Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c12.105

c12.105

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.