Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c12: VII. A. D. 1600-1800

Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c12

Language: English

VII. A. D. 1600-1800

The peace Akbar bestowed upon the country helped in the rise of population in the years that followed. In the seventeenth century the Mughal emperors Jahangir, Shahjahan and Aurangzeb ruled. And contemporary accounts vouch that under them the forces leading to prosperity and therefore demographic growth were in full operation. Wars were there no doubt, but the major ones were fought beyond the Indus—in Qandhar and Afghanistan regions. The population of the Indian subcontinent as such was not affected by wars, except in the Deccan and that too in the last two decades of the century.

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However, two sets of facts, almost contrary to each other, are available for this period. One is the harrowing tales of recurring famines; the other is the testimony of foreign visitors about India's large population. We shall take up the discussion of famines and pestilences first and then assess the impressions of Indian and foreign writers to arrive at an estimate of the population at the close of the seventeenth century.

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In the early years of the seventeenth century northern India was visited by a pestilence which was unprecedented in its devastating effects. The bubonic plague which reged from the Punjab to the Doab between 1616 and 1624 wiped out a large section of the population. Starting from Central Asia, "it spread with extreme rapidity to Lahore, thence to Sirhind, to Delhi, Agra and finally through the whole country of the Doab."¹ In Kashmir also it was very severe. When it was at its climax, about a thousand persons died every day. The mortality was about a hundred a day in Agra when the 'plague was fallen', to use the phrase of Sir Thomas Roe who feared that the whole town would be 'cleared'. What damage this plague would have wrought on Indian population may be visualised from the figures that are available about some European cities. Naples had 300,000 inhabitants when the plague of 1656 killed 130,000 of them. The plague of 1665 killed 100,000 in London.² Such great damage could be caused in one year's time. Here the plague raged for eight years and, ordinarily, should have wiped out the whole of northern India, but two factors mitigated its severity. It used to subside during summer months and its ill-effetcs on the countryside, with habitual migrations, would not have been great.

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¹ Beni Prasad, *History of Jahangir*, Third Ed. (Allahabad, 1940), p. 251.

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² Lach Tables, Appendix B.

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Six years after the great plague came the great famine. "The Gangetic plain was not affected and Petermundy's account northwards from Gujarat shows that most of Malwa had escaped."³ But in 1630 it struck Gujarat, Sind, the Deccan, and the country extending across India to the east coast (Vijayanagar region).⁴ By November the weavers and other artisans had abandoned their houses in such large numbers that cargo for the English ships could not be procured.⁵ According to a report by the Portuguese Viceroy to his sovereign, three million inhabitants of Gujarat had died by October 1631, while a million perished in the country of Ahmadnagar.⁶ Abdul Hamid Lahori, referring to the famine which raged in Gujarat, Balaghat, Daulatabad and the Deccan, says that 'the numbers of the dying caused obstructions in the roads.'⁷ The ill-effects of this famine continued to be felt up to as late as 1639.

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³ W. H. Moreland, *From Akbar to Aurangzeb*, (London, 1923), p. 210.

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⁴ *Ibid.*, pp. 210 ff.

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⁵ W. H. Moreland, *India at the Death of Akbar*, *op. cit.* (I, n. 8), p. 188.

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⁶ Foster, *The English Factories in India (1630-33)*, p. xxi.

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⁷ Lahori, *Badsha Nama*, 2 vols. Bib. Ind. (Calcutta 1867), I, p. 362.

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Moreland estimates that between 1614 and 1659 there were thirteen famines or periods of scarcity in India of which ten occurred during the reign of Shahjahan.⁸ As recorded by Jahangir famine stalked the Punjab as far east as Delhi in 1614-15. Coromandel coast and Vijayanagar regions were visited by scarcity in 1618-19.⁹ 1633-34 saw famine in Sind and 1635 in Surat and Golkunda.¹⁰ Punjab suffered from continual famine between 1626 and 1637 and Kashmir as well as Orissa suffered from scarcity in 1640. Drought came to Bengal and Orissa in 1642-43 and to the southern section of the Coromandel coast in 1645-46. In 1646 there was scarcity in Agra and Ahmedabad and the next year in Rajputana, especially Marwar. In 1648 famine visited the Coromandel coast again, and in 1650 Avadh and almost the whole of India suffered from scarcity.¹¹ A prolonged period of scarcity in northern India began in 1658 and Agra, Delhi, Lahore, Sind and Rajputana saw famine and plague in 1659-60 "which swept away most part of the people."¹² Col. James Tod speaks of its effects on Marwar, but his description may be taken to hold good for all the affected regions. "Fruits, flowers, every vegetable thing, even trees were stripped of their bark, to appease the cravings of hunger; nay men ate men. Cities were depopulated. The seed of families was lost..."¹³ In 1661 many parts of India suffered again.¹⁴

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⁸ Moreland, *op. cit.* (n. 3), p. 205.

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⁹ Radhakamal Mukerjee, *Economic History of India (1600-1800)*, Kitab Mahal (Allahabad, 1967), p. 19.

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¹⁰ *Ibid.*, p. 19.

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¹¹ *Ibid.*, p. 20.

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¹² Foster, *English Factories in India (1655-60)*, p. 210.

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¹³ Tod, *Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan* (London, 1920), II, p. 455, cited in Moreland, *op. cit.* (n. 3), p 208.

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¹⁴ Mukerjee, *op. cit.* (n. 9), p 20

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There was a famine in Dacca in Bengal in 1662-63; in 1670 there was scarcity in Bihar in which according to Marshall, 90,000 people perished in Patna alone.¹⁵ 1683 witnessed visitation of famine in the Deccan (Konkan). A virulent pestilence accompanied it and in one week a third of the Mughal army, campaigning against the Marathas, died.¹⁶ Three years later, in 1686, a severe famine reduced the garrison of Sikandar Shah of Bijapur to mere 2,000 men and made him surrender to Aurangzeb. Two years later a bubonic plague swept away half the population of Bijapur¹⁷

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¹⁵ *John Marshall in India*, ed Shafaat Ahmed Khan (London, 1927), pp. 125-27.

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¹⁶ *Cam Hist. India*, IV, *op cit.* (VI, n. 97), p. 283.

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¹⁷ *Ibid.*, pp. 285-86.

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It is not possible to estimate precisely the degree to which these calamities affected the population of India. However, it would be fair to assume that the loss caused by the great plague and the great famine in the early part of the seventeenth centuries was gradually made up. According to David Hume, societies invariably recover from the ravages of even the severest epidemics within a generation or two; and this optimistic notion has been accepted as true by many later writers on population.¹⁸ Medieval Indian famines were frightful and of common occurrence, prompting Davis to declare that "irregularity of monsoon...has made India a land of famine".¹⁹ But about them there were two redeeming features. They occurred only occasionally and were confined to certain specific regions. As Moreland has pointed out, "famine itself was an exceptional rather than a normal characteristic of the country and the period."²⁰ Contradictory statements as they may appear, from the point of view of population structure, the statements of Davis and Moreland are not irreconcielalble. Deaths there were in large numbers no doubt, but migrations to neighbouring provinces or enslavement of men, women and childern in periods of scarcity and drought did not always cause any major demographic setback.²¹ Famines were common, but population losses caused by them were made up late or soon.

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¹⁸ *Cam. Eco. Hist. Europe*, IV, *op. cit.* (II, n. 7) p. 20.

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¹⁹ Davis, *op. cit.* (I, n. 9), p. 11.

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²⁰ Moreland, *India at the Death of Akbar, op. cit.* (I, n. 8), p. 266.

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²¹ Early in the sixteenth century Barbosa wrote of the Coromandel coast that if the rains failed it caused heavy mortality and children were sold for less than a rupee. "Caesar Frederic describes the sale of children in Gujarat about 1560, Linschoten when living in Goa saw children brought to be sold, and adults seeking to be enslaved. *Ibid.*, p. 266. Also cf. Payne, *Akbar and the Jesuits, op. cit.* (VI, n. 107), pp. 77-78 for Kashmir. "From the annual report of the Jesuit missions for 1597 we learn that the pestilence was raging in Lahore in that year, and that the Fathers baptized many children abandoned by their parents". *Cam. History of India*, IV, *op. cit.* (VI, n. 97), p. 142.

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An imortant question which needs investigation is how much time it took for the population to recoup from its losses after a spell of famine or pestilence.

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The famine of 1630-33 might have wiped off large numbers in Gujarat, but "the country had recovered from famine, goods were to be had in abundance and...prospects of commerce were very encouraging...Gujarat was again prosperous by 1639..."²² But this recovery seems to have been exceptionally quick. The Bengal famine of 1769-1771 was devastating in its effects. Prior to its outbreak the population of Bengal was 13.06 millions, after the famine it had been reduced to 8.71 millions, and during these two to three years one-third of Bengal population had died. And it took sixty to seventy years for Bengal to regain its population.²³ Therefore, as pointed out by David Hume, demographic recovery in medieval times generally took one to two generations, or thirty to sixty years.

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²² Moreland, *Akbar to Aurangzeb*, *op. cit.* (n. 3), pp. 217-18.

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²³ J.M. Datta, "A Reexamination of Moreland's Estimate of population of India at the Death of Akbar" *op. cit.* (I, n. 10), pp. 179, 182.

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The damages of the early seventeenth century, therefore, would have been made up within the span of the seventeenth century itself. Besides, this century was a period of comparative peace, and peace was conducive not only to demographic recovery but also to the growth of population. The population recovered slowly and then grew steadily under Jahangir, Shahjahan and Aurangzeb (1605-1707), especially in northern India, and northern India accounted for nearly three-fourths of India's total population. During this period certain phenomena, which may have resulted in increase of population, are clearly discernible.

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In the seventeenth century the territories of the Mughal empire reached the peak of expansion. Mughal dominions had gone on expanding right from the days of Akbar. Under Aurangzeb the Mughal empire extended from Ghazni to Chittagong and Kashmir to Carnatic. According to Bakhtawar Khan, the author of *Mirat-ul-Alam*, even Laddakh and Malabar formed parts of Aurangzeb's empire To it Arakan was added in 1670 by Shaista Khan, the governor of Bengal. Expansion of Mughal territories added the population of the acquired regions. This obviously meant increase in the total population of India.

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Then, throughout the seventeenth century, new cities and towns came into existence; the old ones became richer in numbers. It is not that small villages did not use to change into *qasbas* or small towns into cities in earlier centuries. In fact Muslim rulers, nobles, armymen and traders were all city dwellers, and it can rightly be said that Islam has promoted urban life and Muslim civilisation has everywhere been essentially urban in character. Still in the seventeenth century urbanization went on apace at an accelerated rate. Such a situation, besides other factors, may have been caused by an upward demographic trend. Spreading of the domestic system of manufacture, development of trade and commerce, and employment in royal and private workshop (Karkhanas), provided alternative employment to people who were tempted or forced to leave villages. Cities and towns encouraged absorption of a fair number of rural folk and provided new avenues of various kinds of employment.

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Another factor is the availability of very cheap labour in the seventeenth century. In the late twenties of sixteenth century, Babur had written, "another good thing in Hindustan is that its has unnumbered workmen of every kind."²⁴ Wages were not high even in Akbar's reign as is clear from the list of wages for labourers and artisans given by Abul Fazl.²⁵ But in the seventeenth century any number of labourers could be employed in cities for the paltry amount of two or three rupees a month.²⁶ European travellers like Pietro Della Valle and Francisco Pelsaert also carried the same impression about the abundant availability of cheap labour.²⁷ In all probability, besides the highhandedness of revenue officials it was also due to demographic pressure on agricultural land that rural folk migrated to towns and cities. But there, due to the influx, they were sometime left with no option but to serve as cheap domestics or labourers, or even join the ranks of the sturdy beggars. All this is vouched for by foreign travellers.

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²⁴ *Babur Nama, or Memoirs of Babur*, English trs. by A. S. Beveridge, 2 vols. (London, 1922), II, p. 520.

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²⁵ *Ain-i-Akbari*, vol. I, *op. cit.* (VI, n. 104), 159, 235.

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²⁶ Moreland, *op. cit.* (I, n. 8), pp, 184-193, esp. pp. 187, 192.

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²⁷ Della Valle, *op. cit.* (VI, n. 29), I, p. 42 Francisco Pelsaert, *Jahangir's India*, trs. by W.H. Moreland and P. Geyl (Cambridge, 1925), p. 7.

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In the seventeenth century a larger number of European travellers than in the previous one came to India ; and their impressions of Indian towns and cities point to an upward trend of the population.²⁸ On the west coast the great city of Cambay was on the decline because of the difficulties of berthing the ships,²⁹ but many other port towns were rising to importance. Thatta³⁰ and Multan³¹ were also on the decline. But otherwise a number of new towns sprang up and small villages and towns developed into cities. Ahmedabad was founded in 1411, but by the time De Laet wrote

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²⁸ To have a correct perspective of their impressions, it is necessary to know the years during which they were in India. Therefore, some important names, with the years of their stay here are given below.

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²⁹ Ralph Fitch, *England's Pioneer in India*, ed. J. R. Ryley (London, 1899), p 12 found it a great and populous city between 1583 and 1594. So also is mentioned about it in *Ain*, *op cit.* (VI, n. 104), II, p. 248. But Jahangir, Tavernier and Thevenot found it declining. *Beni Prasad, Jahangir, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 246.* Jean Baptiste Tavernier, *Travels in India*, trs. V. Ball, revised by W. Crook, 2 vols., (London, 1925), I, p 68. *Indian travels of Thevenot and Careri*, ed. Surendra Nath Sen (New Delhi, 1949), p. 18.

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³⁰ Tavernier, *op. cit.* (n 29), I, p. 12.

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³¹ Thevenot, *op. cit.* (n 29), p 77.

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John Mildenhall, 1603-05.
William Hawkins, 1607-13
William Finch, 1608-11.
Pyrard De Laval, 1608 09
John Jourdain. 1608-17.
Joseph Salbanke, 1609-10.
Henry Middleton, 1610-11.
Thomas Coryat, 1612-17.
Nicholas Withington, 1612-17
Sir Thomas Roe, 1615-19.
Edward Terry, 1616-19.
Francisco Pelsaert, 1620-27.
John De Laet, wrote 1631.
Peter Mundy, 1628-34.
Fray Sebastian Manrique, 1628-43.
John Van Twist, c 1630
John Albert de Mandelslo, 1638-39.
Jean Baptiste Tavernier, 1641-64.
M. Francois Bernier, 1656-68.
Niccolao Manucci, 1656-1708.
Jean de Thevenot, 1667
Thomas Bowery, 1669-79
John Marshall, 1668-72
Abbe Carre, 1672-74
John Fryer, 1672-81
Alexander Hamilton, 1688-1723.
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, 1695.

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(1631), it had become almost as populous as London.³² It may be noted that in 1636 London had 270,000 inhabitants.³³ Moreover, Ahmedabad had very large suburbs.³⁴ Surat had rapidly developed. According to Thevenot, it was so crowded and the pressure of people on residential accommodation was so great that “lodgings can hardly be had.”³⁵ But Della Valle's remark is still more significant. He says : “*’Tis very populous; as all other cities and places are in India ; which everywhere abounds with people* (italics mine).”³⁶

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³² John De Laet, *The Empire of the Great Mogol*, English trs. by Hoyland and Banerjee (Bombay, 1928), p. 19. Also *Letters from the Servants*, I, p. 305.

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³³ Lach Tables, Appendix B.

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³⁴ Mandelslo, *Mandelslo's Travels in Western India* by M. S. Commissariat (London, 1931), p. 26.

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³⁵ Thevenot, *op. cit.* (n. 29), p. 21.

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³⁶ Della Valle, *op. cit.* (VI, n. 29), p. 30.

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In northern India, Lahore was very populous. Monserrate and Finch had written about its large population late in the sixteenth century. According to Sujan Rai in the time Shahjahan its population increased daily.³⁷ To Bernier Delhi (in 1663) was as great as Paris in beauty, extent and inhabitants.³⁸ Sujan Rai enumerates people of almost all nationalities as living in Delhi.³⁹ Fatehpur Sikri had been gradually abandoned after 1585 and most of its inhabitants seem to have shifted to Agra, so that Coryat (1612-17) found it larger than Rome. Manrique, who visited Agra in 1640, estimated its population at 660,000 inhabitants, “besides the large number of strangers who continually fill ninety caravansarais and other private houses.”⁴⁰ Thus the population of Agra rose from over two lacs at the close of the sixteenth century to about seven lacs by the middle of the seventeenth century. And this was the position after the plague of 1616-24 had earlier devastated the city. In the seventeenth century the population of Sikri-Agra-Sikandara had probably touched the million mark.⁴¹

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³⁷ Sujan Rai, *Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh*, ed. Zafar Hasan (Delhi, 1918), p. 81. Also Thevenot, *op. cit.* (n. 29) p 85, and Manucci, *op. cit.* (II, n. 41), II, p. 186.

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³⁸ Bernier, *op. cit.* (VI, n. 67), p. 282.

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³⁹ *Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh*, *op. cit.* (n. 37), p. 5.

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⁴⁰ Manrique, *op. cit.* (VI, n. 73), II, p. 151.

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⁴¹ In comparison the population of London in 1593-95 was 152,479 and in 1666, 460,000 (*Ency. Brit.* XI Ed., XVI, p. 965). The population of Paris in 1590 has been estimated at 200,000 and under Louis XIV (d. 1715) at 492,600, *Modern Cyclopaedia* (London, 1901), VI, p. 305. Shahjahan probably transferred the capital to Delhi from Agra (1649) because of too much congestion in the latter. *Arch. Sur. Rep.* 1911-12, p. 2, and contemporary authorities cited therein.

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This is almost corroborated by a royal pen. Emperor Jahangir writes: "Agra is one of the grand old cities of Hindustan...On its west side, which has the greater population, its circumference is seven kos and its breadth is one kos. The circumference of the inhabited part on the other side of the water, the side towards the east, is 2½ kos, its length being one kos and its breadth half a kos. But in the number of its buildings it is equal to several cities of Iraq, Khurasan, and Mawaraa-n-nahr (Transoxiana) put together. Many persons have erected buildings of three or four storeys in it. The mass of the people is so great, that moving about in lanes and bazars is difficult...Before the rule of the Lodi Afghans, Agra was a great and populous place...From that date (when Sikandar Lodi shifted the capital from Delhi to Agra [1505]), the population and prosperity of Agra increased."⁴²

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⁴² *Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri*, trs. by Alexander Rogers and ed. by Henry Beveridge, (photo reprint, Delhi, 1968), pp. 3-4. A less authentic version, in the *Tarikh-i-Salim Shahi*, is more elaborate: "The city of Agrah is one of the greatest in Hindustan...Such is the immensity of the population, that from the hour of evening prayer to the close of the first quarter of the night, the throng is so densely wedged, that it is not without the utmost difficulty the people can pass and repass along the streets. As an attempt to ascertain in some degree the extent of this multitudinous population, I directed Melek Ally, the Kotwaal...one day to make a tour through the city, and count the individuals assembled in the different maarckahs or theatres for athletae, or pugilists: and his report was that in some of these places did he find assembled not less than two and three thousand persons, although it was neither the first of the year, nor any of those days of public rejoicing or on which it was usual for the people to appear abroad for amusement...Add to this, that every day through the year there are conveyed to the place by boats along the Jumnah not less than ten thousand loads of fuel (and excepting the rainy season) not less than six thousand horses for sale daily enter the city from Kabul and countries in that direction (and all are sold out). I do not know in the whole world, in magnitude and the multitude of its inhabitants, there is any city to be compared with the metropolis of Agrah." *Tarikh-i-Salim Shahi*, trs. Major David Price (Calcutta, 1906), pp. 16-17.

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The countryside east of Delhi-Agra region was studded with towns. Both Ralph Fitch and Manrique say that the route from Banaras to Patna was full of large towns.⁴³ Patna itself was 'a very large city with bazars ..inhabited by many merchants.'⁴⁴ According to Pelsaert the eastern part of the country extending up to Jagannath Puri (Cuttack) covering a distance of six hundred kos, contained many large cities.⁴⁵ Bengal too was full of large towns⁴⁶. Dacca, 'the largest town in Bengal', was known for its 'multitudes of inhabitants'.⁴⁷ So was Hoogly.⁴⁸ In the Deccan Thevenot found "a dense population from Aurangabad to Golcunda eastward to Masulipattam".⁴⁹

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⁴³ Fitch in Purchas, *op. cit.* (VI, n. 100), X, pp. 165-205, 180. Also Manrique, *op. cit.* (VI, n. 73), II, p. 146.

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⁴⁴ Manucci, *op. cit.* (II, n. 41), II, p. 83.

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⁴⁵ Pelsaert, *op. cit.* (n. 27), p. 7.

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⁴⁶ Thevenot, *op. cit.* (n. 29), p. 96.

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⁴⁷ Manucci, *op. cit.* (II, n. 41), II, p. 86. Bowrey, *A Geographical Account of the Countries around the Bay of Bengal (1669-79)*, ed. Sir Richard C. Temple, Hakluyt Society (Cambridge, 1905), p. 150.

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⁴⁸ Bowrey, *op. cit.*, p. 167. Also *John Marshall, op. cit.* (n. 15), p. 65.

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⁴⁹ Moreland, *op. cit.* (I, n. 8), p. 13.

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European visitors were greatly impressed by the large numbers in the cities, but they say little about the rural population. "There is almost an universal tendency on the part of Europeans, who are highly urbanized, to under-estimate the population of the peasant regions."⁵⁰ In fact they do not underestimate, they are just silent about rural areas. We are, however, aware of the fact that it was in the peasant regions that the "teeming millions" of India lived, and Indian writers do not fail to mention this fact. Ferishtah, concluding his voluminous work with some general observations on India, rightly observes, "And the country of Hind for its excessive population and large stock of animals cannot be compared with any other country."⁵¹ Bakhtawar Khan, writing during the reign of Aurangzeb, affirms that the country of Hindustan teems with population.⁵²

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⁵⁰ K. Davis, *op. cit.* (I, n. 9), p. 26.

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⁵¹ Ferishtah, *op. cit.* (II, n. 6), II, p. 419.

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⁵² *Mirat-i-Alam*, E and D, VII, pp. 163-64.

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The picture that emerges for the period 1600-1700 is like this. Europe including Russia had a population of 100 million in 1650.⁵³ From all accounts, estimates and impressions, it is obvious that India's density was evidently greater. "Such a conclusion would fit what has been said about the long history of thick settlements in India." In times of peace its population grew. High birth rate usually scored over high death rate. Warfare, banditry, famine and disease, confined to short spans of time and spaces of territory, did not usually affect the overall demographic structure; only when these grew in dimension, population was adversely affected.⁵⁵ The demographic recovery during the latter half of the sixteenth century was nearly 20 million. If the same rate of recovery was maintained in the seventeenth century also, the population about the year 1700 would probably have been 175 million or even a little more.

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⁵³ See XVI.

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⁵⁵ Cf. the case of Patna. A little before the middle of the seventeenth century (1628-43), Manrique, *op. cit.* (VI, n. 73), II, p. 140 estimated its population at 200,000. But in the Patna famine of 1671, as estimated by Marshall (1668-72) it had lost half its inhabitants. Marshall, *op. cit.* (n. 15), pp. 152-53.

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If the seventeenth century in India was a century of demographic growth, the eighteenth was of decline. All evidence invariably leads to this conclusion. During the last twenty years of the seventeenth century, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was strenuously fighting against the Marathas and the independent Muslim kingdoms of the Deccan. In the early years of the war, the loss of life does not appear to have been great.⁵⁶ But a quarter of a century's warfare in the Deccan did show is effects, and by the beginning of the eighteenth century pestilence and death began to stalk the Deccan countryside. From 1702 to 1704 there was no rain, "but instead plague prevailed. In these two years there expired over two million souls." In 1706 Aurangzeb moved northwards, "leaving behind (in the words of the eye-witness Manucci)...fields... devoid of trees and bare of crops, their place being taken by the bones of beasts. Instead of verdure all is blank and barren. The country is so entirely desolated and depopulated that neither fire nor light can be found in the course of a three or four days' journey..."

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⁵⁶ Manucci, *op. cit.* (II, n. 1,) II, p. 445; IV, pp. 243-44.

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This picture may be a little overdrawn. But Khafi Khan, 'one of the best and most impartial historians' of Mughal India, says almost the same thing about the Deccan during Aurangzeb's last days; and he makes repeated references to killings, destruction of cultivation, the reduction of carriage-animals to 'skin and bone', the ravaging and burning of the inhabited places.⁵⁹ Such details certainly show a turn in the demographic trend.

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⁵⁴ K. Davis *op. cit.* (I, n. 9), p. 25.

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⁵⁷ *Ibid.*, IV, p. 97.

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⁵⁸ *Ibid.*, IV, p. 252.

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⁵⁹ Khafi Khan, *Muntakhab-ul-Lubab, op. cit.* (I, n. 3), II, pp. 470-540.

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After the death of Aurangzeb (1707), centrifugal forces were let loose in northern India. The Mughal princes fought wars of succession, and in one battle (between Shah Alam and Azam Tara), "one hundred and eighty thousand horsemen lay dead, without speaking of the "infantry or the elephants."⁶⁰ Many provincial governors declared independence, and also fought with neighbouring states for self-aggrandisement. The eighteenth century in its demographic decline is comparable in many ways to the fifteenth. In the Punjab the Sikhs rose under their leader Banda, whose depredations and killings in the Punjab and U.P. were commensurate only with the ruthless way in which he and his followers were crushed and killed. The Jats were also destroying and killing and in turn were being killed. The Marathas were speading in all parts of the country with the help of the sword, and Gujarat, Malwa, Rajasthan, Bengal and the Delhi region—indeed the whole of northern India—witnessed massacres and killings on a large scale. From 1720 onwards Gujarat enjoyed no respite from "perpetual skirmishing, murder and robbery in open day: caravans pillaged, and villages burning or desolated."⁶¹ Rajputana's population suffered similarly if not more. Maratha invasions and internal feuds disseminated population. The situation in Mewar about the end of the eighteenth century is graphically described by Tod. He writes, "the agriculturist never certain of the fruits of his labour, abandoned his fields, and at length his country; mechanical industry found no recompense, and commerce was at the mercy of unlicensed spoliation. In a very few years Mewar lost half her population, her land lay waste..."⁶² The conditions similar to Mewar prevailed almost throughout Rajasthan.⁶³ In Bengal the continual attacks of the Marathas adversely affected its population. U.P. and Delhi regions suffered equally badly. The Mughal power had reached its nadir of decline. Maratha wars and ambition against Delhi were keen. "It is significant that the chief gateway of every Maratha fortress is Delhi Gate." The French and the English also joined in this sanguine business. Whether they joined hands with the Indian princes in their wars and increased the strength of the armies on the two sides, or they themselves fought against Indian rulers, the result was the same : greater loss to Indian numbers.

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⁶⁰ Manucci, *op. cit.* (II, n. 41), IV, p. 403.

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⁶¹ Grant Duff, J.C., *History of the Mahrattas* (Bombay, 1878), I, p. 336. For Marathas in Gujarat also see W. Irvine, *Later Mughals*, ed. and continued by Jadunath Sarkar (Calcutta, 1921-22), II, chapter VIII.

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⁶² Tod, *Annals and Antiquities, op. cit.* (n. 13), I, pp. 514-15.

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⁶³ See A C. Banerjee, *Lectures on Rajput History*, (Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, Calcutta, 1962), Lecture VI entitled "Rajasthan in Decline", pp. 136-76.

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Over and above this, foreign invasions also followed in quick succession. Nadir Shah invaded the country in 1739. Besides the loss of life in the Punjab and decimation of the Mughal army, in Delhi itself he massacred not less than 30,000 people.⁶⁶ Ahmad Shah Abdali followed in the footsteps of Nadir Shah and led a number of campaigns in each of which there was great loss of life. In his first invasion (1748), all men bearing arms in Sarhind were put to the sword. His killings in the Punjab, massacres at Mathura (1757), and mass deportations were followed by famine and pestilence.⁶⁷ The battle of Panipat (1761) was preceded by famine and followed by pestilence. In the battle itself 100,000 men were killed and, according to *Siyar-ul-Mutakhirin*, no less than 20,000 persons were carried away as captives to Afghanistan.⁶⁸

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⁶⁶ *Cam. Hist. India*, IV, op. cit. (VI, n. 97), p. 613 n. 2 says that some estimate the number of the killed above 100,000.

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⁶⁷ For Ahmad Shah Abdali's bloody campaigns against the Jats see Irvine in *Indian Antiquary*, 1907, Vol. 36. pp. 46 ff.

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⁶⁸ *Camb. Hist. India*, IV, pp. 424-25, also 474 n. 3.

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Internal wars, external invasions, famines and pestilences, had a devastating effect on both urban and rural population. W. Francklin, who travelled through the major parts of northern India between 1793 and 1796,⁶⁹ writes an eye-witness account of Delhi.

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⁶⁴ *Cambridge History of India*, IV, op. cit. (VI, n. 97), p. 397.

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⁶⁵ E.g. in the war against Chanda Saheb, who was helped by Dupleix, Nasir Jung fought with 70,000 cavalry and 100,000 infantry (1750). *Cam Hist. of India*, V, op. cit. (II, n. 35), p. 176.

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⁶⁹ W. Francklin, *The History of the Reign of the Shah-Aulum*, (Allahabad, 1915: First published 1798), Preface, p. 1.

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He says that ever since the massacre of Nadir Shah, Delhi was "but very thinly populated." About the close of the eighteenth century, when he wrote, "the Bazars of Delhi are at present but indifferently furnished, and the population of late years miserably reduced." The population of the cities of the Punjab was disseminated by the invasions of Abdali. Rajasthan and Gujarat cities suffered hard from repeated Maratha incursions, while the other regions fared hardly better. No wonder that in the eighteenth century no foreign or Indian writer compares the population of Indian cities with those of London, Paris, Rome, Constantinople or Cairo.

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Famines took their own toll of victims. When it is remembered that Mewar had lost one-half its inhabitants due to wars and Bengal one-third of its population in famine by the third quarter of the eighteenth century, the loss to Indian population during the eighteenth century as a whole can be clearly visualised. Table 4 gives an idea of the calamities and their effects on population in the eighteenth century.

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Table 4

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*Major Famines in India in the Eighteenth Century*⁷¹

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⁷¹ Adapted from R.K. Mukerjee, *op. cit.* (n. 9), p. 20. The information in the brackets has been collected from other sources, quoted. But no exhaustive list of famines, floods, pestilences etc. can be prepared on the basis of the meagre information available in the chronicles for the eight centuries of the medieval period including the eighteenth century. But the effect on population by calamities like floods, famines, scarcity of rain, destruction of crops by insects and pests in the twentieth century could give some idea for the medieval times too. M. Azizul Huque has collected data about these from 1915 to 1938, and during these 24 years not a year passed (except three—1917, 24, and 25) when Bengal was not visited by one calamity or another. M. Azizul Huque, *The Man Behind the Plough* (The Book Company, Calcutta, 1939), pp. 20-26.

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⁷⁰ *Ibid.*, pp. 199-200.

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| Years | Regions Affected |
| 1717-18 | Coast and Bay districts, Ahmedabad and Surat |
| 1722 | Bombay |
| 1728 | Madras and Bombay |
| 1731-34 | Madras |
| 1737 | Madras |
| 1747 | Bombay, Surat, Ahmedabad, Aurangabad (and Deccan, C.H.I., IV, p. 284) |
| 1751 | Bengal |
| [1761] | [Famine and pestilence in the Maratha camp at Panipat 'during which most of the cattle of the army died and it was after two days of starvation that the Marathas went to a battle. C.H.I., IV, p. 421] |
| 1769-70 | Bengal and Bihar. [In Bengal about 35% of the cultivators perished. W. Hunter, *The Annals of Rural Bengal* (London, 1897), p. 39.] |
| 1782 | Bombay, Mysore and Madras |
| 1783-84 | Northern India from Multan to Murshidabad |
| 1788 | Bengal |
| 1790-92 | Hyderabad, Deccan, Gujarat and Northern Madras |
| 1799-1801 | Northern India to Hyderabad |

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Decline in agricultural and industrial production too helped to check population growth. There are recurring references, both in Indian chronicles and accounts of foreign travellers, of lands turning barren because of the flight of cultivators escaping from the tyranny of uncharitable revenue regulations and unscrupulous *mansabdars* and *jagirdars* in the seventeenth century. Any improvement in agriculture in the eighteenth century brought about by the cultivation of new crops like potato, maize and tobacco, and any reclamation of fallow land, were scored off by the tyranny of the great or petty landed proprietors or local officials on account of the deteriorating political condition. Industry and commerce also suffered and urban population dwindled. In these circumstances there could have been no question of any industrial or agricultural revolution in the country—revolutions which were mainly responsible for the rapid rise of population in Europe. In short, during the eighteenth century, the population showed only a downward trend, and in 1800 may have been about 170 million.

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At the end it would be proper to give in a brief form the demographic picture of India from the year 1000 to 1800. The population of India, estimated at 200 million at the inception of the eleventh century, declined rapidly because of killings, deportations and dissemination caused by Mahmud of Ghazni's invasions and the activites of his successars. In 1100 it was probably 180 million; it may have been 190 million in 1200. Between 1200 and 1350 conquests of the Delhi Sultans in all parts of the country and the recurring Mongol invasions affected the population adversely, and it may have come down to about 160 million around 1350. Between 1350 and 1400, during Firoz Tughlaq's peaceful reign, some rise was registered, and the numbers probably rose to 170 million by 1400. The numbers again fell appreciably because of wars and famines in almost all parts of India throughout the fifteenth century. In 1500 it was probably 125 million, and at the time of the establishment of the Mughal empire (1525-26) somewhere near 120 million. In the sixteenth century, and especially during Akbar's reign, the population rose again, and about the time of his death it lay probably somewhere around 140 million. During the seventeenth century this upward trend seems to have continued, and the population in 1700 was probably 175 million or even more. But by the year 1800 it seems to have been reduced to 170 million.

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Estimates are by nature only tentative, and no finality is claimed about these figures. They are indeed at variance with assessment of many other scholars in the field, as their own are at variance with one another's as Table 5 will show.

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Table 5

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*Showing variation in Estimates of the Population of India* *A. D. 1000—1800 (in millions)*

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| Year | W.H. Moreland | Kingsley Davis | Colin Clark | J.M. Datta | Beni Prasad | Our Estimates |
| 1000 | — | — | 70 | 200-300 | — | 200 |
| 1100 | — | — | — | — | — | 180 |
| 1200 | — | — | 75 | — | — | 190 |
| 1300 | — | — | (1340) 75 | — | — | 175 (1350) 160 |
| 1400 | — | — | — | — | — | 170 |
| 1500 | — | — | 79 | — | — | 125 |
| 1600 | 100 | 100-125 | 100 (1650) 150 | c.110 (1771) 142.5 | 130 | 140 |
| 1700⁷² | — | — | 200 (1750) 200 | (1781) 150.3 | — | 175 |
| 1800⁷³ | — | 120 | 190 | (1801) 169.0 | — | 170 |

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⁷² On the basis of a study of the Akhbarats Jadunath Sarkar thinks that during the reign of emperor Muhammad Shah (1719-1748) India had 150 million inhabitants J.N. Sarkar, *Fall of the Mughal Empire*, 4 vol. Third Ed. (Calcutta, 1964), I, p. 5.

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⁷³ It may be noted that as compared with the estimate of Datta for the year 1000, based on Ferishtah's statement and adopted by us, the figure of Colin Clark is very low. Clark's low estimates seem to be very low up to 1500, and high for the eighteenth century. Moreland's 100 million for 1600 is adopted by Clark. Datta too accepted it in 1918, but in 1960 he has revised his assessment to 110 million, while Davis would think even of going up to 125. Beni Prasad's 130 million for 1600 is close to our estimate of 140. As compared with the estimate arrived at by Clark and us, the assessment of Davis for the period 1600-1800 is on the low side. For 1800 Clark and Datta are almost in agreement with the assessment arrived at by us. Only Davis's reckoning seems to low.

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The diagram given below sets out the population picture of India from A.D. 1000 to 1800 on the basis of the estimates arrived at by us.

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*Diagram showing the rise and fall in the estimated Population of India—A.D. 1000 to 1800*

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The demographic pattern of medieval India was different from the modern. Modern trends indicate a sustained growth of population. In the decade between 1951 (population about 356 million) and 1961 (population about 436 million), there was a rise of about 22%.⁷⁴ Between 1901 (population 235 million) and 1951 there was a gradual rise of 15.3%, except between 1911 and 1921 when there was a fall of about 1 million from 249 to 248 million.⁷⁵ Similarly the increase of population from 1881 to 1941 showed an average rise of about 15% per decade.⁷⁶ But sustained rise was not a phenomenon in medieval times. In view of the constantly shifting scene, it is not easy to determine exactly and precisely the percentage of rise or fall per decade in medieval Indian demography. However, during the eight centuries under review the population trend appears to have been in the following order.

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⁷⁴ Sah Dev Varma, *op, cit.* (VI, n. 86), pp. 1-7.

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⁷⁵ Census Report, Vol. I, Part II A, Demographie Tables, (Manager of Publications, Delhi, 1955) p. 20.

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⁷⁶ J. M. Datta, in *Modern Review* 1948, *op. cit.*, (I, n.10), p. 34, K. Davis, *op. cit.* (I, n. 9), p. 179, Table.

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Table 6

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*Percentage of rise and fall in a century in the estimated population of India, 1000-1800*

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| Year | Estimated population (in millions) | Percentage variation from the perceding century |
| A. D. 1000 | 200 | ----- |
| 1100 | 180 | —10.00 |
| 1200 | 190 | +5.50 |
| 1300 | 175 | —7.89 |
| 1400 | 170 | —2.86 |
| 1500 | 125 | —26.47 |
| 1600 | 140 | +12.00 |
| 1700 | 175 | +25.00 |
| 1800 | 170 | —2.86 |

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The demographic scene in medieval India betrays a constantly shifting pattern. The population is not static; it registers rise and fall by turns. If there are no statistics available on this perpetually changing picture, there is circumstantial evidence to explain it. In almost every case where decline or rise become observable, specific historical circumstances can be cited which may have produced the result. It would be well to remember that when we deal with the demography of India, we deal with the population study of a continent. A period of decline in one region may be of rise in another and *vice versa*, but such minute details can neither be ascertained with any amount of accuracy nor are they quite relevent to our study. For us an overall demographic picture would suffice; and this picture shows an interesting pattern—a zigzag curve of rise and fall—saving the country from over-population or extreme depopulation. Nevertheless, in spite of all vicissitudes, medieval India remained a country of large numbers.

Cites (1)

Tārīkh-i Firishta — Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh Firishta 1606, Persian