Article

Social and Attitudinal Indian Historical Review

36(1) 23–35

Change in Medieval India: © ICHR 2009

SAGE Publications

Thirteenth–Seventeenth
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Washington DC
Century DOI: 10.1177/037698360903600103
http://ihr.sagepub.com

Satish Chandra

Abstract
There has been a discussion whether medieval Indian society was feudal or not, but
very little discussion on the processes of social and attitudinal change following the
advent of the Turks. State efforts at maximising revenue collection and improvement
of cultivation by emphasising jins-i-kamil helped in the emergence of a new class of
rich farmers among the khud-kasht. The khud-kasht was the social basis of Mughal
peace based on a tripartite alliance between the state, the zamindars and khud-kasht.
However, the growing aspirations of the zamindars and the khud-kasht led to dissident
movements and political instability. The process of urbanisation and growth of foreign
trade led to the strengthening of the merchants and financiers and the growth of a
money economy. They interacted with the state and sought to extend their control
on the country side, and also the growing class of artisans through a process of dadni.
The composite ruling class, which emerged under the Mughals was more bureaucratic
and commercial in nature and promoted mercantilism. The writings of the various
bhakti and Sufi saints help in understanding the contemporary ethos and attitudes.
While some of them emphasise human equality, some regard social inequality as God
given. A more thorough-going attitudinal change was resisted, however, due to deep-
seated social, intellectual and religious constraints.

Keywords
Khud-kasht, mercantilism, urban growth, thirteenth–seventeenth century India, popular
revolts.

Introduction

It is now accepted that Indian society was not static, but changed according to eco-
nomic, political, cultural and other factors. While broad stages of social change in
India—from tribal to state forms, from classical state and social forms to the feudal,
24 Satish Chandra

and from feudal to the colonial—have been worked out, changes within these broad
forms, particularly within the feudal or medieval form, have not received the attention
they deserved.
Without entering into a discussion about the concept of change as visualised by
sociologists, social anthropologists and economists, we may, for purposes of conven-
ience, divide change into two broad categories: structural and developmental. Structural
change, according to Henry A. Landsberger,1 implies any movement of protest or any-
thing else including technological factors which in one way or other aims at or leads up
to effecting structural changes. The other type of change has been called developmental
or positional. The Marxist concept of change, based on the relationship between base
and superstructure, with change in the productive system being continuous, leading to a
change in relations of production is too well known to be taken up here. However, what
we propose to discuss here is not so much the structures, but about changes within a
given social structure.
Following the liberalisation of the Indian economy, there has been a lively discussion
about social change among market consultants. Thus, Rama Bijapurkar, who has been a
senior consultant and a visiting faculty member of IIM, Ahmedabad, argues that change
is about acceleration which in Physics means Force = Mass × Acceleration. She argues
that it is generally assumed that the only way to generate a significant force of change is
to have a large acceleration. ‘But in India it works the other way around, a small accelera-
tion [small changes over long periods of time] can also unleash a large force of change,
if the mass that is changing is very large’. She goes on to say, ‘The language of low accel-
eration change is more feminine. It is about almost invisible, below-the-surface change
caused by changed confluences [a collection of small changes that occur simultaneously]
that lead to slowly swelling change waves, and resultant ripple effects’.2
It is these changing confluences which a historian has to trace. While for the market
researcher, the time span may be five or ten years, for a historian it could be a hundred
years or more.

Rural Society

Looking at rural society where the large bulk of Indians resided, I would like to confine
my remarks to the period following the intrusion of the Turks towards the end of the
twelfth century. Not having an intimate knowledge of the source material for the earlier
period, it would be hazardous for me to form an opinion on the basis of secondary
sources. As far as the period from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries is concerned,
there are many similarities and confluences which shape events and affect rural society.
Not all villages in India had a similar structure. However, even while the basic struc-
ture remains, there have been important changes in the social set up of villages which
historians have largely ignored. Here I am talking not so much about what Professor
1
Landsberger, Rural Protest: Peasant Movements and Social Change, Introduction.
2
Bijapurkar, Winning in the Indian Market, pp. 123–24.

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Social and Attitudinal Change in Medieval India 25

A.R. Desai3 had called the nucleated, semi-nucleated and dispersed villages, the latter
being found largely in tribal or hilly regions and in areas such as Kerala. The structure
of the nucleated village, which was the norm in the rest of India, has been described in
detail, the basic feature being the combination of agriculture with village handicrafts.
It has also been assumed that there was an invariable division of labour, sometimes
attributed wrongly to common ownership of land. The extent to which land could be
sold or bought has been discussed in detail by a number of eminent scholars, and need
not detain us here. A key question was the relationship of the local zamindar or those
holding superior rights in land with the higher political echelons or the state, on one
side, and the cultivating peasantry, on the other. The state or its representative, the
zamindar, and the cultivating peasants formed the essential triad around which village
life revolved. The village artisans and landless labourers were essential parts, though
dependent on the socio-political structure of the village.
Beginning with the fourteenth century, a highly centralised structure of the state
emerged. Under this, agrarian policies initiated by sultans such as Alauddin Khalji,
Muhammed bin Tughlaq and Firuz Tughlaq had a definite impact on village society,
particularly those between the river Beas in the Punjab, up to Kora-Jahanabad near
Allahabad in the east; these were also the areas which remained under the direct admin-
istration of Delhi Sultans for almost 150 years, from the time of Balban, and thus had
a large measure of political stability. The two main features of agrarian policies of the
sultans were to push the land-revenue demand from one-third to half of the produce,
and to carry out extension and improvement of cultivation—to begin with, under state
auspices. Was the demand for half of the share of produce based on a more realistic
estimation of the paying capacity of the area? Or, was it an attempt to squeeze the
zamindars by reducing their share of the land revenue? These questions are not easy to
answer on the basis of our present sources of information. The situation may have
varied from area to area, and was influenced by many confluences which we shall dis-
cuss presently. Barani4 would have us believe that Alauddin Khalji’s main effort was to
reduce the village chiefs to the position of ordinary cultivators. This attempt failed, and
the village chiefs, we are told, were largely able to recover their position under Khus-
rau Malik. Where the state demand for half directly affected the cultivators as in the
case of duab under Muhammed bin Tughlaq, there were flights of the peasants and
abandonment of villages. However, the major impulse of the central regimes was to
curb the power of the village chiefs, the rai, rana and rawats. In consequence, as Irfan
Habib has pointed out, from the middle of the fourteenth century, we have the rise of a
new class of people holding superior land rights for whom the word ‘zamindar’ began
to be used.5 Unlike the chiefs, zamindars did not possess sizeable armed forces, and in
principle, the land revenue under their areas of control was fixed on the basis of assess-
ment approved by government.

3
A.R.Desai, Rural Sociology in India.
4
Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, pp. 323–24.
5
Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, p. 172.

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26 Satish Chandra

The question is: did the rise of this class of landholders influence in any way the life
of other sections in the village? We are entering here into new territory, and both histori-
cal and literary sources have to be used to see if a picture emerges. The remark of Barani,
put in the mouth of Balban’s son, Bughra Khan, that the land revenue (peshkash)
should not be so high as to affect cultivation, or so light as to cause rebellion,6 was
surely aimed at the village chiefs than the ordinary cultivators. Unlike Alauddin
Khalji and Muhammed bin Tughlaq, Firuz did not try to expand or improve cultivation
through government agencies, but by providing canals for irrigation and fixing the
land revenue at one-third. The result, according to Afif, was that ‘there was so much
grain, wealth, horses and goods in the houses of the raiyat’ that ‘in every peasant’s
house there were clean bed-sheets, excellent bed-cots, many articles and much wealth.’7
Two cautions may be expressed. First, Afif was talking of a restricted area—modern
Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh (UP). Second, the raiyat he was referring to appar-
ently consisted of a rising new class of rich peasant cultivators. This class which took
advantage of the government scheme for providing more water, by using their local
influence and resources, came to be called khud-kasht in later revenue literature. It
played a distinct role in the policy of agricultural acceleration when conditions were
conducive.
The origin of the word khud-kasht, often used to designate the original settlers of
land, is not easy to trace. Two processes—which were furthered by the state policy of
high-revenue demand and the creation of opportunities following the growth of towns—
were, first, conversion of tribes into settled cultivators and, second, the displacement or
transformation of pastoralists into cultivators. Irfan Habib has shown how the Jats, who
were pastoral tribes in Sindh, became settled cultivators in Punjab, Rajasthan and west
UP.8 That the Jats were superior cultivators as compared to some of the cultivating
communities in Rajasthan is brought out by Nainsi who mentions in the Vigat9 how
Rao Bar Singh expanded cultivation in Merta by inviting Jats from Nagore. This proc-
ess continued. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Jat peasants were found in
292 villages of Merta alone.
The displacement or transformation of pastoralists is brought out indirectly by the
Hindi poet, Surdas, who pictures Brij as an idyllic playground of love inhabited by the
pastoralist Ahirs, whom, however, he called ‘dim-witted’ and ‘lazy’. The task of culti-
vation in the area was carried out by kisans whose caste he does not mention, but who
had to suffer hardships at the hands of local corrupt officials.10 Perhaps, by picturing
the life of pastoral cowherds as based on love and compassion, Surdas was referring to
an idyllic past which had gone by. This is strengthened by his use of the old legend of
Govardhan puja mentioned in the Vishnu Puran. In the Vishnu Puran, the cowherds,

6
Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, p.100; Hambly, Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I, p. 57.
7
Afif, Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi, pp. 179–80, 295.
8
Habib, ‘Caste in Indian History’, p. 172.
9
Nainsi, Marwar ra Pargana ri Vigat, Vol. I, p. 46.
10
Savitri Chandra, ‘Social Life as Reflected in the Works of Surdas’, pp. 235–51 and, Medieval India and
Hindi Bhakti Poetry, pp. 82–98. The interpretation offered here is the author’s.

Indian Historical Review, 36, 1 (2009): 23–35

Social and Attitudinal Change in Medieval India 27

called gopa, were denizen of the forest (vanaukas), having no towns, no territory to
rule, not even villages or houses (na nah puro janapadã na grãma na grha vayam) as
they inform Krishna when he asks his foster father Nanda to defy Indra the rain god on
whom they said they depended.11 The forest had largely disappeared, and according to
Surdas, Brij was a pargana with settled agriculture. Nand was its shiqdar, and Nand-
gaon which was called a village or a pur (small town or qasba) its headquarters. Thus,
a great social change had taken place which is reflected in the writings of Surdas. For
him, it was primarily the kisans who were induced by Krishna to rebel against Indra.
These cultivators came in their shataks or bullock-carts. The objective was to replace a
nature god by Krishna, a personal God who could provide spiritual and worldly solace.
Interestingly, Nanda’s defiance of Indra is also described by Surdas in terms of a sub-
ordinate ruler being disloyal and withholding tribute—the produce of the soil—for
which he was threatened with death and destruction.12
The Jats were not the only one who ousted the pastoralists and emerged as dominant
landholders or khud-kasht in a region. Similar developments seem to have taken place
elsewhere in north India with the pastoralist Yadavs and Kurmis developing as domi-
nant landholders in central and west UP and Bihar. But their actual position vis-à-vis
the powerful zamindars of the region and their role in improving cultivation need to be
studied. The position and role of the khud-kasht in the village society has been dis-
cussed by the author13 elsewhere, and also been commented upon by Irfan Habib14 and
hardly needs any repetition here. In brief, the khud-kasht had the pick of the village
fields, paid land revenue at a concessional rate, and had their own habitations and the
right to use village common property like ponds and forests. They formed the heart of
what has been called the village community.
The seventeenth century was the classic period for the rise of power and influence
of the khud-kasht in north, especially north-west India where Mughal land revenue
policies laid considerable emphasis on ensuring that each village would be induced to
maximise cultivation, given inducements for shifting to jins-i-ala or superior crops—
wheat and other cash crops such as sugar, pan, indigo, opium, cotton, oil seeds,
etc.—needed for feeding the expanded towns, for meeting the growing demand of
superior goods from urban elites, and for purposes of export. Thus, the amal-guzar was
not only to strive to bring wastelands under cultivation, and take heed that ‘what is in
cultivation fall not waste’, but that ‘he should stimulate the produce of jins-i-ala and
remit somewhere of the assessment with a view to its augmentation’.15 A policy was

11
Vishnu Puran is ascribed by historians to the eighth and ninth centuries. The reference is from Vol. II Sarga
10 (purva) Ch. XIV, No. 24. For the rest, see Ch. XV, Nos. 1–27. The cowherds take shelter under the hill
with their family and cattle, and go back in their shataks or bullock-carts. As is well known, many pastoral-
ists used to have bullock-carts.
12
Chandra, ‘Social Life as Reflected in the Works of Surdas’ and Medieval India and Hindi Bhakti Poetry.
13
Chandra, ‘The Structure of Village Society in Northern India’, pp. 51–64, and Essays on Medieval Indian
History, pp. 168–92.
14
Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, p. 137.
15
Ain-i-Akbari, Vol. II: 46–47.

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28 Satish Chandra

put forward that the state, on the recommendation of the amal-guzar, remit one-fourth
of the normal assessment where superior crops were grown. On the basis of Rajasthani
records, I have shown that in some parts of eastern Rajasthan, during the second half of
the seventeenth century and early decades of the eighteenth century, in some villages
and parganas, a section consisting of 5 to 10 per cent of the cultivators had emerged
which had sufficient surplus ploughs, bullocks and land to be classified as rich peas-
ants.16 Jizya documents from pargana Badshahpur in the Punjab subah studied by Irfan
Habib suggest the existence of a similar proportion of rich peasants.17 While more
detailed studies would be needed to confirm, deny or modify this picture, there is no
reason to disbelieve that by the middle of the seventeenth century, if not earlier, a
creamy layer had emerged among the cultivators in many regions of north India which
had the labour and resources to engage in improving cultivation. As Professor Nurul
Hasan has shown, shift to superior crops implied more labour and water.18 The state
assisted in this process by levying a graduated tax, and also by providing taqavi for
wells, etc. The rapid absorption of new crops such as tobacco and maize and expansion
of cash crops were based on the alliance between the state and the khud-kasht. The state
also took action to curb the illegal exactions of the zamindars. This provided what I have
called the tripolar relationship between the state, the zamindars and the khud-kasht
which was the basis of rural stability, agricultural improvement and expansion in north
India during the seventeenth century.
There were many factors that led to the slow erosion of this alliance. One factor was
the steady pressure of the administration to exercise more control on the countryside,
and hence on the lives of the peasants, thereby, eroding the working of their clan-based
village organisations. The rise of two powerful popular movements—the Sikhs in the
Punjab and of the Jats in the Agra–Mathura region—shows the dissatisfaction of wide
sections of the peasantry at these Mughal administrative practices. Resistance against
them was led by the khud-kasht peasants whose power and influence was growing.
Earlier, when the structure of the village society was little understood, these move-
ments were broadly classified as peasant movements. But now we know that the two
sections which largely shaped village sentiments and aspirations (apart from religion
and tradition) were the zamindars and khud-kasht peasants. Among the Jats in Punjab,
peasant proprietors who were malik-i-zamin also considered themselves zamindars—a
tradition that persists to the present. Zamindars who controlled wider tracts of land
were often tribal leaders or those imposed by the administration. The leadership of the
16
Chandra, ‘Structure and Stratification in the Village Society’, pp. 196–203; Essays on Medieval Indian
History, pp. 159–67; Habib The Agrarian System of Mughal India, p. 139; N.S. Rao also shows a high degree
of segmentation in Harauti rural economy and society (‘Rural Economy and Society of South-eastern Rajas-
than’, Ph.D Thesis, JNU, 1991, pp. 84–89); B.L. Bhadani shows that apart from high-caste peasants, Patel,
Chaudhuri and Raiyat had some surplus grains to sell, after deducting the state share and personal food
requirements (in Peasants Artisans and Entrepreneurs, p. 301).
17
The Agrarian System of Mughal India, p. 138.
18
Hasan et al., ‘The Pattern of Agricultural Production’, pp. 244–66; Hasan, Religion, State, and Society in
Medieval India, pp. 182–99.

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Social and Attitudinal Change in Medieval India 29

Jat peasant proprietors or khud-kasht was assumed in the Punjab by the Sikh gurus
whose teachings were simple. They emphasised egalitarianism and hence found ready
acceptance. After some clashes with the Mughal rulers, the Sikh movement under Guru
Govind Singh assumed a more militant form. As is well known, under Banda Bahadur,
during the early decades of the eighteenth century, the Sikhs were able to control
the entire area from the outskirts of Lahore to a few marches from Delhi.19 Although
the movement was crushed, and lost focus after the abolition of Sikh gurudom, this
movement, as also that of the Satnamis of Nagore, showed how the resolute leadership
of the khud-kashta, by the leading peasant community, could bring the other rural sec-
tions including artisans and small zamindars under their wings.
In the case of Jats of the Agra–Mathura region, the Jats, apart from being the dominant
cultivating castes, also held the position of muqaddams or chaudhris in the village, and
small zamindaris. These sections provided the leadership. The peasant armies offered
stout opposition to the Mughal armies, as Iqtidar Alam Khan has demonstrated, because
of the spread of muskets to the countryside from the sixteenth century, and, perhaps the
ability to manufacture them in course of time.20 In reaction, Aurangzeb had instructed
faujdars in this and the duab region to prevent locksmiths from manufacturing guns
under threat of condign punishment. Religion seems to have played a small part in the
movement, although Abdun Nabi, the faujdar of Mathura, whose exactions had led to the
protest movement, tried to communalise the issues by destroying the temple of Bir Singh
Dev Bundela at Mathura, as a measure of retaliation after the movement had started.21
Enough has been said, I hope, that despite its outward placidity, the countryside was
continuously changing in slow measure in its composition and, sometimes, even in
structure. Thus, there was a continual process of rise and fall of villages and qasbas or
rural towns with a market, as Nainsi’s Pargana ri Vigat shows graphically in the case
of west Rajasthan. There was also a process of transformation, in whole or part, of
tribes and pastoralists turning to agriculture. Another was of groups and individuals
migrating to towns, for better opportunities. Also, we have references to many cultiva-
tors or pahis moving to other villages, either of their own volition, or induced by offers
of better opportunities and facilities, including a graduated land tax. These consisted
both of those who had their own ploughs and bullocks, but did not possess proprietary
rights over the lands they cultivated. Another section of pahis consisted of those lack-
ing their own instruments/equipments. These sections often consisted of landless
labourers, including scheduled castes or untouchables who formed a reserve labour
force available to the khud-kasht for seasonal agricultural processes, but were not
allowed to acquire ownership rights over land. These immigrants were called pahis
only if they moved outside the boundary of a zamindari. However, sometimes, these
migrations could be quite distant. Thus, it has been shown that large number of peas-
ants, including untouchables, migrated to the Harauti region from the famine stricken
and semi-arid areas of Rajasthan during the eighteenth century. It has been shown in a

19
Khafi Khan, Muntakhab-ul-Lubab, pp. 660, 672.
20
Gunpowder and Firearms, pp. 164–65.
21
Sarkar, Aurangzeb, Vol. 3: 291.

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30 Satish Chandra

recent work how agriculture in Kotah state was expanded on account of a large scale
settlement of untouchables or scheduled castes from other parts of Rajasthan.22
More intensive study of village histories, oral traditions and countrywide migra-
tions is needed to posit more accurately the processes of continuous change in the
countryside.

Urban Society
The rise of towns in north India from the fourteenth century, and the extension of this
process in other parts of the country later on, has been talked about by a number of
scholars. Fernand Braudel’s comments that ‘towns are like electric transformers. They
increase tension, accelerate the rhythm of exchange, and constantly recharge human
life’ is as relevant to countries such as India and China which had a well-developed
network of agricultural production and distribution as in the West. The stray remark
of Bernier that towns in Mughal India were merely military extension is no longer
accepted by historians. In a chapter in the Cambridge Economic History of India,
Gavin Hambly has enumerated four types of towns in medieval India: (i) mainly
administrative, (ii) banking and trade centres with some administrative functions,
(iii) religious and (iv) those with a special craft. Largely ignoring this diversity and not
taking into account the growing linkages between the towns and the countryside, some
historians continue to consider the towns throughout medieval times as being parasites,
since their wealth and opulence depended upon extraction of land revenue from the
countryside and draining its manpower without giving them anything in return. This
judgement had some basis as long as it was visualised that all sections of cultivators in
the countryside lived at a uniform margin of subsistence. My earlier remarks—showing
considerable stratification in the countryside, and the manner in which the state, the
zamindars and a rich section among the khud-kasht contributed to the expansion and
improvement of cultivation—show the need to modify the purely negative role of the
towns in rural growth. Surdas, the poet of rural India, depicts that the richer section in
the countryside, as represented by Nanda, used expensive cloth such as tansukh and ate
shali rice and other types of expensive condiments. The growth of a money-economy
also affected many villages, particularly those near national highways. Thus, Tavernier
says, on the road from Surat to Agra via Burhampur, there was hardly any village
which had no facilities for abode or a shroff for changing money.23 A similar picture
emerges from west Rajasthan which shows qasbas with a large growth of traders, arti-
sans and rich peasants (mahajans).24 It has been estimated that the population of
Mughal India was 145 million in 1601, out of which 15 per cent lived in towns. If 5 to
10 per cent of the village population in well-settled areas was considered rich, or those
who had some disposable income, their numbers comes to 6 to 12 million, which is not
22
N.S. Rao also shows a high degree of segmentation in Harauti rural economy and society (‘Rural Economy
and Society of South-eastern Rajasthan’, Ph.D Thesis, JNU, 1991, pp. 84–89).
23
Tavernier, Travels in India, ed., William Crooke, pp. 38, 238.
24
Nainsi, Vigat, Vol. I: 391, 496–97; Vol. II: pp. 9, 83–86, 223–24, 310–11.

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Social and Attitudinal Change in Medieval India 31

insignificant. Also, these middle peasants could not be totally excluded from purchas-
ing goods, produced in other villages, nor could the rich peasants (mahajan) living in
the qasbas.
Of course, all the villages were not affected by the processes of trade, or realisation
of land revenue in terms of money, but were part of a larger process. The extent to
which villages benefited, that is, which sections among them benefited, needs sus-
tained research on the basis of documentary evidence, such as available in archives in
Rajasthan. My own suspicion is that the benefits of growth were largely appropriated
by the privileged section, leading to greater inequality.
A second question arises: to what extent was the surplus extracted from the country-
side used just for wars and conspicuous consumption, and to what extent for productive
purposes? It has been shown that a section among the nobility did use part of the sur-
plus for putting up orchards and for markets (mandis) at places where they planned to
settle down. A certain amount of funds were also utilised for trade—domestic or for-
eign, and for lending out to businessmen. Even members of the royal family invested
in trade, sometime acquiring their own ships.25 Irfan Habib has argued that the number
of nobles participating in trade was small. But the amount they contributed to trade,
directly and indirectly, may have played a critical, even crucial role, particularly in the
early stage of capitalist or mercantile growth. It remained considerable in any case.
Arasratnam26 has argued that trade in the Coromandel was adversely affected follow-
ing the capture of Bijapur and Golconda and the withdrawal of participation in trade by
nobles. According to Om Prakash,27 following the British conquest, a similar picture
emerges in the case of Bengal.
Emergence of centres of high-quality production of cloth and other requirements for
the upper classes, and for purposes of foreign trade developed not only in big towns but
also in small towns and even villages—especially in south and west India. The emer-
gence of the middle strata, sketched out in fair detail by Iqtidar Alam Khan, was a
spin-off from the growth of towns, the stabilisation of the ruling class and the expan-
sion of the money economy. That this led to a change in the social status of the artisans,
among whom we see the rise of a class of master craftsmen (ustads), as is reflected in
Abul Fazl’s classification of the kasbis (artisans) along with traders, next only to the
warriors, but higher than the priestly section.28 This also means that the stray remarks
of Bernier about the harsh treatment of artisans by the nobles need a critical look.
From the tenth-century Siyasat Namah of Nizam-ul-Mulk Tusi, in west Asia, the
lower ranks in the towns, including the artisans, were considered a source of social dis-
content and instability. They were kept under tight control and denied posts of importance
in the administration. These opinions are replicated in India by Fakr-i-Mudabbir and
Ziauddin Barani, the latter calling these sections ‘wild beasts of prey’. That this had
25
Chandra, ‘The Commercial Activities of Mughal Emperors’, pp. 92–97, and Essays on Medieval Indian
History, pp. 227–34.
26
Commerce on the Coromandel Coast 1650–1750.
27
European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India.
28
Blochmann, Ain-i-Akbari, Vol. I, p. 4.

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32 Satish Chandra

some resonance in the prevailing value systems in a feudal society is borne out by
the writing of the sixteenth-century Hindi poet, Tulsidas, who considers that in a soci-
ety based on qualities, the adham and khal far outnumbered the uttam and madhyam
(people of high and middle qualities, respectively). Among the adham and khal, Tulsi
included the neech which, in popular perception, tended to apply to people of low
(neech) castes in which the artisans were included. Tulsidas was of the opinion that the
neech needed to be kept under tight control, and that ‘the neech were happy only when
treated with disdain’ (neech niradar hi sukhad).29 For Tulsi, people could escape from
this situation; even the shwapach or untouchable, the lowest of the low could do so if
he joined the ranks of the devotees among whom there were no social distinctions, by
constantly repeating the name of Ram.30
A different attitude towards the lower orders can be gleaned from the Hindi writings
of Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanam who wrote during the first quarter of the seventeenth
century, and Vrinda who wrote during the second half of the century. For both, uphold-
ing social values were the responsibility of the baran or elders in the family. This was
equally applicable to the state, since the state was considered a social organism. The
elders consisted of the upper section of the ruling class, that is, the Mughal nobility,
which included both Muslims and Hindus. Compassion, noble deeds, willingness to
face hardships and concern for the welfare of the juniors or lower sections in society
were considered vital in the value system of these sections or the baran. Abdur Rahim
considers that while these sections should respect or listen to the religious leaders, their
words could be disregarded if not considered suitable. In other words, the responsibil-
ity of upholding the desirable values depended primarily on the upper sections of the
Mughal nobility. The poor were to be treated with respect and dealt with compassion,
even when they showed some disaffection. Rahim warns that even small strands when
they come together become a rope, that is, a factor of strength.31
Further, both Rahim and Vrinda consider knowledge (vidya) and labour or enter-
prise (udyam) as the basis of success in life or in enterprises. And vidya could be gained
from any one, even from someone called neech.32
Thus, with the growing stability of the Mughal ruling class and economic growth,
the attitude of the upper class towards the lower classes, including the artisans, had
apparently begun to change.
A great deal of work has been done in recent years to clarify the position and role of
Indian merchants, in domestic as also in the larger Oriental trade. It has been made
clear that the Indian merchants could not be ousted from the overseas trade, either by
the Arabs from the ninth century onwards, or by the Portuguese, Dutch and the English
during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nor were they mere peddlers,

29
Chandra, ‘Social Life and Concepts as Reflected in the Works of Tulsidas’, pp. 169–84, and Medieval
India and Hindi Bhakti Poetry, pp. 99–115.
30
Ibid.
31
Rahim, Dohavali, Nos 59, 7.
32
Vrinda, Sat Sai, cited by Savitri Chandra, Hindi Bhakti Sahitya main Samajik Mulya evam Sahishnutavad,
N.B.T, 2007, pp. 128–29.

Indian Historical Review, 36, 1 (2009): 23–35

Social and Attitudinal Change in Medieval India 33

but some of them equalled European merchant princes by the size and range of their
holdings, within India and the neighbouring countries. Thus, an Abdul Ghafur Bohra
had control of a shipping fleet as large as the East India Company, and with many
offices abroad, or a Virji Vohra could buy goods of a whole ship, lend money to the
British and have his kothis or outlets and agents all over West and Southeast Asia.
Despite European access to the American gold and silver, and their domination of the
seas, Indian merchants managed to remain important in Oriental trade as long as polit-
ical power did not pass to the hands of the Europeans, and they used both economic and
political power to oust the Indian merchants from significant areas. Even then, the
Indian traders could never be completely ousted from Asian or Oriental trade. The
financiers tried to extend their control over the countryside through money lending,
while the wholesale merchants tried to extend their control over the artisans through
the dadni system.
Internally, while there was a popular disdain for the baniya who was a petty shop-
keeper, or dealer with food grains at the village level and was considered a hoarder of
essential commodities during times of scarcity, or acting as a petty money lender, the
attitude towards wholesale merchants and bankers—called seth, modi or bohra—was
different. They were respected and even treated with honour. The popular ideal, of
course, was one of genteel poverty. According to a popular verse, wrongly ascribed to
Kabir, the ideal was that one should have sufficient means to provide necessities for
himself and his family, but also a little to spare so that a wandering mendicant had not
to be turned away from the house. This did not, of course, apply to the rulers or to those
merchants or money lenders who accumulated wealth. These sections were con-
demned only when they refused to share some of their wealth with the needy. Dan, or
gift of money, was lauded for gaining respect in this world, and earning a position in
the next. Those who refused to share their wealth are warned of theft or seizure by royal
officials.33
Significantly, a person without means was pitied and was considered to be one who
was utterly helpless and lacking respect from others or even from himself. Thus, Jaisi
says:

Without wealth a person is as unsettled as a leaf in a storm. With wealth even a beggar walks
as if he had a crown on his head… Without wealth a person loses all courage, and meaningful
speech. Without wealth is being like a tree which stands like a stump, all the leaves having
dried up and dropped off.34

Although written in the context of Raja Ratan Sen of Chittor who had lost all his wealth
in a storm at sea, it does reflect a general attitude towards wealth.
In an interesting section dealing with the kripan, or miser, Rajjab,35 writing in the
middle of the seventeenth century, does not consider poverty to be the divine order of
33
Jaisi, Padmavat, Nos. 386 and 387.
34
Padmavat, No. 420.
35
Vani, Kripan ko Anga, No. 120.

Indian Historical Review, 36, 1 (2009): 23–35

34 Satish Chandra

things or an outcome of acts in the previous life, but he attributes it to laziness. He

defends a miser because he accumulates money for the welfare of his family, whereas
a lazy man, who neglects his family, does not have the right even to chant the name of
‘Ram’. This would appear to be what Max Weber had called a capitalist ethic. It was,
perhaps, only a glimmer; nevertheless, it should not be neglected.
I would like to conclude that, in my opinion, by the middle of the seventeenth
century, the Mughal state was beginning to be, or had become a merchantilist state
in which the economic sinews were passing more and more into the hands of the
merchants and the moneyed elements. The break-up of the Mughal Empire did not
seriously affect this process. The British utilised the merchant elements to strengthen
their own position. But once they had gained political power, they used that power
and their control over the seas to steadily undermine the position of the mercantile
sections, as also the position of those considered respectable, who were—in a sense—
the opinion formers.
Thus, instead of a further growth of a mercantile economy, British colonial rule
weakened and undermined it. This became even more apparent with the end of the
Napoleonic Wars and the final defeat of the Marathas, when the Indian markets were
thrown open to the rising industrial might of Britain. It was these factors which
make the first half of the nineteenth century perhaps the saddest in India’s economic
and social history.

ICHR Foundation Day Lecture, 27 March 2008.

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