Middle class and its attitude in Mughal India: A history from the below in reference to Bihar.

Tabish Hashmi, 

Research Scholar, Dept. of History, Patna University 

IRJMSH Vol 9 Issue 11 [Year 2018] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print)

In the present writing“ Middle class and its attitude in Mughal India: A history from the below  in reference to Bihar” a sincere endeavour has been taken to explore and unfold those pages of  history which contain the myriad fact and facets of social history of the time. For a long time not  only in India but also in the world, it was a fashion to view and study history as a subject of wars  and the battles. Monarchs, Nobles, Warlords, Feudal lords, Conquerors, religions etc were the only  character sand the subjects of history in those days. Gradually, in the 18thcentury, we find changes  in the trend of history writings and many new elements found their entrance. It was a period of the  beginning of the professional writings and the writers of this period were more concerned on topics  like mercantilism, urbanism and industrialisation. The new approaches opened new vistas of the  life and the society. The new trend also revealed the new facts, which are somewhat more  significant.

 The study of the period of 16th and the 17thcenturies, in the context of India and  specifically is more important than any other subject. While for Europe it was a period of utter  political and social disturbance where the feudal lord and states, not nation states were at war with  each other. The early towns of Europe likeVenice, Milan, Genoa and Padua were in their embryonic  stage. They had hardlyanything to trade from their country and their economy was largely feudal  economy. For a long time, they resorted to purchase commodities of day-to-day consumptionfrom  countries of Asia and Arabia through bullion. At the same time, the scene inIndia was different. Here  in the period of 16thand the 17thcenturies, the Mughals ruled over the most part of the sub continent. Their political stability ensured rapid urbanization and transformation of the social and  economic condition of the country. The large influx of foreigners in the form of travellers,  missionaries, scholars, traders and artisans vindicate the stand that during 16thand 17thcenturies,  Indian cities were full of life. An important characteristic of urban life is the presence of middle  classirrespective of time and age. But the presence of this class during the 16thand 17th centuries in  India has been denied by many scholars and travellers. The genesis of this denigration comes from  the statement of Francois Bernier, a French traveller of the 17th century. His denigration got  acceptance by many foreign and Indian writers without going into the undercurrent of the changing  socio-political and economic milieu of the time. But, as the time passed, new approaches were  inculcated to analyse and articulate various aspects of history without any prejudice. Here in this  writing, not only a sincere effort has been made to explore and establish the presenceof the middle  class during 16th and 17th centuries in the light of modern research but also to depict the attitude of  the middle class in the regional perspective of Bihar. In the said period, Bihar was on the focal point  of country’s polity. In the second half of 17thcentury, the Mughals were busy in dealing with the  Marathas and the Deccani  states of Bijapur and Golcunda and the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb himself moved to south in hot  pursuit of Marathas and the Deccani states. The absence of Emperor for a longer period from Delhi  has virtually created an atmosphere of political chaos. On the other hand, it was a formative period  for many eastern regions like Subah-i-Bihar, which had become a subah of the Mughal Empire in 1580. People from different shades of life in pursuance of better prospect came and settled here.  Urbanization, which begun here with Sher Shah and Islam Shah in an organized way, the Afghan  rulers of Bihar was touching new heights under the Mughals. Patna, Munger, Sasaram, Bihar Sharif,  Rajgir, Maner, Bakhtiyapur and Hazipur were some important towns and cities in the said period..  Patna in the time of Azimushan (1703) came to be known a Shiraz-i-Mashrique (Shiraz of Eastern  )1. Merchants, traders, artisans, literary people, musicians etc., all came and settled here in various  streams. Sufis ofvarious orders also came, settled, and left deep imprint on the changing socio economic milieu of the time. Foreigners also came in larger number and settled here. Diwan  mohalla, Afghan mohalla, Mughal Pura, Mir Shikar mohalla in Patna city area are testimonials of  their presence.

 The socio-cultural atmosphere of Bihar in 16th and 17th centuries was culturally and  intellectually highly charged and vibrant. The city dwellers though remained in peace and  maintained good relationswith the ruling classes throughout the empire, but on various occasions  broughtforth their voices of dissent. Such voices were the outcome of the clash of interests between  the ruling class and neo middle class. The rapid urbanization andinteractions among the regions  within the nation and with the foreign lands lead toincreased activities and in this way, number of  professional groups in the qasbas, towns and cities of Bihar increased. The interests of those who  lived in such urban centres were diagonally different and ultimately on occasions these varied  interests brought them face to face. The concept of the middle class originated in the fourteenth  century in England with the rise of a trading community, which monopolized certain spheres of  trade and gradually organized itself into associations and groups. This urban-based class  represented the antithesis of the old regime, depended upon fief and personal service. The new  class comprised not only merchants, but also professionals like doctors, teachers, priestly class,  painters, master artisans, who as individuals appeared to be independent of the feudal nobility. The  rising middle class were steadily filling thesocial and political vacuum that was, created by feudal  decline. Monarchy, which was the initial support behind its development.2 One of the peculiar  features of the middle classes in Europe, was that as a class it was independent of the State control,  though as individuals, its members were quite often in the pay of either a noble or the state itself.  The basic element, which distinguished these members of the middle class, was their  professionalism. In India, the existence of the middle class has been denied in 16thand 17thcenturies  in India by a number of modem scholars based on a comment of Francois Bernier, a French  traveller who came to India during 17th century. Bernier in his famous comment, claimed that,  “there is no middle state in India”, A man must be either of high rank or live miserably“.3 The difficulty  with Bernier is that coming from France, he tried to look at everything in Mughal India with  European bias. 

He went so far as to consider the king as the proprietor of the land apparently because the  large size of revenue looked to him as the proprietor’s rent. Having being, conditioned by  emerging modern Europe, Bernier could never imagine that the peasant could ever own the  land or the professional groups could have an independent status. By witnessing the  frequent transfers of the Jagirdars, he knew the land could not belong to him. It is,  therefore, not certain if Bernier was accurately reporting when he spoke about the non existence of the middle class.

 Secondly we should be further cautious as Bernier is referring to middle state or  stratum and not talking of the middle class. W.H Moreland has accepted the view of Bernier  and also denied the presence of this class in the Mughal Empire. The only exception he  made was regarding the mercantile class, whose existence he accepted; he also admitted  the existence ofsomething like a middle class in Bengal.4 B B Mishra in his book Indian Middle Classes also believes that though this intermediate group existed in some respect  but didn’t enjoy an independent position in this period. Karl Marx and later on Max Weber  had also held the view of a static Indian society, without any real proto-capitalist or middle  class.5 Recent studies have not only challenged these views but also established firmly the  facts of the presence of a vibrant middle class. Wilfred Cantwell Smith was the scholar of  eminence who raised the issue of the presence of middle class in the 16thand 17thcenturies  during the Mughal rule. Middle classes, he said, were intractable to the Mughal Empire.6 He  hypothesized that the rise of the Mughal Empire as a political, economic power and the  vibrant cultural process contributed from the early 16th century in the rise of a  prosperous merchant middle class. He argues that the widespread prevalence of money economy greatly helped in the growth of a class which based itself on a non-feudal income.7 Smith and other scholars like of the present period S.A Rezavi reasoned that the large sizeof  the Empire greatly helped in the growth of this class, as it facilitated unhindered long  distance trade by the merchants. Secondly, they argued that the mansabdari system  virtually meant an abolition of a purely landed upper class and its transformation into a class of salaried government officials. Thirdly, he pointed out that with the politico administrative unification, there was a spurt in the construction of roads and sarais. It must  have been, the merchants who would have applauded the most when the roads were  constructed. Fourthly, Smith drew the attention to the second regulation of the Twelve  Ordinances proclaimed in 1605 by Jeehangir, when he ascended the throne, which is a  pointer to the importance of the mercantile and middle classes in the Mughal Empire. For  in the ordinance, Jahangir had tried to conciliate the merchants by announcing the  abolition of practices harmful to their vocation. Lastly, Smith held that the systematization  of the currency all over the Empire was an indicator to the growth of this middle class. All  this and much more points onwards a growing money-economy and the conversion of land  revenue into cash,which in turn would lead to a cash nexus benefiting and promoting the  middle classes as such. The prosperity and importance of the middle class in the Mughal  Empire was no mere speculation. Moreland, Chicherov, Pavlov and Satish Chandra have  supported the general thesis of Smith. 

 All of them discerned a widespread prevalence of money-economy resulting  from a growing trend of production for the market in agricultural as well as non agricultural sectors. They also say that the introduction of global commerce by various  European companies and the subsequent creation of merchant capital, which was further  helped by the putting out system or dadni testify to the prosperity of   merchants ,bankers and people belonging to other professions.8

 Irfan Habib also suggests a rural monetization; which created surplus agricultural  produce which aided urban growth.9 Iqtidar Alam Khan took upthe issue in 1975 and  enumerated the various components of the middle class which he defined with E.M.S.  Namboodiripad as a class consisting of all those who do not belong to either of the two  main antagonistic classes.10 He has tried to make a functional as well as structural study of  the various components of this middle class like the commercial and financial sections, the  lesser official functionaries and the professional classes , e.g. physicians, scholars, artists,  architects etc. Thus from the beginning of the 14th century to the end of the pre-modern  era, the middle strata or the middle class, emerged and engaged itself at national and regional levels, in the spate of rapid urbanization. During this period, the various  constituents of themiddle class, viz. merchants, traders, artisans, bankers, brokers,  teachers, officials, poets and the chroniclers ventured out of their homeland to different  parts of the country for better prospects and settled themselves in important cities, ports  and trade marts but also in remote production centre, far away from their own country. It  was also a period, when a large number of foreigners came to India. Among them the  chroniclers, the merchant and traders were the most prominent. These foreigners came to  India independently in search of better avenues and for understanding the on-going socio economic and political transformation. Thus, they created the infrastructure for an efficient  and successful long-distance power network with strong link with their main centre. These  travellers noticed the wide ranging changes in the socio-cultural milieu of the time. The  history of India in general and the history of medieval period specifically of the sixteenth  and the seventeenth centuries have been presented until now by scholars whose attention  has been primarily restricted to the life of the upper strata of social milieu. Even within  those narrow limits, their choice of subject matter has been still further restricted in many  cases to two aspects of that meaning, as full as life itself, has been narrowed to describe  that segment of specialized study, which we ought to label merely ‘political history.

 Another important aspect related to the middle class characteristic, which is  discussed in details here, is the voice of dissent. It can also be reasonably argued that in  India from the very beginning of its civilization enterprise nothing has remained singular  for long. This plural tradition of urbanism is the notion that there are many ways of  looking. Plurality accommodates difference and differences in their turn embody and enact  dissent.11 During the 16th and the 17thcenturies, the Mughals ushered in rapid  transformation in the whole of the country. The enormous changes in theeconomy and  polity led to rapid urbanization and with that, a stratified and hierarchical society came  into existence. Volume of vast wealth of big merchants and traders is worth to be  mentioned here. Virji Vohra, Haji Said Beg, Manohar Das, Shanti Das, Khwaja Zafar are  famous among them. These are examples of trading community prosperity prevailing in  this period.12

 John Marshall writing in second half of 17th century gives a detailed accounts of  the prosperity of some of the cities of Subah i Bihar. He writes “a straight road probably  built by Sher Shah was running from west to east city onthe bank of the river Ganga, on the  sides of the road there were houses of wealthy people, who used all sort of jewelleries from  gold to ivory. Their women and children wore all sort of jewelleries from head to toes on  occasions of festivals like Eid, shab-i-barat,Deewai and Dussehra and also on occasions of  urs and religious gatherings”. 13 Peter Mundy has also described the festive behaviour of  people living in Patna. He writes about the festive behaviour of people living in Patna. He  narrated how on Eids, Shab-i- Barat, Holi and Diwali and in fairs and Urs- the men, women  and children wore jewellery from neck to legs. Most of the jewellery were made locally by  the local artisans in karkhanas of the city. The local artisans locally made these jewelleries.  But, some were imported from outside regions, like the regions of south-east Asia.1 4The  description is indicative of the prosperity of town dwellers.The Hindu men  and women did not exhibit much because of certain sort of fear as they  considered themselves less secure in the Muslim rule of the period. In this period, we find the influx of foreign traders who were responsible for triggering the pace of  urbanization and rise of different professional groups

The population, which stayed in towns though lived in a peaceful manner and in amicable  relationship but on occasions exhibited their dissent towards the ruling class and other  dominating section. They on occasions resisted the actions contradictory to their interest.  In medieval India, rulers, nobles and high-class people could never think of degrading them  selves by belonging to any class other than the highest. In that age, levelling would have  been revolting to the rich and probably embarrassing to the poor. In medieval society, the  ruling class and the subject people were two well-recognized strata. However the Hindu  middle strata were different in many ways. They lived under the Muslim theocratic regime  and deliberately avoided the ostentatious life style. The contemporary writers like  Banarsidas in his famous writing Ardhkathanak, Mohammad Sadique in Subhi-i Sadique,  various ulemas and mashaikh , various bhakti saints etc have well depicted the attitude of  the class which emerged out of the changing socio-cultural set up. The artisans, merchants,  painters, singers, poets, tibbs and members of theocracy on occasion protested against the highhandedness of Mughal officials. Like their fellows in other parts of the Empire, here too,  the same pattern of protests applied. The most common was the closure of shops,  observance of strikes and in extreme cases migration to distant areas. Such were the  universal tactics of passive resistance in the middle ages as the state was all powerful and  were considered as benevolent.  

Reference:

1. S Hasan Askari, Medieval India, KBL Patna, 1976 p.34

2. Lewis and Maude, The history of World, London ,1979,pp.40-47

3. Francois Bernier, in revised History of India V.A. Smith, New Delhi, 1983, p. 252

4. W.H. Moreland, Inda at the death of Akbar, London, 1925 pp .26, 27

5. For Karl Marx, see New York Herald Tribune, June 25, 1853, reprinted in Articles on   India, Bombay, 1943.

6. W.C. Smith, London, 1949, pp.44-45

7. ibid,p.132

8. Moreland; A.l.Chicherov, Indian Economic Development in Sixteenth- Eighteenth   Centuries, Moscow, 1971p.453

9. Irfan Habib, Potentialities of Capitalistic Development in the Economy of Mughal India   Enquiry, New Series, vol. Ill, no.3, 1971, p.55.

10. Iqtidar Alam Khan,;The Middle Classes in the Mughal Empire, A Historical Study,   English ed., Delhi, 1964,P.89

11. Satish Candra, Presidential Address, Medieval India Section, Proceedings of the 

 Indian History Congress, 1968

12. Plaesert, Jehangir’s India, Cambridge, 1924.

13. Marshall, Q. Ahmed, CHOB II , KPJS, Patna, 1976, pp.98-101

14. Peter Mundy, CHOB II , pp.202-203