SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LIFE

Prosperous cities

Prosperity and plenty prevailed in the chief cities of India in the age of the great Mughuls. Writing in A.D. 1585, Fitch observed: ” Agra and Fatehpore are two very great cities, either of them much greater than London and very populous. Between Agra and Fatehpore are twelve miles, and all the way is a market of victual and other things, as full as though a man were still in a town, and so many people as if a man were in a market. ” Terry refers to the Punjab as “a large province, and most fruitful.

 Lahore is the chief city thereof, built very large, and abounds both in people and riches, one of the principal cities for trade in all India”. Monserrate asserted that in 1581 Lahore was “not second to any city in Europe or Asia”. Burhanpur in Khandesh was “very great, rich and full of people”. Ahmadabad in Gujarat has been described by Abul Fazl as “a noble city in a high state of prosperity”, which “for the pleasantness of its climate and display of the choicest productions of the whole globe is almost unrivalled”. In Eastern India there was much opulence in cities like Benares, Patna, Rajmahal, Burdwan, Hugli, Dacca and Chittagong.

Communications

There was no want of communications, along roads and rivers, for the purposes of the vast mercantile traffic, though they compare unfavorably with those of the present day improved under scientific conditions. Of course, with the exception of certain highways, the roads were generally unmetalled but the main routes of land travel were clearly defined, in some cases by avenues of trees, and more generally by walled enclosures, known as sarais, in which travellers and merchants could pass the night in comparative security”. The rivers, some of which were navigable throughout the year and some through a part of it, afforded excellent means for the carriage of heavy traffic. Of course, the security of the communications depended greatly on the efficiency of the administration of the country. But even in the eighteenth century the facility of river communication had been referred to by such writers as Dow, Rennell and Stavorinus, who had intimate knowledge of the province. There was a tradition of road-building activity on the part of the State since the early days of Indian history, which the great Sur rulers imitated and the Mughuls also followed. A bridge was built at Jaunpur by Munim Khan early in Akbar’s reign. Jahangir constructed water-works at Burhanpur, and, under Shah Jahan, ‘Ali Mardan Khan repaired or built the Ravi canal in 1639, which benefitted the people to a great extent.

Agriculture

The agricultural crops of the time were much the same as those of to-day. It is wrong to say that there was no localization of crops as in the present day, for sugar was cultivated in many parts of Bengal and Bihar and was carried to other parts of India; and indigo was cultivated in certain places of Northern India. Pelsaert definitely tells us of the large-scale production and manufacture of indigo in the Jumna valley and Central India. To meet the demands of widespread manufactures of cotton and silk goods, both cotton and silk were cultivated extensively in certain parts of India. Tobacco, introduced either late in 1604 or early in 1605, began to be cultivated by the people thereafter. Agricultural implements were also very much the same as those of the present day, and such was the case with the agricultural system with the exception of the comparative absence of artificial irrigation. The tenants were often subjected to the oppression and exactions of local officials.

Famines

The sufferings of the peasants knew no bounds during the frequent outbreaks of famine, caused by the failure of seasonal rains, Especially because the Mughul State then made no systematic and prolonged efforts to provide relief and effected no substantial remissions in revenue collection. The little that they did was insufficient to alleviate the acute miseries of the myriads of people who died of starvation and the pestilence that closely followed it. A terrible famine broke out in 1556-1557 in the neighbourhood of Agra and Biyana, and Badauni “with his own eyes witnessed the fact that men ate their own kind and the appearance of the famished sufferers was so hideous that one could scarcely look upon them. . . .

 The whole country was a desert, and no husbandman remained to till the ground”. Gujarat, one of the richest provinces in India, was stricken with famine and pestilence in 1573-1574, so that “the inhabitants rich and poor, fled from the country and were scattered abroad”. The country was so greatly affected by the horrors of a severe famine lasting from 1594 to 1598 that “men ate their own kind. The streets and roads were blocked up with dead bodies and no assistance could be rendered for their removal”. Akbar made an attempt to relieve the distress of the people by placing Shaikh Farid of Bukhara, a naturally kind-hearted man, in charge of relief measures. But the miseries of the people due to this catastrophic visitation, were too appalling to be removed by such steps. An equally horrible famine devastated the Deccan and Guiarat in 1630-1632. The horrors of this calamity were so great that, as ‘Abdul Hamid Lahori, the official historian of the reign of Shah Jahan, writes, “men began to devour each other, and the flesh of a son was preferred to his love. A Dutch merchant, who witnessed the calamity, notes that men lying in the street, not yet dead, were cut up by others, and men fed on living men, so that even in the streets, and still more on road journeys, men ran great danger of being murdered or eaten”. Shah Jahan opened a few soup- kitchens”, distributed 1.5 lacs of rupees in charity and remitted one-eleventh of the land-revenue assessment but this could not suffice to mitigate the sufferings of the starving people. There were occasional outbreaks of famine during the succeeding years till the close of Aurangzeb’s reign, but none was so severe in nature as that of 1630-1632.

Industry and Crafts

One of the most important factors in the economic history of India during the period under review was the extensive and varied industrial activity of the people, which besides supplying the needs of the local aristocracy and merchants could meet the demands of traders coming from Europe and other parts of Asia. By far the most important industry in India during this period was the manufacture of cotton cloth. The principal centres of cotton manufacture were distributed throughout the country, as, for example, at some places on the Coromandel coast, at Patan in Gujarat, Burhanpur in Khandesh, Jaunpur, Benares, Patna and some other places in the United Provinces and Bihar, and many cities and villages in Orissa and Bengal. The whole country from Orissa to East Bengal looked like a big cotton factory, and the Dacca district was specially reputed for its delicate muslin fabrics, “the best and finest cloth made of cotton” that was in all India. Pelsaert notes that at Chabaspur and Sonargaon in East Bengal “all live by the weaving industry and the produce has the highest reputation and quality”. Bernier observes: “There is in Bengals such a quantity of cotton and silk, that the Kingdom may be called the common storehouse for those two kinds of merchandise, not of Hindustan or the Empire of the Great Mogul only but of all the neighbouring kingdoms, and even of Europe.” The dyeing industry, too, was in a flourishing condition. Terry tells us that coarser cotton cloths were either dyed or printed with a “variety of well-shaped and well-coloured flowers or figures, which also fixed in the cloth that no water can wash them out”.