Agrarian Society and Mughal Empire

Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire

• In the 16th and 17th centuries, approximately 85% of India's population resided in villages.
• Peasants and landed elites both engaged in agricultural production.
• Competition and cooperation shaped agrarian society.
• The Mughal state derived revenue from agricultural production.
• State agents controlled rural society through revenue collection.
• Trade, money, and markets connected rural areas to towns.

Peasants and Agricultural Production

• The village was the basic unit of agricultural society.
• Peasants performed seasonal tasks.
• Labor was used for agro-based goods like sugar and oil.
• Rural India featured diverse land types, including dry and hilly regions not as cultivable as fertile lands.

Looking for Sources

• Peasants didn't document their own lives, so most information comes from Mughal court chronicles and documents
• Ain-i Akbari, by Abu'l Fazl, recorded state arrangements for cultivation, revenue collection, and regulation of relationships between the state and zamindars.
• The Ain aimed to present Akbar's empire as one with social harmony maintained by a strong ruling class.
• Information about peasants from the Ain comes from the viewpoint of the ruling class.
• Revenue records from Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan supplement the Ain.
• The East India Company's records offer insights into agrarian relations in eastern India.
• Sources reveal conflicts among peasants, zamindars and the state, giving glimpses into the peasants' perceptions and expectations.

Peasants and Their Lands

• Indo-Persian sources of the Mughal period used the terms raiyat, riaya, or muzarian to refer to peasants.
• The terms kisan or asami were also used.
• Seventeenth-century sources mention khud-kashta (resident peasants) and pahi-kashta (non-resident/contractual cultivators).
• Peasants became pahi-kashta either by choice or compulsion.
• Northern Indian peasants possessed less than a pair of bullocks and two ploughs.
• Six acres in Gujarat was considered affluent, while 5 acres in Bengal was the limit of an average peasant farm; 10 acres would make one a rich asami.
• Cultivation was based on individual ownership, so peasant lands could be bought and sold.
• Peasant holdings in the Delhi-Agra region involved farmers marking field limits with borders.

Irrigation and Technology

• The plenty of land and available labor and mobile peasants expanded agriculture
• Basic staples like rice, wheat, and millets were cultivated to feed people.
• Rice was grown in high rainfall areas (40+ inches a year), followed by wheat and millets.
• Monsoons were critical.
• Artificial irrigation systems were necessary for some crops.