Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (Part II)

Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire

Introduction

Agriculture formed the backbone of the Mughal Empire's economy. Approximately 85% of the population lived in villages and depended on farming. Yet the agrarian world was not simple — it was layered with different groups including peasants (farmers), zamindars (intermediaries who collected revenue), artisans, and the Mughal state. Understanding how land revenue was collected, how peasants lived, and how conflicts and cooperation between these groups shaped the empire is central to this chapter. Historians rely on the Ain-i-Akbari (a detailed administrative document compiled by Abul Fazl under Akbar) as a primary source.

The Ain-i-Akbari as a Historical Source

• The Ain-i-Akbari (Institutes of Akbar), compiled by Abul Fazl around 1598, is one of the most detailed administrative records from medieval India. It is the third volume of the · Akbarnama · and contains:
• Statistics on land revenue from different provinces
• Lists of crop prices
• Descriptions of zamindari holdings
• Information on the Mansabdari system
• Details of crafts, manufacturing, and royal household administration

However, historians treat the Ain-i-Akbari with caution: it represents the imperial perspective and was designed to project an image of an ordered, prosperous empire. It does not easily capture peasant voices, local variations, or moments of crisis and resistance.

The Mughal Land Revenue System

The Mughal emperors, particularly Akbar under his finance minister Raja Todar Mal, systematised land revenue collection through the Zabti (or Bandobast) system — also called the Dahsala system (1580 CE). Key features:

• Land was surveyed and classified into categories based on productivity (polaj — always cultivated; parauti — temporarily left fallow; chachar — uncultivated for 3-4 years; banjar — long-fallow wastelands).
• Revenue was calculated as a fraction of the crop yield (typically one-third).
• Payments could be made in cash or in kind.
• The jama (assessed revenue) was the target, while the hasil (actual collection) often fell short.

The Three-Tier Agrarian Hierarchy

1. The Mughal State
The emperor, through imperial officials, held the ultimate right to revenue from the land. Provinces (subahs) were administered by governors (subahdars), below whom were district (sarkar) and village-level (pargana) officials. Amils (revenue officials) were responsible for collection.

• 2. Zamindars
• Zamindars occupied the crucial middle position between the state and the peasantry. They were:
• Not landlords in the modern sense — they did not own the land peasants tilled.
• Hereditary revenue collectors with the right (haqq) to collect a portion of the revenue in return for services.
• Often local elites with their own armed retinues, fortified houses, and local prestige.
• From various backgrounds — some were Rajput chiefs, some were former rulers who had submitted to Mughal authority, and some were simply powerful local families.

Zamindars played a dual role: they facilitated revenue collection for the state but also protected and supported peasants in their locality, advancing loans in bad years and participating in local markets.

• 3. Peasants (Raiyats)
• The vast majority of the population. Key distinctions:
• Khudkasht: Peasants who owned their land and possessed hereditary rights to cultivate it. They were wealthier and more stable.
• Paikasht: Peasants without land rights who migrated from one village to another, often cultivating as tenants. They were more vulnerable to exploitation.

Peasant households were largely subsistence farmers, growing food crops like wheat, rice, and millets, but the Mughal period also saw significant expansion of cash crops — cotton (Malwa), indigo (Bengal, Gujarat), sugarcane, and opium — driven by market demand and the state's preference for cash revenue.

Women in Agrarian Society

• The Ain-i-Akbari provides limited information about women, but other sources (legal texts, travellers' accounts) show that:
• Women worked alongside men in the fields, particularly during sowing and harvesting.
• Artisan women (weavers, spinners) were integrated into the household economy.
• Legal rights over land were largely held by men, but widows sometimes retained use-rights.
• Land transfer documents (nikanamas) occasionally listed women as parties.

Peasant Resistance and the Limits of Mughal Control

• The Mughal state was powerful but could not impose its will uniformly across such a vast territory. Peasants resisted exploitative revenue demands through:
• Desertion: The most common form of resistance — peasants abandoned their land and moved elsewhere. The Mughal state needed cultivated land for revenue, so deserted villages meant fiscal loss.
• Armed uprisings: The Jat peasant uprisings (17th century, particularly in the Mathura region under Gokula and later Churaman) and the Sikh uprisings in Punjab represented organised armed resistance.
• The Mughal crisis of the 17th century — exacerbated by heavy revenue demands, jagirdari crisis, and repeated famines — created conditions for widespread rural unrest that contributed to the empire's eventual decline.