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

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 131 from it.” Pelsaert, too, writing in Agra in 1626, laid stress on the instability of the position of the great men in the Empire; and, when we read the statements of these observers along with Jahangir's own memoirs and the other chronicles of the period, we cannot avoid the conclusion that anything like a far-sighted policy of agricultural development must have been impossible in the bulk of the Empire, because no assignee could count on retaining his position long enough to reap the benefit of his exertions. We must remember further that the period was one of growing luxury and extravagance, so that the needs of the assignees would tend to increase, and it was the peasant who had to pay; all the circumstances of the time point to the probability of im- poverishment, rather than development of the resources of the country. The contemporary chronicles tell us even less of the activities of Shahjahan than of Jahangir. A later writer? indeed, refers to orders issued by him for the increase and welfare of the peasants, to his constant attention to the revenue administration, and to his practice of rewarding those collectors who developed their circles; but I cannot trace any record of the orders themselves. The fact that successful collectors were rewarded is made clear? in the Bidshahnama, and the Emperor's attention to finance can be inferred from the account already quoted of the increase in revenue during his reign; what general orders he issued, if there were any, remains uncertain. The reign was marked also by the construction of some canals for irrigation, but the chronicles are silent as to the revenue side of these enterprises, and it is matter for conjecture whether or not water-rates were charged; possibly the resulting increase in land-revenue was re- garded as sufficient remuneration, since, with annual or seasonal assessments, the return would be almost immediate. I have found no record of any other changes, and, so far as the chronicles go, we might look on the reign as a period of ' See Elliot, vii. 171. The word rendered * collectors’ is chakladar; 1 have not found an earlier use of it, but by the middle of the century chakla had come to denote the circle of a collector (e.g. Badshahnama, I . 409), and chakladdr may safely be taken here as denoting the collector. } Fp. Badshahnama, II, 247, 310.

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