The wonder that was india

Such villages were no more than a cluster of huts with arable and waste-land, groves, and pastures. Their products were marketed in the neighbouring towns. They were an asset to the developing cities of the Delhi sultans and the Mughals. The peasants used buckets to irrigate their land, but Babur considered this laborious and filthy. He says:

At the well-edge they set up a fork of wood, having a roller adjusted between the forks, tie a rope to a large bucket, put the rope over the roller, and tie its other end to the bullock. One person must drive the bullock, another empty the bucket. Every time the bullock turns after having drawn the bucket out of the well that rope lies on the bullock-track, in pollution of urine and dung, before it descends again into the well.'15

Babur's description of Persian wheels, which he saw in Lahore and Dipalpur, is interesting:

They make two circles of ropes long enough to suit the depth of the well, fix strips of wood between them, and on these fasten pitchers. The ropes with the wood and attached pitchers are put over the well-wheel. At one end of the wheel-axle a second wheel is fixed, and close (gosh) to it another on an upright axle. This last wheel the bullock turns; its teeth catch in the teeth of the second, and thus the wheel with the pitchers is turned. A trough is set where the water empties from the pitchers and from this the water is conveyed everywhere.16

Rivers, streams, and reservoirs were also an important source of water for irrigation. Firuz Shah constructed a double system of canals whose headwaters were drawn from the Jamuna and Satlaj. The Satlaj section joined the main stream at Karnal. The original

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course of the Jamuna may be followed from its emergence in the outer ranges of the Himalayas, through the Chitang river to Hansi and Hisar.

Firuz Shah's Jamuna canal was repaired during Akbar's reign. In Shahjahan's time it was reopened from its mouth at Khizrabad, nearly 72 miles in length, to serve Delhi. It was known as the Nahr-i Bihisht (Channel of Heaven); its modern successor is the West Jamuna Canal. It always served to irrigate a considerable area of land.

The observations of foreign travellers, read in conjunction with the account of crops in the Ain-i Akbari, show that cereals, millets, pulses, oil-seeds, both the common and thick variety of sugar-cane, cotton, hemp, indigo, poppies, and betel were grown for sale to merchants from neighbouring towns and elsewhere. Vegetables were also cultivated. Bengal produced rice in such abundance that it was transported up the Ganges as far as Patna and exported by sea to Masulipatam and many other ports on the Coromandel coast. It was also exported to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Bengal was equally rich in sugar-cane. It exported sugar to Golkonda and Karnatak, also to Arabia, Iraq, and Iran, through Mocha, Basra, and Bandar 'Abbas. Ajmir sugar-cane was perhaps the best in quality in the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century sugar-cane cultivation spread to many places in Bihar and the region around Aurangabad.

Indigo was increasingly in demand in the sixteenth century. It was used for washing and dyeing cotton cloth. Towards the close of the century, the European woollen industry replaced woad with indigo. This resulted in a tremendous increase in indigo production in India, centred in Sarkhij (Gujarat) and Bayana (near Agra). Bayana indigo was made up in balls and was known as Lahori in the Aleppo market, because the caravans bringing it came from Lahore. Sarkhij indigo, formed into cakes, contained an admixture of sand, so that about 1.30 kilos of Sarkhij were equivalent to 0.90 kilos of Lahori. It was exported mainly through the Persian Gulf. Indigo from Sehwan (Sind) and Telingana (Deccan) was of better quality. By the beginning of the seventeenth century other north Indian towns had also grown into important indigo production centres.

At the end of Akbar's reign an imperial envoy returning from Bijapur brought a hookah to court. Jahangir prohibited the use of tobacco, and some addicts were severely punished, but smoking spread rapidly to all classes. Many puritanical 'ulama' wrote fatwas condemning tobacco, and heated debates were held between its supporters and opponents. The Muslims did not give it up; only the

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Sikhs totally abandoned it in obedience to Guru Gobind, while the Jats became strongly addicted. Tobacco became a very valuable crop, extensively cultivated. Coffee was grown in Maharashtra. Tea was still unknown. Chilli was introduced by the Portuguese via Goa. Pan (betel leaf) was extensively grown. Saffron cultivation was confined to Kashmir. Both sweet and ordinary potatoes were introduced by the Portuguese. Babur had introduced many Central Asian fruits, and a variety of rare fruits were grown in the imperial gardens. The aristocracy also produced fruit, both for their own consumption and for sale.

In the villages white and brown sugar and indigo dyes were manufactured, and oil was extraced from oil-seeds. Cotton was also cleaned and carded there. After the fourteenth century Bengal villages became centres for the rearing of the mulberry silkworm.

Food grains were distributed by banjdras or wandering grain dealers. They bought grain in the villages and then transported it to the towns on their bullocks. In 'Ala'u'd-Din's reign, food grain was sold to the banjdras under government supervision immediately after the harvest. In other times the sale was free, although the army and townships depended upon the grain traders for their survival. The peasants were compelled to sell their produce, since they needed money to pay their taxes and to buy ornaments and clothes, while the evil of hoarding grain had always been condemned by the 'ulama'. A surviving farmdn from Aurangzib says that in Ahmadabad the local officers, seths (bankers), and desdis (headmen) were buying all the newly harvested grain, and only the rotting produce was left for the traders, although they had to pay the full price. The farmdn urged the diwdn to stop this illegal trade.

The peasants' scanty clothing, primitive straw huts, and poor belongings shocked European observers, who also vividly described the famines and droughts. Their comments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries hold good even today. However, the occasional references to village life in contemporary Persian sources indicate that the villages were composed of both rich peasants and landless labourers. The rulers' fiscal policy considerably affected peasant life. For example, 'Afif says that Firuz Shah's policies made the villages exceedingly prosperous, and the peasants had accumulated large amounts of gold and silver. They even possessed many luxuries such as fine bed sheets, pretty cots, and other household items, while no woman was without ornaments.17 Possibly this affluence was confined to villages in the neighbourhood of Delhi and those benefiting from the new canal system. Nevertheless, most of the peasants owned the land they tilled on a hereditary basis. They could sell, transfer, or bequeath their land and, as long as

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they paid their taxes, could not be evicted. Some of them had lived in the same village for many generations and owned their own bullocks and implements. They were known as the khudkdsht peasants or the 'resident cultivators'.

The brahmans zamindars and khudkdsht ordinarily did not put their own hands to the plough. They employed a group of farm-hands known as pahis who moved from village to village offering their services to the zamindars and the khudkasht peasants. Some pahis had their own bullocks and ploughs; others used those belonging to the zamindars or khudkasht. Some lived in one village and worked in another. The pahis were in great demand for turning 'cultivable waste' into productive land. They were also given some land rights. The landless labourers who worked for wages were in the minority. The peasants would have been better off financially if then, as now, they had not wasted their savings on weddings, parties, and festivals.18

THE ZAMINDARS

The Muslim governing classes, religious aristocracy, and converts formed only a very small percentage of the Indian population, even by the end of the seventeenth century. The bulk consisted of Hindu peasants, labourers, tribal groups and their leaders, village chieftains, and indigenous rulers. After the establishment of the Delhi sultanate the village hereditary chieftains, known as ranas, rays, and rawats, paid tribute only at the point of a sword. Frequent military expeditions had also to be mounted to exact revenue from the chawdhris, khuts, and muqaddams. Muslim rule changed neither the Hindu class structure nor its social ethics.

From Akbar's reign onwards, all those who possessed rights superior to those of ordinary peasants were called zamindars. Although the term had been in use since the fourteenth century, under Akbar it was extended to include all classes of chiefs. The madad-i ma'ash holders, and the Turko-Afghan iqta' holders who had settled down in villages and small towns, also acquired zamindari rights. They had now become dependent for their livelihood, like the hereditary village headmen, upon receiving a share of the revenue paid by the peasants. From the seventeenth century a small section of Mughal mansabdars and cavalry troopers began to invest their savings in acquiring zamindari rights.

The zamindars might be divided into three categories:

(1) Chieftains who were the hereditary, autonomous rulers of

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their territories and enjoyed practically sovereign power. Akbar made most of them mansabdars. Accordingly, in the second half of Aurangzib's reign, 15 per cent of the total number of the one thousand or more mansabdars belonged to the ruling chieftain houses. Their income as mansabdars was several times higher than the income from their ancestral territories. The Mughals converted the hereditary dominions of the autonomous chiefs into watan jagirs. These were usually inherited by the chiefs heirs, but the emperor had the right to 'recognize' a younger son or even a distant relation as successor. If the ancestral territory's assessed land tax fell short of the salary commensurate with the mansab rank granted to the chief, he was assigned jagir as salary elsewhere. This not only added to his income it also enhanced his prestige, making loyalty to the Mughal throne more rewarding than rebellion. On their part, the chieftains introduced the Mughal pattern of provincial government into their territories unless it clashed with their own interests. This contributed to the uniformity of rules and regulations throughout the empire.

(2) The primary zamindars held proprietary rights over agricultural as well as inhabited land. This included both the peasant proprietors, who themselves worked with the help of hired labour, and the larger proprietors, who owned one or two villages. Their rights were hereditary but alienable. These terms were given to all those who undertook to extend cultivation or who qualified for the madad-i ma'ash grants. These rights could also be bought. The primary zamindars collected revenue from the peasants and deposited it with the appropriate authorities.

(3) The intermediary zamindars were the counterparts of the chawdhris, khuts, and muqaddams of the pre-Mughal period. They collected revenue from the primary zamindars and paid it to the jagirdars, chieftains, or the imperial treasury.19

The primary and intermediary zamindars were entitled to a share in the land's produce and other perquisites. They also taxed merchants and travellers. The zamindars helped the Mughal administration in various ways. The zamindar troops, according to Abu'l-Fazl, numbered more than 4,400,000 men.20 They were never used in imperial battles but helped to maintain law and order in the country.

The zamindars either inherited or built fortresses to protect themselves from their rivals and from the high-handed government officials. In the more inaccessible areas where hills, ravines, or jungles formed natural obstacles, the zamindars were unruly and rebellious. The whole country was dotted with these areas, particularly in Katihar, Mewat, the Panjab, and the hills and jungles of

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Bundelkhand and Bihar; and, close to the capital, Agra, to the north and west, lay the wild domain of the unruly Jats. These districts were known as mawas.

A dominant caste or class would usually own the zamindari rights over a single village or group of villages. Large regions were often controlled in this way by a particular caste group, mainly Hindus, and caste and clan interests increasingly dominated the zamindars' decisions. As Abu'l-Fazl reports: 'The custom of the majority of the zamindars of Hindustan is to leave the path of single-mindedness and to look to every side and to join anyone who is powerful or who is making an increasing stir.'21 The Mughals resorted to threats, intimidation, force, and rewards to control the zamindars. In an attempt to break the caste monopolies in certain areas, Aurangzib, by a mixture of force and economic temptations, converted the more obdurate zamindars to Islam.

The advent of Rajput nobles to the Mughal courts also increased the zamindars' confidence and loyalty. They became more cooperative, and those in peaceful areas were incorporated into the Mughal elite. However, the rebellious zamindars in the mawas were influenced only by the ability of the local Mughal officers to assert their authority.

In the peaceful areas many Hindu zamindars imitated Mughal manners, dress, and life-style. Some even read Persian poetry. The majority, however, preferred the local poets, who composed epics which exaggerated their petty exploits to read like the Mahabharata. The zamindars were represented as the defenders of dharma, whose wars were intended to fill the world with Hindu values of justice and righteousness. The zamindars also attempted to organize their administration on the Mughal pattern, although from the second half of the seventeenth century the Jats, Bundelas, and Sikhs fought against Mughal rule.

TOWNS AND CITIES

Many of the larger villages, parganas, and thana headquarters were gradually transformed into towns, known as qasbas. Although they generally presented a village skyline, from the fourteenth century they were significant centres for various crafts and mercantile and commercial transactions. By the seventeenth century the members of the occupational caste groups, such as weavers, goldsmiths, carpenters, blacksmiths, dyers, potters, and shoemakers, had grown so large that in many towns they lived and worked in

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separate streets. There were even different Muslim graveyards for the various classes and occupational castes, although theoretically Islam is classless.

Villages and qasbas in different regions by this time specialized in local products, which they exported to other parts of the country. Sind specialized in cotton textiles, silk, wooden articles, ivory bangles, and saltpetre; Kashmir was the centre of silk materials, paper, and woollen articles such as shawls, and blankets. The introduction of the Iranian vertical loom into Kashmir and elsewhere in the fourteenth century stepped up both the quality and quantity of carpet production. Gujarat excelled in the art of weaving gold and silk threads into brocade, velvet, gauze, needlework, and embroidery in a variety of textures and dyes. Medicinal products, jewellery, furniture, and weapons were also produced in Gujarat. The Panjab was a centre for cotton textiles, blankets, and paper. Delhi and the Agra region were known for their paper manufacture, glassware, and copper and brass utensils. Jaunpur was famous for cloth-weaving and wooden articles; Avdah produced saltpetre; Bihar was known for its glass vessels and wooden articles; and Bengal specialized in muslin, cotton textiles, and silk-weaving.

The secret of perfection in art and crafts resided in individuals and was never widely publicized. Master-craftsmen trained their apprentices from a very tender age but they did not teach them the more subtle aspects of their craft. Neither did they write books revealing the secrets of their perfection. These points were revealed by the master-craftsman only towards the end of his life and only to a favoured apprentice. Their secrets often died with them.

New towns were founded by the Delhi sultans, their noblemen, and the rulers of provincial dynasties. Delhi itself underwent many changes. Its earliest site was known as Indraprastha. Between the ninth and tenth centuries the Delhi of the former Rajput rulers developed near the town now known as Surajkund. Prithviraja's Delhi was near Anangpal's citadel, Lalkot, built in about 1052. In 1192 Qutbu'd-Din Aybak built the Quwwatu'l-Islam mosque near the citadel and started to construct the adjoining minaret to call the faithful to prayer. It was also intended as a memorial to the eastern Turkic conquests. The first Muslim Delhi was formed when the area was fortified. Outside the fortification, south of Mihrauli village, Iltutmish dug a reservoir to collect rainwater for the use of the growing Delhi population. Ibn Battuta found this reservoir to be about two miles long and one mile broad. On its west bank were steps and a stone pavilion. In its centre was a double-storeyed pavilion of dressed stone.

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About the year 1289 Mu'izzu'd-Din Kayqubad built his palace at Kilokhri, then on the banks of the Jamuna. Although this did not develop into a city, all classes of people visited it daily, which made it very crowded. It was the village of Siri, built as a bulwark against the Mongol invasions by 'Ala'u'd-Din Khalji, that became the second Delhi. It is now the modern village of Shahpur, and the remains of the Khalji palace described by Ibn Battuta have not survived. About two miles west of Siri, 'Ala'u'd-Din Khalji constructed the famous Hawz-i Khass (Royal Reservoir). Along its sides there were forty pavilions surrounded by houses for male and female musicians, a most extensive bazaar, a Jami' mosque, and various minor mosques.22

The most ambitious construction was Tughiuqabad, built by Sultan Ghiyasu'd-Din Tughluq, some five miles to the east of the first city. The layout of the streets and houses and the remains of the citadel and a mosque indicate that it was designed as an extensive and fortified town. The Sultan's tomb, in an artificial lake, was connected by a fortified passage to the citadel. The lake water was held by embankments. Muhammad bin Tughluq built his fort 'Adilabad south-east of Tughiuqabad and connected it with a causeway.

Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq fortified the suburbs outside the first Delhi and named it Jahanpanah. According to Ibn Battuta, its walls were twelve metres thick and contained rooms for night watchmen, granaries, and war equipment, including mangonels and other military machines.23 The level of the lake within the walls was regulated by a sluice of seven spans decorated with subsidiary arches and towers. Firuz Shah Tughluq's Firuzabad was located near the citadel known as Firuz Shah Kotla. Near his palace complex and the mosque Firuz built a three-storey pyramidal structure in order to form a base for an Asokan column brought from near Ambala. During his reign Delhi covered an extensive area and contained an enormous population. Timur's invasion, however, destroyed its glory. The Sayyid sultans built Khizrabad and Mubarakabad on the Jamuna. Humayun left Dinpanah near Indraprastha unfinished. It was completed by Sher Shah, but only its northern gate, near Firuz Shah Kotla, and the southern gate opposite the citadel survive. In 1550 Islam Shah built Salimgarh. Delhi was revived by Shahjahan, who built his new fort, known as the Red Fort, near Salimgarh. Commenced in 1639, it was completed nine years later. In 1650 work on Delhi Jami' Masjid began. New monuments connecting the Jami' mosque and the shopping complex known as Chandni Chawk transformed Shahjahan's

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New Delhi or Shahjahanabad into the most imposing capital in the East.

Both Muslim rulers and governors founded new towns at strategic centres. The ancient town of Manayach, between Avadh and Banaras, was destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1018. On its site Zafar Khan, one of'Ala'u'd-Din Khalji's commanders, founded Zafarabad. The planning of Daulatabad, built by Muhammad bin Tughluq in 1327, is vividly described. Shaykh Mubarak told the author of Masalik al-absar.

When I left it six years ago it was not yet completed. And I do not think it is yet complete on account of the vast extent of the area of the city and hugeness of its buildings. The Sultan had divided it in such a wise that separate quarters were built for every class of people; a quarter for the troops, a quarter for the wazirs, a quarter for the secretaries, a quarter for the judges and the learned men, a quarter for the Shaykhs and faqirs and a quarter for merchants and handicraftsmen. In every quarter there were found, according to the needs of every class, mosques, minarets, bazaars, public baths, ovens for (baking) flour; so that the people of that quarter did not depend upon the other quarter for selling and buying and exchanging things and that each quarter was in the position of a separate self-contained city and not dependent on others for anything.24

In 1359 Firuz Tughluq founded Jaunpur near Zafarabad, which later became the capital of the Jaunpur Sharqi dynasty. Besides Firuzabad, near Delhi, Firuz Shah Kotla, and Jaunpur, Firuz Shah built a large number of other cities.25

Many of the independent sultans also created large numbers of new towns. Most noteworthy is Ahmadabad in Gujarat founded by Sultan Ahmad Shah I in 1411, which grew rapidly under both the Gujarat sultans and the Mughals. The sultans and their nobles chose blocks of land in the suburbs, known as puras, for their residences. There were 360 to 380 puras. In Akbar's time most of these had grown into separate villages. Further population spirals transformed them into independent towns.26

In 1505 Sultan Bahlul Lodi rebuilt Agra. Babur added baths and gardens to it. The Lodls built many towns between Agra and their homeland in the north-west. Akbar made Agra his capital, added Fatpur-Sikri as a satellite town, and founded Allahabad near Prayga.

Many new towns were built by reconstructing old towns or important villages. They were designed to serve both strategic and commercial needs, and the leading government officials and merchants built stately houses in them. The thirteenth- and fourteenth-century aristocracy favoured three-storey mansions. For example,

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Rawat-i 'Arz, Amir Khusraw's maternal grandfather, built a three-storeyed house near Delhi which included one of the fort's bastions. It contained spacious verandas and rooms, although near by were many small thatched houses and even some thatched mosques. Fires were frequent in the fortified areas because of congestion. By 1285 Rawat-i 'Arz's house had been reduced to ashes.27 Even in Shahjahan's Delhi fires frequently consumed the houses inhabited by petty mansabdars and merchants. According to Bernier their houses were made only of clay. The walls were covered with a fine white lime, the thatched roofs supported by a layer of long, strong canes. The dwellings of the noblemen and leading mansabdars in Shahjahan's Delhi were scattered in every direction along the banks of the river and in the suburbs. They were airy and exposed to the breeze on all sides, especially to the northern winds. Bernier says:

A good house has its courtyards, gardens, trees, basins of water, small jets d'eau in the hall or at the entrance, and handsome subterraneous apartments which are furnished with large fans, and on account of their coolness are fit places for repose from noon until four or five o'clock, when the air becomes suffocatingly warm. Instead of these cellars many persons prefer Kas-kanays, that is, small and neat houses made of straw or odiferous roots placed commonly in the middle of a parterre, so near to a reservoir of water that the servants may easily moisten the outside by means of water brought in skins. They consider that a house, to be greatly admired, ought to be situated in the middle of a large flower-garden, and should have four large divan-apartments raised to the height of a man from the ground, and exposed to the four winds, so that the coolness may be felt from any quarter. Indeed no handsome dwelling is ever seen without terraces on which the family may sleep during the night. They always open into a large chamber into which the bedstead is easily moved, in case of rain, when thick clouds of dust arise, when the cold air is felt at break of day, or when it is found necessary to guard against those light but penetrating dews which frequently cause a numbness in the limbs and induce a species of paralysis.