Class 12 History Notes Chapter 4 (Chapter 4) – Themes in Indian History-II Book

Detailed Notes with MCQs of Chapter 4, "Peasants, Zamindars and the State," from your Themes in Indian History Part II book. This is a crucial chapter for understanding the backbone of the Mughal Empire – its agrarian society. For your government exam preparation, we need to grasp the structure, key players, and the state's role during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Chapter 4: Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. 16th-17th Centuries)

I. Introduction: The Importance of Agriculture

• Agriculture formed the bedrock of the Mughal economy. The vast majority of the population lived in rural areas and was involved in agricultural production.
• The state derived the bulk of its revenue from agriculture. Therefore, understanding rural society is key to understanding the Mughal state's structure, resources, and stability.
• Our primary source for this period, especially regarding administration and statistics, is Abul Fazl's Ain-i-Akbari, the third volume of his larger work, the Akbar Nama.

II. Sources: The Ain-i-Akbari

• Author: Abul Fazl, court historian of Emperor Akbar.
• Purpose: To present a comprehensive vision of Akbar's empire, including its geography, administration, society, and culture.
• Content Relevant to Agrarian Society: The 'mulk-abadi' (fiscal side) section provides detailed statistical information about revenue rates, land classification, administrative divisions (subas, sarkars, parganas), and the composition of the zamindar class (castes, troops maintained).
• Strengths: Provides unparalleled quantitative data, insights into state ideology and administrative structure.
• Limitations:
  • Written from a top-down, state-centric perspective.
  • Data collection might have been uneven across the vast empire.
  • Focuses more on the Centre and less on regional variations or the peasant's perspective.
  • Statistical data needs careful interpretation (e.g., discrepancies between jama - assessed revenue, and hasil - actual collected revenue).
  • Other sources like regional records, chronicles, and traveller accounts help supplement and sometimes challenge the Ain.

III. Peasants and Agricultural Production

• Terminology:
  • Raiyat (or riaya): General term for peasant.
  • Muzarian: Another term used for peasant/tenant.
  • Asami: Individual peasant cultivator.
• Types of Peasants:
  • Khud-kashta: Resided in the village where they held lands. Owned their ploughs and bullocks. Had hereditary rights to cultivate their land as long as they paid revenue. Considered the core cultivating group.
  • Pahi-kashta: Non-resident cultivators. Cultivated lands in villages other than their own, often on a contractual basis. Might have been forced by economic distress (famine, debt) or attracted by favourable revenue terms elsewhere. Generally had lower status and fewer rights than khud-kashta.
• Land Ownership: While the state was the ultimate owner in theory, peasants enjoyed hereditary occupancy rights (miras or watan in some areas) as long as they paid revenue. Land was bought, sold, and mortgaged, indicating a concept of private property at the peasant level.
• Agricultural Technology:
  • Relied on animal power (oxen) and wooden ploughs, often tipped with iron.
  • Use of drills for sowing in some areas.
  • Irrigation: Dependent on monsoons, but also wells, tanks, canals (e.g., Shahnahar in Punjab), and persian wheels (rahát) were used, especially for valuable crops. The state sometimes encouraged digging of irrigation sources.
• Crops:
  • Two major crop seasons: Kharif (autumn - rice, millets, cotton) and Rabi (spring - wheat, gram, barley).
  • A wide variety of crops were grown, indicating intensive agriculture.
  • Jins-i-kamil (Perfect Crops): High-value cash crops encouraged by the state as they yielded more revenue. Examples: Cotton, Sugarcane, Oilseeds, Indigo, Opium. These linked agriculture to artisanal production (textiles, sugar) and trade.

IV. The Village Community

• Composition: More than just cultivators. Included artisans (potters, blacksmiths, carpenters, goldsmiths), service groups (barbers, washermen, watchmen - chowkidar), and agricultural labourers.
• Village as a "Little Republic": This 19th-century colonial idea suggested villages were self-sufficient, unchanging entities. Historians now see villages as having internal hierarchies, external linkages (state, market, other villages), and experiencing change.
• Caste and Rural Milieu:
  • Deeply ingrained caste hierarchies shaped social relations and access to resources.
  • Cultivators often belonged to intermediate castes, while 'menial' tasks associated with agriculture (like handling dead animals, scavenging) were performed by lower castes (referred to as halalkhoran etc. in sources). Deep social discrimination existed.
• Panchayats and Headmen:
  • Village Panchayat: An assembly of important village elders/residents, usually from dominant castes. Not necessarily democratic.
  • Headman (Muqaddam or Mandal): Chosen by consensus of elders, often ratified by the zamindar or state official. Oversaw village affairs, arranged revenue collection, mediated disputes, represented the village to state authorities, managed common village funds and resources. Could misuse power.

V. Role of Women in Agrarian Society

• Active Participants: Women worked shoulder-to-shoulder with men in fields (sowing, weeding, harvesting, threshing) and post-harvest processing.
• Artisanal Production: Crucial role in spinning yarn, pottery, embroidery, etc.
• Constraints: Patriarchal society placed constraints. Control over land and resources often rested with men. Practices like female infanticide and restrictions on widows were prevalent in some communities.
• Property Rights: Depending on the community/region, women sometimes had rights to inherit and hold property (especially landless labourers or widows).

VI. Forests and Tribes (Jangal)

• Significance: Large parts of India were covered by forests (jangal). This term didn't just mean wilderness but areas outside settled agriculture.
• Livelihood: Forests provided livelihood through hunting, gathering forest produce (honey, lac, gum, fruits), shifting cultivation (jhum), and timber.
• Forest Dwellers (Tribes): Often seen as 'uncivilized' by settled society but played economic roles (supplying forest produce, elephants for the army). Sometimes incorporated into the state structure or served as soldiers.
• State Interaction: The state often extracted tribute (e.g., elephants) from forest chiefs. Forests also served as refuge (mawas) for rebels or those fleeing state authority.

VII. The Zamindars

• Definition: A class that held hereditary proprietary rights (milkiyat) over agricultural lands in return for certain obligations to the state. They were intermediaries between the state and the peasants.
• Source of Power:
  • Control over land resources.
  • Caste status (often upper castes).
  • State patronage (revenue collection rights).
  • Military power (maintained fortresses - qilachas, and armed retainers - foot soldiers, cavalry). Performed khidmat (service) for the state.
• Functions:
  • Collect revenue from peasants and remit it to the state (keeping a share).
  • Maintain law and order within their territories.
  • Facilitate agricultural expansion (sometimes).
  • Provide military support to the state.
• Relationship with Peasants: Exploitative (extracting surplus), but also sometimes paternalistic (providing loans, support during famines). Peasants often depended on zamindars.
• Relationship with the State: Crucial intermediaries, but also potential rivals. Zamindars could be loyal collectors or defiant rebels. The Mughal state constantly tried to control and regulate them.
• Hierarchy: Zamindars ranged from small village-level figures to powerful regional chieftains controlling hundreds of villages.

VIII. Land Revenue System: The State's Claim

• Centrality: Land revenue was the main financial pillar of the Mughal Empire.
• Administration:
  • Office of the Diwan at the centre supervised the fiscal system.
  • Amil-guzar or Amil: Official responsible for revenue collection at the pargana (sub-district) level.
  • Detailed records (jama and hasil) were maintained.
• Assessment and Collection:
  • The state aimed to fix revenue demand based on the productivity of the land.
  • Ain-i-Dahsala: System associated with Todar Mal (Akbar's finance minister), involving averaging produce and prices over ten years to fix a standard cash rate per unit of land for different crops.
  • Land Classification (in Ain-i-Akbari): Based on continuity of cultivation:
    1. Polaj: Land continuously cultivated.
    2. Parauti: Land left fallow for a short time (1-2 years) to recover fertility.
    3. Chachar: Land left fallow for 3-4 years.
    4. Banjar: Land uncultivated for 5 years or more.
    • (Revenue rates were concessional for chachar and banjar to encourage cultivation).
• Payment: State preferred payment in cash, which encouraged cultivation of cash crops and monetized the rural economy. Payment in kind was also practiced in some areas or circumstances.

IX. Conclusion

• Mughal rural society was complex, hierarchical, and dynamic.
• It involved a triangular relationship between the peasants (primary producers), the zamindars (intermediaries), and the state (claimant to surplus).
• The Ain-i-Akbari provides a valuable, though state-centric, window into this world.
• The stability and prosperity of the Mughal Empire were heavily dependent on the efficient functioning of this agrarian system and the extraction of revenue from the peasantry.

Now, let's test your understanding with some Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) based on this chapter.

MCQs for Practice:

1. Who was the author of the Ain-i-Akbari, a key source for understanding Mughal agrarian society?
   (a) Todar Mal
   (b) Faizi
   (c) Abul Fazl
   (d) Badauni

2. In the context of Mughal India, peasants who resided in the village where they held their lands were known as:
   (a) Pahi-kashta
   (b) Muzarian
   (c) Khud-kashta
   (d) Halalkhoran

3. Which term refers to the high-value cash crops encouraged by the Mughal state for revenue purposes?
   (a) Jins-i-kamil
   (b) Polaj
   (c) Jama
   (d) Khidmat

4. The headman of the village panchayat during the Mughal period was often known as:
   (a) Amil-guzar
   (b) Diwan
   (c) Qilacha
   (d) Muqaddam or Mandal

5. According to the Ain-i-Akbari's classification, land left fallow for 3-4 years was called:
   (a) Polaj
   (b) Parauti
   (c) Chachar
   (d) Banjar

6. The term 'milkiyat' during the Mughal era referred to:
   (a) The state's share of the revenue
   (b) The peasant's occupancy right
   (c) The Zamindar's proprietary right over land
   (d) A type of cash crop

7. Which of the following was NOT a primary function of the Zamindars in the Mughal Empire?
   (a) Collecting revenue from peasants
   (b) Maintaining private armies and fortresses
   (c) Directly cultivating all the land themselves
   (d) Maintaining law and order in their areas

8. The Mughal state generally preferred land revenue payment in:
   (a) Kind (agricultural produce)
   (b) Cash
   (c) Service (labour)
   (d) Cattle

9. The term 'jangal' in Mughal India referred to:
   (a) Only dense, uninhabited forests
   (b) Any area outside settled agriculture, including forests and scrubland
   (c) A specific type of wasteland
   (d) Royal hunting grounds

10. The Ain-i-Akbari provides detailed information primarily from the perspective of:
    (a) The peasants
    (b) The village artisans
    (c) The Mughal state and its administration
    (d) Foreign travellers

Answer Key:

1. (c)
2. (c)
3. (a)
4. (d)
5. (c)
6. (c)
7. (c)
8. (b)
9. (b)
10. (c)

Make sure you revise these notes thoroughly. Understanding the agrarian base is fundamental to comprehending the Mughal Empire's power and eventual decline. Good luck with your preparation!