اور تھوڑی بہت کسانوں کی آبادیاں اس وقت بھی موجود تھی۔

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The province of Dehli consisted of three distinct geographical units: the country now known as Rohilkhand, the Upper Doab and the Hariana tract. By the reign of Aurangzeb practically all villages had been brought under measurement and the area recorded had grown by nearly a third over the “Ain’s” figure (including Tijara and Narnaul). It came, moreover, to about four-fifths of the cultivable area returned in 1909-10. At the same time the number of villages in Aurangzeb's statistics was nearly one-half larger than that recorded in the 1881 Census. The Chahar Gulshan shows that, compared to the conditions today, there was no particular disparity between the Doab and Rohilkhand, such as Moreland in his study of the “Ain’s” statistics has suggested. There are some indications in contemporary literature which enable us to approximately trace the “forest line” in the north. We know that the mahal of Gala in the sarkar of Badaun, which covered a very large tract in the present Shahjahanpur district and projected into Kheri, was almost unsurveyed at the time of the “Ain.” But by 1119 Fasli or c. 1711, it had come to comprise ten tappas with 1484 villages. The explanation might be that the area was previously in the hands of local chiefs, but was now seized from them and brought under proper administration. Yet it might equally indicate a real advance of cultivation at the expense of the forest. In any case the large number of settled villages assigned to this mahal in the later record, shows that the process of reclamation had in the main been completed here by the end of our period. Further to the north-west there seems to have been a ring of forest around Aonla, which has now almost disappeared. The Rampur territory was apparently well cleared, but the plains of the Naini Tal district lay in dense forest down to the earlier part of the 18th century. The Dun valley, on the other hand, contained “inhabited villages and mahals” and a certain amount of peasant population.

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Both in the Doab and the Hariana tract the role of canal irrigation became important by the closing decades of the last century. The area thus irrigated in 1909-10 was about one-fifth of the net cropped area of the Upper Doab and about one-tenth that of Hariana. But the canal system has provided more a safeguard against drought and a means of improving the crops, than a means of extending cultivation. This might explain why the cultivated area has not materially increased in this region, and though the prospect is now changing for an immense tract as the Bhakra-Nangal scheme gets under way, it is still true to say that large areas in Hariana are neglected simply for lack of water.

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It is, in fact, further to the west, in the Indus plains, that the modern canal system has brought about a fundamental change. Here, the Mughal province of Lahor covered the northern portion of the Panjab in its strict geographical sense. To the south of it stretched the province of Multan, extending down to the delta in the time of the “Ain,” but later on only to below Sehwan. The measured area of the former does not show any noticeable alteration between the “Ain” and the statistics of Aurangzeb’s reign, when nine-tenths of the villages are shown to have been measured. In the Multan province, the practice of measurement was apparently abandoned in the sarkats of Multan and Bhakkar, but almost all the villages of the Dipalpur sarkar had come under measurement by the later years of our period. Taking, then, the Lahor province and the Dipalpur sarkar together, we find that the area recorded under them amounted to even less than half the cultivable area of the corresponding districts and states in 1909-10. There is an interesting tradition preserved by a late 17th century historian to the effect that the Panjab had been grievously laid waste and depopulated by the successive invasions of the Mongols and that a recovery began only under the Lodis, when, for example, the town of Batala was founded in the Upper Bari Doab in a clearing amidst wasteland and forest. And although the province enjoyed a period of exceptional peace and security under the Mughals, it is not unlikely that much of the effects of the desolation still remained.

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Moreover, besides the periodic havoc caused by uncontrolled rivers, when in flood, the Bias and Sutlej rivers had created in the region of Dipalpur an extensive waste and forest, known as the Lakhi jungle. The extent to which the canals are responsible for the change since those days may be seen from the fact that the proportion of land irrigated by government canals in the districts and states of the British “Punjab,” lying within the Mughal provinces of Lahor and Multan, was over one-third of the “net” area cropped in 1909-10 and in terms of total cropping the proportion would have been still higher. It is not to be thought of, of course, that every acre irrigated by the new canals was unploughed before. Indeed the canal, have superseded, while the embankments have closed, most of the old inundation cbannels and man-made canals. But by the same means the Lakhi jungle and such other wastelands have also been eliminated and, on the balance, the extension brought about by the modern system is very great.

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Despite this increase in cultivation the numbers of villages assigned in Aurangzeb’s statistics to the Lahor province and the Multan and Dipalpur sarkars together, exceeded by over one-half the 1881 Census figure for the same region.

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The Thatta province was entirely unmeasured and the only data from the Mughal period that we have for it relate to the number of villages. In contrast to the position in the Panjab and other parts of Northern India, the number assigned to this province, together with the Bhakkar and Siwistan sarkars, amounts to but two-thirds of the 1881 figure for Sind, although the region included in the former was considerably larger. This alone may or may not mean that this region was exceptionally desolate in Mughal times. Inundation channels and canals there were, as we shall see; hut still the fact that the modern Government canals irrigated nearly three-fourths of the net sown area of Sind in 1909-10, perhaps, speaks for itself.

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Like Sind, Kashmir was also unmeasured. The number of villages, a, recorded in the Mughal statistics, was practically the same as that of the 1901 Census for the corresponding districts. Little can at the moment be said about the province of Ajmer, because while the Mughal area and village statistics for the province are very incomplete, modern agricultural statistics too cover only a part of its total area.

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In Gujarat the practice of assessing land revenue on the basis of measurement was superseded, partially at least, under Akbar’s successors. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the reign of Aurangzeb as many as 6,446 out of 10,370 villages should have been unmeasured and the recorded area amounted only to about half that of the “Ain.” Besides these statistics we have a summary statement of the measured area for this province in the “Mir’āt-i Aḥmadī,” allegedly based upon the survey of Todar Mal. But the total figure is very close to that in Aurangzeb’s statistics and the “Chahar Gulshan,” and the specification of the unmeasured sarkars, with one exception, is the same as in the latter. One can. therefore, hardly doubt that the attribution to Todar Mal’s survey is imaginary and the figures are really taken from the records of Aurangzeb’s reign. In the Supplement of the “Mirat-i Ahmadi” we have a detailed mahal-wise statement of revenue and village statistics, which is invaluable and is in broad conformity with the sarkar-figures in the “Chahar Gulshan.” It may be noted that Soraṭh was not included in the area statistics of either the “Ain” or the later records, and the number of the measured villages in Aurangzeb’s statistics was half the total number of villages in the remaining territory. It would seem very likely therefore, that at the time of the “Ain,” which shows an area double that given in later times, almost all the villages in the administered tracts were covered by measurement.

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When we compare the “Ain’s” area with the modern returns of cultivable area from the corresponding territory, the difference in favour of the latter is found only to be slight. But the “Mirat” shows that nearly one-third of the measured area was, in fact, uncultivable. It is not impossible to offer an explanation for such a large proportion of what must, from the revenue point of view, have been unnecessarily measured land, but the statement is difficult to disregard entirely. It is true that in 1881 the number of villages was only slightly higher than the Mughal figure. Yet a Dutch observer, writing about 1629, i.e. before the great famine of the following decade, declared that “not one-tenth of the land is cultivated” and so anyone could obtain land to till wherever he wanted. The statement is an obvious exaggeration, but if there is even a little grain of truth in it, it would presuppose a state of affairs very different from the one today, when practically the whole of the land is occupied. Gujarat was the province most fully described by foreign travellers, but one looks in vain for any confirmation or contradiction of this statement in their accounts. The evidence that we have, then, is largely inconclusive and even contradictory, though it tends, on the whole, to show that cultivation was much less in extent than now. But whether it was a full one-third less, as the “Mirat-i Ahmadi” suggests, must be left an open question. It may be added that it is possible that some amount of reclamation has taken place since Mughal times in parts of Gujarat not covered by the Mughal statistics, such as the territory around Rajpipla, in whose forests wild elephants used to roam during our period.

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Even though large tracts south of the Narbada had been transferred from Malawa to Khandesh by Shahjahan, the measured area for the former in Aurangzeb's statistics is more than double the area recorded in the “Ain.” Yet, only a third of the villages had been brought under measurement. Modern returns (1920-21) for the territory of the reduced province (omitting a few minor “states” for which statistics are not available) show a cultivable area about three times the area under Aurangzeb. But besides the fact that the latter only represented the area of a third of the villages, two-fifths of the modern figure is made up of “Cultivable Waste,” in respect of which the Mughal records are not likely to have been as complete. The number of villages, according to the 1891 and 1901 Censuses, was distinctly, but not very considerably, larger than that given in the Mughal records. From these indications, it would seem that a large increase in cultivation cannot be postulated for this region. Malawa already enjoyed in Mughal times an established reputation for fertility and unfailing abundance.

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Similar deductions may, perhaps, also be drawn in respect of Khandesh. No figures are provided for the measured area of this and the other Dakhin provinces in the “Ain,” but Aurangzeb’s statistics show that by then 2,832 out of its total of 6,339 villages were under measurement. To judge from the 1891 and 1901 Censuses the number of villages has almost remained constant, while the cultivable area reported in 1920-21 amounted to about 2.5 times the measured area of Aurangzeb’s reign, which belonged to less than half of the total number of villages. It would seem, therefore I that there has been no material extension in cultivation and this accords with the evidence of other authorities, which describe the province as well cultivated and almost fully occupied.

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In Berar practically all villages had been brought under measurement by Aurangzeb’s reign. But though the number of villages according to the 1891 Census, was almost unchanged, the increase in cultivable area amounted in 1920-21 to over two-thirds of, if not nearly as much as, the measured area of the Mughal statistics. Here, therefore, the extension of cultivation has been substantial and we may assume that it has taken place largely at the expense of the great Central Indian forest, which then lay dense over the eastern regions of this province.

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In the Aurangabad province the total number of villages given in the Mughal records is about the same as in 1891. The measured villages amounted to over nine-tenths of the total, but the measured area was only about two-thirds of the cultivable area reported in 1920-21. The neighbouring province of Bidar was very small and any comparative examination of the figures relating to it will involve a very large margin of error, so long as its boundaries are not precisely determined.

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No returns of the area or number of villages are recorded in the Mughal statistics for the provinces of Bijapur and Haidarabad.

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It might have seemed tedious to follow the Mughal statistics in such detail. But one thing emerges from this study, namely, that some minor difficulties apart, the statistics are set to a very coherent pattern and the amount of corroborative evidence available is not insignificant. This may entitle us to place some reliance upon the general results which our comparison with modern statistics has brought out. It thus seems established that an increase in cultivation since Mughal times has taken place everywhere, though in varying degrees. The increase is the greatest, amounting to about a hundred per cent. in three regions. The first region comprises Ilahabad, Awadh and Bihar and, possibly, parts of Bengal. Here the increase has obviously been due largely to reclamation from the great sub-montane forest, the Tarai. The second region is that of Berar, where cultivation has extended at the expense of the central Indian jungles. And, finally, the Indus valley, where the extension has been due almost entirely to the modern canal system. Besides these territories, the increase in cultivation seems to have varied from one-half to one-third, or only one-fourth. Forest-clearings have played little or no part in this increase, which has mostly been brought about by ploughing up lands of inferior soils and grazing lands – a process that is still continuing.

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It has been a matter of some controversy whether the average yield of the land was higher in earlier times. It has been recognised that – with the established practice, or rather the practical absence, of manuring – two causes might contribute to a fall in the average produce. First, the extension of cultivation over inferior lands, which it was previously uneconomical to sow; and, secondly, the continued use of clearings in the forests, where after a period of great fertility, the soil is exhausted or comes down to the level of ordinary land.

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We have seen that if our statistical comparisons have any validity, the first factor has operated almost everywhere and the inferior land since then conquered by the plough, amounts generally to a third, and in some parts half, of the area previously cultivated. We have also seen that in some provinces the forests were far more extensive than now and that from the data concerning Bihar we can discern the existence of the practice, whereby the old clearings were abandoned once the land was exhausted, and fresh clearings were made elsewhere.

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It is probable that this was the position throughout the Tarai. It was certainly so in Gorakhpur at the beginning of the last century. As the forest has receded, this method has also disappeared. It is obvious, then, that in these areas, the average fertility of the land actually under cultivation must have declined even more than in others. We may notice. for example. Abu-l Fazl’s reference to the richness of the soil in the sarkar of Champaran (Bihar), where the pulse “māsh” (“urd”) used to require no ploughing nor any care at all in order to grow. The position is different only in the Indus plains and, to some extent, in the Doab, where the canals have enabled high class soils to be tilled and put to better use. But taking the area of the Mughal Empire as a whole, and assuming that agricultural practice has not changed, the average acre sown cannot be as productive now as in the Mughal times.

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In this Section we have also referred frequently to the village statistics of our period. A curious fact which appears from our comparison of these modern returns, is that in a compact group of provinces in Northern India, from Ilahabad and Awadh to Lahor and Multan the number of villages was generally higher by half than in the final decades of the last century. On the other hand, for Bengal and Bihar and the country south of the Northern Plains, i.e. Gujarat, Malawa and the Dakhin provinces, the Mughal returns are either a little below, or correspond very closely to, the numbers recorded in modern censuses.

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The reason for this relative multiplicity of villages in the North Indian provinces is not easy to discover. It is possible, that villages decreased in absolute numbers in the 18th century, when many might have been laid waste, while smaller hamlets were abandoned in favour of bigger ones for better defence. Or, when later, rings of waste and grazing land, previously marking off one village from another, were ploughed up, there might have been a tendency for one village to lose its entity and merge with another. This is, perhaps, mere speculation. Still, the relevant fact for us is that not only was the extent of cultivation in Mughal times much less than now, but it also maintained a much larger number of villages, which, therefore, must, on average, have been considerably smaller, when compared with the villages of to-day.

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2. Means of Cultivation and Irrigation

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Set against the great achievements of modern, scientific agriculture, it might seem difficult to imagine anything more primitive than the crude implements of the Indian peasant. In the context of the world three hundred years ago, however, these provoked little comment. Though oxen were yoked to it, not horses, the Indian plough was no stranger to European eyes.

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Terry described it as the “foot-plough,” a type used in England. Fryer, whose observations were confined to the coastal areas, declared that the “Combies (Kumbis)… Till the Land, and dress the Corn with no remarkable difference from other Nations.” He found no peculiarity in the ploughs, except that “their Coulters (are) unarmed mostly, Iron being scarce, but they have hard Wood (which) will turn their light Grounds.” This statement could have been true only of the coastal belt. Iron teeth would have been indispensable for the drier or harder soils inland and have obviously been in use since ancient times. It is true that Iron was “scarce” in our period, but its mining and manufacture were widespread in India and the price in terms of wheat was not more than three times the price in 1914. This should not have been prohibitive for the very small amount used in the share of Indian ploughs.

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It has, moreover, been pointed out that in certain respects, Indian agricultural methods were far from primitive when judged by the standards of the day. Drill-sowing, as well as dibbling, has been an old and familiar practice in India. Though bone manure has not been in general use, the exceptional value of fish as fertilisers seems to have been appreciated, since we are told that in Gujarat, fish manure was used in sugar-cane cultivation.

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The outstanding feature of Indian agriculture which impressed contemporary observers was the harvesting of two – and in some areas, three – crops in the year. The system of rotation of crops was, therefore, practically a gift of nature and to know the combinations which best suited particular soils would have been a matter of experience. No statement of this principle in explicit terms has survived from the period, but this was, perhaps, only because it was regarded as too obvious and common a fact of life to need any exposition. The principle that certain crops could enrich or improve the soil is distinctly stated.

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As for the fields, the general appearance they presented seems to have been practically the same as today. There were no hedges – nothing to remind the European traveller of the growing practice of “enclosures” on his continent. In Gujarat alone were thorn-bush hedges commonly raised to protect the fields; and these are noticed in our authorities as something of a local peculiarity.

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An important aspect of Indian agriculture is artificial irrigation to supplement the natural bounty of the monsoons. The principal means employed for this purpose has been the construction of wells, tanks and canals.

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In the Upper Gangetic plains as also parts of the Dakhin, wells must have provided the chief source of irrigation. The different methods of drawing water out of the wells now prevalent-except, of course, the tube-wells-are nearly all described by our authorities. East of the Jhelam, in the regions of Lahor, Dipalpur and Sirhind, there was the elaborate “arhaṭ,” or “rahaṭ,” called by the English the “Persian wheel,” which Babur found such a novelty. Around Agra and further east, the “charas,” or the leathern bucket lifted out of water by yoked oxen, was most common. Fryer, in his general account of India, describes, in addition, the “ḍhenklī,” based on the lever principle, which is generally in use wherever the water-level is close to the surface. There was in some parts at least, a professional class of vagrant well-diggers whose work, especially when digging in sandy soil to great depth, as in the Thar Desert, is said to have been extremely hazardous.

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It seems clear from a reading of Abu-l Fazl’s account of the various provinces in the “Ain” that he has found it superfluous to say anything about the role of irrigation, if the crops depended mostly upon rainfall and only partly on wells. His silence as to the presence of this form of irrigation in respect of particular regions should, therefore, occasion no surprise. What is interesting is his statement that “most” of the province of Lahor “was cultivated with the help of well-irrigation.” This is repeated later by a historian, who himself belonged to this province. One must suppose, therefore, that wells were relatively far more important than now in the upper portion of the Panjab. It is equally possible that in many tracts, especially in the central Ganga-Jamuna Doab, there has been a heavy decline in the number of wells, owing to the interference by the canals with the natural drainage of the country.

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Archaeological remains testify to the great antiquity of irrigation tanks in Central India and the Dakhin. Tavernier describes the country of Golkunda as being “full” of tanks, which are said to have been made by building dams, “sometimes half a league long,” so as to enclose the water in natural depressions and use it after the rains for the fields. There was the great Kamthana tank at Bidar, made by a dam built to its north, which was “verily” a “Tigris” and which freed the cultivators of the surrounding country from all dependence upon rain. In the later years of Shahjahan we find the Mughal administration proposing to advance nearly Rs, 40,- to 50,000 to cu1tivators in Khandesh and the Painghat portion of Berar, for the purpose of erecting bunds or dams. In the north, in Mewar, the famous tank of Udaisāgar – 16 kurohs in circumference – dates from our period and is said to have supported the cultivation of wheat in the country around.

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In cases where a river rises and inundates the fields seasonally every year, both the irrigation and fertilisation (if a layer of the sub-soil is left behind) are purely natural. But it is probable that the construction of embankments to “train” the rivers for the sake of canals or railways, or for the prevention of floods, has considerably reduced the extent of land formerly enriched by this means. Abu-l Fazl notices especially the lands thus irrigated by the Saru (Sarju) and Ghagra in Awadh as also land subjected to inundations in the Sambhal sarkar (Upper Rohilkhand).

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But it was the area affected by the Indus and its tributaries that offered the greatest contrast to present conditions. The seasonal inundations of the rivers, as they flowed through the parched and thirsty plains) were almost uncontrolled and nothing reveals their range more clearly than the spectacular changes which used to take place from time to time in the river courses during our period. In the time of the “Ain,” for example, the Beas and Sutlej after uniting at, or near, their present junction bifurcated below Firozpur, the upper channel being again known as the “Beas” while the lower one was known as “Sutlei” and was practically identical with the present bed of the Sutlej river. The two channels after flowing for more than two hundred miles, at about thirty miles from each other, probably united near the present confluence of the Panjnad and the Sutlej. Some time in the reign of Aurangzeb the “Beas” abandoned its old bed: the bifurcation still took place, but much below the previous one and the two branches maintained a separate course only for a short distance. This change must have devastated a very large area previously irrigated by the Beas channel. Similarly, the site of the confluence of the Chenab and Jhelam moved up by over 25 miles within the course of the 17th century. The Panjnad did not exist and the Chenab and Beas-Sutlej met the Indus separately near Uchh. The Indus shifted its course continuously, so that the huts of the villages on its banks had to be made of wood and straw.

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The fickleness of the rivers to their beds in the soft alluvial soil has, indeed, strewn the whole of the plains with innumerable abandoned channels, many of which become active during the season of the inundations, when water from their parent rivers forces its way into them. Modern embankments, again, have closed the mouths of many of these channels, but physical traces still remain to justify the supposition that the number of such natural canals in Mughal times was quite large. These are usually to be distinguished from purely man-made canals by their winding courses; but so often has human effort gone into deepening them or clearing their beds of silt that in some cases, at least, the distinction will be hard to draw. In the following survey an attempt has been made to present evidence about canals of both types that were active or were excavated during our period.

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In the Dakhin the practice of leading off small canals from rivers and streams was, like that of storage, an ancient one. We are told, for example, that in Baglana “they have brought into every town and village thousands of canals. cut from the river for the benefit of cultivation”; and these were managed, probably, according to the co-operative “phad” system, which still survives in that area.

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It was, however, in Northern India that really large canals were excavated. There is a tradition that the old channel of the Eastern Jamuna Canal was dug in the reign of Shahjahan, but it is thought really to date from the earlier part of the 18th century. On the other side of the Jamuna ran the celebrated canal of Firuz Shah. This was repaired during the reign of Akbar, first by Shihābu-ddīn Khān and later by Nūru-ddīn Muḥammad Tarkhān: at the time of the “Ain,” the canal was apparently carrying water past Hansi and only disappeared finally at Bhadra. It silted up again, but Shahjahan decided to reopen it from its mouth at Khizrabad, almost under the hills, down to Safedon and thence to dig a new channel, some thirty kurohs, or nearly 78 miles in length, to serve the new city of Shahjahanabad at Dehli. This was the famous “Nahr-i Bihisht” or “Nahr-i Faiż,” which must for the period be regarded as something of an achievement and though of no comparison to its modern successor, the West Jamuna Canal, it must have irrigated a considerable area.

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The Hariana tract, stretching between the Jamuna and the Sutlej is a large area not served by any perennial river: the seasonal streams which rise in or below the Siwaliks either disappear in the plains or join one of the channels leading to the Ghaggar or Hakra, the dry river of the desert. It has been the practice in the region to throw dams or bunds across these streams to create an artificial inundation, or, at least, obtain some supply of water. The position in the lower reaches of the rivers has naturally been precarious and this is confirmed in the case of the Chutang or Chitrang river by the detailed information about it, that has come down to us in a semi-official document. This is a long memorandum, prepared during the reign of Shahjahan, proposing to clear and deepen its channel so that its water might reach Hisar, which it had failed to do for a long time, causing great distress to the country around. There is, however, nothing to show that any action was taken on these proposals; and no hint of such work appears in any later account.

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In the Panjab proper, a small system of canals was brought into existence in the Upper Bari Doab. The best known of these was the Shāhnahr also excavated in the reign of Shahjahan. It took off from the Ravi at Rajpur (or .Shahpur) close to the hills and carried water up to Lahor – a distance of about 37 kurohs, or 84 miles. Taking off from the same point, one canal ran to Pathankot, another to Batala and a third to Patti Haibatpur. “Great benefit accrues to cultivation from these canals,” says the local historian writing at the end of the 17th century.

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For the rest of the Panjab our authorities are not very enlightening. The Sidhnai reach could no longer have been a canal since it was already carrying the main stream of the Ravi. We know, however, of a small canal cut from the Tavi to irrigate ‘Alī Mardān Khān’s garden at Sodhra near Wazirabad in the Upper Rechna Doab. The presence of canals in the Multan sarkar is indicated by the draft of an order appointing a “mīr-i āb” (canal superintendent) for the area, which has survived in a collection of administrative documents. It requires the appointee to “dig new channels (nāla), clear the old channels, and erect bunds on flood-torrents (band-i sail)” and to see to the equitable distribution of canal water among cultivators. The most southerly portion of the present Sindsagar Doab, lying in “the Baluch country,” was reputed for its fertility, which Aurangzeb attributed to the inundations and well-irrigation. The area is, indeed, full of abandoned river channels, but tradition also suggests that the present reach of the Indus above Mithankot was originally a man-made canal, which the Indus broadened into its own bed, early in the 19th century.

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In Sind, the Indus is even more prone to throw out its arms and flood channels, which extend as far eastward as the Eastern Nara. In addition to these there have been large artificial works also, notably the long Begari Wah in Upper Sind, its very name signifying a canal excavated with forced labour, and the Naulakhi in the Naushahro Division, supposed to have been dug before the beginning of the 18th century. In the Delta, Daryā Khān, a minister of the Jāms, excavated the “Khān-wah” in the early years of the 16th century. By continuously depositing silt the Indus raises its bed to a much higher level than that of the surrounding plains, so that it is easy to use the supply in its main stream as well as inundation channels for irrigating the fields. The local practice has been to either cut the “kārīzs,” or “artificial channels” from the river or canals as Bernier tells, or set up “Persian wheels” to lift out the water, to which also we have an allusion in contemporary testimony.

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Our information on the system of canal-irrigation is admittedly incomplete. It is, however, obvious that while considerable use was made in our period of the natural inundation channels, a number of canals had also been excavated, some of which were really very large works. The high quality cropping of the Punjab and Sind, of which we hear often from contemporary authorities, was probably largely to be found in tracts thus irrigated.

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Nevertheless it is also clear that the natural channels could hardly have always been suitable for irrigation, which requires the level of water in the source to be generally much higher than the fields. Nor could the man-made canals of the period have offered, either in capacity or in regularity of alignment, any comparison to those built on the foundations of modern engineering. There can, therefore, be no doubt about the very great advance made over the mediaeval canal system, even at its best, by the construction of the great network of modern canals in the Indus Valley and the Upper Gangetic Plains.

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3. The Crops and other Agricultural Produce

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In the production of foodgrains Mughal India exhibited the same broad division into rice and wheat-&-millet zones, that we find today, with the 40 or 50-inch annual isohyets setting the dividing line.

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In the Assam valley, in Bengal and Orissa, on the eastern coast and in the Tamil country, the narrow strip along the western coast and Kashmir, rice was cultivated to the virtual exclusion of wheat and millets. In Bihar, Ilahabad and Awadh and in Khandesh it enjoyed only a partial domain. It was grown in Gujarat, especially in the southern coastal belt; and a writer of the mid-18th century claimed that there had been a substantial improvement in the quality of the rice raised in the province as compared to “olden times.” Rice cultivation crossed its climatic limits in the dry region of the north-west in about the same way as it does now: irrigation from the Indus and its branches made it the chief crop of the delta; while high grade rice was sown in the Lahor province.

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Similarly, wheat was cultivated throughout its “natural” region. It is interesting, however, to find that it intruded into Bengal; and although the crop obtained there was recognized to be of a low quality, it is possible that a larger quantity of it was then grown than at the present day. Like wheat, barley grew most abundantly in the central plains and Gujarat, but could not be well cultivated in Bengal, while it was not raised in Kanara and Tamilnad, nor in Kashmir.

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The region of millets coincides largely with that of wheat, but tends towards still drier zones. Thus juwār and bājra were not cultivated in the Ilahabad province, while, westwards, in the Dipalpur region, juwar was the main kharīf (autumn) crop, with wheat sown for the rabī‘ (spring). In Ajmer, Gujarat and Khandesh millets in fact predominated over cereals; this was not true, however, of Malawa and Saurashtra. In the case of pulses also it is difficult to detect any substantial change that has taken place since Mughal times. What We know of the different crops from the “Ain” suggests that the general pattern was very similar, if not identical.

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The geographical distribution of the principal food crops, therefore, shows little alteration from present conditions. Moreland, who has examined the prices and assessment rates of different crops, in the provinces of Awadh, Agra and Dehli, given in the “Ain,” concludes that the price, as well as the value of produce per acre, of one crop in terms of another has changed very little since then. Among the food-grains only the small millets seem to have yielded more (in terms of exchange with wheat) per acre than now, while bajra was, in comparison with the present day, considerably undervalued. What has caused the decline in price of the smaller millets is not easy to establish, but it is possible that this is associated with their displacement on drier soils by maize. The spread and acclimatisation of this important crop is mainly a 19th century phenomenon and it was probably unknown in India in the 17th century.

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The “cash crops” of modern classification are practically identical with what in Mughal records are termed “jins-i kāmil” or “jins-i a‘lā” – “high-grade crops,” chiefly grown for the market. Cotton and sugar-cane were the two major crops belonging to this category. Cotton cultivation is duly noticed in what at present is known as the Bombay Cotton Tract, but specially in Khandesh. It was, however, cultivated throughout Northern India and, what is more significant, was an important crop in Bengal, where it has now practically disappeared.

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It seems very probable that in geographical terms the cotton-producing area shrank very greatly during the course of the last century. The development of sea-trade and the subsequent construction of the railways have given rise to a great concentration of cotton-cultivation in certain regions and it is possible that the average acre now devoted to cotton is better suited to the crop than in Mughal times. And from what we know of the amount of clothing then available to the peasants it may also be assumed that the total yield and, perhaps, acreage as well, of cotton, has increased very considerably since those days. Its relative scarcity in our period might therefore explain the high value, in comparison to other crops, which was assigned to the yield of cotton per acre in the “Ain.”

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It is to be noted, however, that there has been no such change in the comparative value of sugar-cane. Its cultivation was certainly quite widespread in Mughal times, much more so, perhaps, than that of cotton. The Bengal sugar was then pre-eminent both in volume of output and quality. The cultivation of sugar-cane has obviously greatly declined since then in Bengal, although it still remains one of the important crops of the province.

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The small amount of information that we have concerning the different oil-seed crops, does not indicate any notable difference in their geographical distribution. They were prominent in Bengal and appear with some minor exceptions in the “dastūrs” or revenue-rates of all the provinces from Ilahabad to Multan. Rapeseed and, perhaps, the castor-plant were noticed also in Gujarat. Flax was grown mainly for the linseed, i.e., for its oil, although its fibre-producing quality was known. It was acknowledged, however, that it grew better and in greater quantity in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Relatively to foodgrains, the price in weight and value per acre of the oilseeds, especially linseed, were much lower than now, when they have assumed considerably greater importance both as raw materials and as substitutes, or ingredients for substitutes, of “ghi.” It would be surprising if their production per head of population is not substantially higher than in Mughal times.

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Among the fibre-yielding crops, “san,” or sunn-hemp, probably far outstripped jute in our period. The dasturs in the “Ain” assume its cultivation in almost every portion of the “Zabti” provinces. Jute was obviously produced in Bengal for the local market alone, for it is noticed only as a crop of the sarkar of Ghoraghat in the “Ain” and a subsequent reference to it also is very casual. The tremendous extension of its cultivation in Bengal, in fact, took place largely in the course of the last century, at the expense of rice and sugar, a circumstance which is, perhaps, deeply connected with the chronic food shortage now affecting the province.

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The dye-yielding crops are now of little account; but this was certainly far from the case in the 17th century and indigo, especially, looms large in the commercial literature of the time. The best indigo grew in the Bayana tract near Agra, while that of a lower quality was cultivated in the Doab, around Khurja and Koil (Aligarh). The second place was generally assigned to the indigo of Sarkhej near Ahmadabad. But that of Sehwan in Sind was thought to be better than it in many respects. The indigo of Telingana in the Dakhin occupied a mid-way position between these fine varieties and the coarser sorts of indigo which were grown practically everywhere, from Bengal to Khandesh. So profitable were the crops of the Bayana and Sarkhej tracts that the stalks were kept in the fields to give three cuttings in two years, a practice frequently described by contemporary authorities, though largely abandoned in later days.

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Indigo is, perhaps, the only crop for which contemporary estimates of yield are available, though it must naturally have varied greatly from year to year according as the seasons had been favourable or otherwise. From the various estimates in our authorities, it would seem that the annual production of the dye in the three principal indigo tracts of the Empire – Bayana-Doab-Mewat, Sarkhej and Sehwan – amounted in favourable years to some 1.8 million lb. This excludes the yield of such regions as parts of Gujarat (besides Sarkhej), Khandesh, Bihar, &c., for which no estimates are recorded. But even allowing for this, the total indigo production of the Empire could hardly have exceeded a third, or even a fourth, of the output in the 1880s when foreign demand was at its height. It is, however, not to be compared with the position only one or two decades later, when indigo cropping was in rapid decay and due to disappear completely, owing to the manufacture of a synthetic substitute in Europe. It is worth noting that its elimination has had an adverse effect on other crops as well, especially wheat and cereals, for it had great fertilising properties and did not necessarily conflict with the rabi‘ cropping. The fate of indigo had been anticipated by that of “āl” (morinda citrifolia), yielding a red dye and cultivated in the lower Doab and Bundelkhand at the time of the “Ain.” This was also completely eliminated owing to manufactured dyes.

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Opium (poppy) and true hemp have greatly declined since Mughal times owing to administrative restrictions. Opium was grown almost everywhere, but especially in Malawa and Bihar. True hemp (siddhī or the bhang plant) was also widely cultivated, although Aurangzeb ordered it to be completely eradicated. Its cultivation is now illegal.

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The introduction and rapid extension of the cultivation of tobacco represents one of the most remarkable changes in the crop pattern that occurred within the course of the 17th century. Tobacco is not mentioned anywhere in the “Ain”; but within a decade of its compilation pious pilgrims returning from Mecca had brought news of the novelty to the court and an imperial envoy coming back from. Bijapur was able to present to Akbar a hookah (chilim) well and properly made in every respect. The addiction to tobacco spread fast: Jahangir’s prohibition was, perhaps, merely formal and in the event, totally ineffective. By Shahjahan’s reign tobacco had found a place in the perfumery of aristocratic households. In the following reign, while “Mahomedans” are said to have taken to consuming “a great deal of this article,” a writer bemoans the fact that the infection had seized the, rich and poor alike, without distinction. He also alleges that in the beginning only a small quantity of it used to come from Farang (Europe), so that it was not very common. But ultimately the peasants took to cultivating it with such enthusiasm that it began to predominate over other crops, a change which, according to him, took place during Jahangir’s reign. That this is substantially true is shown by the fact that by 1613 a “great quantity” of tobacco was being grown in villages near Surat and Terry testifies that it was sown “in abundance” in his time. Its cultivation soon became universal and two revenue manuals belonging to mid-17th century record its presence in regions so far inland as Sambhal and Bihar.

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Coffee as a beverage had become familiar to aristocratic and polite society. It used to be imported from the Arabian peninsula and Abyssinia through Mocha and was not as yet properly acclimatised in India. Still, an apparently unsatisfactory variety was being grown in southern Maharashtra. Tea was as yet almost unknown and was not cultivated anywhere, not even in Assam, where it must have existed in a wild state.

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Among spices, pepper was commercially the most important article of Indian produce. Long pepper grew chiefly in Bengal, but the best, the round or black pepper was produced outside the limits of the Mughal Empire, in the range of the Western Ghats. Capsicum or chilli, now so widely grown and an indispensable ingredient of every Indian meal, was unknown to Mughal India. It was acclimatised in our country only about the middle of the 18th century.

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One can discern little difference from the present day in the cultivation of betel leaf or “pān,” which was grown practically all over India. Perhaps, the improved means of transport have helped to substantially extend its cultivation, but we have no definite proof.

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Another crop grown entirely for the market was saffron, but its cultivation was confined, as now, to Kashmir.

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Vegetables were widely cultivated in Mughal India. Urban demand put a premium on their cultivation in plots near the towns and it was characteristic of Indian social structure that a particular caste, that of “Mālīs,” should have specialised in this. Among the vegetables the introduction of the sweet and the ordinary potato probably represents the most notable change since Mughal times. Varieties of yams were, however, known and formed an article of popular diet in parts of the Dakhin and so possibly also in Northern India. Tomato is certainly a new comer. But with these exceptions, the vegetables commonly grown were practically the same as now and they impressed some of the European travellers with their variety and abundance.

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In fruit-growing it was natural that the most diverse features should have been observed. Many fruits grew wild in the jungles and were only gathered for sustenance by the poor. Others, notably the melon (kharbūza), were cultivated as seasonal crops by the peasants. Trees bearing the better class of fruits such as quality mangoes were usually planted in groves, in carefully measured rows. The groves might belong to the peasants, but it is probable that quite often they were owned richer people, who seasonally rented them out to cultivators or professional fruit-sellers, as is the custom even to-day. Members of the aristocracy and officials possessed orchards to have fruits not only for their own consumption but also to sell for profit. Many, if they were Muslims, built their graves amidst groves of fruit trees, the income from which went to support their descendants or the guardians of their graves.

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Our authorities are far from reticent on the subject of fruits, especially in regard to their taste. But much of what they have to say – on, for example, the regions where the best mangoes grow or the extraordinary usefulness the coconut palm, and so on – may with equal truth he said today. It is best to concentrate our attention chiefly on the changes that appear to have taken place in the products and practices of horticulture during and since our period.

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These changes stemmed, first of all, from the new species of fruit-trees introduced from America through the agency of the Portuguese. The most notable was the pine-apple (ananas sativa), which spread throughout the length and breadth of India with striking rapidity. Grown in the beginning in the Portuguese possessions on the western coast, it had by the end of the 16th century become common enough in Bengal and Gujarat and Baglana to be noticed among the important products of these regions. It figures prominently among the Indian fruits described by Abu-l Fazl and during Jahangir’s reign many thousands of pineapples were gathered every year in the imperial gardens of Agra. Papaya and cashew-nut were introduced from the same source, but took more time to spread. Guava was probably introduced after our period.

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Secondly, the court and the aristocracy made great endeavours to grow almost every variety of fruits in their gardens. The attempt to grow Central Asian fruits had begun with Babur and it was claimed during the reign of his grandson that melons and vines as good as those of Turan and Iran were being grown in the plains around Agra. But the success was confined only to the imperial gardens and the orchards of the nobility, where their cultivation was often superintended by Central Asian gardeners and the seeds constantly imported from abroad, not to mention the special irrigation facilities that were provided. Nevertheless an important practice was popularised from these efforts in horticultural emulation. Cherries were not grown in Kashmir before Akbar’s reign, but now Muḥammad Qulī Afshār transplanted them from Kabul by means of grafting. By the same method, apricot trees which were formerly few, now became plentiful. Apparently for reasons of prestige, the practice was restricted for some time to imperial gardens only, but Shahjahan lifted this ban for both “the select and the masses.” Remarkable results are said to have followed from its wider application. The quality of the oranges, the “sangtara,” “kola,” and “nārangī,” was very greatly improved. It was also applied to mangoes in Bengal. How far it was a new practice or only a case of new experiments on lines of an old principle, it is hard to say. Bernier's remarks suggest that by the sixties of the century, it was either not being followed at all or followed only very carelessly in Kashmir, the very site of the first experiment.

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Indian sericulture has notoriously suffered a great decline in the last hundred years. In the Mughal Empire, the largest quantity of silk was undoubtedly produced in Bengal, but sericulture was also practised in Assam, Kashmir and the western coast. Anything like an estimate of the volume of production comes only from Tavernier, who says that Qasimbazar in Bengal alone could furnish about 22,000 bales, which, since his equation of a bale with 100 livres is open to doubt, might mean either 3.1 or 2.4 million lb. av. This estimate, not even of the produce of Bengal, but only of the supply in, perhaps, the chief market, may be compared with the total Indian silk production of 3 million lb., as estimated fifty years ago. It is probable, then that there has been an absolute fall in the volume of silk produced since our period, besides a relative fall per head of population.

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Lac-culture was also a prominent occupation in Mughal times, but there is no evidence of any particular difference in its position as compared to the present day.

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Where the 17th century peasant enjoyed a distinctly superior position to his descendant of today was in respect of cattle and draught animals. From what we know about the extent of cultivation during that period, it is obvious that the land available for grazing, both waste and forest, was far greater in extent than now. Even in so densely cultivated a province as Bengal, a traveller found “pasturages” with “enormous herds” a noticeable feature of the rural scene. We need not read much into the statement made by contemporary European observers about the great numbers of cattle found in the various parts of India, since cattle were particularly scarce in most parts of Europe, where satisfactory methods of keeping them fed and alive through the winter were yet to be discovered. When, however, Abu-l Fazl says that the number of tax-free cattle allowed per plough was four bullocks, two cows and one buffalo, it is difficult to resist the impression that an ordinary peasant had, compared to these days, a more numerous stock to work with.

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The larger number of working cattle per head of population is perhaps even better demonstrated by the obvious plenitude of clarified butter or “ghi.” In the Agra region, we are told, butter, with rice, formed “the food of the common people” and there was no one in Agra who did not eat it. Similarly, butter was produced in such plenty in Bengal that besides being part of the diet of the masses, it was also exported. In terms of wheat and millets it was considerably cheaper as compared with to-day. In the “Ain” it is rated 8.75 times dearer than wheat and exactly the same ratio is found in the prices reported officially from Agra in 1669. As worked out by Moreland, the average price of ghi prevalent at Agra, Delhi and Lahore in 1910-12 was 13.9 times that of wheat, and it has remained about the same since then. The rise in the relative price of ghi does not, however, seem to have been as substantial in the Dakhin: the ratio with the wheat price has, perhaps, altered from about 7:1 to 9:1.

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It may be supposed that with more fodder and grass available, the average quality of the cattle should also have been much better, but the traditional aversion to slaughtering useless cattle makes it unlikely that the breeds were much superior. The milk-yield of the cows and buffaloes in the imperial stables, at the maximum, does not exceed that given by the best breeds today, and a Dutch observer noted that the cattle gave “nothing like so much milk” as those of his own country, where the general slaughter before every winter enforced a remorseless selection.

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The wool of the Indian sheep also was not of a quality that could impress European travellers: it was coarse and regarded as fit only for blankets. The goat’s hair from which the famous shawls of Kashmir were woven, was really imported from Ladakh and Tibet.

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If, as we have suggested above, the cattle population per capita was larger than today, one would expect the peasant of our period to have a more abundant supply of cattle manure. Moreover, since wasteland and jungles were far more extensive and firewood, therefore, more easily available, cow-dung would probably have done its proper duty as a fertiliser and not been consumed as fuel. Still, in the more densely cultivated regions like the Agra province, where firewood was scarce, “the poor” commonly used to burn cow-dung for domestic purposes.

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It is no part of our present purpose to dwell upon the developments which have taken place subsequent to our period. But in so far as they help us to mark out the particular features of agricultural production in our period, it may be useful to recall where the changes since then have been most pronounced. In the food crops, the only additions have been maize and potato, while the lower grade millets have declined in significance. The important difference has, however, been in the proportionate increase in the acreage devoted to the cash crops at the expense of foodgrains. The increase in their acreage has gone hand in hand with a considerable geographical concentration of particular crops in certain tracts. The twin processes arose in the 19th century with the destruction of important Indian hand industries, chiefly textiles, and the conversion of our agrarian economy into a source of raw materials for the Workshop of the World. The same impulse led to the ultimate ruin of the indigo crop and sericulture.

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But on the whole it may he said that the new organisation of the distribution of crops has enabled land to be devoted to crops for which it is best suited, in contrast to Mughal times, when a tendency towards self-sufficiency in the main crops was to be observed in almost every region. Besides, the predominant emphasis on food crops in those times must have led to useless surpluses in favourable years.

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We had concluded at the end of Section 1 that were other things to remain the same, the fertility of the average acre under the plough should have declined since the Mughal period. It is possible to argue that the better distribution of crops must to a very large part have mitigated the effects of this decline. On the other hand, the reckless encroachments on grazing and forest lands, in the environment of a moribund economy, have caused a dangerous crisis in animal husbandry, which in a country, where cattle power is used to drag the plough and work the water-lift, must be regarded pre-eminently as a pillar of agriculture.

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4. Agricultural Manufactures

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The combination of purely agricultural work with manufacturing processes was a notable feature of peasant life in our period. The destruction of the rural “cottage industries” forms one of the most violent chapters in the economic history of British rule in India. From the facts of the last century, when the elements of the older system still survived or were remembered, it is possible to obtain a general picture of these industries in Mughal times. But the following outline is mainly based on contemporary evidence.

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It is to be supposed that in the case of foodgrains, the peasant’s part in the productive process generally ended with the threshing of the com. The milling of flour (by hand) and rice-husking took place usually in the household of the consumer and were confined, in that of the peasant, to whatever was meant for the consumption of his own family. It was chiefly in respect of the so-called “cash crops” that not only the existing techniques, but also the conditions of transport, made it necessary for certain manufacturing processes to be carried out before the produce left the hands of the peasant or, at least, the precincts of the village. Thus cotton was picked and ginned by the peasants and then cleaned or carded by a special class of itinerant labourers, called “dhunyas.” After this it was spun into yam within the peasant households and so finally became ready for sale to be passed on to the weaver.

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With the transfer of its ultimate destination to the textile factory, the processes of ginning, cleaning and spinning have all been largely lost to the countryside, the picked crop being usually sent straight off to the ginning mills. Sugar and “gur” manufacture was another important village industry, now in full retreat before power-worked refineries. The extraction of oil from the oilseeds also used to take place within the village at the hands of members of the semi-itinerant caste of “telīs,” oilmen working with the help of primitive ox-driven presses. In the Agra region, at least, the indigo dye was manufactured in the villages, probably generally requiring some kind of co-operative effort among the cultivators. The method used then is often described in detail by contemporaries and it remained essentially the same till the very last days of the crop. It appears, however, that in Gujarat the peasants frequently sold the leaf to a class of middle-men who arranged for the extraction of the dye and finally put it on the market.

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No claim is made that the facts adduced above are anywhere near comprehensive. They should nevertheless help us to appreciate the degree to which the wholesale separation of industry from agriculture has intensified, even if it has not wholly created, the problem of seasonal unemployment in the villages. And if we look still more closely, we will notice that the manufactures we have mentioned covered some of the most important needs of the peasant’s family. When a village – or a group of villages – spun its own yarn and obtained its own sugar and oil, and when the rural weaver, carpenter, blacksmith and potter sufficed for practically everything that a peasant’s household required, the clothing, the plough and the few farming tools and earthen pots, there would have been little left that a village would need from outside.

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Chapter II: Trade in Agricultural Produce

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1. Long Distance Trade

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It is perhaps axiomatic to say that a consideration of the extent and organisation of the market for agricultural produce is essential to any serious study of agrarian economy. The available evidence relating to the commercial conditions of the period is by no means small. It tends, however, to emphasise the trade in high value goods, with which we are not directly concerned. Besides, the day is still awaited when the whole of it is subjected to a detailed and adequate analysis. At the moment, while avoiding details, which will take us too far outside our sphere, a short description is offered of the main features and pattern of the trade carried on in agricultural products.

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The closely knit national market of today is clearly the creation of the railways. The most obvious limitations besetting long distance trade in our period were those of the means of transport. Bullock-carts, camels and pack-oxen carried the goods of commerce on land-routes that were little more than tracks, though distinguished in the case of the major highways, at any rate, by a system of sarā’is, or walled lodging and store-houses, for passing the nights. But the ordinary caravans or “qāfilas” of merchants were able to carry only articles of higher value. The transport on land of goods of bulk, like foodgrains, sugar, butter and salt, was organised on peculiar lines by the famous caste of “banjāras,” who held a practical monopoly of this trade. Their method consisted of driving enormous herds of pack-laden bullocks, feeding on lands along the routes. The banjaras were themselves nomads and lived with their families in camps or “ṭāndas.” A large tanda might contain as many as 600 or 700 souls and up to 12,000 or 15,000 or even 20,000 bullocks, which would have carried something like 1,600 to 2,700 tons. On occasions such as when a large army had to be supplied, the banjaras might collect a hundred thousand bullocks or more. On the whole, the volume of goods transported annually by them must have been very considerable, large enough, probably, to be expressed in terms of hundreds of thousands of tons. The costs of transport under this system were obviously much lower than those of the other methods of land transit, but the pace was also much the slowest and the necessity of finding grazing lands along the routes must have severely limited the banjaras’ operations during •the summer and in the drier tracts.

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As might be imagined it was the rivers which in fact offered the cheapest means of transport. In Bengal, Sind and Kashmir goods were mostly conveyed on boats. From Agra barges of great “burthen” – of 300 to 500 “tons” – sailed to Patna and Bengal down the Jamuna and the Ganges, performing the downward journey during the rains and taking the rest of the year to come up again. Similarly, Lahor and Multan were river-ports from which rather smaller craft went down to Thatta. To judge from the fact that 10,000 “tonns” of salt alone were annually transported on boats from Agra to Bengal, the rivers must have really borne a very great volume of traffic. The capacity of the coasting fleet also, considering the circumstances of the time, was impressive, and it was extensively used for the transport of goods of bulk, including foodgrains. It was very vulnerable, however, to piratical attacks, exactions and restrictions from the European ships which now dominated the Indian seas.

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The broad effects imposed upon trade by contemporary conditions of transport may best be appreciated by a study of transport costs in the context of the prices then prevailing. For example, the cost of a “man”-load carried on camel’s back from Agra to Surat in the early years of the 17th century amounted, in terms of the “Ain’s” prices, to no less than four times the price of the same weight in wheat, but only half that of white sugar. Unfortunately the costs incurred by the banjaras are nowhere stated, but we can still form some idea of the charges of river-transport, The cost of transit by boat from Multan to Thalia in 1639 was nearly twice the “Ain’s” price of wheat but only about one-sixth of its price of white sugar. These illustrations lend emphasis to the point, that, taking into account the means of conveyance only, the proportional divergence in prices between distant markets had to be very great before movement in food grains and similar goods of bulk could take place, while in articles of higher value the necessary margin would have been much smaller. Moreover, price-differences should have tended to be far less along rivers than across land.

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But there were other factors, beside, the physical means of transport, which must also have greatly influenced carrying trade. Of these, transit dues may be assigned cardinal importance. A series of imperial orders issued by Akbar and his successors declare all such imposts – known indiscriminately as “bāj,” “tamghā,” or “zakat” – abolished, either entirely or with some exceptions. It is possible that they resulted in the elimination of a number of tolls and taxes, many of them probably inherited from the annexed kingdoms. Nevertheless despite the comprehensive phraseology of the texts of the orders, they do not seem ever to have had more than a partial effect. Duties of all types continued to be collected: either this was done illegally, for the benefit of the jāgīrdārs or other officials, or what had been abolished on the one hand, was authorised on the other. One ought apparently to distinguish between two categories of such taxes. In the big marts, frontier towns and ports all goods sent out or in transit had to pay a duty of 2½ per cent ad valorem, though in some places it was more, in others less. Aurangzeb raised ihe rate to 5 per cent for the Hindus, but kept it at the old percentage for the Muslims, except for a period of fifteen years when they were exempted altogther. Foodgrains, like other commodities, were definitely subject to this duty, though they might be exempted in times of scarcity.

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More burdensome, perhaps, were the various tolls and cesses – generally called “rāhdārī” in the 17th century – which were exacted by the various authorities controlling the routes. These were apparently mostly proportionate to the value of goods carried, though in such cases as river-crossings a uniform rate might be levied. Imperial edicts emphasise particularly that food grains and articles of mass consumption should be exempt from all these imposts. The burden on these goods might riot have been heavy in normal circumstances, but, paradoxically, it became very severe in conditions of scarcity or famine. In such cases not only did the amount of dues rise proportionally, but it is probable that under the pretence of collecting them, the officials held up the trade till they had obtained a share in the merchants’ profits expected from the high prices. Moreover, it is almost certain that with the relaxation of central authority towards the close of our period, the incidence of these cesses rose enormously.

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As for the general state of law and order in which the trade was carried on. it is worth noticing, in the first place, that the organisation of the caravans and sarais, of the tandas of banjaras, who went armed, and, possibly, of flotillas in the rivers was in each case designed to meet the threat of robbery on the routes. The protection of the routes was moreover regarded as one of the foremost duties of the administration and it was a well-established law of the Mughal Empire that the officer in whose jurisdiction a robbery or theft occurred was bound either to recover the goods or himself pay compensation to the victims. The officers met this obligation by pursuing a policy of ferocious reprisals and sacking the suspected villages, methods by no means unprofitable to themselves. This, however, was true only of the plains and the territories closely controlled by the imperial government. In or near the hills, ravines and desolate country, such a policy could not be successfully carried out; and here robbers and rebels often became indistinct, levying what might be regarded either as ransom or tribute upon the merchants passing through their territories." In general, however, one gains the impression, especially from the experience of European commerce in India, that whatever dangers a lonely traveller might have to face, caravan trade was notionally a pretty safe proposition over the larger portion of the Mughal Empire.

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It may, finally, be worthwhile to note that the long distance trade of the period was backed by an exceptionally well-developed system of finance and credit. The use of “hunḍīs” or bankers’ drafts and bills of exchange was widespread, and the rates, considering the times, were certainly moderate. There was besides an organised system of insurance, accepted not only against risks of loss in transit, but also against the incidence of taxes.

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It is not easy to assess with precision the effects on trade of each of the factors described above. It would seem, however, that none of these modified to any extent the relative possibilities of trade set by the means of transport, which, to repeat, were more favourable to the transit of goods of higher value than of goods of bulk and to the transit of those carried along rivers than over land. Perhaps, the transport of foodgrains was sometimes encouraged by the administration, but we have also seen that it was quite often retarded. And though transport across land was itself costlier, it was still more vulnerable to the exactions. of chiefs and rebels, as was particularly the case with the Rajputana route, These facts should be borne in mind while studying the normal pattern of trade between the various regions.

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In the following paragraphs an attempt is made to set out such particulars as relate to the more important agricultural products. These should show not only the crops subject to the influence of the distant markets but also, if we apply the inferences we have just outlined, the relative levels of prices current in the different provinces.

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There is no doubt, to begin with, that Bengal stood out in our period for low prices and had a large surplus in provisions available for export. There was a regular coastal trade in rice, sugar and butter, carried to Coromandel and round the Cape Comorin, to Kerala. Sugar was shipped to Gujarat and even to Persia, while opium was chiefly exported to Kerala. Sometimes wheat was also sent down from its ports to Southern India and the Portuguese possessions. Orissa also exported by sea over 40,000 tons of grain (rice) together with butter and lac to the Coromandel ports. The imports into Bengal from the Eastern Coast included cotton yarn and tobacco.

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In the course of the 17th century an important seaborne trade was developed in Bengal silk by the Dutch, who exported it to Japan and Holland. They are said to have taken 6,- or 7,000 bales of the 22,000 bales yearly put on the Qasimbazar market; they would have taken even more if the merchants from other parts of the Mughal Empire and Central Asia had allowed them to do 50.59 In the latter part of the century, cotton yarn and sugar also began to be exported to Europe.

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Up the Ganges, Bengal exported rice and silk to Patna, receiving wheat, sugar and opium in return.

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There was a brisk trade on and along the Ganges and Jamuna up to Agra. Agra not only imported raw silk and sugar from Bengal and Patna, but also obtained such provisions as rice, wheat and butter from the eastern provinces, without which, it was said, it could not have fed itself. In return, salt was carried down to Bengal, where it was very scarce, together with cotton and opium.

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From Agra again, sugar and wheat and Bengal silk were carried to Gujarat. As a mart, however, Agra owed much of its prominence to the indigo trade. The best indigo in the world grew in its neighbourhood and, besides being sent to all parts of India, it had an international market. Formerly it used to be taken to Lahor for sale to merchants from the Middle East, but with the opening of the sea-borne commerce with Europe, Agra became the chief, if not the sole, emporium. The European trade became very important in the earlier part of the 17th century, after which it experienced a sharp decline.

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Apparently, wheat could be taken to the Lahor market from as far as Muradabad and high quality rice from Sirhind. From Lahor and Multan sugar and ginger were sent down on boats to Thatta, whence they returned laden with pepper and dates. Butter for export was brought down by the river to Thatta from Bhakkar. Indigo was carried in the same way from Schwan for shipment to Basra and, occasionally, via Surat to Europe. For some reason, however, the Basra trade decayed and the English did not succeed in replacing it.

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Kashmir exported saffron to Agra and other parts of India, entering into competition at Patna with the saffron brought from Nepal. In return, it imported salt, pepper, opium, cotton, yam, etc.

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The most important feature of trade in Western India was the position of Gujarat as a great importer of foodstuffs. It obtained wheat and other foodgrains from Malawa and Ajmer and rice from the Dakhin. Indeed, it provided a market for the produce of so distant a region as Gondwana, while rice was also brought by sea from Malabar. On the other hand, its major exports consisted of cash crops. Of these cotton was by far the most important. The crop raised between Surat and Burhanpur (Khandesh) “supported an extensive trade to Agra.” Cotton and cotton yarn were sent by sea to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea ports and down the coast to Kerala. It was also occasionally exported to Europe. The indigo produced in Gujarat, especially the Sarkhej variety, was exported both to Europe and the Middle East. A large quantity of opium was shipped to Kerala and tobacco to Thatta, Persia and the Red Sea ports. Among re-exports, sugar was frequently sent to Europe, silk to the Middle East and saffron to Malabar.

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Along the western coast, pepper was probably the most important article of commerce. From certain areas in Maharashtra and Upper Kannada there was a brisk overland trade to Agra, but the traditional trade of Malabar had been with Gujarat, pepper sent by sea changing for opium and cotton. This was however, completely disrupted by the Dutch in the sixties of the 17th century: they monopolised the trade in all the three commodities, raising opium in Malabar and pepper at Surat to almost impossible prices.

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It will be noticed that in the foregoing survey we have hardly ever been able to speak in terms of the actual volume of goods transported. Nevertheless, it suggests clearly that production for distant markets was an important aspect of Indian agriculture of the period. Over large regions – as is indicated particularly by the exports from Bengal and the imports into Gujarat – even food crops were greatly affected by the demands of long-distance trade. This was naturally truer still of the cash crops and in certain tracts specialising in the cultivation of high-grade varieties, such as Bayana and Sarkhej, in indigo, and Kashmir, in saffron, the ordinary peasant’s dependence on trade must undoubtedly have been very great.

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2. Local Trade; the Peasant and the Market

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It is obvious, however, that although the volume of agricultural produce carried from one region to another must in the aggregate have been substantial, it could never have accounted – under the existing conditions of transport – for more than a very small portion of the total production. For the mass of the peasantry, the local market must have been of incomparably greater significance. And local trade largely meant the trade between town and country.

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It is impossible to read the sources of the period without gaining the impression that there was a very large urban population: the multitudes of artisans, “peons” and servants found in the towns provide a frequent topic of comment to foreign observers. In Akbar’s empire, we are told, there were 120 big cities and 3,200 townships (qaṣba), each having under it from a hundred to a• thousand villages. The largest city in the 17th century was Agra, with a population estimated at 500,000 and 660,000 in the days when it contained the court. It still remained larger than Dehli, when the court shifted to the latter, though Dehli was now held to be as populous as Paris, then the biggest city of Europe. Lahor in its days of glory had been described as “second to none either in Asia, or in Europe.” Patna had an estimated population of 200,000; and Ahmadabad in the early years of the 17th century was stated to be as big as London, with its suburbs. For the other large cities like Dhaka (Dacca), Rajrnahal, Multan and Burhanpur no such indications are available. But the few data that we have, suggest a very high ratio of urban to the total population of the country; and from what we know of the great depopulation of the towns in the 19th century, it is unlikely that this ratio was exceeded till very recent times.

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The towns had not only to be fed by the countryside but to be supplied also with raw materials for their manufactures. It may be noted, however, that since there is no evidence that the villages depended in any way upon urban industry, the raw materials brought into the towns were probably confined only to those required for the luxury trades or for the ultimate use of the urban population. All the same, these together with the provisions needed for such large numbers could not but have comprised a fairly large proportion of the total agricultural production, and few villages could have been left unaffected by the pull of the urban market.

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It is also certain that there was some amount of what may be called purely rural commerce. Villages or tracts, largely producing cash crops would have been in need of foodgrains and trade must also have been necessary in such commodities as salt, gur, oil or even butter in which all villages were not likely to be self-sufficient. This kind of trade was customarily carried on by an itinerant – and rather lowly – caste of traders known, generally, as “Bedehak,” but also by other names.

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If, then, a large portion of the peasant’s produce was ultimately put on the market, his own relations with it are naturally well worth investigating. Sometimes he parted with this portion in lieu of land revenue and in such cases it was the potentates – the jagirdars or their agents – who must have arranged for its sale. But in most provinces the peasant was as a rule obliged to pay the revenue in cash and there he must have had to sell it himself. This he might have often done by carting his produce to the local market or the town. Or, in the case, at any rate, of a high-grade crop like indigo, he might be approached in the village by merchants interested in the trade. But it is possible, that a very large number of peasants were not able to reach the open market at all, being compelled to sell on contracted terms, to their creditors.

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Whether the creditors were merchants or the village moneylenders, the result was always to depress the price received by the peasant. However, it was not as if the peasants not bound in this manner, were able to obtain anything like a fair return. Their urgent need for cash to pay the revenue and keep themselves alive, forced them to sell as soon as the harvest came into their hands, while the merchants could usually afford to wait. On the way to and in the market, again, the peasants might be obliged to pay various dues and perquisites. In the process of sale, they were probably commonly defrauded in the weighing of their produce and in the cash paid out to them.

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Finally, there was the scourge of monopoly and engrossing – “iḥtikār” –, alike denounced by moralists and prohibited officially. When it was a case only of a few persons cornering the stocks it was not the peasant, but the townsman, who suffered from it. But often in order to establish a monopoly, local authorities prevented the peasant from selling his produce to anyone except one buyer or group of buyers, so that he too was victimised. Such local monopolisation seems to have been a common phenomenon, though it is possible that, being disapproved of at the Court, it could not ordinarily have been carried beyond certain limits. In 1633, however, an indigo monopoly was established with imperial aid and sanction, covering the whole empire and due to run for three years. But it was abandoned in the second year, not the least, perhaps, because “many of the cultivators (being in general a resolute harebrained folk)” “rooted up their plants” in protest.

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The peasant’s indebtedness, the various cesses, the malpractices in the market and the imposition of monopolies must all have worked to enlarge the margin between the price obtaining in the secondary market and that paid to the peasant. Nevertheless the two prices must generally have maintained a certain proportion. If the margin of difference became too large, merchants and buyers from the secondary markets would try to buy from the peasants direct and it was noticed in such cases that the latter were shrewd enough to raise their prices immediately. In fact we find cultivation responding closely, almost desperately, to market demand. The peasants of Gujarat, for instance, replaced cotton with food crops under the incentive of high food prices following the great famine of 1630-32. Similarly, in Sind in the forties a fall in the indigo trade caused a corresponding decline in its cultivation. The most remarkable example of the peasant’s readiness to cultivate anything which could sell better is offered by the rapid expansion of tobacco cultivation, where it appeared to a contemporary that the peasants, in fact, anticipated the market.

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3. Movements of Agricultural Prices

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The importance, then, of the trends of market prices to the peasants should need no emphasis. Before proceeding to study the relevant evidence, however, some words of caution may not be out of place. Agricultural prices varied sharply in accordance with the seasons and the quality of the harvests. Moreover, there were enormous differences in the prices prevailing in the different regions. These facts greatly depreciate the value of much of the small amount of evidence that we possess. Nevertheless. where the prices quoted belonged to years when the harvest was normal, it should be permissible to draw comparisons Similarly from our study of the pattern of long-distance trade we have obtained a little insight into the relative levels of prices in some of the provinces for a few important commodities; and with the help of this knowledge inter-regional comparisons can also have their value as rough indicators.

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The most detailed list of prices coming down from our period is to be found in the “Ain.” From the words used by Abu-l Fazl it seems clear that these are prices regarded as normal at the imperial court. When the “Ain” was written, Lahor had been the seat of the court for some years, but it may be a mistake to regard the prices as those ordinarily current in that city, for we are definitely told elsewhere that the arrival there of the court had greatly raised the prices of agricultural produce in the Panjab. The “Ain’s” prices are therefore likely to be higher than those generally obtaining in Lahor. How far these are an index of those of the other capital, Agra, is difficult to say, since we have no information about the relative price-levels of the two cities. There was apparently no established grain-trade between them, but one would suppose that Agra, with its ability to obtain cheap supplies of provisions up the river from the eastern provinces, should have enjoyed generally lower prices than Lahor.

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For both Agra and Lahor we have some price-data relating to foodgrains from the later years of our period and it is interesting to compare these with the prices of the “Ain.” The rabi‘ crop of 1610 had obviously been very good and the prices from Agra in or about March 1670 were specially reported to the Court to be recorded by a chronicler in terms of great satisfaction. The information relating to Lahor is less satisfactory. The prices are given in a document professedly abstracted from the register of market-dues at Shahdara-Lahor and is dated January 1702. We have, however, no means of knowing what the harvests had been like that year. In the following table the comparable prices from all the three sources are given side by side, the necessary conversions having been made to state them in terms of Rupees per “man-i Shahjahani.”

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____________|__“Ain”_|_1670: Agra_|_1702: Lahor__|
Wheat …………0.40…………1.14…………1.14………
Sukhdās Rice……3.33………2.86…………2.00………
Gram……………0.27…………0.95………………………
Ghī………………3.50………10.00………………………
Mūng……………0.60………………………1.00………
Moṭh……………0.40………………………1.00………

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Thus in spite of a good harvest, the prices at Agra in 1670 were generally three times as high as those of Akbar’s court; and the same is practically true of the prices prevailing at Lahor in 1702. The price of the “sukhdas” variety of rice offers an exception. But apart from the fact that this was high quality rice with a limited market, it is also possible that the name came to be applied in later times to varieties inferior to the sukhdas of the “Ain.”

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There are moreover certain other indications which go to confirm the rise in the price of at least two of the items listed above. We know that Guiarat was deficient in wheat and that some of the deficit was met with supplies from Agra; wheat must therefore have been dearer in Guiarat than at Agra. Now we are told that before the 1630-32 famine wheat ordinarily sold in Gujarat at a rate equivalent to R. 0.79 per “man-i Shahiahani.” This price is nearly twice the one given in the “Ain,” but what is more noteworthy, it is a third less than the price wheat, fetched at Agra in 1670. On the other hand, in Bihar, a province noted for the cheapness of its provisions, which were exported to Agra, wheat was priced at R. 0.50 in 1659, a rate one-fourth above that of the “Ain.” These comparisons become explicable only if we admit that a substantial rise in the price of wheat took place between the reigns of Akbar and Aurangzeb. We can adduce a similar proof also for a general rise in the price of ghi. Bhakkar enjoyed a reputation for its pastoral products and exported ghi to other parts, so that its price here should have been much lower than elsewhere. It is put at Rs. 5.33 in 1639, and although this is the lowest among the prices given subsequently for other regions except Bihar, it may be compared with the rate of 3.50 in the “Ain” and 5.83 at Surat in 1611.

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The price of sugar is not infrequently quoted in the English commercial records of the period and it may be worthwhile to trace its progress in some detail. Apart from a very highly refined product, called “nabāt,” and the red sugar, the “Ain” gives the rates for two other varieties, white sugar candy (“qand-i safed”) and white (powdered) sugar (“shakkar-i safed”), viz., 7.33 and 4.27, respectively, in terms of Rs. per “man-i Shahjahani.” In 1615 the latter variety seems to have fetched but Rs. 2.75 to 3.00 in the region “betwixt Agra and Lahore.” Yet in 1639 the price of “candy” at Lahor was no less than Rs. 11.00 and the best (powdered) “sugar” was quoted at 7.00, lower varieties being obtained for 5.75 and 6.00. In 1646 a “super-fine” variety of the latter sold at Agra for 6.00 and in 1651 the price is said “not to exceed” Rs 6.00. Thus within the earlier part of the 17th century, sugar had risen by about 40 per cent., or more, in the central regions of the empire. The same process is even more clearly discernible in Gujarat. This province imported large quantities of sugar from Agra, so that the prices here ought to have been much higher. Yet in 1613 “powder sugar” sold at only 4.44 at Ahmadabad and Terry, whose experience was confined to Gujarat and Malawa (1616-19), calculates on the basis of its being usually priced at 4.93. In 1622, however, sugar was declared to be “very dear” at Ahmadabad and the price quoted was equivalent to 9.11; subsequently, in 1628 and 1630 the rates kept to between Rs. 8 and 9.2. The price at Surat was 7.11 or 8.00 in 1619, but in 1635, after the famine, it stood at 11.77. The English seem, thereupon, to haw increased their purchases direct from Agra, but ultimately decided that the best course lay in obtaining it from Bengal, where it was the cheapest and most abundant and whence Agra itself imported. Quotations for Bengal sugar relate to 1650, 1659 and 1683 and the rates range from Rs. 4 to 5.25 The price in Bengal, therefore, had also by now risen to the level of that of the central regions and Gujarat at the beginning of the century.

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Finally, a word about the price of indigo, for which our information is by far the fullest. Moreland has made a detailed examination of the evidence relating to the price of the Sarkhej indigo and he contends that there is no particular indication of an increase in it. The Sarkhej product was, however, very heavily dependent upon European trade and it is possible that the tendency towards an increase in price was countered by the drastic curtailment of this demand, increasingly satisfied from the West Indian plantations. This was a much less important factor in the case of the Bayana indigo and it is surprising that Moreland did not extend his enquiry to the price-history of this variety. The details of it gleaned largely from English commercial literature may be relegated to a footnote, and, indeed, so self-revealing is this evidence that it should not be necessary to enter more than a few comments. Admittedly, the price-curve is full of troughs and crests, but this is hardly surprising for a crop which was very vulnerable to natural disasters and was raised predominantly for distant markets. Nevertheless, through all these fluctuations a steady, and often rapid, rise is unmistakable. It is noteworthy that this continued even when the European demand began to falloff in the sixth decade of the century. 1669-70 was a year of plentiful harvests, as we have seen, and the Bayana indigo was then stated to be “indifferent cheap,” but the anticipated price was about three times the one regarded as the maximum by Abu-l Fazl, and twice the normal highest limit for the price set in 1609.

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It cannot, therefore, be open to doubt that our period witnessed a substantial rise in agricultural prices. It is not strictly within the, sphere of our enquiry to examine whether this rise can be inferred from the relative values of the precious metals during the period. But the point is so important and the study made of it as yet so inadequate that room has been found in Appendix C for a detailed analysis of the gold and copper prices of the silver rupee, the standard coin of Mughal currency. It will be seen that the evidence for a general fall in the value of the rupee relative to both metals is ahnost overwhelming, and I it is possible to work out this decline in some detail. We find, for example, that if the price-level expressed in silver was 100 at the time of the “Ain,” it should have risen to over 150 in the twenties of the century; another ascent in the fifties and sixties put it somewhere between 178 and 276. Thereafter it fen a little and stood between 145 and 200 by the end of the century. It may be observed that, though the data of agricultural prices are not sufficient to confirm this later recovery in silver, the agreement between the earlier trends in agricultural and silver prices is remarkable. The fall in the price of the rupee in the twenties may be discerned, for example, in the rise of that of sugar in the same decade. The second great fall in the value of the rupee is similarly attested to by the prices recorded for foodgrains and indigo in 1669-70.

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In our study of agrarian trade we have emphasised the fact that while the villages did not depend on the produce of the towns, the towns absorbed a large portion of the produce of the villages. This was only made possible because of the heavy land-revenue demand. Land-revenue pumped back into the towns the money that had gone out to buy food and raw-materials from the countryside, or, when it was received in kind, simply carted these necessary supplies to the towns. When an increase in agricultural prices took place, the balance could not be restored merely by an increase in the prices of urban manufactures, since they had no market in the villages. It could be restored only by an increase in the land-revenue collections. In Chapter VI, Section 1, and Chapter IX, Section 2, we shall see how this actual increase in land-revenue took place. Since the land-revenue accounted for by far the larger portion of the peasant's surplus produce, it is obvious that this increase must have wiped out any possible advantage that the peasantry might have obtained through a rise in the prices.

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Chapter III: Material Conditions of the Life of the Peasantry

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1. General Description

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“The common people,” declares a Dutch observer during the reign of Jahangir, live in “poverty so great and miserable that the life of the people can be depicted or accurately described only as the home of stark want and the dwelling place of hitter woe.” To attempt a description of the normal articles of consumption and use of the peasant in our period is really tantamount to outlining the lowest possible level of subsistence – a dictum with which contemporaries would probably have readily agreed.

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It is a pity that on the very important subject of the quantity of food consumed by the peasants our authorities are not very helpful. We are, however, slightly better placed with regard to the kinds of food which entered into popular diet. It is naturally to be expected that in Bengal, Orissa, Sind and Kashmir, rice, being the major crop, should have formed the staple diet of the masses; while a similar position was enjoyed. by juwari and bajra in Gujarat. But, generally speaking, it was the lowest varieties, out of his produce, which the peasant was able to retain for his own family. We know that in Kashmir the rice eaten by the masses was very coarse and in Bihar, the “indigent” were compelled to eat the “pea-like grain,” kisārī, which used to cause sickness. Despite the fact that wheat flourished best in the Agra-Dehli region, it did not form part of the “food of the common people,” which here consisted of rice, millets and pulses. Similarly, though Malawa, as we have seen, had wheat enough for export, Terry, whose experience was mainly gained there, says that “the ordinary sort of people” did not eat wheat, but used the flour of “a coarser grain” (probably juwar).

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Foodgrains were generally supplemented by a few vegetables or pot-herbs. Fish entered into mass diet in such provinces as Bengal, Orissa, Sind and Kashmir. From both, religious scruple (against cow-slaughter and pig-farming) and indigence, meat was but rarely consumed by the peasant.

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It has been suggested earlier that the output of ghi per capita, was higher in Mughal times than now. This is shown among other things by the fact that it was a constant part of the staple diet in the Agra region, Bengal, and Western India. The people of Assam were, however, utterly unfamiliar with it and regarded it with the greatest abhorrence. In Kashmir too, the common people cooked their food in water; and walnut-oil and ghi were regarded as delicacies.

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Tavernier declares that “even in the smallest villages … sugar and other sweetmeats, dry and liquid, can be procured in abundance.” And one may assume from this that gur, at any rate, was commonly consumed in the villages. As for salt, Moreland has shown that its price in terms of wheat at the time of the “Ain” was double that in modern times. It would seem, therefore, that the amount of salt consumption per capita was at a much lower level than now. It was, for example, exceptionally scarce and dear in Bengal; and in parts of it and in Assam, people were driven to use a bitter substance containing salt, extracted from the ashes of banana stalks. The use of capsicums or chillies, today a necessary ingredient in every meal, howsoever humble, was not then known. Spices such as cuminseed, corianderseed and ginger were probably within the peasant's reach, but cloves, cardamoms and pepper were obviously too expensive, at least, in the central regions. When cloves were cheapest – i.e. before the Dutch imposed their monopoly on sea-born trade with the East Indies – they were looked upon by the villager, not, apparently, as an article of food, but as ornaments fit enough to adorn the necks of his wife and children.

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During certain seasons the peasants were presumably able to enjoy fruits of the more common kind as well as those growing wild.

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There is practically no information as to the prevalence of pān-eating in the countryside and one may doubt if the habit could have been indulged in by the mass of the people. The intoxicant, tāṛī or toddy, was frequently noticed – and drunk – by European travellers, but it is obvious that its consumption was less widespread inland than in the coastal province of Gujarat. The extent of the use of opium is difficult to judge. Abu-l Fazl speaks of the practice of the doping of small children by “the high and low” as if it was a peculiar custom confined to Malawa, whereas in more recent days it spread throughout India. Tobacco smoking had already become a mass-habit by the end of our period. Speaking ostensibly of India in general, but really of Gujarat and the western coast, Fryer refers to “the ordinary People” smoking “a Pipe of Tobacco,” while we know that by this time the “poore sort” had taken to smoking the cheroot in Coromandel. From Sujan Rai’s rhetoric we may assume that the masses of Northern India were also rapidly learning to smoke.

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The facts we have adduced above do not easily lend themselves to the purposes of an exact comparison. But, speaking generally, if we take only the middle and poorer strata of the Indian peasantry today, the change in diet would seem to have been inconsiderable. The peasant of Mughal times was more fortunate with ghi, while his modern descendent has more salt and three entirely new articles of food, maize, potatoes and chillies. But this is, perhaps, all.

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رعیت و ریزه پای ایلی تمام یالانکاچ یوریدورلارـ لنکوته دیك بیر نیمه باغلایدورلارـ کیندیك تین ایکی قاریش قویی قیسق سالیلیب توروبتورـ بو سالینغان قسق لته نینك استیدا ینه پارچه بار، لته بار بو لنکوته نینك باغینی کیم باغلارلار اول پارچه لته نينك ایکی بت نینك اراسیندین الیب کیین لنکوته نینك باغیدین اوتکاریب بیرکیتادورلارـ خاتونلاری خود بیر اوزن لنك باغلاب تورلار، یاریمی نی بیلکا باغلایدور، یاریمی نی باشلاریغه سالادورلارـ

“Raʿiyyat ve rezapāy eli tamām yalangač yürüydürlär. Langota dek bir nemä bağlaydurlar. Kindikdin iki qarış qoyı qısıq salılıp turuptur. Bu salınğan qısıq latanıng astıda yana parča bar, lata bar bu langotanıng bağını kim bağlarlar ol parča-latanıng iki butnıng arasındın alıp käyin langotanıng bağıdın ötkärip berkitädürlär. Xatunları xud bir uzun lung bağlapturlar. Yarımnı beligä bağla[y]dur, yarımnı bašlarığa saladurlar.”

و رعیت و مردم ریزه پای تمام برهنه میگردند ـ لنگوته گفته یک چیزی می بندند از ناف دو وجب پایان تر اریب لته آویزان شده مانده ایستاده در زیر این لته اریب آویزان شده یک پارچه لتۀ دیگر است ـ بند این لنگوته را که بستند آن پارچه لته را از میان دو ران گرفته عقب گذرانده به بند آن لنگوته مضبوط میکنند ـ زنان آنها خود یک لنگ بسته اند ـ نصف آن را در کمر خود بسته اند ـ نصف دیگر را بر سر خود انداخته اند ـ

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In regard to clothing, the statements of our authorities are generally short and precise. Of Hindustan, the country “from Bhera to Bihar.” Babur observes: “Peasants and the lowly go about completely barefooted. They tie on a thing called ‘langūta,’ a decency-clout which hangs two spans below the navel. From the tie of this pendant, another clout, beneath it, is passed between the thighs and made fast behind. Women also tie on a cloth (‘lung’), one-half of which goes round the waist, the other is thrown over the head.” In other words, just the shortest dhotī sufficed for men and a sārī [?] for women; and they wore nothing else. Similarly, in the following century an English factor at Agra declares that “the plebeian sort is so poor that the greatest part of them go naked in their whole body (save) their privities, which they cover with a linen (sic: cotton) coverture.” Finch, saying the same thing, while speaking of Banaras, adds that in winter, in lieu of wool “the men wear quilted gowns of cotton like to our mattraces and quilted caps.”

[Thackston’s translation from Babur seems clearer: “The peasantry and common people parade around stark naked with something like a loin cloth tied around themselves and hanging down two spans below their navels. Under this rag is another piece of cloth, which they pass between their legs and fasten to the loin cloth string. Women fasten around themselves one long piece of cloth, half of which they tie to their waists and the other half of which they throw over their heads.”]

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The clothing of the ordinary people was even more brief in Bengal. “Large numbers of men and women,” says Abu-l Fazl, “go naked and do not wear anything except for the loin-cloth (lung).” Furthermore, in Orissa “women do not cover anything except for the privy parts and a large number make their coverings from leaves of trees.”

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On the other side, in Sind, “the people of the countrye (I meane those which inhabitt out of the citties) are for moste part verye rude, and goe naked from the waste upwards, with turbants on their hedds…”. In Kashmir cotton was not worn at all; both men and women put on just a single woollen garment, called “pattu,” which came down to the ankles. They kept it unwashed on their bodies for three or four years till it was completely tattered.

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In Gujarat the women’s attire was described as comprising “a Lungy being tied loose over their shoulders Belt wise and tucked between their Legs in nature of short Breeches,” and a short bodice, these two “being all their Garb, going constantly without Shooes and Stockins.” Though we have no direct evidence bearing upon the point, conditions were probably similar in the Mughal Dakhin, a large cotton-growing area. On the other hand, the scantiness of clothing became very marked as one went more to the south, into Golkunda and Southern India.

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There can, therefore, be little doubt that the change in respect of clothing has been substantial, pitiful as the conditions still are. Babur’s description, for example, may yet hold true of parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, but is completely alien to the situation in the Doab or Panjab. Similarly, despite the great poverty of the Bengal villages, the sari worn by women, at any rate, is long enough to rule out a statement from being made today in the strain of Abu-l Fazl.

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The available information concerning the dwelling places of the peasants may be rapidly surveyed. In Bengal the ordinary hut is said to be as “in the most part of India” “very little and covered with strawe”; it was made by roping bamboos together upon “walls” or rather plinths of mud excavated at the site. In Orissa the walls were made of reeds. In Bihar “most houses” had roofs of tiles. The huts of the peasants of the Doab are described as “badd mud walled ill thatched covered howses.” The villages on the banks of the Indus consisted, we are told, of “houses of wood and straw,” which could always be shifted. In the Ajmer province “the common people live in tent-shaped bamboo huts.” Round about Sironj (Malawa) the peasants lived “in small round huts,” “miserable hovels.” The houses in Gujarat were roofed with tiles (“khaprail”) and often built of brick and lime. In Khandesh and Bidar, however, the huts were again mud-walled and thatched. All this sounds familiar and it is obvious that there has been practically no change in the housing conditions of the peasant: for better or worse, during the last three hundred years. Now; as then, the huts are built out of materials that are most easily procurable and without the use of any architectural skill, so that the kind of material used, together with the climate and soil, bears almost the entire responsibility for such regional variations as have existed.

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There was little within the hovel of the peasant to attract the attention of contemporary observers. “Furniture there is little or none, except for some earthenware pots to hold water and for cooking and two beds (i.e. cots) one for the man, the other for the wife…”. This is said of the workmen in Agra and there is no reason to expect that the peasants’ possessions were on any better scale. From Terry’s testimony we may add to this brief list of domestic articles “the small iron hearths” used by “the common people” for baking their cakes of bread. We are also told that in Southern India “their plate is a leaf… or a small plate of copper, out of which the whole family eats.” Linschoten says the peasants in Kanara “commonly drinke out of a Copper Canne with a spout… which is all the metell they have within their houses.” Presumably, from the fact that the great copper mines lay in Northern India the peasants within the Empire were a little better served with this metal. But the “Ain’s” price for copper has been computed to be five times higher, in terms of wheat, than its price in 1914. This explains why Pelsaert refers only to earthen vessels even for cooking. The earthen vessels were in fact “almost universal” among the peasants of the central regions till the earlier part of the last century and it is only since then that they “have entirely been replaced by (utensils of) brass or other metal.” Apart from the cots there was probably little other wooden furniture, except, perhaps, for the low stool, called “chaukī,” the use of which is a traditional part of village etiquette. Tin boxes and a few little trinkets are indeed all that are needed to complete the picture of the peasant’s domestic possessions today.

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As for jewellery the custom of converting savings into women’s ornaments was apparently universal and foreign travellers note almost everywhere the extraordinary amount of ornaments which women might wear. Their descriptions of these are very general as a rule, but from them and from a specific statement by Fryer, it would appear that for the poorer masses the ornaments consisted of copper, glass or conch shells or even, as we have seen, at one time, of cloves.

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To judge from the frequent accounts of rites, festivals and pilgrimages preserved for us in contemporary accounts, it is obvious that these played as noticeable a part in the peasant’s life as they do today. Such occasions, the marriage of his children, the funeral rites for the dead, and the visits to riverside festivals, must have consumed a part of his meagre resources or increased his debt. Indeed, a contemporary Dutch observer castigates the people of Gujarat, who in years of good harvests “spent and squandered” their “surplus” “on their devilish festivals” – for which God, in His usual way, chastised them with the great famine of 1630-32.

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2. Famines

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We have so far seen the Mughal peasant only in the poverty and squalor that were his lot in a period of normal years. But the monsoons upon which his harvest depended were not always constant in showering their bounty; all might be lost if the rains failed at the crucial time or poured down in such excess as to drown the crops. The great railway network today offers the means whereby foodgrains can be rapidly transported from the surplus to the “affected” areas. This benefit conferred by the railways added in due course another item to the well-publicised list of achievements of the British administration, viz., the conversion of “food famines” into “work famines.” With this claim we have of course no concern and in so far as attempts have been made to contrast the terrible conditions of the famines under the Mughals with the acclaimed contentment and plenty enjoyed under British rule, a few facts are provided in a footnote to throw light on the propriety of this comparison.

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An idea of the frequency and violence of these calamities in our period may be gained from the following chronicle of famines and scarcities, compiled from contemporary sources. We must, however, remember that this can have no pretensions to completeness and the list will probably extend as more evidence becomes available.

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Our period began at the tail-end of a terrible famine which, for two successive years, 1554-5 and 1555-6, had ravaged “all the eastern parts of Hind” or Hindustan (i.e., excluding Bengal and probably Bihar), particularly the territories around Agra, Bayana and Dehli People died in groups of tens and twenties and more, and the dead got “neither graves nor coffins.” “The common people lived on the seeds of Egyptian thorn, wild dry grass and cowhides.” Badauni was himself an eye-witness to acts of cannibalism. Most of the affected country “was rendered desolate, cultivators and peasants disappeared and rebels plundered the towns of the Muslims.” Abu-l Fazl claims that the scarcity was over by the time of Akbar’s accession, probably owing to a successful rabi‘ crop.

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A severe scarcity seems to have affected Gujarat some time during the mid-sixties; it became common, during its visitation, for parents to sell their children for trifles. In the next decade, there is an allusion to a very acute famine around Sirhind in or about 1572-3. In 1574-5 there was again a serious famine in Gujarat, this time accompanied by pestilence; and large numbers of people, both “lowly and respectable” migrated from the province. There was also a general apprehension of drought this year in Northern India, but the danger was averted by timely showers. Some parts of Hindustan, however, seem to have experienced scarcity in 1578-9. 1n 1587 and 1588 locusts destroyed the crops in the Bhakkar territory: “most people migrated and the Samija and Baluch, plundering both sides of the river, did not let a single place of habitation escape them.” In 1589-90 drought caused a famine, again, in the same locality.

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There was a general insufficiency of rain in 1596: “High prices plunged a world into suffering” and Akbar ordered free kitchens to be opened in every city. Next year there was an acute scarcity from drought in Kashmir, where destitute people “having no means of nourishing their children exposed them for sale in the public places of the city.”

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Writing in 1615-16, Jahangir refers to the spread of bubonic plague in this and the preceding year from the Panjab to Sirhind, the Doab and Dehli. He cites a learned opinion that this was due to the excessive drought which had been experienced for two years (1613-14 and 1614-5?), but no particulars about the scarcity are supplied.

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The great famine of 1630-32 was probably the most destructive of all the recorded calamities in our period and certainly one which left the deepest impression on contemporary minds. It affected Gujarat and most of the Dakhin. There was first a complete failure. Of the rains in these areas in 1630; the next year the crops were promising in Gujarat, but were first attacked by mice and locusts and then destroyed by excessive rain, while in the Dakhin the drought seems to have continued. Pestilence followed close in the wake of the famine to carry away those who had escaped starvation. The most harrowing scenes were witnessed. Parents sold their children so that they might live. There was a wholesale migration in the direction of the less affected lands, but few could even complete the first stages of the journey before death overtook them; and the dead blocked the roads. In the first year the poor largely perished but in the second the turn of some of the rich also came. Hides of cattle and the flesh of dogs were eaten; the crushed bones of the dead were sold with flour and ultimately cases of cannibalism became common. The transport of grain by the banjaras to Gujarat from Malawa and beyond was hampered in 1630 by the task of feeding Shahjahan’s army encamped at Burhanpur. But though the army was dispersed and the banjaras were reaching Surat with large supplies in the following year, the prices were still almost prohibitive. As was the usual practice of the administration, “langars” or free kitchens were opened in the major cities, more as a gesture of charity, however, than with any ambition [?] of providing substantial relief. The land revenue remission, of necessity, was considerable.

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Of all the provinces affected Gujarat suffered the most heavily. Three million of its inhabitants are said to have died during the ten months preceding October 1631; while a million reputedly perished in the country of Ahmadnagar. The cities of Gujarat were, by death or flight, reduced to almost one-tenth of their former state. The villages could hardly have fared much better. Ṣādiq Khān declares that “the parganas of Sultanpur, Bidar, Mandu, Ahmadabad and indeed the province of Khandesh and some parganas of Balaghat were rendered utterly desolate,” and peasants had to be brought in from other areas to settle there. Late in 1634, after three good seasons, it was reported from Gujarat that although the towns were recovering in population “the villages fill but slowly.” In 1638-9 the “marks” of the famine could yet “be seen everywhere” and cultivation had obviously not recovered fully till even the end of the second decade of Shahjahan’s reign.

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In 1636-7, the Panjab was reported to be suffering from famine and scarcity. In 1640 excessive rain and the resultant inundations destroyed the kharif crop in Kashmir; and in 1642 famine conditions prevailed there again from the same cause, forcing about thirty thousand people to flee in distress to Lahor. The latter year also witnessed a prolonged drought in Orissa which disrupted its customary exports of grain to Coromandel.

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During the forties the rains failed repeatedly in parts of Northern India. In 1644 the Agra province was thus affected though famine conditions are not reported. In February 1646 it was represented at the Court that the “indigent” were being forced to sell their children owing to the high prices of foodgrains in the Panjab; but the distress was apparently limited. In 1646 drought was experienced both at Agra and Ahmadabad. In 1647 the rains failed utterly in Marwar, which "hath occasioned a famine, insoemuch that those parts are, either (by) mortallity or peoples flight, become wholly depopulate and impassable.” In 1648 there was again a “partial failure of the rains” in the Agra region. Bengal, on the other hand, was visited with an excess of rain in 1644-5 and 1648, spoiling its sugar-cane crops.

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In 1650 there was a failure of rain “in all parts of India.” The “dearth of corne” was reported from Awadh; and it affected the country between Agra and Ahmadahad. In the Panjab the crops were harmed first by drought and then by excessive rain, so that the grain prices rose very high and the peasants were unable to pay the full revenue. In the Multan province the rabi‘ crop of 1650 had been spoilt by locusts and the kharif, as elsewhere, by drought, while the rabi‘ of 1651 also suffered from inundations.

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In 1655 the kharif crop in parts of the Balaghat province of Mughal Dakhin was damaged by delayed and heavy showers.

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A prolonged period of scarcity in Northern India began in 1658. Caused initially by the ravages of the War of Succession, it was sustained for the first four or five years of Aurangzeb’s reign by the faults and failures of the monsoons. The scarcity was felt particularly In the regions around Agra, Dehli and Lahor and in or before the 4th regnal year “langars” (free kitchens) had to be established by the administration on a large scale in these cities. The worst sufferer, however, was Sind, where famine and plague raged in 1659-60 and “swept away most part of the people.” Gujarat suffered from drought in 1659, 1660 and again in 1663, raising com prices so greatly that in 1664 it was thought another failure of the rains would “utterly dispeople all these parts” – a fear which happily did not materialise. Even Malawa – the land of perpetual plenty – was affected, for owing to the War, the kharif crop of 1658 was largely destroyed. Eastward, in Bengal, a local famine developed in 1662-3 in Dhaka, the distress from which was intensified owing to the interference with the transport of foodgrains by official exactions and obstructions on the routes. But generally speaking, except for Sind, there is no suggestion that the large-scale mortality or the usual scenes of horror marking a serious famine were observed anywhere.

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In 1670 the kharif crop failed completely in Bihar from want of rain and during the succeeding year an acute famine ravaged the territory extending from the west of Banaras to Rajrnahal. We have an eye-witness account of how multitudes perished on the routes and in the city of Patna and how parents sold their children. Ninety thousand were estimated to have died in Patna alone, and of “the townes near Pattana, some (were) quite depopulated, having not any persons in them.”

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Late in 1678 grain prices were reported to have risen very greatly at Lahor, but no account of the distress is available. In 1682 “famine and scarcity” prevailed in the province of Gujarat and there was a “bread riot” against the governor at Ahmadabad. Drought was also experienced in the Dakhin, where plague began to rage in the towns from this year. The crops failed again in 1684 in the peninsula and prices are stated to have risen greatly.

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Gujarat too continued to be subject to scarcity conditions. In 1685 prices of foodgrains rose so that all duties on them had to be remitted, and there was a riot in Ahmadabad against the qāżī, who was thought to be in league with the engrossers. The high prices continued in the following year owing to drought. In 1691 famine and pestilence visited the province together; and scarcity was experienced again in 1694-5. The region around Dehli also felt the scarcity of 1694-5, but the worst affected was the Bāgar tract on the north-eastern edge of the Thar Desert. Its inhabitants migrated to other parts, eating carrion, selling their children and dying in thousands. In 1696-7 drought affected parts of Gujarat and Marwar and not a trace of grass or water could be found between Pattan and Jodhpur.

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A great famine began in the Dakhin in 1702. In February it was reported to the Court from Sangamner (Aurangabad province) that owing to drought “most of the villages” had been rendered desolate. In the course of the year “in the whole of the Dakhin no rain fell that was in keeping with the interests of cultivation”; in fact the rains were so prodigious as to devastate the kharif harvest. Great scarcity prevailed everywhere south of the Narbada and people were compelled to migrate from their ancestral homes. The next year (1703) brought no relief, for owing to the excessive winter rains the rabi‘ crop was also damaged, wheat suffering particularly from blight. Then drought came. A historian speaks of it as the year, for Maharashtra, of “famine and scarcity owing to drought, the mortality of the poor and the wail of the weak.” Drought, with its close companion, plague, continued into 1704. “In these two years” – i.e. 1702-3 and 1703-4 – in the Dakhin “there expired over two millions of souls; fathers, compelled by hunger, offering to sell their children for a quarter to a half of a rupee, and yet forced to go without food, finding no one to buy them.”

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It will be observed that the evidence in our possession shows considerable variations in the frequency of the visits of famines to various regions. In part this may be due to the fact that we are better informed about some provinces than others. But this will not, for example, explain why Bengal, for which our information, throughout the 17th century, is considerable, has practically no serious famine on record: indeed, the 1662-3 scarcity at Dhaka was described as an unprecedented phenomenon for that province. Similarly Malawa seems to have lived up to its reputation for being perennially free from scarcity. The Upper Gangetic region was not so fortunate, but the one great famine involving large scale mortality took place just before the beginning of our period. Only one famine of similar dimensions is recorded for Bihar. On the other hand, the provinces in the Indus Valley, Gujarat and the Mughal Dakhin seem to have been much more vulnerable to natural calamities and suffered repeatedly.

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It is, perhaps, needless to emphasise the extent of distress a famine imposed upon the mass of the people. Years of large scale mortality might have been few, but when they did come round, the amount of depopulation could have been frightful. Not only did people die of starvation, but they also fell victim to all kinds of pestilence, particularly the dreaded plague, which followed in the wake of even the lesser scarcities. It is not possible to estimate exactly the degree to which these calamities counteracted the natural growth of population. It is possible to exaggerate their effects in this respect. The famine of 1630-32 might have denuded large portions of Gujarat of living beings, but for the next three generations, at any rate, nothing like this occurred. Similarly Hindustan had a full hundred and fifty years, within our period, to recover from the depopulation suffered in the 1554-6 famine.

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There were, however, other miseries besides death which the famines heaped upon the poor. Their consumption fell dangerously below the necessary level for subsistence and we have occasionally a glimpse of what they might be forced to eat during times of dearth. Fryer considered it an accepted fact that “(in great Scarcity) Grass Roots” became “the common Food of the ordinary people.” The wasted fields drove peasants from their homes to seek sustenance in distant regions and each scarcity was marked by a phenomenal glut in the slave market. The famines thus, from time to time, introduced into the stolid isolation of agricultural production, a terrible element of fluidity and confusion. If there had been nothing else, this alone would have sufficed to explain the migratory characteristics of the medieval peasantry, which will call for detailed notice further on.

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Chapter IV: The Peasant & The Land; and The Village Community

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1. The Peasant & The Land

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The search after the “owner of the soil” in India before the British conquest has exercised the ingenuity of many modern writers. No little influence on this debate has been commanded by the evidence of European travellers of our period, who declare without a single voice of dissent, that the proprietorship of land rested with the King alone. This conception has found favour with authoritative exponents of agrarian history, but now seems no longer to be a part of the official doctrine as it once was. It has been urged that the principle is quite alien to all the known precepts of either Hindu or Muslim law. Nor is there any reference to it in the pages of medieval Indian writers or in any of the extant administrative or private documents. When Abu-l Fazl sets him.,elf In the task of justifying the imposition of taxes on “the peasant and the merchant,” the only argument he puts forward is that the taxes are the “remuneration of sovereignty” paid in return for the protection and justice which the King secures for his subjects. Taxes are needed. because the King must have resources with which to maintain those who help him in this task, i.e. the warriors. There is no suggestion anywhere that land-revenue was in the nature of rent that the peasant had to pay for making use of royal property.

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Moreover, in the urban areas there seems to have existed a definite notion of private property in land. We come across references to the King’s subjects in the role of “proprietors” (māliks), selling plots of land to the King or even disputing their possession with him. Outside the towns too, in numerous documents we are introduced to private persons as māliks, holding the “milkiyat” or ownership of the land of villages or portions thereof. Whatever interpretation we might put on these terms with regard to their practical substance, it is, at any rate, established from such references that persons other than the King laid claim to a right upon land that in name was of ownership.

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It is, however, legitimate to ask why the European travellers unanimously attributed a right to the King that he himself did not claim. True, many of the travellers had only a superficial knowledge of India and basing themselves on vulgar report or copying from others, perpetuated many erroneous ideas. Yet some of those who have made this particular statement, such as Manuchy, had spent years in India and were as familiar with its administrative institutions as any well-informed Indian of the time. There is probably considerable truth in one explanation that has been advanced. To European eyes the Mughal jāgīrdārs must have seemed the natural counterparts of the land-owning aristocracy of Europe. And since the Mughal emperor was able to transfer at will the jāgīrs or territorial revenue-assignments, of these potentates, it appeared to the travellers as if he had deprived his nobility of the right of land-ownership that should have naturally belonged to them, and appropriated it for himself. It was, perhaps, the easier to fall into this error, because over large areas of the country, containing the so-called “ra'iyatī” or “peasant-held” villages, the European could only discern two classes sharing the produce of the soil, the peasantry, on the one hand, and the King and his jāgīrdārs or assignees, on the other. Since they could apparently never think of the peasants as proprietors, the King alone would have seemed to possess this status.

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But were the European travellers correct in the assumption that the peasants could not be proprietors? The view that they were really the owners of the soil has in recent times been vigorously urged by some writers, though without adducing adequate contemporary evidence. To some extent this deficiency in evidence can be supplied. We have Aurangzeb’s farmān to Muhammad Hashim in which the terms “rnāliks” and “arbāb-i zamīn” (land-owners) are clearly used for ordinary cultivators or peasants. The testimony of this farman is suspect because it was expressly drafted to set out the laws of the Shari‘at, which bore little relevance to the agrarian conditions in India. But it is possible that in using the term mālik for the peasant, the farman has not done any violence to prevailing usage. Khāfī Khān protests against the practice, followed by the revenue officials of the day, of selling away “the proprietary (milkī) and hereditary lands” of the peasants. In certain official documents too, the term is employed to contexts which suggest that the reference is to peasant-proprietors.

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The crux of the matter really is whether the substance, not merely the name, of the peasant’s right was such as to deserve the application of the term “proprietary” in its strict juridical sense. It is necessary, then, to gather from our sources all information relating to the actual rights and obligations of the peasants, before any judgment can be passed.

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On the positive side there was a general recognition of the peasant’s title to permanent and hereditary occupancy of the land he tilled. The farman addressed to Muhammad Hashim provides that if the mālik (and mālik here means the peasant) was found incapable of cultivating the land or had abandoned it altogether, it was to be given to another, who was prepared to cultivate it, so that there might not be any loss of land-revenue. But if at any time the mālik recovered his ability to cultivate it or came back to it, the land was to be restored to him.

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That this was not a mere principle of abstract theory, is shown by its being adopted in an imperial sanad in a practical case concerning the rehabilitation of a village where cultivation had been abandoned. A person is said to have offered to repair its wells and cultivate the land. The sanad declares that this was to be refused wherever the mālik was present and in a position to undertake cultivation. Only failing this was the petitioner’s request to be acceded to and even so, provided the assent of the mālik was first obtained. The inviolability of occupancy rights of the peasants is also recognised in two regulations of the reigns of Akbar and Jahangir. The first appears in the “Ain,” where it cautions revenue officials against entering “peasant holdings” (ra‘iyat-kāshta) as “personally cultivated lands” (khud-kāshta) of madad-i ma‘āsh holders, in their records. The second is one of the twelve decrees issued by Jahangir on his accession. It prohibits the revenue officials themselves from forcibly converting the land of the peasants (zamīn-i ri‘āyā) into their own holdings (khud-kāshta).

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The fact that the peasant’s right was hereditary is shown by a reference in the “Ain” to the King’s protecting peasants “who hold cultivated lands for generations.” Khāfī Khān too, as we have already noticed, refers to the “hereditary” (maurūṡī) lands of the peasants. The farman to Muhammad Hashim might not be raising an irrelevant issue when it discusses how the revenue was to be realised from the heirs on the death of a mālik. Moreover, the farman shows that the peasant's right was salable though on occasion none might think it worth buying.

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But there was no question of really free alienation – the right to abandon or dispose of the land as its holder might choose – which is an essential feature of modern proprietary right. If in one sense the land belonged to the peasant, in another the peasant belonged to the land. He could not (unless, perhaps, he found a successor) leave it or refuse to cultivate it. A European observer declared that there was “little difference between them [the peasants in India] and serfs such as are found in Poland, for here [too] the peasants must all sow…”. The farman to Muhammad Hashim (Art. 2) lays down flatly that “if after investigation it appears that despite their capacity to undertake cultivation and (the availability of) irrigation, they (the peasants) have withdrawn their hands from cultivation,” the revenue officials should “coerce and threaten them and visit them with imprisonment and corporal punishment.” If even despite these compulsive methods, a peasant was found incapable of cultivating the soil, his right to the land lapsed at least temporarily and could be transferred to another. The draft of a bond from village officials, given by a manual on revenue administration (1731-2), offers an exact confirmation of the principles set forth in Aurangzeb’s farman. The village officials bound themselves “not to allow any cultivator to leave his place.” And if some cultivators did abscond, they undertook to distribute the land of the fugitives among those who remained.

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It was a natural consequence of this outlook that a right was assumed to lie with the authorities to bring back fugitive peasants by force, especially if they happened to flee to the territories of a chief or zamindar. Thus in 1641 the Jam of Navanagar was compelled, after a successful expedition against him, “to expel the peasants belonging to the territory around Ahmadabad, who had migrated into his country, so that they might return to their homes and (native) places.” Late in Aurangzeb's reign, the faujdar of Talkokan is found justifying his military action against Portuguese possessions on the ground that the peasants whom he had brought back to their original lands from the territories of the zamindars, had been enticed afresh by the “Farangis” to settle in their dominions.

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The readiness with which the authorities recognised the peasant’s right of occupancy and the anxiety they showed to prevent him from leaving the land were both natural in an age when land was abundant and peasants scarce. We have seen in the opening Chapter that in Mughal times, the area of land under cultivation was in many regions probably only half, and in others two-thirds to three-quarters, of the area of such land fifty years ago. There were, therefore, always stretches of virgin land beckoning to the peasant, while with his low level of subsistence and primitive huts he had no immovable possessions to tie him to his old place of habitation.

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هندوستان دا مواضع و کینت لارنبنك بلکه شهرلارنینك بوزولماق و توزولماکی بیر زماندا بولادور۔ اوشمونداق الوغ شهرلار کیم ییل لار اندا متوطن دورلار، اکر قچارلاری بولسه، بیر کوندا انداق قاچادورلار کیم آثار و علامت لاری قالمایدور۔ اکر توزولماکی کا یوز قویسه لار، اریق قازماغی و بند باغلاماغی احتیاج ایماس ۔ ایکین لاری تمام للمی دور۔ ایلی کا خود نهایت یوقتور۔ جمعی ییغیلدیلار۔ بیر حوض یاسادیلار یا چاه قازدیلار۔ اوی یساماق و تام قوپرماق خود یوقتور۔ خس بسیار و درخت بیشمار چری لار قیلدیلار۔ فی الحال کینت یا شهر بولدی۔

“Hindūstānda mavāḍiʿ u kentlärning balki šahrlarnıng buzulmaq va tüzälmäki bir zamānda boladur. Ošmundaq uluğ šahrlar kim yıllar anda mutavaṭṭin durlar, agar qačarları bolsa, bir kündä andaq qačadurlar kim āsār u ʿalāmatları qalmaydur. Agar tüzälmäkkä yüz qoysalar, arıq qazmaqı va band bağlamaqı iḥtiyāj emäs. Ekinläri tamām lälmi dur. Eligä xud nihāyat yoqtur. Jamʿî yığıldılar. Bir ḥawḍ yasadılar ya čāh qazdılar. Üy yasamaq va tam qoparmaq xud yoqtur. Xas bisyār va diraxt bešumār čerilär qıldılar. Fīʾl-ḥāl kent ya šahr boldı.”

در هندوستان آبادان شدن و ویران شدن دهها بلکه شهرها در یک زمان می شود ۔ همینطور شهرهای کلان که سالها آنجا متوطن بوده اند اگر گریختنی باشند در یک روز یک نیم روز آنچنان میگریزند که آثار و علامت ایشان نمی ماند ۔ اگر بآبادانی رو نهند جوی کندنی و بند بستنی احتیاج نیست ۔ زراعتهای ایشان تمام للمی است ۔ آدم هند را خود نهایت نیست ـ جمعی جمع شدند، یک حوضی ساختند یا چاه کندند ـ خانه ساختن و دیوار برخیزاندن خود نیست ـ خس بسیار و درخت بیشمار چیریها ساختند ـ فی الحال ده یا شهر شد ـ

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“In Hindustan,” observed Babur, “hamlets and villages – even towns – are depopulated and set up in a moment! If a people of a large town, who have lived there for years, flee from it, they do it in such a way that not a sign or trace of them remains in a day or a day and a half. On the other hand, if they fix their eyes on a place in which to settle, they need not dig water courses or construct dams because their crops are all rain-grown. The population of India is unlimited. A group collects together, they make a tank or dig a well; they need not build houses or set up walls – khas grass abounds, trees (are) innumerable, and straightway there is a village or town.”

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This general statement may be placed alongside a reference made incidentally in another source of the same period, to a Rathor peasant from Marwar who had settled in a region so far from his ancestral home as Bihar. This capacity of mobility on the part of the peasants must be regarded as one of the most striking features of the social and economic life of the times. It was the peasant’s first answer to famine or man's oppression. One can, therefore, understand why the oppressor should seek to possess the actual physical power to prevent any flight from the land.

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The position of the peasant of Mughal India in relation to the land offers a sharp contrast to that of his descendant living under modern landlordism. The great weapon (apart from the liberal use of force) of the modern landlord has been the threat of evicting his tenantry. The abandonment of his land by any of his tenants holds no terrors for the landlord and he does not possess, nor need to possess, the power to restrain them. The landlord obtained his legal rights by the Permanent and other Settlements during British rule, but the favourable position in which he finds himself in relation to the peasantry derives from the economic stagnation of two centuries. The mounting pressure of numbers (in the absence of industrial growth) upon land, unaccompanied by any changes in methods of cultivation and social organisation, has at last made land scarce and human beings superfluous.

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The peasant of Mughal times thus enjoyed a right which in British India was conferred on some sections of the peasants in some provinces, only by special tenancy legislation, viz. the permanent and hereditary right of occupancy. In certain circumstances this right could be considered proprietary in nature. But a proprietor must be a free agent and he must possess the right of free alienation. Since the peasant could not legally abandon his land, he was really a near-serf. If, therefore, the King was not the owner of the soil, neither was the peasant. This means in other words that in ra‘iyati areas at least, a single owner cannot be located. There were different rights over the land and its produce, and not one exclusive right of property.

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Hitherto we have confined our attention to the position in ra‘iyati areas. We shall see in the next Chapter that in the zumindari areas, the zamindars sometimes possessed rights which were practically proprietary. The fact that the zamindars were called māliks is not decisive, because the term may not accurately indicate the substance of the right it designated. The admissible evidence consists of a single document in which the peasants of two villages in Awadh bind themselves to cultivate the land only with the permission of the zamindar. Leaving its detailed interpretation to the next chapter, it is necessary to stress that a situation known to be prevailing only in two villages cannot be deemed to have been universal even in zamindari areas. But it is possible that there were small tracts of land of exceptional fertility or favourable position, where there was no dearth of peasants willing to till the land. Such areas might be those where the soil was very fertile or the land was favoured by irrigation, or those which lay near the towns and could promise high returns owing to the urban market. Here the peasants would always be ready to accept whatever terms were imposed by their superiors, and the authorities or the zamindars would not have any fear that if they evicted a cultivator, no other would be forthcoming.

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2. The Village Community

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While discussing the economic environment of the village in Mughal India.1 we noticed a significant feature of the rural economy of the time: though a large share of the village produce was taken to the urban market, the villages hardly received anything in return from the towns. Thus the village was deeply affected by the requirements of commodity production (i.e. production for the market) and yet had to provide all its own needs from within itself. Conditions of money, economy and self-sufficiency, therefore, existed side by side. It was the presence of these two contradictory economic elements that probably accounted for the social contradiction manifest in the existence of an individualistic mode of production in agriculture, on the one hand, and the organisation of the Village Community, on the other.

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The peasant together with his family always appears in our authorities as a single producer. Official documents insist on the separate assessment of the holdings of each peasant for revenue purposes. Even if this was meant to be followed on paper only, the underlying assumption of individual peasant farming is unmistakable. In respect of Gujarat, we are expressly told of peasants’ “setting their portions of the land apart” by raising fences of thorn-bush. In the preceding Section we discussed at some length the nature of the peasant’s right to the land, but did not come across the slightest suggestion anywhere in our sources that such a right was ever held in common.

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Commodity production and its corollary, individual land-holding, must have necessarily ruled out any kind of equality in the village. A very interesting piece of evidence is offered by a model statement of the “jiziya” (poll tax on non-Muslims) assessed on a Panjab village (A.D. 1697-8), which has been preserved for us in two accountancy manuals. This indicates the range of differences in the assessed value of the personal possessions of the villagers. Here out of a total of 280 males, 73 are shown as exempted, being children, men physically handicapped, absentees, etc. In addition, twenty-two are described as “absolutelv indigent.” Of the remaining 185 persons, 137 are counted in Class III, implying that their possessions were valued at less than Rs. 52 per head; 35 in Class II, each with possessions of over Rs. 52 in value; and 13 in Class I, with possessions of over Rs. 2,500.

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This classification according to the value of the possessions of the villagers may represent an actual division of the rural population into various social classes [?]. Class I of the assessees we may assume to be the small group consisting of zamindars, money-lenders and grain-merchants. Class II probably covered the rich peasants, while Class III was made up of the large majority of the peasants. According to the ruling given in a general imperial order “the small peasants” (reza ri‘āyā), who engage in cultivation, but depend wholly upon credit for their ability (to cultivate) and for their seeds and cattle, were to be classed among the “indigent.”

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In all likelihood, this last class included peasants of a still lower status. In Bengal, in mid-18th century there existed a category of cultivators known as “kaljana,” who tilled land belonging to other peasants. And, finally, there were those who were absolutely indigent in the fullest sense, the landless labourers. Members of the depressed castes not only undertook work considered abhorrent by the caste peasants, such as tannery, scavengering, etc., but were also, in a large measure, agricultural workers. Thus the “chamārs,” or “tanners,” “worked for wages in the fields of cultivators and zamindars.” The “dhānuks,” constituting a still lower caste, were so called because they husked rice (dhān) , while they also laboured at cutting and carrying the crops of the cultivators. They were known as “thorīs” in the Ajmer province and “balāhars” elsewhere, their traditional work being to act as guides and carry baggage. The name “balāhar” is significant because it takes us back to the 14th century when Żiā’uddīn Baranī used it to denote the lowliest of the peasants.

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This is not to suggest that the huge rural proletariat of the present day is entirely a heritage of Mughal times. Indeed, its phenomenal growth is a process that began only about a hundred and fifty years ago. Moreover, so long as cultivable land remained available, the relative numbers of landless labourers could never have been large, because any peasants rendered landless could always have moved off and settled on virgin soil.

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If despite this we find traces of a class of landless labourers in the Mughal period, this may be explained by two factors. In the first place, if we assume that land was not then scarce, it follows that on average, a peasant’s holding was much larger than it is today. In a larger holding a peasant’s family would have had greater need of temporary hands to supplement its own labour at such crucial times as the time of the harvest. These hands could come only from the non-peasant rural population, i.e., from amongst people living in villages who followed occupations other than agriculture.

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Thus Chamars and Dhanuks, who had their own prescribed occupations, worked as agricultural labourers. These two examples also suggest the second source of the class of landless labourers. They came from the depressed castes, which are still regarded as landless classes par excellence. The Caste System seems to have worked in its inexorable way to create a fixed labour reserve force for agricultural production. Members of the low castes, assigned to the most menial and contemptible occupations, could never aspire to the status of peasants, holding or cultivating the land on their own. It would not, indeed, be surprising if the actual status of many of them was semi-servile, involving a kind of bondage to a particular community of caste peasants or zamindars.

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The hereditary distinction imposed by the Caste System between the peasant and the landless labourer, while it indicates a certain degree of class-differentiation in the countryside, is, at the same time, an example of the “unalterable division of labour” that Marx thought to be indispensable for the formation of the Indian Village Community. Almost every craft within the village, carpentry, pottery, etc., would be the business of a separate caste, possibly represented there by no more than one family. The need for self-sufficiency was the economic cause which made the presence of certain primary crafts imperative for each village. But even if “the separation of trades” was originally “spontaneously developed,” it was “crystallised and finally made permanent by law,” the law of the Caste System. Once this had been achieved, every village became a single economic and social unit apart, a single community, able, when any increase in its population occurred, to produce from itself another on the same pattern.

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Within this unit, the peasants must naturally have formed the largest portion of the population. Although any number of castes existed among the peasants in general, peasants of a village probably belonged most often to the same caste. This is true of many villages today. In Central Doab, for example, villages are often distinguished according as they contain Ṭhākurs, Jāṭs, Ahīrs, Gūjars or other castes of peasants. One can conjecture that this was still more the case when the ties of castes were much stronger. A report made in 1679 by the News-writer of Ajmer forcefully brings to light this aspect of caste organisation. “The people of a village, who are Jats” laid a complaint before this official against some Rajputs, who surrounded their village at night and demanded whether there was any Rajput in the village. There was in it only one “indigent” Rajput, who “had settled in the village owing to his distressed circumstances.” The besiegers caught hold of him and killed him in order to pass off his head as that of the murderer of two official rnessengers. One can see from this incident that it was not usual for Rajputs and Jats to live side by side in the same village, so much so that a Rajput, compelled by circumstances to live in a Jat village, forfeited all sympathy or consideration from his peers.

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The peasants of a village were most often members not only of the same caste, but also of the same division or sub-division of that caste: they claimed the same ancestry and so belonged to the same “bhaiyāchārā,” brotherhood or fraternity. This fraternity by invoking ties of blood, bound the peasants in a unity far stronger than could have been expected among mere neighbours. Those who did not belong to the fraternity and did not live in the village, but cultivated land belonging to it, were put in a class apart, being known as “pā’ikāsht.”

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On the basis, then, of the needs of village self-sufficiency, realised through the hereditary division of labour and caste-cohesion among the peasants, arose the Village Community. When we use the term Village Community here it does not mean that there was a village commune that owned the land on behalf of all its members. No evidence exists for communal ownership of land or even a periodic distribution and redistribution of land among peasants. The peasant’s right to the land, as we have seen, was always his individual right. What is suggested here is that there were some spheres outside that of production where the peasants of a village, usually belonging to the same fraternity, often acted collectively; and the Village Community is our name for the corporate body which they formed for such collective action.

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In the conditions of the day there were, indeed, spheres in which collective action was indispensable. We have seen that migration was a common feature of peasant life. We can hardly conceive of single individuals moving to distant areas and cutting down forests. This was only possible when men worked, in Babur’s words, in “a group.” Secondly, what was, perhaps, most important, the villagers had to combine when they came face to face with the State.

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This second aspect is very clearly brought out in a 16th century account of the Village Communities in the Konkan. Speaking specifically of the Island of Salsette, Monserrate tells us:

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“It has 66 aldeas (villages), which are reduced to 12 which are their capitals and are called the General Chamber. It has this name because they are the ones who alone govern the whole island and the whole of the Conchan (Konkan) in this manner: Two men from each of these 12 aldeas assemble in a certain place with their scrivener and there, as in a meeting, they settle what has to be done for the common weal and to obtain the quit-rent and revenue of His Highness (the King of Portugal). When they have settled what has to be done, the scrivener gives a shout, like a crier at an auction, (and they call this ‘nemo’), which is their common agreement. And if only one should fail, and he should not approve of it, nothing can be done; and the scrivener alone testifies to what is settled, none of them affixing his signature, even though it be in most important matters. His Highness’ revenue is limited in such a way that that amount is always given him, whether the lands yield much or little. And if an aldea was lost and had no harvest, the others pay for it; and if anything remains over, it is divided among the same. The dominion and administration of this island is in the hands of these men who are called Gancares.”

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This extremely interesting passage shows that the central feature of the Konkan communities was a financial pool into which everyone paid and from which the village representatives satisfied the revenue demand, the balance being either distributed back or, perhaps, partly spent for the “common weal.”

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No similar contemporary description is available for the Village Communities of Northern India. But we catch glimpses of these here and there in official documents. We may assume their existence when we are told of “the peasants of villages” as either being collectively loyal and paying their revenue, or acting in concert to defy the authorities (Recommendations of Todar Mal, 27th Year of Akbar’s Reign). Or, we may recall the “scrivener” of Monserrate’s communities, when we read in the “Ain” that the “paṭwārī” “is an accountant on behalf of the peasants. He records the expenditure and income; and there is no village without him.”

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Here again we see the villagers in a collective capacity as employers of one whose successor today is unequivocally a government servant. The description of what the patwari recorded is also significant because it suggests that every village had its own “expenditure and income,” i.e., its common finances. There is, indeed, definite evidence to show that a kind of financial pool similar to that of the Konkan communities was also to be found in North Indian villages.

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Although the patwari's papers were not regarded as part of the administrative records of the Mughal government, they were drawn upon for purposes of audit (barāmad) of the accounts of the revenue officials. Specimen summaries of the village accounts prepared by the auditors from the patwari’s papers, are reproduced in three accountancy manuals of Aurangzeb’s reign; and these give us a very valuable insight into the finances of the village.

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Here, first of all, is set out the income of the village, made up of payments from individual peasants. It is such payments, probably, to which Aurangzeb's farman to Rasikdas refers, when in its Art. 8, it requires the revenue officials to “discover, for auditing the Hindwi accounts in Persian, the real amounts of bāchh and behrī-māl and the fees and perquisites taken from each individual – everything, that is, which comes out of the house of the peasant on any account.”

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“Bāchh” is a term peculiar to the bhaiyachara organisation and has meant even in recent times the rate paid by individual members of the fraternity into the common pool. The term “behrī” is generally used for a subscription or instalment of rent, but in bhaiyachara villages has the special sense of a sub-division or fraction of the total land-holding, so that behrī-māl would be revenue (māl) paid on their shares of the land by members of the fraternity.

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The village income thus obtained was set off against a number of items of expenditure entered in the village accounts. The amount paid into the treasury to meet the revenue demand appears as the first and largest item. This is followed by the fees and perquisites of the various officials and their agents along with payments made to cover certain special demands of the authorities. At the bottom we have perhaps the most interesting item, the kharj-i deh, “expenses of the village.” These include allowances drawn by the headman and the patwari, the perquisites of the qānūngo and the watchman, so the amount spent on entertaining the chaudhurī, etc. In one manual a large figure is shown under this head as having been paid to the “mahājan” (moneylender) in repayment of a loan. The whole village body could apparently contract debts on the security of its common pool. The amount involved in this particular case is three-fourths of the revenue paid that year and we may imagine that it had been borrowed in some previous year to pay part of the revenue demand or help tide over the effects of “natural calamities.” The “village expenses” also covered the cost of some productive enterprises, such as the amounts spent in damming water-channels (nālas) or in buying musk-melon seeds. Some expenses too were incurred for providing general entertainment or towards meeting the “moral” responsibilities of the village. So we find entries concerning payments made to jugglers and minstrels and expenditure on hospitality to strangers and charity to beggars.

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In these Village accounts, therefore, we have• the spectacle of every peasant paying his share into the common financial pool from which the land-revenue, the demands of officials, the repayment of any loan contracted, and expenses for the economic, social and even spiritual benefit of the village were met. There is no indication in our records that these finances were managed in North Indian communities by a “General Chamber” of the kind described by Monserrate. Tradition, however, is strong that there used to be a village “Panchāyat,” literally, a Committee of Five, but really a “committee of heads of houses” in which vested the management of the affairs of bhaiyachara communities. “The most frequently surviving occasion of the panchayat’s action” still is, or rather was, till recently, the adjustment of accounts, taking place in some villages annually or after each harvest, with the object of fixing the proportion of revenue-dues to be paid on each holding and of sanctioning the “common expenses” of the village. In such a village the headman was merely the spokesman of the Community, always acting according to its will. In some cases, it appears, there was not even a headman and the village was represented before the authorities by persons holding no office and presumably only designated for this specific task by the Community.

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It may well be a mistake to suppose that all Village Communities functioned rigidly according to the pattern we have outlined above [!]. Nor should it be imagined that the peasants of every village were organised in a Community. While there were certain economic and social factors which tended, as we have seen, to weld the peasants into such Communities, there were still others which either helped to bring about their disintegration or made settlements of non-Community villages possible. Commodity production, or production for the market, led to economic stratification within the peasantry. As the distance between the richer sections and the rest grew, the ties created by the caste or fraternity were bound to be loosened. One might expect that at some stage the richer peasants would begin to dominate over others within the Community. Thus would arise headmen (muqaddams), “big men” (kalāntarān) or “the dominant ones” (mutaghallibān) whom our authorities accuse of doing what they pleased with the village finances, especially with the distribution of the revenue demand among individual peasants, to the detriment of the reza ri‘āyā, the small peasants. After a time in some cases the survivals of the community might fade away altogether, leaving all its authority in the hands of its richer members, who would usually appear as village headmen.

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3. Village Officials

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The village headman figures in our records, under the name of “muqaddam” in Northern India and “paṭel” in the Dakhin as the sole village official besides the patwari or accountant. But a village could have more than one headman and we actually find one boasting as many as seven. In accordance with the process of development of his office and powers that we have suggested at the close of the previous Section, it may be supposed that once the office came into the hands of the richer peasants and became an instrument for establishing their domination over the rest of their brethren, they would naturally wish to perpetuate their possession of it and convert it into an article of private property. It was therefore, not only hereditary, but could also be bought and sold – a testimony to the growth of money economy. The headman was normally a peasant himself, but sometimes, since the office could be purchased, an outsider, even a townsman. He was never, properly speaking, a government servant. But the revenue authorities could at times depose a headman for failing in his obligations; and they also exercised the power of nominating headmen for villages that were newly settled or were due to be settled, and for old villages where the office was vacant owing to failure of natural heirs.

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In those ra‘iyati villages, where the Community had been weakened or did not exist at all, the muqaddam enjoyed a really crucial position. He was the man the authorities held primarily responsible for the payment of revenue assessed on the villages. It, therefore, became his duty to collect the revenue-share of each individual peasant. For this service he was remunerated either through being assigned 2½ per cent. of the assessed land of the village, to be held by him revenue-free, or through a deduction of 2½ per cent. from the total revenue collected by him. But the suspicion was always entertained that the muqaddams, if left to themselves, would make large unauthorised collections from the weaker peasants, under the pretence of realising money to meet the revenue demand or pay the revenue officials’ perquisites. When the authorities advanced “taqāvī” loans to encourage cultivation, these too were distributed among the peasants through the headmen, who doubtless took their commission before passing the money on to the peasants. In addition to the financial advantages accruing from, or made possible by, these functions, the muqaddams exacted certain customary perquisites such as their “khurāk” or board from the village fund and a rate known as “muqaddamī” from the villagers individually.

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The muqaddam’s jurisdiction over the village was not purely financial. He was held answerable for any crime committed within or near his village. In cases of robbery or murder of travellers, specially, he was obliged to produce the culprits and the amounts stolen. Put in this position the temptation must often have been irresistible for him to “father yt uppon some poore man that hee [himself] may be cleare.” Here was then another weapon which the muqaddam could use to cow down the poorer section of his fellow villagers.

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Finally, the muqaddams possessed the right of allotting the uncultivated land of the village to such as wished to till it. This right was implicitly recognised by the authorities when they entrusted the task of settling new villages to muqaddams. The headman could not probably interfere with the land already occupied, though in one case at least we find him arbitrating in a boundary dispute between two landholders.

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In any village not utterly ruined by the burden of land-revenuer the position of the muqaddam was a profitable one. There is evidence that moneyed persons were sometimes tempted to buy this office as a good investment for their money. Thus in one document (from Awadh) we find a person, an evident outsider, buying out the old hereditary muqaddams of a village for Rs. 230, a considerable sum for those times. In another, three persons of a township declare that after obtaining the office of muqaddam of a ruined village, they spent a “large amount” to resettle it and advanced Rs. 400 in taqavi loans to the cultivators out of their own resources.

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The distance that grew up between the headman and the ordinary peasants and the considerable power that he wielded over the village, seem sometimes to have led to his claiming or acquiring certain rights identical with those of the zamindar. In two documents from Aurangzeb’s reign we find “muqaddamī” being coupled with “satārahī” and “biswī” or “biswa-hā,” which were the hallmarks of zamindari right. It is not surprising, therefore, that a late 18th century glossary should define muqaddam as “the proprietor (mālik) of one village,” different, perhaps, from the zamindar only in that the latter would usually have more than one village in his possession.

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Thus in ra‘iyati areas, a muqaddam might in time acquire the substance of the right of zamindar. His position, however, was very different in such villages as lay in the absolute possession of zamindars. In a record of dispute over the zamindari of a village in 1662 one party accused the other of expelling the “old muqaddam” of the village, while the defendant styled the person so treated as his “kārinda” (agent) whom he, as the ancestral zamindar of the village, was fully entitled to remove. The defendant’s position was upheld by the revenue and judicial officials hearing the case and we may infer from this that the headman’s position was regarded here as that of a servant of the zamindar, holding his office at the latter’s pleasure. The extension of zamindari under British rule accordingly served to depress the position of the headman very greatly and he has shrunk in many parts to a mere name.

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We have already referred more than once to the village accountant or “paṭwārī.” His office was an old one and his name appears in the description of Alauddin Khalji’s administrative measures. As Abu-l Fazl tells us, the duty of the patwari was to keep an account of “the expenditure and income” of the village. He was especially called upon to maintain records of the collection of the land-revenue from individual peasants and its payment to the authorities. Indeed his name probably came from his concern with the “paṭṭas” or documents stating the revenue-demand assessed upon a village or individual cultivators. The patwari usually maintained his records, known as “bahī” or “kāghaẕ-i khām,” in “Hindwi” or the local language. Abu-l Fazl is again our authority for the statement that the patwari was an employee of the villagers and we must assume that wherever the Village Community existed, he functioned as its servant. In the specimen village accounts available to us, the allowance given to him is made a charge on the village fund under the head of “village expenses.” But the administration also remunerated him for his services and under Akbar be was assigned a commission of one per cent on the revenues of his village.

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It is difficult to say how the patwari was affected by the weakening of the Village Community and the growth of the power of the muqaddam wherever this process took place. In some cases, at least, the patwari also obtained sufficient strength to oppress the smaller peasants. At the same time his dissociation with the Village Community probably .threw his relationship with the authorities into greater prominence so that he could become, under British rule, completely a servant of the government.

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Chapter V: The Zamindars

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1. Nature of Zamindari Right

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“Zamindar” in modern Indian usage means a landlord. Considerable controversy has centred round the question whether the modern zarnindar is wholly a creation of British rule. This controversy (of no direct concern to us here) has involved the further question whether the word zamīndār when used in the literature of the Mughal period bore the same sense in which it is now understood. Unfortunately. there is no direct explanation of what it then signified. either in the “Ain-i Akbari” or in any of the more easily accessible historical sources. Recent interpretations have, therefore, been rather in the nature of inferences drawn from very scanty materials. The generally accepted view seems to be that the zamindar in Mughal times really meant a vassal chief and could not exist in the directly administered territories of the Empire.

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That the word zamindar was frequently applied in contemporary authorities to chiefs in general is beyond dispute. What seems questionable is the assumption that this was its entire, or even real, meaning. There is no easier way of refuting the identification with vassal chiefs than by showing that the zamindars, so called, did exist in the regularly administered territories and were by no means confined to the tributary states.

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It happens that the evidence of the “Ain-i Akbari” is alone sufficient to establish this fact. Why this has not been obvious so far is owing to a single undetected error in Blochmann’s standard edition of the “Ain,” an error that has resulted in a serious misrepresentation of its statistical information. In this edition presumably for convenience of printing, the statistics under the “Account of the Twelve Provinces” were not reproduced in their original tabular form found in the best manuscripts of the work. Blochmann not only dispensed with the columns of the original tables, but also dropped, without any explanation, the column-headings. His reader, therefore, has no means of knowing that the names of castes entered against each “pargana,” in these tables, belong really to a column headed “zamīndār,” or, occasionally, “būmī” in the manuscripts. The entries under this column are provided for practically every pargana in the directly administered territory in all but the five peripheral provinces of Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Berar and Khandesh. In these five provinces and in the tracts ruled by tributary chiefs in other provinces. no entries are put against parganas, the zamindar castes being usually specified for whole sarkars.

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The testimony of the “Ain” is backed by extensive documentary evidence in the form of sale-deeds, official papers and other records of the 16th and 17th centuries. Here also we come across zamindari rights in almost all parts of the Mughal Empire, in the provinces of Agra, Dehli, the Panjab, Ajmer (imperial territories) and, especially, Awadh, not to speak of the more distant provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Gujarat. It may really be said with assurance that wherever the surviving records are carefully examined, the existence of zamindars is bound to be detected.

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If, then, it is not possible to restrict the sense of the term zamindar to that of vassal chief, we must make a fresh attempt to discover what position or right its bearer possessed, particularly in the areas under direct imperial administration.

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As already noticed, our histories contain no definition of zamindari nor a description of its essentials. Literally the word “zamīndār,” a Persian compound, means “holder of land.” The term was probably coined in India as early as the 14th century, and is not found in the revenue literature of Persia proper. Another Persian word used as a synonym for zamindar, quite often by Abu-l Fazl, though only rarely by other writers, was “būmī.” Its literal meaning (from “būm,” land) is the same as that of zamindar and it too does not seem to have been used in any technical sense in Persia.

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While these Persian terms gained currency, zamindar, indeed, becoming the standard term, there still survived local names which were considered to represent the same right as zamindari. There were “satārahī” and “biswī” or “bis’ī” in Awadh; and “bhūmia” is said to have been the real counterpart of zamindar in Rajasthan. The literal sense of the first of these three terms is obscure, while the second means “of 1/20th,” which for the moment brings us little enlightenment. The third goes back etymologically to the same Indo-Aryan root as the Persian word būmī and means the same thing. In the latter part of the 17th century, we come across a new set of terms used practically all over the country, “ta‘alluqa” and “ta‘alluqdār,” as substitutes in certain cases for zamindari and zamindar. Their exact significance will be discussed later (in Section 3 of this Chapter); at present, it is enough to say that they are derived from the word ta‘alluq, which simply means “connexion”; and these terms too, therefore, do not bear their real meaning on their face.

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The synonym for zamindar used most often than any other was “mālik.” In some documents, a zamindar is directly termed mālik. In two 17th century documents, milkiyat (i.e. the right of a mālik) and zamindari are used indifferently for the same right; and in a large number of documents, we find “milkiyat and zamindari” coupled together as names of a single right. Now while the significance of the other synonyms is obscure, mālik is an Arabic term which has its own place and distinct sense in Muslim law, namely, that of “proprietor.” Milkiyat is, therefore, nearly what in English would be called “private property.”

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It is, however, one thing to say that zamindari was a form of milkiyat, and quite another to assume that all rights over land designated milkiyat were zamindari rights. This seems to be the real point in a definition of the word zamindar offered by Ānand Rām Mukhliṣ, an official at the Dehli Court, writing in the last years of Muhammad Shah’s reign. “Zamindar,” he says, “etymologically (dar aṣl) means a person who is a land-holder (ṣāḥib-i zamīn), but now signifies a person who is the mālik of the land of a village or township and carries on cultivation.”

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Here the distinction drawn is between an ordinary occupant or holder of land and one whose right extended over land occupied by a number of persons (i.e. the population of a village or township). It was only to the latter that the term zamindar was applicable. We have seen in the previous Chapter that the peasants were often in fact described as māliks; but by terms of Mukhliṣ’s definition, they could not be called zamindars.

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The association of zamindari with the village, rather than the field, is borne out by the manner in which the size of the area held under zamindari rights is specified in the documents of the period. A zamindari is always said to comprise a village or a certain fractional part of a village, never so many bighas or definite units of area. The word “biswa” which is, sometimes employed in stating the area of zamindari does not mean the actual unit of area of that name, equal to one-twentieth of a bigha, but represents a twentieth part of a village.

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Zamindari was, therefore, a right which belonged to a rural class other than, and standing above, the peasantry. Before we enquire about the actual relationship subsisting between the peasantry and this class, it is important to note that the sway of the zamindars did not cover the entire countryside. Indeed, in every locality there seem to have been large numbers of villages where no zamindari right existed and which, therefore, were known as “ra‘iyatī,” or “peasant-held,” as distinct from the villages of the zamindars. This division between “ra‘iyati” and “zamindari” villages was well established, if not always equally well marked, throughout the Empire. One administrative manual written in the province of Shahjabanabad (Dehli) divides the land of a village into “khud-kāshta-i zamīndārān” (lit. the “self-cultivated” land of the zamindars) and “ra‘iyati.” Another, written in the Ilahabad province, classifies villages of a pargana as “ta‘alluqa” (i.e. under ta‘alluqdars) and “ra‘iyati.”

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In respect of Gujarat, we have an account of this division, which comes from the “Mirat-i Ahmadi,” the celebrated history of Gujarat, written about 1761. There are other things of interest in its account as well and it well deserves to be quoted at length.

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در حکومت خان اعظم دسائیان و مقدّمان در رعایای اکثر پرگنات بدرگاه آسمان جاه استغاثه نمودند که گماشتهای ناظمان و جاگیرداران بصیغه ابواب حاصلات را بتمامی متصرف می شوند راجپوتان وکولیان و مسلمانان بعد از تصرف آنها سر بشرش برداشته حاصل و مزروعات را از افغان ضایع می نمایند در این صورت پایمالی رعایا و باعث کمی محصول سرکار والا است حکم مطاع عالم مطیع شرف صدور یافت که ... زمین چهارم حصه کولیان و غیر را علیٰحده نمایند و محصول آنرا واگذارند و فعل ضامن معتبر بگیرند و زمینداران دیهات در و بست و مکانات عمده اسپان بداغ رسانند که در خدمت صوبدار بوقت کار حاضر بوده بتقدیم کار سرکار والا پردازند و از زمینی که فروخته باشند و آنرا بیچان گویند نصف محصول از خریدار بگیرند چنانچه مطابق حکم اقدس شرح صدر بعمل آمده در آنوقت روز بروز صوبه آباد و معمور گشته بود ـ

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“During the viceroyalty of the Khan-i A‘ẓam [A.D. 1588-92, during the reign of Akbar], the desā’īs, muqaddams and peasants of most of the parganas complained to the Imperial Court that the agents of the governors and jagirdars were seizing all the revenue [or produce, ḥāṣilāt] through [various] cesses [abwāb]; and after their taking it away, the Rajputs, Kolis and Musalmans raised a tumult, laying waste the produce [ḥāṣil] and fields of the petitioners. This way lay the ruin of the peasantry and a cause of fall in the revenues of the government. It was, therefore, ordered that… one-fourth of the land of the Kolis and others be set apart, no revenue demanded therefrom and trustworthy sureties taken for their good conduct. The zamindars of entire villages [dehāt-i dar-o-bast] and principalities [makānāt-i ‘umda] should have their horses branded, so that presenting themselves before the Governor, they might perform services for the government; and from the land they might have sold, which is called ‘bechān,’ they ought to take half the revenue [maḥṣūl]. The order was put into effect and the province at that time prospered with each passing day.

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مخفی نماند که ... ملک گجرات در زمان سلف در تصرف راجپوتان و کولیان بوده چنانچه در صدر مرقوم است در ایام سلاطین گجراتـیّـه استیلاء و اقتدار کمال اهل اسلام پیدا شد بنا بر اخراج این جماعه پیوسته بیوسته بتادیب و تنبیه آنها پیش نهاد همت ساخته می پرداختند لاچار جزء انقیاد در اطاعت چاره ندیده التجا آورده قبول نوکری و مال گذاری نموده بچهارم حصه اوطان و دیهات خود که بدان معیشت نمایند باصطلاح گجرات بانٹھ گفتند و سه حصه از آن بسرکار بادشاهی که تلپد گویند تعلق می داشته باشند قرار گرفت و زمینداران که اکثر برگنات در تصرف آنها بوده تعلقه بشرط نوکری و لشکرکشی بطریق جاگیر هرکدام بقدر وسع و طاقت خودها با جمعی از فرقه سوار و پیاده حاضر شوند قرار یافت که تا مدتی کولیان و راجپوت که در دیهات متفرق بانٹھ داشتند از چوکی و پهره خبردار می نمودند و بانٹھ خود را متصرف می گشتند و بر ایام فصل چیزی بطریق سلامی بجاگیردار می دادند بمرور ایام بعضی از راجپوت و کولیان و غیره که اندک زوری پیدا کرده بر مواضعات قرب و جوار و دور و نزدیک رعیتی بنا بر بردن مواشی یا کشتن مزارعان در هنگام کشت کار هنگامه آرائی داشتند رعایا آنجا ناچار در بعضی مکان بدادن مبلغ نقد معین هرساله یا یک دو مزرعه قابل زراعت آنها را راضی ساختند و این صیغه گراس و ودل نامند و این شیوه در این ملک استمراری پیدا کرده که اکنون بنا بر ضعف ناظمان بدرجه اتم پیوسته الحاصل در ملک گجرات به ندرت در مکانی نادر پرگناتی بوده باشد که جمعی از راجپوتان و کولیان و مسلمانان مسکن گراس و ودل نداشته باشد ـ

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Let it not be hidden… that in olden times the country of Gujarat was in the possession of the Rajputs and Kolis, as has been mentioned earlier. During the time of the Sultans of Gujarat, when the power and strength of the Muslims was fully established, owing to the rebelliousness of these people [the Rajputs and Kolis], they [the Sultans] devoted themselves to punishing and chastising them. Helpless, they had no choice but to offer submission and obedience. Entreating [to be forgiven], they accepted [the obligations of] service and payment of revenue. A fourth part of their native places and villages, which [part] was called ‘bānṭh’ in the dialect of Gujarat, was settled upon them, while the [other] three parts of it [their land], called ‘talpad,’ were attached to the imperial government. The big zamindars who held many [lit. most] parganas had their ta‘alluqa settled upon them on condition of their joining service and maintaining troops, in the same way as by jagir, i.e. everyone was to be present with his troops of horse and foot, according to his resources and strength. So that for a long time, the Kolis and Rajputs who held banth in various villages performed watch and ward duty [chauki o pahra] in their respective places and enjoyed the possession of their banth, giving on each crop something by way of salāmī [offering] to the jagirdar. In course of time, some of the Rajputs and Kolis and others who had acquired a little strength, raised disturbances in the ra‘iyati villages far and near, lifting cattle and killing the cultivators. The peasants of those places were thus compelled to gratify them by giving them, in some places, a fixed amount of money every year, or one or two cultivable fields. This exaction is known as girās and va’dal. This custom has become well established in this country and owing to the weakness of the Governors has become universal [lit. reached perfection]. There is hardly a place in the parganas where a group of Rajputs, Kolis and Musalmans have not got their home or giras and va’dal.”

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The passage goes on to describe the conditions at the time the work was written:

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اکنون بسبب عدم بند و بست رفته در اکثر مواضعات که قلعچه تهانه نشین بود کنده با خاک برابر ساختند و در بعضی خودها ساکن گشتند بلپد حصه سرکار را بتمامی بلکه اکثر مواضعات را بعلت گراس متصرف می شوند ـ

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Now, “owing to the absence of [imperial] control,” these people “have settled in certain places and are seizing [not only] the whole of the talpad or the part under the government, but in addition many [other] villages to meet their [claim of] giras.”

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What emerges chiefly from this passage is that in Gujarat the land was divided between “ra‘iyati” villages and the “ta‘alluqa” of zamindars; and that while a number of villages were left entirely in the possession: of zamindars, over large areas the zamindari villages were divided into two portions, the revenues of one of which, i.e., “banth,” were to be retained by the zamindars and those of the other, the “talpad,” to be collected by the imperial administration. In the later period, the zamindars not only tended to seize the talpad, but also to levy exactions, called “girās,”on ra‘iyati villages. This statement is alone enough to prove that the ra‘iyati land was different from talpad and was not even originally under the possession of the Kolis and others.

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It is interesting to find that even in the earlier part of the 19th century, Tod was able to find traces in Mewar of two distinct categories of villages. The “bhūmias,” “the allodial proprietors,” whom he identifies with the zamindars of other parts, held only a limited number of villages in the country; the rest were under “paṭṭawāts,” whom Tod also calls “girāsyas.” The position of the latter had by then become almost indistinguishable from that of bhumias, but tradition suggested that in an earlier period they had been servants of the State, holding revenue assignments similar to the jagirs of the Mughal Empire.

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If, then, all villages were either zamindari or ra‘iyati, it might be supposed that the milkiyat rights of the zamindars and peasants were mutually exclusive. Where one existed, the other could not. There is an interesting document from Awadh which suggests that there may be some truth in this supposition and that the peasants lost their occupancy rights under a zamindar. Here we have a statement by two muqaddams of a village, made on 1677. They declare that “the milkiyat” of two named villages, one of which was their own, was “(in) the ancestral zamindari” of a certain chaudhuri. “We acknowledge,” they say, “that we are his cultivators (muzāri‘ān) and till the land by his leave (rażāmandī).” The affirmation has obviously been taken by the zamindar to assert or retain his right to give the land to whomsoever he might choose. A letter included in a collection of Aurangzeb’s reign also implies that the power of disposing of the land vested with the zamindar. It refers in the same breath to the addressee’s “obtaining the sanad (deed) of zamindari” of a village and “the distribution (taqsim) of the land of the said village among revenue-paying and industrious cultivators.”

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If, then, all villages were either zamindari or ra‘iyati, it might be supposed that the milkiyat rights of the zamindars and peasants were mutually exclusive. Where one existed, the other could not. There is an interesting document from Awadh which suggests that there may be some truth in this supposition and that the peasants lost their occupancy rights under a zamindar. Here we have a statement by two muqaddams of a village, made on 1677. They declare that “the milkiyat” of two named villages, one of which was their own, was “(in) the ancestral zamindari” of a certain chaudhuri. “We acknowledge,” they say, “that we are his cultivators (muzāri‘ān) and till the land by his leave (rażāmandī).” The affirmation has obviously been taken by the zamindar to assert or retain his right to give the land to whomsoever he might choose. A letter included in a collection of Aurangzeb’s reign also implies that the power of disposing of the land vested with the zamindar. It refers in the same breath to the addressee’s “obtaining the sanad (deed) of zamindari” of a village and “the distribution (taqsim) of the land of the said village among revenue-paying and industrious cultivators.”

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Two examples are, however, not proof enough that the zamindars everywhere possessed the right to give away land to, or resume it from, the peasants. In the previous Chapter, we have argued that the right to evict peasants was a right worth claiming or exercising only in a very few areas. With large wastes still unploughed, the chief object of a zamindar in normal circumstances would have been to keep his peasants rather than lose them. It is not certain that the zamindars could legally keep the peasants on their lands by force, as could the imperial authorities (which included the jagirdars and their officials). The only evidence we have about this is provided by the draft of a muchalka (bond), where along with the muqaddams and patwaris, the zamindars bind themselves “not to allow any cultivator to leave his place.” Even here it is open to question whether their authority to restrain the peasants derived from their own right or was only delegated to them by the administration, for it is equally shared by the two village officials mentioned beside them.

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Two examples are, however, not proof enough that the zamindars everywhere possessed the right to give away land to, or resume it from, the peasants. In the previous Chapter, we have argued that the right to evict peasants was a right worth claiming or exercising only in a very few areas. With large wastes still unploughed, the chief object of a zamindar in normal circumstances would have been to keep his peasants rather than lose them. It is not certain that the zamindars could legally keep the peasants on their lands by force, as could the imperial authorities (which included the jagirdars and their officials). The only evidence we have about this is provided by the draft of a muchalka (bond), where along with the muqaddams and patwaris, the zamindars bind themselves “not to allow any cultivator to leave his place.” Even here it is open to question whether their authority to restrain the peasants derived from their own right or was only delegated to them by the administration, for it is equally shared by the two village officials mentioned beside them.

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The end and purpose of zamindari right was naturally to provide its possessor with an income, Since it was a right primarily associated with land, we may expect that it gave its possessor a share in the land’s produce. This share bears in our records a variety of names and it is possible that it varied considerably in magnitude according to localities.