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Potentialities of Capitalistic Development in the Economy of Mughal India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Irfan Habib
Affiliation:
Aligarh Muslim University, India

Extract

When we ask ourselves the question why India failed to industrialize (and develop a capitalistic economy) either before or after the British conquest, we touch the core of an old and hallowed controversy in which the partisans and opponents of British imperiahsm once confronted each other. To admirers of British rule, generally, it seemed that the fault lay with certain inherent weaknesses in Indian society. The influence of an “enervating climate,” the heritage of “oriental despotism” and recurring cycles of anarchy (inhibiting the accumulation and investment of capital), primitive techniques and ignorance, the rigidities of the caste system, the prevailing spirit of resignation rather than enterprise, all created conditions in which nothing but a subsistence economy could function. From such wretched beginnings, the British could not, whatever they did, lift Indian economy to European levels. The critics of imperialism saw things in a different light. They insisted that the primitive nature of Indian economy before British conquests ought not to be overstressed, and they ascribed India's backwardness chiefly to the strangulating effects of British rule, to “the drain of wealth,” the destruction of handicrafts, heavy taxation, and discrimination against Indian industry and capital. It will thus be seen that though the controversy involved a number of important aspects of modern Indian economic history, in part at least it centered on the potentialities of development in the Indian economy prior to the British conquests.

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Articles
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Copyright © The Economic History Association 1969

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References

page 32 note 1 Instructive for an appreciation of the main points of the old controversy is the recent debate provoked by a restatement of the imperialist case by Morris, Morris D. in “Towards a Reinterpretation of Nineteenth Century Indian Economic History,” Journal of Economic History, XXIII, No. 4 (1963), pp. 606–18;CrossRefGoogle Scholar for the critical comments upon it by Matsui, Toru, Chandra, Bipan, and Raychaudhuri, T., see Indian Economic and Social History Review (cited hereafter as IESHR), V, No. 1 (1968), pp. 1100,Google Scholar in which Morris' paper is also reprinted.

page 33 note 2 Moreland, W. H., India at the Death of Akbar (London, 1920), and Akbar to Aurangzeh (1923)Google Scholar; Narain, Brij, Indian Economic Life, Past & Present (Lahore, 1929)Google Scholar.

page 33 note 3 Cf. Dobb, M., Studies in the Development of Capitalism (London, 1946), pp. 57,Google Scholar for a discussion of such views.

page 34 note 4 “The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails presents itself as an ‘immense accumulation of commodities’…”… the opening words of Marx, , Capital, Vol. I, tr. by Moore, and Aveling, (reprint ed. Torr, Dona, London, 1946), p. 1.Google Scholar All references to Capital, Vol. I, are to this edition.

page 34 note 5 Morris, , Ieshr, V (1), pp. 37Google Scholar.

page 34 note 6 Habib, I., Agrarian System of Mughal India (Bombay, 1963), pp. 124Google Scholar(hereinafter referred to as I. Habib).

page 35 note 7 Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, pp. 100–24;Google Scholar I. Habib, pp. 36–57. Moreland's arguments are a little different from those presented in the text above.

page 35 note 8 It is not clear to me why Morris, , Ieshr V (1), 37,Google Scholar insists on the “low yields” of traditional Indian agriculture. In some of his arguments there is a failure to distinguish between output per acre and output per head in conditions of a favorable man/land ratio, as when he speaks of “very short growing seasons” (owing to there being two harvests in the year). He also seems to overlook the likelihood that the seed/yield ratio in such crops as wheat was generally higher in India than in western Europe before the nineteenth century.

page 36 note 9 Bhimsen, Nuska-i-Dilkusha, passage tr. in M. Athar Ali, “Karnatik at the End of the 17th century,” paper read at the Indian History Congress, Mysore, 1966 (mimeographed). For a survey of the actual conditions of the life of the peasantry in Mughal India, see I. Habib, pp. 90–99.

page 37 note 10 I. Habib, p. 119 and n.

page 37 note 11 I. Habib, pp. 118–29. It is not clear to me why the Soviet writers Alaev and Pavlov should attach so much importance to the existence outside the village of weavers (and, we may add, cotton carders, and oil men) and ascribe to this phenomenon a significant role in the “break-up” of the Indian village community; see Pavlov, V. I., Indian Capitalist Class: a Historical Study, English tr. (Delhi, 1964), pp. 1213.Google Scholar So long as the relations of such artisans with villagers continued to be determined by custom, there would have been little cause for the village community to be subverted.

page 37 note 12 Cf. Marx, Karl, Capital, I, 610Google Scholar.

page 37 note 13 I. Habib, p. 145 & n: The interpretation of this document given in the footnote, however, seems to me now to need emendation at one or two points. The ser is a unit of weight and bigha a unit of area.

page 38 note 14 I. Habib, pp. 145–50.

page 38 note 15 It is for this reason principally that contemporary European travelers uniformly declared the Mughal emperor (and also other Indian rulers within their kingdoms) to be the sole owner of die soil, though no such claim was made by official writers. Habib, I., Enquiry, III (3), p. 59Google Scholar.

page 38 note 16 It is best, perhaps, to explain that “demand” and “revenue demand,” terms familiar in British-Indian land-revenue administration, represent the Persian term jamer, and mean the amount at which the revenue was assessed or fixed.

page 39 note 17 I. Habib, pp. 190–230.

page 38 note 18 Ibid., pp. 230–36.

page 39 note 19 Cf. Moreland, W. H., Agrarian System of Moslem India, Allahabad, reprint of 1929 ed., nd. pp. 11, 114, 136–37Google Scholar.

page 39 note 20 I. Habib, pp. 236–39.

page 39 note 21 Ibid., p. 237.

page 39 note 22 Ibid., p. 272 & n.

page 40 note 23 Cf. Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, pp. 6970.Google Scholar There is a detailed analysis of the racial composition of the Mughal nobility in Ali, M. Athar, The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb (Bombay, 1966), pp. 1133Google Scholar.

page 40 note 24 , Moreland, Agrarian System, passim; Habib, I., pp. 257.Google Scholar.

page 40 note 25 Bernier made this a basic element in his famous analysis of the defects of Mughal polity; see Travels in the Mugul Empire, 1656–68, tr. Constable, A., ed. Smith, V. A. (London, 1916), p. 227.Google Scholar Cf. I. Habib, pp. 320–21.

page 40 note 26 For such administrative restraints as existed, see I. Habib, pp. 273–97, and for their ineffectiveness, pp. 321 ff.

page 41 note 27 I. Habib, pp. 285–86.

page 41 note 28 Ibid., pp. 298–316.

page 41 note 29 So far as I know, attention to this major economic implication, or even consequence, of the Mughal revenue system was drawn first by Smith, W. C. in Islamic Culture (1944), pp. 358–59;Google Scholar and, subsequently, by K. Antanoval (1957), cited by Pavlov, V. I., The Indian Capitalist Class: A Historical Study, English, ed. (Delhi, 1964), p. 10Google Scholar.

page 41 note 30 This progress in cropping was summed up during the fourteenth century in a simple formula by Muhammad Tughlaq, who enjoined his revenue officials to encourage the peasants to improve their cropping by shifting from barley to wheat, from wheat to sugarcane, and from sugarcane to grapes. See Moreland, , Agrarian System, p. 51Google Scholar.

page 42 note 31 The wording of this clause needs two qualifications. The Mughal revenue system was not unique; the characteristics it possessed were really implanted during the earlier part of the fourteenth century, in the Delhi Sultanate. (Cf.Habib, I., Enquiry, N.S., 11 (3), pp. 4546).Google Scholar Secondly, cause and effect are difficult to distinguish, and some allowance should be made for the argument that the Sultanate-Mughal revenue systems became possible owing to certain developments in Indian rural economy (e.g., growth of trade and commodity production), which we are here viewing virtually as consequences of these revenue systems.

page 42 note 32 cf. I. Habib, pp. 326–28.

page 42 note 33 Ibid., pp. 81–89.

page 42 note 34 Ibid., pp. 190–96.

page 43 note 35 Ibid., pp. 124–27.

page 43 note 36 I. Habib, pp. 128–29 & n. As Raychaudhuri, T. (Enquiry), n.s., II (1), pp. 9697)Google Scholar points out, the status and economic position of peasants did not always correspond; for example, the technically lower peasants (paikasht) might be better off (in some cases) than the headmen. But it would be unlikely if such differences were anything more than exceptions, and were not “corrected” over a long period, only to arise, of course, in some other localities in the meantime.

page 43 note 37 I. Habib, pp. 322–23.

page 43 note 38 Ibid., p. 249.

page 43 note 39 Comparative Studies in Society and History, VI (4) pp. 394–5, 397.Google Scholar I have, however, slightly corrected my own previous rendering of the clause from Anrang-zeb's farman.

page 44 note 40 In eighteenth-century Bengal, 150 percent per annu m at the simple rate was usual, but the loan was usually advanced to the peasants for two or three months, at the end of which interest was added to the principal (ibid., p. 395). In Maharash-tra villages, the interest on cash loans was generally 24 percent per annum, but on smaller loans it worked out at 40 percent; see Coats, Thomas in Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, III (London, 1823), pp. 212–13Google Scholar.

page 44 note 41 Comparative Studies in Society and History, IV (4), p. 397 & nGoogle Scholar.

page 44 note 42 Ibid., pp. 394–95.

page 44 note 43 I. Habib, pp. 169–79.

page 44 note 44 Ibid., pp. 143–44. See also Ala, Qaz i, Risala Ahkam al-Arazi, Aligarh, MS.Salam, Abdus, Arabiya, (4): 331/101, f. 44a.Google Scholar This work was written during the earlier part of the eighteenth century.

page 45 note 45 I. Habib., pp. 141–43.

page 45 note 46 Ibid., pp. 157–58; Ieshr, IV(3), p. 216.

page 45 note 47 Cf. Hasan, S. Nurul in Ieshr, 1 (4), p. 9.Google Scholar For documentary evidence of such transactions, see Husain, Munshi Muzaffar, Nama-i Muzaffari (Urdu), I, P. 315 & II, p. 163Google Scholar; Shamsabad Docs. 7 (photograph in the Library of Department of History, Aligarh); I. Habib, p. 309 & n; Ieshr, IV(3), p. 217.

page 45 note 48 Cf. factors', English report from Surat, 1669, in English Factories in India, 1668–69, ed. Foster, W., p. 184Google Scholar.

page 45 note 49 Ieshr, IV(3), pp. 216–17; Comparative Studies in Society & History, VI(4), p. 398.

page 45 note 50 Ieshr, IV(3), p. 215.

page 45 note 51 Ibid., pp. 215–16.

page 45 note 52 I. Habib, pp. 133–34.

page 46 note 53 I. Habib, pp. 324–29.

page 46 note 54 Pavlov, , Indian Capitalist Class, pp. 49.Google Scholar This is also apparently the view of Ashrafyan, K. F., The Agrarian System of North India in the 13th-mid-18th centuries (Russian; Moscow, 1965).Google Scholar Unfortunately, not knowing Russian, I am unable to follow the details of the argument developed in this well-documented work.

page 46 note 55 This argument may not necessarily be acceptable to non-Marxists, but Soviet scholars ought to see the justice of it more readily.

page 46 note 56 I. Habib, pp. 48–49, 303; Ieshr, IV(3), p. 215.

page 46 note 57 I. Habib, p. 49.

page 47 note 58 Ibid., pp. 50–51.

page 47 note 59 Ibid., pp. 244–45.

page 47 note 60 Ibid., p. 50.

page 47 note 61 I. Habib, pp. 114–5, 175, 300, 303 & n. for the use of this term in the Mughal period.

page 47 note 62 Diwan-pasand, MS. Br. Mus. Or. 2011, f. 8a. This Persian work, written during the first decade of the nineteenth century, describes the agricultural conditions and revenue practices in the Doab practically at the same time as the British occupation of the area. Many of its statements are in line with those made by the authorities of the Mughal period.

page 47 note 63 I. Habib, p. 239; Grover, in Ieshr, 1 (1), p. 15.Google Scholar For evidence relating to agricultural debt-bondage in Bihar, see Journal of Bihar Research Society, XLIV (1958) (I & II), pp. 5051Google Scholar.

page 48 note 64 I. Habib, pp. 120–22; Raychaudhuri, T., Enquiry n.s. 11 (1), pp. 9798Google Scholar.

page 48 note 65 Cf. Raychaudhuri, , Enquiry, N.S. 11 (3), pp. 3839, 40, 54–56Google Scholar.

page 48 note 66 For the close relations between zamindars and usurers, see Comparative Studies in Society and History, VI (4), p. 398.

page 48 note 67 In 1630 the headman (patel) of a village near Broach negotiated with the English the sale of 1000 Gujarat maunds (=33,190 1b. avdp.) of wheat to be supplied at Surat. Of this, half belonged to the patel himself and the remainder to the other villagers (English Factories in India, 1630–33, p. 91).

page 48 note 68 Pelsaert, , “Remonstrantie,” tr. in Moreland, and Geyl, , Jahangir's India (Cambridge, 1925), p. 17Google Scholar.

page 49 note 69 I. Habib, pp. 114–5, 141, 175, 300, 303 & n. The peasant s who cultivated lands in their own village were (in post-Mughal times, so far as our present evidence goes) termed khud-kasht peasants, as against those who cultivated outside their village pai kasht (See Grover in Ieshr 1(1), pp. 4–5). This usage has, of course, nothing to do wit h the khud-kasht that we ar e here considering.

page 49 note 70 See, e.g., Nuskha dar fan-i Falahat, MS.1.0.4702; & Aligarh Lytton Forsiya 'ulum, 51. This wor k was written during the earlier half of the seventeenth centur y by an important noble, Amanullah Hsaini Khanaza d Khan.

page 49 note 71 I. Habib, pp. 114–15.

page 50 note 72 For the detailed argument on these lines, see I. Habib, pp. 317–51.

page 50 note 73 We are indebted, for this insight, to Tse-tung, Mao, Selected Works, English edition, Vol. III, London, 1954, pp. 7576Google Scholar.

page 51 note 1 Habib, p. 432. The Ain-i-Akbari gives cash revenue rates for different crops sanctioned for each locality. The rates given here for 1595 and 1922 appertain to the district of Meerut (U.P.). The general picture is practically the same in other localities. See also Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (JRAS) (1918), pp. 375–85Google Scholar.

page 51 note 2 Except in the case of sugarcane, and the relative value of the output of this has apparently remained stable (Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, 103–4)Google Scholar.

page 52 note 3 S. N. Hasan (the late Mrs.), K. N. Hasan, and S. P. Gupta, “The Pattern of Agricultural Production in the Territories of Amber, c. 1650–1750,” paper submitted to the Indian History Congress, 1966 (mimeographed), Tables I & V. The figures used here are those for pargana Malarna.

page 53 note 4 It is obvious that revenue accounts will not give us this information when the cash nexus prevailed. Even where crop-sharing took place, it is not possible to assume that the produce collected was actually consumed in the nonagricultural sector. Produce of one kind might have been sold in the rural market by the revenue authorities and so channeled for ultimate consumption by the peasants, while the money obtained in return was later on spent on the purchase of a quite different set of agricultural commodities.

page 53 note 5 I. Habib, I, pp. 163–64.

page 54 note 6 Moreland estimated the population of the whole of India at 100 million, but he based this very largely on his own estimate of the total area under cultivation, and that is probably too low (India at the Death of Akbar, pp. 9–22).

page 54 note 7 I. Habib, p. 164 & n.

page 55 note 8 Qaisar, A. Jan, “Distribution of the Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire among Nobility,” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Allahabad Session (1967), pp. 239–40Google Scholar.

page 55 note 9 The net expenditure on the royal establishment amounted, according to the Ain-i-Akbari's figures, to about 6 percent of the total estimated revenue (1594–95) (Ain, ed. Blochman, , I, p. 9)Google Scholar.

page 55 note 10 Qaisar, A. J., “Distribution,” pp. 240, 242Google Scholar.

page 55 note 11 Pelsaert, , Jahangir's India, tr. Moreland, and Geyl, , p. 54Google Scholar.

page 55 note 12 See Riyazu-v Wudad, Br. Mus. Or. 1725, f. 18 b; Waga'i Ajmer, transcript, p. 413.

page 56 note 13 Lahori, , Padshahnama, Bib. Ind., II, 715.Google Scholar Lahori's figure for 200,000 cavalry is arrived at by counting the 8000 mansabdars as cavalrymen as well.

page 56 note 14 Cf. Moreland, , “Rank (Mansab) in the Mogul State Service,” Jras, 1936Google Scholar.

page 56 note 15 Orme, quoted in Irvine, W., The Army of the Indian Moghuls, p. 47Google Scholar.

page 56 note 16 Cf. Irvine, , The Army, pp. 5152Google Scholar.

page 56 note 17 “Peons or servants are exceedingly numerous in this country, for every one—be he a mounted soldier, merchant or king's official—keeps as many as his position and circumstances permit.” (Pelsaert, , Jahangir's India, p. 61).Google Scholar Cf. Fryer's, description of the “Adilshahi horseman on the march,” A New Account of East India and Persia, being Nine Years' Travels, 1672–81, Vol. I (London, 1909), p. 341Google Scholar.

page 57 note 18 Irvine, , The Army, pp. 118–28Google Scholar.

page 57 note 19 Cf. Moreland, , Akbar to Aurangzeb, pp. 183–85;Google ScholarGlamann, K., Dutch-Asiatic Trade, 176–77, andGoogle ScholarThe Dutch East India Company's Trade in Japanese Copper,” Scandinavian Economic History Review 1 (1), 1953, pp. 50 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 57 note 20 M. Athar Ali, 167 & n. See the account of the leading men of letters, poets, singers, musicians, dancing girls, etc., of Delhi, from the pen of a Mughal aristocrat, 1738–39, in Dargah Quli Khan, Muraqqa'-l Dihli, ed. Sayyid Muzaffar Husain, Hyderabad-Deccan.

page 57 note 21 Pelsaert, , Jahangir's India, p. 55Google Scholar.

page 57 note 22 On the good life led by the low-ranking bureaucrats during the early years of Aurangzeb's reign, see Bhumsen, , Muskha-i-Dilkusha, Br. Mus. Or. 23, ff. 20b-21a.Google Scholar See also Dargah Quli Khan, passim.

page 57 note 23 Pelsaert, , Jahangir's India, p. 54.Google Scholar Cf. Bernier's remark that the Indian nobles are not ruined “by the extravagance of their table like the nobles of other countries, but by costly gifts made to the Emperor and by their large establishments of wives, servants, camels and horses.” See M. Athar Ali, pp. 167–68.

page 58 note 24 Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, pp. 8789Google Scholar.

page 58 note 25 Cf. the very low wages or maintenance costs in th e Ain-i Akbari sanctione d for ordinary servants and slaves in the various departments of the imperial establishment.

page 58 note 26 Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, pp. 262–63.Google Scholar Pelsaert, however, was puzzled why this did not happen in practice, and why the nobles yet accumulated treasure (Jahangir's India, pp. 55–56).

page 58 note 27 Ali, M. Athar, Mughal Nobility, pp. 6368Google Scholar.

page 58 note 28 Lahori, , Padshahnama, II, 472–78.Google Scholar Each rupee weighed 178 grains and was of practically pure silver.

page 58 note 29 Amal-i Salih, Bib. Ind., Ill, 248.

page 58 note 30 Smith, V. A., “The Treasure of Akbar,” Jras (1915), pp. 231–43,Google Scholar cited in Aziz, Abdul, Imperial Treasury of the Indian Mughals (Lahore, 1942), pp. 2829Google Scholar.

page 58 note 31 Qazwini, Amin, Padshahnama, Br. Mus. MS. Or. 173, f. 221a-bGoogle Scholar.

page 59 note 32 Bernier, , Travels, pp. 246–48Google Scholar.

page 59 note 33 Cf. Ali, M. Athar, Mughal Nobility, pp. 165–66Google Scholar.

page 59 note 34 An interesting work giving all the various articles needed in an aristocratic household is Bayaz-i Khushbu'i, I.O. MS. 828. It was written during the reign of Shahjahan (1628–58).

page 59 note 35 Ali, M. Athar, Mughal Nobility, pp. 157–58.Google Scholar Moreland is obviously wrong in supposing that the karkhanas were maintained by the Emperor alone (India at the Death of Akbar, p. 186).

page 59 note 36 See Dargah Quli Khan's enthusiastic description of the famous Chandni Chauk at Delhi, Maraqqa'-Ī Dihli, pp. 17–19. A young nobl e could not here purchase more than the “bare necessities” amongst the articles he fancied, though furnished with a sum of 100,000 rupees.

page 59 note 37 Bernier, , Travels, p. 248.Google Scholar He remarks that th e “costly merchandise” wa s actually kept in warehouses and not in the shops themselves, as in Paris.

page 60 note 38 Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, p. 227Google Scholar; Chaudhuri, K. N., The East India Company, 1600–1640 (London, 1965), pp. 117–21Google Scholar.

page 60 note 39 See Bernier's, reference to the small mud and thatched roofed houses “in which lodge the common troopers, and all that vast multitude of servants and camp followers who follow the court and the army.” (Travels, p. 246)Google Scholar.

page 60 note 40 Cf. Babur's, enthusiastic comment: “Another good thing in Hindustan is that it has unnumbered and endless workmen of every kind.” (Barburnama, tr. Beveridge, , II, 520)Google Scholar.

page 60 note 41 This is based on the simple inference that the nonagricultural population maintained on the net revenue collection would have amounted to a fourth or a third of the whole, if there had been no difference in the physical composition of the surplus taken as revenue and of the remainder. But since craft production accounted for a significant portion of consumption in the nonagricultural sector, the food grain component in the surplus must have been much smaller than in the remainder of the agricultural produce. Th e nonagricultural population should therefore have been much smaller as well, though it should have been more highly urbanized.

page 61 note 42 See the statements comparing Lahore with Constantinople, Ahmadabad with London, and Delhi with Paris: Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, pp. 1213;Google Scholar I. Habib, pp. 75–7 6 & n.

page 61 note 43 All figures, with sources, are mentioned in I. Habib, p. 76 n., except for the estimates about Surat, which came from tr. Godinho, Manuel, tr. Moraes, G. M., Journal of the Bombay Branch of the (Royal) Asiatic Society (Jábras), n.s., XXVII, pp. ii, 124–25; andGoogle ScholarHamilton, , A New Account of the East Indies, ed. Foster, W., I, 89Google Scholar.

page 61 note 44 For the most detailed comparison yet attempted, see Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, pp. 143–84, 286–94.Google Scholar It must be remembered that although Moreland did not deliberately underestimate Indian production during the seventeenth century, he tended to make several assumptions about the economic and political environment which were bound to color his judgment. It is therefore all the more noteworthy that his ultimate conclusions should be so little in favor of the per capita volume of production in his own time.

page 62 note 1 Bernier, , Travels, p. 254Google Scholar.

page 62 note 2 Pelsaert, , Jahangir's India, p. 60Google Scholar.

page 62 note 3 Ibid., p. 9. Cf. Ovington, J., A Voyage to Suart in the Year 1689 (London, 1929), p. 166Google Scholar.

page 62 note 4 Ovington, , Voyage, pp. 166–67.Google Scholar He contrasts the Indians with the Chinese, who, he says, had taken European clocks to pieces and then reassembled them. He attributes the Indian lack of interest in making clocks to the difficulties caused by dust, which clogged the wheels.

page 62 note 5 Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, pp. 146–48Google Scholar.

page 62 note 6 See the passage in the Ain-i-Akbari, account of the suba of Lahore; and Rai, Sujan, Khulasatu-t Tawarikh, ed. Hasan, Zafar (Delhi, 1918), p. 75Google Scholar.

page 62 note 7 Morris seems to come very near to this view. See Ieshr, V(l), p. 6.

page 63 note 8 See Babur's, description in Baburnama, tr. Beveridge, A. S., II, p. 486. Cf. IGoogle Scholar. Habib 26–27 & n.

page 63 note 9 Cf. White, Lynn, Medieval Technology and Social Change, p. 119Google Scholar.

page 63 note 10 See the eighteenth-century dictionary, Bahar-i'Ajam, s.v. Charkh.

page 63 note 11 Pelsaert, , Jahangir's India, p. 60Google Scholar.

page 63 note 12 Irvine, W., The Army of the Indian Mughal, pp. 113–28Google Scholar.

page 64 note 13 Hamilton, A., A. New Acocunt of the East Indies, ed. Foster, W., I, 217Google Scholar.

page 64 note 14 Bernier, , Travels, p. 254Google Scholar.

page 64 note 15 See Alavi, M. A. and Rahman, A., Fathullah Shirazi, a Sixteenth-Century Indian Scientist (New Delhi, 1968)Google Scholar.

page 64 note 16 Cf. Marx, K., Capital, I, ed. Ton, Dona, pp. 330–32,Google Scholar for the connection between craft-specialization and caste.

page 64 note 17 On the last point, Pelsaert, , Jahangir's India, p. 60, andGoogle ScholarBernier, , Travels, p. 260.Google Scholar See also Misra, B. B., Indian Middle Class (London, 1961), pp. 3739Google Scholar.

page 64 note 18 See the stimulating article by Morris, M. D., “Values as an Obstacle to Economic Growth in South Asia,” Journal of Economic History, XXVII (12. 1967), 588607CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 64 note 19 Tavernier, , Travels in India, tr. Ball, V., ed. Crooke, (London, 1925), I, 230Google Scholar.

page 65 note 20 See the report of the Madras factors, 1662: it was possible to bring weavers and merchants from Hugli, Wasimbazar to, though not possible to bring them to Madras “for their cast or linage is such that they shall loose their birthright if they come upon salt water.” English Factories, 1661–64, p. 65).Google Scholar The factors seem unaware of the fact that Madras was as far from Bengal as Spain from England.

page 65 note 21 Fukazawa, H. F., “State and Caste System (Jati ) in the Eighteenth Century Maratha Kingdom,” Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, IX (1), pp. 39–4Google Scholar.

page 65 note 22 'Khan, Ali Muhammad, Mirat-i-Ahmadi, ed. Baroda, Nawab Ali, I, 260.Google Scholar See also Aurangzeb's order refusing to recognize the monopoly of the Srimal caste in the work of smelting and drawing wire at the Ahmadabad mint, on the explicit ground that such restrictions were against the law (ibid., pp. 292–93). Of Ahmadabad, it was said earlier, in 1629, that “any merchant, or artisan is fre e to settle here, and live by his craft, or his business without molestation or interference by anyone.” (Geleynssen, , tr. Moreland, , Jih, IV, p. 75)Google Scholar.

page 65 note 23 See the Ain's injunction to th e head of the city police (Kotwal) that he should appoint the head and broker of each professional group in the town Ain-i-Akbari, ed. Blochmann, , I, 284.Google Scholar Cf. on this, Pavlov, , Indian Capitalist Class, p. 24.Google ScholarFukazawa, , “State and Caste System,” pp. 3244,Google Scholar assembles considerable evidence to show how the Maratha State authorities served as arbiters, and even legislators, in caste matters.

page 65 note 24 Relations of Golconda in the Early Seventeenth Century, ed. & tr. Moreland, (London, 1931), p. 27Google Scholar; Pelsaert, , Jahangir's India, p. 60Google Scholar.

page 66 note 25 Pelsaert, Jahangir's India; Bernier, , Travels, pp. 228–29.Google Scholar Cf. Mirat-i-Ahmadi, I, 260. For the conduct of the governors of Broach and Baroda, Gujarat, see English Factories, 1662–23, p. 97 & 1634–36, p. 290; English Factories, N.S., III, 352–53.

page 66 note 26 Gaz-i Jahangiri, 40 and 40.5 inches.

page 66 note 27 Dasturi, commission.

page 66 note 28 English Factories, 1618–21, pp. 192–93. The spellings have been modernized.

page 67 note 29 Capital (English, ed., Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1959), pp. 329–30.Google Scholar A fruitful discussion of the meaning of Marx's original passage, and its elaboration in the light of existing evidence, will be foun d in The Transition from Feudalism to Capital, containing chiefly the contributions of Sweezy, Paul M., Dobb, M., and Takahashi, H. K. (London, n.d.)Google Scholar.

page 67 note 30 See the reference to karkhana-i zargaran in Bahar-i-Ajam, s.v. Khak-bez.

page 67 note 31 Cf. Bernier, , Travels, pp. 228–29Google Scholar.

page 67 note 32 Some of the passages in the English records on which this paragraph is based are English Factories, 1624–29 p. 149; 1637–41, p. 137; 1646–50, p. 159, 1661–64, pp. 111–112; Hobson-Jobson, s.v. DADNY, quotations for 1678 and 1683. On one occasion the Surat artisans also demanded payment of the cost of alterations in their looms for meeting th e specified dimensions of cloth required by the English. (English Factories, 1661–64, pp. 208–9).

page 67 note 33 See, e.g., English Factories, 1618–21, pp. 192–3; 1624–29, p. 149.

page 67 note 34 Fryer, , Account of East India, I, 221Google Scholar.

page 68 note 35 English Factories, 1655–60, p. 296.

page 68 note 36 Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, pp. 185–86.Google Scholar For shipbuilding, see also Qaisar, A. J., “Shipbuilding in the Mughal EmpireIeshr, V (2), pp. 149–70Google Scholar.

page 68 note 37 Tavernier's information is summarized in Moreland, pp. 151–52.

page 68 note 38 See Pelsaert, , Jahangir's India, p. 46Google Scholar.

page 69 note 39 Bemier, , Travels, pp. 258–59Google Scholar.

page 69 note 40 For the association of wages with karkhana, see the couplet from Saib, quoted in Hahar-i 'Ajam, s.v. karkhana.

page 69 note 41 Marx, , Capital, I, ed. Torr, Dona, pp. 330–32Google Scholar.

page 69 note 42 This happened in 1672. The source is the Surat Factory Outward Letter Book, Vol. II, 1663–71/72, p. 187, in the Department of Archives and Archaeology, Bombay; I owe the reference to Miss Aziza Hasan. In certain documents, also of Aurang-zeb's reign, recently acquired by the Department of History, Aligarh, we find individual merchants being granted permission to get up to Rs. 4000 worth of gold and silver coined each day at the Surat mint. A rupee, in Aurangzeb's reign, weighed 180 grains.

page 69 note 43 Bemier, , Travels, pp. 228–29Google Scholar.

page 70 note 44 English Factories, 1655–60, p. 296.

page 70 note 45 Moreland, , India at the Death of Akbar, esp. pp. 3552;Google ScholarMisra, B. B., The Indian Middle Classes, pp. 2235;Google ScholarMorris, M. D. in Ieshr, V (1), p. 6.Google Scholar For the opposite view, see Brij Narain, Indian Economic Life, Past & Present; Saran, P., Provincial Government of the Mughals (1526–1658) (Allahabad, 1941), pp. 399403Google Scholar.

page 70 note 46 See my own remarks on security of trade and on taxes, I. Habid, pp. 65–69; and some perceptive remarks by Raychaudhuri, T., Ieshr, V (1), pp. 8890Google Scholar.

page 71 note 47 From the table in my article, “Banking in Mughal India,” Contributions to Indian Economic History, ed. Raychaudhuri, T., p. 16Google Scholar.

page 71 note 48 I. Habib, pp. 78–79.

page 71 note 49 Comparative Studies in Society and History, VI(4), p. 412 n.

page 71 note 50 I Habib, pp. 61–63.

page 72 note 51 Godinho, tr. Moraes, Jbbras, n.s. XXVII (part ii), p. 127. I owe some of the references in this and the following two footnotes to Mr. A. J. Qaisar.

page 72 note 52 English Factories, 1661–64, p. 308; Indian Travels of Thevenot and Careri (New Delhi, 1949), p. 22Google Scholar.

page 72 note 53 Das, H., Norris' Embassy to Aurangzeb (1699–1702), condensed and ed. by Sarkar, S. C. (Calcutta, 1959), p. 224 nGoogle Scholar; Hamilton, I, 89.

page 72 note 54 Manrique, , Travels, tr. Luard, C. E., II, p. 156.Google Scholar The other two surprises, significantly, were the vast imperial treasure and the large income of the nobles.

page 72 note 55 Interesting information on the actual accumulation of Indian merchant capital is brought together in Pavlov, V. I., Indian Capitalist Class, pp. 76 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 72 note 56 See Sarkar, J. N., Life of Mir Jumla (Calcutta, 1951),Google Scholar for the large amount of information available on Mir Jumla's mercantile activities which often guided him in his political actions.

page 73 note 57 Travernier, , Travels in India, I, 31Google Scholar.

page 73 note 58 Ali, M. Athar, Mughal Nobility, pp. 154–60Google Scholar.

page 73 note 59 See Rai, Sujan, Khulasatut Tawarikh, ed. Hasan, Zafar, p. 25Google Scholar.

page 73 note 60 Tavernier, , Travels in India, I, 24Google Scholar.

page 73 note 61 Mirat-i-Ahmadi, I, pp. 410–11.

page 73 note 62 Cf. Manucci, , Storia do Mogor, tr. Irvine, W., II, 379Google Scholar.

page 73 note 63 See Habib, I., Contributions to Indian Economic History, I, 13, 1517, for a more detailed treatmentGoogle Scholar.

page 73 note 64 Ibid., pp. 17–19.

page 74 note 65 Comparative Studies in Society and History, VI(4), pp. 401–2.

page 74 note 66 English factors at Ahmadabad report to Surat, May 17, 1647: Surat Factory: Inward Letter Book, 1646–47”, p. 130 (Department of Archives & Archaeology, Bombay).Google Scholar I am indebted for this reference to Miss A. Hasan.

page 74 note 67 See the tables in Comparative Studies in Society & History VI(4), pp. 402–4. The rate of interest shown under Agra against the year 1628 should rea d 2 percent and not ¾ percent. In this article, I suggested that the rates fell as the accounting control in the.East India Company improved. This suggestion I should now like to withdraw, though there is little doubt that in the earlier years the English factors must have concealed the true rates.

page 74 note 68 Ibid., pp. 404–5. Higher interest rates naturally meant higher discount rates on bills, a phenomenon to which Tavernier, , in Travels in India, I, 31,Google Scholar refers, although he himself considers this due, in part at least, to the insurance costs that the discounts included.

page 75 note 69 Marx, , Capital, III, English, ed. (Moscow, 1959), p. 322Google Scholar.

page 75 note 70 Grant, James in Fifth Report, ed. Firminger, , II, 483Google Scholar.

page 76 note 71 I. Habib, pp. 81–89, 384–94, & the table on p. 327. Moreland, in his Akbar to Aurangzeb (London, 1923), pp. 160–64, 183–85,Google Scholar also examines some price-evidence, but concludes, largely on the basis of the price s fetched by the Sarkhej indigo, that the price level did not move up during the earlier half of the seventeenth century.

page 76 note 72 Hasan, Aziza, “Currency Output of the Mughal Empire, and the Price-changes during the 17th century,” paper (unpublished) read at the Indian History Congress, Mysore, 1966Google Scholar.

page 76 note 73 Cf. Pelsaert, , Jahangir's India, p. 44,Google Scholar for the effect of the harvests on general demand for commodities.

page 76 note 74 Foster, , Supplementary Calendar, p. 66Google Scholar; Valle, Pietro Delia, Travels in India, tr. Grey, E., I, 62Google Scholar; Ovington, , Voyage to Surat, ed. Rawlinson, , p. 229Google Scholar.