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History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c85: Chapter LXII.

History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c85

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English

Contents

Chapter LXII.

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THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.

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§ 1. The rapid decline of the Mughal empire.

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To all outer observers the Mughal empire seemed to have attained to its highest splendour and power when Aurangzib ascended the throne of Delhi. His tried ability and known character promised to the country undiminished prosperity if only he was spared to rule long enough over it; and he ruled over it for 50 years. The native genius of Akbar, the genial moderation of Jahangir, the sagacity, energy and refined taste of Shah Jahan, had left the Mughal empire without a rival throughout Northern India and much of the Deccan too, and given peace, prosperity and culture to millions. "The Wealth of India" had become proverbial in far off countries, and the magnificence of the Court of the Great Mughal had "dazzled even eyes which were accustomed to the pomp of Versailles." And when a trained administrator and experienced general, who was also a puritan in the simplicity and purity of his private life, succeeded to the guidance of this rich heritage in the fulness of his physical and mental powers, all people hoped that he would carry the empire to unimaginable heights of glory. And yet the result of Aurangzib's long and strenuous reign was utter dissolution and misery. The causes of this strange phenomenon it is the duty of the historian to investigate.

§ 2. Internal peace the root cause of India's prosperity.

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In a warm moist and fertile country like India, where the lavish bounty of Nature speedily repairs the ravages of hostile man and beast, of inclement Sun and rain—order is the root of national life, in an even greater degree than in other lands. Given peace without and the spirit of progress within, the Indian people can advance in wealth, strength and civilization with a rapidity rivalled only by the marvellous growth of their vegetation after the first monsoon showers.

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A century of strong and wise government under Akbar and his son and grandson had given to the richer and more populous half of India such peace and impulse to improvement. A hundred victories since the second Panipat had taught the Indian world to believe that Mughal arms were invincible and Mughal territory inviolable. Shivaji broke this spell. And his destructive work was carried to undreamt-of lengths by his successors in the second half of Aurangzib's reign. Mughal peace—the sole justification of the Mughal empire—no longer existed in India at Aurangzib's death.

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In a predominantly agricultural country like India, the tillers of the soil are the only source of national wealth. They produce the food and raw materials of clothing for the entire population. Directly or indirectly, the land alone adds to the "annual national stock." Even the craftsmen depend on the peasants and on the men enriched with the land revenue, for the sale of their goods, and if the latter have not enough foodstuff to spare, they cannot buy any handicraft. Hence, the ruin of the peasants means in India the ruin of the non-agricultural classes too. *Pauvre paysans pauvre royaume*, is even truer of India than of France. Public peace and security of property are necessary not only for the peasant and the artisan, but also for the trader, who has to carry his goods over wide distances and give long credits before he can find a profitable market. Political unrest and insecure roads prevent the quick and cheap transport of grain from a district of bumper crops to one where the harvest has failed, and this circumstance makes famine relief slow and difficult.

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Wealth, in the last resort, can accumulate only from savings out of the peasant's production. Whatever lowers the peasant's productive power or destroys his spirit of thrift by creating insecurity about his property, thereby prevents the growth of national capital and impairs the economic staying power of the country. Such are the universal and lasting effects of disorder and public insecurity in India. And the failure of Aurangzib affords the most striking illustration of this truth.

§ 3. Economic drain of Aurangzib's ceaseless warfare.

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The economic drain caused by Aurangzib's quarter century of warfare in the Deccan was appalling in its character and most far-reaching and durable in its effects. The operations of the imperial armies, especially their numerous sieges, led to a total destruction of forests and grass. The huge Mughal forces, totalling 1,70,000 troops according to the official records, with perhaps ten times that number of non-combatants, soon ate up everything green wherever they moved. In addition, the Maratha raiders destroyed whatever they could not carry off, feeding their horses on the standing crops, and burning the houses and property too heavy to be removed. At the siege of Satara, the Marathas had prepared for defence by burning the grass for twenty miles round the fort; while the Mughals in their turn, in building a raised battery opposite the fort tower "had left not a single tree standing within a range of 60 or 80 miles from the place." [M.A. 414.] The mischief was multiplied by the immense number of sieges in which the Mughals engaged in that land of the mountain and the flood. Hence, it is no wonder that when at last in 1705 Aurangzib retired after his last campaign, the country presented a scene of utter desolation. "He left behind him the fields of these provinces devoid of trees and bare of crops, their places being taken by the bones of men and beasts." [*Storia*, iv. 252.]

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This total and extensive deforestation had a most injurious effect on agriculture. At the same time, herds of cattle became extinct through robbery and lack of fodder. The pastoral tribes were ruined, and meat and milk supply ceased over much of Maharashtra.

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The financial exhaustion of the empire in these endless wars left Government and private owners alike too poor to repair buildings and roads worn out by the lapse of time. Indeed, in Aurangzib's last years, we read of urgent appeals from his officers for funds to make the most necessary repairs in important fortifications, which the Emperor has to reject owing to lack of money! Civil buildings, water-works, *sarais* and roads could not expect any better treatment in such a state of things.

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The labouring population suffered not only from violent capture, forced labour, and starvation, but also from epidemics which were very frequent during these campaigns. Even in the imperial camp, where greater comfort, security and civilisation might have been expected, the annual wastage of the Deccan wars was one lakh of men, and three lakhs of horses, oxen, camels and elephants. [*Storia*, iv. 96.] At the siege of Golkonda (1687) a famine broke out. In Haidarabad city the houses river and plain were filled with the dead.

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The same was the condition of the imperial camp... Kos after kos the eye fell only on mounds of corpses. The incessant rain melted away the flesh and skin... After some months when the rains ceased, the white ridges of bones looked from a distance like hills of snow." [M.A. 292.] The same desolation overtook tracts which had hitherto enjoyed peace and prosperity. The acute observer Bhimsen writes about the Eastern Karnatak, "During the rule of the Bijapur Golkonda and Telinga [dynasties] the country was extensively cultivated. But now many places have been turned into wildernesses on account of the passage of the imperial armies, which has inflicted hardship and oppression on the people." [Dil. ii. 114a, also 136b about Berar.] The depopulation and impoverishment of the Madras Coast in the closing decade of the 17th century is repeatedly noticed in the Madras Factory Diary and M. Martin's memoirs.

§ 4. Pestilence and natural calamities.

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In 1688, Bijapur was visited by a desolating epidemic of bubonic plague, which is estimated to have carried off a hundred thousand lives in three months. [M.A. 318.] So, too, we read of a plague in Prince Azam's camp in Aug. 1694. [Akh. 29 Aug.] The English factors at Surat report similar devastating epidemics throughout Western India in 1694 and 1696 (95,000 men perished.)* To take one example only, the drought and plague of 1702—04 killed two millions of men. [*Storia*, iv. 96.] Thus, war and its constant attendant pestilence broke the placid repose of rural life in the Deccan and disturbed the old distribution of economic resources and activities.

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The waste of army horses was terrible. In the news-letters, we constantly read of commanding officers begging for the grant of horses, as their troopers had lost their animals in the campaigns.. Bhimsen describes how Nusrat Jang's cavalry had mostly to march on foot after a long chase of the Marathas. [*Dil.* ii. 135b.] This loss had to be made good by the Government every year purchasing remounts in Afghanistan through its subahdar, and in Surat from Persian and Arab importers, as well as by sending an agent of its "Purchase Officer" stationed at Surat to Persia for buying horses there and sending them to India. [*Akhbarat.*]

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In addition to disease, great natural calamities like flood, drought and excessive and unseasonable rainfall were frequent in the Deccan at the beginning of the 18th century, which aggravated the sufferings of invaders and natives alike and still further reduced the population. The state of war, spread over nearly a generation of time, had left no savings, no power of resistance in the common people; everything they produced or had stored up was swept away by the hordes on both sides, so that when famine or drought came, the peasants and landless labourers perished helplessly like flies. Scarcity was chronic in the imperial camp and often deepened into famine. The former remarkable cheapness of grain in many parts of Khandesh, Berar and Konkan now became a forgotten myth; and even in the best years, in no place south of the Narmada did grain sell cheaper than six seers a Rupee [Dil. ii. 146a], while in Multan and Bengal a bumper crop still brought prices down to two or even eight maunds a Rupee. The Mughal army at last found life intolerable.

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∗ Surat to Bom. 6 Oct. 1694; Madras Diary 31 Dec. 1696; Karwar to Bom. 18 Nov. 28 Dec. 1696.

§ 5. Injury to trade and industry by war, disorder, and official exactions.

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There being no peace or safety for tillage, the starving and exasperated peasantry took to highway robbery as the only means of living. In many villages of the Deccan they gathered arms and horses and used to join the Marathas in their raids, and also sheltered enemy Maratha families in their houses while the men-folk were out roving. Raiding bands were, also, locally formed, which gave employment to many and chances of glory and wealth to the more spirited among the villagers.

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Trade almost ceased in the Deccan during this unhappy quarter century. Caravans could travel south of the Narmada only under strong escort; hence they had to wait in the fortified towns, sometimes for four or five months, before they could get an opportunity of advancing further towards their destination in safety. We even read of the royal mail and baskets of fruits for the Emperor's table being held up for five months at the Narmada by Maratha disturbances in the roads beyond it. A time came when even the Emperor's letters could be carried to distant places only by spies who travelled in disguise,—no escort being available for the regular couriers. Government stores and the personal effects of the nobles were all that could be transported under such conditions; the movement of tradesmen's goods was impossible.

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Even where war was not raging (as in Bengal), the weakening of the central Government emboldened provincial governors to defy imperial prohibitions, and to make money by forcing goods from traders at absurdly low prices and then selling them in the public marts, and also by exacting forbidden abwabs from craftsmen and merchants. [*Mughal Administration*, Ch. 5.]

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In the absence of security at home and the impossibility of making purchases at distances, arts and crafts ceased to be practised except in the walled cities. Village industries and industrial classes together died out. The Madras coast, for instance, with its teeming weaving population, was so unsettled by the Mughal-Maratha struggle for the Karnatak (1690—1698) that the English found it difficult to get enough clothes for loading their Europe-going ships. [Ch. 51 § 5.] As early as 1688, Francois Martin had foreseen the war between the Mughals and the Marathas and the consequent ruin of the textile industry of the Karnatak. [Kaep. 259, also 293.] Thus ensued a great economic impoverishment of India,—not only a decrease of the "national stock", but also a rapid lowering of mechanical skill and standard of civilisation, a disappearance of art and culture over wide tracts of the country.

§ 6. Other oppressors of the cultivators.

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In Southern India, with many parts of it harried by more than a century of warfare, the peasantry had many enemies to dread besides the regular fighters on both sides. The Mughal soldiers on their march often trod down the crops, and though the Emperor had a special body of officers for compensating the peasants for this loss (paimali-i-zarait), his financial difficulties led to the neglect of this humane rule. The worst oppressors of the peasants, however, were the tail of the army—the vast nondescript horde of servants, day labourers, darvishes and other vagrants who followed Aurangzib's "moving city of tents" in the hope of picking up crumbs where such a crowd had gathered. Particularly the Beluchi camel-owners who hired out their animals to the army, and unattached Afghans searching for employment, plundered and beat the country people most mercilessly. The banjaras or wandering grain dealer tribe, who moved in bodies, sometimes of 5000 men, each with his couple of bullocks loaded with grain, were so strong in their strength of numbers and contempt for the petty officers of Government, that they sometimes looted the people on the wayside and fed their cattle on the crops in the fields, with impunity. Even the royal messengers (called mewrahs in Gujrat) who carried Government letters, reports of spies, and baskets of fruits for presentation to the Emperor, used to rob the people of the villages they passed by, sometimes under the pretext of making good the losses in the fruits they carried. [Mughal Adm. Ch. 5.] The Emperor's repeated orders against this kind of iniquity were of no avail. [Mirat 304.]

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In the trail of the Maratha soldiers appeared the Berads and even the Pindaries—who were brigands pure and simple, without even the pretence of belonging to any army or carrying out the orders of any Government.

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Then, there were the land-stewards of rival jagirdars,—the incoming and the outgoing—of the same village. Under the plea of the never-to-be satisfied arrears of revenue, the late jagirdar's collector tried to squeeze everything out of the peasantry before he left, and even continued to stay in the village for some months after the arrival of his successor. And the new-comer, in order not to starve himself, passed the half-dead peasants through his fiscal grinding-mill.

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§ 7. Bankruptcy of Mughal Government.

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The English conquest of India was of a pulsatory character, it was achieved not by an uninterrupted succession of advances, but each aggressive governor-general was followed by a pacific economical non-interventionist. A Warren Hastings filled the financial void created by the wars of Clive and Vansittart, and laid the basis for the military expansion of a Wellesley, while the bankruptcy caused by Wellesley's frenzy of conquest was repaired by the recuperation of a sober plodding Barlow or Minto. The pacific Bentinck undid the ravages in the Treasury made by the bellicose Marquis of Hastings and Earl of Amherst.

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Not so Aurangzib. Ever since 1679, when he embarked on the spoliation of the kingdom of Marwar, his reign was one long warfare. He did not realise the necessity of intervals of peace and retrenchment, which would give breathing time to his subjects, recoup the losses of war, and lay by a reserve for future wars. He soon ran through his current revenue and the new tax (jaziya) imposed on the Hindus in 1679 and vigorously enforced by specially selected "pious" collectors. [K. K. ii. 278, 378.] Then he ordered the accumulated treasures of his ancestors, from Akbar downwards, to be taken out of the vaults of Agra and Delhi forts and sent to him in the Deccan. [K. K. 411; Storia ii. 255.]

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Thus, the last reserve of the empire was exhausted, and public bankruptcy became inevitable. The salaries of the soldiers and civil officers alike fell into arrears for three years. The men starving from lack of pay and the exhaustion of their credit with the local grocers, sometimes created scenes in the Emperor's Court, sometimes abused and hustled their general's business manager,—some, driven to desperation, beat to death the paymaster of their contingent.

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The imperial Government made reckless promises of money grant and high command to every enemy captain who was induced to desert and every enemy qiladar who was persuaded to surrender his fort. It was not humanly possible to keep all of these promises. The Mughal army, too, was immensely expanded in order to cope with the growing strength of the Marathas and their allies. The result was that the entire land in the empire proved insufficient for the total amount of jagir needed to satisfy the dues of all the officers included in the swollen army-list. As the imperial diwan Inayetullah Khan, on being urged by Aurangzib to grant jagirs to every one and leave no claim unsatisfied, remarked in despair, "The contingents of the officers who are daily passed in review before your Majesty are unlimited in number, while the land available for granting as jagir is limited (in area.) How can a limited figure be made to equal an unlimited one? [Hamid-ud-din's *Ahkam*, § 57.]

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Even when the grants of land in lieu of salary were drawn up by the Pay Office, they remained for years as mere orders on paper, the actual delivery of the villages to the grantees being impossible. At last the Emperor used to cry out in bitterness of spirit to his Paymasters, "How often have I told you that I do not need any retainers? Why do you not dismiss them? You do not realise the badness of your action, but refuse to listen to your master's words!" [K. K. ii. 411—412.] The interval between the order and the actual possession of the jagir, it was sarcastically said, was long enough to turn a boy into a grey-beard. [Ibid. 379.]

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How impossible of realisation were the promises of bribes made by the Government to enemy captains and ministers and how ruinous was the price at which forts were bought by Aurangzib is strikingly illustrated by the case of Matabar Khan, the wise and able governor of Kalian. He had secured the capture of some forts in the Nasik and Thana districts by spending Rs. 1,20,000 out of his own pocket in bribes to their commandants and his own army expenses; but the Emperor in return granted him only Rs. 30,000 or a quarter of his outlay, and even this small sum remained unpaid for years afterwards. If a minor Maratha hill-fort cost on an average Rs. 45,000 in cash to take it peacefully, the Emperor might well despair of taking all of them at this rate. And yet he obstinately went on capturing fort after fort by heavy bribery or by regular sieges which were ten times more costly. As Khafi Khan tells us, "Most of Aurangzib's generals, whether posted in far-off provinces or conducting sieges under his eyes, after some fighting used in the end to secure the capitulation of the forts by bribing the qiladars. The Emperor was informed of it by his spies, and used to pay to the officer who had thus contrived the surrender the exact amount of the bribe (neither more, nor less), under the name of reward"! [ii. 503.]

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The spirit of the Mughal army in the Deccan was at least utterly broken. The soldiers grew sick of the endless and futile war,* but Aurangzib would listen to no protest or friendly advice. Even his grand wazir Asad Khan, who had ventured to suggest that now that Bijapur and Golkonda had been conquered he had no more work to do and might as well return to Delhi, received a sharp reprimand, "I wonder that a wise old servant like you has made such a request...So long as a single breath remains to this mortal life, there is no release from labour." [Hamid-ud-din's Ahkam § 46.]

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A generation of imperialists grew up in the Deccan who had never seen a city or house of brick or stone, but passed all their lives in tents, marching from one encampment to another. [Dil. ii. 141a; see Ch. 57 § 2.] The Rajput soldiers complained that their race would not be able to serve the empire in the next generation, as they had to pass their lifetime in the Deccan campaigns, without getting any respite for going home and rearing up children. One home-sick noble offered the Emperor a bribe of one lakh of Rupees for transferring him to Delhi! [M. U. i. 457.]

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∗ "Owing to my marching through deserts and forests, my officers long for my death." Aurangzib to Muazzam in Anecdotes, §11.

§ 8. Administrative decline and public disturbances in N. India.

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The inflated expenditure and incessant warfare in the Deccan adversely reacted on the situation in Northern India. The older, and more settled peaceful and prosperous provinces of the empire were drained of their manhood, wealth, and talent. The best soldiers, the highest officers, and all the collected revenue were sent to the Deccan, while the subahs of Hindustan were henceforth left to minor officers with small contingents and incomes quite inadequate for maintaining viceregal authority. All classes of lawless men began to raise their heads in the north as well as the south, though later and more fitfully in Hindustan than in the Deccan. The new class of subahdars and faujdars were too low in rank and armed strength to repress them. The proud zamindars, whose grand-fathers had been ruling princes before the coming of the Mughals, the Afghan families settled in various districts (especially Jaunpur, Malwa, Allahabad and North Orissa) and still dreaming of their lost empire in India, claimants to principalities dispossessed by order of Aurangzib, predatory tribes like the Jat peasantry west of Agra and the Mewatis south-west of Delhi, and turbulent Rajput peasantry like the Bais of Oudh and the Ujjainias of South Bihar,—all rose in defiance of the Government and began to lay hands on their weaker neighbours. The local viceroys could not cope with them with their normal contingents (zabita); they could hope to suppress the rebels only if they engaged troops in excess of the number for which their salary was fixed. And such extra retainers meant increased expenditure. [Dil. ii. 139a-140a.]

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§ 9. Poverty and powerlessness of governors.

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But, at the same time, their income, inadequate even on paper for their heavy duties, was actually dwindling very fast. The general unrest naturally caused a falling off in the rent collection from the peasants. Then, the frequent changes of officers and transfers of their jagirs prevented them from gaining knowledge of the tenantry, establishing relations with them, and spreading the inevitable arrears of a lean year gently over a number of fat years. It is difficult to imagine a system more ruinous to the peasants and therefore in the long run more harmful to the State also, than the actual administration of Mughal jagirs. It ended in a mad looting of the peasants by rival jagirdars' agents or successive agents of the same jagirdar. The former I have described a few pages back. As for the latter, Bhimsen gives a lurid picture of it: "There is no hope of a jagir being left with the same officer next year. When a jagirdar sends a collector to his jagir, he first takes an advance from the latter by way of loan. This collector, on arriving in the village, fearing lest a second man who had given a larger loan to the jagirdar was following (to supplant him), does not hesitate to collect the rent with every oppression.... The ryots have given up cultivation; the jagirdars do not get a penny." [Dil. ii. 139a-140a.] The same ruinous policy was followed in revenue-collection in the Crownlands, as we learn from the despatches of the subahdar of Orissa. [Studies in Mughal India, 223.]

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The result of this policy was that the imperial officers, whether holding jagirs in the older or the newly conquered provinces, all alike starved on account of the rent collection of their fiefs always falling into arrears. Thus, a vicious circle was formed: political disorder (to which we must add a wrong system of land administration) led to less and less money coming from the jagirs; this diminished income forced the governors to keep fewer and fewer men* in their pay; the decrease in their armed strength encouraged greater lawlessness among the people, from which followed a further impoverishment of the peasants and falling off in the land revenue. The evil was universal throughout the Deccan, and also very noticeable in Bundelkhand, Malwa, and parts of Allahabad and Oudh.

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∗ *Dil.* ii. 149b. "Except these three men who have ancestral estates, viz., Rao Dalpat, Ram Singh Hada, and Jai Singh

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War was the only occupation of the Rajputs and indeed of all the Hindus who claimed to belong to the Kshatriya caste. The Mughal peace established in northern India had left to them chances of employment only in the trans-frontier regions on the west or in the still unsubdued parts of the Deccan. Rajputs had fought under the imperial banner in Central Asia and Qandahar. But in Aurangzib's reign Mughal military activity was contracted within the frontiers, though Kabul was still a part of his empire. His annexation of the remaining Deccan principalities caused unemployment among the Rajputs in two ways,—first because he was under the necessity of giving employment to the masterless local troops of the subverted monarchies, and secondly because fewer territories were now left for him to conquer. In these circumstances aspiring scions of Rajput houses could only fight with their kinsfolk for their ancestral "homes," take to robbery,

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Kachhwah, I have not seen a single noble who kept even a thousand troopers in his contingent." The Akhbarat give reports of hazaris and 2-hazaris not keeping a single soldier under them.

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or apostatize in order to get grants of estates from Aurangzib.

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This situation was changed by the huge waste of life through pestilence and famine, even more than by actual slaughter, in the last years of the Emperor's reign. The Hindu manhood of the North therefore continued to be drained for the Deccan war, but without any corresponding gain to Aurangzib; because the Rajputs with all their bravery were proverbially unfit for siege operations and hill-fighting, and at the same time his Deccani auxiliaries were untrustworthy. [Dil. ii. 146b.]

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§ 10. Decay of Indian civilisation under Aurangzib, its causes and signs.

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The retrogression of mediæval Indian civilisation under Aurangzib is noticeable not only in the fine arts,—the decay of which was only the outward manifestation of it,—but still more in the low intellectual type of the new generation. As the 17th century wore on, the older nobility nourished on the manly traditions of Akbar and Shah Jahan, gifted with greater independence of spirit, and trained with greater resources and responsibility,—gradually died out, and their places in camp and Court were taken by smaller men, supplied with poorer resources by the suspicious Aurangzib, afraid to exercise responsibility and initiative, and seeking to advance themselves by sycophancy. [Dil. ii. 150b.] The exceptionally prolonged life of Aurangzib with its ever increasing store of experience and information made him intellectually dwarf the younger generation. His self-sufficiency and obstinacy increased with age; till at last none dared to contradict him, none could give him honest advice or impart unpleasant truth. With the lack of leisure amidst the incessant warfare and rough camp-life in the far-off South, the culture of the aristocracy decayed, and, as the nobles set the tone to society, the whole of the intellectual classes of India slowly fell back to a lower level. A Jafar Jattali took the place of Faizi for their delectation.

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§ 11. Gloomy outlook for India in the 18th century.

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The growing pessimism of the older men, which we find reflected in the letters and anecdotes of the time and even in the works of thoughtful historians, bears witness to the moral decay of the governing classes. It was too deep and too sincere to be passed off as an example of the familiar oriental habit of imagining a golden age in the past and looking down upon the present generation as the degenerate successors of their glorious ancestors. It finds utterance as early as the latter years of Shah Jahan, as we learn from the sayings of that monarch quoted in Aurangzib's letters. [Ruqaat, Nos. 41, 55; Irvine MS. 350, No. 218.]

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The historians Bhimsen and Khafi Khan were struck by the hopeless change for the worse that had seized the Indian world and looked wistfully back at the virtues and glories of the men of the times of Akbar and Shah Jahan. [*Dil.* ii. 139a, 146a, esp. 157a; *K.K.* ii. 550.] We find the aged Aurangzib himself dolefully shaking his head over the prospect of the future and predicting a deluge after his death. [*Anecdotes* § 11.] It is true, as Sadullah remarked in reply to a pessimist, "No age is without men of ability. What is needed is a wise master to find them out, cherish them, get his work done by them, and never lend his ears to the whispers of selfish men against such officers." [*Ruq.* No. 46.] But this wise principle was not followed in Aurangzib's latter years, and it was altogether discarded by his successors. Career was not freely opened to talent. The public service was not looked upon as a sacred trust, but as a means of gratifying the apostate, the sycophant, the well-groomed dandy, the great man's kinsmen, and sons of old official families. Bigotry and narrowness of outlook under Aurangzib and vice and sloth under the later Mughals, ruined the administration of the empire and dragged down the Indian people along with the falling empire.

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§ 12. Moral degeneration of the Mughal aristocracy.

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The moral decay was most noticeable among the nobility and it produced the greatest mischief. The character of the older nobility in the late 17th century was deplorable. In a mean spirit of jealousy they insulted and thwarted "new men" drawn from the ranks* and ennobled for the most brilliant public services, and yet they themselves had grown utterly worthless. Aurangzib himself remarked in 1701, "My nobles had opposed me in giving suitable rewards to Shaikh Nizam for the capture of Shambhu. So, too, they are now belittling the achievements of Md. Murad." [K.K. ii, 489.]

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We have a significant example of the moral degeneration of the Mughal peerage. The prime-minister's grandson, Mirza Tafakhkhur used to sally forth from his mansion in Delhi with his ruffians, plunder the shops in the bazar, kidnap Hindu women passing through the public streets in litters or going to the river, and dishonour them; and yet there was no judge to punish him, no police to prevent such crimes. "Everytime such an occurrence was brought to the Emperor's notice by the news-letters or official reports, he referred to the prime-minister, and did nothing more." At last after a Hindu artillery-man's wife had been forcibly abducted and his comrades threatened to mutiny, Aurangzib merely ordered the licentious youth to be prevented from coming out of his mansion. [Hamid-ud-din's Ahkam § 48; another in M. U. i. 320.]

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All the surplus produce of a fertile land under a most bounteous Providence was swept into the coffers of the Mughal nobility and pampered them in a degree of luxury not dreamt of even by kings in Persia or Central Asia ; as the Court historian of Shah Jahan scornfully remarks, the revenue of the king of Balkh was less than the income of a third-grade peer of the Mughal empire. [Abd. Hamid, ii. 542.]

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∗ Similarly the old effete French nobility of birth objected to the victor of Fontenoy being raised to the peerage by his grateful master.

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§ 13. Evil education of the children of nobles.

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Hence, in the houses of the Delhi nobility luxury was carried to an excess. The harems of many of them were filled with immense numbers* of women, of an infinite variety of races intellect and character. Under Muslim law the sons of concubines are entitled to their patrimony equally with sons born in wedlock, and they occupy no inferior position in society. Even the sons of lawfully married wives became, at a precocious age, familiar with vice from what they saw and heard in the harem, while their mothers were insulted by the higher splendour and influence enjoyed in the same household by younger and fairer rivals of servile origin or easier virtue. The proud spirit and majestic dignity of a Cornelia is impossible in the crowded harem of a polygamist ; and without Cornelias among the mothers there cannot be Gracchi among the sons.

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∗ Hindu nobles and rich men were often as licentious, but they kept their mistresses in a separate establishment and not in their homes. Moreover, the children of such irregular unions among the Hindus formed a lower caste (golak), occupying a depressed rank in society.

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There was no good education, no practical training, of the sons of the nobility. They were too much petted by eunuchs and maid-servants and passed through a sheltered life from birth to manhood, every thorn being removed from their path by attendants. Early familiarised with vice, softened in their fibres by pleasure, they were yet taught to have an inordinately high opinion of their own wealth and importance in the scale of creation. Their domestic tutors were an unhappy class, powerless to do any good except by leave of their pupils, browbeaten by the eunuchs (with the support of the ladies of the harem), disobeyed by the lads themselves, and forced to cultivate the arts of the courtier or the sneak, unless they were prepared to throw up their thankless office. The free give and take life in a public school (which hardens character and at the same time removes its angularities), the salutary discipline of training as subalterns in an orderly army, were unknown to the sons of the Mughal aristocracy. Hence, their moral decline was startingly rapid and unchecked. Most of them, and even sons of Aurangzib like Shah Alam and Kam Bakhsh, were beyond correction. As Aurangzib, worn out with giving them unheeded counsels, cries out in despair, "I have become garrulous by talking and talking ; but none of you have taken heed from my words." [Ruqaat No. 2.]

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§ 14. Vices of Society.

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In addition to unbridled sexual license and secret drinking, many members of the nobility and the middle class were tainted by pederasty. This vice was most prevalent among the Mongoloids of Central Asia, and there is reason to believe that even some of the so-called saints were not free from it. All Aurangzib's prohibitions and all the activity of his Censors of Public Morals failed to hold the Mughal aristocracy back from drink. Manucci notices it [Storia, ii. 6, 157, 393 ; iv. 131.] The news-letters of Aurangzib's Court contain many reports of wine-selling and wine-drinking in the camp-bazars and houses of his nobles, and among the garrisons of forts. On 22 Sep. 1698 the English governor of Madras presented one hundred bottles of Canary to Nusrat Jang. [Madras Diary.] A similar present was made to his successor Daud Khan in Nov. 1706. The drunken frolics of this Daud Khan are described in Wilkes's Mysoor, [2nd ed., i. 133 and 140n.] The freak pleasures and queer fancies of some of the nobles are noticed in the contemporary accounts. [E.g., Storia, iv. 254-6, 262.]

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§ 15. Popular superstitions.

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All classes alike were sunk in the densest superstition. Astrology governed every act of life, among rich and poor alike. Every king and nobleman maintained and always carried with himself a staff of star-gazers to point out the auspicious and evil days for his marches, entrance into cities or houses, receiving or making visits, besides domestic ceremonies. The planets hung like a lowering cloud over all men's lives. Relic worship was universal among Hindus and Muhammadans alike. Even the orthodox Aurangzib adored and walked devoutly round the pretended footprints and hair of the Prophet Muhammad (*asar-i-sharif*), as if these were representations of the Deity. It is difficult to distinguish between his attitude towards them and a Hindu's worship of Vishnu's footmarks on stone. The universal and tumultuous exultation of the Muslim population of Srinagar when these bogus relics went to Kashmir, has been described in Ch. 61 § 31. Trade in false relics was very brisk and highly profitable.

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Man-worship of the grossest form degraded the character of the masses. Besides the adoration of *gurus* and *mohants* by Hindus and Sikhs, the Muslims, equally with the members of those two creeds, venerated saints and religious mendicants, and besought them to work miracles, and give them amulets spells or marvellous medicines. * Pre-tended magicians did a roaring trade in these things, as well as in the philosopher's stone,—being patronised by the nobles as well as the common people. Alchemy was believd to be a science and men of the highest status and education supported and encouraged the professors of this art, even undertaking to introduce them to the Emperor.

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∗ E.g., the religious delusion of Sahibji's son-in-law, as described in *Siyar-ul-mutakhkharin*.

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The darker aspect of the subject was not wanting, and we read of human sacrifice being performed to aid the quest for gold and the *elixir vitæ*, though it was criminal in law and punished whenever detected. [K.K. ii. 542.] A lurid light is thrown on the medical art and beliefs of the age by Manucci's evidence that some Muhammadan doctors used human fat to cure their patients. [Storia, ii. 210.] Hindu superstition is further illustrated by the worship of long-armed men as incarnations of the monkey-god Hanuman. There was a Portuguese of St. Thome whose hands reached below his knees, and whenever any Hindus met him they prostrated themselves, worshipping him like an idol. When another long-armed Portuguese visited Jagannath-Puri in Orissa, "the Hindu priests and the people of the town conducted him to the temple with great veneration and made over to him the idols and all the wealth of the temple. He led a joyous life, regaling himself with delicate dishes and requisitioning young girls whenever he pleased, they imagining he did them a great honour." He afterwards departed secretly, with the wealth of the temple. [Storia, iii. 140.]

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As a natural consequence of their ignorance and pride, all classes felt contempt for foreigners. European gun-founders, artilleryists and doctors (a few) were no doubt patronised by the wealthy, because their superior efficiency had been demonstrated before their eyes; and European objects of luxury were eagerly bought. But no attempt was made by any Indian noble or scholar to learn European languages,* arts or military system. A modern Indian nationalist will best realise how blindly selfish and autocratic the Mughal Emperors and the Indian aristocracy of the 16th and 17th centuries were, if he considers that while they spent lakhs every year in buying European objects of luxury or art, not a single printing press, not even a lithographic stone was imported, either for popular education or public business.

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The moral and intellectual tone of Indian society was greatly lowered by the abundance of slaves. In addition to captives of war and vanquished families reduced to bondage, men and women were sold by their parents for money in famine times, or in discharge of debts. A defaulting debtor could himself be sold with his family at the demand of his creditor.

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∗ At the Mughal Court interpretation was done for European visitors by Armenians or by Europeans who knew Persian. Only one Muhammadan (Mutamad Khan, c. 1703) is spoken of in Aurangzib's letters as knowing the English language. A few Shenvi Brahmans of Goa territory, who knew Portuguese, translated Marathi documents into the former language for the benefit of the English at Bombay. In Madras, the English and French factories employed Brahman interpreters who knew these languages besides "Moor" (i.e., Persian.)

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This was an ancient legal practice of the Hindus and Muhammadans alike. [*Cf.* story of Harishchandra.] One way of punishing criminals of certain classes was to turn them into slaves and sell them to the public; the sale of female-slaves of this class is noticed in the "Peshwas' Diaries." Slavery lingered down to the first quarter of the 19th century even in the British district of Purnia. [Martin's *Eastern India.*] People often made eunuchs of children and sold them; Orissa and Sylhet were notorious for this offence, which was strongly condemned by Aurangzib. [Ch. 38 § 4; esp. ref. in footnote.]

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§ 16. *Official bribery, its forms and causes.*

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The educated middle class was composed entirely of officials, if we except the handful of physicians and superior priestly families. Among the traders and lesser land-owners there were many who ranked with the middle class in wealth, but not in education, nor did they ever cultivate literature. The Mughal administration, both civil and military, could be carried on only with the help of a vast army of clerks and accountants. Every department, every Government store or factory, every subah and even faujdari, every field-army, had a complete set of them. Their official pay was very low (like that of the East India Company's factory 'writers' in the early 17th century.)*

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∗ For examples, Mirat-i-Ahmadi, ii. 116.

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But the exaction of official perquisites or gratuities from men who had to get business pushed through the public offices, was the universal and admitted practice, as in Tudor and Stuart England. In addition, many officials from the highest to the lowest took bribes for doing undeserved favours, or deflecting the course of justice. Official corruption was, however, admitted in society to be immoral, and was practised only in secrecy. There were many officers above corruption even in Aurangzib's reign [K.K. ii. 261, 374-82.] But the receiving and even demanding of presents by men in power was the universal rule and publicly acknowledged.* Even the Emperor was not exempt from it. Aurangzib asked an aspirant to a title, "Your father gave to Shah Jahan one lakh of Rupees for adding alif to his name and making him Amir Khan. How much will you pay me for the title I am giving you?" [M.A. 489.] Manohar-das (qiladar of Sholapur) gave him Rs. 50,000 in return for the title of Rajah. Officers weary of the life in the Deccan, used to present him with large sums to induce him to transfer them to Northern India, especially Delhi.

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∗ Nur Jahan's father, when prime-minister under Jahangir was shameless in demanding presents. So also was Jafar Khan, one of the early wazirs of Aurangzib. Jai Singh offered a purse of Rs. 30,000 to the wazir for inducing the Emperor to retain him in the Deccan command. [Haft Anjuman, Ben. MS. 195b.] Bhimsen's disgust at having to pay everybody at Court in order to get or retain a common civil office [Dil. i. 194.] On official bribery, see my Mughal Administration, 2nd ed. p. 84.

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The ministers and influential courtiers round the Emperor's person had the opportunity of reaping a golden harvest, by selling to suitors their good offices in speaking for them to the sovereign when in private attendance on him (*taqarrub*). Thus, Qabil in 2½ years of personal attendance on Aurangzib amassed 12 lakhs of Rupees in cash, besides articles of value and a new house [*M.A.* 191.]* They were besought and bribed with presents and money to yield their protection to officers, to conceal the shortcomings (*ghaib-pushi*) of the latter, to intercede for them with the Emperor (*wasila*), and in general to watch over their interests at Court during their absence.

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This pressure was passed from the Emperor downwards to the peasant; each social grade trying to squeeze out of the class below itself what it had to pay to the rank above it, the cultivator of the soil and the trader being the victim in the last resort.

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∗ Abdun Nabi, faujdar of Mathura, left a fortune of 13 lakhs of Rupees, 93,000 mohars (worth Rs. 14 each), and articles jewels, etc. worth 4½ lakhs more; Azam Khan Kokah (Fidai Kh.), governor of Bengal, 22 lakhs in Rupees and 1,12,000 mohars; Hafiz Md. Amin Kh., subahdar of Gujrat, 70 lakhs of Rs., 1,35,000 mohars, 76 elephants, 432 horses, 117 camels, and 10 chests of China-ware; Abdul Wahhab, Chief Qazi for 16 years, 33 lakhs of Rs. besides jewellery. [*M. A.* 83, 169, 226; *M. U.* i. 235-41.]

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§ 17. Lower official world, its life and character.

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The drink habit was widely prevalent among the clerks, both of the Kayastha* and Khatri castes,—as well as among the Rajput soldiers. In spite of the prohibition of the Quran, the Muslim nobles and officers, both military and civil, were in many cases addicted to it. The Turks were specially notorious for their disobedience to this precept of their religion.

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The lower official class, on account of their having to do their work far away from their homes, kept small harems of local concubines. This was the case with the Hindus no less than with the Muslims. The evil lingered on in British India till the middle of the 19th century. It was only the annihilation of distance by railways and the moral reform effected by English education and theistic religious movements in the sixties of the last century, that put an end to this general immorality.

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The clerks, both Hindus and Muhammadans, formed a brotherhood bound together by community of duties and interests, education and ideals, social life and even vices. We find in the memoirs of one of them, Bhimsen of Burhanpur, a pleasing picture of the clerkly world, with its mutual dancing parties, dinners, aid in trouble, consolation in sorrow, and union at sittings of Sufi devotional exuberance. The official world was marked by its hatred and contempt for intruders into its preserves. Offices were expected to be reserved for old families of clerks and accountants. Any official who was not a ‘hereditary servant’ (*khanahzad*) of State but had sprung from the ranks, was despised as a *novum homo* was in the official world of the dying republic of Rome. The speedy ruin of the State from the employment of such interlopers and upstarts was predicted. [*Dil.* ii. 140*b*.] This attitude was universal, from the higher nobility to the petty clerks.

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∗ Several of Bhimsen's relatives, civil officers in the imperial army, died of drink.

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§ 18. The purity and delights of the life of the masses.

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The above picture of social life in Mughal India appears very dark, and must be declared incomplete and therefore untrue if we do not consider certain other aspects of it. When we turn our gaze from the crowded harems of the rich and the lax virtues of the Mongoloid and some other frontier tribes,—we are bound to admit that among the teeming millions of the Indian people domestic life was pure and not without its simple colour and joy. This virtue alone saved the people from the doom of extinction which overtook the degenerate Romans of the later empire. We had many popular songs, ballads and stories, which assuaged the stricken human soul, taught heroic patience, and infused tenderness into the most unlettered hearts. The epic of Tulsidas, which is even now acted annually in every centre of population and recited in every Hindu home in the Hindi-speaking provinces, filled millions of people with love of duty, manliness, the spirit of self-sacrifice, and taught them wisdom in public and private life.

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In Bengal, Tirhut, Orissa and Assam and certain other parts, the Vaishnavism taught by Shankardev and Chaitanya introduced an unknown gentleness and fervour, and tamed the rude if manly savagery of the Tantric worship and animism that used to prevail there before. The 17th century was the great period of the expansion of this new Vaishnavism—which was marked by enthusiastic personal devotion (as in the Christian revival movement), tenderness to children and the weak, the cultivation of literature (both Sanskrit and the current speech of the people), and the infusion of song and dance and a delicate romantic sentiment into the everyday life even of the poorest. It also bridged social gulfs and established a democracy of the spirit. Apart from this new popular religious literature, the masses* in different parts had their folk-songs, like the ballad of Ranjha and Hir (in the Panjab), which went to their very hearts and relieved for a time the dead weight of labour and political tyranny which pressed them down. The *kirtan* or chanting of religious narratives in verse (interspersed with songs and frequent improvisation) was the popular substitute for the sermon, the lecture, and literature throughout India—in the south as much as in the north,—e.g., Shivaji doted on the *kirtan* and once risked his life and liberty in his passion to attend one. The common people were equally fond of these. [For a graphic description of such popular recitation among the Maratha villagers, see Acworth's *Ballads*, xxvii.]

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∗ I have spoken of popular romance and religious poetry in the vernacular. But a vernacular literature for the upper classes was just missed by Aurangzib. It came into being under Wali of Aurangabad only ten years after his death.

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The Muhammadans of that age (except the Hindi-speaking portion) had no vernacular religious poetry for the masses. But they had the annual celebrations of different saints (*urs*) at their tombs, which were attended by tens of thousands of pilgrims from distances, and where fairs were held which attracted men and women of all creeds. In addition, both sexes dwelling in cities, had their usual weekly outing to the garden-tombs of saints in the suburbs. The opportunity was utilised for pleasure rather than piety, and the spread of immorality that it caused led Aurangzib to issue an order for stopping the practice. But it was too popular to be put down. [*Storia*, iv. 205; ante Ch. 28 § 3.]

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