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HOME ANALYTICS SESSIONS UPLOAD

debates over 18th century India, change vs.

continuity and dark age vs. prosperity
UPLOADED BY

Harshita Sachan

Harshita
B.A. (hons.) History
IIIrd Year
0327
Daulat Ram College

Reent !ritings on "# thentury ha$e

onsidera%ly altered our understanding o&
the 'eriod. la%orate.

I*R+D,C*I+-

The eighteenth century in Indian history marks it relevance by two crucial

developments-the decline of Mughal Empire and the expansion of
British Empire, which changed the social, economic and political
structure !n extensive study of these two phases has resulted in
diverging views There is the traditional view of a period of "#ark
!ge$ which is of decline and stagnation, and the recent view of
economic prosperity Moreover, historians stress on the changing
and evolutionary pattern and also a substantial continuity

!urang%eb$s death in &'(' marks the beginning of Mughal decline, but his
territorial expansions that put a huge dent on the )nancial structure
of the state are also contributing

The break-up of the Mughal *tate was followed by the emergency of large
number of independent and semi-independent smaller units These
were of three-distinct types- )rstly, the warrior states established by
*ikhs, +ats and Marathas in the course of rebellions against the
Mughals, who adopted military )scalism secondly, independent
kingdoms where subedars asserted their independence, eg
awabs of Bengal, i%ams of .yderabad and thirdly, local kingdoms
whose sovereignty ac/uired more substance in the &0thcentury, eg
the 1a2put states, Mysore etc, which resorted to military )scalism
within compact domains, achieving varying degrees of success in
extracting revenues from trade and production

Initially, the nationalist and colonialist writers focused on the weaknesses

of individual Mughal rulers for the decline of the empire Marxist and
!nnaliste historians dominated the revisionist work about the eighteenth
century in the &30(s and &33(s and tried to uncover the structural
transformations that were rooted deep in the Indian society under the

political history of empires David Washbrook and Prasannan Parthasarthi

have made interesting interventions about the status of labour in *outh
India during the &0thcentury

Meanwhile, British historians like C.A. Baylyand David Washbrook,

working on the local and provincial origins of Indian nationalism in
the late nineteenth century, looked back to explore deep social
histories of the Indian elites and middle classes who lead the later
nationalist politics This contradicted the view that the Mughal
Empire collapsed due to rebellions by resentful and oppressed
landlords and peasants Muzafar AlamandAndre Wink, expressed
Mughal centrali%ed power$s decline as a process in which local elites
who under the patronage of Mughal started gaining more symbols
and substance of sovereignty

Most of the revisionist work /uestioned the economic decline theory that
both imperialist and nationalist histories posed They speculated
regional variations that showed signi)cant economic growth and
with increased moneti%ation, agricultural and commercial expansion
as evidence They did not 2ust focus on the decline of the Mughal
imperial centre but on the dynamism of regional and local polities

Robert Traverstalks about how social history was pitted against cultural
history as the eighteenth century revisionists were said to be rivals
of the cultural and linguistic leaning *ubaltern studies This was
emphasi%ed upon in *outh !sian history by postcolonial theory
politics and critics The disputes started losing their edges as both
the debates settled down and it became clear that both of them had
a di4erent approach, di4erent time periods, di4erent social groups
etc These debates raise many contests such as collaboration versus
resistance, Indian agency versus colonial intervention, continuity
versus change, social history versus cultural history
 versus change, social history versus cultural history

Bernard S. Cohn, one of the revisionist historian talks about the existence
and interaction of multiple 5levels of power,6 from villages and local
land controllers to kings, provincial governors and emperors

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In7uential historians of the early-twentieth century likeadunath Sarkar

claimed that the Maratha, +at and *ikh resistance was evidence of a
strong .indu opposition against !urang%eb$s religiously bigot
policies and they were the reason for the ultimate collapse of the
Mughal empire The nationalists further argue that .indu rulers such

as the Marathas should have been the legitimate successors of

Mughals

8olonialists, on the other hand, believed that the British East India
8ompany of occidental origin with its rule of law, governance model
and the 5gift6 of civili%ation were the legitimate heir to the decadent
Muslims They wanted to civili%e the barbaric, oriental despots of
east

The British colonialists kept trying to portray India as a timeless and

stagnant land in contrast to their progress and dynamic traits, while
the Indian nationalists claimed the anti/uity of their cultural and
political ideals

AIARH /CH++ +1 ARI/* HI/*+RIA/-

The !ligarh *chool of Marxist historians focused on state-formation

process and on the important role of bankers, merchants and elites
who held lands in forming pre-colonial and colonial states These
historians took economy as the base with politics, society and
culture as the super-structure

!r"an #abibargues for an agrarian crisis, he broadly accepts the

centrali%ed nature of Mughal polity and the large amount of surplus
that the land-tax represented .e asserts that, 9the peculiar feature
of the state in Mughal India was that it served not merely as
the protective arm of the exploiting classes, but was itself the
principal instrument of exploitation9 .e insists that the centrali%ed
Mughal rule coexisted and collaborated with the locali%ed hereditary
"2unior$ ruling class ie the :amindars who shared in the surplus as
well The view that Mughal agrarian system was a relationship
between the state and the peasantry was replaced by the idea of a
three-tier structure of the imperial ruling class, the %amindars and
the peasants

The rotational allotment of land to mansabdars led to increasing pressure

on the peasantry for extraction of revenue This compromised the
fertility of the land and also the rising illegal demands pushed the
peasantry to poverty and rebellion which weakened the Mughal
authority Mu%a4ar !lam$s study of !wadh shows that it was the
landlords who were refusing to pay revenue to the state-treasury
and hence asserting their supremacy instead of the peasants Even
with the di4erence between +ama and .asil, the estimated land
revenue and the actual revenue collected, the peasants were not
bene)tting

Satish Chandrao4ers an excellent synthesis on sources of Mughal political

history and administration in his works .e propounds the theory of
a +agirdari as well as a Mansabdari crisis .e talks about +ama and
.asil where +ama is the estimated revenue and .asil is the actual
revenue extracted in case of the +agirdars and :at and *awa in case
of the Mansabdars :at was the rank allotted to the Mansabdar and
*awa was the number of horses that he had to maintain

M. Athar Alisupports 8handra$s theory, except, he asserts that the

reckless expansion and expeditions of !urang%eb compromised the
land revenue payments of the o;cials who maintained a ready
supply of troops, thus decreasing their number .e also critici%es the
elementary error of historians to assume that if the Mughal Empire
was centrali%ed and had administrative unity then it was same as
the <ost-1eformation European Enlightened #espotism .e is one of
the harshest critics of the various revisionist pro2ects and insists that
the breakdown of the Mughal empire into 5mutually con7icting small
political units,6 collectively less strong than centrali%ed empire
paved the way for European expansion += 1ichards criticises him,
his study of #eccan shows that !urang%eb$s #eccan policy did not
lead to Be2agiri as there was enough land to be granted as +agirs to
Mansabdars

CABRID /CH++-

The traditional views have been challenged by the 8ambridge school that
see the arrival of colonialism as a long-drawn historical process

C.A. Baylyinitiates the "revisionist$ approach to the analysis of Mughal

polity, he emphasi%es that "the key note of Mughal rule had been
si%e and centrali%ation$ .e sees the decline of the Mughal empire in
a positive light, where "8orporate groups$ or "social classes$ played
their role through the "commerciali%ation$ and "decentrali%ation$ of
Mughal polity in extending agriculture and intensifying commerce,
and later shifting their allegiance to the British for bene)cial power
Bayly$s continuity thesis assesses the performance of the regional
elites, forming the &0thcentury transition states .is thesis is
supported by Mu%a4ar !lam who believes that the glori)cation of
the permanent +agir and revenue farming >i2ara? were indices of
regionali%ation, commerciali%ation and growth, not of collapse of
government and e/uity


Andre Wink$sapproach is somewhere along the line of Bayly$s argument,

he assumes that "Mughal sources$ consist of only a few chronicles
which "merely hide behind a fa@ade of moralistic or religious
condemnation$

San%ay Subrahmanyamhas suggested a global approach by speculating

the increased connectivity of the local and the supra-local, through
travel, commerce, con7ict, and intellectualAcultural exchange, as a
critical and widespread feature of early modernity .e suggested the
term "portfolio 8apitalist$ for the groups that were simultaneously
involved in both commerce and politics like traders, bankers and
merchants

CA/ /*,DY +1 A4ADH AD DCCA-

!ccording to Muzafar Alam, the decline of centrali%ation of Mughal power

must have been a complex process of decentrali%ation, in which
local elites who had prospered under the Mughal hegemony began
to appropriate more of the symbols and substance of sovereignty
.e studied <ersian sources to understand aspects of agrarian
uprisings focusing on the regions of !wadh, Banaras etc he showed
that various castes and communities held :amindari rights in these
regions .e argues that clans often fought against each other and in
some cases the Mughal state came to aid and eventually played one
clan against another to overcome the threat of rebellion .e says
that often peasants resisted :amindars since the rural population
was a victim of :amindar revolts .e argues for a context of
economic prosperity which led to :amindar ascendency and points
out that villages and %amindars had great availability of money and
agrarian prosperity was a result of basic trade carried out by
Ban2aras

.&. Ri'hardshas challenged the idea of shortage of +agirs in the #eccan

with his study of Mughal administration in olconda .e concluded
that the #eccan was not de)cit in land and hence be-2agiri couldn$t
have been a ma2or cause of Mughal decline

+5R6I/I+I/*/-

eo-revisionists like Prasannan Parthasarthi andDavid Washbrookhave

re-/uestioned the revisionists$ argument on colonialism
Parthasarthi shows that labourers in *outh India had higher earnings
and a better standard of living than their British counterparts This
was due to the high agricultural productivity that enabled artisans to
survive on a lesser wage and gave the industry a competitive edge

in terms of cost of production and price .igh demand translated

into greater power in the case of merchants Moreover, conditions of
labour scarcity and corporate traditions within weavers meant that
they could e4ectively control their own labour =inally, the lack of
any tradition of state intervention in disputes over labour worked
decisively to the advantage of the weavers as this prevented the
erection of e4ective structures of coercion and control .e goes on
to argue that the Industrial 1evolution was in part born out of the
British desire to compete with the Indian textile industry, thereby
reducing the export of bullion to India

Washbrookargues that the closing decades of the &0thcentury was a

olden !ge for low-ritual status, non-speciali%ed working >pariahs?
The wars of the period increased demand for labour competition
among mercantilist states for trade and cash to feed their armies
also created the spaces within which labour could negotiate better
conditions and )nally, the drain of labour away from agricultural
activities enhanced the bargaining power of those that did remain
Thus, at least for labour in some regions, the &0thcentury was a
period of relative prosperity

C+*I,I*Y 6/. CHA-

Thus, we can clearly see that &0thcentury polity, economy and society are
characteri%ed by trends that re7ect both change and continuity This
debate becomes more intense and pertinent for the second half of
the &0thcentury, which saw the beginnings of British colonial
expansion in northern India and its impact on the local society and
economy .ere again, the contention is over whether &'C' marked a
decisive break with pro-colonial past, or whether, as the 1evisionists
have argued, the basis for colonialism was already present in India
and these elements were simply initiated by colonialism

8ontinuity and change in the )eld of music, architecture, economic

systems and culture is also debatable The artists shifted to other
regional centres as the Mughal Empire became insu;cient to
support their patronage this change was 2uxtaposed with an
element of continuity as the patron-client relationship remained
same <olitically, the same structure remained the Mughal Empire
was still the head even though the same process of administration
and economic system was now followed in the regional areas
without any direct control from the Mughal throne of #elhi

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