Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c7.s2.1

c7.s2.1

*General Remarks. The masses of the People.*—We have pointed out in an earlier chapter the disparity between the incomes of various social classes and the almost antipodal difference which existed between the highest and lower classes. We have also expressed there our agreement with the opinion of Mr. Moreland. We will add here a few words in support of those statements, by illustrating the domestic comforts of the masses of the people, most of whom inhabited the villages as they do now. The Mughal Emperor Babur was particularly struck with the meagre requirements of the Indian rural population. The colonization or the devastation of a peasant village according to him, took an amazingly short time as so few things were required to give shape to a rural habitation. ‘People disappear completely from a place where they have been living for many years in about a day and a half’ says Babur, and leave absolutely no traces of their existence behind. Similarly, when they colonize a new place, they are content with some sort of bored well or a pool or tank of water for their needs, without requiring elaborate constructions like canals and bridges. A few tree trunks and a quantity of straw for thatches is all that they want for the construction of their dwellings. Big mansions or a town with circumvallations do not enter their scheme of corporate life. You turn and see them commencing to build a rural village and in an unbelievably short time, you turn again to find it finished and now there stands before you a regular rural village of Hindustan.² This is a fairly correct general estimate of the rural village.