Debating the Magnitude of Colonial Change:

Ecology, Society, Politics

Characteristics of the Mughal Economy, 1550-1720s

• Heavily agrarian, but also highly integrated into credit and monetary systems

• Agrarian economy supports a large artisanal sector—textiles, metalwork, woodwork, food processing, etc.– Both domestic and overseas consumption

• Significant interaction with large-scale domestic and international trade networks

• Mughal India is a “gold sink”

Mughal Society

• Strong ties of patronage b/w urban-rural aristocracy, artisans, peasants, merchants

• Supports local interest in public works projects such as bazars (markets), rest-houses, wells, and tanks

• Large consumption of upper-level households (w/ 1000s of retainers) stimulates economy

• Rising rural incomes also create markets for domestic goods

State’s role in Economy

• Prefers to collect taxes in cash—encourages peasants to move to a fully monetized economy

• Large mobile army, system of government supports a large network of credit providers, money changers, financiers

• The Mughal peace protects trade• Open borders and incentive foster

overseas and overland trade

Change in the 18th C

• Mughal Empire is replaced by smaller regional states, Why?– Wealthy peasants and rural elite (zamindars) rebel and withhold

taxes—Sikhs, Jats, Marathas– Nobility unable to get a secure income from revenue grants– Some Mughal governors become independent rulers—Bengal,

Awadh, Hyderabad– Deprived of income, Mughal court unable to fight rebellion and

attacks by Afghans and Persians in mid-18th c.

• Although there is war and political change—no sign that the economy suffers except in Northwest, most areas recover by mid-18th cen.

Sites of peasant Rebellion & conquest

States ruled by Former Mughalofficials

Pre-existing states,Revert to local rulers

Transition to Colonial rule—post 1757

• The rise of the English East India co. began in Bengal and the area around company towns such as Bombay and Madras

• Due to a dispute with the rule of Bengal, the nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, a conspiracy evolved between Robert Clive, Indian bankers, and Mir Jafar, the nawab’s uncle

• Bengal is captured following the Battle of Plassey in 1757

Initial problems in Bengal

• As a trading company, the EIC is not knowledgeable about government, tax collection, or local conditions

• Creates a puppet state, but actually takes over most aspects of government

• New taxation system is based on selling tax contracts to highest bidder (revenue farming)

• Creates monopolies on salt, opium, and other commodities—eliminates trade competition

Results of governmental change

• Older economic, patronage, and social networks collapse

• Excessive taxation and drought lead to the death of 1/3 of Bengal’s population—endemic famine for several years

• New system called the Bengal Settlement is created—dispossess peasants and recognizes zamindars (former revenue collectors) as hereditary owners of land– Bid to create a local aristocracy stems both from

misreading of Mughal law and influence of European customs

Colonial Expansion, 1770s-1840s

• With Bengal’s revenue the EIC undertakes a continuing expansion into rest of S. Asia

• Due to failure of Bengal Settlement, other types of land settlements are explored– Ryotwari in parts of South India and North west—

recognizes land rights of individual peasants– Bhaichara tenures in central parts—shared rights of

joint families/clans

• S. Asia converts by the early 19th c. into a classical colonial economy:

Colonies produceRaw goods:

Cotton, sugar, indigo

Raw goodsConverted to

FinishedProducts in Europe

Shipped backTo colonies

For sale

Features of the Colonial Economy:

• Artisanal production suppressed—first due to tariffs in Europe, later due to cheapness of industrialized goods after 1850s

• Peasants switch to a subsistence-type of agriculture rather than a mixed economy of agrarian income supplemented by artisanal or other employment

• Demand for other types of employment collapses as more states absorbed by the EIC

• Taxes for grazing lands, using woods, using irrigation canals—common lands revert to government

Environmental Considerations:

• More population pressure on land—larger groups of people switch to agrarian existence, less land available – Government becomes primary land owner

• Inflexible tax structure taxes land rather than crops, no incentives for crop rotation or letting lands lie fallow

• Pressure to switch to commodity crops that support colonial economy

• Pressure on nomadic groups to settle and become peasants—also has impact on trade

• Control of borders reduces overland trade to Central Asia, Tibet

Social consequences:

• Growing ruralization and malnutrition—19th century sees series of wide spread famines

• Indigenous knowledge of crop rotation, water harvesting lost

• Crop diversity endangered by growing monoculture of colonial economy

• Inflexible notions of caste, tribal, religious identity enforced by mechanisms such as census and modern reform movements—generate new social tensions

1857 war, India becomes Crown Colony

• In 1857 a mutiny by EIC soldiers quickly converts into a larger peasant rebellion in the north

• Colonial administration disrupted for over a year—mismanagement by EIC becomes clearer

• In 1858, after colonial rule is restored India will be directly governed by Parliament—becomes a Crown Colony

Post-1858 trends

• Q. Victoria announces new respect for religious traditions of Indians

• Orientalist understandings of religious law have profound impact on inheritance, employment, family patterns for S. Asians

• As a Crown Colony S. Asia becomes a patchwork of directly ruled colonial areas and indirectly ruled princely states

New Colonial Patterns after 1858:

• Continued subdivision of farms under new inheritance laws, flexibility of local custom and land use disappears

• Enclosure by government of fallow land, common pasture, woods continue—pressure on previously cultivated areas grows

• Soil productivity drops• “Scientific” management of land leads to

commercial use of forests, new irrigation projects w/tax money, additional taxes on pasture animals, wood, etc.

Gadgil and Guha Discussion

• Understand their contribution to debate about actual change in colonial era

• Evaluate to what extent new patterns during colonial era are due to actual changes in gov. policy, vs. demographic and economic changes already under way in the mughal era