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

142 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA a holding. A Contract-holder was ordinarily succeeded by his heir (H. 11), and he could lease, mortgage, or sell, his rights in his holding (H. 12, 13). Inheritance is recog- nised by implication in the case of an ordinary peasant also, because provision is made (H. 17) for the disposal of a holding when there is no heir; and power to sell or pledge is also recognised by implication in the same case (H. 16). These provisions do not indicate any fundamental change in system, because, as we have seen in Chapter I, rights of inheritance and transfer are recognised by the Hindu Sacred Law. It is noteworthy that there is no explicit provision for the dispossession of an inefficient. or defaulting peasant, similar to that which is found in the Arthasastra; and this omission is common to the two farmans, for the earlier one lays great stress on complete and punctual collections {R. 4, 5), but is silent as to the action to be taken against defaulters. It is impossible to suppose that an adminis- tration concerned with getting the largest possible revenue should have been left powerless in the event of con- tumacious default; and the true reading must, I think, be that the necessary powers were inherent in the adminis- tration, but that at this period they were not of practical importance because of the scarcity of peasants, a topic to which I shall return. In the same way, Aurangzeb’s orders, like those issued by Akbar, do not provide for the sale of a peasant’s family for default; but we know from various authorities! that this process was in fact available to the local officials. Thus Badaiini records, as we have seen in the last chapter, that in the reign of Akbar, “the wives and children of the peasants were sold and scattered abroad.” Pelsaert, writing in the next reign, tells of the wives and children of defaulters being “made prize” and sold. Bernier states that defaulters were ‘bereft of their children, who are carried away as slaves.” Manrique, in describing Bengal under Mogul rule, wrote that “when the wretched people have no means of paying this [the revenue demanded in 1 Badauni, ii. 189; Pelsaert, 47; Bernier, 205; Manrique, i. 53, in the Hakluvt Society's translation (Travels of Fray Sebastian Manriaue, 1927).

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