Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c12.4

c12.4

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.