Question

How was the society in eighteenth century India?

Answer 1

Introduction
In the middle of the 1980s two books published within a few years of each other, 
Christopher Bayly‟s Rulers, Townsmen and Bazars and Muzaffar Alam‟s The Crisis of Empire 
in Mughal North India brought a renewed focus on the 18th century. The 18th century had 
always been important in Indian history. Generally it was seen as a period of transition in 
which the land-based Mughal empire gave way to the power of the sea-based British 
empire. The consensus till the 1980s was that the moribund Mughal state had collapsed due 
to its own contradictions and the English East India Company representing the aggressive 
mercantilist forces of the West had taken advantage of the ensuing confusion to subjugate 
and reduce India to a colony. The transition was not simply political – one regime replacing 
another, but also economic: the pre-modern economy of the Mughals was forcibly linked to 
world capitalist markets to India‟s detriment. For Indian historians, the 18th century 
signalled the beginning of a new historical era of pillage and colonial rule.
The historian Seema Alavi has suggested that the new writings on the 18th century have 
created a divide. Those studying the process of the decline of the Mughals – which happened 
in the first few decades of the 18th century – have a tendency to extend their views and 
apply them to the entire century. For instance, these historians argue that with the collapse 
of the centralized Mughal state structure the important political, economic and social 
institutions tied with the state also crumbled, bringing unrest and havoc through the 
century. The newer historians studying the later period paint a less gloomy picture. They 
argue that their viewpoint – which studies trends from the peripheries and not the centre -presents an altogether different scenario. According to them the process was one of 
decentralization and assertion of regional powers rather than outright decline. They say that 
these trends were noticeable early and left their mark on the rest of the century. Clearly 
there was little agreement between the two views and this clash of interpretations is what 
we will examine below. One outcome of this debate was that it is now possible to present a 
more holistic and varied picture of the 18th century than before.
Decline of the Mughals
This is a well-worn topic and we are familiar with the most influential arguments in the work 
of historians of the „Aligarh School‟ – Satish Chandra, Athar Ali and Irfan Habib. Our 
intention is not to go over these arguments once again but to delineate the major strands 
which have relevance for the debate on the 18th century. Satish Chandra in his book on 
politics in the Mughal court had argued that it was really the crisis in Mughal institutions –
the mansab and jagir that brought about a fiscal crisis in the Mughal state leading to its 
weakening and collapse. Athar Ali in a complimentary study demonstrated how the crisis in 
the Mughal state was due to be-jagiri i.e. the lack of jagirs. The emperor Aurangzeb was 
aware of such a problem and in a widely quoted document had apparently written: „ek 
anaar, sau bimaar‟ which implied that there were too few fruits of office being chased by too 
many candidates. Such a state of affairs, both these historians argue, was due to the 
crushing burden of expansionist wars, rebellions and the attempt by the Mughal state to 
accommodate newer elements in the higher echelons of the administration i.e. within the 
mansabdari system. The crisis occurred because there were too many people awaiting the 
patronage of the state and not enough land to distribute as jagirs. The implication was that 
this led to disaffection and eventually the weakening of the central structure of the Mughal 
state.
Irfan Habib‟s celebrated study shifted the focus to the agrarian economy. He argued that 
the revenue demand on the peasantry was high and with the transferability of jagirs the 
tendency of mansabdars to squeeze the peasantry grew. Abandonment of land, flight to 
more hospitable regions or open rebellion were the paths that the Mughal peasantry took to 
resist growing exploitation. The great rebellions against the Mughal state by the Jats, 
Satnamis, Marathas and Sikhs were according to Habib essentially peasant rebellions led by 
local zamindars.
Summing up the above views one can say that according to Aligarh historians the Mughal 
state was a highly centralized revenue extracting structure.

Answer 2

Explanation:

Social life and culture in the 18th century were marked by stagnation and dependence on the past. There was, of course, no uniformity of culture and social patterns all over the country. Nor did all Hindus and all Muslims form two distinct societies. People were divided by religion, region, tribe, language, and caste