The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c10.4

c10.4

Why did Bernier and Tavernier make such observations? Today most people (except the very poor) consider it a matter of satisfaction or even of pride to belong to the middle class. Ministers, Secretaries, Members of Parliament and high officers of Government, counterparts of medieval ruling class, call themselves not masters but servants of the people. Pride in belonging to high class has been replaced by humility in belonging to the middle class, and administrators and politicians, tradespeople and working men, officers and clerks, are all counted among the middle class. But in the middle Ages ideas of equality, democracy, socialism and Marxism were not there. Consequently, it was not a fashion in medieval India to claim to belong to the middle class. This is probably what Bernier and Tavernier noted and also declared. In medieval India, rulers, nobles and high class people could never think of degrading themselves by belonging to any class other than the highest. In that age, levelling would have been revolting to the rich and probably embarrassing to the poor. In medieval society the ruling class and the subject people were two well-recognised strata.