THE CIVILIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Notes And References

 

1. The Muslim kings were never able to consolidate their hold over India. Even the Mughal empire, at the height of its power, was plagued by what J.C. Heesterman has called the inner frontier i.e., the frontier beyond which its hold was tenuous. Indeed, the Mughal rulers, too, functioned essentially as super zamindars and remained critically dependent on the support of local nobles.

    

2. This translation has been brought out by Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 1991.

    

3. Dirk H.A.Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, Cambridge University Press, London, 1990.

    

4. Muslim rule, however we may define it, did not bring about a significant change in the economic order. The same old castes, for instance, continued to serve as rent collectors and dominate the country's commerce and trade. Thus, by and large, economic power, remained with the same groups. This is best illustrated by the fact that, during his struggle for power, Aurangzeb borrowed Rs. 4 lakh from a Hindu banker in Ahmedabad, and, at the time of the British takeover of Bengal in the eighteenth century, a vast majority of rent collectors were non-Muslim. That is how they became the principal beneficiaries of the Permanent Settlement.

[ Back ] [ Hindu Phenomenon ] [ Up ]