CBSE Class 12 History HOTs Peasants, Zamindars and the State Agrarian Society and the Mughal Empire

Very Short Answer type Questions

Question. Mention various duties performed by state officials in the 16th century?
Answer : They collect land revenue, measure the lands and keep records etc.

Question. What was Jins-i-Kamil?
Answer :  Literally perfect crops. Example - cotton and sugarcane.

Question. How many seasons of agriculture according to Ain?
Answer : According to Ain-i-Akbari, agriculture was organized around the two major seasonal cycles - The kharif and the rabi. Kharif - rice and jawar. Rabi - wheat and gram

Question. Who was the author of Ain-I Akbari?
Answer : Abul Fazl, writer of Ain-I Akbari, he was a famous Persian author, gems of Akber’s court.

Question. Who were Raiyat? How many types of Raiyat?
Answer : They were peasants. There are two types of Raiyat - Khud-khasta and Pahi-khasta. Khud-khasta - They were residents of the village in which they held their land. Pahi-khasta - They were non-resident cultivators who belonged to some other village, but cultivated lands were else were on a contractual basis.

Short Answer type Questions

Question. Describe the functions of panchayat?
Answer : 1.Community welfare - Construction of bund or digging the cannel which peasants usually could not afford to do on their own.
2. Arrangements against natural calamities, like floods, famine, Droughts etc.
3. Regulate rural societies, like marriage and caste.
4. To ensure that caste boundaries among the various communities
5. Punishment - Example - to levy fines and inflict from the community.

Question. Describe Ain-i-Akbari?
Answer : 1. Vision of Akbar’s empire.
2. Strong ruling class.
3. The organization of the court, administration and the army.
4. Included detailed revenue, records - with the help of Todarmal tried to reorganized the hole revenue system.
5. Useful description of agrarian society.

Question. What were the role played by women in agrarian society?
Answer : 1 Women worked shoulder to shoulder with men in fields.
2. Women sowed, weeded, threshed and winnowed the harvest.
3. Craft production - such as spinning yarn, sifting and kneading clay for pottery and embroidery.
4. Some restriction during some days of month - women were not allowed to touch the plough or the potter’s wheel in western India.
5. Produce children and look after them.

Question. How land revenue was fixed?
Answer : 1 It consisted of two stages - Jama and Hasil. Jama was the amount assessed and Hasil the amount collected.
2. Both cultivated and cultivable land measured in each province.
3. Prepared annual record of the number of cultivators in each village
4. Officials were appointed to measure land revenue.
5. The Dewan, who was responsible for supervising the fiscal system of the empire.

Question. Explain the salient features of zabti system?
Answer : 1 Measurement of land was compulsory.
2. Classification of land:- Polaj, Parauti, Chachar, Banjar.
3. Calculation of the average products.
4. Fixation of state share.
5. Commutation into cash.
6. Collection of land revenue.

Question. Explain the village Artisans of 16th and 17th century.
Answer : Another interesting aspect of the village was the elaborate relationship of exchange between different producers.
The sources say about the existence of substantial numbers of artisAnswer :
However, the distinction between artisans and peasants in village society was a fluid one, as many groups performed the tasks of both.
Cultivators and their families would also participate in craft production – such as dyeing, textile printing, baking and firing of pottery, making and repairing agricultural implements.
During off season, the cultivators could engage in artisanal production.
The artisans were paid by a share of the harvest, or an allotment of land,
In Maharashtra such lands became the artisans’ miras or watan – their hereditary holding.
Goods for services
Sometimes artisans and individual peasants entered into a mutually negotiated system of remuneration, most of the time goods for services
08 Mark Questions and Answers

Question. Who were zamindars? What were their functions?
Answer : Zamindars were the part of rural society, who lived on agricultural production had milkiyat belongs to upper caste. New Zamindars emerged from lower caste.
Functions of Zamindars :
1. Collect revenue.
2. Mediate between king and peasant.
3. Maintain military.
4. Developed agricultural land.
5. Give money to farmers for agriculture.
6. Sell their own agricultural produce.
7. Make an arrangement for weekly or fortnightly market in the villages.
8. Making arrangement for repairing roads and water sources.

Long Short Answer type Questions

Question. Examine the evidence that suggests that land revenue was important for the Mughal fiscal system.
Answer : Important of Land Revenue for the Mughal fiscal system:
i) Administrative apparatus for land revenue: Revenue from the land was the economic mainstay of the Mughal Empire. It was therefore vital for the state to create an administrative apparatus to ensure control over agricultural production and to fix and collect revenue from across the length and breadth of the rapidly expanding empire.
ii) To get specific information: The Mughal state tried to first acquire specific information about the extent of the agricultural domain and became a decisive agent in shaping agrarian relations.
iii) To get specific information: The Mughal state tried to first acquire specific information about the extent of the agricultural lands in the empire and what these lands produced before fixing the burden of taxes on people.
iv) Two stage of fixing land revenue: The land revenue arrangements and then actual collection. The jama was the amount assessed as opposed to hasil, the amount collected. In his list of duties of the amil – guzar or revenue collector.
v) Cash or kind: Akbar decreed that while he should stive to make cultivators pay in cash, the option of payment in kind was also to be the state was to maximize its claims. The scope of actually realizing these claims was, however, sometimes thwarted by local conditions.
vi) Measurement of land: Both cultivated and cultivable lands were measured in the each province. The Ain compiled the aggregates of such lands during akbar/s rule. Efforts to measure lands continued under subsequent emperors. For instance, in 1665 Aurangzeb expressly instructed his revenue officials to prepare annual records of the number of cultivators in each village. Yet not all areas were measured successfully. As we have seen, forests covered huge areas of the subcontinent and thus remained immeasurable.

Question. Explain the formation and functions of Village Panchayat of 16th and 17th centuries.
Answer : The village panchayat was an assembly of elders.
Usually important people of the village who had hereditary rights over their property attended.
In mixed-caste villages, the panchayat was usually a heterogeneous body.
But avillage menial-cum-agricultural worker was unlikely to be represented there.
The decisions made by these panchayats were binding on the members.
The panchayat was headed by a headman known as muqaddam or mandal. Some sources suggest that the headman was chosen through the consensus of the village elders, and that this choice had to be ratified by the zamindar.
Headmen held office as long as they enjoyed the confidence of the village elders, failing which they could be dismissed by them.
The chief function
The chief function of the headman was to supervise the preparation of village accounts, assisted by the accountant or patwari of the panchayat.
The panchayat derived its funds from contributions made by individuals to a common
financial pool. These funds were used for meeting the costs of entertaining revenue officials who visited the village from time to time.
Expenses for community welfare activities such as tiding over natural calamities (like
floods), were also met from these funds. Often these funds were also deployed in construction of a bund or digging a canal which peasants usually could not afford to do on their own.
One important function of the panchayat was to ensure that caste boundaries among
the various communities inhabiting the village were upheld.
The village headman was to oversee the conduct of the members of the village community “chiefly to prevent any offence against their caste”.
Panchayats also levied fines and inflict punishment like expulsion from the community.
A person forced to leave the village became an outcaste and lost his right to practise his profession.
Such a measure was intended as a deterrent to violation of caste norms.
Jati panchayat.
In addition to the village panchayat each caste or jati in the village had its own jati panchayat.
These panchayats wielded considerable power in rural society.
In Rajasthan jati panchayats arbitrated civil disputes between members of different castes.
They mediated in contested claims on land, decided whether marriages were performed according to the norms laid down by a particular caste group.
In most cases, except in matters of criminal justice, the state respected the decisions of jati panchayats.
the “superior” castes or officials of the state demanded free labour were reported to the Panchayat.
These petitions were usually made by villagers, from the lowest rungs of rural society.
These included excessive tax demands which, especially in times of drought or other disasters, endangered the peasants’ subsistence.
In the eyes of the petitioners the right to the basic minimum for survival was sanctioned by custom.
The village panchayat as the court of appeal
They regarded the village panchayat as the court of appeal that would ensure that the state carried out its moral obligations and guaranteed justice.
The decision of the panchayat in conflicts between “lower -caste” peasants and state officials or the local zamindar could vary from case to case.
In cases of excessive revenue demands, the panchayat often suggested compromise 
In cases where reconciliation failed, peasants took recourse to more drastic forms of resistance, such as deserting the village.
The relatively easy availability of uncultivated land and the competition over labour resources made this an effective weapon in the hands of cultivators.

Question. Explain the conditions of women in agrarian society during 16th and 17th century.
Answer : The production process often involves men and women performing certain specified roles.
Men tilled and ploughed, while women sowed, weeded, threshed and winnowed the harvest.
Menstruating women, for instance, were not allowed to touch the plough or the potter’s wheel in western India, or enter the groves where betel-leaves (paan) were grown in Bengal.
Artisanal tasks such as spinning yarn, sifting and kneading clay for pottery, and embroidery were among the many aspects of production dependent on female labour.
The peasant and artisan women worked not only in the fields, but even went to the houses of their employers or to the markets if necessary.
At the same time, high mortality rates among women – owing to malnutrition, frequent pregnancies, and death during childbirth – often meant a shortage of wives.
This led to the emergence of social customs in peasant and artisan communities that were distinct from those prevalent among elite groups.
Marriages in many rural communities required the payment of bride-price rather than dowry to the bride’s family.
Remarriage was considered legitimate both among divorced and widowed women.
But women were-under strict control
According to established social norms, the household was headed by a male.
Thus women were kept under strict control by the male members of the family and the community.
In some places, record petitions were sent by women to the village panchayat for seeking justice.
Women’s right to inherit property
Amongst the landed gentry, women had the right to inherit property.
Instances from the Punjab show that women, including widows, actively participated in as sellers of property inherited by them in the local market.
Hindu and Muslim women inherited zamindaris which they were free to sell or mortgage.
Indications say that there were women zamindars during the eighteenth-century Bengal.

Question. Describe about the Ain-i Akbari of Abu’l Fazl Allami
Answer : The Ain- i Akbari was the culmination of a large historical, administrative project of classification undertaken by Abu’l Fazl at the order of Emperor Akbar.
It was completed in 1598, the forty-second regnal year of the emperor, after having gone through five revisions.
The Ain was part of a larger project of history writing commissioned by Akbar.
This history, known as the Akbar Nama, comprised three books.
The first two provided a historical narrative.
The Ain-i Akbari, the third book, was organised as imperial regulations and a gazetteer of the empire.
The Ain gives detailed accounts of the organization of the court, administration and army, the sources of revenue and the physical layout of the provinces of Akbar’s empire and the literary, cultural and religious traditions of the people.
It also gives us elaborate descriptions of the various provinces (subas) of the empire.
Collecting and compiling this information systematically was an important imperial exercise.
Customs and Practices of the Empire
It informed the emperor about the varied and diverse customs and practices prevailing across his extensive territories.
The Ain is therefore a mine of information for us about the Mughal Empire during
Akbar’s reign.
Ain-classification
The Ain is made up of five books (daftars), of which the first three books describe the administration.
The first book, called manzil-abadi, concerns the imperial household and its maintenance.
The second book, sipah-abadi, covers the military and civil administration and the establishment of servants.
This book includes notices and short biographical sketches of imperial officials (mansabdars), learned men, poets and artists.
The third book, mulk-abadi, is the one which deals with the fiscal side of the empire and provides rich quantitative information on revenue rates, followed by the “Account of the Twelve Provinces”.
This section has detailed statistical information, which includes the geographic, topographic and economic profile of all subas and their administrative and fiscal divisions (sarkars, parganas and mahals), total measured area, and assessed revenue ( jama ).
The manuscript of Ain was revised five times by the author would suggest
a high degree of caution on the part of Abu’l Fazl and a search for authenticity.
Another limitation of the Ain is the somewhat skewed nature of the quantitative data. Data were not collected uniformly from all provinces.
The detailed list of prices and wages that the Ain does provide is mainly derived from data pertaining to areas in or around the imperial capital of Agra, and is therefore of limited relevance for the rest of the country.
These limitations notwithstanding, the Ain remains an extraordinary document of its times. By providing fascinating glimpses into the structure and organisation of the Mughal Empire and by giving us quantitative information about its products and
people, Abu’l Fazl achieved a major breakthrough in the tradition of medieval chroniclers who wrote mostly about remarkable political events – wars, conquests, and dynastic turmoil.

Question. Examine the evidence that suggests that land revenue was important for the Mughal fiscal system.
Answer : Important of Land Revenue for the Mughal fiscal system:
vi) Administrative apparatus for land revenue: Revenue from the land was the economic mainstay of the Mughal Empire. It was therefore vital for the state to create an administrative apparatus to ensure control over agricultural production and to fix and collect revenue from across the length and breadth of the rapidly expanding empire.
vii) To get specific information: The Mughal state tried to first acquire specific information about the extent of the agricultural domain and became a decisive agent in shaping agrarian relations.
viii) To get specific information: The Mughal state tried to first acquire specific information about the extent of the agricultural lands in the empire and what these lands produced before fixing the burden of taxes on people.
ix) Two stage of fixing land revenue: The land revenue arrangements and then actual collection.
x) The jama was the amount assessed as opposed to hasil, the amount collected. In his list of duties of the amil – guzar or revenue collector.
xi) Cash or kind: Akbar decreed that while he should stive to make cultivators pay in cash, the option of payment in kind was also to be the state was to maximize its claims. The scope of actually realizing these claims was, however, sometimes thwarted by local conditions.
xii) Measurement of land: Both cultivated and cultivable lands were measured in the each province. The Ain compiled the aggregates of such lands during akbar/s rule. Efforts to measure lands continued under subsequent emperors. For instance, in 1665 Aurangzeb expressly instructed his revenue officials to prepare annual records of the number of cultivators in each village. Yet not all areas were measured successfully. As we have seen, forests covered huge areas of the subcontinent and thus remained immeasurable

Passage Based Question:-

Read the given passage carefully ad answer the question that follows;

CASH OR KIND

The Ain on land revenue collection. Let him (the amil-guzar) not make it a practice of taking only in cash but also in kind. The latter is effected in several ways. First, kankut: in the Hindi language Kan signifies grain, and kut, estimate. If any doubts arise, the crops should be cut and estimated in three lots, the good, the middling and the inferior and the hesitation removed. Often, too the land taken by appraisement, gives a sufficiently accurate return. Secondly, batai, also called bhaoli, the crops are reaped and stacked and divided by agreement in the presence of the parties. But in the case several intelligent inspectors are required; otherwise, the evil-minded and false are given to deception. Thirdly, khet-batai when they divided the fields after they are sown. Fourthly, lang batai; after cutting the grain, they form it in heaps and divide it among themselves, and each takes his share home and turns it to profit.

Question. Explain the term Kankut?
Answer : In the Hindi language Kan signifies grain and kut means estimate.

Question. Explain the system of batai or bhaoli system of land revenue collection?
Answer : The crop are reaped and stacked and divided by agreement in the parties. But in this cash several intelligent inspectors are required, otherwise, the evil minded and false are given to deception.

Question. Explain the system of lang batai?
Answer : After cutting the grain they from it in heaps and divide it among themselves, and each takes his share home and turns it to profit.

Question. Which system of revenue collection, do you think, is better and why?
Answer : Long Batai, because they divided equal among themselves and get profit.