Peasants, Zamindars and the State — Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire

The Mughal Agrarian Economy: • Agriculture was the foundation of the Mughal economy — it generated the revenue that funded the empire's armies, administration, and spectacular court culture. • The Ain-i-Akbari (a detailed administrative report compiled by Abu'l Fazl at Akbar's direction, c. 1598) is the most comprehensive source for Mughal agrarian administration. The Peasant (Raiyyat): • The vast majority of the Mughal population were peasants — those who tilled the land and produced the agricultural surplus. • Peasants in the Mughal system were classified broadly as: - Khudkasht: 'Own cultivators' — those with hereditary rights to their village land; they paid a lower rate of revenue. - Paikasht: Migrant cultivators who came from outside the village; paid higher rates. • The Ain-i-Akbari divides crops into kharif (monsoon-sown) and rabi (winter-sown) — reflecting the sophistication of Mughal agricultural knowledge. • Peasant families were not simply grain producers — women wove textiles, men crafted goods; the rural household was integrated into a wider artisan and market economy. The Zamindar: • Zamindars were an intermediate social group — landholders who exercised control over land and peasants, collected revenue, and passed it (less their commission) to the Mughal state. • Zamindars occupied a privileged, hereditary position — their rights (sometimes including judicial and police functions in their area) were passed from father to son. • They were not simply tax collectors — they had armed retinues, local political power, and acted as intermediaries between the imperial state and village communities. • Zamindars were overwhelmingly from upper castes (Rajputs, Jats, Brahmanas) and had deep local roots — the Mughal state incorporated rather than displaced existing local power structures. The Mughal State: • The state demanded a share of the agricultural surplus as land revenue (mal) — typically one-third of the produce under Akbar's Todar Mal's revenue settlement. • Revenue was assessed and collected through a system of measurement and classification of land — productive, unproductive, irrigated, etc. • The revenue demand was a powerful force in agrarian life — too heavy a demand caused peasant flight and village abandonment; too light undermined imperial finances.

The Ain-i-Akbari: • The Ain-i-Akbari ('Institutes of Akbar') is the third volume of the Akbarnama — a vast official history of Akbar's reign compiled by his court historian and confidant, Abu'l Fazl ibn Mubarak. • Completed around 1598 CE, it is a remarkable administrative and statistical survey of the Mughal Empire under Akbar. Contents and Structure: • The Ain-i-Akbari is divided into five books covering: 1. The imperial household — regulations for the harem, kitchen, stables, workshops. 2. The mansabdari system — the grading of imperial officers and their obligations. 3. The revenue and administrative system — land measurement, crop classification, revenue rates by province and district. 4. Hindu philosophy, literature, and learning — Abu'l Fazl's attempt to describe Indian intellectual traditions. 5. Rules of conduct and wisdom literature. What it reveals about Mughal Administration: 1. Revenue system: The Ain-i-Akbari gives detailed data on land under cultivation, crop types, revenue assessed, and collection methods. Todar Mal's Zabti system (measuring land and fixing rates based on average yield of previous years) is described in detail. 2. Provincial structure: The empire was divided into subas (provinces), sarkars (districts), and parganas (clusters of villages) — each with defined officers and functions. 3. Mansabdari system: The numerical ranking system (mansab) for all imperial officers — both civil and military — and the rules governing their pay (in cash or land grants called jagirs). 4. Market regulation: The Ain describes Akbar's attempt to regulate weights, measures, and prices. Limitations as a Historical Source: 1. Official perspective: The Ain-i-Akbari reflects the state's view — it presents an idealised, ordered picture of the empire that may not match reality. 2. Abu'l Fazl's agenda: Abu'l Fazl was a promoter of Akbar's image as a just, all-knowing ruler (a kind of divine king). His account is hagiographic in places. 3. Regional variation: The Ain presents averages and norms — the enormous regional variation across such a large empire is smoothed over. 4. Selective coverage: It says relatively little about ordinary peasants' lives, women, or non-elite social groups.

Agrarian Tensions in Mughal India: • The Mughal agrarian system was not simply peaceful and stable — it was marked by endemic tensions between the revenue demands of the state and zamindars on one side, and the peasants' capacity and willingness to pay on the other. Sources of Tension: 1. Revenue demands: When the state's revenue demand exceeded what peasants could reasonably pay (especially in years of drought or crop failure), it caused acute distress. 2. Zamindari oppression: Zamindars sometimes extracted more than the state-mandated amount — keeping the surplus for themselves or using coercion. 3. Jagirdars (revenue assignees): Jagirdars were constantly rotated to prevent the development of local loyalties. A new jagirdar trying to maximise short-term extraction could be extremely harsh on peasants. Forms of Peasant Resistance: 1. Flight (exodus from villages): The most common and powerful form of resistance was simply to leave. The Mughal countryside had extensive uncultivated land — a peasant or village community that found conditions intolerable could abandon their land and settle elsewhere. • This gave peasants a real, if limited, bargaining power — a village without peasants produced no revenue. • Mughal documents record constant attempts by state officials to bring back fleeing peasants and prevent village abandonments. 2. Armed uprisings: Some peasant communities, particularly where they had strong community identities (jati, clan) or were led by zamindars with grievances, engaged in armed resistance. • Jat uprisings in the Punjab and Agra region in the 17th century. • Satnamis in the Punjab: A sect of artisans-turned-peasants who revolted against Mughal authority in 1672. • The Maratha struggle led by Shivaji — while more complex (involving elite Maratha deshmukhs/zamindars), had an agrarian dimension. 3. Non-cooperation: Communities could passively resist by cultivating less, concealing harvests, and providing false information to revenue assessors. Historical Significance: • Peasant flight and resistance set real limits on how much the Mughal state could extract. • The 17th-century 'crisis of the Mughal Empire' — leading to its eventual weakening — was partly rooted in agrarian distress, over-extraction, and the growing power of local zamindars who retained more revenue locally rather than passing it upward.