The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c11.s3.8

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