Indian history Notes # 17

Source: XII NCERT History Part II Chapter 4

• Major sources for the agrarian history of the 16^th and early 17^th centuries are chronicles and documents from the Mughal court.
• Ain-i-Akbari authored by the Akbar's court historian Abu’l Fazl.
• Ain-i-Akbari recorded the arrangements made by the state to ensure cultivation, to enable the collection of revenue by the agencies of the state and to regulate the relationship between the state and rural magnates, the Zamindars.
• The term which Indo-Persian sources of the Mughal period most frequently used to denote a peasant was Raiyat.
• Sources of the 17^th century refer to two kinds of peasants –     Khud Kashta & Pahi Kashta.
• Khud Kashta were residents of the village in which they held their lands.
• Pahi Kashta were non residents cultivators who belonged to some other village, but cultivated lands elsewhere on a contractual basis.
• Tobacco plant arrived first in the Deccan, spread to Northern India in the early years of the 17^th century.
• Maize was introduced into India via Africa and Spain and by the 17^th century it became major crop of western India.

There were three constituents of village community –

1. The Cultivators
2. The Panchayat
3. The village Headman (Muqaddam or Mandal)

• Agricultural laborers were called Majur.
• In Muslim communities menials like Halalkhoran (Scavengers) were housed outside the boundaries of the village.
• The chief function of the village headmen was to supervise the preparation of village accounts, assisted by he accountant or patwari of the panchayat.
• Pargana was an administrative subdivision of the Mughal province.
• Peshkash was a form of tribute collected by the Mughal state
• The Zamindars held extensive personal lands termed milkiyat, meaning property.
• The Mughal land revenue arrangements consisted of two stages

1. Assessment (Jama) 
2.  Actual collection (hasil)

• Amin was an official responsible for ensuring that imperial regulations were carried out in the provinces.
• The Emperor Akbar classified the lands and fixed different revenue to be paid by each.

1. Polaj is land which is annually cultivated for each crop in succession
2. Parauti is land left out of cultivation for a time that is may recover its strength
3. Chachar is land that has lain follow for 3 or 4 years.
4. Banjar is land Uncultivated for 5 years or more.

• The Mughal administrative system had at its apex a military cum bureaucratic apparatics (mansabdari) which was responsible for looking after the civil and military affairs of the state.
• The testimony of an Italian traveler, Giovanni careri, who passed through India in 1690, provides a graphic account about the way silver travelled across the globe to reach India.
• The Ain-i-Akbari is made of 5 books (Daftars).

1. Manzil-abadi, concerns the imperial household and its maintenance.
2. Sipah-abadi, covers the military and civil administration and the establishment of servants.
3. Mulk-abadi, deals with the fiscal side of he empire and provides rich quantitative information on revenue rates.
4. 4^th & 5^th books deal with the religious, literarty and cultural traditions of the people.

• Ain-i-Akbari was edited & translated to English by Henry Blochman.
• Asiatic Society of Bengal published the Ain-i-Akbari in its Bibliotheca India Series.