Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire, Class 12

What Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries) is about

Weightage: Themes in Indian History Part II carries 25 of the 80 theory marks; this chapter shares them with Through the Eyes of Travellers: Perceptions of Society (c. tenth to seventeenth century), Bhakti-Sufi Traditions: Changes in Religious Beliefs and Devotional Texts (c. eighth to eighteenth century) and An Imperial Capital: Vijayanagara (c. fourteenth to sixteenth century). A separate 5-mark map question covers the map items of all three books.Source: CBSE History (027) syllabus 2026-27, course structure

Key concepts

Sources for agrarian history

NCERT section 1.1 Looking for sources

Peasants did not write about themselves, so historians rely on others.

Main source: chronicles and documents of the Mughal court, above all the Ain-i Akbari by Akbar's court historian Abu'l Fazl. It recorded the state's arrangements to ensure cultivation, collect revenue and regulate relations between the state and zamindars.

Its limitation: the Ain set out to show Akbar's empire as a harmonious society held together by a strong ruling class; in its eyes any revolt against the state was bound to fail. So whatever it says about peasants is 'a view from the top'.

Supplementary sources:

• Detailed revenue records from Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries).
• Extensive records of the East India Company on agrarian relations in eastern India.

These record conflicts between peasants, zamindars and the state, and give insight into peasants' perceptions and their expectations of fairness from the state.

Worked example

Why do historians need sources other than the Ain to understand peasants? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Peasants did not write about themselves, so historians depend on records made by others.
2. The Ain presents Akbar's empire as harmonious under a strong ruling class and treats revolts as doomed, so its picture of peasants is a view from the top.
3. Revenue records from Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan and East India Company records show conflicts and peasants' expectations of fairness.

Answer: Because the Ain is a court view; regional revenue records and Company records reveal conflicts and peasants' own expectations.

Peasants, their lands and technology

NCERT section 1.2-1.3; Sources 1 and 2

Terms: Indo-Persian sources used raiyat (plural riaya) or muzarian for a peasant; also kisan or asami.

• Khud-kashta: residents of the village where they held land.
• Pahi-kashta: non-resident cultivators who tilled land elsewhere on a contractual basis, by choice (better revenue terms) or compulsion (distress after famine).

Holdings: the average north Indian peasant seldom had more than a pair of bullocks and two ploughs. In Gujarat, about six acres made a peasant affluent; in Bengal, five acres was the upper limit of an average farm, and 10 acres made one a rich asami. Cultivation rested on individual ownership; peasant lands were bought and sold like other property; fields were marked by borders of earth, brick and thorn.

Expansion of agriculture: abundant land, available labour and peasant mobility. Babur (Source 1) wrote that in Hindustan villages and even towns were deserted or set up 'in a moment'.

Crops by rainfall: areas with 40 inches or more of rain were rice zones, followed by wheat and millets as rainfall decreased.

Irrigation: monsoons were the backbone, but some crops needed more water. Babur (Source 2) described the Persian wheel (rope circles with pitchers turned by a bullock through geared wheels) in Lahore and Dipalpur, and the bucket and bullock method in Agra, Chandwar and Bayana. The state dug new canals (nahr, nala) and repaired old ones, such as the shahnahr in the Punjab under Shah Jahan.

Technology: a light wooden plough with an iron tip (coulter) made shallow furrows that preserved moisture in hot months; a drill pulled by oxen planted seeds, though broadcasting was most common; hoeing and weeding used a narrow iron blade with a small wooden handle.

Worked example

Distinguish between khud-kashta and pahi-kashta peasants. Why might a peasant become pahi-kashta? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Khud-kashta peasants lived in the village where they held their land.
2. Pahi-kashta peasants were non-resident cultivators who tilled land in another village on a contractual basis.
3. A peasant might become pahi-kashta by choice (more favourable revenue terms in a distant village) or by compulsion (economic distress after a famine).

Answer: Resident versus non-resident contractual cultivators; pahi-kashta status came from choice (better terms) or compulsion (famine).

An abundance of crops: subsistence and commerce

NCERT section 1.4 An abundance of crops

Two seasons: kharif (autumn) and rabi (spring), so most regions produced at least two crops a year (do-fasla); areas with assured water even gave three.

Variety (Ain): Agra produced 39 varieties of crops and Delhi 43 over the two seasons; Bengal produced 50 varieties of rice alone.

Not only subsistence: sources mention jins-i kamil ('perfect crops'), which the state encouraged because they brought more revenue. Cotton and sugarcane were jins-i kamil par excellence: cotton across central India and the Deccan, sugar in Bengal. Oilseeds (mustard) and lentils were also cash crops. Subsistence and commercial production were closely intertwined in the average peasant's holding.

New crops (seventeenth century): maize (via Africa and Spain, a major crop of western India); tomatoes, potatoes, chillies, pineapple and papaya from the New World.

Tobacco: reached the Deccan first, then north India in the early seventeenth century; the Ain does not list it; Akbar and his nobles first met it in 1604; Jahangir banned it, ineffectively; by the end of the century it was a major item of consumption, cultivation and trade.

Population: economic historians estimate an increase of about 50 million between 1600 and 1800, about 33 per cent over 200 years, despite famines and epidemics.

Worked example

To what extent can agriculture in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries be called subsistence agriculture? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Basic staples such as rice, wheat and millets were the most widely grown, to feed people.
2. But the state encouraged jins-i kamil such as cotton and sugarcane, and oilseeds and lentils were also cash crops; new crops like maize and tobacco spread through trade.
3. Subsistence and commercial production were intertwined in the same peasant holding, and revenue in the Mughal heartland was collected in cash, so it was not purely subsistence agriculture.

Answer: Only partly: staples dominated, but cash crops, new crops and cash revenue tied peasants to markets.

The village community: caste, panchayats and headmen

NCERT section 2. The Village Community; 2.1-2.2

Peasants held land individually but belonged to a village community with three parts: the cultivators, the panchayat, and the headman (muqaddam or mandal).

Caste and the rural milieu:

• Cultivators were a heterogeneous group; many worked as menials or agricultural labourers (majur).
• Certain caste groups were assigned menial tasks and relegated to poverty; they formed a large part of the village, had the least resources and were constrained by caste, much like the Dalits of modern India.
• Such distinctions spread to other communities: in Muslim communities, halalkhoran (scavengers) lived outside the village; mallahzadas in Bihar were comparable to slaves.
• At the lower levels, caste, poverty and status were directly linked; at intermediate levels less so. In Marwar, Rajputs were peasants alongside Jats; the Gauravas around Vrindavan sought Rajput status; Ahirs, Gujars and Malis rose through profitable cattle rearing and horticulture; in the east, Sadgops and Kaivartas acquired peasant status.

The panchayat:

• An assembly of elders, usually important villagers with hereditary property rights; in mixed-caste villages heterogeneous; an oligarchy; menial workers were unlikely to be represented. Its decisions were binding.
• Headman: chosen by consensus of elders and ratified by the zamindar; held office while he had the elders' confidence; main job: supervising village accounts with the patwari (accountant). Mandals were accused of defrauding accounts with the patwari and under-assessing their own land to shift the burden to smaller cultivators.
• Funds: individual contributions to a common pool, used to entertain visiting revenue officials, for relief in floods and for building bunds or canals.
• Upholding caste: in eastern India marriages were held in the mandal's presence; the panchayat could fine and expel offenders (a person expelled became an outcaste and lost the right to practise his profession).
• Jati panchayats: each caste had its own; in Rajasthan they arbitrated civil disputes between castes, mediated land claims, decided whether marriages followed caste norms and ritual precedence; the state usually respected their decisions except in criminal matters.
• Petitions: records from Rajasthan and Maharashtra contain petitions, often from the poorest, against excessive taxes or begar (unpaid labour) demanded by 'superior' castes or officials. Petitioners saw the right to a basic minimum as sanctioned by custom and the panchayat as a court of appeal. Panchayats often suggested compromise; when that failed, peasants might desert the village, an effective weapon given abundant land and competition for labour.

Worked example

Discuss the ways in which panchayats and village headmen regulated rural society. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. The headman, chosen by elders and ratified by the zamindar, supervised village accounts with the patwari; the panchayat's decisions were binding, and its common fund paid for officials' visits, flood relief and bunds or canals.
2. It upheld caste boundaries: marriages in the mandal's presence in eastern India, fines and expulsion for violating caste norms; jati panchayats settled civil disputes, land claims and marriage questions.
3. It heard petitions against excessive taxes or begar and often suggested compromise.

Answer: By managing accounts and common funds, enforcing caste norms with fines and expulsion, settling disputes, and mediating peasants' petitions.

Village artisans and the 'little republic' debate

NCERT section 2.3 Village artisans; 2.4 A 'little republic'?

Artisans: Marathi documents and early British village surveys show many artisans, sometimes 25 per cent of village households. The line between artisans and peasants was fluid: cultivators also dyed, printed textiles, fired pottery and made or repaired tools, especially in lulls between sowing, weeding and harvesting.

Payment for services: potters, blacksmiths, carpenters, barbers and even goldsmiths were paid by:

• a share of the harvest, or
• an allotment of land (perhaps cultivable waste), decided by the panchayat; in Maharashtra these became the artisans' miras or watan (hereditary holding);
• negotiated goods-for-services with households; in eighteenth-century Bengal, zamindars paid blacksmiths, carpenters and goldsmiths 'a small daily allowance and diet money'. This was later called the jajmani system, though the term was not used then.
• Cash payment was not unknown.

A 'little republic'? Some nineteenth-century British officials saw the village as a 'little republic' of fraternal partners sharing resources and labour. But:

• There was individual ownership and deep inequalities of caste and gender.
• A group of powerful individuals decided village affairs, exploited the weak and dispensed justice.
• A cash nexus already linked villages and towns: revenue in the Mughal heartland was assessed and collected in cash; weavers producing for export and producers of cotton, silk or indigo got advances or wages in cash.
• Tavernier found that even a very small village had a money-changer, a shroff, who acted as banker and exchanged rupees, paisa and cowries.

Worked example

Why is the description of the Mughal village as a 'little republic' misleading? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Land was owned individually, not collectively, and there were deep inequalities of caste and gender.
2. A group of powerful individuals controlled village affairs, exploited weaker sections and dispensed justice.
3. Villages were not self-contained: a cash nexus linked them with towns, revenue was collected in cash, and even small villages had a shroff.

Answer: Villages were unequal, controlled by elites and tied to money and markets, not egalitarian, self-sufficient republics.

Women in agrarian society

NCERT section 3. Women in Agrarian Society

Work: men and women worked shoulder to shoulder. Men tilled and ploughed; women sowed, weeded, threshed and winnowed. With nucleated villages and individual peasant farming, production depended on the labour of the whole household, so a strict home (women) and world (men) divide was impossible.

Biases: menstruating women could not touch the plough or the potter's wheel in western India or enter betel-leaf groves in Bengal.

Artisanal work: spinning yarn, sifting and kneading clay for pottery, and embroidery depended on women; the more commercialised the product, the greater the demand for women's labour. Women went to employers' houses and to markets.

Social customs: women were valued as child bearers in a labour-dependent society, but high mortality (malnutrition, frequent pregnancies, death in childbirth) caused a shortage of wives. So peasant and artisan communities had customs unlike the elites: bride-price rather than dowry, and remarriage of divorced and widowed women was legitimate.

Control: households were headed by men; women were kept under strict control and could face draconian punishment if suspected of infidelity.

Petitions: records from Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra show women petitioning panchayats against husbands' infidelity or neglect of wife and children by the grihasthi (male head). The state and 'superior' castes intervened to ensure families were provided for. Women's names were usually left out: they were recorded as mother, sister or wife of the male head.

Property: among the landed gentry, women could inherit property. In the Punjab, women, including widows, sold inherited land. Hindu and Muslim women inherited zamindaris they could sell or mortgage. Women zamindars existed in eighteenth-century Bengal; the great Rajshahi zamindari had a woman at its head.

Worked example

Describe the role played by women in agricultural production. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Women worked alongside men in the fields: while men did the tilling and ploughing, women did the sowing, weeding, threshing and winnowing; production rested on the whole household's labour.
2. They carried out artisanal work such as spinning, preparing clay for pottery and embroidery; more commercial products demanded more of their labour.
3. As child bearers they were valued as a labour resource; this shaped customs like bride-price and widow remarriage, though biases (menstruation taboos) and male control continued.

Answer: Women did key field tasks and crafts, worked in markets and households, and were valued as bearers of future labour, while facing taboos and male control.

Forests and tribes

NCERT section 4. Forests and Tribes; Sources 3 and 4

Extent: huge forests (jangal) and scrubland (kharbandi) existed across eastern, central and northern India (including the Terai), Jharkhand and peninsular India down the Western Ghats and the Deccan; informed conjectures suggest an average forest cover of about 40 per cent.

Forest dwellers were called jangli, which then meant people living by gathering, hunting and shifting agriculture, not an absence of civilisation. Activities were seasonal: among the Bhils, spring for forest produce, summer for fishing, monsoon for cultivation, autumn and winter for hunting, which encouraged mobility.

The state's view: the forest was a subversive place, a refuge (mawas) for troublemakers; Babur said jungles let people of a pargana become rebellious and pay no taxes.

Inroads into the forest:

• The state needed elephants, so the peshkash (tribute) from forest people often included elephants.
• The Mughal hunt symbolised the state's concern for all subjects; court histories say hunting let the emperor travel and attend to grievances; painters inserted small scenes symbolising a harmonious reign.
• Clearing forests: in Mukundaram Chakrabarti's sixteenth-century Bengali poem Chandimangala, the hero Kalaketu cleared forest, distributed tools and set up a kingdom with markets; tigers fled at the sound of the axe.
• Commercial agriculture and trade: honey, beeswax and gum lac were in demand (gum lac became a major overseas export); elephants were captured and sold; barter also continued. Abu'l Fazl (Source 4) described hill people of Awadh bringing gold, copper, musk, yak tails, honey, ginger, borax, wax, woollens and hawks on men, ponies and goats, and taking back cloth, salt, amber, asafoetida, ornaments, glass and earthenware. The Lohanis of the Punjab traded overland with Afghanistan.
• Social change: many tribal chiefs became zamindars, some even kings, raising armies from their lineage. Tribes in Sind had 6,000 cavalry and 7,000 infantry. The Ahom kings of Assam had paiks who gave military service in exchange for land, and made capturing wild elephants a royal monopoly. The Koch kings subjugated neighbouring tribes in wars through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
• Culture: some historians suggest sufi pirs played a major role in the slow acceptance of Islam among new agricultural communities in newly colonised areas.

Worked example

Give three ways in which the lives of forest people changed under Mughal rule. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. The state intruded: peshkash included elephants, hunts carried imperial authority into forests, and forests were cleared for agricultural settlements (Chandimangala).
2. Commercial demand for honey, beeswax, gum lac and elephants drew forest people into trade, including overseas exports and exchange with the plains.
3. Social and political change: tribal chiefs became zamindars and kings with armies (Ahoms with paiks, Koch wars), and sufi pirs spread new cultural influences.

Answer: Through state intrusion, commercial trade in forest products, chiefs becoming zamindars and kings, and new cultural influences.

The zamindars

NCERT section 5. The Zamindars

Who they were: landed proprietors who lived off agriculture without directly taking part in production, enjoying social and economic privileges because of caste and because they performed services (khidmat) for the state.

Sources of power:

• Milkiyat (property): extensive personal lands cultivated with hired or servile labour; they could sell, bequeath or mortgage them at will.
• Collecting revenue for the state, for which they were paid.
• Military resources: fortresses (qilachas) and armed contingents of cavalry, artillery and infantry. According to the Ain, together they commanded 4,277,057 infantry and 384,558 cavalry, along with 4,260 cannons, 1,863 elephants and 4,500 boats.

If rural society was a pyramid, zamindars formed its narrow apex. The Ain shows an 'upper-caste' Brahmana-Rajput combine in firm control, with many from intermediate castes and a liberal sprinkling of Muslim zamindaris.

Origins and consolidation:

• Some through conquest and dispossession of weaker people, though the state probably required confirmation by an imperial order (sanad).
• More important were slow processes: colonisation of new lands, transfer of rights, state orders and purchase. Zamindaris were bought and sold briskly, letting 'lower' castes enter the class.
• Clan or lineage-based zamindaris: Rajputs and Jats in northern India; peasant-pastoralists like the Sadgops in central and south-western Bengal.

Economic role: zamindars led the colonisation of agricultural land, settled cultivators with means of cultivation including cash loans, accelerated monetisation through buying and selling zamindaris and selling milkiyat produce, and set up markets (haats) where peasants sold produce.

Relations with peasants: an exploitative class, but with reciprocity, paternalism and patronage:
1. Bhakti saints, who condemned caste and other oppression, did not portray zamindars (or moneylenders) as oppressors; the revenue official was the target.
2. In many seventeenth-century agrarian uprisings in north India, zamindars often had peasant support against the state.

Worked example

Examine the sources of power of the zamindars in Mughal India. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Milkiyat lands cultivated with hired or servile labour, which they could sell, bequeath or mortgage at will; their caste status and services (khidmat) to the state.
2. Right to collect revenue on behalf of the state, for which they were compensated.
3. Control of military resources: fortresses (qilachas) and armed contingents of cavalry, artillery and infantry.

Answer: Milkiyat lands, revenue-collecting rights and military resources, backed by caste status and service to the state.

The land revenue system

NCERT section 6. Land Revenue System; Sources 5-7

Land revenue was the economic mainstay of the Mughal Empire. The office (daftar) of the diwan supervised the fiscal system; revenue officials and record keepers penetrated the countryside and shaped agrarian relations.

Two stages: assessment and collection. Jama was the amount assessed; hasil the amount collected. Akbar told the amil-guzar (revenue collector) to aim for cash payment but keep payment in kind open. The state tried to maximise its claims, but local conditions sometimes thwarted collection.

Measurement: cultivated and cultivable lands were measured in each province; the Ain compiled aggregates. In 1665, Aurangzeb ordered amins (officials ensuring imperial regulations in provinces) of the parganas to discover actual cultivation village by village, peasant-wise (asamiwar) and assess the jama with regard to both the government's financial interests and the welfare of the peasantry. Forests remained unmeasured.

Classification of land under Akbar (Ain):

• Polaj: cultivated every year, never left fallow.
• Parauti: left fallow for a time to recover strength.
• Chachar: fallow for three or four years.
• Banjar: uncultivated for five years or more.

For polaj and parauti, three classes (good, middling, bad) were added; one-third of the total gave the medium produce, and one-third of that was taken as royal dues.

Ways of collection in kind (Ain):

• Kankut (*kan* grain, *kut* estimate): crops estimated, in doubt cut and estimated in three lots.
• Batai or bhaoli: crops reaped, stacked and divided by agreement in the presence of the parties (needing honest inspectors).
• Khet-batai: fields divided after sowing.
• Lang batai: grain cut, heaped and divided, each taking his share home.

The mansabdari system: a military-cum-bureaucratic apparatus at the apex of administration; some mansabdars were paid in cash (naqdi), most through assignments of revenue (jagirs) in different regions; they were transferred periodically.

Worked example

What principles did the Mughal state follow in classifying land, and how was revenue assessed? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Land was classified by continuity of cultivation: polaj (cultivated every year), parauti (fallow for a time), chachar (fallow three or four years), banjar (uncultivated five years or more).
2. For polaj and parauti, the produce of good, middling and bad lands was added and one-third taken as the medium produce.
3. One-third of this medium produce was fixed as the royal dues, with different revenue for each kind of land.

Answer: By how regularly land was cultivated and its quality; revenue was one-third of the average produce.

The flow of silver

NCERT section 7. The Flow of Silver; Source 8

Context: the Mughal Empire was one of the large Asian territorial empires of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the Ming (China), Safavid (Iran) and Ottoman (Turkey). Their stability created vibrant overland trade networks from China to the Mediterranean. Voyages of discovery and the opening of the New World expanded Asia's, especially India's, trade with Europe, diversifying its geography and commodities.

Silver: expanding trade brought huge amounts of silver bullion into Asia to pay for Indian goods, and much of it went to India, which had no natural silver resources.

Effects (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries):

• Remarkable stability in the availability of metal currency, especially the silver rupya.
• Unprecedented expansion of minting and circulation of money.
• The Mughal state's ability to extract taxes and revenue in cash.

Giovanni Careri (an Italian traveller, c. 1690, drawing on Bernier) described how gold and silver from America passed through Europe, Turkey and Persia, and via Mocha and Basra reached Hindustan; even Dutch silver from Japan ended up there, and goods carried to Europe were bought for ready money that stayed in India.

Worked example

Discuss, with examples, the significance of monetary transactions in this period. (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. Silver flowed into India through expanding trade with Europe and Asia, giving stable supplies of the silver rupya and expanding minting and circulation of money.
2. Revenue in the Mughal heartland was assessed and collected in cash; weavers and producers of cotton, silk and indigo received cash advances or wages.
3. Even small villages had a shroff (Tavernier), and buying and selling of zamindaris accelerated monetisation.

Answer: Money linked villages to towns and world trade, allowed cash revenue and wages, and spread through shroffs and land sales.

The Ain-i Akbari: structure, value and limits

NCERT section 8. The Ain-i Akbari of Abu'l Fazl Allami; Source 9

What it is: the culmination of a large historical and administrative classification project by Abu'l Fazl at Akbar's order, completed in 1598 (Akbar's 42nd regnal year) after five revisions. It was the third book of the Akbar Nama (the first two were historical narrative), organised as a compendium of imperial regulations and a gazetteer of the empire.

Five books (daftars):
1. Manzil-abadi: the imperial household.
2. Sipah-abadi: military and civil administration and servants, with notices of mansabdars, learned men, poets and artists.
3. Mulk-abadi: the fiscal side, revenue rates and the 'Account of the Twelve Provinces': geographic, topographic and economic profiles of subas and their sarkars, parganas and mahals, measured area and jama. Sarkar tables have eight columns: parganat/mahal; qila (forts); arazi and zamin-i paimuda (measured area); naqdi (cash revenue); suyurghal (charity grants); zamindars; and their castes and troops (sawar, piyada, fil).
4-5. Religious, literary and cultural traditions, and Akbar's 'auspicious sayings'.

How Abu'l Fazl gathered information (Source 9): interviewing state servants and old members of the royal family; collecting notes and memoranda from the provinces by royal command; the Record Office chronicle from the Nineteenth Year of the Divine Era; originals or copies of orders since the accession; reports of ministers and officials.

Care for accuracy: oral testimony was cross-checked; numbers were written out in words to avoid copying errors.

Limitations:

• Numerous errors in totalling (slips of arithmetic or transcription by assistants), generally minor.
• Skewed data: not collected uniformly; caste composition of zamindars is missing for Bengal and Orissa; prices and wages are mainly from around Agra, of limited relevance elsewhere.
• A view from the centre and from the apex of society.

Value: a major break from chroniclers who wrote mostly about wars and dynasties: it recorded information about the empire's people, products and professions, a benchmark for studying India at the turn of the seventeenth century. Henry Blochmann translated Volume 1 (1873) and H.S. Jarrett the others (1891, 1894).

Worked example

What are the problems in using the Ain as a source for agrarian history, and how do historians deal with them? (3 marks)

Try it first, then show the solutionSolution

1. It is a view from the top, presenting a harmonious empire; data are skewed (no caste data on zamindars for Bengal and Orissa; prices and wages mainly from around Agra) and there are errors in totalling.
2. But the errors are generally minor, and Abu'l Fazl cross-checked oral testimony and wrote numbers in words.
3. Historians supplement it with revenue records from Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan and East India Company records, which show conflicts and peasants' views.

Answer: Its court perspective, uneven data and arithmetic slips; historians use its quantitative core while checking and supplementing it with regional and Company records.

Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries) in real life

Each concept, met in an everyday situation. Read the situation, answer the question in your own words, then compare with the model answer. The one-line hook is what to remember.

Topics in this chapter

• The Zamindars in Mughal India
• The Mughal Land Revenue System
• The Ain-i Akbari as a Source

Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries): key facts

Rural population

About 85% of India's people lived in villages (16th-17th centuries)

About 15% urban (see Theme 5).

Peasant terms

Raiyat (riaya), muzarian, kisan, asami; khud-kashta (resident) vs pahi-kashta (non-resident, contractual)

Gujarat: 6 acres = affluent; Bengal: 5 acres average limit, 10 acres = rich.

Crop seasons and variety

Kharif (autumn) + rabi (spring) = do-fasla; Agra 39 crops, Delhi 43, Bengal 50 varieties of rice

40 inches+ rainfall = rice zone.

Jins-i kamil

Cotton (central India, Deccan) and sugarcane (Bengal sugar) par excellence; oilseeds, lentils

Encouraged for higher revenue.

New crops and tobacco

Maize (Africa, Spain); tomatoes, potatoes, chillies, pineapple, papaya (New World); tobacco: Deccan -> north, Akbar 1604, Jahangir's ban

Population +50 million 1600-1800 (+33%).

Village community

Cultivators + panchayat + headman (muqaddam/mandal) with patwari

Jati panchayats for each caste; begar petitions.

Artisan payments

Harvest share; land allotment (miras/watan in Maharashtra); goods for services (later 'jajmani'); cash

Artisans up to 25% of village households.

Forests

Jangal (dense), kharbandi (scrub); about 40% cover; jangli = forest livelihoods; mawas = refuge; peshkash = tribute (elephants)

Bhils' seasonal cycle; Ahom paiks; Koch wars.

Zamindars

Milkiyat lands; revenue collection; qilachas and troops; sanad; khidmat

Ain: 384,558 cavalry, 4,277,057 infantry, 1,863 elephants, 4,260 cannons, 4,500 boats.

Revenue terms

Jama (assessed) vs hasil (collected); amil-guzar (collector); amin (provincial official); diwan (fiscal head)

Aurangzeb's 1665 order: village by village, asamiwar.

Land classification (Akbar)

Polaj (every year) < Parauti (short fallow) < Chachar (3-4 years fallow) < Banjar (5+ years)

Revenue = 1/3 of medium produce.

Collection in kind

Kankut (estimate); batai/bhaoli (divide stacked crop); khet-batai (divide fields after sowing); lang batai (divide heaps)

Cash preferred, kind allowed.

Ain-i Akbari

Completed	1598, after 5 revisions
Part of	third book of the Akbar Nama
Daftars 1-3	manzil-abadi, sipah-abadi, mulk-abadi (12 provinces)
Daftars 4-5	culture and sayings

Translated by Blochmann (1873) and Jarrett (1891, 1894).

Mughal timeline

1526	Panipat (Babur)
1556-1605	Akbar
1605-27	Jahangir
1628-58	Shah Jahan
1658-1707	Aurangzeb
1739	Nadir Shah
1761	third Panipat
1765	diwani to EIC
1857	Bahadur Shah II exiled

Map: territories under Babur, Akbar, Aurangzeb.

Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries): map work

The places on the official CBSE map list for this chapter. Find each one on an outline map of India and practise marking it.

How the board asks Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)

The question patterns to expect, and the method that works for each.

Tricks to remember Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)

Short memory aids. Say each one aloud once, then use it on a question the same day.

• Land classes by fallow

  "Please Plant Crops Before": Polaj (never fallow), Parauti (short), Chachar (3-4 years), Banjar (5+).

  Use it when: Land classification MCQs and sources.

• Four ways to collect in kind

  "K-B-K-L": Kankut (estimate), Batai (divide stack), Khet-batai (divide field), Lang batai (divide heaps).

  Use it when: Revenue source questions.

• Five daftars of the Ain

  "House, Army, Land, then Culture twice": manzil-abadi, sipah-abadi, mulk-abadi, 4 and 5 culture and sayings.

  Use it when: Ain structure questions.

• Zamindars' three powers

  "Land, Levy, Lances": milkiyat land, revenue levy, armed troops.

  Use it when: Zamindar answers.

• Map list

  "Lazy People Don't Always Answer All Guesses": Lahore, Panipat, Delhi, Agra, Amber, Ajmer, Goa.

  Use it when: Map question.

Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries): board-level solved questions

Ordered from board level to HOTS. Cover the solution, write your own, then compare step by step.

Case-study practice (Section E style)

Read the situation, then answer every part. In the board paper this is a 4-mark question split into 1 + 1 + 2 marks.

Where the marks are

How a typical answer is split into step marks. Show every step: a right final answer alone rarely earns full marks.

Where students lose marks in Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)

The slips examiners see most often, and what to write instead.

• ✗Mistake: Confusing jama and hasil

  Both are revenue amounts.

  Wrong working

  Jama was the revenue actually collected.

  Right working

  Jama was the amount assessed; hasil was the amount collected.

  ✓Do this: J for 'judged' (assessed), H for 'held' (collected).

  Usually costs: 1 mark.

• ✗Mistake: Muddling the order of land classes

  Four unfamiliar names.

  ✓Do this: Shortest to longest fallow: Polaj (none), Parauti (short), Chachar (3-4 years), Banjar (5+ years): 'Please Plant Crops Before'.

  Usually costs: 1 mark per MCQ.

• ✗Mistake: Calling Mughal agriculture purely subsistence

  Staples dominate the description.

  ✓Do this: Always add jins-i kamil, cash crops, new crops and cash revenue.

  Usually costs: 1-2 marks.

• ✗Mistake: Describing villages as egalitarian 'little republics'

  The phrase sounds approving.

  ✓Do this: Explain that British officials used it, then list individual ownership, caste and gender inequality, elite control and the cash nexus.

  Usually costs: 2 marks.

• ✗Mistake: Treating the Ain as a complete and neutral record

  It is the main source.

  ✓Do this: Mention its view from the top, skewed data (Bengal and Orissa caste data missing; prices from Agra) and totalling errors, along with its strengths.

  Usually costs: 1-2 marks in source and long answers.

NCERT exercise guide: Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)

What each exercise in the NCERT chapter tests, how to approach it, and a question of the same kind solved step by step. Questions here are written in our own words.

Practice questions on Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)

Write each answer on paper first. Open the hint only if you are stuck, and the answer only when you have finished.

1. Q1 · 1 mark · MCQBoard level

   Which crops were described as jins-i kamil par excellence?
   (a) Rice and wheat
   (b) Cotton and sugarcane
   (c) Maize and tobacco
   (d) Millets and pulses

   Hint

   Perfect crops that brought more revenue.

   Answer

   (b) Cotton and sugarcane.

2. Q2 · 1 mark · MCQBoard level

   Which statement about the village headman is correct?
   (a) He was appointed by the emperor.
   (b) His main job was supervising village accounts.
   (c) He could never be removed.
   (d) He collected peshkash from forest people.

   Hint

   Assisted by the patwari.

   Answer

   (b) He supervised the preparation of village accounts.

3. Q3 · 1 mark · MCQHarder board level

   Arrange in chronological order: (i) Akbar first comes across tobacco; (ii) Aurangzeb's order to revenue officials on the jama; (iii) completion of the Ain-i Akbari; (iv) Babur's victory at Panipat.
   (a) iv, iii, i, ii
   (b) iv, i, iii, ii
   (c) iii, iv, i, ii
   (d) iv, iii, ii, i

   Hint

   1526, 1598, 1604, 1665.

   Answer

   (a) iv, iii, i, ii.

4. Q4 · 1 mark · Assertion-reasonHarder board level

   Assertion (A): Deserting the village was an effective weapon of peasants.
   Reason (R): Uncultivated land was relatively easy to find and there was competition for labour.
   Choose (a)-(d).

   Hint

   Abundant land, scarce labour.

   Answer

   (a) Both are true and R explains A.

5. Q5 · 1 mark · Very short answerBoard level

   What was the shahnahr? (1 mark)

   Hint

   Punjab, Shah Jahan.

   Answer

   An old canal in the Punjab that was repaired by the state during Shah Jahan's reign.

6. Q6 · 2 marks · Very short answerHarder board level

   Who were the paiks, and what royal monopoly did the Ahom kings declare? (2 marks)

   Hint

   Assam.

   Answer

   Paiks were people in Assam obliged to render military service to the Ahom kings in exchange for land. The Ahom kings declared the capture of wild elephants a royal monopoly.

7. Q7 · 3 marks · Short answerHarder board level

   Examine the evidence that land revenue was important for the Mughal fiscal system. (3 marks)

   Hint

   Diwan, measurement, classification, orders.

   Answer

   Land revenue was the economic mainstay: the diwan's office supervised the fiscal system and officials and record keepers penetrated the countryside; lands were measured and classified (polaj to banjar) with revenue fixed at one-third of medium produce; Akbar instructed collectors on cash and kind, and Aurangzeb (1665) ordered village-by-village, peasant-wise assessment; the Ain's mulk-abadi recorded jama for every suba and sarkar; mansabdars were mostly paid through jagirs, i.e. revenue assignments.

8. Q8 · 3 marks · Short answerHOTS / competency

   Compare kankut and batai as methods of collecting revenue in kind. What difference would each make to the cultivator? (3 marks)

   Hint

   Estimate versus actual division.

   Answer

   Kankut estimated the grain on the standing crop (cut in three lots if in doubt); the cultivator's dues were fixed before harvest, which risked over-estimation but saved time. Batai (bhaoli) divided the reaped and stacked crop by agreement in the presence of both parties, so dues matched the actual harvest, but required honest inspectors to prevent deception and delayed the peasant's access to his share.

9. Q9 · 8 marks · Long answerHOTS / competency

   "Women were an important resource in agrarian society." Discuss with reference to their work, customs and rights. (8 marks)

   Hint

   Work, reproduction, customs, petitions, property.

   Answer

   Work: sowing, weeding, threshing and winnowing alongside men; household-based production; artisanal tasks such as spinning, preparing clay and embroidery, with demand rising as products were commercialised; women worked in employers' houses and markets. Reproduction: valued as child bearers in a labour-dependent society; high mortality caused a shortage of wives, leading to bride-price and legitimate remarriage of divorced and widowed women. Control: male-headed households, strict control and punishments for suspected infidelity; taboos for menstruating women. Agency: petitions to panchayats against husbands' infidelity or neglect, though recorded under the male head's name. Property: landed women inherited property; Punjab women sold land; women inherited zamindaris; Rajshahi had a woman zamindar. Conclusion: women were vital economically and socially, but their importance also led to control; their rights varied by class.

10. Q10 · 3 marks · Short answerHOTS / competency

    Suppose your village grows wheat for its own use and also cotton to sell to a nearby textile town. Which features of Mughal agriculture does this mirror? (3 marks)

    Hint

    Staples, jins-i kamil, cash nexus.

    Answer

    It mirrors the intertwining of subsistence and commercial production on peasant holdings: staples such as wheat fed families, while jins-i kamil such as cotton brought cash and higher revenue. Like Mughal villages, it is linked to towns by trade and money, as cotton producers received cash advances and revenue was collected in cash.

11. Q11 · 3 marks · Map workHarder board level

    On an outline map of India, mark: (a) Lahore; (b) Amber; (c) Agra. (3 marks)

    Hint

    Punjab (Pakistan); near Jaipur; on the Yamuna.

    Answer

    (a) Lahore, on the Ravi in Punjab, present-day Pakistan. (b) Amber, near Jaipur in eastern Rajasthan. (c) Agra, on the Yamuna in western Uttar Pradesh, south-east of Delhi.

Test your recall

Answer in your head or on paper first, then open the card. Pulling an answer out of memory makes it stick far better than re-reading.

1. 1.What were jins-i kamil?Show answer

   'Perfect crops', such as cotton and sugarcane, encouraged by the state because they brought more revenue.

2. 2.What is milkiyat?Show answer

   Zamindars' extensive personal lands, cultivated for their private use, which they could sell, bequeath or mortgage.

3. 3.What was peshkash?Show answer

   A form of tribute collected by the Mughal state, which from forest people often included elephants.

4. 4.What is a pargana?Show answer

   An administrative subdivision of a Mughal province.

5. 5.Who was the patwari?Show answer

   The village accountant who assisted the headman in preparing accounts.

6. 6.When was the Ain-i Akbari completed?Show answer

   In 1598, the 42nd regnal year of Akbar, after five revisions.

7. 7.Which Italian traveller described the flow of silver into India c. 1690?Show answer

   Giovanni Careri.

8. 8.What was begar?Show answer

   Unpaid labour demanded by 'superior' castes or state officials.

9. 9.Which large zamindari of eighteenth-century Bengal had a woman at its head?Show answer

   Rajshahi.

Quick revision checklist

The night before the exam: can you do each of these without looking?

• ☐Can you explain why the Ain is 'a view from the top' and name two other sources?
• ☐Can you distinguish khud-kashta and pahi-kashta?
• ☐Can you describe the Persian wheel and the light plough?
• ☐Can you give crop figures for Agra, Delhi and Bengal and two jins-i kamil?
• ☐Can you list five functions of panchayats and headmen?
• ☐Can you explain why the 'little republic' idea is misleading?
• ☐Can you describe women's work, customs and property rights?
• ☐Can you list four ways forest dwellers' lives changed?
• ☐Can you explain zamindars' sources of power and their relations with peasants?
• ☐Can you list the four land classes, four modes of collection, and the Ain's five books?

Peasants, Zamindars and the State: Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire (c. sixteenth-seventeenth centuries): frequently asked questions