Economy and Society

Even the European records do not really permit such a macro-economic history. As an economic historian who grapples with the latter sources, I marvel at the possibilities offered by the Mughal sources, as well as the statistical skills of Shireen Moosvi in utilizing these possibilities so effectively. The work under review is a collection of her articles on the Mughal economy and society that were published between 1982 and 1999, representing nearly two decades of research and scholarship.

Moosvi begins with an Introduction in which she spells out in greater detail the issues which are discussed at length in the main book, like the impact of population growth on the agrarian system, the computation of gross domestic product, supply of capital and the ‘price revolution’ in the seventeenth century and so on. For instance, Moosvi argues that the long-term economic effects of population growth on the economy depend on the mode of extraction of agricultural surplus. If, as in Europe, the surplus is extracted as private rent, population growth may well lead to a Malthusian cycle of pressure on land, rising rents, falling subsistence levels and higher death rates. However if, as in the Mughal system, the surplus is extracted as tax on total agricultural produce, the effect would be quite different.

This is followed by the first section of the book with two monographs on the Mughal economy. The first is an ambitious overview of the economy of (Mughal) India between 1600 and 1900. Essentially this is concerned with a theme close to the heart of most Indian historians about two decades ago, on the impact of colonial rule on indigenous society and economy. With historiography shifting more and more towards cultural studies and interdisciplinary history in recent years, there is a feeling of déjà vu in revisiting this old discourse. The monograph is essentially divided into two parts, the first devoted to the estimation of macro-economic statistics of the Mughal Empire in 1600. Moosvi estimates the gross domestic product in 1600 at 22.5 billion dams, to which the primary sector contributed 64.3 %, the secondary sector 11.1% and the tertiary sector 24.6 %. Nearly all the share of the tertiary sector was accounted for by the salaries of mansabdars and the imperial staff. This is certainly more satisfying than the qualitative, descriptive assessment given by Moreland. She also concludes that the population in 1600 was 145 million (for the whole of India), as against the 100 million figure of Moreland. This section of the monograph also discusses the trends during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the growth of population and cultivated area, the question of a secular price increase in relation to the influx of silver in the seventeenth century (the ‘price revolution’) and interest rates and availability of capital, though there are large gaps in the information for these centuries. Whatever may be the logic of packing so much information in just a few pages, the density of the writing does not make for easy reading.

The second half of the chapter is devoted to the effect of British rule and colonial policies, and the vexing question of whether the standard of living had improved by 1900 as compared to 1600. Moosvi’s stand on de-industrialization is unequivocal. She strongly disagrees with the views of Morris D. Morris, and points to the stagnation of the per cent of urban to total population, the growing imports of piecegoods from English and the decline in the numbers engaged in textile production in India and the lack of diversification of the composition of national income as the major indicators and effects of de-industrialization. The tribute or ‘drain’ from India, which amounted to three to four per cent of national income, was a large burden that wiped out potential savings and capital formation in the economy. Moosvi concludes that per capita availability of foodgrains, the most crucial variable that defines standard of living, was higher in 1600 than in 1900, all indicating the negative impact of colonial rule.

The second chapter looks at the influx of silver into Mughal India, and the impact of bullion imports on money supply, prices and revenues for the Mughal state. This is already discussed in the Introduction and the first chapter, and I feel that these repetitions could have been edited out in this collection. The starting point of the discussion is the debate on whether the inflow of silver from the Americas resulted in a long-term price rise in Europe, generally referred to as the ‘price revolution’. This chapter is a delight for an economic historian, and explores various facets of estimating money supply extrapolated from details of coin hordes, information on mint output and silver imports through the overland and Cape of Good Hope routes. The question of relative prices is dealt with in terms of the silver price of gold and of copper. Moosvi concludes that the silver stock in the form of coin must have risen from about 4,550 metric tons in 1595 to over 9,235 tons in 1645. After a contraction between 1645 and 1675, the stock began to increase and touched 10,700 tons by 1705. Prices remained stable from 1585 till 1615, and after that, in the subsequent ninety years (till 1705) they rose by no more than a third. Moosvi concludes: ‘This moderate actual impact of the bullion influx on prices casts some doubt on the applicability of the theory of Price Revolution to Mughal India’ (pp. 74-75). I find myself largely in agreement with Moosvi’s position, for though the data for the Coromandel in the seventeenth century do show an overall price rise this however was due more to the disruption of production because of local wars, and the expanding demand for textiles and raw materials than to the influx of silver. However, Moosvi herself seems to be ambiguous on the question of the price rise, for in other articles in the same book, she talks of the rise in prices during the seventeenth century (p. 212) and ‘the inflationary effect of the influx of silver’ on the agrarian crisis in Aurangzeb’s reign (p. 236). The first section concludes with a short exploratory piece on interest rates, which fell in most parts of India during the seventeenth century, probably due to the expansion of overseas trade and exports from India, and the movement of money capital into India. (This discussion is also found in the Introduction and Chapter 1, a redundancy that could have been avoided.)

The second section comprises a variety of short papers on a wide range of themes. The paper on ecology and population maps the extent of cultivation in Akbar’s India in comparison to the beginning of the twentieth century. While the density of cultivation was nearly as high in 1595 as in 1909-10 in the most fertile and resource-endowed areas, the growth of population meant the expansion of cultivation into less fertile tracts and forests, with a resulting loss of wild life. The paper on vital statistics looks at infant mortality rates in India using the known information from official histories about the imperial family. Moosvi finds an extraordinarily high rate of infant mortality between 1504 and 1667, when more than 38 per cent of royal children died at birth or in infancy, much higher than the comparable figure of 31.5 per cent for a similar class in England. Interestingly, the mortality rates were not much higher among the common people.

Turning to urbanization, Moosvi points out that the hypothesis of de-urbanization during colonial rule is well borne out by the statistics on the percentage of urban population. In Mughal India, the ruling classes were all based in cities, and essentially lived off the agricultural surplus assigned to them through jagirs (revenue assignments). Historians of the Mughal period thus look on the urban sector as an essentially parasitical sector living off the surplus of the rural sector while contributing little through reverse flows of goods or services, and most were really camp towns. However, as Moosvi also admits, there were highly urbanized regions like Gujarat, which had a different economic base in that they were commercial centres. Characterizing cities as parasites that contributed nothing to the rural sector, may be oversimplified in that the contribution of urban commercial networks and trade to the rural economy is not taken into account. The paper on work and gender does not reveal anything startlingly new. All over India, down to the present day, poor women do agricultural work transplanting rice and post-harvest work; they care for the family and do many odd jobs like maintaining cattle and so on. The major change has been the disappearance of spinning as an occupation for women. The interest of the paper lies in the contemporary illustrations that accompany the text.

Imperial finance is the theme of the third section. Todar Mal’s memorandum of 1582 in its full form is translated and discussed, as also the farman of Aurangzeb to Rasikdas in 1665. These two documents relate to the problems encountered in revenue administration. The subsequent papers on Kashmir and agrarian crisis indicate the nature of relief works undertaken during Mughal rule. Such works included the construction of public works with paid labour, very reminiscent of the rural employment guarantee programmes of the present day; the running of free kitchens during times of crops failure; and, royal orders to improve the position of people working in saffron picking in Kashmir. The chapter on imperial buildings looks at the cost of construction of various edifices under Shah Jahan. In another paper, Moosvi justifies the expansion of the Mughal empire into the Deccan though the jagir system was straining the agricultural resources of the region. However, the need to extract more and more surpluses to maintain the imperial military machine necessitated imperial expansion that had its own dynamics and momentum.

The last section gives an account of the ships owned by the Mughals which, Moosvi argues, should correct the prevalent opinion that the Mughals were not much concerned with maritime affairs and the problems of maritime sea-borne trade. Both papers have appendices giving translations of original documents from various sources. A short paper on social arrangements derived from marriage contracts from Surat is also of great interest. The book ends with an account of Gujarat ports and their hinterland.

A last word of criticism before I end this review—the misprints in the book are too numerous to be ignored, and do not reflect well on a publishing house such as Oxford University Press.

This collection of papers reflects twenty years of impressive scholarship wedded to skills in economic and statistical analysis that are rare. The first section devoted to the Mughal economy would perhaps be of interest only to students of (economic) history. But the cameos of Mughal life in the subsequent sections would be of interest to a wider public.

Kanakalatha Mukund is an economic historian interested in mercantile history. She is the author of The Trading World of the Tamil Merchant and The View from Below.