CBSE Class 7 history Chapter 4 ‘The Mughals 16th to 17th Century’ Notes

Introduction

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CBSE Class 7 history Chapter 4, “The Mughals 16th to 17th Century,” explores the rise, expansion, and cultural intricacies of the Mughal Empire, detailing military campaigns, administrative structures, and societal dynamics during the 16th and 17th centuries in India.

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CBSE class 7 history Chapter 4 ‘The Mughals 16th to 17th Century’ Overview

CBSE Class 7 history Chapter 4 ‘The Mughals 16th to 17th Century’ discusses the Mughal Empire, which was one of the largest and most powerful empires in the world. The chapter covers the history of the Mughal Empire, including its origins, the reign of Akbar, the Mughal military campaigns, the Mughal traditions of succession, and the Mughal relations with other rulers. It also discusses the role of the mansabdars and jagirdars in the Mughal administration, the importance of the zamindars in Mughal administration, and the debates with religious scholars that were important in the formation of Akbar’s ideas on governance. The chapter also covers the economic and commercial prosperity of the Mughal Empire, the enormous wealth and resources commanded by the Mughal elite, and the impact of the Mughal Empire on the different regions of the subcontinent.

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CBSE class 7 history Chapter 4 ‘The Mughals 16th to 17th Century’ Notes

Mughal Empire

• Ruling the vast Indian subcontinent with diverse cultures was challenging.
• The Mughals created a lasting empire, expanding from Agra and Delhi in the 16th century to control most of the subcontinent in the 17th century.
• Their administrative structures and governance ideas had a lasting impact, shaping the political legacy of the subcontinent.
• Today, the Prime Minister of India addresses the nation on Independence Day from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi, the residence of the Mughal emperors.

Mughal Ancestry

• The Mughals were descendants of two great lineages of rulers.
• From their mother’s side they were descendants of Genghis Khan, the Mongol ruler who ruled over parts of China and Central Asia.
• From their father’s side, they were the successors of Timur, the ruler of Iran, Iraq and modern-day Turkey.
• The Mughals did not like to be called Mughal or Mongol because Genghis Khan’s memory was associated with the massacre of innumerable people and was linked with the Uzbegs, their Mongol competitors.
• The Mughals were proud of their Timurid ancestry, not least of all because their great ancestor had captured Delhi in 1398.
• They celebrated their genealogy pictorially, each ruler getting a picture made of Timur and himself..

Mughal Military Campaigns

• Babur, the first Mughal emperor, succeeded to the throne of Ferghana in 1494 when he was only 12 years old.
• He was forced to leave his ancestral throne due to the invasion of another Mongol group, the Uzbegs.
• After years of wandering, he seized Kabul in 1504.
• In 1526, he defeated the Sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim Lodi, at Panipat and captured Delhi and Agra.

Mughal Traditions of Succession

• The Mughals did not believe in the rule of primogeniture, where the eldest son inherited his father’s estate.
• Instead, they followed the Mughal and Timurid custom of coparcenary inheritance, or a division of the inheritance amongst all the sons.

Mughal Relations with Other Rulers

• The Mughal rulers campaigned constantly against rulers who refused to accept their authority.
• As the Mughals became powerful, many other rulers also joined them voluntarily.
• The Rajputs are a good example of this. Many of them married their daughters into Mughal families and received high positions.
• But many resisted as well. The Sisodiya Rajputs of Mewar refused to accept Mughal authority for a long time.
• Once defeated, however, they were honourably treated by the Mughals, given their lands (watan) back as assignments (watan jagir).
• The careful balance between defeating but not humiliating their opponents enabled the Mughals to extend their influence over many kings and chieftains. But it was difficult to keep this balance all the time.

Mansabdars and Jagirdars

• As the Mughal empire expanded to encompass different regions, they recruited diverse bodies of people. Those who joined Mughal service were enrolled as mansabdars.
• The term mansabdar refers to an individual who holds a mansab, meaning a position or rank.
• It was a grading system used by the Mughals to fix (1) rank, (2) salary and (3) military responsibilities.
• Rank and salary were determined by a numerical value called zat. The higher the zat, the more prestigious was the noble’s position in court and the larger his salary.
• The mansabdar’s military responsibilities required him to maintain a specified number of sawar or cavalrymen.
• The mansabdar brought his cavalrymen for review, got them registered, their horses branded and then received money to pay them as salary.
• Mansabdars received their salaries as revenue assignments called jagirs which were somewhat like iqtas.
• But unlike muqtis, most mansabdars did not actually reside in or administer their jagirs.
• They only had rights to the revenue of their assignments which was collected for them by their servants while the mansabdars themselves served in some other part of the country.
• In Akbar’s reign, jagirs were carefully assessed so that their revenues were roughly equal to the salary of the mansabdar.
• By Aurangzeb’s reign, this was no longer the case and the actual revenue collected was often less than the granted sum.
• There was also a huge increase in the number of mansabdars, which meant a long wait before they received a jagir.
• These and other factors created a shortage in the number of jagirs. As a result, many jagirdars tried to extract as much revenue as possible from their jagirs, leading to discontent among the people.

Zabt and Zamindars

• The main source of income available to Mughal rulers was tax on the produce of the peasantry.
• In most places, peasants paid taxes through the rural elites, that is, the headman or the local chieftain.
• The Mughals used one term – zamindars – to describe all intermediaries, whether they were local headmen of villages or powerful chieftains.
• Akbar’s revenue minister, Todar Mal, carried out a careful survey of crop yields, prices and areas cultivated for a 10-year period, 1570 –1580.
• On the basis of this data, tax was fixed on each crop in cash.
• Each province was divided into revenue circles with its own schedule of revenue rates for individual crops.
• This revenue system was known as zabt. It was prevalent in those areas where Mughal administrators could survey the land and keep very careful accounts.
• This was not possible in provinces, such as Gujarat and Bengal.
• In some areas, the zamindars exercised a great deal of power. The exploitation by Mughal administrators could drive them to rebellion.
• Sometimes zamindars and peasants of the same caste allied in rebelling against Mughal authority. These peasant revolts challenged the stability of the Mughal Empire from the end of the seventeenth century.

The Mughal Empire in the Seventeenth Century and After

• The administrative and military efficiency of the Mughal Empire led to great economic and commercial prosperity.
• International travellers described it as the fabled land of wealth.
• But these same visitors were also appalled at the state of poverty that existed side by side with the greatest opulence.
• The inequalities were glaring.
• Documents from the twentieth year of Shah Jahan’s reign inform us that the highest-ranking mansabdars were only 445 in number out of a total of 8,000.
• This small number – a mere 5.6 per cent of the total number of mansabdars – received 61.5 per cent of the total estimated revenue of the empire as salaries for themselves and their troopers.
• The Mughal emperors and their mansabdars spent a great deal of their income on salaries and goods.
• This expenditure benefited the artisans and peasantry who supplied them with goods and produce.
• But the scale of revenue collection left very little for investment in the hands of the primary producers – the peasant and the artisan.
• The poorest amongst them lived from hand to mouth and they could hardly consider investing in additional resources – tools and supplies – to increase productivity.
• The wealthier peasantry and artisanal groups, the merchants and bankers profited in this economic world.
• The enormous wealth and resources commanded by the Mughal elite made them an extremely powerful group of people in the late seventeenth century.
• As the authority of the Mughal emperor slowly declined, his servants emerged as powerful centres of power in the regions.
• They constituted new dynasties and held the command of provinces like Hyderabad and Awadh.
• Although they continued to recognise the Mughal emperor in Delhi as their master, by the eighteenth century the provinces of the empire had consolidated their independent political identities.

Akbar Nama and Ain-i Akbari

• Abul Fazl wrote a three-volume history of Akbar’s reign, titled Akbar Nama.
• The first volume dealt with Akbar’s ancestors and the second volume recorded the events of Akbar’s reign. The third volume is the Ain-i Akbari.
• It deals with Akbar’s administration, household, army, the revenues and the geography of his empire.
• It also provides rich details about the traditions and culture of the people living in India.
• The most interesting aspect about the Ain-i Akbari is its rich statistical details about things as diverse as crops, yields, prices, wages and revenues.

Nur Jahan’s influence in Jahangir’s court

• Mehrunnisa married the Emperor Jahangir in 1611 and received the title Nur Jahan.
• She remained extremely loyal and supportive to the monarch.
• As a mark of honour, Jahangir struck silver coins bearing his own titles on one side and on the other the inscription “struck in the name of the Queen Begum, Nur Jahan”.
• The adjoining document is an order (farman) of Nur Jahan. The square seal states, “Command of her most Sublime and Elevated Majesty Nur Jahan Padshah Begum”.
• The round seal states, “by the sun of Shah Jahangir she became as brilliant as the moon; may Nur Jahan Padshah be the lady of the age”

Sulh-i kul

• Jahangir, Akbar’s son, described his father’s policy of sulh-i kul in the following words: “As in the wide expanse of the divine compassion there is room for all classes and the followers of all creeds, so … in his Imperial dominions, which on all sides were limited only by the sea, there was room for the professors of opposite religions, and for beliefs, good and bad, and the road to intolerance was closed. Sunnis and Shias met in one mosque and Christians and Jews in one church to pray. He consistently followed the principle of “universal peace” (sulh-i kul).

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