Twilight of the Sultanate c17.s1: Rural Life
Twilight of the Sultanate c17.s1
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Rural Life
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From times immemorial, and because of its geographical peculiarities, India has been an agricultural country. Consequently, except for a small minority, its vast population has lived in the villages down to our own times. In the fourteenth-fifteenth century India, agriculture was the main occupation of the rural population. The vastness of land had made life easy and inexpensive. Rainfall in the country was abundant.¹ Artificial means of irrigation were not necessary, although they were not unknown.² But there was no safeguard against the vagaries of nature. Droughts brought about collapse in the peasant's economy as he depended almost entirely on nature and its seasonal cycle. The vagaries of nature, on the one hand, made him a worshipper of "gods" of nature like the sun, the clouds, the rain, etc. and, on the other hand, a fatalist.
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¹ B.N. (B), II, 519. Also *Travels of Sidi 'Ali Reis* (1553-6), 23.
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² B.N. (B), II, 486-7, 519.
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Besides there was no incentive to increased production. The produce sufficed for the then existing population. Tīmūr's invasion wrought a breakdown in the revenue administration. In the early part of the fifteenth century no agrarian measures seem to have been instituted, still less, enforced³. Each iqta'dār or Hindu chief collected the revenue of his little "kingdom ... very much as he chose".⁴ The law and order situation improved in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The kings of Medieval India were ever keen on bringing down the prices of the necessaries of life. It is with a sense of satisfaction, nay even of pride, that Muslim writers like Ziyāuddīn Baranī, Shams Sirāj 'Afīf and 'Abdulla write about the cheapness of prices in their times.⁵ Sikandar Lodī used to keep a constant watch on the price-level in the market.⁶ During his reign, corn duties were abolished, and merchants carried on their business in security. During the reign of Ibrāhīm Lodī, writes 'Abdulla, "Corn, cloth and other things were cheaper than they had been in any other reign, excepting the closing years of 'Alāuddīn's reign. It is said that ten maunds of corn, five *sērs* of *ghī*, and ten yards of cloth could be purchased for a single Bahlolī".⁷ Thus food, the chief necessity of life, was cheap and abundant. There being no urge for increased production, no attempt was made to improve agricultural implements and they remained the same over the centuries.
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³ Moreland, *The Agrarian System of Moslem India*, 60-67.
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⁴ Moreland, *op. cit.*, 67.
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⁵ T.F.S. (B), 318-19; Alqal., 56-57; F.F., 100; T.D., Bankipre MS., 223-24.
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⁶ T.A., I, 338; Ferishta, I, 187.
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⁷ T.D., 136 ff. According to Abul Fazl a *Bahlolī* (which previously was called *Jītal* and in his days dām) was a copper coin equivalent to 1 *tola*, 8 mashas and 7 *rattīs*. It was 1/40 of the *Rupiyā*. On the one side of it was the mint-place, on the reverse, the year and the month. Āīn., Blochmann, I, 32; Also Thomas, *Chronicles*, 359-60.
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The second necessity, shelter, was also easily available. "In Hindustan," writes Bābur, "hamlets and villages, towns indeed, are depopulated and set up in a moment. If the people of a large town, one inhabited for years even, flee from it, they do it in such a way that not a sign or trace of them remains in a day or a day and a half. On the other hand, if they fix their eyes on a place in which to settle, (they) just swarm in. They make a tank or dig a well; they need not build houses or set up walls—khas-grass abound, wood is unlimited, huts are made, and straightaway there is a village or a town!"⁸ The dense growth of jungles also provided good protection for the people.⁹ It was because of this that Muslim conquest could not penetrate the Indian village nor Muslim rule affect it. There were emperors and Sultans in the metropolis, but in the villages little republics with a self-sufficient economy continued. And if there was any fear of attack the villagers just fled and re-established themselves after the storm was over.¹⁰ It is not surprising, therefore, that in spite of the ruthless character of Muslim rule in Hindustan, Bābur notes (without making any comment) that "most of the inhabitants of Hindustan are pagans; they call a pagan a Hindu".¹¹
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⁸ B.N. (B), II, 487-88. B.N. (L & E), 315, n. 2, cites from Col. Wilks, *Historical Sketches*, I, 309 note, to show that similar conditions prevailed in south India. In the words of Col. Wilks "On the approach of a hostile army, the ... inhabitants of India bury under ground their most cumbrous effects, and each individual, man, woman, and child, ... with a load of grain apportioned to their strength, issue from their beloved homes and take the direction of a country ... exempt from the miseries of war; sometimes of a strong fortress, but more generally of the most unfrequented hills and woods ..." They called this emigration *wulsa*.
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⁹ B.N. (B), II, 487. Cf. I.B., 124.
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¹⁰ Cf. Havell, *Aryan Rule in India*, 407-09.
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¹¹ B.N. (B), II, 518.
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Such were the teeming millions of Hindustan, dwelling in villages, unaccustomed to the city's ignoble strife, and dependent upon the mercies of nature. The life of the man behind the plough was not bleak. If the absence of the conception of welfare state had made the peasant live in penury, he had his moments of joy. If occasional famines made his life miserable, the timely arrival of rain (in spite of the inconvenience it caused him in his leaky mud-walled thatched-roof house) must have filled his heart with joy. Cut off from the sophisticated life of the city, his few wants were happily met by the self-sufficient village economy. The village barber, the cobbler, the horse-shoe maker and the ever important Baniā satisfied his little requirements. The joint family system afforded him protection; the village panchāyat gave his minor grievances a just redress. If there was little to spare, there was sufficient to live by, and the numerous festive occasions which encouraged community dance, *Kathā* and dinners must have filled his soul with joy.