Agrarian Structure On The Eve Of The British Rule Part 1
Contents
- Introduction
- Revenue System in Mughal India
- Agrarian Surplus and the Ruling Class
- Conclusion
Introduction
Historians have been arguing vehemently about the nature of the Indian economy prior to the British conquest. The latter was curious as to whether the Indian economy possessed the components necessary for the later emergence of capitalism. The question has also been raised as to whether or not colonial intervention was required for capitalism to enter the Indian economy. We provide an overview of the agrarian structure on the eve of British Rule in this module based on such historiographical literature. The eminent historian of Mughal India, Irfan Habib, is heavily referenced in this module. The underlying presumption is that knowing how agriculture was organized during the Mughal Empire also means knowing how it was organized on the eve of British rule. While it's true that the Mughal Empire was in a state of decline and on the verge of collapse when the British arrived, it was still in a state of decline. Additionally, it is true that regional powers and rulers had seized control of ever-larger swaths of land, snatching them from the Mughals' control. However, the influence of the Mughals on the agrarian system has persisted for a long time; in fact, some technical terms used in the administration of land revenue today have their roots in the Mughal era.
Revenue System in Mughal India
The vast amount of land is mentioned by Habib (1969) as he opens his discussion of Indian agriculture in the seventeenth century. In the middle Gangetic basin and Central India, and between two-thirds and one-fifth in other areas, he claimed that the extent of cultivation was then roughly half of what it was at the beginning of the 20th century. Generally speaking, in 1600, cultivation would take place on more fertile lands. Additionally, more cattle could be kept due to larger wastes and pastures, indicating a higher output of pastoral products per capita as well as a higher use of cattle-power in agriculture. Each household farm should have likely been closer to the ideal size; additionally, it is possible that the peasants could have engaged in more double-cropping. With the exception of the extensive canal irrigation system built by the British in the Indus basin and upper Gangetic region, the impact of railroads in facilitating the raising of crops for which specific lands or localities were most suitable, and the significant expansion of new crops, such as maize and the plantation crops, tea, and coffee in the nineteenth century, Habib does not see much difference between the agricultural technology available in 1600 and that in 1900.
Habib's argument is that Mughal India's per-capita agricultural productivity was on par with that of other modern societies, including Western Europe. The idea that traditional Indian agriculture produces "low yields" is untrue. There is little doubt, he writes in 1969, that India's lack of capitalistic development cannot be explained solely by the country's low level of agricultural production. Given the size of the agricultural surplus, its mode of appropriation and final distribution is really what can (or cannot) contain the seeds of capitalism. The agricultural surplus may be used and distributed in a variety of ways, but there are two main ways that can theoretically be taken: (A), an external demand placed on the producer (e. g. , rent) and (B), a profit realized as a result of the appropriater carrying out or managing the productive process themselves (e. g. savings of the common people; capitalist farmer's profits). ' .
The above-mentioned type A of surplus-appropriation predominated in Mughal India, according to quaHabib. Peasant agriculture served as both the mode of production and the source of its two distinct components: land revenue and the majority of surplus funds appropriated. He continues by saying that, aside from a few rare potential exceptions, Indian peasant farming was structured along individualistic lines. Every peasant had his or her own private holding. Due to the abundance of land, most areas had little to no price for land, but cattle and seeds were significant forms of peasant property. In other words, there was stratification within the peasantry due to individual ownership. The Indian village also gave off the impression of being a small, closed-off social and economic community based on customs. A collective organization of peasants within the framework of clan and caste and the Indian Village Community was built on the basis of the close clustering of peasant households and the need for peasant migrants to move in a body for better protection.
Hereditary craftspeople and village servants who served this community supplied the peasants with the goods and services they required. The peasants paid them in accordance with customary rates, typically in kind or through land allotments, both collectively (since the community had a financial pool) and individually. According to Habib, "an Indian village was, to some extent, a stable economic unit, essentially self-sufficient in respect to its own consumption needs.". This is not meant to discount the individualistic organization of production, the economic stratification that must have existed among the peasantry, or different types of traditional economic exchanges.
In Mughal India, according to Irfan Habib, the zamindar's portion of the "rent" was of a lower rank. It represented nominally 10% of the land revenue in Northern India and 25% in Gujarat. In other words, it was the land revenue that made up the majority of the rent,' Mal, even though the land revenue was technically a tax on the crop rather than a rent from the land. It was essentially a portion of the crop, and it was typically collected by actually dividing the harvest (Batai). However, there were some differences in real-world situations that made the procedure more difficult administratively while making it more complicated.
For instance, while the revenue was imposed in kind, the demand was established through surveys of the cropland and the application of an estimated crop rate to the area determined in order to provide an estimate of the total crop (Kankut). The total revenue demand could now be expressed in kind but could later be converted into cash at market (or arbitrary) prices because the revenue was a given share of the produce. A standard cash rate was assessed per unit of area in the most developed farms, as well as in some provinces, and it varied depending on the crop (Zabt). Again, the revenue had to be taken into account as a fixed portion of the crop when creating the schedules. In most areas of Northern India and the Deccan, it appears that the portion of the produce taken as revenue ranged between one-third and fifty percent; however, it was less in some arid regions and significantly more in some fertile tracts. The revenue requirement was, in theory, assessed separately on each individual peasant based on his holding and the crops. In the British-Indian land-revenue administration, terms like "demand" and "revenue demand" are frequently used. The definition of this word, which is a translation of the Persian word jamer, is "amount at which the revenue was assessed or fixed.". In fact, the entire village body was typically treated as a single assessed and was required to pay the levied revenue. Habib also points out that, despite the fact that revenue demand was essentially a share of the produce, land revenue was most frequently realized in cash, not only under zabt but also under other systems through the commutation of the demand into demand in cash. When focused on a village, it frequently took the form of an amount of money that had been chosen at random. Starting at the beginning of the fourteenth century, cash nexus is documented as an established institution in the Delhi region. With local exceptions and possibly brief periods in some regions where there may have been a switch from one method of revenue assessment to the other, cash collection of revenue was much more common than collection in kind during the Mughal era. Even when taxes were paid in kind, the government frequently did so not for direct consumption or storage but rather for sale.
Agrarian Surplus and the Ruling Class
Land revenue's characteristics and the rise of a ruling class, whose members it was distributed, were historically intertwined. Either by his own officials for the royal treasury or by his assignees for themselves, the revenue was directly obtained from the peasant in the king's name. Khalisa refers to the regions from which money was collected and sent to the treasury. The Khalisa was made up of regions dispersed across the Empire, and its overall size varied. For instance, in 1647, the Khalisa's estimated revenue made up about 13.6 percent of the total. The remaining amount was made up of allowances for the upkeep of their military contingents as well as jagirs, or territories, whose revenues were given by the king to his mansabdars (officers or nobles) in place of personal pay. Jagirdars were people in charge of such assignments. However, some mansabdars also received their pay (wholly or partially) in cash from the royal treasury. These mansabdars, particularly those with higher ranks, could theoretically be regarded as the Mughal Empire's ruling class. This class had a sizeable foreign component and was largely urbanized. It was largely devoid of local roots, and a system of post transfers and jagirs prevented it from establishing any. The time that any assignee held an area in jagir was typically less than three years. With the exception of some chiefs, neither the jagir nor the rank in the military were passed down through the family.
Habib claimed that this ruling class was completely subject to a centralized royal despotism. Only with the assistance of this ruling class was the enormous claim that the land revenue represented on the entire rural surplus of the nation realized. The system of transfers prevented the noble's household and contingents from being naturally established permanently on a jagir so they could live purely off the land. Aside from the fact that the Mughal nobles, who were highly urbanized, despised rural life, the distance between the headquarters of the jagirdar's establishment and the villages was generally greater the larger the jagir. Therefore, it is understandable why jagirdars preferred to collect money in cash or to convert kind donations into cash right away. The Khalisa must have had a strong preference for cash collections as well because the royal treasury was also required to pay salaries (to the mansabdars and others) in cash.
The importance of the ruling class is highlighted in Habib's description of the agrarian system in Mughal India. Habib relates the major aspects of the land revenue system to the power, organization, and composition of the ruling class. This knowledge reveals the historical tendency toward a steadily increasing pressure on the peasants and other tax-payers.
Habib underlines two main consequences of the collection of land revenue that was prevalent in pre-British India. First, the rural economy was subjected to an enormous drain of wealth that would go into the maintenance and consumption of the ruling class. There was a general flow of wealth away from the rural sector. Of course, part of the land revenue undoubtedly stuck to the hands of certain rural elements, through shortfalls in collection, remissions, concessions, and commissions to certain local magnates (chaudhuris, ganungos) and the village headmen (muqaddams), salaries and perquisites of local revenue staff, etc. Some of the jagirdars sub-assigned their jagirs to their soldiers who lived in the villages. Besides, there was a whole class of revenue grantees (comprising the intelligentsia and the idlers), the imperial revenue grants (madad-i maash) alone accounting for 4 to 6 percent of the total estimated revenue. Even then, after making allowances for all these leakages, Habib asserts, that the total net amount of produce annually lost by the country-side, without any return, must have amounted to a very large portion of the total-at least a fourth of it, if not a third or a half.
Secondly, the mechanism by which the bulk of the rural surplus was removed created the conditions for the establishment of the rural market. When the land revenue was collected in cash, the revenue payer was compelled to sell his produce in order to get money to pay for it, but when it was collected in kind, then too, as we have noted, the revenue authorities preferred to sell it. In either case, most of the surplus was put on the market, and, therefore, a very large portion of agricultural production would not be directly ‘for use’ but would be commodity production, properly speaking. The market mechanism once established must have reacted on the mode of agricultural production. The consequence of the creation of the agricultural market was that it not only introduced money relations into a system of ‘natural economy’, but also engendered a shift to high-grade crops and cash crops (e. g. , from coarser grains to wheat; and to cotton, sugarcane, indigo, poppy, tobacco, etc. ). The source of this tendencywas the system of transferring jagirs. This meant that individual revenue assignees could have no interest in the long-term maintenance or growth in the revenue-paying capacity of any particular area. In a way, the excessive pressure for greater revenue was ultimately self-defeating, since for immediate gain it sacrificed future possibilities. In fact, the Mughal system did not contain any effective mechanism whereby restraints could have been put on the ruling class.
Irfan Habibi asserts that the dual effects of the Mughal revenue systems resulted in a significant subversion of the "pure" peasant economy and a change in the nature of exploitation. In reality, the land revenue amounted to a significant financial burden on the countryside. Additionally, the Mughal system had an inherent tendency to put more pressure on the tax-payers. Habib is adamant that, in contrast to the lord's "rents," the land-revenue rate was firmly based on the idea that it was a fixed proportion of the produce and was, as a result, variable when stated in cash. As a result, even though agricultural prices seem to have increased during the seventeenth century, the real revenue demand did not decrease. Additionally, the land revenue among the peasantry was essentially a regressive tax that weighed more heavily on the lower strata than the upper. It was obvious that the peasant who produced less would have less left over than the one who produced more when it represented a specific percentage of the produce. It is also possible to argue that when each peasant was evaluated on an individual basis, the village community was ostensibly bypassed and the individual was made to bear the full burden of risk as a revenue payer. Economic differentiation ought to have followed from this as well. In reality, however, the village served as the standard assessment unit, and the village community had a special responsibility to contribute to the payment of revenue through the establishment of a financial pool into which all peasants made contributions and from which the revenue demand, other financial obligations, and village establishment costs were paid.
Conclusion
Irfan Habib's excellent research on the agrarian system in Mughal India thus paints a complex picture. It demonstrates how monetized and adaptable the village community is as an economic organization. To the great detriment of the weaker peasantry, it is also possible that the stronger (and wealthier) peasants would rule the community and distribute the revenue demand at will among their brethren. The officials did frequently view individual assessment as a tool to stop such unfair distribution. The peasant population could occasionally be threatened with execution and slavery if the revenue demand was not satisfied because the entire village could sometimes be assessed so heavily. According to Habib's reading, land revenue had a tendency to increase stratification and impoverishment of the lower strata in its initial effects. The entire peasantry as a class was eventually affected, though.
Additionally, poverty may result from monetization, either directly or indirectly. Peasants who produce commodities may suffer greatly from price fluctuations. Additionally, the majority of the cash crops required greater investments in equipment (such as the indigo vats, sugarcane press, and boilers) as well as cattle due to the need for more frequent plowing and watering. in terms of harvest and prices), and greater risks. In the cultivation of such crops, it was unlikely that less wealthy peasants could outcompete the wealthy ones. The agrarian system that dominated pre-British India included rural indebtedness as another feature. In order to obtain his "subsistence food" and cattle, or to pay the land revenue, the peasants frequently turned to debt.
Moneylending could have expanded quickly once the rural market had reached a certain level of development. According to Habib, it is possible that peasant debt in Mughal India was more pervasive than previously thought. The peasantry must have been heavily burdened as a result of usury, especially given the sky-high interest rates. Not only did zamindars, particularly chaudhuris, and headmen profit from usury (adding to their customary demands), but also professional usurers, who increased their usurious capital, as well as merchants (who frequently provided advances to the peasants to establish claims on their produce) and merchantmoneylenders in general.
As Habib astutely notes, while the land revenue and monetization added, or at any rate increased, another method of exploiting the peasantry in the shape of usury, they also created the conditions for increased pressure from the zamindar class on the peasantry. The pressure manifested itself in two ways: first, by changing the actual content of the zamindar's economic right, and second, by enlarging the territory covered by that right. The zamindar's financial claims were represented as claims on the land revenue amassed (as a portion of it, whether as malikana or nankar, or both), and the zamindar was changed into an intermediary (e.g. g. , taalluqdar) in charge of the revenue collection and payment to the authorities. Due to this, the zamindars were forced to give up their share or compensate them at the expense of the peasantry when the demand for revenue increased. The zamindari right became a fully salable commodity as a result of monetization, at least starting in the sixteenth century. By extension, this meant that zamindaris were bought by people whose initial source of wealth was the distribution of land revenue.
The nobles, the officials, the cavalrymen, and the revenue grantees were some examples of these people. Zamindari purchases did not yet appear to have provided urban merchants with a viable option for investing their excess capital. Rural usurers did, however, occasionally convert their capital into zamindari rights. Such a market in land rights not only increased the zamindar class's heterogeneity but also gave the group as a whole access to more capital. Additionally, the growing economic and social stratification among the peasantry may encourage the emergence of a dominant group (muqaddams, headmen, etc.). ) whose claims could eventually develop into zamindari rights. Additionally, there was a sizeable group of landless laborers who worked in exchange for the ability to meet their most basic needs. Importantly, as Habib notes, "the existence of this large class in conditions of land abundance did not derive initially or in the main from any failure of peasant cultivation but from a social structure maintained by custom and force.". Landless people belonged to the lower castes and were compelled to serve both peasants' and superior cultivators' interests. As a result, they formed a sizable rural semiproletariat that was entirely supported by social and political pressures.
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