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Peasants, Zamindars And The State
Examine the evidence that suggests that land revenue was important for the Mughal fiscal system.
(a) The mainstay of the Mughal economy was the revenue acquired from land. This was used to pay salaries and defray various administrative expenses.
(b) Its importance can be seen by the fact that an elaborate administrative apparatus was created to ensure control over agricultural production and to collect revenue from the length and breadth of the empire.
(c) This apparatus included revenue officials and record keepers. The Mughal state first acquired specific information regarding the extent of agricultural lands and their produce before fixing the burden of taxes.
(d) Land revenue arrangements consisted of two stages assessment (jama) and actual collection (hasil). Cultivators were given the choice to pay in cash or kind though the state preferred cash. While fixing the land revenue, attempts were made maximise profits.
(e) Both cultivated and cultivable lands were measured in each province. Efforts to measure lands continued under subsequent emperors like Aurangzeb. Yet not all areas could be measured successfully as huge areas of India were covered with forests.
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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.
How did the zamindars derive their power during the Mughal period? Mention any two ways.
What was Jati Panchayat? State any two of its functions.
Why had an artificial system of irrigation to be devised in India during sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ? Mention one such system.
Define the following terms : Polaj and Parati lands.
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