The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c11.s2.8

c11.s2.8

To revert to the Mughal empire. An important order in the reign of Aurangzeb describes the Jagirdars as demanding in theory only half but in practice actually more than the total yield.³⁸ Describing the conditions of the latter part of the seventeenth century Mughal empire, Dr. Tara Chand writes: The desire of the State was to extract the economic rent, so that nothing but bare subsistence. remained for the peasant. Aurangzebs instructions were that there shall be left for everyone who cultivates his land as much as he requires for his own support till the next crop be reaped and that of his family and for seed. This much shall be left to him, what remains is land tax, and shall go to the public treasury.³⁹