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

146 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA mortality, but had wholly subsided in the year 1616; the symptoms are not described, but the language used points to plague! Either the statement that the disease had subsided was premature, or fresh infection supervened, for plague was prevalent in the city of Agra in 1618, in 1632, and in 1644, and in Delhi in 1656; while it was virulent in the Deccan and Gujarat for several years before 1689. It is possible then that the rural population of the North had been affected by a prolonged epidemic of plague at the time when Aurangzeb’s orders issued, but I know of no direct evidence in favour of this view, and on the other hand there is definite and credible evidence that the scarcity of peasants was due to flight, not death. This evidence is contained in the survey of the Mogul Empire? which Francois Bernier wrote for Colbert, the eminent French statesman, about the year 1670. Bernier was well qualified for the task he undertook. He came of peasant stock, and was thus in a position to appreciate the agrarian situation which he found in India; while, at the same time, he was a highly educated man, having taken a Doctor's degree at the University of Montpellier, and he had travelled widely, in Asia as well as Europe, before he reached India about the time of Aurangzeb’s accession. He spent eight years at the Emperor’s Court in practice as a physician, he was on familiar terms with some of the high officers, and his opportunities for acquiring knowledge were thus much greater than those of an ordinary traveller. That they were well used is apparent from his observations on various topics, such, for instance, as th~ supply of gold and silver, which can be confirmed from the Dutch and English commercial records of the period; and there are no grounds for rejecting his evidence on the question which concerns us—the scarcity of peasants, and their readiness to abscond. This scarcity of peasants had clearly impressed itself 1 This epidemic is mentioned in some Factory Records published in Sir William Foster's Supplementary Calendar of Documents in the India Office; see Nos. 377, 379, 384, 393. The information is, however, not at first hand; one report declared it was ‘‘not the plague.” but this is by no means conclusive. 2 Bernier. The Letter to Colbert begins on p. 200; the extract given is on p. 205: the subiect of absconding recurs on pp. 226. 232.

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