Click HERE for part 1 of this post
This agreement from Emperor Jahangir allowed the English, and similar treaties with other Europeans, the Dutch, French, Danish etc. to trade in India throughout the Mughal empire. However, in 1628, the Council at Surat is informed that: “the Kings ferman is in divers places obeyed, and in some not regarded, in which places wee are forced to paie as they please”39 which has driven historians to conclude that the Mughal empire’s courts and law administration was but a show and ineffective. However, in addition to C. Bayly’s work on the complexity of the Mughal system, we might cite repeated mentions and long periods of waiting that had to be endured by the European traders in order to secure the ‘Kings ferman’ which would certainly hint at their necessity.
Chatterjee cites specific cases of the intervention of the courts at Patna and Murshidabad in relation to the trade in saltpetre from Bihar in the early 18th century40. Her work shows that the durbar(s) at Patna and Murshidabad actively participated in arbitrating an extremely tense competition between the various European powers as well as with the Indian counterparts – mainly the merchant-agents such as Amir Chand and Deep Chand.
One particular instance of active involvement dates from 1744 when the Bihar administration sent 150 armed guards to surround the English factory upon receiving a complaint from Amir Chand and a shroff Hukum Chand that the chief of the English establishment – Humphrey Cole was planning to leave the city without settling his debts with these merchants.41 The siege was lifted only after their grievances were redressed and the durbar was paid a handsome sum of Rs. 1000.
It would, at the same time, be wrong to assume that all intervention by the court only protected the interests of Indian businessmen against those of the Europeans. The English records from September 1734 show that the Company was apprehensive as a certain Meer Chand was buying large quantities of saltpetre and they were losing out in competition. An appeal to the Patna durbar resolved the issue as it sanctioned an English monopoly on collecting saltpetre for the rest of the season.42 Unfortunately, as Chatterjee notes, the very next year, the English lost out in their own game as the French and Dutch applied the same tactic to gain a monopoly on the sought commodity.43
In sum, it is difficult to imagine a completely lawless state wielding this degree of political control sufficient to influence the market structure for commodities (perfect competition, monopoly, monopsony etc.) and as the two reports from the 1620s show, Mughal central control, even in its heyday was never as geographically extensive as Jones or even Eisenstein would care to admit—rather it was always about finding the best way to incorporate and subordinate existing power structures including bankers, and regional elites which were influential and created their own microcosm of peace and security as C. Bayly rightly gauged.
Conclusion: The Pax Mughalica?
If we return to the question posed in the title of this essay, whether the Mughal empire was the classic oriental despotic state that Jones criticises for causing India’s economic decline after the eighteenth century, it is essentially about asking, whether the Mughal political order was a blessing or a nuisance. Relying on European accounts is problematic due to several reasons that Sanjay Subrahmanyam has outlined in detail, but in the absence of accessible and available Indian sources, one may conclude that the Indian state system that appears to have existed was not markedly different from that of medieval or early modern Europe.
Both the state systems saw a reliance on a banking-trading class for financial activities especially in war time as Aurangzeb seems to have employed for his Deccan campaigns44 and both saw patterns of migration of capital from regions of political turmoil to those of stability as seen after the death of Aurangzeb. And although wars of succession appear to be an endemic problem, their widescale disruptive feature is probably an inventive assumption of Jones’.
The Eurocentric argument about laws and political regimes inconducive to commerce seems untenable as there appears to be a strong alliance and involvement of regional courts in the commercial activities of those regions after the weakening of the empire; but given the reports of invalidity of Mughal decrees even in the 1620s across the empire, the Mughal centre hardly appears to have superseded the provincial power-base even at its peak.
Moreover, the inclusion of bankers and money-changers in close court circles as strategic elites and giving them a very considerable degree of autonomy, as has been described already, attacks the arguments by Jones about a parasitic elite class very critically.
And finally, the economic rise of Bengal, although can be justified through the model of a competitive state structure as Eric Jones suggests was the case for Europe, it is important to realise that Bengal became a viable centre for trade and commerce due to the survival of the Pax Mughalica in small pockets in states such as Bengal which continued to function and express themselves within the Mughal ecumene and culture of power. Furthermore, Bengal’s economic growth at the expense of the Mughal heartland and the movement of the bankers is a strong testament to the agility of the South Asian commercial systems—and a direct refutation of Jones’ picture of India.
In conclusion, it may be said that there is necessary evidence to suggest that the Mughal administrative structure including its market control and provisions of security played a crucial part in bringing about the explosion of trading activities in the late seventeenth century and its weakening in the Mughal heartland only resulted in a migration of economic institutions to regions where this system survived such as Bengal and the Maratha territories. It is therefore in contradiction to Jones’ analyses claiming that the Mughal system was a disincentive to commerce and that although the emergence of smaller successor states seem to have been a positive development, one must bear in mind that in reality they always existed, if only in a dwarfed form—from which they sprung into prominence with the increasing chaos in the heartland—and their emboldening was also due to the same political institutions that the Mughal system created in the first place.
These contradictions appear to be what keeps the Great Divergence debate alive. The system through which power was exercised in India, for example the exact method through which taxes were collected remain to be known along with the real perception of the people of the changing political scenario. However, it appears unlikely that knowledge into these areas would solve the apparent contradictions in the political scene of 18th century India allowing for a broad and generalized answer to why Europe grew rich and India did not. In the end, perhaps we have to agree with Christopher Bayly:
“Indian society is so complex, that any unqualified exposition of historical trend must be superficial, and any deeper one will become enmeshed in paradox.”45
References
Literature and Secondary Sources
Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. New York: Crown, 2012.
Alam, Muzaffar, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. The Mu al State, 1526-1750 gh . Oxford in Indian Readings. Themes in Indian History. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Barnett, Richard B. Rethinking Early Modern India. New Delhi: Manohar, 2002.
Chatterjee, Kumkum. Merchants, Politics and Society in Early Modern India: Bihar: 1733 – 1820. Leiden: Brill, 1996.
Cohn, Bernard S. “Political Systems in Eighteenth Century India: The Benaras Region”, Journal of the American Oriental Society vol. 82 no. 3(1962): 312-330.
Das Gupta, Ashin. India and the Indian Ocean World: Trade and Politics. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Drelichman, Mauricio, and Hans-Joachim Voth. "Lending to The Borrower from Hell: Debt and Default in the Age of Philip II." The Economic Journal 121, no. 557 (2011): 1205-227. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41301355.
Fratianni, Michele, and Franco Spinelli. "Italian City-states and Financial Evolution." European Review of Economic History 10, no. 3 (2006): 257-78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 41378446.
Habib, Irfan. "Usury in Medieval India." Comparative Studies in Society and History 6, no. 4 (1964): 393-419. http://www.jstor.org/stable/177929. Accessed April 09, 2019.
Hasan, S. Nurul. "The Theory of The Nur Jahan 'Junta'—A Critical Examination," Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 21 (1958): 324-35.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/44145220.
Jones, Eric. The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Karen. Leonard. "The 'Great Firm' Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire." Comparative Studies in Society and History 21, no. 2 (1979): 151-67.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/178414.
Marshall, P. (ed.) The Eighteenth Century in Indian History: Evolution or Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
North, Douglas. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Parthasarathi, Prasannan. Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence 1600—1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roy, Tirthankar. Traditional Industry in the Economy of Colonial India. Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society, 5. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
Sarkar, Sir Janu-Nath (ed.). The History of Bengal: Muslim Period 1200 – 1757. New Delhi: Janaki Prakashan, 1977.
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ed. Merchants, Markets and the State in Early Modern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. Explorations in Connected History: Mughals and Franks. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011.
V. Ball and W. Cooke, trans. and ed., Travels in India by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Baron of Aubonne, 2 Volumes, reprint New Delhi, 1977, 334.
Primary Sources
Bengal Public Consultations, Range 1, vol. 16, consultation January 20, 1744. Published in: Charles R. Wilson, The Early Annals of the English in Bengal: Bengal Public Consultations for the First Half of the Eighteenth Century, Summarised, Extracted, and Edited with Introductions and Illustrative Addenda (London: Thacker, 1895).
Bengal Public Consultations, Range 1, vol. 10, consultation September 27, 1734. Published in: Charles R. Wilson, The Early Annals of the English in Bengal: Bengal Public Consultations for the First Half of the Eighteenth Century, Summarised, Extracted, and Edited with Introductions and Illustrative Addenda (London: Thacker, 1895).
‘The Agreement Between the English and the Surat Authorities’ dated September 7, 1624. Published in: William Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India 1624 – 1629: A Calendar of Documents in the India Office Etc. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909).
Robert Clitherow and John Goodwin at Nerrer to the President and Council at Surat, dated March 21, 1628. Published in: William Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India 1624 – 1629: A Calendar of Documents in the India Office Etc. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909).
Report by Gregory Clement, John Bangham, Robert Clitherow, Ralph Cartwright and John Goodwin at Agra to the President and Council at Surat, dated February 17, 1628. Published in: William Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India 1624 – 1629: A Calendar of Documents in the India Office Etc. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909).
Report by President Kerridge, Richard Wylde, John Skibbow, Joseph Hopkins, William Martin and George Page at Surat to The Company, dated January 4, 1628. Published in: William Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India 1624 – 1629: A Calendar of Documents in the India Office Etc. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909).
Notes
1Correspondence: s.bhattacharya.1@student.rug.nl
2 Prasannan Parthasarathi, Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence 1500 – 1800 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
3 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), 201 – 225.
4 Eric Jones, The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 192-201.
5 Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Explorations in Connected History: Mughals and Franks (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011), 152.
6 Jones, The European Miracle, 196.
7 For the clarification on the term ‘extractive state’, See: Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (New York: Crown, 2012).
8 Parthasarathi, Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not, 54.
9 Douglas North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
10 Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Explorations in Connected History: Mughals and Franks (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011), 154-155.
11 Jones, The European Miracle, 197. And Vincent A. Smith, The Oxford History of India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 433.
12 Jones, The European Miracle, 197.
13 S. Nurul Hasan, "The Theory of The Nur Jahan 'Junta'—A Critical Examination," Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 21 (1958): 324-35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44145220.
14 Report by President Kerridge, Richard Wylde, John Skibbow, Joseph Hopkins, William Martin and George Page at Surat to The Company, dated January 4, 1628. Published in: William Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India 1624 – 1629: A Calendar of Documents in the India Office Etc. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909), 202.
15 Same as above.
16 Report by Gregory Clement, John Bangham, Robert Clitherow, Ralph Cartwright and John Goodwin at Agra to the President and Council at Surat, dated February 17, 1628. Published in: Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India 1624 – 1629, 240.
17 Ashin Das Gupta, ‘Trade and Politics in Eighteenth Century India’, in Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (ed.), The Mughal State 1526 – 1750 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 373. 18 Letter from Surat to Amsterdam, Koloniaal Archief, Den Haag, 1629, p. 28. Quoted in: Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzaffar Alam, ed., The Mughal State 1526—1750 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 372.
19 Letter from Surat to Batavia, Koloniaal Archief, Den Haag, 1638, p. 250. Quoted in: Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzaffar Alam, ed., The Mughal State 1526, 372.
20 Letter from Surat to Batavia, Koloniaal Archief, Den Haag, 1660, p. 1953. Quoted in: Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzaffar Alam, ed., The Mughal State 1526, 372.
21 Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzaffar Alam, ed., The Mughal State 1526—1750 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 372-373.
22 Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzaffar Alam, ed., The Mughal State 1526, 372.
23 Bernard S. Cohn, “Political Systems in Eighteenth Century India: The Benaras Region”, Journal of the American Oriental Society vol. 82 no. 3(1962): 319.
24 Letter from Surat to Amsterdam, Koloniaal Archief, Den Haag, 1645 p. 162 and 1689 p. 224-225. Quoted in: Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzaffar Alam, ed., The Mughal State 1526, 373.
25 Letter from Surat to Amsterdam, Koloniaal Archief, Den Haag,1839 p. 209. Quoted in: Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzaffar Alam, ed., The Mughal State 1526, 373.
26 Charles R. Wilson, The Early Annals of the English in Bengal: Bengal Public Consultations for the First Half of the Eighteenth Century, Eummarised, Extracted, and Edited with Introductions and Illustrative Addenda (London: Thacker, 1895), 280.
27 Same as above.
28 North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, 83-91.
29 Sudhindra Nath Bhattacharya, ‘State of Bengal Under Jahangir’, in Sir Jadu-Nath Sarkar (ed.), The History of Bengal: Muslim Period 1200 – 1757 (New Delhi: Janaki Prakashan, 1977), 234.
30 Karen Leonard, ‘The ‘Great Firm’ Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire’, in Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (ed.), The Mughal State, 406.
31 Kumkum Chatterjee, Merchants, Politics and Society in Early Modern India: Bihar: 1733 – 1820 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 182.
32 Kumkum Chatterjee, Merchants, Politics and Society in Early Modern India, 182.
33 Karen Leonard, ‘The ‘Great Firm’ Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire’, 404. 34 Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (ed.), The Mughal State, 408-9.
35 Karen Leonard, ‘The ‘Great Firm’ Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire’, in Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (ed.), The Mughal State, 404.
36 Karen Leonard, ‘The ‘Great Firm’ Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire’, 406. 37 Irfan Habib, “Usury in Medieval India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 6, no. 4 (Jul., 1964): 408-9.
38 ‘The Agreement Between the English and the Surat Authorities’ dated September 7, 1624, published in: Foster, English Factories in India 1624 – 1629, 27.
39 Robert Clitherow and John Goodwin at Nerrer to the President and Council at Surat, dated March 21, 1628, Foster, English Factories in India 1624 – 1629, 273.
40 Kumkum Chatterjee, Merchants, Politics and Society in Early Modern India: Bihar: 1733 – 1820 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 79-83.
41 Bengal Public Consultations, Range 1, vol. 16, consultation January 20, 1744.
42 Bengal Public Consultations, Range 1, vol. 10, consultation September 27, 1734.
43 Chatterjee, Merchants, Politics and Society in Early Modern India, 85.
44 See: Michele Fratianni, and Franco Spinneli, "Italian City-states and Financial Evolution." European Review of Economic History 10, no. 3 (2006): 257-78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41378446 and Mauricio Drelichman, and Hans-Joachim Voth, "LENDING TO THE BORROWER FROM HELL: DEBT AND DEFAULT IN THE AGE OF PHILIP II," The Economic Journal 121, no. 557 (2011): 1205-227.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41301355.
45 C.A. Bayly, ‘The Rise of the Corporations’, in Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770 – 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 163.