Discuss the main features of the agrarian economy of North India during the period between 700-1200 CE. Can it be called feudal?

Looking at recent historiography, a paradigm shift in the understanding of historical change in the subcontinent was introduced by Marxist interpretations that began as historical debates in the post 1950’s. What this ideology initiated and intensified, was the study of social and economic history rather than dynastic history. There was a questioning of Marx’s model for India – contained in his Asiatic Mode of Production by R.S.Sharma and D.D.Kosambi, for instance. They visualized a self sufficient economy and said that it cannot be looked at as unchanging and static. However, this critique of Marx’s model did not lead to the dismissal of Marxist analyses. Attempts were now made to see whether the Slave Mode of Production and the Feudal Mode of Production could be used to explain aspects of pre-modern Indian history. D.D.Kosambi in his Introduction to the Study of Indian History described the dynamics of economy and society in various phases of history, while highlighting the role of ‘living prehistory’– cultural survivals that enable a reconstruction of historical cultures with greater empathy. The feudal debate and the debate on the nature of the state in early medieval India have been viewed as determined by very specific economic conditions by the Marxists.

The period 700-1200 CE is seen as marking a transition from the Ancient to the early Medieval through the process of feudalism. Niharranjan Ray’s multi-dimensional approach to the analysis of the period includes a constant parallel to developments in Europe. Among the major traits of medievalism that he identifies, Ray also speaks of the emergence of a natural economy from a market economy. D.D.Kosambi’s view of feudalism as the operation of dual processes- feudalism from above and feudalism from below, represents the essential variables of the Indian feudalism construct but are in recent times, being re-evaluated. There are also scholars like D.C.Sircar who reject the notion of Indian feudalism.

The transitional phase represented by the Early Medieval period around the 7th-8th centuries, was marked by momentous transformations in polity, society, economy, language, script, art and architecture, religion and intellectual life. A survey of various strands of the socio-economic aspect of this transition is the central focus of this paper. The related themes are largely- the landed aristocracy and the subject peasantry, intermediaries and land grants, agrarian expansion and peasantization, technology, irrigation, trade, urbanism and ruralization.

In R.S. Sharma’s understanding of Indian feudalism, which is influenced by Marxist ideology, feudalism is characterized by “a gross disparity between classes of people in their control and access to land, as well as the appropriation of its product.” There emerges as a result of this, a dominant landocracy and a subject peasantry. The underlying feature of the feudal structure according to Sharma, is the subjection of the peasantry by this new class of landed intermediaries. The landlords extract surplus through extra economic methods which may be social, political or religious. However, the degree of servility of the peasants to the landlords, as well as the nature of landed intermediaries as either religious or secular parties, may vary and take different forms in different regions of the subcontinent. The term gramadharma for instance, is spoken of in Hemacandra’s Abhidhanacintamani, a clear break from references made to desadharma in earlier texts. This is what Sharma refers to as “feudal localism.”

What was the role played by the landed intermediaries in the economy of early Medieval India? How then, did the practice of land grants emerge?

D.D. Kosambi correctly says that the question, “who owns the land?” cannot be accurately answered, as the notion of ownership in the Indian context varies from that of the “Western bourgeois and proto-bourgeois mode.” In this context, R.S. Sharma is of the view that the socio-economic conditions are best seen as an “unequal distribution of the surplus” which eventually led to the unequal distribution of the means of production strengthened by ideological and juridical factors. The central factor that transformed the Early Medieval society was the practice of land grants. These are also a major epigraphic source for the historical reconstruction of the time. Originating in a period of social crisis or Kali Yuga, defined by varnasamkara, the earliest epigraphic evidence of land grants with a transfer of administrative power was a record of grants made to Buddhist priests by the Satavahana ruler Gautamiputra Satakarni in the second century CE.

“Considered as a whole, the early accounts of the Kali age, viewed as an age of all-round degradation, allude, in a jumbled way, to so many events and tendencies-foreign invasions; the emergence of a sizeable ruling aristocracy including, to a marked degree, the foreigners(Yavanas, Sakas, Hunas, etc.) and the outlandish people; natural calamities like famines and droughts; economic decline, including the decay of cities and the decline of trade, commerce and money economy; the disturbances in the caturvarnya, as evidenced by the rise of the sudras, the degradation of the vaisyas, and the depression of the older ruling aristocracy and the priestly elite; the heightened social conflict; the exploitation by the newly emerging ruling class, as revealed by references to exorbitant taxes and oppressive forced labour leading to peasant subjection; the impact of the heretical religions; the general decline of traditional moral and religious values etc,” writes B.N.S.Yadava on the then emerging archetype of degeneration.

The donors recorded were mainly kings who wanted to acquire religious merit, while the receivers were religious elites who required these to perform rites. Kings made these grants in order to get taxes collected. In return the grantees collected rents from their tenant-peasants who could be evicted and even subjected to forced labour. Temples, which began to emerge as centres of social, economic and cultural activities, were mainly supported by land grants. There were instruments, therefore, of peasant subordination and surplus-accumulation. Land revenue was collected by not only landed priests but also by mathas, viharas, basadis, agraharas, temples, brahmadevas etc. A devolution of power is seen in the broad descriptions of land that was granted – apravesyam(not to be entered by royal troops), anavamarsyam(not to be molested by government officials) and arastrasamvinayikam(not to be interfered with by the district people).

Sharma argues that agrarian expansion and “peasantization” was accompanied by forced labour. Harbans Mukhia disagrees with this formulation and is of the view that was a “free peasantry” which emerged as a result of plenty of arable land due to a favourable land-man ratio. In his study on the rural economy of early Medieval Orissa, B.P.Sahu speaks of an unprecedented agrarian expansion due to the rise of “sub-regional states in different pockets,” the economic foundations of which were deeply rooted in increasing peasant farming. Another perspective is that of B.D.Chattopadhyaya. He observes that the stratification of this post-Gupta agrarian economy characterized by forced labour and payment of exorbitantly high taxes reflects a condition of the peasantry which is in sharp contrast to agrarian structure in early historical India – one that was dominated by free Vaisya peasants and labour services provided by the Sudras.

Harbans Mukhia sees technology as a “socially conditioned factor” and that the level of technological development would depend on the “social perception of ecology” and technical expertise on one hand, and on forms of labour utilization on the other. In How Feudal Was Indian Feudalism? R.S.Sharma recognizes significant changes in the mode of production in the early medieval period. Old forces of production were now being reinforced by new ones. Agricultural expansion marked by the extension of cultivable lands for sustaining a larger yield was possible by forest clearance, reclamation of virgin tracts and the development of coastal land. In order to look at the developments taking place in the north as independent to those taking place in the southern part of the subcontinent, a brief note may be made here. The scarcity of land and food surpluses do not surface in the Sangam works, which in fact make pointed references to agricultural abundance despite low technology with vast stretches of unclaimed grassland. However, this could not be sustained in the face of a rising demand for surplus, from a large class of fiefholders and brahmana freeholders. In the north, technological innovations like the animal powered araghatta or the Persian wheel in the seventh-eighth centuries, the introduction of better seeds and fertilizers and most importantly the use of irrigation works, contributed substantially to a larger yield and great agrarian expansion. According to B.D Chattopadhyaya, araghattas played an important role in “the rural economy and within the existing institutional framework of patronage.” Executive bodies called Pancakulas, appointed by the king also transferred land and araghattas to Brahman donees and religious establishments. “The major characteristic of increasing crop production was the expansion of wet cultivation, greater socialization of wild and marginally grown cereals and introduction of new food crops, vine- crops and garden products. The effects of this development can be inferred from the additional surplus offering to non-producing consumers in the fiefs, freeholdings and temple devadana holdings from the ninth century onwards,” comments R.N.Nandi.

Records also make references to the grant of irrigational facilities emanating largely from rulers and their officials. In some cases, a corporate group called the gosthi was set up to look after the taxes on agricultural produce imposed on the irrigated area. The Guhila inscriptions issued from Kishkindha near Kalyanpur in the Dungarpur-Udaipur area of Udaipur district speak of various possible methods of irrigation. Artificial irrigation was carried out mainly by tank and well sources. Tank irrigation involved maintenance. There is available, inscriptional evidence for the repair and reconstruction of broken sluices and breached tanks due to excessive rainfall. On some occasions, repair was taken up jointly by lords and peasants and by peasants and brahmana freeholders. The Manglana inscription of 1215 CE indicates Cahamana initiative in the construction of vapis(step wells) in daumarabhumi (land lacking natural water sources). In his doctoral thesis, V.K. Jain has prepared a map showing the distribution of vapis in western Indian from the 11th to the 13th centuries. In another example, a samanta chief rebuilt a village tank employing stone workers. Other hydraulic improvements involve the construction of bunds to channelize water from nearby rivers – the first evidence of which is mentioned in a Pallava inscription of the late seventh century. However, a larger issue was the question of retention of water for irrigation purposes and the increase of storage capacity by constant dredging operations and by raising the embankment. In some tanks, boats were used in order to carry silt ashore.

In his study of artificial irrigation systems in early medieval Rajasthan based on empirical data, B.D.Chattopadhyaya concludes that given climatic conditions and initiatives taken up by an emergent socio-political system, the organizational aspects of irrigation may assume a significance it perhaps would not have in a different historical context.

A loss of mobility of peasants, artisans and merchants lead to the emergence of a closed economy, where villages represented self-sufficient economic and administrative units. R.S. Sharma speaks of a decline in “core” urban centres and in order to substantiate his argument on the resultant collapse of trade, Sharma cites an archaeological dearth of indigenous coinage in the subcontinent in this period. A decline in trade which is a feature of the decay of urban centres, is also represented in some references made in literary sources (like in the charters of sixth-eighth centuries, from the Western Deccan) to the restriction of sea voyages for merchants as well as to congregate in the same market in the city. “This eliminates competition and points towards the localization of traders,” writes Sharma. However, B.D. Chattopadhyaya argues that there was no such decline in trade and decay in urban centres. Chattopadhyaya and Hermann Kulke speak of the emergence of new core areas that develop through the integration of pre-existing peripheral regions as opposed to a complete destruction of urban centres. According to their study, there is significant evidence of lucrative trade with South East Asia, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea routes. Chattopadhyaya in fact speaks of this period as reflective of the emergence of the third phase of urbanism in Indian history, after the cities of the Harappan culture and the Iron Age. M.I. Finley’s broad typologies of “consumer cities” and “commercial cities” do not apply independently to the Early Medieval context, and may be seen as a juxtaposition of the two.

According to R.S.Sharma, what follows naturally from the apparent decline in urban centres and commercial networks is the transition from a market economy to self sufficient village units of production- ruralization. Ruralization encapsulates several strands of socio-economic processes. Not only does it include agrarian expansion and the migration of social groups to rural areas, but also the crystallization of jajmani relationships (based on interdependence between patrons and clients) and the practice of remuneration in land as a substitute for cash. B.D.Chattopadhyaya does not deny the ruralization process, and does acknowledge the migration of people towards rural milieus. However, he interprets this as the growth of regional identities that emerge as a result of development of new regions, and not necessarily because of the fall in trade or urban decay.

In addition to these features of the agrarian economy of Early Medieval India, there is also a “parcellization of power”, multiplication of states, and proliferation of castes and the rise of Tantricsm. These various features in many ways defined this period from its preceding phase as well as from the one that is to follow. What then, may be said about the nature of this transition?

R.S.Sharma sees the transition as feudal. Socio-economic and political relationships were primarily feudal ties. Fragmentation of polity, demonetization, urban decay and a decline of trade are major arguments used by Sharma to speak of a feudal structure in early Medieval India. “Features such as feudal state organization, control of the landlords over production, proliferation of castes, regional identities in art, script and language, puja, bhakti, tirtha and tantra, which came to the fore in medieval times and continued later, can be traced back to the sixth and seventh centuries,” he writes.

B.D. Chattopadhyaya’s argument as seen in various contexts throughout the essay, constantly refutes Sharma’s view on urban decline, the fall in trade and largely on the question of feudalism.

However, assuming a certain validity of both arguments, K.S. Shelvankar’s view is that Indian feudalism remained fiscal and military in character, if not manorial like in Europe. The peasant was not the lord’s serf, and neither was the lord directly involved in cultivation. Therefore, conflicts were not between the manorial lord and the peasant over disposal and cultivation of land, but over the share of produce to be retained by the peasant or surrendered to the landlord. The element of subordination and subjugation does naturally point to a fundamentally feudal structure, which may had had its variants in different regional pockets of the subcontinent. Hence, we may conclude by saying that the period moving from an Ancient to a Medieval society was marked by a largely feudal transition.

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