Question

A warning for europe
Berinier warned that if European kings followed the Mughal model:
Their kingdoms would be very from being well-ciltivated and peopled, so well built, so rich, so polite and flourishing as we see them. Our kings are otherwise rich and powerful; and we must avow that they are much better and more royally served. They would soon be kings of deserts and solitudes, of beggars and barbarians such as those whom I have been representing(Mughals). We should find the great cities and great Borroughs (boroughs) rendered uninhabitable because of ill air; and to fall to ruine (ruin) without any bodies (anybody) taking care of repairing them; the hillocks abondon’d and field overspread with bushes or fill’d with pestilential marishes (marshes), as hath been already intimidated.
(i) In what ways did Bernier condemn the Mughal rulers?
(ii) What contrast does the account of Bernier and Abu’l Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari?
(iii) Pride has its fall if power and negligence of duty rule anyone. Explain the statement in relevance to the Bernier’s warning.

Answer 1

The answers to the given questions are as follows:

(i) The ways in which Bernier condemn the Mughal rulers were:

• The crown ownership of land which has led to the ruination of the peasantry and the emergence of the small class of aristocracy was criticized by Bernier.

• He also stated that the Mughal society consisted of the undifferentiated masses of people who were impoverished.

(ii) The contrast between Bernier and Abu’l Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari is:

• Abu’l Fazl commissioned chronicles. They nowhere mentioned that the state was the sole owner of the land. He reported the land revenue as “remunerations of sovereignty”.

• On the other hand, Francois Bernier described the land revenue as rent expropriated by the ruler.

(iii) Pride has its fall if power and negligence of duty rule anyone. This statement in relevance to the Bernier’s warning can be explained as:

• He warned that if the Mughal model is followed by the European kings, then they would be left deserted. They would be left far from being rich, well-cultivated and flourishing.

• The cities will be polluted and there would be no one to take care of their bodies.

• Also, the land would be left abandoned along with vanishing away from prosperity.