THEME 8

PEASANTS, ZAMINDARS AND THE STATE

Prepared By
HARIDASAN.NADUVALATH
GOVT.HSS KOTTILA, KANNUR
 THEME 8
PEASANTS, ZAMINDARS AND THE STATE

AGARRIAN SOCIETY AND THE MUGHAL EMPIRE

(AD 16TH TO 17TH CENTURIES)

 Agrarian Society
• 10th to 16th Century – 85% of Rural people depends on
agriculture.
• Surplus Production – Major share goes as Taxes to the
Rulers.
• Land- Income and Tax : Right of rulers
• In addition to rulers there are intermediaries – Drain
of agricultural surplus from the Peasants.
• Peasants and landlords – mutual relation in the
agricultural sector- sharing and confrontations.
• At the same time coming of external agencies for
protecting their interest- for eg: The Mughal State.
 Agrarian society
• Major source of Mughal revenue from agricultural
sector.
• The rural society was controlled by revenue assessment
officers, revenue collectors, record and account keepers
– They ensured that all the agricultural operations done
smoothly and ensure the payment of taxes to the state.
• Importance to cultivate Commercial crops- so trade,
money and market reached in the rural areas- naturally
agricultural sector linked with cities.
PEASANTS AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
• All agricultural operations done by the rural
peasantry.
• They also produced agri-related products such as
Sugar, oil etc..
• Difference in the method of cultivation- related
with the nature of land- dry land, fertile land etc
 Looking of sources
• Naturally, Tillers of the soil keep no written records.
• Depends on Mughal court records and chronicles.
• Friend and Court Historian of Akber,
Abul fazl wrote Akbernama and
Ain-i-Akbari.
• These works gives a detailed information
about the administration and other
features of the Mughal period.
• The records of EEIC also supplemented our knowledge.
 Peasants and their Lands
• The term which Indo-Persian sources of the Mughal period most
frequently used to denote a peasant was raiyat (plural, riaya) or
muzarian. In addition, we also encounter the terms kisan or asami.
• Sources of the seventeenth century refer to two kinds of peasants –
khud-kashta and pahi-kashta. The formerwere residents of the village
in which they held their lands. The latter were non-resident cultivators
who belonged to some other village, but cultivated lands elsewhere on
a contractual basis.
• People became pahi-kashta because of many reasons – for example,
when terms of revenue in a distant village were more favourable – or
out of compulsion – for example, forced by economic distress after a
famine.
 Peasants and their Lands
• An average peasant of north India possess a pair of
bullocks and two ploughs; most possessed even less.
• In Gujarat peasants possessing about six acres of land
were considered to be affluent; in Bengal, on the other
hand, five acres was the upper limit of an average
peasant farm; 10 acres would make one a rich asami.
• Cultivation was based on the principle of individual
ownership. Peasant lands were bought and sold in the
same way as the lands of other property owners.
 Irrigation and Technology
There were three factors that contributed for the
expansion of agriculture.
• Abundance of land
• Available labour
• Mobility of peasants.
Since the primary purpose of agriculture is to feed
people, basic staples such as rice, wheat or millets
were the most frequently cultivated crops.
• Monsoons remained the backbone of Indian
agriculture, as they are even today. But there were
crops which required additional water. Artificial
systems of irrigation had to be devised for this.
 Irrigation and Technology
Irrigation projects received
state support as well.
For example, in northern India
the state undertook
digging of new canals (nahr,
nala) and also repaired
old ones like the shahnahr in
the Punjab during Shah
Jahan’s reign.
 Irrigation and Technology
• Though agriculture was labour intensive, peasants did use
technologies that often harnessed cattle energy. One example was
the wooden plough, which was light and easily assembled with an
iron tip.
 Irrigation and Technology
• A drill, pulled by a pair of giant
oxen, was used to plant seeds,
but broadcasting of seed was
the most prevalent method.

• Hoeing and weeding were

done simultaneously using a
narrow iron blade with a small
wooden handle.
 An abundance of Crops
• Agriculture was organised around two major seasonal cycles,
the kharif (autumn-Sarathkal) and the rabi (spring-Vasanthkal).
• This would mean that most regions, except those terrains that
were the most arid or inhospitable, produced a minimum of
two crops a year (do-fasla), whereas some, where rainfall or
irrigation assured a continuous supply of water, even gave
three crops. This ensured an enormous variety of produce.
• For instance, we are told in the Ain that the Mughal provinces
of Agra produced 39 varieties of crops and Delhi produced 43
over the two seasons. Bengal produced 50 varieties of rice
alone.
 An abundance of Crops
• However, the focus on the cultivation of
basic staples did not mean that agriculture
in medieval India was only for subsistence.
We often come across the term jins-i kamil
(literally, perfect crops) in our sources.
• The Mughal state also encouraged peasants
to cultivate such crops as they brought in
more revenue.
• Crops such as cotton and sugarcane were
jins-i kamil par excellence. Cotton was grown
over a great swathe of territory spread over
central India and the Deccan plateau,
whereas Bengal was famous for its sugar.
An abundance of Crops
• Such cash crops would
also include various sorts
of oilseeds (for example,
mustard) and lentils. This
shows how subsistence
and commercial
production were closely
intertwined in an
average peasant’s
holding.
Lentils
 An abundance of Crops
• During the seventeenth century several
new crops from different parts of the
world reached the Indian subcontinent.
• Maize (makka), for example, was
introduced into India via Africa and Spain
and by the seventeenth century it was
being listed as one of the major crops of
western India.
• Vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes and
chillies were introduced from the New
World at this time, as were fruits like the
pineapple and the papaya.
 The Village Community
• We have seen that peasants held
their lands in individual
ownership. At the same time they
belonged to a collective village
community as far as many aspects
of their social existence were
concerned.
• There were three constituents of
this community –the cultivators,
the panchayat, and the village
headman (muqaddam or mandal).
 Caste and Rural Background
• Deep inequities on the basis of caste and other caste-like
distinctions meant that the cultivators were a highly
heterogeneous group. Among those who tilled the land, there was
a sizeable number who worked as menials or agricultural labourers
(majur).
• Despite the abundance of cultivable land, certain caste groups
were assigned menial tasks and thus relegated to Poverty, much
like the Dalits of modern India.
• In Muslim communities menials like the halalkhoran (scavengers)
were housed outside the boundaries of the village; similarly the
mallahzadas (literally, sons of boatmen) in Bihar were comparable
to slaves.
 Caste and Rural Background
• There was a direct correlation between caste, poverty
and social status at the lower strata of society.
 Panchayats and Headmen
• The village panchayat was an assembly of elders, usually
important people of the village with hereditary rights
over their property.
• In mixed-caste villages, the panchayat was usually a
heterogeneous body. An oligarchy, the Panchayat
represented various castes and communities in the
village, though the village menial-cum-agricultural
worker was unlikely to be represented there.
• The decisions made by these panchayats were binding
on the members.
 Panchayats and Headmen-Functions
• The panchayat was headed by a headman known as
muqaddam or mandal.
• Some sources suggest that the headman was chosen
through the consensus of the village elders, and that this
choice had to be ratified by the zamindar.
• Headmen held office as long as they enjoyed the
confidence of the village elders, failing which they could
be dismissed by them.
• The chief function of the headman was to supervise the
preparation of village accounts, assisted by the
accountant or patwari of the panchayat.
• The panchayat derived its funds from contributions
made by individuals.
• These funds were used for defraying the costs of
entertaining revenue officials who visited the village
from time to time.
• Expenses for community welfare activities such as
tiding over natural calamities (like floods), were also
met from these funds.
• These funds were also deployed in construction of a
bund or digging a canal which peasants usually could
not afford to do on their own.
• One important function of the panchayat was to
ensure that caste boundaries among the various
communities inhabiting the village were upheld.
In eastern India all marriages were held in the
presence of the mandal.
• In other words one of the duties of the village
headman was to oversee the conduct of the
members of the village community “chiefly to
prevent any offence against their caste”.
• Panchayats also had the authority to levy fines
and inflict more serious forms of punishment like
expulsion from the community.
• It meant that a person forced to leave the
village became an outcaste and lost his right to
practice his profession.
• Such a measure was intended as a deterrent to
violation of caste norms.
• In addition to the village panchayat each caste or jati
in the village had its own jati panchayat.
• These panchayats wielded considerable power in rural
society.
• In Rajasthan jati panchayats arbitrated civil disputes
between members of different castes. They mediated
in contested claims on land, decided whether
marriages were performed according to the norms
laid down by a particular caste group.
• In most cases, except in matters of criminal justice,
the state respected the decisions of jati panchayats.
• Archival records from western India – notably Rajasthan and
Maharashtra – contain petitions presented to the panchayat
complaining about high taxation or the demand for unpaid labour
(begar) imposed by the “superior” castes or officials of the state.
These petitions were usually made by the lower section of the rural
society.
• Often petitions were made collectively as well, by a caste group or a
community protesting against what they considered were morally
illegitimate demands on the part of elite groups.
• These included excessive tax demands which, especially in times of
drought or other disasters, endangered the peasants’ subsistence.
They regarded the village panchayat as the court of appeal that
would ensure that the state carried out its moral obligations and
guaranteed justice.
• The decision of the panchayat in conflicts between
“lower-caste” peasants and state officials or the local
zamindar could vary from case to case.
• In cases of excessive revenue demands, the panchayat
often suggested compromise. In cases where
reconciliation failed, peasants took recourse to more
drastic forms of resistance, such as deserting the
village.
• The relatively easy availability of uncultivated land and
the competition over labour resources made this an
effective weapon in the hands of cultivators.
 Village Artisans
• Another interesting aspect of the village was
the elaborate relationship of exchange between
different producers. Documents of that period
have revealed the existence of substantial
numbers of artisans, sometimes as high as 25%
of the total households in the villages.
• The distinction between artisans and peasants
in village society was a fluid one, as many
groups performed the tasks of both. Cultivators
and their families would also participate in craft
production – such as dyeing, textile printing,
baking and firing of pottery, making and
repairing agricultural implements.
 Village Artisans
• Cultivators could engage in artisanal production during the
intervals of the different agricultural operations.
• Village artisans – potters, blacksmiths, carpenters, barbers, even
goldsmiths – provided specialized services in return for which they
were compensated by villagers by a variety of means. The most
common way of doing so was by giving them a share of the
Harvest, or an allotment of land (Miras or Watan in Maharashtra).
• 18th Century records tell us of zamindars in Bengal who
remunerated blacksmiths, carpenters, even goldsmiths for their
work by paying them “a small daily allowance and diet money”.
This later came to be described as the jajmani system.
 A “Little Republic”
• Some British officials in the 19th century saw the village
as a “little republic” made up of fraternal partners
sharing resources and labour in a collective.
• However, this was not a sign of rural egalitarianism.
There was individual ownership of assets and deep
inequities based on caste and gender distinctions.
• A group of powerful individuals decided the affairs of the
village, exploited the weaker sections and had the
authority to dispense justice.
 A “Little Republic”
• More importantly, a cash nexus
(money related relation) had
already developed through trade
between villages and towns. In the
Mughal heartland too, revenue
was assessed and collected in cash.
• Artisans producing for the export
market (for example, weavers)
received their advances or wages
in cash, as did producers of
commercial products like cotton,
silk or indigo.
 Women in Agrarian Society
• the production process often involves men
and women performing certain specified
roles. In the contexts that we are
exploring, women and men had to work
shoulder to shoulder in the fields. Men
tilled and ploughed, while women sowed,
weeded, threshed and winnowed the
harvest (separate chaff- waste from grain).
• The basis of production was the labour
and resources of the entire household.
Naturally, a gendered segregation between
the home (for women) and the world (for
men) was not possible in this context.
 Women in Agrarian Society
• Even though biases related to women’s biological functions did
continue. Menstruating women, for instance, were not allowed to
touch the plough or the potter’s wheel in western India, or enter
the groves where betel-leaves (paan) were grown in Bengal.
• Artisanal tasks such as spinning yarn, sifting and kneading clay for
pottery, and embroidery were among the many aspects of
production dependent on female labour. The more commercialised
the product, the greater the demand on women’s labour to
produce it.
• In fact, peasant and artisan women worked not only in the fields,
but even went to the houses of their employers or to the markets if
necessary.
 Women in Agrarian Society
• Women were considered an important resource in
agrarian society also because they were child bearers in
a society dependent on labour.
• At the same time, high mortality rates among women –
owing to malnutrition, frequent pregnancies, death
during childbirth – often meant a shortage of wives.
• This led to the emergence of social customs in peasant
and artisan communities that were distinct from those
prevalent among elite groups.
• Marriages in many rural communities required the
payment of bride-price rather than dowry to the bride’s
family.
• Remarriage was considered legitimate both among
divorced and widowed women.
Women in Agrarian Society
• The importance attached to women as a
reproductive force also meant that the
fear of losing control over them was great.
According to established social norms, the
household was headed by a male.
• Thus women were kept under strict
control by the male members of the
family and the community.
• They could inflict harsh punishments if
they suspected infidelity on the part of
women.
 Women in Agrarian Society
• Documents from Western India – Rajasthan, Gujarat and
Maharashtra – record petitions sent by women to the village
panchayat, seeking redress and justice.
• Wives protested against the infidelity of their husbands or the
neglect of the wife and children by the male head of the
household, the grihasthi.
• While male infidelity was not always punished, the state and
“superior” caste groups did intervene the matters.
• In most cases when women petitioned to the panchayat, their
names were excluded from the record: the petitioner was referred
to as the mother, sister or wife of the male head of the household.
 Women in Agrarian Society
• Amongst the landed gentry, women had
the right to inherit property. Instances
from the Punjab show that women,
including widows, actively participated in
the rural land market as sellers of
property inherited by them.
• Hindu and Muslim women inherited
zamindaris which they were free to sell
or mortgage.
• Women zamindars were known in 18th
century Bengal.
 FOREST AND TRIBES
• Apart from the intensively cultivated provinces
huge swathes of forests – dense forest existed
all over India.
• Though it is nearly impossible to set an all-India
average of the forest cover for this period,
informed conjectures based on contemporary
sources suggest an average of 40 per cent.
• Forest dwellers were termed jangli in
contemporary texts. Being jangli, however, did
not mean an absence of “civilisation”, as
popular usage of the term today seems to
connote. Rather, the term described those
whose livelihood came from the gathering of
forest produce, hunting and shifting agriculture.
 Forests and Tribes
• These activities were largely season specific.
Among the Bhils, for example, spring was reserved
for collecting forest produce, summer for fishing,
the monsoon months for cultivation, and autumn
and winter for hunting. Such a sequence presumed
and perpetuated mobility, which was a distinctive
feature of tribes inhabiting these forests.
• For the state, the forest was a subversive place – a
place of refuge (mawas) for troublemakers. Once
again, we turn to Babur who says that jungles
provided a good defence “behind which the
people of the pargana become stubbornly
rebellious and pay no taxes”.
 Inroads into forests
• External forces entered the forest in different
ways. For instance, the state required elephants
for the army. So the taxes (peshkash) levied from
forest people often included a supply of elephants.
• In the Mughal political ideology, the hunt
symbolised the overwhelming concern of the state
to ensure justice to all its subjects, rich and poor.
• Regular hunting expeditions, so court historians
tell us, enabled the emperor to travel across the
extensive territories of his empire and personally
attend to the grievances of its inhabitants. The
scenes of hunting was a main subject for the
painters or court artists.
 Inroads into forests
• The spread of commercial
agriculture was an important
external factor that effected
the lives of those who lived in
the forests.
• Forest products – like honey,
beeswax and gum lac – were
in great demand. Some, such
as gum lac, became major
items of overseas export from
India in the 17th century.
• Elephants were also captured
and sold.
 Inroads into forests
• Trade involved an exchange of commodities
through barter as well. Some tribes, like the
Lohanis in the Punjab, were engaged in
overland trade, between India and
Afghanistan.
• Social factors too wrought changes in the
lives of forest dwellers. Like the “big men”
of the village community, tribes also had
their chieftains.
• Many tribal chiefs had become zamindars,
some even became kings. For this they
required to build up an army. They recruited
people from their lineage groups.
 Inroads into forests
• Tribes in the Sind region had armies
comprising 6,000 cavalry and 7,000
infantry.
• In Assam, the Ahom kings had their paiks,
people who were obliged to render
military service in exchange for land. The
capture of wild elephants was declared a
royal monopoly by the Ahom kings.
• Though the transition from a tribal to a
monarchical system had started much
earlier, the process seems to have
become fully developed only by the 16th
century.
 Inroads into forests
• Though the transition from a tribal to a monarchical system had
started much earlier, the process seems to have become fully
developed only by the 16th century.
• This can be seen from the Ain’s observations on the existence of
tribal kingdoms in the north-east.
• War was a common occurrence. For instance, the Koch kings
fought and subjugated a number of neighbouring tribes in a long
sequence of wars through the 16th and 17th centuries.
• New cultural influences also paved the way for inroads into forests.
Sufi saints (pirs) played a major role in the slow acceptance of Islam
among agricultural communities emerging in the forest zones.
 THE ZAMINDARS
• The word Zamindar was derived from two
Persian words, Zamin (Land) and Dar (Owner)
• Our story of agrarian relations in Mughal India
will not be complete without referring to a
class of people in the countryside that lived
off agriculture but did not participate directly
in the processes of agricultural production.
• These were the zamindars who were landed
proprietors who also enjoyed certain social
and economic privileges by virtue of their
superior status in rural society.
 THE ZAMINDARS
• Caste was one factor that accounted for the elevated
status of zamindars; another factor was that they
performed certain services (khidmat) for the state.
• Zamindars also derived their power from the fact that
they could often collect revenue on behalf of the state,
a service for which they were compensated financially.
• Control over military resources was another source of
power. Most zamindars had fortresses (qilachas) as well
as an armed contingent comprising units of cavalry,
artillery and infantry.
 THE ZAMINDARS
• Abu’l Fazl’s account indicates that an “upper -
caste”, Brahmana-Rajput combine had already
established firm control over rural society.
• Zamindars were also emerged from the so-called
intermediate castes(average) and Muslims.
• Contemporary documents give an impression
that conquest may have been the source of
the origin of some zamindaris.
• The dispossession of weaker people by a
powerful military chieftain was quite often a
way of expanding a zamindari.
 THE ZAMINDARS
• More important were the slow processes of zamindari
consolidation, which are also documented in sources. These
involved colonisation of new lands, by transfer of rights, by order
of the state and by purchase.
• Zamindars lead the colonisation of agricultural land, and helped in
settling cultivators by providing them with the means of
cultivation, including cash loans.
• The buying and selling of zamindaris accelerated the process of
monetization in the countryside. In addition, zamindars sold the
produce from their own lands. There is evidence to show that
zamindars often established markets (haats) to which peasants
also came to sell their produce.
 The Zamindars
• Although there can be no doubt that zamindars were an
exploitative class, their relationship with the peasantry had an
element of protection and patronage.
• Two aspects reinforce this view. First, the bhakti saints, who
strongly condemned caste-based and other forms of oppression
did not portray the zamindars (or, interestingly, the moneylender)
as exploiters or oppressors of the peasantry. Usually it was the
revenue official of the state who was the object of their criticism.
• Second, in a large number of agrarian uprisings which broke out
in north India in the 17th century, zamindars often received the
support of the peasantry in their struggle against the state.
 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM
• Agriculture was the major means of livelihood of the people
of Medieval India and Land revenue was the major source of
income of the government.
• It was therefore vital for the state to create an administrative
system to ensure control over agricultural production, and to
fix and collect revenue from all over the empire.
• This system included the office of the diwan who was
responsible for supervising the revenue collection.
• Thus revenue officials and record keepers get an opportunity
to increase their influence in the agricultural sector and
became a decisive agent in shaping agrarian relations.
 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM
• The Mughal state tried to first acquire specific information about the
extent of the agricultural lands in the empire and what these lands
produced before fixing the burden of taxes on people. The land
revenue arrangements consisted of two stages – first, assessment and
then actual collection.
• The jama was the amount assessed and Hasil was the amount
collected.
• In his list of duties of the amil-guzar or revenue collector, Akbar
decreed that while he should strive to make cultivators pay in cash, the
option of payment in kind was also to be kept open.
• While fixing revenue, the attempt of the state was to maximise its
claims. The scope of actually realising these claims was, however,
sometimes obstructed by local conditions.
 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM
• Both cultivated and cultivable lands were measured in
each province.
• The Ain compiled the aggregates of such lands during
Akbar’s rule.
• Efforts to measure lands continued under subsequent
emperors. For instance, in 1665, Aurangzeb expressly
instructed his revenue officials to prepare annual records
of the number of cultivators in each village.
• Yet not all areas were measured successfully. As we have
seen, forests covered huge areas of the subcontinent and
thus remained unmeasured.
 LAND REVENUE SYSTEM
Classification of lands under Akber
• During Akber’s period the land was classified into
four;
1. Polaj: Land suitable for cultivation throughout the
year.
2. Parauti: Land left out of cultivation for a time that
it may recover its strength.
3. Chachar: Land that was lain fallow for 3 or 4 years.
4. Banjar: Land uncultivated for 5 years or more.
One-third part of the average produce was fixed as
the land tax during that period.
 THE FLOW OF SILVER
• The Mughal Empire was among the large
territorial empires in Asia that had managed to
consolidate power and resources during the
16th and 17th centuries. These empires were
the Ming (China), Safavid (Iran) and Ottoman
(Turkey).
• The political stability achieved by all these
empires helped create vibrant networks of
overland trade from China to the
Mediterranean Sea.
• Voyages of discovery and the opening up of the
New World resulted in a massive expansion of
Asia’s (particularly India’s) trade with Europe.
 THE FLOW OF SILVER
• An expanding trade brought in huge
amounts of silver bullion into Asia to pay
for goods procured from India, and a large
part of that bullion gravitated towards
India.
• This was good for India as it did not have
natural resources of silver. As a result, the
period between the 16th and 18th
centuries was also marked by a
remarkable stability in the availability of
metal currency, particularly the silver
rupya in India.
 THE FLOW OF SILVER
• This facilitated an unprecedented expansion
of minting of coins and the circulation of
money in the economy as well as the ability
of the Mughal state to extract taxes and
revenue in cash.
• The testimony of an Italian traveller,
Giovanni Careri, who passed through India
c. 1690, provides a graphic account about
the way silver travelled across the globe to
reach India.
• It also gives us an idea of the cash and
commodity transactions in 17th C. India.
THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI
• The Ain- i Akbari was the culmination of a large
historical, administrative project of
classification undertaken by Abu’l Fazl at the
order of Emperor Akbar. It was completed in
1598, after having gone through five revisions.
• The Ain was part of a larger project of history
writing commissioned by Akbar.
• This history, known as the Akbar Nama,
comprised three books. The first two provided
a historical narrative. The Ain- i Akbari, the
third book, was organized as a brief sketch of
imperial system and geography of the empire.
THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI
• The Ain gives detailed accounts of the
organization of the court, administration and
army, the sources of revenue and literary,
cultural and religious traditions of the people.
• Along with a description of the various
departments of Akbar’s government and
elaborate descriptions of the various
provinces (subas) of the empire, the Ain
gives us a detailed information of those
provinces.
THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI
Collecting and compiling this information
systematically was difficult task.

It informed the emperor about the varied

and diverse customs and practices
prevailing across his extensive territories.

The Ain is therefore a mine of information

for us about the Mughal Empire during
Akbar’s reign.
THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI
• The Ain is made up of five books (daftars),
of which the first three books describe the
administration. The first book, called
manzil-abadi, concerns the imperial
household and its maintenance.
• The second book, sipah-abadi, covers the
military and civil administration and the
establishment of servants.
• This book includes short biographical
sketches of imperial officials (mansabdars),
scholars, poets and artists.
THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI
• The third book, mulk-abadi, is the one
which deals with the fiscal side of the
empire and provides information on
revenue rates and details of the “Account
of the Twelve Provinces”.
• This section has detailed statistical
information, which includes the
geographic and economic profile of all
subas and their administrative and fiscal
divisions (sarkars, parganas and mahals),
total measured area, and assessed
revenue ( jama ).
 THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI
• The Ain gives us a detailed picture of the sarkars below the suba.
• This it does in the form of tables, which have eight columns giving
the following information:
• (1) parganat/mahal; (2) qila (forts); (3) arazi and zamin-i paimuda
(measured area); (4) naqdi, revenue assessed in cash; (5)
suyurghal, grants of revenue in charity; (6) zamindars; columns 7
and 8 contain details of the castes of these zamindars, and their
troops including their horsemen (sawar), foot-soldiers (piyada) and
elephants ( fil ).
• The mulk-abadi gives a detailed view of highly complex agrarian
society of northern India.
 THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI
• The fourth and fifth books (daftars) deal with the religious, literary and
cultural traditions of the people of India and also contain a collection
of Akbar’s “auspicious sayings”.
• Ain-I Akbari was much more than a reproduction of official papers.
That the manuscript was revised five times by the author would
suggest a high degree of caution on the part of Abu’l Fazl and a search
for authenticity.
• For instance, oral testimonies were cross-checked and verified before
being incorporated as “facts” in the chronicle. In the quantitative
sections, all numeric data were reproduced in words so as to minimise
the chances of subsequent transcriptional errors.
THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI
• Historians who have carefully studied the
Ain point out that it is not without its
problems.
• Numerous errors in totaling have been
detected. These are ascribed to simple
slips of arithmetic or of transcription by
Abu’l Fazl’s assistants.
• These are generally minor in
consideration of the big size and
knowledge provided by this monumental
work.
 THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI
• Another limitation of the Ain is the method of data collection adopted.
Data were not collected uniformly from all provinces.
• For instance, while for many subas detailed information was compiled
about the caste composition of the zamindars, such information is not
available for Bengal and Orissa.
• Further, while the fiscal data from the subas is remarkable for its
richness, some equally vital parameters such as prices and wages from
these same areas are not as well documented.
• The detailed list of prices and wages that the Ain does provide is
mainly derived from data pertaining to areas in or around the imperial
capital of Agra, and is therefore of limited relevance for the rest of the
country.
THE AIN-I AKBARI OF ABU’L FAZL ALLAMI
These limitations are very negligible. By
providing fascinating glimpses into the
structure and organisation of the Mughal
Empire and by giving us valuable
information about its products and people
the Ain-I Akbari remains a land mark in the
historiography of medieval India.
 THE MANSABDARI SYSYTEM
• The Mughal administrative system was basically a
military-cum-bureaucratic which was responsible for
looking after the civil and military affairs of the state.
• Each officer of the state had a designation(Mansab)
which indicate their position and salary. In order to
their position they bound to provide a particular
number of soldiers to the state army. Thus the
mansabdars became the official nobility of the state.
• Some Manabdars were paid in cash(naqdi), while
the majority of them were paid through assignments
revenue(jagirs) in different regions of the empire.
They were transferred periodically.
 TIME LINE
LANDMARKS IN THE HISTORY OF THE MUGHAL EMPIRE
• 1526 Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi, the Delhi Sultan, at Panipat, becomes the first Mughal
emperor
• 1530-40 First phase of Humayun’s reign
• 1540-55 Humayun defeated by Sher Shah, in exile at the Safavid court
• 1555-56 Humayun regains lost territories
• 1556-1605 Reign of Akbar
• 1605-27 Reign of Jahangir
• 1628-58 Reign of Shah Jahan
• 1658-1707 Reign of Aurangzeb
• 1739 Nadir Shah invades India and sacks Delhi
• 1761 Ahmad Shah Abdali defeats the Marathas in the third battle of Panipat
• 1765 The diwani of Bengal transferred to the East India Company
• 1857 Last Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah II, deposed by the British and exiled to Rangoon
(present day Yangon, Myanmar)
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