BISWAS 01

NAME: TULIIP BISWAS

CLASS: B.A., UG1

DEPARTMENT: HISTORY
HONOURS

SUBJECT: HISTORY

SEMESTER: SECOND

COURSE INSTRUCTOR: DR. DEEPA

KHAKHA

ROLL NO.: HIST15

REGISTRATION NO.: 16110622015

BATCH: 2016-19

DATE: 27. 2. 2017

 BISWAS 02

DEBATE ON
EARLY
MEDIEVAL
INDIAN
FEUDALISM

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INTRODUCTION
“Feudalism Made Land The Measure And The Master Of All Things”
_Lord Acton.
Oxford Dictionary defines Feudalism as, ‘The social system in medieval Europe in
which people worked and fought for a lord in return for a land. Many institutions
that developed in Early Medieval India kept the peasants under control. As a
mode of production, feudalism has a dominant class of landlords who are not
directly engaged in production. Production is carried on by peasants who occupy
land and work on it. But the landed interest extracts surplus product and labour
from them by legal, military, ideological and other extra-economic means. R. S.
Sharma dates the Early Medieval Indian period from 300 CE -1200 CE.1 In this
assignment I will try to point out some of the important debates on Early
Medieval Indian Feudalism by historians like R. S. Sharma, Harbans Mukhia and
many others famous historians.

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THE DEBATE
Several scholars have questioned the use of the term ‘feudalism’ to characterize
the early medieval socio-economic formation in India. According to Harbans
1
Sharma R. S. Indian Feudalism (c. AD 300- 1200) Macmillan Publishers India, 2013
Mukia, unlike capitalism, feudalism is not a universal phenomenon.2 Marx stated
that feudalism assumes different aspects and runs through its various phases in
different orders of succession.3 But certain characteristics remain the same. This is
admitted even by the critics of Indian feudalism.4 Feudalism has to be seen as a
mechanism for the distribution of the means of production and for appropriation
of surplus. Harbans Mukhia argues that the peasant in medieval India enjoyed
autonomy of production because he had ‘complete control’ over the means of
production.5 R. S. Sharma talks against this argument by explaining the problem
of the distribution of the resources of production in early medieval India. Land
was the primary means of production. It should be made clear that in early
medieval times, in the same piece of land, the peasants held inferior rights and
the landlords held superior rights. Peasants may have possessed land, labour, oxen,
and other animals and agricultural implements. But the peasants were not given
effective control over the means of production. The beneficiary was entitled to
collect taxes, all kinds of income, all kinds of occasional taxes, and this all
(sarva) was never specified. Since the peasant did not have free access to various
agrarian resources his autonomy in production was substantially crippled. Plough
agriculture depended entirely on the use of cattle. What a peasant possessed was
not sufficient to feed the cattle. Hierarchical control over land was created by
large-scale subinfeudation, especially from the eighth century onwards.6 It consisted
of the king on top followed by the assignee and the occupant who leased land to
the sub-occupant who finally got it tilled by the cultivating tenant.7 According to
Marx, ‘feudal production is characterized by division of soil amongst the greatest

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possible number of sub-feudatories’.8 The peasantry was divested more and more
of its homogeneous and egalitarian character. Many indications of unequal
distribution of land in the village are available. We hear not only of brahmanas
but also of the chief brahmana, mahattama, uttama, krsivala, karsaka, ksetrakara,
2
Mukhia Harbans. ‘Was There Feudalism in Indian History ?’. The Journal of Peasant Studies,
volume 8. April 1981. pp. 273-310.
3
Marx Karl and Engels Friedrich, Pre-Capitalist Socio-Economic Formations, Moscow: Progress
Publishers, 1979, p. 23.
4
Mukhia Harbans. ‘Was There Feudalism in Indian History ?’. The Journal of Peasant Studies,
volume 8. April 1981. p. 310, fn 225. In the discussion of variants, Indian feudalism is seen as a
distinct possibility.
5
Ibid.
6
Sharma R. S. Indian Feudalism, 2nd edn. pp. 73-5, 185-7.
7
Tirumalai R. Land Grants and Agrarian Reactions in Cola and Pandya Times (University of
Madras, 1987). p. 60.
8
Marx-Engels, Pre-Capitalist Socio-Economic Formations, p. 22.
kutumbin and karuka, land endowed brahmanas and agraharas. Some provisions
clearly created the superior rights of the beneficiary in the land. The Gupta and
post-Gupta charters of Madhya Pradesh, Northern Maharashtra, Konkan and
Gujarat empower the beneficiary to evict old peasants and introduce new ones; he
could also assign lands to others. A similar provision occurs in later Cola
charters.9 In any case, all such privileges create for the beneficiary superior rights
in the land. So R. S. Sharma says that we have no means of establishing that
most of the peasants living in villages were in ‘complete control’ of the means of
production.10

R.S. Sharma speaks of the absence of extraneous control over the peasants’
process of production at all levels of stratified rural society (with all the
qualifications that have been suggested) led them to participate in the ‘great
agrarian expansion’. However, starting with unequal resources, Harbans Mukhia
states that different strata of agriculturalists would benefit differently from this
expansion, so that the very process of agricultural progress would further promote
stratification and generate new forms of rural tension. In a regional study, though
of a much later period, the whole spectrum of such tensions has been brought
alive and it has been shown that disputes were not only economic in nature
(Bajekal, 1980); quite possibly the nature of tensions would vary over time and
space but, equally possibly, with growing stratification and widespread agricultural
progress, tensions would arise at a number of joints in that society.

The most crucial element of the Indian feudalism, in Professor Sharma’s and
Professor Yadava’s view, consisted in the growing dependence of the peasantry on
the landed intermediaries following the grant of more and more rights to them by
the state. The dependence was manifested in terms of increasing restrictions on
the peasant’s mobility and his subjection to forced labour, which in turn was
becoming increasingly intensive. 11 R. S. Sharma and B. N. S. Yadava have
established considerable similarity in the features of Indian and European
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feudalism, the one basic difference was overlooked by them. European feudalism
developed essentially as changes at the base of society took place; in India, on
the other hand, the establishment of feudalism is attributed by its protagonists
primarily to state action in granting land in lieu of salary or in charity and the
action of the grantees in subjecting the peasantry by means of legal rights
assigned to them by the state. It is a moot point whether such complex social
structures can be established through administrative and legal procedures.

9
Tirumalai R. Land Grants and Agrarian Reactions in Cola and Pandya Times (University of
Madras, 1987). p. 31.
10
Sharma R. S. ‘How Feudal was Indian Feudalism?’.
11
Sharma R. S. Indian Feudalism. Pp. 50-3, 121-2, 243, 283; Sharma R. S. Light on Early
Indian Society and Economy (Bombay 1966). p. 73; Yadava B. N. S. Society and culture. pp.
163-73; Yadava ‘Immobility and Subjection’. pp. 21-3
Above all, however, it is the concept of the peasantry’s ‘dependence’ that appears
to be of uncertain value in the context in which it has been used. The evidence
marshaled by Sharma and Yadava at best establishes the increasing exploitation of
the peasantry; dependence, on the other hand, should consist of an extraneous
over the peasant’s process of production, and this has yet to be proved in Indian
context. The nature of Forced Labour in India _ of which there is considerable
evidence throughout her history_ is its very essence different from that of Europe,
for in India it is very rarely used for purposes of production. There is an
objective reason for the absence of serfdom in Indian history, for conditions of
production in India did not require serf-labour. Thus forced labour in India
remained, by and large, an incidental manifestation of the political and
administrative power of the ruling class rather than a part of the process of
production.

Hrabans Mukhia states that the utilization of the labour of menial castes in it
fields by the entire community of cultivators irrespective of its own stratification.12
Their labour was made available by denying them access to land, even in the
context of land abundance, through the working of the caste system (Habib, 1963:
121-2; 1982: 14, 18). It is tempting to attribute the growth of this class of ‘an
ostracized rural proletariat’ as Irfan Habib calls it, to the proliferation of
untouchable castes in ancient and early medieval India. It is curious however that
growth in the number of untouchable castes in ancient and early medieval India
notwithstanding_ a theme on which Vivekanand Jha has done such impressive
research (1975: 14-31)_ no contemporary evidence has yet been cited to the effect
that the caste system (or the state) denied them the right to hold land. The
history of this, one of the most significant developments in India’s past, which is
also a feature specific to Indian society, is therefore far from clear even in
outline.13

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Harbans Mukhia claims that because soil in India was very fertile there was no
scope for the rise of serfdom or forced labour.14 Against this, R. S. Sharma
argues that we have indications of forced labour in the middle Gangetic basin
where the soil is most fertile. Till recent times poor tenants, belonging to the
lower castes, were forced by the upper class landlords to work in the fields at
12
Mukhia Harbans. The Feudalism Debate. pp. 253.
13
Ibid. p. 254.
14
Mukhia Harbans. ‘Was There Feudalism in Indian History ?’. The Journal of Peasant Studies,
volume 8. April 1981. pp. 286, 289, 303, fn. 124.
meagre wages.15 Peasants were compelled to plough the land of the landlords and
do various kinds of odd jobs for them in other fertile areas. This is known as
hari and begari in the whole of the Gangetic basin area. This means that the
peasants were subjected to forced labour and oppression. Harbans Mukhia goes
against R. S. Sharma’s explanation and says that the relatively small size of
holdings in India had the principal effect of averting wastage of labour in the
process of production, consequently far lass labour was required for the
agricultural operations here. Moreover, these operations could be spread over a
much longer period in the course of the year than in Western Europe. Thus there
does not appear to have been a highly concentrated demand for large amounts of
labour during short periods. It is thus that the absence of serfdom in Indian
history, except for some marginal incidence, becomes intelligible.

R. S. Sharma criticizes Burton Stein who considered reputed historians like

Devangana Desai, Lallanji Gopal, N. Karashima, T. V. Mahalingam, Dasharatha
Sharma, Niharranjan Ray and B. N. S. Yadava as leftists. These so called
‘leftists’ (which Sharma disagrees) have applied feudal analogy fully or partly to
the Indian state and society of different regions and periods. Niharranjan Ray
states: ‘From the time of the Guptas to the end of the ancient period (12th
century) the political and social structures of Bengal and for that matter all of
India, was essentially feudal…’16 However, the declamation of the feudal concept
in the Indian context has become an obsession with some western historians.
Some historians of the West and Indologists underline the role of decentralization
in early Indian history and assert that the Indian rulers were merely masters of
roads, towns and capitals and not of hinterland.

Stein imagines that Indian feudalism is seen by its exponents only in the context
of feudatories found everywhere in pre-modern India.17 Against this, Sharma says
that the payment of tribute by the feudatories depends on its strength, which
consequently determines the extent of local exploitation of the peasants. If the
tribute is regular the peasant would be taxed more; if it is occasional he would
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be taxed less. But the landlords, superimposed upon the peasants, became regular
exploiters whose presence is indispensable to the control of the land and of the
peasants who cultivate it. The feudal infrastructure explains the nature of the state
and all other superstructural elements such as art, religion and culture. Feudatories
play but a supplementary role in the whole system.

15
This was the case in north Bihar until the abolition of the Permanent Settlement.
16
Ray Niharranjan, History of the Bengali People, p. 288
17
Stein Burton, ‘The Segmentary State’
Stein says, ‘merely structural comparison of Indian and African forms gives
offence to many Indians’ 18 Against him, R. S. Sharma says that Stein ignores
the importance of the comparative method in historical studies but also the fact
that European history was has been taught in India for nearly two hundred years;
the colonial masters never introduced any African history except that of Ancient
Egypt or Africa’s partition in the 1880s. Indian historians have been influenced by
the western writings on European history but they have not been attracted by
such constructs as the one on the segmentary state. R. S. Sharma also further says
that the supporters of the ‘segmentary’ state appear comfortable in a world of
make-believe. To prove a theory or to refute it depends on the nature of the
supporting evidence. The attempt to project the ‘segmentary’ state as a model for
the early Indian state and society has proved to be abortive. Almost every
segment of the segmentary concept has been dissected and dismissed. In the
process, the study of Indian feudalism has been enriched both empirically and
conceptually.

Chattopadhaya has criticized R. S. Sharma for considering the land grants to be

the cause of political fragmentation and the rise of states. 19 But Sharma
discounted this possibility in peripheral states as early as 1960. He stated that in
Orissa the transition to organized state/class society took place in the post-Gupta
period and that the possibility of political fragmentation ‘from above’ did not
exist. 20

R. S. Sharma criticizes against the Segmentary model by saying that Fragmentation or

Segmentation should not be regarded as a lasting feature of Indian feudalism.
According to Marc Bloch, parcellisation of sovereignty is a trait of feudalism in
the first or classical phase. In the second phase or in the phase of dissolution, it
shows centralization and royal absolutism. He observes this in the context of
western Europe, but it may also apply to India. Even under the absolute rule of
the Mughals the feudal mode of production persisted in large measure. It seems
that the fragmentation of political authority at the local level was a divide and

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rule device to maintain the overall authority of the state over its landed
beneficiaries and also the mass of the peasantry in a tenuous manner. Therefore,
segmentation should not be considered to be a permanently disintegrating feature.

18
Ibid.
19
Chattopadhyaya B. D. The Making of Early Medieval India, New Delhi, Oxford University
Press, 1994.
20
Sharma R. S. ‘Land System in Medieval Orissa (c. 750-1200)’, Proceedings of the Indian
History Congress, (PIHC), Aligarh Session, 1960, pp. 89-96.
 BISWAS 11

CONCLUSION
After going through some of the debates, I can conclude that the Early Medieval
Indian Feudalism 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. Most
of the power structures within the state did not have to pay taxes. Indian kings
made land grants to get taxes (surplus) collected. In their turn the grantees
collected rents from their tenant peasants who could be evicted and even
subjected to forced labour. In this context, the concept of class may be
reconsidered. The position may be located in the overall system of production.
Class is best seen in the context of the unequal distribution of the surplus, which
was eventually given a lasting basis by the unequal distribution of the means of
production and strengthened by ideological, ritualistic and judicial factors. The
social structure is identified by the nature of the class which dominates it.
Ecological factors influence the development of material culture but do not
determine the form and nature of the social structure.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kulke Hermann (ed.), State In India, 1000-1700, Oxford University Press (New
Delhi, 1997).
Mukhia Harbans (ed.), The Feudalism Debate, Manohar Publications . (New Delhi,
1999).

Sharma R. S., Early Medieval Indian Society: A Study In Feudalisation, Orient

Longman Ltd (Hyderabad, 2001).

--- Indian Feudalism, Macmillan Publishers India Ltd. (Calcutta, 1956).

Chattopadhaya B. D. (ed.), The Making of Early Medieval India, Oxford

University Press (New Delhi, 2012 ).

Stein Burton, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, Oxford
University Press (Delhi, 1980).

Singh Upinder (ed.), Rethinking Early Medieval India: A Reader, Oxford

University Press (New Delhi, 2012).