Discuss the picture of urban centres that emerges from Bernier’s account.
The picture of Urban centres and Bernier’s account:
(i) During the seventeenth century about 15 per cent of the population lived in towns. This was, an average, higher than the proportion of urban population in Western Europe in the same period. In spite of this Bernier described Mughal cities as 'camp towns', by which he meant towns that owed their existence, and depended for their survival, on the imperial camp. He believed that these came into existence when the imperial court moved in and rapidly declined when it moved out.
(ii) Bernier suggested that cities did not have viable social and economic foundations but were dependent on imperial patronage.
(iii) Bernier was drawing an oversimplified picture. There were all kinds of towns: manufacturing towns, trading towns, port towns, sacred centres, pilgrimage towns, etc. Their existence is an index of the prosperity of merchant communities and professional classes.
(iv) Merchants often had strong community and were organised into their own caste-cum-occupational bodies. In western India these groups were called mahajans, and their chief, the sheth. In urban centres such as Ahmedabad the mahajans were collectively represented by the chief of the merchant community who was called the nagarsheth.
