The agrarian system of Moslem India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1804119261

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-188010

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Moreland, William Harrison http://d-nb.info/gnd/172263670

Title:: The agrarian system of Moslem India

Edition:: 2. ed. Reissue (d. Ausg. Cambridge) 1929; [Reprint]

Place of publication:: Delhi

Publisher:: Oriental Books, Munshiram Manoharlal

Year of publication:: 1968

Scope:: XVII, 296 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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xii INTRODUCTION exists, but a brief reference is required to the main factors which have operated, because it is only by consciously eliminating these factors that we can reach a just idea of the conditions which prevailed in the earlier period. It is a commonplace of history that the nineteenth century brought to Northern India a degree of internal tranquillity which had not previously been enjoyed; and that the result was seen in a rapid growth of population, and the development of competition for productive land. In the Moslem period, such competition scarcely existed, outside relatively small areas; and we have to bear in mind that, in most parts of the country, land was waiting for men with the resources necessary for its cultivation. Another gift of the nineteenth century was what is conventionally described as the Rule of Law, superseding by degrees the personal rule of the Mos- lem period; while a third factor, which is perhaps less generally recognised, was the spread of benevolent or philanthropic ideals which characterised the century, not merely in India, but throughout the civilised world. To trace the operation of these factors is the task of the his- torian of the British period: my object in mentioning them here is merely to emphasise the point that, in trying to appreciate the Moslem system, we must be careful to exclude them from our estimate. In other words, we must get away from the ideas of competition for land, of respect for written law or precedent. and of modern administrative philanthropy. Such is the scope of my essay, but in order to explain the method of study a few words must be said regarding its genesis. The importance of the subject was impressed forcibly on me some years ago, when I was collecting materials for a sketch of the economic situation of India in the time of Akbar. The fact that in the Mogul period the State disposed of from a third to a half of the gross produce of the land constituted it by far the most potent factor in the distribution of the national income; while its action in regard to distribution inevitably reacted on production, so much so that we are justified in concluding that, next only to the weather, the administration was the dominant fact in the economic life of the country.

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