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Peasants, Zamindars And The State
To what extent is it possible to characterise agricultural production in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries as subsistence agriculture? Give reasons for your answer.
(a) In India a great variety of crops were produced. Bengal alone produced 50 varieties of rice. But the focus on the cultivation of basic crops does not mean that only subsistence agriculture existed in medieval India.
(b) The Mughal state encouraged peasants to cultivate crops which brought in revenue especially cotton and sugarcane.
(c) Cotton was grown over a wide area including Central India and the Deccan plateau, whereas Bengal was famous for its sugar.
(d) Cash crops were grown included many varieties of oil seeds including mustard and lentils.
(e) Thus an average peasant grew both commercial and subsistence crops.
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Describe the role played by women in agricultural production.
Discuss, with examples, the significance of monetary transactions during the period under consideration.
Examine the evidence that suggests that land revenue was important for the Mughal fiscal system.
To what extent do you think caste was a factor in influencing social and economic relations in agrarian society?
How were the lives of forest dwellers transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
Examine the role played by zamindars in Mughal India.
Discuss the ways in which panchayats and village headmen regulated rural society.
On an outline map of the world, mark the areas which had economic links with the Mughal Empire, and trace out possible routes of communication.
Visit a neighbouring village. Find out how many people live there, which crops are grown, which animals are raised, which artisanal groups reside
there, whether women own land, how the local panchayat functions. Compare this information with what you have learnt about the sixteenth-
seventeenth centuries, noting similarities and differences. Explain both the changes and the continuities that you find.
How were the village artisans compensated by the villagers for their services? Write about any one.
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