Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c7.s5.7

c7.s5.7

How Babur came to form such an unhistorical and poor estimate of the Indian social development of his times, we are totally at a loss to understand. It may be that the visitation of Timur before him in 1398 had so much devastated the land that a century and a quarter of comparatively unstable and weak central administration and a state of comparative civil war did not succeed in rehabilitating the fabric of social life. It may be, which is not unlikely, that he was led away by the haughty contempt so natural in a conqueror, in evaluating the achievements of the conquered people. In any case it damages the scientific character of his charming autobiography. It is very amazing to hear this from one who goes about in the palaces of Gwalior and the surroundings of Delhi, Agra, and Lahore. It is true there is a sense in which these observations may be said to be perfectly correct; but Babur was far from observing in that light. We have already observed that the vast masses of the people had no share in the comforts and refinements of the few. Babur, in this sense, is perfectly correct if he takes such an ultra-democratic and modern view of social progress. We shall have to dismiss this view, however, since he and his successors only perpetuated the system and made the disparity between the upper and the lower classes still more glaring.¹