[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985) › c19.s12 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s12: Chapter Eleven The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s12 - **Language:** English ### Chapter Eleven ### [c19.s12.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.1) 1\. Anil Seal, \*The Emergence of Indian Nationalism\* (Cambridge, 1968), 351. 2\. Interestingly, the organizaiton of the British Indian administration seems to have been very well geared to accommodate dissension through its “dual alignment” of authorities at each rung of the hierarchy. See R. E. Frykenberg, \*Guntur District\* (Oxford, 1965), 237f. 3\. See J. C. Heesterman, “Political Modernization in India,” in \*Traditional Attitudes and Modern Styles in Political Leadership\* ed. J. E. Legge (Sidney, 1973), 29–56, esp. 48. 4\. On this problem, see chapter 8, section 4, and chapter 10, sections 1, 7, and 8. 5\. See G. M. Carstairs, \*The Twice-Born\* (London, 1957), 143. 6\. See Irfan Habib, \*The Agrarian System of Mughal India\* (Aligarh, 1963); J. F. Richards, \*Mughal Administration in Golconda\* (Oxford, 1975). 7\. W. Foster, ed., \*The English Factories in India\* (Oxford, 1906–27), 5: 204. 8\. “Ample evidence from the archival remains demonstrates that the organization of the empire was both impressive and effective. The total impression conveyed by these documentary sources is that of a great machine, built and organized for continuous expansion and gradually intensifying control from the centre.” (Richards, \*Mughal Administration\*, 311). ### [c19.s12.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.2) 9. J. N. Sarkar, \*History of Aurangzib\* (Calcutta, 1912–30), 3: 283–364. 10. Satish Chandra, \*Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707–1740\* (Aligarh, 1959), xliii–xlvii. 11. Habib, \*Agrarian System\* 317–51. 12. Richards, \*Mughal Administration\*, 306–10. 13. M. Athar Ali, “The Passing of Empire: The Mughal Case,” \*Moderan Asian Studies\* 9 (1975): 385–96. 14. See also articles from the Symposion on the Decline of the Mughal Empire by M. N. Pearson, J. F. Richards, and P. Hardy in \*Journal of Asian Studies\*, 35 (February 1976): 221–63. 15. H. Dunlop, ed., \*Bronnen tot de geschiedenis der Oostindische Compagnie in Perzië\* (The Hague, 1930), 204. This opinion was not particularly original. For contemporary Turkish opinions to the same effect, see Bernard Lewis, “Some Reflections on the Decline of the Ottoman Empire,” in \*The Economic Decline of Empires\*, ed. C. M. Cipolla (London, 1970), 215–34. See also Fernand Braudel, \*La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe 2\* 2d ed. (Paris, 1966), 2: 47. 16. Richards, \*Mughal Administration\*, 316. In this respect the evidence given by Richards for the remarkable recovery of the two main centers of Golconda under a forceful governor in the 1720s after a period of confusion and decay seems indicative of the system’s resilience (ibid., 304ff.). 17. M. Athar Ali, \*The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb\* (London, 1966), 92–94, 173; Habib, \*Agrarian System\*, 269–73. 18. See Richards, \*Mughal Administration\*, 157–62. 19. See Habib, \*Agrarian System\*, 230. 20. Ibid., 242; See also W. H. Moreland, \*The Agrarian Systems of Moslem India\* (Cambridge, 1929), 107, 133ff. 21. Moreland, \*Agrarian Systems of Moslem India\*, 204; Habib, \*Agrarian System\*, 236ff., 249. 22. See W. H. Moreland, \*India at the Death of Akbar\* reprint ed. (Delhi, 1962), 126–29; 248–53; Moreland, \*From Akbar to Aurangzeb\* (London, 1923), 202f., quoting Bernier’s letter to Colbert. 23. W. H. Moreland, \*Relations of Golconda\* (The Hakluyt Society, 1930), 77. Though the reference is to Golconda, there is no reason to assume that the picture of the countryside in the Mughal area was essentially different. 24. Moreland, \*India at the Death of Akbar\*, 104; also Habib, \*Agrarian System\*, 78. 25. \*AŚ\* 4. 1. 65. Perhaps a not unsimilar outlook, stressing the warrior-administrator’s point of view while disregarding commerce, can also be found with the British-Indian administration. For instance, it is remarkable that while Governor-General Wellesley, like a true “warrior-administrator,” discussed the annexations of 1801 exclusively in terms of their strategic importance and their revenue resources, his brother Henry was particularly enthusiastic about their commercial potentialities (see P. J. Marhsall, “Economic and Political Expansion: The Case of Oudh,” \*Modern Asian Studies\* 9 \[1975\]: 465–82, esp. 481; cf. also E. Stokes, “Agrarian Society and the Pax Brittania,” ibid., 505–28, esp. 507). Even though “there is no evidence that commercial considerations played a part in his brother’s (the governor-general’s) decision to take teritory,” the two sets of considerations were, of course, to a great extent interdependent. The governor-general’s exclusive emphasis on strategic and land revenue arguments may have been determined by the boundaries of the warrior-administrator’s legitimizing idiom, which precludes the commercial argument’s expression. Generally speaking, the British-Indian administration's marked preferences for peasants and landlords and its disregard or contempt for urban traders and financiers seems to have this background. ### [c19.s12.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.3) 26\. For a good example, see, for instance, one Koldinder Ranga Razu, mentioned by Richards (\*Mughal Administration\*, 270), an important landholder and \*deshmukh\* of Eluru, who owned ships and carried on coastal trade as well. In fact this is not very surprising, except when we think, as we are prone to do, in terms of the neat Census of India categories. ### [c19.s12.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.4) 27\. Irfan Habib, "Aspects of Agrarian Relations and Economy in a Region of Uttar Pradesh during the Sixteenth Century," \*Indian Economic and Social History Review\* 4 (1967): 205–32, esp. 216. ### [c19.s12.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.5) 28\. See J. P. Musgrave, "Landlords and Lords of the Land: Estate Management and Social Control in Uttar Pradesh, 1860–1920," \*Modern Asian Studies\* 6 (1972): 257–75, esp. 268ff. ### [c19.s12.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.6) 29\. M. N. Pearson, "Political Participation in Mughal India," \*Indian Economic and Social History Review\* 9 (1972): 113–31, esp. 129. ### [c19.s12.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.7) 30\. A well-known example is the career of Mir Jumla, who started out as a self-made merchant, became a powerful minister of Golconda, and went over to the Mughal side as a high-ranking \*mansabdār\* (Manucci, \*Storia do Mogor\*, trans. W. Irvine \[London, 1907–8\], 1: 231). His official position seems to have been closely tied in with his extensive commercial operations. ### [c19.s12.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.8) 31\. See, for instance, the case of Chinana Chetti, younger brother and successor of the east coast commercial magnate Malaya, who appears to have held various public offices and on occasion to have commanded troops in the field (Moreland, \*From Akbar to Aurangzeb\*, 156). For a late example of the tie-in of finance, commerce, and military affairs, see K. Leonard, "Banking Firms in Nineteenth-Century Hyderabad," \*Modern Asian Studies\* 15 (1984): 177–201. ### [c19.s12.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.9) 32\. B. S. Cohn, "Political Systems in Eighteenth-Century India: The Benares Region," \*Journal of the American Oriental Society\* 62 (1962): 312–20, esp. 313. Though Cohn refers to the eighteenth century, the system of relative weakness and management by conflict is equally relevant for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—as it is for traditional empires in general. See also A. Wink, "Land and Sovereignty under the eighteenty-century Marāṭha Svarājya" (Doctoral thesis Leiden, 1984), chap. 1. ### [c19.s12.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.10) 33\. William Hawkins, \*The Hawkins Voyages\*, ed. C. R. Markham, Hakluyt Society, vol. 57 (1878), 433. For this well-known stereotype, cf. also Bernier's classical statement in his letter to Colbert (A. Constable's edition, revised by V. A. Smith, of \*Bernier's Travels in the Mogul Empire\* \[Oxford, 1914\], 202f.). ### [c19.s12.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.11) 34\. See Habib, \*Agrarian System\*, 68f.; Richards, \*Mughal Administration\*, 190. ### [c19.s12.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.12) 35\. See J. C. Heesterman, "Littoral et intérieur de L'Inde," in \*History and Underdevelopment\*, ed. L. Blussé, H. L. Wesseling, and G. D. Winicus, (Leiden, 1980), 87–92. ### [c19.s12.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.13) 36\. W. H. Moreland, \*Jahangir's India: The Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert\* (Cambridge, 1925), 58f.; see also D. H. A. Kolff and H. W. Van Santen, \*De Geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal India, 1627\* (The Hague, 1979), 307. ### [c19.s12.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.14) 37\. For the easy transition from robbery to blackmail and transit dues, see Moreland, \*From Akbar to Aurangzeb\*, 289. ### [c19.s12.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.15) 38\. Ibid., 288. ### [c19.s12.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.16) 39\. Moreland, \*Jahangir's India\*, 59; Kolff and Van Santen, \*Geschriften van Franciso Pelsaert\*, 308. See also Habib, \*Agrarian System\*, 69, n. 42, for references to the activities of Meos and Jats between Agra and Delhi, the Rajputs of Baghelkhand, and the Kolis in Gujarat. ### [c19.s12.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.17) 40. For these terms, see Habib, \*Agrarian System\*, 331, n. 5. According to Habib, the term \*mawās\* is not found in the dictionaries. It is, however, given in J. Platts's \*Dictonary of Urdū, classical Hindī, and English\* in the sense of "protection, refuge, asylum, shady grove or wood," which from the "rebel's" point of view, makes perfect sense. Cf. also H. H. Wilson, \*A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms\* (London, 1855), s.v. \*mawāshī\* ("cattle"), and J. T. Molesworīh, \*Marāṭhi-English Dictionary\*, 2d rev. ed. (Bombay, 1957), s.v. \*mavāsī\* ("life and practices of a \*mavās\* or leader of a horde of banditti"). The combination of cattle keeping and transhumance with "rebelliousness" and warrior bands in the interstitial areas is easily explicable (see below and n. 41). ### [c19.s12.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.18) 41. Richards suggests that Aurangzeb might have paused in 1687 to negotiate some form of tributary relationship with the Maratha king (\*Mughal Administration\*, 310). This would have enabled the emperor to organize the newly conquered Deccan kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda. Such a course of action might have alleviated, at least temporarily, the pressure, but it would not have changed the structural problem, since it is not clear what would have kept the Marathas from building up strength and renewing their inroads. ### [c19.s12.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.19) 42. For the opposition between "nuclear areas" of settled agriculture and the wastes with their warriors, see B. Stein, "Agrarian Integration in South India," in \*Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History\*, ed. R. E. Frykenberg (Madison, 1969), 175–216, esp. 188, 192, 206. Stein concentrates on the "nuclear areas" and their institutions, but their relationship with the "tribal" areas is also made clear. Though he deals with South India, there is no reason to assume that the opposition was limited to the South. In fact, it is not limited to India either, see, for instance, \*Land\* as against \*wald\* (in O. Brunner, \*Land und Herrschaft\*, 6th ed. (Darmstadt, 1970), 185ff.; also W. Berges, "Land und Unland in der Mittelalterlichen Welt," \*Festschrift Hermann Heimpel\* (Göttingen, 1972), 399–439. The opposition recalls the ancient one of \*grāma\* and \*araṇya\*, see chapter 8, section 7. ### [c19.s12.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.20) 43. L. P. Tessitori, "Bardic and Historical Survey of Rajputana: A Progress Report," \*Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal\*, n.s. 15 (1919): 33f., 39f. ### [c19.s12.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.21) 44. Rather than the well-known Turner thesis of the American frontier, I am indebted to P. Witteks view of the frontier marches and their warriors (\*The Rise of the Ottoman Empire\* \[London, 1938\], 16–32). Wittek sees the origins of the Ottoman Empire in the warrior bands of \*ghāzīs\*, ("warriors of the faith") with their distinctive culture and institutions, operating in the marches—shared by them with the Byzantine \*akritai\*—between the Islamic and Byzantine worlds. In many ways the Mughal Empire seems reminiscent of this situation. One might even say that the Mughals never quite overcame their frontier situation. They remained based in it in a way that the Ottoman Empire did not. See also O. Lattimore, "The Frontier in History" \*Relazioni: X Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche\*, 1 (1955): 103–38. ### [c19.s12.22](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.22) 45. On the institution of \*bhūmiyāwat\*, see W. H. Sleeman's \*Rambles and Recollections\*, revised and annotated by V. A. Smith (Karachi, 1973), 245–52. ### [c19.s12.23](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.23) 46. Perhaps the Mughal bureaucracy's dual alignment of military and financial offices, putting at least two officers in charge of each post, can be viewed more as an adaption to the fractional structure, than a purely rational division of tasks. Thus a provincial revenue officer could equally well intervene militarily, especially in the reserved crown domains. (For a not dissimilar alignment in the British Indian administration, see above, n. 2). The formation of semiindependent regional principalities, as in the case of Bengal or Hyderabad, started with a pulling together of both functions by the “protodynast” (see P. B. Calkins, “The Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling Group in Bengal, 1700–1740,” \*Journal of Asian Studies\* 29 \[1969–70\]: 799–806, esp. 802, on Murshid Quli Khan; see also Richards, \*Mughal Administration\*, 277, on Mubariz Khan in Hyderabad). ### [c19.s12.24](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.24) 47. See Marshall, “Economic and Political Expansion.” Characteristically, British commercial interests in the area strongly opposed the annexations of 1801. ### [c19.s12.25](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.25) 48. See T. R. Metcalf, “From Raja to Landlord,” and “Social Effects of British Land Policy in Oudh,” in Frykenberg, \*Land Control\*, 123–62. ### [c19.s12.26](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.26) 49. See B. S. Cohn, “Structural Change in Rural Society, 1596–1885,” in Frykenberg, \*Land Control\*, 53–121, esp. 113. ### [c19.s12.27](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.27) 50. A case in point is the one analyzed by Frykenberg (\*Guntur District\*), of a district chief clerk, who, combining various interests, managed to build up a tightly controlled network. In other words, he had used the bureaucratic facilities to build his own “dependency” in much the classical way. Interestingly, the conspiracy was broken by the efficient cooperation of an English administrator and his Indian chief clerk, the latter belonging to the same background and community as the guilty head of the district bureaucracy. Probably it was his particular knowledge and understanding of the utterly tangled and particularistic situation that made the inquiry a resounding success. It almost looks as if the English had to use—albeit unknowingly—the potentialities of intracommunal factionalism in order to break the conspiracy, that is, they acted in the “traditional” way. ### [c19.s12.28](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.28) 51. On the increase of resources, see M. D. Morris, “Towards a Reinterpretation of Nineteenth-Century Indian Economic History, \*Journal of Economic History\*, 33, no. 4 (1963), reprinted with critical comments in \*Indian Economic and Social History Review\* 5 (1968): 1–100. See also Morris’s rejoinder, ibid., 319–88. On the development of local positions of strength and their supralocal connections, see, e.g., D. Washbrook, “Country Politics: Madras, 1880–1930,” in \*Locality, Province, and Nation\*, ed. J. Gallagher, G. Johnson, and A. Seal, (Cambridge, 1973), 155–211; and C. A. Bayly, “Patrons and Politics in Northern India,” ibid., 29–68. ### [c19.s12.29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.29) 52. An illustration is provided by the unrest in the Punjab canal colonies, where wealthy peasants had built up their strength and, using their rural-urban networks, undermined bureaucratic rule. See N. G. Barrier, “The Punjab Disturbances of 1907,” \*Modern Asian Studies\* 1 (1967): 353–83. ### [c19.s12.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.30) 53. On the institution of world renunciation, see Louis Dumont, “World Renunciation in Indian Religions,” \*Contributions to Indian Sociology\* 4 (1960): 33–62; for a different view, cf. chapter 1. ### [c19.s12.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.31) 54. Notwithstanding Gandhi’s professed disregard for constitutional niceties, the Congress constitutions of the interbellum period clearly bear the inprint of his considerable organizational talent and ideas. See D. Rothermund, “Constitutional Reform versus National Agitation,” \*Journal of Asian Studies\* 21 (1962): 505–22. ### [c19.s12.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.32) 55. On the friction over the relationship between the governmental apex and the congressional center, see S. Kochanek, “The Indian National Congress: The Distribution of Power between Party and Government,” \*Journal of Asian Studies\* 29 (1965–66): 681–97. ### [c19.s12.33](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.33) 56. It is, of course, too early to view recent developments in their proper perspective. However, it may well be that in the end it is not so much the state that will have eliminated society’s encroachment on its grounds, but, on the contrary, particularistic society and its turgid procedures that will take over the seat of government. ### [c19.s12.34](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12.34) 57. See F. Robinson, \*Separation among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces, 1860–1923\* (Cambridge, 1974). ## Linked texts (2) - [Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.artha.kautilya.4.1.65) — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit - [Ṛgvedasaṃhitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.samhita.rg) — Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s12) · Pramāṇa