Thread by @shrikanth_krish

Disappointing to see such tweets from @DalrympleWill

It is almost a consensus that the Indian economy had a precipitous decline between 1600 and 1800, much of which coincides with the heyday of Mughal rule

You don't have to be a part of "Hindutva right" to concur with this

https://twitter.com/DalrympleWill/status/1150342434196529152

@DalrympleWill There is a tendency to reflexively think of Mughal rule as something that belongs to 1500s

But Babar landed in India only circa 1526 or so

Till mid-late 17th century, Mughal rule was hardly a strong pan-Indian presence

So when we judge Mughal rule one should focus on the period of its greatest extent - 1600 to 1750 or so

The work of Broadberry/Bishnupriya is unambiguous in its conclusion that PCI declined during this period - long before the "decline" of the empire set in

On the Mughal administration being an "extractive" one-

The thesis is not put forward by any Hindutva person, but by Irfan Habib himself, as well as Shireen Moosvi

Hardly right wing

Shireen Moosvi, who did her dissertation under the supervision of Irfan Habib, undertook a detailed study of Ain-i-Akbari in the 1980s

Her conclusion -

The state appropriated 56.7% of the total produce!

Yes 56.7%

Her research focuses on five North Indian provinces -

Agra, Delhi, Lahore, Allahabad, Avadh

The total population of these provinces estimated at 36MM

The average income per peasant family estimated by her to be 380 dams per annum - roughly 1 dam per day

Post-script : To give some context, a "Dam" was the standard copper coin in Mughal India

Roughly 40 dams made a Rupee

Having discussed Shireen and Habib, let's move to what William Wilson Hunter, the author of the famous Gazetteers of the 1880s had to say about the land tax regime of the Mughal Empire, and how it compared with the tax regime of British India

In his impressive 1882 work titled "The Indian Empire", Hunter said -

"The total revenue of Aurangzeb in 1695 was estimated at 80 million sterling.

The gross taxation levied by British India between 1869 and 1879 was 35.3 million sterling"

So what does that tell us -

The Mughal Empire collected two times as much tax as the British Raj did in 1880s despite presiding over a perhaps smaller population

And the economy of 1695 was definitely not bigger. As the PCI estimate for 1880 is no different from that of 1700

Pause over this -

The Mughal Empire (circa 1700) collected twice as much land revenue as the British Raj (circa 1880) - though the economy size was about the same in both periods

Please note that the 80MM vs 35MM pounds contrast pertains to gross taxation

Of which the land-revenue itself corresponds to 38.6MM pounds (out of 80MM) as opposed to 21MM pounds in the 1882-83

Here's a table detailing Aurangzeb's collection of 38MM+ in land tax alone circa 1697 (source : Manucci)

After having gleaned the numbers, let's examine Hunter's own remarks

"If the Hindu village system may be praised for its justice, the Mughal farming system had the merit of efficiency. Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb extracted a larger land revenue, than we obtain at the present day"

Ofcourse Hunter is not using "efficiency" to mean agricultural productivity here.

He is merely implying -

We are not so good at extracting from the peasants as Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb

References -

"Indian Empire" by WW Hunter can be read here -
archive.org/details/indian…

The numbers from Shireen Moosvi - I got from this other paper which is slightly critical of her work. But nonetheless, the figures are from here

lse.ac.uk/Economic-Histo…