Description of land ownership by Bernier ( The Question of Land Ownership ) : –
🔹 Bernier pointed out the major difference between Mughal India and Europe was that of ownership of land. In India, there was lack of private property in land. He strongly believed that it was good to have private property for both the state and its people.
🔹 He thought that in the Mughal Empire, the emperor owned all the land and distributed it among his nobles and this method had disastrous consequences for the economy and society. This perception was also found in other travellers’ accounts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Disadvantages of Ownership of Land System in India : –
🔹 According to Bernier, in crown ownership of land, landholders could not pass on their land to their children. So they were averse to any long-term investment in the sustenance and expansion of production.
🔹 The absence of private property in land prevented the emergence of the class of landlords who focus on improving their lands as in Western Europe.
🔹 This practice had led to the uniform ruination of agriculture, excessive oppression of the peasantry and a continuous decline in the living standards of all sections of society, except the ruling aristocracy.
Truth about Ownership of Land : –
🔹 Mughal official documents does not show that state was the sole owner of land. The sixteenth century official chronicle Abu’l Fazl during Akbar’s reign describes the land revenue as ‘remunerations of sovereignty’.
🔹 This means that a ruler can claim on his subjects, for the protection he provided for the land and not the rent on land that he owned. European travellers assumed this claim to be rent because land revenue demands were very high in those times. But in reality this was not a rent or a land tax, it was a tax on crop.
Bernier described Indian society : –
🔹 Bernier described Indian society as consisting of undifferentiated masses of impoverished people, subjugated by a small minority of a very rich and powerful ruling class.
🔹 Between the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich, there was no social group or class worth the name.
🔹 Bernier confidently asserted: “There is no middle state in India.”
Bernier’s Views on Mughal Empire : –
🔹 Bernier presented a negative portrayal of the Mughal Empire, according to which its king was the king of “beggars and barbarians”; its cities and towns were ruined and contaminated with “ill air”; and its fields, “overspread with bushes” and full of “pestilential marishes”. And, all this was because of one reason: crown ownership of land.
Bernier’s Views on Peasantry : –
🔹 Bernier described the exploitation of peasants in his travel accounts. He pointed that there were vast tracts of land in the empire of Hindustan and most of the land was barren, badly cultivated and sparsely populated. A little fertile land was untilled (wasted) because of the lack of labourers.
🔹 When poor people could not meet the demands of their cruel and greedy lords, they are not only deprives of the means of livelihood but also their children are carried away as slaves. Thus, peasantry is drove to despair by cruelty and ultimately they abandon the country.
Description of artisans by Bernier : –
🔹 In the context of artisans, Bernier writes that artisans had no incentive to improve the quality of their manufactures, since profits were appropriated by the state. Manufactures were, consequently, everywhere in decline. At the same time, he conceded that vast quantities of the world’s precious metals flowed into India, as manufactures were exported in exchange for gold and silver.
Bernier’s Views about Towns : –
🔹 During 17th century, about 15 per cent of the population lived in towns. This was an average higher than the percentage of urban population in Western Europe in the same period. In spite of this, Bernier described Mughal cities as ‘camp towns’ which meant that these towns existed and depended on the imperial camp for their survival.
🔹 He believed that these came into existence when the imperial court moved in and rapidly declined when it moved out. He suggested that they did not have viable social and economic foundations but were dependent on imperial patronage.
🔹 As in the case of the question of landownership, 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.
Merchants and Other Professionals in Towns : –
🔹 Merchants had a strong community and kin ties 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.
🔹 There were other professionals existed in towns like physicians (hakim or vaid), teachers (pundit or mulla), lawyers (wakil), painters, architects, musicians, calligraphers, etc.
Imperial karkhanas : –
🔹 Bernier provided a detailed account of the working of the imperial karkhanas or workshops. There were large halls at many places called karkhanas or workshops for the artisans.
🔹 In one hall, there were embroiders supervised by a master and similarly other artisans in other halls like goldsmiths, painters, varnishers in lacquer work, joiners, turners, tailors and shoe makers, manufacturers of silk, brocade and fine muslins.
🔹 The artisans came every morning to their karkhanas and remain employed the whole day and returned to their homes in the evening.
Reality of Rural Society : –
🔹 The picture depicted by Western thinkers about subcontinent’s rural society was not real. Rural society was characterised by considerable social and economic differentiation during 16th and 17th centuries.
🔹 On one hand, there were big zamindars with superior rights in land and on the other, there were untouchable landless labourers.
🔹 Between them, there was the big peasant who used hired labour and engaged in commodity production and the smaller peasant who could barely produces for his livelihood.
Criticism of Indian Society by Bernier : –
🔹 Bernier criticised Indian society that it consisted of undifferentiated masses of poor people, suppressed by a small minority of very rich and powerful ruling class.
🔹 He stated that there was no middle state in India i.e. in between the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich, there was no social group or class. Mughal Empire king was the king of beggars and barbarians.
🔹 Subcontinent’s cities and towns were ruined and polluted with bad air and its fields were overspread with bushes and full of infectious waterlogged areas. Crown ownership of land was responsible for all this bad state of affairs.
Slaves : –
- slaves were openly sold in markets, like any other commodity, and were regularly exchanged as gifts.
🔹 When Ibn Battuta reached Sind he purchased “horses, camels and slaves” as gifts for Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq.
🔹 When he reached Multan, he presented the governor with, “a slave and horse together with raisins and almonds”.
🔹 Muhammad bin Tughlaq, informs Ibn Battuta, was so happy with the sermon of a preacher named Nasiruddin that he gave him “a hundred thousand tankas (coins) and two hundred slaves”.
Use of Slaves : –
🔹 Some female slaves in the service of the Sultan were experts in music and dance.
🔹 Female slaves were also used to keep a watch on his nobles by the sultan.
🔹 Slaves were used for domestic labour.
🔹 The services of these slaves were mainly taken to carry men and women in palanquins or dola.
European Traveller’s Views on Condition of Women : –
🔹 Many contemporary European travellers and writers often highlighted the treatment of women as a crucial marker of difference between Western and Eastern societies.
🔹 Bernier chose the practice of Sati for this detailed description. He noted that while some women seemed to accept death cheerfully, others were forced to die. Women were also involved in other things. Their labour was crucial in both agricultural and non-agricultural production.
🔹 Women from merchant families participated in commercial activities, sometimes even taking mercantile disputes to the court of law.
Related Chapters
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kings farmers and towns Notes
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Through the eyes of travellers notes
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Peasants zamindars and the state notes
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