A History of Agriculture in India v2.c74.s10: The Role of the Zamindars
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c74.s10
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The Role of the Zamindars
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As regards the role of the *zamindars*, Moreland states that while some of them performed valuable economic functions in helping and supporting their peasants, others were parasites pure and simple. The political and social environment was unfavourable to the fruition of the idea of agricultural development. The high pitch of the revenue demand, approximating to the full economic rent, could be justified from Islamic texts by anyone who might care to take the trouble, but its actual motive was to be found in the needs of successive administrations and their officers; and its influence was necessarily increased by the miscellaneous exactions, prohibited from time to time but recurring regularly after each prohibition. The direct result was to take from the peasant whatever he could be made to pay, and thus to stereotype a low standard of living; but in addition there was the further effect of requiring the peasant who was making money to conceal his good fortune from everyone outside the village, and perhaps even from his neighbours. Thus the normal position was a contest between the administration and the peasants, the former endeavouring to discover and appropriate what the latter endeavoured to retain and conceal—an environment in which agricultural development could not be expected to make much headway.⁴
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⁴ Moreland, W. H. *India at the Death of Akbar*..., p. 207
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To sum up, the condition of the peasantry, who provided the surplus for construction of magnificent forts, palaces, mosques and mausoleums, was wretched. The bulk of them were small men with limited resources. Their holdings were small and there is no evidence that they could accumulate capital to make improvements. They were scantily dressed and their tools were primitive. In a rare painting relating to the reign of Akbar, farmers are shown harvesting wheat, threshing it by trampling under the feet of bullocks and winnowing. They wear turbans and tie a piece of cloth around the waist to cover their nudity (Fig. 34). Though they are well-built, they look far from affluent. It was on the toil of such people that the economy of the Mughal empire rested.
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Elliot, Sir H. M. and Dowson, J. *History of India as Told by Its Own Historians*, Vol. VI (Indian reprint), Allahabad, 1964
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Elphinstone, Hon. M. *The History of India—the Hindu and Mahometan Periods*, London, 1889
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Irfan Habib, *The Agrarian System of Mughal India*, Bombay, 1963
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Lane-Poole, S. *Mediaeval India—Under Mohammedan Rule*, A.D. 712-1764, Vol. II (Indian reprint), 1951
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Moreland, W. H. *India at the Death of Akbar—An Economic Study* (Indian reprint), 1920
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Narang, K.S. and Gupta, H. R. *History of the Punjab—1469-1857*, New Delhi, 1973
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Querashi, I. H. *Administration of the Mughal Empire*, Lohanipur (Patna), n.d.