The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c11.s3: Collection of Arrears
The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c11.s3
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Collection of Arrears
c11.s3.1
We have earlier referred to the problem of collection of arrears. When agriculture was almost entirely dependent on rainfall and land tax was uniformly high, it was not possible for the peasants to pay their revenue regularly and keep their accounts ever straight with the government. The revenue used to fall into arrears. From the study of contemporary sources it is almost certain that there were hardly any remissions - even against conversion to Islam. Muslim rulers were very keen on proselytization. Sultan Firoz Tughlaq rescinded *Jiziyah* for those who became Muhammadan.⁴¹ Sometimes he also instructed his revenue collectors to accept conversions in lieu of *Kharaj*.⁴² Rajas and Zamindars who could not deposit land revenue or tribute in time had to convert to Islam.⁴³ Bengal and Gujarat provide specific instances which go to show that such rules prevailed throughout the Muslim-ruled regions.⁴⁴ But remissions of *Kharaj* were not allowed. On the other hand arrears went on accumulating and the kings tried to collect them with the utmost rigour. In the Sultanate period there was a full-fledged department by the name of the *Diwan-i-Mustakharaj*. The work of this department was to inquire into the arrears lying in the names of collectors (*Amils* and *Karkuns*) and force them to realize the balances in full.⁴⁵ Such was the strictness in the Sultanate period. Under the Mughals arrears were collected with equal harshness. The system then existing shows that the peasants were probably never relieved of the burden of arrears. In practice it could hardly have been possible always to collect the entire amounts and the balance was generally put forward to be collected along with the demand of the next year. A bad year, therefore, might leave an intolerable burden for the peasants in the shape of such arrears. These had a natural tendency to grow It also seems to have been a common practice to demand the arrears, owed by peasants who had fled or died, from their neighbour. And peasants who could not pay revenue or arrears frequently became predial slaves.⁴⁶
c11.s3.2
In short, between the thirteenth century when armies had to march to collect the revenue,⁴⁷ and the seventeenth century when peasants were running away from the land because of the extortions of the state, no satisfactory principle of assessment or collection except extortion could be discovered. The situation became definitely worse in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as attested to by contemporary historians Jean Law and Ghulam Hussain. It is this general and continued stringency that was the legacy of the Mughal empire and the Indian Muslim states which continued under the British Raj.
c11.s3.3
Another idea of the rulers of medieval India was to keep the prices of commodities of everyday necessity low. This idea too emanated in the time of Alauddin Khalji. It was either his own brain-child or that of his courtiers and Ulama. His passion for incessant conquests and constant invasions of Mongols had rendered maintenance of a large army unavoidable. Even if he had recruited the large number of soldiers on a moderate salary, the entire treasure of the state would have been exhausted in five or six years.⁴⁸ Alauddin, therefore, decided to cut down the salary of soldiers; but to prevent their falling victim to economic distress,⁴⁹ he also decided to reduce the prices of commodities of daily use.
c11.s3.4
To the contemporary chronicler these prices were quite low and fluctuation, not even of a *dang* (small copper coin), was ever allowed whether in seasons of drought or of plenty. Indeed the low and fixed prices in the market were considered to be one of the wonders of the age. But when a husbandman paid half of his hard earned produce in land tax, some portion of the remaining half in other sundry duties, and then was compelled to sell his grain at cheap rates to the governments,⁵⁰ it does not speak well of the general condition of the peasantry in those days.⁵¹ They could never have been happy in selling their grain cheap in the open market nor to the government itself at fixed rates without making profit. Profit is the greatest incentive to production, but it was completely checked by Alauddins market regulations and the peasants seem to have lived a life of monotony and low standard.
c11.s3.5
Without caring to understand that low prices cripple production and impoverish the producer, many sultans after Alauddin Khalji took pride in competing with him in keeping prices low. But their actions led not only to the impoverishment of the peasantry but also of shopkeepers and businessmen. Shams Siraj Afif feels jubilant at describing and listing the low prices during the reign of Firoz Tughlaq, claiming that while Alauddin had to make strenuous efforts to bring down the prices, in the time of Firoz Tughlaq they remained low without resorting to any coercion.⁵² Like Alauddin, Sikandar Lodi also used to keep a constant watch on the pricelevel in the market.⁵³ Abdullah, the author of *Tarikh-i-Daudi*, says that during the reign of Ibrahim Lodi the prices of commodities were cheaper than in the reign of any other Sultan except in Alauddins last days, and adds that whereas in Alauddins time the cheapness of prices was maintained through compulsion, force and dire punishments, in Ibrahims reign prices remained low naturally.⁵⁴
c11.s3.6
So Alauddin Khalji had pioneered the idea of maintaining prices of necessaries at cheap rates. It was followed by his successors up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, without perhaps caring for its implications on the condition of the peasantry. Historians of Sher Shah affirm that he was indebted to Alauddin in laying down his agrarian policy and Akbar adopted many measures of Sher Shah. During the Mughal period prices by and large went up,⁵⁵ although as late as in the reign of Aurangzeb, sometimes the prices reported were regarded as exceptionally cheap. But since the land revenue accounted for by far the larger portion of the peasants surplus produce, it is obvious that this increase must have wiped out any possible advantage that the peasantry might have obtained through a rise in the prices.⁵⁶
c11.s3.7
Besides these handicaps, the peasant suffered because there were no clear ideas about a regular commissariat service to maintain supply-line for the army during a campaign. There is evidence that camp-markets were sometimes established for the convenience of soldiers.⁵⁷ There are also situations on record when the soldiers were encouraged to loot the peasants to obtain grain.⁵⁸ Sher Shah took appropriate measures to see that agriculturists were not harassed by an army on march, but Babur noted that on the news of the arrival of an army the peasants used to leave their land, flee for life and establish themselves elsewhere. Encouragement to soldiers to loot was inherent in *khums* tax, through which the state obtained as its share one-fifth of the booty collected by the troops, while four-fifth was left with the soldiers.
c11.s3.8
And above all, one fact is clear in the chronicles of medieval India - any measures against the higher classes ultimately affected the peasants, because any loss to the former was surreptitiously transferred to the peasants. For, as Sir Thomas Roe (1615-19) wrote, the people of Hindustan lived as fishes do in the sea - the great ones eat up the little. For first the farmer robs the peasant, the gentlemen robs the farmer, the greater robs the lesser and the King robs all.⁵⁹ Bernier corroborates the conclusion when he writes: In eastern countries, the weak and the injured are without any refuge whatever; and the only law that decides all controversies is the cane and the caprice of a governor.⁶⁰
c11.s3.9
Of all the ideas, motivations and actions mentioned above leading to the impoverishment of the peasantry, the one of leaving nothing but bare subsistence, was the most atrocious. Writing about the times of Aurangzeb, Dr. Tara Chand rightly observes that the policy (of leaving) bare subsistence was suicidal for it killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. It left no incentive for increasing the production or improving the methods of cultivation.⁶¹ Consequently, there was a progressive deterioration in the living standards of the peasantry as decades and centuries passed. As said earlier, Alberuni, Barani, Ibn Battuta and Shams Siraj Afif talk about the prosperity of the people right up to the fourteenth century. R.H. Major in his translation of the works of Nicolo Conti, Athnasius Nikitin, Santo Stefano etc.,⁶² only refers to the poverty of the Indian peasant in the fifteenth century. But Babur in the sixteenth century witnessed extreme poverty; he repeatedly talks about *langoti* as the only apparel and *khichri* as the only food.⁶³ Witnesses for the seventeenth century are unanimous in observing extreme poverty of the peasantry.