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Peasants, Zamindars And The State
How did the expansion of commercial agriculture effect the life of forest dwellers?
(i) The forest dwellers earned their livelihood from hunting and shifting agriculture. But all these activities were seasonal. For example, the Bhils collected forest produce in the spring, fished in the summer, cultivated land in the monsoon and hunted during autumn and winter. They had to observe a perpetual mobility.
(ii) However the spread of commercial agriculture immensely affected the life of forest-dwellers. They exported forest products like honey, gum and beeswax. It encouraged an overseas export from India in the seventeenth century. They even captured and sold the elephants. The Lohanis of Punjab were engaged in overland trade between India and Afghanistan.
(iii) The commercial agriculture also brought a considerable change in the social life of the forest-dwellers. Many tribal chiefs had become zamindars. A few of them had even become the kings. It was the royal monopoly of the Ahom kings to capture wild animals.
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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.
How did the zamindars derive their power during the Mughal period? Mention any two ways.
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