A History of Agriculture in India v2.c85.s6.10

v2.c85.s6.10

To sum up, the Mughal system of Government and the Mughal society was predatory. There were lots of little fleas with lesser fleas on their backs to bite them. The English ambassador at the court of Jahangir's, Sir Thomas Roe, aptly observed, 'The people of India live as fishes do in the sea—the great ones eat up the little. For first the farmer robs the peasant, the gentleman robs the farmer, the greater robs the lesser, and the King robs all.' By the term farmer, he means the *jagirdars*, and his gentlemen were *omrahs* and *mansabdars*. The upper classes, the *omrahs*, *mansabdars* and *jagirdars* spent their incomes on objects of luxury and display. They did not invest money on improvement of land or on welfare of the peasantry and as a result the misery of the peasantry deepened, and their burden became insufferable in the reign of Aurangzeb and his successors.