Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c6.s1.1

c6.s1.1

*General remarks* :-- India is an essentially agricultural country even to-day and its economic structure is very different from an industrial country.¹ In India, the source of production is land; its power, the ploughing animal; and its implements, the wooden plough, the toothed harrow, the smoothing board, the levelling beam, the sowing drill and a few others, for instance the pick and the hoe, various contrivances for raising water, a few mattocks, spades and rakes. The proportion of land which is irrigated by canals is still not very large and the crops usually depend on favourable monsoons at the appropriate seasons.² There are no violent dislocations of economic life except for periodical famines, a locust pest or, as it used to be in olden times, a band of invaders. When these epidemics have passed, life in the countryside resumes its normal activity. The life is essentially stereotyped and unprogressive, but extremely simple and continuous. Usually a whole community of people claiming a common descent and bound by a number of common social and religious ties, inhabits a number of adjoining villages. The village is usually composed of a number of such communities (or *baradaris*, ‘brotherhoods’). Given favourable monsoons and not too exacting an administration, the Indian peasant as a rule feels quite satisfied with his lot. He meets the ordinary demands of his everyday life with a cheerful heart and goes about his vocation with a feeling not very different from happiness and contentment. Under these conditions, if he finds suitable opportunity, he confers one of his many chlildren in marriage and invites to the celebration practically all his community and friends, as far as his means permit him. In his leisure hours he sings his popular ballads and folk songs in the common village courtyard (*chowpal*). The younger ones gather round in another corner and recite their favourite ghost stories and other lore. Under unfavourable conditions, the peasants, and particularly the women folk, resort more frequently to their gods and deities or the spirits of their forefathers and popular saints and in response to their prayers and offerings watch eagerly for clouds with a tearful eye. In the worst extremities of life they are reconciled to the irresistible workings of fate (*kismet*) and take misfortunes and disaster with a superhuman calmness and passive resignation. Life has very few good things to offer to stimulate their desires or promise their fulfilment. This has been the basis of Indian agricultural life for untold centuries in Hindustan.