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State Formation in Early India to the Mughal Empire

By: minu jyotsna

Q. “Warfare is a necessary but insufficient condition for state formation.” Comment  using examples from any pre-modern state of your choice. 

The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or   omposite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be   good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that   where they are well armed they have good laws. 

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince.1

Until very recently, theorists on the topic of state formation have largely been polarized into  two schools: conflict theorists, who emphasize the coercive role of the state in increasing and  legitimating inequality, and integration theorists, who point to the state's greater redistributive  ability as its primary causal feature.2 As Machiavelli astutely noted almost four centuries ago,  both laws and arms make a good prince, and it is impossible to have one without the other.  Therefore, I’d like to put forth the view point of Ronald Cohen that warfare is surely a  necessary but insufficient condition for state formation, but this does not mean that warfare is  the prime mover in social evolution. 3 The causes and consequences of warfare are both varied  and closely intertwined with social events in societies. Warfare is neither indicative of  “coercion” or “integration, but requires that both factors operate simultaneously. Surely we  can accept that war has serious influences on political leadership and social structure without  arguing that its presence somehow determines the future of society. 4

The above stated position can be evaluated by taking the case study of Mughal Empire. 

When Akbar died in 1605, his legacy was a multi- regional empire, which, in the course of  his half century of rule, had become a dominant power on the Indian subcontinent. Beginning  in his adolescent years, Akbar directed a continuing series of remarkable military campaigns  in which Mughal armies won victory after victory on the field of battle. No single kingdom or  coalition of regional kingdoms could stand against the Mughal armies. Each campaign, battle,  and siege was a public event, widely reported and discussed throughout the subcontinent.  Year after year, as Timurid armies proved invincible and as revolts and resistance failed,  Akbar’s reputation soared.5Military power permitted him to impose a stringent degree of  administrative control over each new territory as it came into the empire- and to retain this  control despite resistance. The Mughals imposed a new level of public order on the  tumultuous society of India. He was indeed a superb military commander in a generally  bellicose society but it wasn’t just warfare and expansion which held this empire together till  1707, there were other elements of political chemistry i.e. an extreme systemisation of  administration, balanced and stacomposition of the ruling class and a new theoretical  basis for sovereignty. 6 

Buoyed by conquest and plunder, Akbar and his advisers built a centralizing administration  capable of steady expansion as new provinces were added to the empire. The Mughal  emperor presided over a system that moved money, commodities, men and information freely  throughout the empire.7 We see the example of such centralisation in his creation of mansab,  classifying all individual officers into definite categories. Whereas before Akbar each  appointment, promotion, fixation of pay, and obligation was in the case of higher officers a  separate ad hoc arrangement, under Akbar every such action was reduced to a change in the  mansab. Increase or diminution of pay and obligation followed a change in the mansab as a  matter of course, under set regulations.8 According to Athar Ali, no analogous system of  numbered ranks can be found in any Central Asian or Middle Eastern state-and certainly


not  in the Timurid, the Uzbek, the Safavid, and the Ottoman Empires. The mansab system was a  unique and, as far as centralization went an unrivalled device for organizing the ruling class. 9 We get the same sense of systematization in the development of jagir as the pure form of  land-revenue assignment.10


Akbar's division of his empire into subas, sarkars, and mahalls and his largely successful  attempts to make the entire administrative structure of one suba into the exact replica of the  other, with a chain of officers at various levels ultimately controlled by the ministers at the  centre, gave identity to Mughal administrative institutions irrespective of the regions where  they functioned.11

The systematization continued under Akbar's successors. When new administrative  categories were created, whether duaspa-sihaspa ranks under Jahangir, or the month scale  under Shah Jahan, they too appear, in the ultimate analysis, to substitute general categories  for individual exceptions. Even in the sphere of land-revenue administration, where regional  differences were inevitable, the zabt system-the characteristic institution of the Mughal  revenue administration-was extended to the Deccan by Murshid Quli Khan.12 Secondly, Akbar fashioned new relationships between himself and his military/administrative  elite. In part, Akbar succeeded by a careful balancing of old and new ethnic groups as he  rapidly expanded his cadre of army commanders and administrators to keep pace with the  speed of conquest.13

By series of symbolic acts Akbar built upon his personal appeal to establish an image or  metaphor of the emperor’s person as an embodiment of the empire. To challenge or destroy  the emperor’s person was to challenge or destroy the imperial system, for they were identical. 

In furthering this metaphor, Akbar (or his advisors) established a degree of paramount  spiritual authority for the emperor unprecedented in previous Indo-Muslim experience.  However, the system could only have succeeded by transforming the values of high-status  warrior-aristocrats of diverse origins. The sense of honour for each amir had to shift from  personal, lineage, or sectarian pride-that of the “free” warrior chief –to a more impersonal,  imperial pride-that of the “slave” warrior-administrator. In this transformation the search for  display of martial honour necessarily changed from bardic or epic glory immortalizing feats  of victory or (defeat) in battle to chronicled fame testifying to service of the empire and it’s  master. Honour in the latter case also became advancement, of the emperor. Honour found in  unconditional service and obedience was a salient characteristic of the new role for an  imperial commander. The sense of discretionary personal honour of the warrior-aristocrat,  leader of a lineage group or war band, obviously did not disappear altogether, but its  subordination to less parochial concern within the imperial context was generally assured. 14 The most critical step occurred when Akbar allowed the position of chief minister or vakil to  lapse and gathered all executive power in his hands. 15 This was made possible by a number of  changes in the theoretical basis of sovereignty. The first attempt towards this change was  attempted by Ala al–din khalji, by it turned out to be unsuccessful.16 Humayun also made a  concerted attempt at creating an imperial cult modelled after the Sufi kingship of the Safavids  of Iran. But failed as he did not had much to his credit except a ruined reputation. Therefore,  Akbar chose the sign- laden moment of Islamic millennium to requite the wrongs inflicted by  the Safavids on his dynasty and redeem the sovereignty of Timur’s heirs in India. 17At first  Abu’l fazl repeats the well-known theory of social contract to justify the sovereign absolute  claims over the individual subject; this theory’s claim lay in its secular character and its  foundation on alleged social needs. It had the further merit of being rational. But rationality  was probably not deemed sufficient incentive to the total obedience that the Mughal emperor  sought. 18

A third element then entered; and that was religious. Ever since the Safavids had successfully  utilized their past as religious leaders and based their sovereignty on their spiritual authority,  the attractions of a similar position for Sunni sovereigns were irresistible. The Ottomans  ultimately purchased from existing claimants the authority of the ‘Abbasid caliphate; but they  were anticipated by Akbar, who, through the mahzar of 1579, attempted to assume the  position of an interpreter of Islamic law and, in spheres where the existing corpus was silent,  of a legislator. 19

Akbar's attempt to establish such a position within the framework of Islam proved abortive.  Moreover, it did not solve the problem of spiritual authority in relations with his non-Muslim  subjects. It therefore gave way to a new attempt in which it was claimed that the emperor  enjoyed the position of a spiritual guide and that this position derived not from any particular religion, but directly from God. "Sovereignty is a ray of light from the Divine Sun", claims  Abu '1-Fazl. As such men of all faiths were beneficiaries of the Divine Light. 20  Akbar initiated the practice of jharoka darshan, a striking innovation which nevertheless  seemed in accordance with Hindu tradition. To a more select circle of disciples, styled the  iradat-gazinan by Abu '1-Fazl, Akbar was the spiritual guide. Akbar's successors enlarged  this circle practically to include all their nobles; and it became a convention for every high  noble, whether Muslim or Hindu, to address the Emperor as Pir-o murshid, and designate  himself as his murid.21

 It can be seen that, combined with the tolerant religious policy of which Akbar was the  author, the basing of political authority on spiritual sanctity was an intelligent device to  strengthen the sovereign's position. Its logical implications lay, however, not in secularism,  but in an as yet dormant and unelaborated concept of religious equality. Abu’1-Fazl's claims  for his master could only be justified by the theories of Dara Shukoh. 22  Athar Ali also points out that certain tools of centralisation of authority were a direct result of  the development in Europe. The development of rupee as the basic unit of currency which  started under the Surs as a result of debasement of coinage was finally achieved during  Akbar’s period due to the heavy inflow of silver from the New World. This led to successful  functioning of commerce and credit and therefore led to a creation of highly centralized  administration.23

There also emerged a challenge towards traditional knowledge system as Europe was moving  ahead in matters of science and new discoveries. The reaction towards this development took  several forms. 

“On one side was the rational approach of Abu 1-Fazl, who would point out that zinc, as a  separate metal (a recent discovery in Asia), was not known to the ancients or would say that  al-Ghazali spoke nonsense when he condemned sciences that were not manifestly based upon  the Qur’an. Then there was Dara Shukoh and men of his stamp, who rejected the traditional  sciences, but also rejected rationality, and sought to establish an obscurantist spiritual dogma  on the foundations of Comparative Religion. 

In the previous (16th) century, the Mahdavi Movement had attained considerable success;  and it was certainly a consciously "revisionist" doctrine. 

All these were symptoms of a cleft in the hitherto solid structure of faith in the traditional  cultural heritage of Islam. It was this void that was unconsciously sought to be filled by the  special position of the Mughal emperor as a spiritual guide, and the self-conscious view of  the Mughal Empire as a great new polity, essentially just and humane (to the individual  members of the ruling class). Therefore according to Athar Ali, The Mughal Empire  performed a dual ideological role. On the one hand, the need of an official theory of  sovereignty, and of the specific role of Mughal polity, arose because of the undermining of  The traditional ideological structure from tremors originating from the remote and largely  unidentified developments of the early modern world; but, in its turn, the theory cemented and strengthened the traditional culture and made the Mughal Empire its upholder and  protector”.24

Therefore, we see that warfare and conquest is not the only prime mover in evolution of a  state. surely it was an important perquisite for the development of a medieval polity as is  evident from the frequent warfare and focus on development of technology, i.e. after 1647 the  presence of 200,000 horsemen under the imperial banner,40,000 infantry-men, using  matchlock musket and cannons which gave the Mughal artillery an upper hand over  competing powers. But the development of a systematised administration, balanced and  stable composition of the ruling class and a new theoretical basis for sovereignty also played  a major role in establishment of a centralised pre-modern state. 

Notes

1RUKMANA, “YARIF. ͞“TATE FORMATION: A HI“TORICAL “Y“TEM“ APPROACH.͟“CRIBD. APRIL, 03, 2015.

2RUKMANA, “YARIF. ͞“TATE FORMATION: A HI“TORICAL “Y“TEM“ APPROACH.͟“CRIBD. APRIL, Ϭϯ, ϮϬϭ5.

3RUKMANA, “YARIF. ͞“TATE FORMATION: A HI“TORICAL “Y“TEM“ APPROACH.͟“CRIBD. APRIL, Ϭϯ, ϮϬϭ5

4RUKMANA, “YARIF. ͞“TATE FORMATION: A HI“TORICAL “Y“TEM“ APPROACH.͟“CRIBD. APRIL, Ϭϯ, ϮϬϭ5

5 RICHARDS, J F. THE MUGHAL EMPIRE: THE NEW EMPIRE.THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF INDIA. 1990. PP 56.

6 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995. 

7 RICHARDS, J F. THE MUGHAL EMPIRE: AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM.THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF INDIA.  1990. PP-59. 

8 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995.

9 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995.

10 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995.

11 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995.

12 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995.

13 RICHARDS J.F, ED.ALAM, MUZAFFAR, SUBRAHMANYAN, SANJAY. THE MUGHAL STATE 1526-1750:͞THE  FORMULATION OF IMPERIAL AUTHORITY UNDER AKBAR AND JAHANGIR͟. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1998.  PP-128-129.

14 RICHARDS J.F, ED.ALAM, MUZAFFAR, SUBRAHMANYAN, SANJAY. THE MUGHAL STATE 1526-1750: ͞THE  FORMULATION OF IMPERIAL AUTHORITY UNDER AKBAR AND JAHANGIR͟. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1998.  PP-128-129. 

15 RICHARDS, J F. THE MUGHAL EMPIRE: AUTOCRATIC CENTRALISM.THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF INDIA.  1990. PP-58. 

16 ANOOSHAHR, ALI. ͞MUGHAL HISTORIANS AND THE MEMORY OF ISLAMIC CONQUEST OF INDIA͟.INDIAN  ECONOMIC & SOCIAL HISTORY REVIEW. 2006. PP-290. 

17 MOIN, AZFAR, THE MILLENNIAL SOVEREIGN, 2016.PP-130. 

18 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995.

19 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995.

20 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995

21 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995

22 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995

23 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995

24 KULKE, HERMAN. STATE IN INDIA 1000-ϭ7ϬϬ. OXFORD INDIA. ͞TOWARD“ AN INTERPRETATION OF THE  MUGHAL EMPIRE͟. ALI, ATHAR, M. 1995

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