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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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VC. The seventeenth century

Collection:: Economics Books

130 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA The only other fact which requires mention regarding this reign is the agrarian instability? which resulted from the frequency of changes in Assignments. William Hawkins, the first Englishman to enter into negotiations with Jahangir, attributed the prevalent lawlessness to the op- pression which the “clowns,” that is to say, the peasants, experienced at the hands of the assignees; and he blamed the system for this evil, writing that “, man cannot continue half a year in his living, but it is taken from him and given unto another; or else the King taketh it for himself (if it be rich ground and likely to yield much), making exchange for a worse place; or as he is befriended by the Vazir. By this means he racketh the poor to get from them what he can, who still thinketh every hour to be put out of his place. But there are many who continue a long time in one place, and if they remain but six years their wealth which they gain is infinite if it be a thing of any sort.” Hawkins did not write as a mere spectator, for Jahangir had given him a small appointment, and he had prolonged business with the Revenue Ministry regarding the allocation of his Assignment. He mentions that the Minister of the time was displaced as the result of many complaints made by noblemen who “could not receive their livings in places that were good, but in barren and rebellious places, and that he made a benefit of the good places himself”; but there is no sign of any change in the system. We may suspect that Hawkins exaggerated the frequency of transfers, but that they were frequent appears from other evidence. Terry, writing a few years after Hawkins, noted that high officers usually received a remove yearly; and this would ordinarily involve alteration in their Assignments. The Dutch writer of the report on Gujarat, which has been quoted above, said that assignees were “transferred yearly, or half-yearly, or every two or three years,” and consequently none of them could “ make any certain calculation in advance regarding the places which are given them, for to-day they are masters of a great place, to-morrow they are removed 1 For Hawkins, see Early Travels, 83, 91, 93, The passage in the Gujarat Report is f. 9 of Broach. For Pelsaert’s observations. see 64 ff. 114; for Terry, idem, 326. the chapter dealing with

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