07 Introduction PDF
07 Introduction PDF
which changed the structure of power and initiated important social and economic
reconfigurations.
The factors regarding the political decline of the Mughal Empire has
triggered a debate on the nature of economic and social change in the wake of
imperial collapse. The political disintegration of the empire is the most important
development of the first half of the 18* century. The cataclysmic event has
causes of decline of Mughal empire, opinions are sharply divided between those
who view the decline as a consequence of economic crisis and exploitation by the
ruling classes and those who regard the political turmoil in terms of regional
the study of imperial decline had brought the economy and society of the 18"'
century under sharper historical scrutiny. The explanations regarding the Imperial
decline are contested, so too was the understanding of change during this period.
The historians are divided on the matter of examining the century in the shadow of
empire alone. A strong case has been built to view, the period on its own term.
Those who support this view see the century being characterised by economic and
initiated debates on 18"" century in the determining of. Dark Age versus Economic
Prosperity.
Second set of arguments around the late 18* century transition in the polity,
society, and economy of India as the English East India Company acquired
political supremacy. The third important consideration is the state and governance.
Lastly, the detailed exploration of regional histories of the period opened new
dimensions.
was around administrative and religious policies of the individual rulers and their
nobles. Both the British administrator Scholars and Indian nationalist historians of
late 19* and 20* centuries assessed the empire in terms of the character of the
ruling elite.' Whereas Jadunath Sarkar focused on Aurangzeb and his religious
policy in particular and later his Deccan campaign were identified as instrumental
for the Mughal decline. In the later years he revised his argument and identified
the peasant rebellions (that destroyed the Mughal political stability) as a 'Hindu
William Irvine, Later Mughals, edited and augmented with The History of Nadir Shah 's
Invasion, by Jadunath Sarkar, reprint, New Delhi, 1971.
^ Jadunath Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. iv, Calcutta, 1932-50, reprint, Bombay, 1971-
75, and History of Aurangzeb, based on original sources, vol. v, Calcutta, 1924-30, 1973,
(reprint).
Sri Ram Sharma and Ishwari Prasad.^ From the late 1950s, Marxist historians
started to look at Mughal Empire from objective and scientific point of view.
Satish Chandra writes in his book, that structural flaws in the working of the
Mughal institutions of jagir and mansab were responsible for the fiscal crisis of
the late 17* century. He argued that the efficient functioning of these two
distribution. The Mughal failed to maintain the smooth functioning of these two
institutions which became vulnerable during the last days of Aurangzeb which led
Habib looked Mughal decline from political and social unrest in fiscal terms. ^ He
argued that high rate of land revenue demand by Mughal authority which caused
agrarian crisis that resulted in the weakening of the empires political foundation.
M. Athar Ali followed Irfan Habib's model of fiscally centralized state, but
attributed its decline not so much to the high rate of revenue demand but rather a
empire in Deccan which was considered a less fertile track. This increased the
number of nobles with no jagir land to be assigned. This lack of jagir created an
' Sri Ram Sharma, JTie Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors, Oxford, 1940, and Ishwari
Prasad, The Mughal Empire, Allahabad, 1974.
* Satish Chandra, Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707-40, Aligarh, 1959 and review of
the crisis of the Jagirdari System in Satish Chandra, Medieval India: Society the Jagirdari
Crisis and the Village, New Delhi, 1982, pp. 61-75.
^ Irfan Habib, Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707, New Delhi, 1963.
administrative problem, resulting economic crisis.^ John F. Richard, refuted the
idea that there was lack of useable yag/r^ in Deccan. He argued that Deccan was
not a deficit area, that bejagiri (the absence of jagirs) was a major factor of the
In 1980s Satish Chandra revised, his notion and shifted to the economic
aspects of the politico administrative imperial crisis. He argued that the quantum
of land to be given as jagirs became few and relatively infertile. Therefore, the
discrepancy between the estimated revenue (Jama) and actual yields (hasil)
referents. Here the economic crisis that underlined the decline is attributed to the
relative economic, technological and intellectual rise of Europe in the period 1500-
for luxurious crafts manufacture of the world and it attracted high value products
from its traditional Eastern markets. This was compensable through intensified
agrarian exploitation. The intellectual and technological aridity of India did not
allow towns to emerge as 'safety valve' for the people. These were therefore, no
^ M. Athar Ali, The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb, Aligarh, 1966.
John F. Richard, Mughal Administration in Golconda, Oxford, 1975.
Satish Chanadra, Medieval India: Society, the Jagirdari crisis and the Village, review of the
crisis of the jagirdari crisis. New Delhi, 1982, pp. 61-75.
escape from fiscal arm of the state. All these reasons made the empire politically
explanation. It may be argued that this crisis was not sought to be confused with
diversification of economy through overseas trade on a big scale, for which some
Above surveyed literature identify the 18'^ century as a 'Dark Age'. The
historians were occupied with the notion of the imperial centre alone but they did
not pay attention to the Mughal institutions which were being modified and
transformed at local and regional level which paved the way for shift of power
from centre to periphery. The emergence of the Marathas, the Sikhs and the
Satnamis was due to the exploitative policy of the state to peasantry. It was argued
that the emergence of regional politics the Marathas, the Sikhs continued the
Mughal 'agrarian system' alone. The focus remained on the structures of revenue
Apart from these some scholars look from different angle. This can be
traced in the work of Herman Goetz on eighteenth century music and architecture
and Bemand S. Cohn's study of Banaras. Goetz argued the resilience of Mughal
M. Athar AH, The Passing of Empire: The Mughal Case, Modem Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 3,
1975, pp. 385-96.
Irfan Habib, Potentialities of the Capitalistic Developments in the Economy ofMughal India, in
Irfan Habib (ed.) Essays in Indian History: Towards A Marxists Perception, New Delhi, 1997.
M. Athar Ali, The Eighteenth Century: an interpretation, Indian Historical Review, vol. 5, nos.
1-2, 1978-79, pp. 175-86.
society as reflected in the involving musical and architectural style in the wake of
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imperial collapse.
fuelled the imperial decline and encouraged regional economic and political
the local economy. The regional economy based on shifting patterns of trade,
movement of mercantile capital from centre to periphery, war, pillage and political
maneouvering by regional elites were tapped in the works of Ashin Das Gupta,
transcended political boundaries for over seeing the transportation of goods and
the provision of credit and insurance services in the period of decline. Even though
inland trade increased, export trade and port cities of Surat in Gujarat declined
colonial port cities such as Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta rose to prominence.'^
Karen Leonard argues that "indigenous banking firms were indispensable allies of
the Mughal sate" and the great nobles "were more likely to be directly dependent
upon these firms when in period 1650-1750, these banking firms began the
redirection of their economic and political support" towards regional politics and
rulers, including the English East India Company in Bengal, this led to
Herman Goetz, The Crisis of Indian Civilization in the eighteenth and nineteenth Centuries:
The Genesis ofIndo-Muslim Civilization, Calcutta, 1938.
'^ Ashin Das Dupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, C. 1700-1750, Weisbaden, 1979.
bankruptcy, a series of political crises and downfall of the Empire. M.N. Pearson
refrains from suggesting that the Mughal finance system was dependent on
merchant's credit.
They are now making a strong case for studying the IS"' century on its own terms
as a phase which saw the emergence of regional political orders. The studies are
significant in that they throw new light on both the nature of the Mughal Empire
as well as the process of its weakening and eventual decline in the 1?"' and early
18* century.
Viewing the Mughal state from the perspective of the regional literature of
the Mughal subah of Awadh, Muzaffar Alam Suggests that the Mughal Empire
early 18* century Awadh provides evidence of the remarkable economic growth
the economy that was initiated in the heyday of the Mughals. The affluent
zamindars took advantage of their newly accumulated assets and disobeyed the
Karen Leonard, The Great Firm Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire, Comparative
Studies in Society and History, vol. 21, no. 2, April, 1979, pp. 161-67.
'^ M.N. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, California, 1976.
order of the Mughal commands. As they rose in rebeUions the Mughal subedar
(governor) in the region enhanced his power by using the unrest as bargaining chip
with the emperor. It is under his patronage that regional assertion ultimately
buoyed the suba to political autonomy.'^ In a later article on 18* century Bihar,
Alam reiterates his fiscal growth argument with evidence from both regional and
imperial Persian literature and Urdu poetry. This material, unlike the court
chronicle, touches on the life of different social groups. On the basis of this
material, Alam infers that 18* century "crisis" is a more complex issue than the
Delhi centered administrative and fiscal studies of empire have so far done. For
the numerous voices of different social groups as tapped in the regional Persian
sources suggest that one's order was another's disorder. The experiences of the
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Following the general region-centric trend laid out by Alam, Chetan Singh
indicates that the political unrest in some provinces such as Punjab was linked to
tensions generated between the agrarian economy of the Mughal plains on the one
had and fringe tribal societies as they moved towards a sedentary existence on the
other. The latter process altered the structure of tribal societies and increased
pressure on the agrarian economy which was already under stress. Thus the events
of the 18* century were rooted in the economic processes that shaped the
'* Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and Punjab, 1707-48,
New Delhi, 1986.
^ Muzaffar Alam, Eastern India in the Early Eighteenth Century "Crisis " some evidence from
Bihar, Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 28, no. 1, 1991, pp. 43-71.
functioning of the empire from its very inception.'^ The evidence from most of
these regions indicates economic realignments that ensured the dissociation of the
regions from imperial control. These studies thus considerably altar the notion of
These new studies also find that the trajectories of regional dissociation
from the centre were varied even though some general features can be identified
across the board. C.A Bayly has articulated these features in his studies. He argues
the emergence of new class of intermediaries (b) the gentrification process, which
brought together a class of scribes, accountants and other Mughal service groups
that served the new powers locally and sank their feet deep into society, investing
in the small towns or qasbas, (c) the practice of military fiscalism , which meat the
gave emphasis on the rise of intermediaries, complete with the trappings of royal
power drawing on Mughal military and fiscal institutions and their emergence as
new power centres. These revenue collecting intermediaries, who derived their
Chetan Singh, Region and Empire: Punjab in the Seventeenth Century, Delhi, 1991 and
Interaction between Divergent Social Formation: A Possible Explanation for some instances of
Unrest in 77"' century, Punjab History Congress, 1980, pp. 80-86.
power from a variety of portfolios, have been categorized by C.A. Bayly and
different point of emphasis emerge in this direction with clarity of landed interests,
merchants and trading communities and their relationship with political power is
now available. This helped Bayly to come out with this argument about the
indications that this growth was maintained over much of India in the first half of
Growth in the first half of the century in Rajasthan has been clearly
documented. Price rose faster than the level of revenue demand. This provided the
incentive for increasing the area under cultivation and for growing more valuable
crops. Both grain, taken by the state as taxation and cash crops were traded out of
The study of craft productions of pre colonial India and their distribution by
merchants group has been attracting the attention of the historians from India and
abroad. Some of these studies are of general nature and primarily based on
European and Persian sources. The regions covered primarily by these scholars
" C.A. Bayly and Sanjay Subrahmanyan, Portfolio Capitalists and Political Economy of Early
Modern India, Indian Economic and Social History Review, lESHR, vol. 25, no. 4, 1988, pp.
401-24.
^° S.P. Gupta, The Agrarain System of the Eastern Rajasthan, C. 1650-1750, New Delhi, 1986;
Dilbagh Singh, The Peasant and the State: Eastern Rajasthan in the 18''' Century, Delhi, 1990;
Madhavi Bajekal, The State and the Rural Grain Market in 18^'' Century Eastern Rajasthan, in
Sanjay Subrahmanyan (ed.) Merchants, Markets and the State in Early Modem India, Delhi,
1990, 90-120.
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are, Gujarat, South India and Bengal. However, Rajasthan could not get much
records of business families. This enormous material would enable us to trace the
growth and development of crafts in the different states (Jodhpur, Jaipur, Bikaner
and Kota).
Besides these, it also had a well developed trading and manufacturing unit
in town and cities. The significance of trade and commerce for some works has
been done at the regional level in which local documents were tapped appreciably.
With the growing interest in the area-specific social and economic history,
materials from regional sources acquired a new crucial importance. The study on
These studies provided a new insight into the agrarian economy of 1 ?"' and
18* century. It paved the way for evaluating the structure and stratification of the
village society in terms of changes taking place. These studies also provided a new
dimension to the whole issue of impact of state policies on agrarian economy. But
remained confined to the rural economy ignoring the trading and manufacturing
artisan groups in urban as well as rural areas. The goods produced and
^' S.P. Gupta, The Agrarian System of the Eastern Rajasthan, (C 1650-1750), New Delhi, 1986,
however Dilbagh Singh, The State, Landlords, and Peasants on 2"'' half of the IS^ century, has
a different thing to say that the economy was shattered when the Mughal administration had
declined.
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manufactured by the artisans were brought to the market for sale. Some of these
products such as earthen pot, metal utensils, ornaments, were meant either for
local consumption or distant areas. While the textile, calico-prints, indigo assumed
added importance besides satisfying the local need they were available for export.
interesting. Every Rajput state made administrative efforts to regulate the trade
and artisan production to augment their income. To achieve this, it appears that
they had established separate offices to look after trade and craft sector. Special
attention was paid to promote trade and commerce and safety and protection was
provided to traders on trade routes. Similarly the interests of the artisans were also
looked after. In return the state got appreciable income in the form of the taxes
from these two sectors. Besides these, the role of mercantile community and
system) led to the emergence of cross-caste mercantile class. Many towns had
emerged as a commercial towns due to their location on the trade routes. Besides
Ahmadabad and to some other regions of India which facilitated the accessibility
trade. Different Rajput states carried on trade by land route with other parts of the
country.
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