HOW FEUDAL WAS INDIAN FEUDALISM? R.S.

SHARMA
R.S. Sharma, in his response, wrote an essay entitled How Feudal Was Indian Feudalism? (1985). Feudalism in India was characterized by a class of landlords and by a class of subject peasantry, both living in a predominantly agrarian economy marked by a decline in trade and urbanism and by a drastic reduction in metal currency. While accepting the fact that feudalism was not a universal phenomenon, he argues that this was not true of all the pre-capitalist formations. Thus tribalism, the stone age, the metal age, and the advent of a food-producing economy are universal phenomena. They do indicate some laws conditioning the process and pattern of change. According to him, Just as there could be enormous variations in tribal society so also there could be enormous variations in the nature of feudal societies. He, therefore, thinks that there was feudalism in India, even though its nature was significantly different. Feudalism appears in a predominantly agrarian economy which is marked by a class of landlords and a class of servile peasantry. It has been seen as a mechanism for the distribution of the means of production and for the appropriation of the surplus. When Indian Feudalism appeared, early critics argued that Sharma had mechanically imported the "Europeanist" model, especially in his invocation of the role of foreign trade as an instrument of socio-economic change. According to him, there were a decline in trade and increasing numbers of land grants to the state officials in lieu of salary and to the Brahmans as charity or ritual offering in the post-Gupta period. This process led to the subjection of peasantry and made them dependent on the landlords. Almost all features of west European feudalism, such as serfdom, manor, self-sufficient economic units, feudalisation of crafts and commerce, decline of long-distance trade and decline of towns, were said to be found in India. He questions the very notion of peasants control over means of production , particularly land. He maintains that there were multiple and hierarchical rights in the land with the peasant almost always possessing the inferior right. In the

areas where land grants were given the grantees enjoyed much superior rights: On the basis of the land charters we can say that in the donated areas the landed beneficiaries enjoyed general control over production resources. Of course they did not enjoy specific control over every plot of land that the peasant cultivated. But there is nothing to question their control over the plots of lands that were directly donated to them by the king, sometimes along with the sharecroppers and weavers and sometimes along with the cultivators. The most crucial aspects of Indian feudalism were the increasing dependence of the peasantry on the intermediaries who received grants of land from the state and enjoyed juridical rights over them. This development restricted the peasants mobility and made them subject to increasingly intensive forced labour. Hierarchical control over land was created by large scale subinfeudation, especially from the 8th century onwards which gave rise to a hierarchy of landlords. Effectively demolished the model of the "free peasantry" by invoking unimpeachable empirical data Reconsidering class in the pre-capitalist context, Sharma focuses on the unequal distribution of surplus. He expresses his regret that the "segmentary state" was offered as an alternative without taking cognizance of numerous writings on the feudal paradigm undertaken in three decades following the first publication of Indian Feudalism in 1965. It is argued that the peasant in medieval India enjoyed autonomy of production because he had complete control over the means of production. The issue of land grants forms the basic crux of the entire debate dealing with feudalism. In India, it was caused by the granting of lands to priests and temples. Land grants leave no doubt that the landlord enjoyed a good measure of general control in the means of production. He further argues that, contrary to Mukhias arguments, forced labour was also prevalent in many parts of the country. On the basis of various evidences, he asserts that there was feudalism during the early medieval period in India which was characterized by a class of landlords and by a class of subject peasantry, the two living in a predominantly agrarian economy marked by decline of trade and urbanism and by drastic reduction in metal currency.