Peasants, Zamindars and the Mughal State

The splendour of the Mughal empire, its palaces, armies and courts, rested on the labour of millions of peasants in the countryside. To understand how this great empire actually worked, we need to look at its agrarian world: the role of the zamindars and how the state drew its revenue from the land.

The vast majority of people in Mughal India were peasants who lived in villages and worked the land. Rural society included:

• cultivators who farmed their own or others' land,
• landless labourers and village artisans (potters, weavers, smiths), and
• village communities that organised much of daily life.

Peasants grew food crops and increasingly cash crops like cotton, sugarcane and indigo for the market. Their surplus, taken as tax, was the foundation of the empire's wealth.

The land tax (revenue) was the main income of the Mughal state. Collecting it from countless villages required intermediaries.

The zamindars were a class of landed gentry who:

• held rights over land and collected revenue from peasants on behalf of the state,
• kept a share for themselves, and
• often had their own forts and armed retainers, giving them local power.

This system linked the peasant in the village to the emperor's treasury, with the zamindar in between.

Zamindars were not the only people with a claim on village revenue. The Mughal state also created jagirdars, and the two must not be confused.

A jagirdar was a state official, usually a mansabdar (a rank-holder in the imperial service). Instead of a cash salary, the state assigned him a jagir: the right to collect the land revenue of a specified area. The grant was made in lieu of military service under the mansabdari system, not for judicial or police duties. The jagirdar collected the revenue as his pay; he did not own the land.

The contrast with zamindars is the standard test point:

• Jagir: a revenue assignment tied to imperial service. It was transferable, the emperor could shift a jagirdar from one jagir to another, and it was not hereditary.
• Zamindari: a local, hereditary right over land and its revenue. It passed to heirs and could even be sold.

In short, the jagirdar's claim came from his office and lasted only as long as the emperor allowed. The zamindar's claim was rooted in the locality and outlived him.

Much of what we know about this agrarian world comes from a remarkable source: the Ain-i-Akbari, written by Abul Fazl, the court historian of Emperor Akbar.

The Ain is a detailed account of Akbar's administration, revenue system, provinces and resources, full of statistics and descriptions. It presents an idealised, official view from the top. Even so, it remains an invaluable record of how the Mughal state organised land, revenue and society. Akbar's revenue minister Todar Mal developed a careful system of measuring land and assessing tax.