India at the Death of Akbar

Title: India at the Death of Akbar – An Economic Study

Author: William Harrison Moreland

Publisher: Low Price Publications, 1990 (First published 1920)

ISBN: 81-85395-82-9

Pages: 328

W H Moreland, as he is famously known, is an ICS-turned historian, who specialized in history through his official duty in analyzing land records. He has contributed many books into the collection of Mughal history, like Jahangir’s India, A Short History of India, and From Akbar to Aurangzeb, which is reviewed earlier in this blog. History tells the tale of monarchs and dynasties, but the plight of the common man is never accounted for. The rosy splendor of kingdoms frequently outshines the feeble radiance of domestic lives in historical lore. As a result, we are ignorant of the social and economic conditions through which the ordinary men and women conducted their lives. Moreland makes an economic study of the social, commercial, industrial and agricultural conditions prevailing in India around the time of the death of Emperor Akbar, in 1605. In this book divided into eight chapters, the author enumerates the administration, agricultural production, stratifications in society, commerce, standard of life and addresses the issue of whether India was a wealthy country at that time. He brings to light the root cause behind some queer social peculiarities like incidence of heavy dowry while marrying off girls. Readers would readily appreciate the economic reasons listed by the author in molding a custom that still refuses to die out. The book is very easy to read and a good deal of research has gone into it.

A quest into the economic history of a period should establish a basic picture of the society, its institutions and the economic opportunities available to the people. Moreland establishes the population of the country around the year 1600 as 100 million in an ingenious way. During Akbar’s reign, and most of the medieval period, imperial service was the only option available to the populace for their livelihood, other than agriculture. But the Mughals, being themselves foreigners and having absolutely no religious, emotional or social attachment to the country, employed foreigners for filling up most of the plum jobs in the service. Among the mansabdars - which included all nobles and those aspiring to be nobles – 70% of the incumbents were foreigners. The author had not done any analysis of the astronomical amount of money that might have left the country on account of perks and salaries for this multitude of aliens. But Moreland could not have done that, since he himself was a representative of British Imperialism that was resorting to exactly the same technique, some 300 years later. Has anyone calculated the amount of wealth that had left India as a consequence of employing foreign nobles in the service of Mughals and earlier Sultanates? Perhaps the figure may simply be terrifying! I have a hunch that India might have lost many times more than the wealth it had lost due to devastating raids by the plunderers like Mahmud of Ghazni and Muhammed of Ghor. Coming back to Akbar’s nobility, the remaining 30% consisted of Hindus and Indian Muslims equally. Another interesting observation then follows – except for 5 officers that included Birbal, all of the Hindu nobles was Rajputs! Clearly the Emperor had accommodated them due to political expediency alone. And it is plainly evident that the bulk of the common people had no representation in the nobility. And the nobles were not diligent about the welfare of the subjects, as most of them were intent on hoarding money secretly, to pass on to their families after their death. The Emperor was legally the heir of the nobles. So, when one died, royal officials took hold of his property and his descendants would be lucky if some form of provision is granted to them out of mere compassion. This resulted in a class of officials greedy and corrupt to the core.

A comparison of the chief crops during 1600 and 1900 is given. The state of agriculture was not fundamentally different after three centuries wherein the peasant toiled hard for bare subsistence. They were also bound to the land and not allowed to migrate to the cities where also the situation was not promising. We read about meager wages for the king’s husbandmen, who were also fined heavily and regularly for minor errors while tending to the master’s pets. Taxation on farming was set at one-third, which is harsh by modern standards, but moderate for the times under consideration. We also read of cash crops like cotton and indigo gaining ground in response to healthy demand from overseas. India generated the opium required for Asian markets. The commodity was traded at par with other products, making it no dearer than other merchandise.

The author was an administrator of British Raj and the nonchalant evaluation of the wellbeing of the people of his day over their ancestors three centuries back, is striking. Moreland’s work is made highly relevant by his comparison of the historical object to modern conditions prevailing at the same locale. While making comparisons to his own time, regarding the economic well being of the populace, he is content to note that the people are on the same level as they were in the year 1600. Without an air of apology at the ineffectiveness of the British colonial regime in improving the lot of the people they are governing, the author seems to expect gratitude for not making them even poorer. Availability of food grains, wages and essential metals had not improved in the intervening period, but cotton and iron had become plenty, because of the improvements in technology. Moreland’s passive acceptance of the status quo may be suspected to be an outward manifestation of a guilty complex at the realization that the British is only the most recent of exploiters of India.

The economic condition of the society is analyzed in an illuminating way. Except the nobles, all of them were exceedingly poor. They went about naked only with a cloth around the waist. This was not due to the warm climate alone. Same attire prevailed in the north too, where clothing was essential for efficiency during winter months. The dwelling places were so small and frugal that no furniture other than a bedstead was available. In fact, travelers had compared the social system of India to the schools of fish living in sea, as Thomas Roe stated, “the great ones eat up the little. For first, the farmer robs the peasant, the gentleman robs the farmer, the greater robs the lesser, and the King robs all” (p.269). The spectre of famine always loomed in the background. Efficient modes of distribution were unavailable due to the menace of robbers on the land routes and pirates on the sea. This meant that if rain failed in a particular area, the inhabitants had to starve or migrate. Widespread famine was also not uncommon. Ordinary people resorted to selling themselves or their children into slavery in lieu of a handful of grain. We hear of ships that carried grain into the port, returning with slaves in their hold. Cannibalism also took place in extreme cases. Moreland cautions us to contemplate the splendors of Agra or Vijayanagar against this background of devastating poverty.

Towards the end of the book, the most relevant question of whether India was a wealthy country at the death of Akbar is addressed. The land is described as rich and fabulous by travelers, but this statement reflects only the lives of a chosen few. By an ingenious method, Moreland finds the per capita wealth and asserts that the poor people were slightly better off, while the aristocracy was considerably worse than their forefathers, 300 years ago. He has resorted to a series of estimates and assumptions that help to establish his point. It must also be remembered that India didn’t want the merchandise of Europe to balance her exports of cotton, pepper and opium. Consequently, Europeans had to pay for their imports in silver. This silver horde was absorbed by the aristocracy and temples in India. Such huge consumption of silver and gold might be one of the reasons why India was thought to be a wealthy country. The author establishes that the people on an average were miserably poor as in the early 20^th century.                                  

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star