subject: history lesson: india in the mid-eighteenth...

India in the mid-eighteenth century: society, economy, polity

1 Institute of lifelong learning, University of Delhi

Subject: History

Lesson: India in the mid-eighteenth century: society,

economy, polity

Course Developers

The eighteenth century: an overview

Lakshmi Subramanian

and

The eighteenth century: society,economy and polity

Partho Datta

Language Editor: Swapna Liddle

Formating Editor: Ashutosh Kumar



Table of contents

Chapter 1: India in the mid eighteenth century: society, economy, polity

1.1: The eighteenth century – an overview

1.2: The eighteenth century: society, economy and polity

Summary

Exercises

Glossary

Further readings

Introduction



The 18th century occupies an interesting position in the history of India. In recent years, it

has also emerged as a major site of debate and deliberations among historians. The reasons

for this are many. As a century that witnessed the passing away of an empire (the Mughal)

and its replacement by another (the British), it was viewed and described in very different

ways by contemporary observers, commentators and participants. For chroniclers of the

declining Mughal Empire, (Moving map to be inserted) the century represented a period of

political and cultural loss – of profound transformation that was likened to a revolution, an

inqilab, that could only be expressed in poems of lament or shahr e ashob.

Value addition: did you know?

Poetry of the declining Mughals

The genre of Urdu poetry known as shahr ashob (literally the city‟s misfortune) gives

us a personalized account of individual reactions to the period of Mughal decline in

the 18th century. Two major poets specializing in this genre were MirTaqi Mir (1724-

1810) and Mirza Rafi Sauda (1713-81) both of whom were old enough to feel the

trauma of Nadir Shah‟s attack on Delhi, the imperial city. The pain and privations of

the city and its residents who faced shortages, hardships and exactions formed the

subject matter of a lot of the poetry. Recall how Sauda writes:

“The Income from jagirs is all but cut off now.

For years the country has been at the pleasure of outlaws and renegades.

He who was once sole lord of twenty two subas

Can‟t even retain the faujdari of Kol.

Those in the country are strong and seditious, what amirs there are feeble,

And those who detain us on the road are in cahoots with them, Their masters cannot

collect even a quarter of the harvest.”

For Mir, the world was never the same and even as he resided in Lucknow in relative

safety, he wrote:

“You would not know this age as you did the one before,

Mir,

It is not that age now, nor that earth or sky”

Source: Petievich, Carla R. 1990. „Poetry of the Declining Mughals: The Shahr

Ashob‟. Journal of South Asian Literature. Vol. XXV No. 1.



For new comers and political aspirants, who were busy building smaller regional states and

political units, the century was one of opportunities that permitted a redistribution of

resources and produced contrasting and competing narratives of kingship, governance and

conflict. For the aspiring English East India Company that looked at every opportunity for

expansion and self-aggrandizement, the century had to be projected as one of instability

and decay giving them the necessary moral justification for conquest and subjugation. And

that was not all. There were regional histories in the vernacular being produced in the 18th

century and which indexed a new set of historical sensibilities and political change. These

multiple narratives make retrospective history writing difficult but are useful in yielding

valuable insights into the complexities of the social, political and cultural landscape of 18th

century India.

This lesson will attempt to track overall social change and its manifestations - political,

cultural and economic. We will also look at literary and cultural production, regional state

building, caste mobility and community formations and the changing balance of political

power buttressed by a redistribution of economic resources. Here the first question that we

will need to clarify is what we mean by social change. Evidently at one level, we are looking

at clearly identifiable processes that affected certain sections of society, altering their status

and resource base and with that, occasionally their political orientation or world view. Social

change in the 18th century came largely as a consequence of changing economic

circumstances in the wake of Imperial Mughal decline and one that generated new

possibilities for employment, profit and social mobility for some groups who were positioned

to take advantage of the new set up. The dismantling of the imperial Mughal edifice found

expression in the emergence of regional states headed by ex-Mughal grandees in some

cases and by new claimants in others.

Some historians like C. A. Bayly and Andre Wink have argued that the emergence of the

new states itself reflected the maturation of an earlier period of expansion and growth that

could not be contained within the faltering Mughal set up. In many cases, the beneficiaries

of the economic change became rulers themselves and in any case, along with others,

pursued policies of military expansion and bureaucratic centralization that had vital

consequences. One important result was the increasing deployment of new methods of

revenue extraction and management referred to by David Washbrook as „military fiscalism‟.

This referred to a policy of short-term revenue extraction to serve the overall objective of

maintaining armed forces by encouraging revenue farming instead of long-term investment

in productivity. This in turn benefited a range of groups, especially scribal, managerial

groups and holders of landed rights described by some historians as the „gentry‟, to come to

the forefront. In fact the military requirements of new regional states, especially in the

second half of the 18th century, Mysore, Hyderabad, Bengal and Awadh, operating a war

economy also brought European mercenary soldiers and adventurers whose presence in

18th century India added a colorful detail to its rich and vibrant tapestry of social life. The

association of adventurers with courts – Polier with Awadh, Marquis de Bussy with Arcot,

and de Boigne with Mahadji Sindhia, among others – reminds us of the hybridity and

cosmopolitanism of regional courts in 18th century India.



Figure 1.1.1: Benoit de Boigne

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beno%C3%AEt_de_Boigne

Figure 1.1.2: Col. Polier's Nautch (Lucknow, c.1780), painted by Mihr Chand

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1700_1799/polier/polier.html

Accommodation and adaptation, mobility and change, represent only one element in a

historical overview of social change. The other has to do with the genealogy of protest and

dissidence – of locating sources of unrest and resistance among those groups whose

position and status were threatened by the changes in the body politic. The 18th century

saw episodic rebellions in various parts of India breaking out during moments of famine,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beno%C3%AEt_de_Boigne

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1700_1799/polier/polier.html



political disruption and war. An overview of the century cannot afford to overlook these

moments of rupture and contestation and speculate on their implications for assessing the

18th century in the larger context of change and progression. At the same time, we will

need to consider the notion of early modernity, which is now emerging as a major research

concern among historians of 18th century India. Historians like Kumkum Chatterjee and

Sanjay Subrahmanyam look at historical productions of the 18th century to posit the idea of

an early modern conceptualization of history.

Social change and political economy

Tracking social change in 18th century India is no easy task. The first major stumbling block

is the size and diversity of the space that constituted India. This is followed by an incredibly

dense and mired structure of social relations even at the local level that make any large

generalizations impossible. For purposes of clarity and convenience, we will address the

issue of social change around the changing political economy of the period. We will be

looking at the century in two different temporal segments; the first half of the century that

saw regionalism being articulated in the form of actual political units and the following half

century that saw a progressive dismantling of the regimes by the English East India

Company. By political economy we mean here a commonsensical understanding of the

term, that is, the economies of polities and states, which were by and large geared to a war

economy that made necessary an efficient bureaucracy and an expanding army. These in

turn imposed immense pressure on state revenues forcing the administration to devise new

strategies to appropriate greater revenues and facilitate their circulation. Some of these

strategies benefited new and emerging social groups who became the movers and shakers

of power in the 18th century, financing wars, facilitating transfer of revenues and acquiring

increasing influence in the administration. Some of these groups went on to collaborate with

the English East India Company in the second half of the 18th century enabling the latter to

wrest political power and make a bid for paramountcy in Hindustan. On the other hand,

there were others whose resources were strained severely and who were barely in a

position to negotiate with the new dispensation.

Historians have begun to realize that the articulation of regionalism as a by-product of the

Mughal polity itself was not confined to the political domain. If the 1980‟s saw a proliferation

of region based studies that made a case for pockets of growth and social change and for

social tensions generated within the Mughal agrarian order, more recent scholarship has

focused attention on the tensions between the centre and the region expressed through the

vehicle of language. Muzaffar Alam‟s work on the political language of Islam in Mughal India

referred to both the tension between Persian and regional vernaculars and also the factors

that determined the choice of Persian as the language of politics and negotiation, as an

instrument of maneuverability and social management. The point that needs to be borne in

mind here, is how elements of early modernity and a secular polity were present in the late

Mughal set up and how in course of the 18th century, the epistemic frame of empire based

on Persian was showing signs of wear and tear caused by the assertion of regional

tendencies.



Social change and political economy of Hindustan in 1700: a bird‟s eye view

What would a hypothetical time traveler have found during his travels in India around the

first half of the 18th century and how would this have differed from his later counterpart at

the end of the period? A lot of course would have been determined by his/her location. The

view from Delhi would have been singularly bleak as the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 was

accompanied by the steady erosion of political authority in the centre and the articulation of

regional aspirations by ex-subadars and/or new members of the landed gentry. As senior

Mughal officials and rulers struggled to maintain hold over a deteriorating edifice, new

players drawn largely from the landed gentry and mobile peasant backgrounds with their

scribal collaborators emerged as the new bosses of the day. Successive onslaughts by the

Persians and the Afghans and their sack of the city in 1739 and 1761 respectively,

thoroughly destroyed the already paralyzed edifice of the Mughal state, which by this time

could boast only of a hollow carapace having yielded to the demands and aspirations of

regional leaders.

Between 1707 and 1761, regionalism became the dominant force in Indian politics;

everywhere from Bengal in the east to Gujarat in the west, from Punjab in the north to

Arcot and Mysore in the south, new aspirants, some ex Mughal grandees, some arrivistes

asserted their claims to power. Between these two dates, Bengal, Awadh and Hyderabad

had set themselves up as independent units, while during the same period two further

regimes were carved out to the north and east of Delhi by Afghan military adventurers – the

Rohillas and Bangash Afghans. If these states represented the vitality and enterprise of

disaffected Mughal nobles, who astutely solicited the cooperation of local power holders and

of mercenary adventurers respectively, there were others like the Marathas, Jats and Sikhs

whose politics embodied the interface between social movements, agrarian mobility and

political opportunity.

What do we mean by this interface? Typically, an interface indicates a crossing point for

different processes. Consequently, we can see economic growth or agricultural expansion

over a period of time can enable local rights holders to build up their reserves and improve

their political status and then challenge the very foundations of the political authority that

had sustained and supported their claims in the first place. Alternatively, there could be as

in the case of entities like the Marathas and Sikhs a convergence of land related aspirations

with social transformation based on ideology that persuaded and helped mobilize a range of

groups to stake claims to regional power. From the older perspective of the established

Mughal ruling class, the usurpation of political authority by subject populations was an

abhorrence that was to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. Historians of late

Mughal India gave vent to this – we have for instance, memoirists and chroniclers lamenting

the lapses in rule and the assertion of new groups whose politics was seen as an

abomination.

These laments reflected not merely a perceptible decline in governance and the resultant

political instability but the anxiety about the implications the imperial crisis had for the

older, familiar social balance that had once kept the body politic intact. Once the well-known



and familiar triad of ruler-magnate-peasant had been disrupted, the foundations of

governance were shaken as new aspirants and upstarts raced to make good their fortunes

in a time of troubles. This manifested in the form of regional dissociation from the imperial

centre, of regional polities mushrooming in Bengal, Awadh, Hyderabad, the Punjab and the

Deccan. Regionalism was largely buttressed by economic developments of the preceding

decades that had enabled a range of social groups with access to skills and capital to

emerge as power brokers if not power-holders. This group, often referred to as the gentry

by scholars like C. A. Bayly, embodied the changing pattern of resource distribution and the

consequences of the policy of military fiscalism that we have referred to in the context of

the new regional states of the 18th century. Responding to the need for building efficient

armies, regional states devised new mechanisms for revenue mobilization and extraction

and made use of new partners drawn from the commercial sections of the population. At the

same time there was a closer and deeper penetration into society with the help of an

expanding bureaucracy, a development that further reinforced the status and strength of

the mobile scribal and commercial groups of Indian society. The emergence and success of

Karanams in the south, Kayasths in Bengal and the Deccan, Chitpavan Brahmins and

Shenvis in the Konkan as much as the assertion of Bhumihars in Benaras as a consequence

of sustained agrarian colonization, epitomized the changing balance of social power in 18th

century India and one that occasionally destabilized older boundaries of caste and status.


The Rajapur Congress of 1664

In 1664, the small town of Rajapur in the Konkan witnessed a dharmasabha, a

gathering of pandits, convened by Shivaji to examine the standing of Shenvis a sub

group of the Saraswats. A mobile group, their advancement had become noticeable

thanks to the success they enjoyed in trade, landholding, revenue management and

local administration. Their success and claims to status raised questions on what

constituted a Brahmin. Was it diet, was it particular livelihoods? For the Rajapur

assembly the bone of contention was not that Shenvis ate fish but that they pursued

agriculture and associated activities that eroded Brahmanical status. These questions

of standing cropped up repeatedly after 1664, indicating two things; one that

communities were competing for certain kinds of advantages and secondly that a

series of local meanings could always be added to the archetypal figure of the

Brahmin. For us students and teachers of 18th century India, the most important

feature of social history seems to be mobility and how this disturbed and destabilized

existing social relations and conventions.

Source: Rosalind O‟Hanlon and Christopher Minkowski. 2008. „What makes people

who they are? Pandit networks and the problem of livelihoods in early modern

Western India‟. Indian Economic and Social History Review. 45, 3, 381-416.



Select case studies

Let us illustrate this point with a few concrete examples, some of which you will learn in

detail on another occasion. Take the case of Bengal where in course of the first half of the

18th century a vibrant regional polity emerged under Murshid Quli Khan (1713-27) and his

successors. Sent as subadar to Bengal by Emperor Aurangzeb and armed with instructions

to augment the region‟s revenue collections meant for the imperial treasury, Murshid Quli

ended up rehauling the entire administrative set up that not only stepped up the state‟s

revenue shares, but brought about a new social coalition. How did this happen?

Conventional wisdom speaks of three sets of reforms the administrator undertook, namely

the transfer of a substantial portion of land into direct crown held territory (khalsa),

streamlining collection procedures and investing the responsibility of revenue collection with

big zamindars who were capable of paying the enhanced revenue assessment. Those who

could not, and defaulted, lost their lands with the result that eventually more than two fifths

of Bengal‟s revenue was paid by a small group of about 30 influential zamindari houses. The

latter in turn worked with financiers who paid upfront the necessary revenue and even

undertook the important business of remitting revenues from Bengal to Delhi and assumed

a position of centrality in the set up. The best known among these merchant houses was the

house of Jagat Seth. (Box on Jagat Seth)

By eliminating small and middling zamindars and investing large landed houses with the

task of revenue collection, Murshid Quli‟s administration enjoyed greater vertical control

over society and aligned it more closely to the interests and concerns of the local elite and

merchant groups. His administration was also characterized by the growing preponderance

of Hindu scribal groups who manned the administration and who emerged as important

members of the literati well versed in Persian. This new arrangement worked well for more

than four decades; described by Philip Caulkins as a government by consent until it was de-

stablized by internal dissensions within the court in Murshidabad and the growing offensive

of the English East India Company based in Calcutta. We will have occasion to refer to this

in greater detail.

Growth of zamindari power as well as the growing participation of mercantile and scribal

groups in the running of the administrative and revenue collecting machinery was evident in

other successor states as well. In Hyderabad we have the instance of the emerging power of

the Kayasths, as record keepers and administrative assistants, whose rise according to

historian Karen Leonard, was an inevitable consequence of the policies of the newly created

Hyderabad state. Here was a case of a military aristocracy trying to keep a robust army

intact so as to further territorial expansion and to consolidate a bureaucracy that benefited

record keepers and scribal groups. In Awadh too, we have evidence of magnate power that

not only provided leadership to agrarian resistance against the Mughals during the closing

decades of the 17th century, but also built substantial holdings and even buttressed the

provincial administration‟s claims to autonomy from the Mughal centre.

A very different set of circumstances operated in the case of social movements translating

into political entities in the 18th century – a development that also testifies to the inherent



fluidity of the period that made it possible for a range of social groups to improve and

articulate their status. Ordinarily, opportunities for social mobility are made possible when

there is an expansion of economic opportunities or when there is a growing pressure on

territory – a land hunger that drives people to move out and thereafter, aspire to a higher

ascriptive caste status. Circumstances in the late 17th and 18th centuries worked to this

end at several levels. Here, we have the case of Sikhs, Jats and Marathas, whose numbers

were largely drawn from lower ranks of peasant and cultivating society as well as from

groups on the fringes of settled agriculture coming forward to support war-bands in search

of territory and cohering around a set of socially inclusive doctrines.

Starting off as a reaction to the dominance of revenue extractors in the Deccan, the

Marathas represented the coming of age of local co-sharers of revenue who used their

military service as a vantage point to claim a new and exalted status in the 17th century

and to enjoy certain vested rights in land. The term itself began to represent by the 17th

century a category of service elite drawn from diverse castes who in lieu of their military

service to Muslim sultanates in the Deccan began to enjoy both status and rights in land.

The formation of the category coincided with the rise of a social movement based on

inclusive bhakti that convulsed society in Maharashtra and gave an added fillip to the

aspirations of ordinary peasant cultivators to aspire to a new status that military service

promised. The conditions of Mughal decline in the first half of the 18th century encouraged

Maratha leaders to organize bands and carve out zones of influence far removed from their

original nucleus in the western Deccan. Between 1713 and 1761 when Maratha expansion

was checked by the forces of the Afghan king Ahmad Shah Abdali in the historic battle-fields

of Panipat, the power of the Maratha Confederacy as a major contender for paramountcy

was evident to any contemporary observer.



Figure 1.1.3: Maratha soldier

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Maratha_soldier.gif

A similar set of tendencies was evident in the case of Jat expansion and their embrace of

Sikhism, the other great social movement that appealed to commercial castes initially

butmoved robust itinerant groups as well as pioneer peasant castes like the Jats. Repeated

struggles against the Mughal administration became effective especially in the wake of the

Persian and Afghan invasions that destabilized the situation in the Punjab and the Northwest

enabling Sikh war-bands to occupy Lahore and in 1767 found the Patiala state. What united

all these regional units was the coalition of interests that developed between rulers and local

elite constituted by new and mobile groups, and the tendency towards bureaucratic

centralization assumed by the new rulers in their perennial search for revenues needed to

finance wars and expansion. Whether it was Alivardi Khan in Bengal or Martanda Varma in

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Maratha_soldier.gif



Travancore, or Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan in Mysore, the emphasis on bureaucratic

reorganization, rigorous taxation, and regulation of commerce and deployment of

mercenaries to maintain political control was apparent. It was therefore not entirely

coincidental that bankers and service castes everywhere should assume a position of

centrality in the fluid and dynamic state system of the 18th century – a development that

contributed very substantively to the crystallization of more caste cohesive identities.

If the origins of regional state building were to be found in conditions of growth and

redistribution of economic resources among more groups, the consolidation of these

regimes and the strategies deployed to achieve it ensured a new coalition of social classes,

in which the merchants, scribes and the landed gentry assumed a central position. The

process was however, short-lived as the regional state system came under pressure from

the second half of the 18th century when the English East India Company thanks to its

victory in Bengal in 1757 moved into a new position of competitive advantage in the

struggle for Hindustan.

Plassey and the transition to the Company Raj

The growing presence of the English East India Company and its steady assumption of

political power was the most visible feature of Indian politics in the half century following

Plassey. Beginning as a trading company that was able to manoeuvre for special privileges

from the Mughal empire and its representatives, usually in the form of imperial farmans for

customs exemption, the Company began to intervene as a mercenary force in the mediation

of succession disputes in the regional systems until 1757 when it made a conscious bid for

direct political authority and territorial control. This decision coincided with a crisis in the

political system of Bengal precipitated by the actions of the new Nawab Sirajuddaulah

against powerful members of the ruling elite. The unfolding of a conspiracy among the latter

fanned by the English East India Company cost the Bengal system its independence as a

farcical battle waged in the groves of Plassey was followed by a humiliating settlement

imposed on the chosen Nawab Mir Jafar that enabled the Company to steadily extend its

tentacles on the political economy of the region. Less than ten years later, a more decisive

battle was fought between the Company and Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal who

attempted to resist the steady erosion of his authority. The contest of Buxar gave the

Company the right to revenue collection from the subas of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and

armed thus with a huge revenue surplus, the Company was poised to make a bid for the

supremacy of Hindustan.



Figure 1.1.4: Clive and Mir Jafar after the battle of Plassey

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Clive.jpg

Between 1765 and 1818, the political history of India was marked by conflict and diplomatic

negotiations that finally put the Company in control over the subcontinent. The process of

domination was complex and chequered – a variety of strategies were deployed ranging

from subsidiary alliances to indirect rule to outright conquest and coercion. A situation of

endemic conflict inevitably put pressure on the regional states that were forced to rely more

and more on what we have referred to as a policy of military fiscalism. The tightening of the

bureaucracy, the rampant spread of revenue farming that made both for quick turn over as

well as pressure on the cultivators and the intercession of mobile commercial groups with

capital in the financing of war and politics emerged as the most distinguishing marks of

transition politics in the second half of the 18th century. Bankers were indeed the cement

that kept the ties of circulation in place and it was also their collaboration that enabled the

Company to score a march over its rivals. The need for remittance facilities to finance war

operations in widely dispersed zones of conflict meant that the hundis of Indian bankers like

Gopaldas Manohardas, or Hari Bhakti and Tarwady Arjunjee Nathjee became critical

determinants of success and failure. The war economy also created a demand for new

commodities and helped in the emergence of a nexus between revenue, trade and

distribution.

If merchants were key figures in transition politics, mercenaries were no less important in

the political ecology of 18th century India. The conditions of a war economy brought in

among other things a train of European adventurers and mercenary soldiers, who

introduced new technologies of warfare and who were equally adept at integrating into the

Persianized political culture of late Mughal India. Some of them like Polier and Kirkpatrick or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Clive.jpg



Palmer, opted for an „Orientalized‟ life style, learnt Indian languages especially Persian,

entertained liaisons with local women and became part of a new hybrid temperament that

characterized the century. The presence of European military adventurers and missionaries

in courts as residents or advisers contributed to the cultural richness of the century when in

fact in the domains of art and music there was a marked efflorescence that stood in contrast

to the political convulsions.

Figure 1.1.5: James Achilles Kirkpatrick

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:James_Achilles_Kirkpatrick.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:James_Achilles_Kirkpatrick.jpg



Figure 1.1.6: Khair-un-Nissa, a Hyderabadi noblewoman and wife of James Achilles

Kirkpatrick

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Khair-un-Nissa.jpg

A social revolution

Can we on the basis of the above survey of political change and its supporting economy,

make a definitive formulation about the changing social landscape in 18th century India and

if we do, which classes would we be looking at? Clearly we have evidence indicating the

assertion and visibility of scribal and commercial groups and of the landed gentry in some

parts who benefited from Mughal peace and asserted their autonomy in the 18th century.

How did this success find reflection in terms of status and identity? Susan Bayly in an

important work on caste and society in India argues that the dynamism of regional state

systems in the wake of Mughal decline helped in the crystallization of caste identities and

ideals and which were subsequently consolidated under British rule. Historians like Sanjay

Subrahmanyam and Kumkum Chatterjee have shown more recently how the articulation of

a scribal culture produced new modes of writing history that marked an important break

with older traditions of chronicling and reflected a new sense of historical awareness. The

rich cultural mix of Persianized ideals and of Brahmanical tradition was especially evident in

Bengal. Here the Persianate attainments of the Bengali gentry were remembered with pride

and élan even as there was a renewed interest in patronizing Hindu rituals and in the

adherence of Sanskritic/Brahmanical culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Khair-un-Nissa.jpg



What stands out in terms of social transformation is the mobility that was available to a

variety of enterprising groups to make good in the times. Warrior lineages, peasant-

cultivators assuming the status of Bhumihars and Jats and Marathas, bankers and scribes

who participated in the Persianized political culture even as they were moving towards a

more systematic caste identity clearly emerge as the principal actors of the century. It was

also in course of the 18th century that there was what Vijay Pinch refers to as the

crystallization of a new phase of armed asceticism embodied by the rise of Gosains as major

mercenary soldiers and recruiters as well as traders and money lenders. The changes

wrought in the military labour market of Northern India by the English east India Company

as well as successor states reinforced caste identities for example – by joining the Company

army, many of the social castes hoped to realize their aspirations of upward mobility.

It is possible to inter-relate social turbulence and transformation with religious expressions ;

Pinch observes how even after the subjugation of the Gosains, their organizations continued

to have important social functions revealed most obviously in their control of the Kumbh

pilgrimage held triennially in Hardwar, Allahabad, Nasik and Ujjain. Muslim religious life both

in Delhi and elsewhere revolved around new and more rigorous conceptions of fidelity to the

Hadith or the sayings of the prophet. In Delhi Shah Waliullah the Naqshbandi Sufi (1703-62)

led an important scholarly circle and whose teachings found a deep resonance in the Punjab

and Rohilkhand. In Shiah led states like Bengal and Awadh, there was a marked resurgence

of elegies and marsia traditions all of which gestured to a heightened sense of religious

identification.

The period also saw a remarkable cultural efflorescence – developments in music, poetry,

language are seen by scholars as embodying a major change in register and initiating the so

called modern turn in artistic production. The region came into full focus – art, architecture

and poetry as well as religious expressions tended to be grounded in their regional contexts.

We have for instance poets like Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit (1689-1752) writing in Sindhi and

Bulhe Shah (1680-1758) and Waris Shah (bc.1730) in Punjabi not to speak of important

regional poetry in Bengal and Maharashtra.

Culture in an age of change

Scholars of art and cultural production as well as language have acknowledged the vitality

of the 18th century courts that emerged as important patrons and laboratories for

innovation. Notwithstanding disruption in structures of imperial patronage, the arts would

appear to have thrived in regional courts and imbibed rich regional inputs. This was

especially true of painting – the miniature traditions in Rajasthan are a case in point.



Figure 1.1.7: Akbar watching Tansen take a lesson from Swami Haridas in Vrindavan;

from a Mughal miniature painting in the Jaipur-Kishangarh (Rajasthan) mixed style, circa

A.D. 1750.

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swami_haridas_TANSEN_akbar_minature-

painting_Rajasthan_c1750_crp.jpg

Some well known themes that were represented in Rajasthani miniatures were devotional –

Krishna lila episodes – as well as representations of melody known as the Ragmala series.

There were noticeably Mughal elements in these paintings with similarities in vertical

formats and compositions. Rajasthani painting (all its schools) was based on a model of

workshop production and that through these workshops there was a dissemination of older

Mughal conventions. This was also true of the Pahari style of painting that developed in the

Himalayan foothills – in its first phase there was the intense Basohli style and in its later

phase the Kangra style seen to be more influenced by the styles of Delhi and Lucknow. This

evolved between 1740 and 1775 when a number of artists fled Delhi for the hills in search

of patrons and opted for the lyrical style where colours were less intense and the there was

a more naturalistic treatment of landscape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tansen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Haridas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrindavan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_painting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaipur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajasthan

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/1750

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swami_haridas_TANSEN_akbar_minature-painting_Rajasthan_c1750_crp.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swami_haridas_TANSEN_akbar_minature-painting_Rajasthan_c1750_crp.jpg



Figure 1.1.8: Bhairavi Ragini, Manley Ragamala, an album painting in gouache on paper

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragamala_paintings

The vitality of regionalism was evident in architecture as well. The new states invested in

public buildings and in the process persisted with the older imperial style in addition to

engaging with new idioms and expressions. Catherine Asher in her work, indicates how

European styles were preferred for secular architecture in Murshidabad and Lucknow and

how in temple architecture in Jaipur and Delhi, the model of the haveli was used to good

effect. Surface decoration in temples was also similar to contemporary Muslim architecture.

Figures of Europeans in hats also made their way as temple decoration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragamala_paintings



Figure 1.1.9: Constantia Hall in Lucknow

Source:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1700_1799/claudemartin/claud

emartin.html

It was in the 18th century that remarkable advances in music, both Hindustani and

Karnatik, were registered leading to improvisations in form, the khyal and kriti developed

and refined by musician-composers like Sadarang and Tyagaraja respectively. Many of the

artistic developments were made possible thanks to the interest and eclectic enthusiasm of

regional courts that emerged as important sites of change, even modernity. For example,

the Tanjore court under the Maratha ruler Serfoji II (1798-1832) undertook a series of

interesting experiments, set up a museum, founded free public schools, developed new

curricula and tried to synthesize western and Indian methods in medicine. Similarly we have

the case of the Jaipur court of Raja Jai Singh who established an astronomical observatory

and who displayed a keen interest in music and its systematization. Artists and musicians

found new patrons in regional courts such as Awadh, Jaipur, Murshidabad, Hyderabad and

Tanjore with the result that there was a greater dissemination of the older high imperial

style. Even Delhi until the 1740s appears to have retained its aura as the cultural capital par

excellence. We have an excellent account of the arts scene in the Muraqqa e Dehli by

Dargah Quli Khan whose snapshots of musicians, entertainers and dancers suggest a

vibrant city living life to its full. The development of Urdu poetry in Delhi and Lucknow

testified to the vitality of artistic energies in the period making it at least in cultural terms

an extremely formative period for the articulation of modern forms and styles. Nowhere was

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1700_1799/claudemartin/claudemartin.html

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1700_1799/claudemartin/claudemartin.html



this sensibility better articulated than in the sphere of literary and cultural production where

new modes of reflection, new methodological strategies were in full display.


Khyal and Kriti

Khyal and Kriti are the dominant genres of vocal art music in North and South India

respectively. Both these composition types are short songs with two or more

typically three parts. The Khyal is normally associated with the famous 18th century

composer Niyamat Khan Sadarang of the court of Muhammad Shah Rangile (1719-

48) in Delhi although more recent research suggests that the genre was in use even

earlier. There is little doubt that it enjoyed huge popularity in and after the 18th

century and became the basis for modern Hindustani music as we know it know. The

composition, set to a particular raga, is the basis for individual improvisation by the

singer.

Khyal compositions deployed Brajbhasha for the most part although there are

several compositions in Persian as well. Most of the compositions celebrate love and

devotion. The perfection of the khyals is associated with the emergence of several

gharana or singing styles from the mid 19th century. For those interested in a short

history of the evolution of Hindustani Music, see Jon Barlow and Lakshmi

Subramanian, „Music and society from the Mughals to the Mutiny‟, EPW, May 12,

2007. For those interested in following a class in khyal singing, see the following

website http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=293684.

Kriti or kirtanai is a form typical to Karnatik music and developed between the 16th

and 20th centuries. Reaching its perfection under the Tanjore trinity of Tyagaraja

(1759-1847), Diksitar (1776-1827) and Syama Sastri 1762-1827). The kriti is

entirely religious in its theme, the composer writing both the poetry and the melody.

The language used is mostly Telugu with some compositions in Sanskrit and Tamil.

Source: Subramanian, Lakshmi. 2006. From the Tanjore Court to the Madras Music

Academy: A social history of music in south India. New Delhi: Oxford University

Press.



In conclusion

Can we on the basis of social and cultural change call the 18th century as a period of early

modernity? This is in fact one of the most important research questions to have emerged

among historians and scholars of early modern India. Scholars working on literary and

historical production suggest that the long 18th century saw important shifts in the way

histories were being written and that these reflected new paradigms of power and

governance. New kinds of historical production were apparent in southern India where the

scribes, referred to as karanams who formed part of the mobile literati, adopted new

markers and choices in their descriptions. In Bengal too the impact of a Persianized culture

helped the formation of new genres that showed greater sensitivity to political contingencies

and contributed to a new political vocabulary. In terms of artistic creativity and cultural

expression, there is no doubt that the century saw new forms and styles, especially in music

where the steady growth in the popularity of Khyal and Kriti signaled a new cultural choice

making possible greater individual improvisation.

This is however, not to argue that the articulation of a new temperament- whether it

assumed the forms of greater social mobility, of mercantilist state policy by Indian rulers, of

a more hybrid and cosmopolitan court culture or of a more regionally inspired artistic

repertoire was a smooth process and that it moved seamlessly into the new colonial

dispensation of the succeeding century. The advent of colonial rule was fraught with very

serious consequences for the old order while the politics of transition were no less

destabilizing. This is evident when we look at the breakdown of social order in the cities and

in the countryside that underwent serious episodes of violence that were inspired largely by

the dislocation of an older regime of control. The sanyasi and fakir rebellions in Bengal

before, during and after the famine of 1770 testified to the resistance among several social

groups to the new order and its pecuniary demands. The Dasnami Sanyasis and Madari

fakirs were armed wandering mendicants who participated in the business of provisioning,

money lending and trade. These groups resented and resisted Company demands for

revenue in a rapidly deteriorating situation when large numbers of disbanded soldiers and

displaced people especially after the famine of 1770 joined their cause. There were

rebellions in Malabar as well against the expanding control of the English Company even if

these did not necessarily assume early elements of nationalist feeling. Later writers like

Bankim Chandra Chattopadyaya invested such feelings of patriotic fervour in these

insurrectionary movements as he represented the skirmishes as an expression of organic

nationalist fervour. For as William Pinch has argued, joint Sanyasi-Fakir uprisings are

revealing as they suggest the dynamics and technologies of mobilization, recruitment and

soldiering among ascetics in the 18th century and the success these groups had enjoyed in

the military economy of the period. That war and politics cast a long shadow on the 18th

century is perhaps the most enduring impression we carry when we recall the period even

as courts and merchants demonstrated their resilience in defining and expanding their

domains of creativity and business respectively. The dynamics of transition played



themselves out with casualties and beneficiaries left to assume the mantle of resistance and

cooperation in the succeeding century.

1.2: The eighteenth century: society, economy and polity

Introduction

In the middle of the 1980s two books published within a few years of each other,

Christopher Bayly‟s Rulers, Townsmen and Bazars and Muzaffar Alam‟s The Crisis of Empire

in Mughal North India brought a renewed focus on the 18th century. The 18th century had

always been important in Indian history. Generally it was seen as a period of transition in

which the land-based Mughal empire gave way to the power of the sea-based British

empire. The consensus till the 1980s was that the moribund Mughal state had collapsed due

to its own contradictions and the English East India Company representing the aggressive

mercantilist forces of the West had taken advantage of the ensuing confusion to subjugate

and reduce India to a colony. The transition was not simply political – one regime replacing

another, but also economic: the pre-modern economy of the Mughals was forcibly linked to

world capitalist markets to India‟s detriment. For Indian historians, the 18th century

signalled the beginning of a new historical era of pillage and colonial rule.

The historian Seema Alavi has suggested that the new writings on the 18th century have

created a divide. Those studying the process of the decline of the Mughals - which happened

in the first few decades of the 18th century - have a tendency to extend their views and

apply them to the entire century. For instance, these historians argue that with the collapse

of the centralized Mughal state structure the important political, economic and social

institutions tied with the state also crumbled, bringing unrest and havoc through the

century. The newer historians studying the later period paint a less gloomy picture. They

argue that their viewpoint - which studies trends from the peripheries and not the centre -

presents an altogether different scenario. According to them the process was one of

decentralization and assertion of regional powers rather than outright decline. They say that

these trends were noticeable early and left their mark on the rest of the century. Clearly

there was little agreement between the two views and this clash of interpretations is what

we will examine below. One outcome of this debate was that it is now possible to present a

more holistic and varied picture of the 18th century than before.



Figure 1.2.1: Map India 1700-1792

Source: http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:India_map_1700_1792.jpg

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:India_map_1700_1792.jpg



Decline of the Mughals

This is a well-worn topic and we are familiar with the most influential arguments in the work

of historians of the „Aligarh School‟ – Satish Chandra, Athar Ali and Irfan Habib. Our

intention is not to go over these arguments once again but to delineate the major strands

which have relevance for the debate on the 18th century. Satish Chandra in his book on

politics in the Mughal court had argued that it was really the crisis in Mughal institutions –

the mansab and jagir that brought about a fiscal crisis in the Mughal state leading to its

weakening and collapse. Athar Ali in a complimentary study demonstrated how the crisis in

the Mughal state was due to be-jagiri i.e. the lack of jagirs. The emperor Aurangzeb was

aware of such a problem and in a widely quoted document had apparently written: „ek

anaar, sau bimaar‟ which implied that there were too few fruits of office being chased by too

many candidates. Such a state of affairs, both these historians argue, was due to the

crushing burden of expansionist wars, rebellions and the attempt by the Mughal state to

accommodate newer elements in the higher echelons of the administration i.e. within the

mansabdari system. The crisis occurred because there were too many people awaiting the

patronage of the state and not enough land to distribute as jagirs. The implication was that

this led to disaffection and eventually the weakening of the central structure of the Mughal

state.

Irfan Habib‟s celebrated study shifted the focus to the agrarian economy. He argued that

the revenue demand on the peasantry was high and with the transferability of jagirs the

tendency of mansabdars to squeeze the peasantry grew. Abandonment of land, flight to

more hospitable regions or open rebellion were the paths that the Mughal peasantry took to

resist growing exploitation. The great rebellions against the Mughal state by the Jats,

Satnamis, Marathas and Sikhs were according to Habib essentially peasant rebellions led by

local zamindars.

Summing up the above views one can say that according to Aligarh historians the Mughal

state was a highly centralized revenue extracting structure. In the long run it was unable to

satisfy on the one hand the expectations of its chief support base of primarily noblemen i.e.

mansabdars and on the other of the revenue paying peasantry, who could not meet the

unreasonable demands of the state. Thus the clues to understanding the decline of the

Mughal state during our period were state institutions like mansab and jagir and the

agrarian economy


Decline of the Mughals: a contemporary account

„For generosity, munificence, boundless good nature, extenuation of faults, and

forgiveness of offences, very few monarchs have been found equal to Bahadur

Shah….But though he had no vice in his character, such complacency and such

negligence were exhibited in the protection of the state and in the government and

management of the country, that witty sarcastic people found the date of his



accession in the words Shah-I be-khabar i.e. “Heedless King”.

[Bahadur Shah succeeded Aurangzeb in 1707].

Source: Khafi Khan, Muntakhab-ul Lubab [Selection from Discourses], translated in

Elliot and Dowson, Vol.VII, The History of India as told by its own Historians, reprint,

410.

Despite the convincing and authoritative picture of the decline of Mughals, this

interpretation was challenged. J.F. Richards demonstrated that in Mughal Deccan there was

no shortage of jagirs. So clearly, earlier arguments needed to be modified in this light. But it

was Muzaffar Alam‟s detailed study for provinces like Awadh and Punjab that demonstrated

that the peasant rebellions led by zamindars were in areas of relative agrarian prosperity.

This was a serious challenge to the „high revenue leading to exploitation – leading to

poverty – leading to rebellion‟ argument. From Alam‟s evidence it would seem that peasant

rebellions occurred because they were growing prosperous and were unwilling to alienate

their prosperity to the Mughal state. Furthermore, the work of historian Chetan Singh

demonstrated that in the peripheries of empire the Mughal state‟s relations with

communities was often informal. This meant that the much vaunted all-controlling

centralized structure of the Mughal state needed to be qualified. In this scenario if the

Mughal state did collapse it left no impact on distant regions.

For the debate on the nature of the 18th century this had two implications: decline of the

Mughal state did not indicate an overall economic decline. Political and social forms also

survived in areas where the Mughal reach had been limited.

Typologies of states following the Mughal decline

Drawing on the work of Christopher Bayly, historians have identified broadly three types of

states that replaced the Mughal empire. These characterizations help us to understand the

nature of the smaller political formations. Firstly there was the „successor state‟ i.e.

provinces like Bengal, Awadh and Hyderabad which grew out of the body of the erstwhile

Mughal empire. Murshid Quli Khan in Bengal, Saadat Khan in Awadh and Asaf Jah in

Hyderabad were powerful nobles, governors and representatives of the Mughals who taking

advantage of the chaos at the centre carved out kingdoms for themselves combining the

hitherto separate departments of nizamat and diwani. Muzaffar Alam has called this the

formation of the „new subedari‟. Although they acknowledged the political suzerainty of the

Mughals and called themselves nawabs in deference, in effect they had stopped sending

revenue to the centre and had become autonomous. A second type of state was the „warrior

state‟ built by communities who, originating in parts of the Mughal empire, had been at war

with the Mughal state and had acquired statist ambitions in the process. The most

prominent examples were the Marathas and the Sikhs. A third category comprised of

relatively smaller „compact states‟ like those of Mysore in the south or Rohillas in the north.

These categorizations one must remember were convenient ways to describe these new



states and not mutually exclusive. A state like Mysore for instance, could be categorized as

both „compact‟ and „warrior‟. And such overlapping characteristics could be found elsewhere

too.


Murshid Quli Khan

The first nawab of Bengal was born of Brahman parents in South India but orphaned

at an early age. He travelled widely with his patron Haji Safi Isfahani and attracted

the attention of Aurangzeb who confirmed his position as Diwan of Bengal. After

Aurangzeb‟s death he became Subahdar of Bengal consolidating his position as an

independent and powerful noble. His career showcases the possibilities that existed

for enterprising and clever men in the Mughal administration of enhancing their

social and economic position in the time of political flux.

Source: Ray, N. R. 1988. Bengal Nawab, Calcutta: Victoria Memorial



Figure 1.2.2: Murshid Quli Khan, Nawab of Bengal

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Murshid_Quli_Jafar_Khan.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Murshid_Quli_Jafar_Khan.jpg



Figure 1.2.3: Saadat Khan, Nawab of Awadh

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saadut_Aly_Khan.jpg

Figure 1.2.4: Asaf Jah, Nizam of Hyderabad

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nizam-ul-mulk.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saadut_Aly_Khan.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nizam-ul-mulk.jpg



How were these states different from the Mughals?

Newer research has gone deep into the nature of these smaller political formations, and

noted three broad trends. While trying to understand these trends, historians draw on

sophisticated concepts and terminology developed by historians for Europe but which seem

to fit well with trends in India during the 18th century as well. Firstly in the sphere of rights

over cultivated land – which was the principal source of state income – the trend was from

the prebendal to the partrimonial. This was an important development. “Prebendal” in

Europe meant the revenue rights of the Church, but historians have widened the scope of

this term to mean the state‟s control of agricultural land especially the rights over revenue.

“Patrimony” means property inherited from ancestors. In eighteenth century India, the

centralized state‟s monopoly to distribute rights over land i.e. prebendal rights was clearly

weakening with its political decline. Local representatives of the state, petty officials,

revenue managers with roots in provincial society were asserting their rights over land and

declaring it inheritable property. In other words the locus of economic power was shifting to

a new class of people. Socially too this was significant since this class used its economic

clout to enhance its standing in society.

Secondly, in the newly formed provincial states the trend was towards military fiscalism.

This meant garnering financial resources, finding a social base and building an effective

standing army. The historians Burton Stein and David Washbrook have pointed out that

military fiscalism in the 18th century meant states were widening their tax base in

innovative ways like appointing salaried tax collectors as well as putting together a

centralized army. The adoption of new military technology also meant that the costs of

statehood were rising which in turn put pressure on the collection of revenue. Seema Alavi

has pointed out that this in effect meant freeing the state from dependence on the local

aristocracy and organizing a state around war. In Mysore for instance, Haider Ali and Tipu

Sultan encouraged peasant agriculture and eliminated middlemen like mirasidars and

jenmis. Removing middlemen meant the state could increase its share of revenue as well as

provide relief to the peasant. As a result of such rigorous management, Mysore became one

of the most prosperous states in the 18th century and also famous for its well equipped

standing army of 60,000 soldiers.

A third trend was the commercialization of royal or political power. This literally meant

merchant participation in politics. In Bengal the banking family of the Jagat Seths became

chief financiers of the nawabs, providing credit and participating in revenue farming. The

power of these merchant bankers was most apparent when in the ensuing conflict between

the Bengal ruler Sirajudaula and the East India Company, the Seths used their clout and

power to ensure the defeat of the former in the Battle of Plassey [1757]. Commercialization

of power encouraged the use of objective monetary values to express social relationships.

Rents, houses, proprietary rights of landholders and village headmen, statuses and offices

were leased and sub-leased as relationships between various groups changed. The new

states also used this process of sharing power to incorporate groups other than merchants

and bankers in their quest for military might and capital. The Marathas and Sikhs



maintained ties of reciprocity and patronage with enterprising peasant castes, mercenaries

and pioneer settlers on frontier lands in an attempt to broaden the base of their rule.

Society: the importance of intermediaries

The most notable contribution of Christopher Bayly has been to resurrect the importance of

the intermediate classes in the 18th century. Slow accumulation of wealth by these

intermediaries formed the basis of the emerging kingdoms in the 18th century. These

intermediaries benefited most from the weakening of Mughal rule which had dwarfed them,

and they now emerged into the limelight. Among others these included Hindu and Muslim

revenue farmers. „Farming‟ here meant that in return for a fixed sum, the state gave away

rights to keep the revenue. This arrangement suited the new rulers who were keen that

regular and steady payments were made to the state. The farming of such rights also

extended to trade and markets. Hindu and Jain merchants and bankers [Agarwals

throughout the north, Khattris from Punjab, Oswals, Maheshwaris from Rajasthan etc.]

formed another important component of this intermediary group. Their presence testified to

a continuous tradition of trading in India, as the existence of merchant castes indicate

saraafs [money dealers], bazazas [cloth dealers], jouhuris [jewellers] etc. Other than

participating in trade they lent money to rulers and stood as guarantors of revenue. Another

important group were the Muslim gentry – scribes, accountants and other petty officials who

with the weakening of the Mughals rapidly grew roots in local society forming the nuclei of

new settlements like qasbas [fixed gentry seats]. These were people who had intimate and

long experience of managing bazaars and revenue accounts. In these new settlements

gentrification took the form of cultural activity with the establishment of religious and

educational institutions. Bayly‟s wide-ranging study had drawn on the earlier work of

anthropologist-historian Bernard Cohn. In the Benaras region Cohn had argued, traditional

intermediaries found new power with changing circumstances. According to him

intermediaries transited to new roles, often functioning as „hinges‟ between the state and

local society.

The study of intermediaries was a marked departure from the „Aligarh School‟ which had

focused primarily on the revenue extracting mechanism and the agrarian economy. The

focus on these classes by Bayly was an attempt to register the importance of non-

agricultural production and trade and the rich history of trading communities.

The historian Tapan Raychaudhuri has written that in the 18th century the development of

market forces made deep inroads into the subsistence character of Indian agriculture.

Farmers became involved with trade and traders with farming. The coming together of

merchant and agrarian interests in the countryside, what Bayly has called the „intermediate

economy‟, meant that agricultural commodity production got linked to commercial networks

and helped the new states to extract revenue more thoroughly with the help of

intermediaries. Non-food crop production [cotton, raw silk, indigo, oil etc.] was also widely

prevalent and there was a tendency to localization i.e. if advantages existed and there was

enough demand, farmers tended to produce more of the same. The dynamism of this

process in the 18th century can be seen throughout the Ganges valley as a string of ganjes



[fixed regulated markets], mandis [wholesale markets] and qasbas sprang up, testifying to

the process of an incipient urbanization and economic activity.

Society: other productive classes

Bayly‟s study of the intermediaries has overshadowed the condition of the other productive

classes in 18th century north India. Few detailed studies exist and one can only guess very

broadly the condition of the peasantry and the artisans in rural and urban centres. One

thing we know: the land-man ratio was favourable, large parts of the Indian subcontinent

was forested and yet unclaimed. Theoretically therefore, plenty of land was available for

cultivation which made the position of the peasant less vulnerable. The threat of migration

would have made the violation of customary and contractual rights of peasants less likely

also. In pockets of agricultural growth like Mysore and in the Deccan under the Marathas,

purposive state action to curb intermediaries must have benefited the less-privileged

peasants.

In the towns and cities the condition of the working classes – artisans, handicraft workers,

weavers etc. was linked to growing demand for goods from regional capitals and from

outside India. Here too it seems their economic condition was better than what happened

later when the East India Company imposed stringent controls on artisanal production.

Economy

The economic indicators for the 18th century show that the economy fared well before the

advent of colonial rule. There is little record of sustained famines. The devastating famine of

1770 happened in Bengal after the inauguration of Company rule. Population, prices, trade

and production all showed an upward swing which broadly indicated a positive trend.

Urbanization was also an important indicator of economic prosperity but here the story was

more complicated. As Ashin Dasgupta pointed, out the decline of some cities was

compensated for by the growth of others. Older Mughal centres like Delhi, Agra, Lahore and

Burhanpur declined with Mughal political fortunes. Important port cities like Surat and

Masulipatnam too declined as international trade was wrested away from Indian merchants

by European companies. Their place was taken by colonial cities like Madras, Bombay and

Calcutta and the inland cities and capitals of regional kingdoms: Lucknow, Fyzabad,

Benaras, Hyderabad, Srirangapatam and Bangalore. Trading cities like Mirzapur, Kanpur and

Baroda also came into being to service trade.

Paradoxically, inland trade thrived and merchant corporations managed to maintain their

networks despite the growing political fragmentation. Political fragmentation in fact made

the credit network stronger. By the middle of the 18th century Jagat Seth could send the

entire revenue of the eastern provinces as a hundi drawn on his agents in Delhi. B.R.

Grover‟s research shows that local rural commercial production found new markets in the

provincial kingdoms and was thus compensated for any disruptions caused by the

disintegration of the Mughal empire. Conspicuous consumption in the regional courts



encouraged production and provided employment to labour outside the traditional agrarian

sphere. Christopher Bayly has written that commerce, urban development and specialist

agricultural production which traditionally existed along the route of Delhi and Bengal during

Mughal times was replicated in the 18th century along other routes that indicated an

economic shift – between the newer political centres of Lucknow and Calcutta via Benaras

and Patna.

There was a thriving inter-regional trade. Marathas acquired cloth, food grains and cattle

from the Gangetic plain. Cotton wool and hides from the northern Deccan, sugar from

Benaras, and cloth from Carnatic was supplied to Mysore. Regions specialized in products

and the volume of trade among provinces was large. Gujarat imported textiles from Bengal.

Malabar and Coromandel depended on food supplies from Bengal. Similar prices in the

major coastal trading towns indicated that markets had integrated substantially. Long

distance trade procured goods from arangs or localized centres of production and there was

even some evidence for artisan-entrepreneurs who became proprietors of workshops. This

has prompted some historians to argue that 18th century India showed signs of proto-

industrialization. Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Christopher Bayly have even argued that the

ensemble of economic activity handled by entrepreneurs in the 18th century which included

revenue farming, private trade, warfare and loans, made them into enterprising „portfolio

capitalists‟.

Another interesting aspect of the 18th century economy was the contribution of war.

Traditionally historians had seen the growth of warring states as destroying the Mughal

peace and playing havoc with the economy. But Christopher Bayly has argued that there

was another side to this picture of devastation. Indeed many traditional trade routes were

destroyed and movement of goods suffered. But war gave a fillip to production too. Towns

and villages in Awadh contributed to a thriving market for saltpetre, swords and matchlocks.

Afghan Rohilla towns were famous for their bows and arrows and the trademark Rampur

daggers. Jhansi was well-known for its canon foundries. Boot makers and liquor distillers

also had a thriving business and so did grain merchants who had to supply food grains and

fodder to the large armies and seige trains as they moved across provinces. War thus

meant employment and the opportunity to create wealth as the growth of numerous

ancillary industries testified.

The 18th century saw both devastation due to Mughal decline as well as rapid adjustment

as economic forces regrouped and re-established themselves in more hospitable areas. This

mixed view of the period which is different from the earlier one of relentless decline and

disintegration has prompted historians to characterize the period as one that was full of

dynamism. They argue that this was the primary reason why the European companies got

attracted to India in the first place. Why would these trading companies whose governing

motive was profit expend their mercantile energies if 18th century India was in economic

decline?



Potentialities of capitalist development

Despite all the positive economic indicators, historians are in agreement that India showed

little potentialities for developing into a full-fledged capitalist economy. This is important,

since it answers partially why India was unable to resist the inroads of a superior economic

power like the East India Company. Irfan Habib had argued that for the full establishment of

capitalism, Mughal India needed the development of indicators like wage labour, commodity

production and mechanization of industry. He argued that in Mughal India there was a

growth of markets and monetization but this in itself was not enough evidence for the

beginnings of capitalism. The payment of revenue in cash also led to the development of

merchant capital but this extractive process did not lead to any reinvestment in the

countryside. Towns that developed alongside were mere parasites that lived off the

countryside. One important indicator of this failure was the response of elites in Mughal

India. Irfan Habib has shown that with enormous resources at their command they showed

little interest in economic and scientific developments. While mansabdars invested in

horticulture since this was a way of showcasing status, they took little interest in enhancing

agricultural techniques. Habib‟s pioneering essay in fact anticipated Robert Brenner‟s

argument about the importance of class power in the transition to capitalism. Brenner had

argued that establishment of capitalist relations in the European countryside was crucially

dependent on the role that classes with access to land and other resources played in the

process.

Tapan Raychaudhuri has also confirmed that the rural sector of the Indian economy

remained a source of supply rather than a market for products, indicating that peasant

incomes were not rising – a serious hindrance to the transformation of the economy. Other

inhibiting factors were a pre-modern system of transport, a tradition of minutely specialized

hereditary skills that were resistant to labour saving technology, and the deeply entrenched

institution of caste. He has argued that the very sophisticated artisanal skills and existing

market networks may have paradoxically inhibited further change as they were able to cope

with growing domestic and international demand. Christopher Bayly has written that the

growing influence of commercial houses did not signal the emergence of a bourgeoisie.

Capital controlled by traders and revenue farmers was closely tied to land and was not

invested in new forms of production.

The establishment of Company rule

How did the English East India Company establish itself as India‟s new ruling power?

Traditionally historians have focused on the chicanery and deceit of the Company in Bengal

and the brute force of colonialism. Irfan Habib has argued that the establishment of

Company rule foisted an alien state with little commitment to India. After the Battle of

Buxar [1764] and the capture of Bengal‟s diwani, bullion flows from Europe to India were

stopped. As a result drain of wealth from the country intensified. From the second decade of

the 19th century Company rule also caused large-scale de-industrialization. This was the

real face of colonialism and the imposition of the colonial economy created a complete break

with the Mughal past.



Other historians have however argued for a case of continuity. According to this argument,

the East India Company grafted successfully onto the vibrant economic currents in 18th

century India. Two key innovations – military fiscalism and revenue farming were used by

the Company to deeply entrench its rule. In other words the Company state was no

„outsider‟ but drew on political and economic currents within India itself. After Clive‟s

success in Bengal, Burton Stein has pointed out, Indian rulers paradoxically became

attracted to the Company requesting it to provide military support – the beginnings of the

infamous „subsidiary system‟. The Company in its turn used military influence to effectively

push its business interests. Any fears of the Company taking over territory was tempered by

the knowledge that back home in England imperial policies were constantly under attack in

the English Parliament. The Company carefully avoided any use of the symbols of

sovereignty and tacitly acknowledged the ineffectual Mughals as their overlords. Like Indian

rulers, the Company also took to capturing wherever possible monopolies in royal

prerogatives like salt and saltpetre. The Company‟s success was facilitated by the close

bonds with Indian merchant and banking families i.e. with credit and markets which

ultimately helped the Company subvert the indigenous regimes in India. In this view the

attempt to control India‟s trade and production ended with the Company‟s political control

over India. Merchant and banking families were attracted to the Company because in its

enclaves there was the promise of secure property rights. Indian rulers desperate for cash

were well known to violate such rights and squeeze rich merchants for their own ends. Thus

commercial communities and the new gentry became the foundation of the British colonial

regime.

However this view underestimates many factors. The English East India Company had many

advantages. In England it was registered as a joint stock company which meant that risk of

mercantile ventures was divided among many. At crucial moments the English state also

bailed out the company from financial crises. England‟s growing mastery of the seas also

became a nationalist issue and attracted wide support from the English public. The

Company‟s take-over of Bengal was however prompted by sheer greed. After the Battle of

Plassey it became obvious to the English merchants that untold opportunities for loot

existed if political power was consolidated. Critics of Company rule in England, vociferous

about the expanding territory outside Bengal dominions, were prepared to look the other

way once it became apparent that the costs of imperial expansion were paying handsome

returns to the Company. Imperial expansion under Governor General Wellesley acquired an

aggressive edge and a justificatory ideology because it was fuelled by wide mobilization in

England against Napoleon. Wellesley even subordinated the Mughal emperor in Delhi in

1803. Large swathes of territory were brought under direct rule and the raison d‟etre of

imperialism became both territorial domination and economic gain.



Figure 1.2.5: Map of India in 1760

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India-1760-map.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India-1760-map.



1.1 Summary

The eighteenth century occupies a special position in Indian history as it is literally

positioned between two empires. In recent decades, the century has engaged the attention

of historians who have located important social processes in the period that merit as much

attention as the decline of the Mughal political structure.

Among the most significant developments in the period, were regionalism and regional state

formation that was based on local economic development and new revenue extracting

mechanisms. The regional states were at war with one another and this created conditions

of a war economy that in fact constituted the material basis for eighteenth century regimes.

The second half of the century saw the gradual expansion and penetration of the English

East India Company with serious consequences for regional polities and economies. This

created long term social displacement and which was reflected in a series of popular

uprisings as well.

The century was in terms of cultural development, extremely vibrant. In fact this is one of

the strange contradictions of the period – political change and fragmentation coexisting with

cultural creativity and expression. This may be explained by the fact that regional patronage

of the arts was vibrant in the period and it coincided with the emergence of talented artists

who brought to their work a new sensibility.

1.2 Summary

The historiographical divide on the 18th century follows the two halves of the century. The

first half is explored by the Aligarh school and the second half by historians who have taken

cues from the work of Chris Bayly.

The Aligarh School argues that the decline of the Mughals was linked to the centralized

structure of the Mughal state and the decline of the agrarian economy. Muzaffar Alam and

others have qualified this view by pointing out that areas of agrarian unrest were also areas

of relative prosperity.

The nature of the states emerging from the decline of the Mughals can be broadly

categorized as „Successor‟, „Warrior‟ and „Compact‟. These states were marked by trends

indicating a transition from the prebendal to partrimonial land holdings, military fiscalism

and commercialization of power.

Another important trend was the consolidation of the intermediary classes – merchants,

revenue farmers and gentry. Chris Bayly‟s work has shown the importance of these groups

in trade, credit and markets and how these sustained and lent a new direction to 18th

century political economy.

Economic indicators like population, prices, production and urbanization show that there

was dynamic economic activity and initiatives and these compensated for decline in large

areas of the subcontinent.



The key to the 18th century is thus „decentralization‟ not „decline‟. Culturally too there was a

tendency towards greater complexity rather than homogeneity.

1.1: Exercises

Essay questions

1) What in your view is the most striking feature about the 18th century in Indian history?

2) How did regional polities in 18th century India facilitate the rise of new social groups?

3) Comment on the cultural developments in 18th century India.

Objective Questions

Question Number Type of question LOD

1 Arrange in chronological

order

1

Question

a) Battle of Plassey

b) Death of Aurangzeb

c) Sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

b) c) a)

Justification/ Feedback for the correct answer

Death of Aurangzeb (1707)

Nadir Shah‟s invasion of Delhi 1739-40



Battle of Plassey 23 June 1757

Resource/Hints/Feedback for the wrong answer

Reviewer‟s Comment:


2 Multiple choice question 2

Question

Raag Maala is a form of:

a) Music

b) Painting

c) Poetry

d) Architecture

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

b)


Raag Maala is a specific category of painting associated with medieval Rajasthan. In

these painting each raga is personified by a colour, mood, and a verse describing a

story of a hero and heroine (nayaka and nayika). It also elucidates the season and

the time of day and night in which a particular raga is to be sung; and finally most

paintings also demarcate the specific Hindu deities attached with the raga, like

Bhairava or Bhairavi to Shiva, Sri to Devi. Literally a garland of melodies – it

suggests the close intersection of the visual and the aural as a theme of artistic

imagination. Given that the courts in Rajasthan were big time patrons of the arts, it



is not surprising that such a genre of painting should have emerged.





Question

Military fiscalism denotes:

a) Army reform

b) New and centralized tax arrangements

c) Centralized bureaucracy

d) Revenue farming

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

b)


Military fiscalism is a term specifically used in relation to the centralized tax

arrangements that the eighteenth century states adopted in order to appropriate

revenues and thereby maintain their fighting forces. Fiscalism suggests close

supervision of financial affairs especially as it revolved around the necessity of



maintaining and efficient army.



1.2: Exercises

Essay questions

1) How has Christopher Bayly‟s book revised our understanding of the 18th century?

2) To what extent did non-agricultural wealth play an important part in the dynamics of the

18th century economy?

3) Examine the role of various classes in the 18th century. Which class according to

historians played a crucial role in sustaining the intermediate economy?

4) Examine the nature of the regional states which emerged after the decline of the

centralized Mughal state in the 18th century.

5) Did India have the potentialities for developing into a full-fledged capitalist economy in

the 18th century?

6) Do you think the nature of the 18th century was determined by the decline of the

centralized Mughal state?

7) „Economic decline in areas closely integrated with the Mughal state was compensated by

dynamic growth elsewhere in India‟. Comment.

8) Examine the role of merchants and traders in the 18th century.

9) How convincing is the critique of the „Aligarh‟ school by later historians?

10) Would you agree that colonization by the East India Company was a result of India‟s

inability to modernize itself in the 18th century?



Objective Operations


1 True or False 1

Question

Which of these statements is false regarding Military Fiscalism?

It was an attempt by the state to do away with intermediaries.

A more efficient form of revenue collection.

Loot collected by the army

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

c)


Military Fiscalism had nothing to do with loot.


a) and b): It was a more centralized and efficient form of tax collection which

included the army and salaried tax collectors and which tried to do away with

traditional intermediaries who had a hold on the peasants.



2 True or False 1



Question

Which of these statements is false regarding intermediaries in eighteenth century

India?

Intermediaries were local craftsmen who supplied luxury goods to the royal courts.

They were local officials who represented the administration.

Hindu and Jain merchants who lent money to the state

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

a)


Craftspeople were important to the economy but they could not emerge as

intermediaries with a political role.


b) and c): Local officials who formed part of the gentry and Jain and Hindu

merchants have been identified by Bayly as important groups which formed the

intermediary class in the eighteenth century.



3 True or False 1

Question

Which of these statements are true?

The Mughal empire declined because the East India Company became powerful.



The Mughal empire declined because of internal political turmoil.

The Mughal empire disintegrated because it was unable to efficiently collect revenue

from the peasants.

The Mughal empire declined because of foreign invasions.

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

b) and c)


Pressure to collect revenue was resisted by powerful local intermediaries and

elsewhere it led to devastation.


a) and d): This was the consequences of Mughal decline and not its cause.



4 True or False 1

Question

Which of these statements are false regarding the arguments of the „Aligarh‟ school?

a) Mughals declined because of incapable rulers

b) The crisis of the Mughal empire was fiscal in character.

c) Mughals declined because of internal warfare among successors.

d) Mughals declined due to the mansabdari crisis.



Correct Answer /

Option(s)

a) and c)


The „Aligarh‟ school has argued that personal capabilities and actions of rulers cannot

wholly explain why a large and entrenched state like the Mughals collapsed.


b) and d): The „Aligarh‟ school has stressed the importance of studying the internal

crisis of the Mughal administration which led to its decline.



5 True or False 1

Question

Which of these statements is false regarding the „Successor States‟?

a) The Successor State ensured succession to the eldest son of the king.

b) Successor states were carved out of Mughal provinces by erstwhile governors.

c) The heads of Successor States were Mughal princes.

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

b)


„Successor‟ state is a term coined by Bayly. These are states that emerged after

Mughal decline from within Mughal territories and were usually led by former Mughal



governors or generals.


a) and c): „Successor‟ here means states that emerged out of Mughal territories and

has nothing to do with succession within the ruling families.



6 Match the following 2

Question

Match the following:

a) Murshid Quli Khan i) Awadh

b) Asaf Jah ii) Mughal emperor

c) Saadat Khan iii) Bengal

d) Jagat Seth iv) Mysore

e) Hyder Ali v) Hyderabad

f) Aurangzeb vi) Trading House

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

a) and iii) b) and v) c) and i) d) and vi)

e) and iv) f) and ii).





Other combinations are false.




Question


a) qasba i) fixed regulated market

b) ganj ii) wholesale market

c) Mandi iii) local production centre

d) arang iv) fixed country seat

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

a) and iv) b) and i) c) and ii) d) and iii)









Question


a) Saraaf i) Cloth dealers

b) Bazazas ii) Jewellers

c) Jouhuris iii) Money dealers

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

a) and iii) b) and i) c) and ii)







Question



Which of the following states emerged after the decline of the Mughals:

a) North West Provinces

b) Rajput states

c) Hyderabad

Correct Answer /

Option(s)

c)


Hyderabad became an autonomous unit under Asaf Jah after Aurangzeb‟s death.


a): North-West Provinces [western U.P.] was a later English creation.

b): Autonomous Rajput states were recognized from Mughal times.


1.1Glossary

Hundis: negotiable financial instruments or bills of exchange that evolved in India.

These were extensively used for the purposes of remittance and financing trade. Hundis

were in extensive use in the 18th century to transfer funds for rulers and merchants alike.



Khalsa: this referred to Crown lands where revenue was collected by central officials

and deposited in the central treasury.

Khyal: the principal genre of North Indian vocal art music. It is conventionally

associated with Ustad Neamat Khan Sadarang of the court of Muhammed Shah Rangila

(1719-48). Khyal compositions were composed in Urdu, Brajbhasha and even Persian.

Kirtana/ Kriti: a devotional song type that is the principal genre of South Indian

classical or Karnatik music. The majority of these compositions are in Telugu. 18th century

composers – Tyagaraja, Diksitar and Syama Sastri elaborated the form and brought to bear

on it their unique style.

Shahr e Ashob: refers to a genre of classic Urdu poetry that reflected personal

accounts and reactions of various poets to Mughal decline in the 18th century. One of the

earliest events that stimulated composition was the sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah. The major

poets who specialized in this genre were Mirza Rafi Sauda (1713-81) and Mir Taqi Mir

(1724-1810).

1.2 Glossary

Bazaar: Market

Bazazas: Cloth dealers

Diwani: Office, jurisdiction, emoluments of the diwan, the chief financial officer of the state

Ganj: Fixed regulated markets

Hundi: Indigenous bill of exchange

Jagir/Jagirdar: The public revenues of a land assigned for a term to a servant of the state -

the assignee was called the Jagirdar

Jouhuris: Jewellers

Mandi: Wholesale markets

Mansab/Mansabdar: Military rank conferred by the Mughal Government, the holder was

called the Mansabdar

Nawab: Viceroy, governor

Nizamat: Administration

Qasba: Fixed gentry seat



Saltpetre: Literally salt of rock; potassium nitrate found naturally and used as ingredient for

gunpowder

Saraafs: Money dealers

Subedar/Subedari: Governor of province

Zamindar: Landholder, a collector of revenue on behalf of government

1.1Further readings

Alavi, Seema. 2002. ed. The Eighteenth Century (Debates in Indian History and Society).

New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Habib, Irfan. 1963. The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707. London: Asia

Publishing House.

Alam, Muzaffar. 1986. The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab

1707-1748. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Bayly, C. A. 1983. Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of

British expansion 1770-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chandra, Satish. 1959. Parties and Politics at the Mughal court, 1707-1740. Aligarh.

Dasgupta, Ashin. 1970. Trade and Politics in 18th century India. In Islam and the Trade of

Asia: A Colloquium ed. D. S. Richards. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wink, Andre. 1986. Land and sovereignty in India: Agrarian Society and Politics under the

Eighteenth century Maratha Svarajya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Subramanian, Lakshmi. 1996. Indigenous Capital and Imperial expansion: Bombay, Surat

and the west coast. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Alavi, Seema. 1995. The Sepoys and the Company: Tradition and Transition in Northern

India 1770-1830. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Grewal, J. S. 1995. The Sikhs of the Punjab. Delhi: Cambridge University Press.

1.2 Further readings

Alam, Muzaffar. 1986. The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and Punjab,

1707-48. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Alam, Muzaffar and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds. 1998. The Mughal State, 1526-1750.

Delhi: Oxford University Press.



Alavi, Seema. ed. 2002. The Eighteenth Century in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Aston, T. H. and C. H. E. Philpin. 1985. The Brenner Debate. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Athar Ali, M. 1968. The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb. Bombay: Aisa Publishing House.

Bayly, Christopher. 1983. Rulers, Townsmen and Bazars: North Indian Society in the Age of

British Expansion, 1770-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bayly, Christopher and Sanjay Subrahmaniam. 1988. „Portfolio Capitalists and the Political

Economy of Early Modern India‟. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 25, 4.

Bose, Sugata and Ayesha Jalal. 1998. Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political

Economy. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Chandra, Satish. 1979. Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707-1740. Delhi: People‟s

Publishing House.

Cohn, Bernard. 1960, 1987. „The Initial Impact on India: A Case Study of the Benares

Region‟. An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays. Delhi: Oxford University

Press.

Dasgupta, Ashin. 1970, 1998. „Trade and Politics in Eighteenth Century India‟. Muzaffar

Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Mughal State. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Grover, B. R. 1966. „An Integrated Pattern of Commercial Life in the Rural Society of North

India During the 17th-18th centuries‟. Indian Records Commission.

Habib, Irfan. 1969, 1995. „Potentialities of Capitalist Development in India‟. Essays in Indian

History: Towards a Marxist Perception. Delhi: Tulika.

Habib, Irfan. 1999. The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707. Delhi: Oxford

University Press.

Metcalf, Barbara D. and Thomas R. Metcalf. 2002. A Concise History of India. Delhi:

Cambridge University Press/ Foundation.

RayChaudhuri, Tapan. 1982. „The mid-eighteenth century background‟. Dharma Kumar ed.

Cambridge Economic History Vol. 2. Delhi: Cambridge University Press/ Orient Longman.

Richards, J. F. 1975. Mughal Administration in Golconda. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Singh Chetan. 1988, 1998. „Conformity and Conflict : Tribes and the „Agrarian System‟ of

Mughal India‟. Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Mughal State. Delhi: Oxford

University Press.

Stein, Burton. 1998. A History of India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Stein, Burton. 1989. „Eighteenth Century India: Another view‟. Studies in History, 5, 1, n.s.



Washbrook, David. 1993. „Land and Labour in Late Eighteenth-Century South India: The

Golden Age of the Pariah?‟. Peter Robb ed. Dalit Movements and the Meanings of Labour in

India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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