The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c5.s2: Feudalism
The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c5.s2
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Feudalism
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Feudalism was a very prominent institution of the Middle Ages. It was prevalent both in Europe as well as in India, although there were many differences between the two systems. In Europe feudalism gathered strength on the decline of the Western Roman Empire. After Charlemagne (800-814) in particular, there was rapid decline in the monarchical power throughout Europe, and governments failed to perform their primary duty of protecting their peoples. The class of people who needed protection the most was the petty landowner. In the earliest times the lands were free whether these were held by ordinary freeman or a noble. In the absence of strong monarchy, the possessor of the free land, threatened or oppressed by powerful neighbours, sought refuge in submitting to some lord, and in the case of a lord to some more powerful lord. In the bargain he surrendered his land. For, when he begged for protection, the lord said: I can protect (only) my own land. The poor man was thus forced to surrender the ownership of his land to his powerful and rich neighbour, receiving it back in fief as a vassal. (The word feudalism itself is derived from the French *feodalite* meaning faithfulness). His children were left without any claim on that land. He was also obliged to render service to his superior lord. In return he was promised protection in his lifetime by his lord. The origins of feudalism are thus to be traced to the necessity of the people seeking protection, and exploitation by those who provided it.
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Conditions were not the same everywhere, but the system was based on contract or compact between lord and tenant, determining all rights and obligations between the two. The vassal was obliged to render military service, take his cases only to his own lord and submit to the decisions of the lords court, and pay certain aids to the lord in times of need, like free gifts or benevolences, aids at the marriage of the chiefs daughter, some tax when the chief was in trouble or as ransom to redeem his person from prison. These aids varied according to local customs and were often extorted unreasonably.
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On the other hand, for providing security to the vassal, it became common for a chief or lord to have a retinue of bodyguards composed of valiant youths who were furnished by the chief with arms and provisions and who in turn devoted themselves to his service. These companions received no pay except their arms, horses and provisions. With these companions or troops the lords also conquered lands, and gave certain portions of it to their attendants to enjoy for life. These estates were called *beneficia* or fiefs, because they were only lent to their possessors, to revert after death to their grantor, who immediately gave them to another of his servants on the same terms. As the son commonly esteemed it his duty, or was forced by necessity, to devote his arms to the lord in whose service his father had lived, he usually received his fathers fief, or rather he was invested with it anew. By the usage of centuries this custom became hereditary. A fief rendered vacant by the death of the holder was taken possession of by his son, on the sole condition of paying homage to the feudal superior.
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In the feudal system, therefore, the vassal and the lord benefited from one another, although the latter much more, at the cost of the king. Junior vassals could become powerful and rise in hierarchy to become sub-lords or even great lords. They could have their own subordinate vassals in sub-infeudation. Kingly power, as always, continued to exist, but under feudalism it was widely diffused. The privileges the lords enjoyed often comprised the right of coining money, raising armies and waging private wars, exemption from public tributes and freedom from legislative control.¹⁴ Sometimes the kings had to make virtue of necessity even to the extent of granting titles and administrative fiefs to Counts etc. to be administered by them. But the struggle between royalty and nobility (as in England under William the Norman), continued. Of course, and ultimately, it ended in the power of the lords sinking before that of the king.
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In India feudalism did not usher in that spirit of civil liberty which characterised the constitutional history of medieval England. Here the king remained supreme whether among the Turks or the Mughals, and the assignments of conquered lands were granted by him to lords, soldiers or commoners or his own relatives as salary or reward in consideration of distinguished military service in the form of *iqtas* or *jagirs*¹⁵, sometimes even on a hereditary basis, but they were not wrested from him. This system was bureaucratic. There was also a parallel feudalistic organisation but the possessor of land remained subservient to the king. It was based on personal relationship. The vassals were given *jagirs* and assignments primarily because of blood and kinship. On the other hand, the practice of permitting vanquished princes to retain their kingdoms as vassals, or making allotment of territories to brothers and relatives of the king, or giving assignments to particular families of nobles, learned men and theologians as reward or pension were feudalistic in nature. Some feudatories would raise their own army, collect taxes and customary dues, pay tributes, and rally round the standard of their overlord or king with their military contingents when called upon to do so. But the assignee had no right of coining money. (In fact, coining of money was considered as a signal of rebellion.) He maintained his own troops but he had no right of waging private war.¹⁶ He could only increase his influence by entering into matrimonial alliances with powerful neighbours or the royal family. In the Sultanate and the Mughal empire the feudal system was more bureaucratic than feudalistic, in fact it was bureaucratic throughout.¹⁷ Here the feudal nobility was a military aristocracy which incidentally owned land, rather than a landed aristocracy which occasionally had to defend Royal lands and property by military means but at other times lived quietly.
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But there were also many points of similarity between Indian and European feudalism. In India *Nazrana* was offered to the lord or king when an estate or *jagir* was bestowed upon the heir of the deceased lord (*Tika*), like the feudal relief in Europe. As in Europe, here too the practice of escheat was widely prevalent. Aids, gifts or benevolences were common to both. These consisted of offerings at the ascension of the king to the throne, his weighment ceremony, on important festivals, cash and gifts at the marriage of the chiefs daughter or son, gifts or a tax when the chief was in trouble. In India the king always stood at the top of the regime. Feudal institutions are apt to flourish in a state which lacks centralised administration. The vastness of India makes it a veritable subcontinent, and the rulers position was naturally different in each kingdom or region according to local condition found there. But there was a central authority too. The idea of a strong monarch was inseparable from Muslim psyche and Turco-Mongol political theory. In India, under Muslim rule, great importance was attached to the sacrosanct nature of the kings person. The Indian system arose from certain social and moral forces rather than from sheer political necessity as in Europe, and that is why it survived throughout the medieval period.
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Whatever its merits and demerits, Indian feudalism recognised division of society into people great and small, strong and weak, haves and have-nots. Nobles were not equal to nobles; there were great Khans and petty Amirs. Men were not equal to men; some were masters, others their slaves. Women were not equal to men; they were subservient to men and considered to be their property. Perhaps the most prominent characteristic of the Medieval Age was the belief and acceptance of the 'fact' that men are not born equal, or at least they could not be recognised as such.
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Feudalism in Europe gradually disappeared with the coming of Renaissance and Reformation, and formation of nation-states. In India phenomena such as these did not occur. There was nothing like a Renaissance in medieval India. There could be no reformation either, because innovation in religious matters is taboo in Islam. Some Muslim monarchs were disillusioned with the state of religion and the power of the Ulama (religious scholars).¹⁸ Thai is why, probably, Alauddin Khalji (C.E. 1296-1316) contemplated founding a new religion,¹⁹ Muhammad Tughlaq (1325-51) was credited with similar intentions; and Akbar (1556-1605) actually established the *Din-i-Ilahi*. Muslims feared that Alauddins new religion must be quite different from the Muhammadan faith, and that its enforcement would entail slaughter of a large number of Musalmans.²⁰ He was dissuaded by his loyal counsellors from pursuing his project. All the same it is significant that Alauddin Khalji and Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar did think of some sort of Reformation in Islam, but the former was scared into abandoning the idea and the latter contented himself by just organising a sort of brotherhood of like-minded thinkers.²¹ Such endeavours, strictly prohibited in Islam, could hardly affect India's Muslim feudalistic society.
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Europe in the middle ages too lived under a Roman Catholic imperium. Its unity was theological, while its divisions were feudal. After Renaissance the unity of the theological imperium was shattered and so were the old divisions. European societies, after centuries of theological and territorial wars, learnt to aggregate around a new category of the nation-state. In India Muslim theological imperium never came to an end, nor persistent resistance to it. Hence, the idea of a secular nation-state never found a ground here.
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Among other chief agencies that overthrew the feudal system were the rise of cities, scouring of the oceans for Commercial Revolution and the spread of knowledge, scientific knowledge in particular. In India there was urbanisation under Muslim rule, but it has been grossly exaggerated.²² India had large urban centres before the arrival of Muslims. Arab geographers become rapturous when describing the greatness of Indias cities-both in extent and in demography-on the eve of Muslim conquest and immigration.²³ During his sojourn in India Ibn Battuta visited seventy-five cities, towns and ports.²⁴ Under Muslim rule many old cities were given Muslim names. Thus Akbarabad (Agra), Islamabad (Mathura), Shahjahanabad (Delhi) and Hyderabad (Golkunda) were not entirely new built cities, but old populated places that were given new Islamic names, mostly after the ruling kings. Giving new names to old cities was not an extension of urbanisation as such, although it must be conceded that Muslims loved city life and encouraged qasba like settlements. Urbanisation in Europe gave impetus to industry and personal property and founded a new set of power cluster-the middle class. The rise of this new class, with its wealth and industrial importance, contributed more than anything else to social and political development in Europe before which the feudal relations of society almost gradually crumbled. The rise and spread of this class in India and its impact on society remained minimal and rather imperceptible. Edward Terry noted that it was not safe for merchants and tradesmen in towns and cities, so to appear, lest they should be used as filled sponges.²⁵ Moreland on the testimony of Bernier and others, arrives at the conclusion that in India the number of middle class people was small and they found it safe to wear the garb of indigence.²⁶ Europe broke the shackles of feudalism by embarking upon Commercial Revolution and took to the seas for the same. The Mughals in India fared miserably on water. Even the great emperor Akbar had to purchase permission of the Portuguese for his relatives to visit places of Islamic pilgrimage. Throughout medieval India there was little change in the field of scientific learning and thought.