A History of Agriculture in India v2.c83.s1: Spread of Tobacco Cultivation
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c83.s1
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Spread of Tobacco Cultivation
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OBSERVATIONS OF FRANCISCO PELSAERT,
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FRANCOIS BERNIER AND NICCOLAO MANUCCI
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ON CROPS AND FRUIT PLANTS
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JUTE fibre is obtained from the bark of the two cultivated species of the genus *Corchorus*, viz. *C. capsularis* and *C. olitorius*, of the family Tiliaceae. There is evidence of trade in jute cloth in the sixteenth century in Bengal. In the *Ain-i-Akbari* there is mention of sack-cloth (*tat*), which Jarret identifies with jute from the district of Rangpur. Poor people used sack-cloth for clothing. In contemporary Bengal literature, *Kavikankan Chandi* by Mukundaram Chakravarty, dated to *c.* 1575, there are references to gunny bags made of jute. In Bengali poetical works of the seventeenth century, sack-cloth made out of jute is mentioned as an article of trade.
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Tobacco crop was introduced into India during the last years of the reign of Akbar. It seems that this crop was introduced before 1600 into two separate areas of India, viz. the present state of Gujarat (Surat-Broach area) and the state of Andhra Pradesh (Masulipatam and interior). Even now these are the pripcipal tobacco-growing areas in India. The earliest mention of a significant crop of tobacco in western coastal areas of India is dated in 1604-1605. William Methwold, who was an agent of the English East India Company in the kingdom of Golkonda from 1618 to 1622, observes: 'They have within few years planted store of tobacco, and much of it is exported to Mocha and Arakan, and not a little smoked amongst themselves. It is but weak, yet sure more care in curing and making it up would help that fault; they only dry the leaves in the sun, and use it so, without further sophistication.' According to Methwold, 'the cultivation of tobacco on the Coromandel coast was established long enough to produce a crop sufficient for local demand and export to the Red Sea-Persian Gulf area and to coastal Burma before 1622.'¹ The tobacco crop which was introduced into Andhra before 1600, became an important crop in that region by 1620 (Fig. 56).
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¹ Gokhale, B.G. Tobacco in Seventeenth-Century India, *Agriculture History*, Vol. 48, Oct. 1971
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The records of the East India Company for 1602-18 published in six volumes, entitled *Letters Received by East India Company From Its Servants in the East*, contain references to crops. One of the earliest English records of tobacco cultivation in India is by William Biddulph. In his letter dated 28 October 1613 from Surat to the East India Company, he mentions widespread cultivation of tobacco in that area. The first record of export of tobacco from India is also to be found in one of these volumes. On 9 February 1619, 155 maunds of tobacco valued at 707 mahmudis and 6 *p* was sent in the ship *Lion* to Persia.²
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² Panikar, S.N. Landmarks in the Development of Tobacco in India, *Science and Culture*, Vol. 42, 1976
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Tobacco-smoking rapidly became popular in India during the reign of Jahangir. Realizing its harmful effect on the health of the people, Jahangir forbade smoking in 1617. Similar ban was imposed in Iran by Shah Abbas. In spite of the ban, smoking of tobacco spread in India and Iran.
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During the reign of Aurangzeb tobacco cultivation spread widely, and excise duty on this crop became a principal source of State revenue. The Italian traveller, Niccolas Manucci, who was in Delhi during the reign of Aurangzeb, observed, ‘The Mahomedans consume a great deal of this article in smoking. This is why the chief tax-farmer paid five thousand rupees a day at this city (Delhi) only. From this the reader can understand what would be the revenue from tobacco paid to the King of Hindustan throughout such a great empire.’ Cultivation of tobacco soon became popular in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. By the end of the seventeenth century, the consumption of tobacco through smoking and chewing with leaf of betel-vine spread throughout India.
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Mughal emperors from Akbar to Farrukhsiyar (1605-1719) did not smoke. There is no portrait in which they are seen smoking. On the other hand there is a portrait of Muhammed Shah (1719-1748) in which he is shown smoking a hookah (Fig. 58). Even among ladies, both Mughal and Rajput, smoking became a popular pastime in the middle of the eighteenth century. In miniature paintings, Rajput ladies of the Punjab Hill States are depicted smoking hookah (Fig. 59).