Crown ownership of land

Also called: Absence of private property in land · Topic: Medieval India through Travellers' Eyes · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Through the Eyes of Travellers"

Meaning

Crown ownership of land was the belief that the Mughal emperor owned all the land in India, so India had no private property in land. The French traveller François Bernier argued this, and most European travel accounts of the 16th–17th centuries said the same, but Mughal records do not support it.

It matters because this one mistaken idea was later used by European thinkers to build theories of a poor, unchanging "East". Those theories were later used to justify colonial rule.

Explanation

Background: who made the claim and why

• François Bernier was a French doctor trained at the University of Montpellier. He was born at Joué in the Loire valley. [2]
• He lived in India for about 12 years, 1658–1669. [2]
• He worked at the Mughal court:
• first as personal physician to Dara Shikoh, Shah Jahan's eldest son and named heir; [2]

• later for Danishmand Khan, a noble at Aurangzeb's court. [2]

• Being an insider gave his book great weight.

• Readers trusted him because he had seen the court from inside.

• So his mistakes about land spread widely and lasted a long time.

• He was not neutral. He wrote for European readers who were arguing about the state, society and private property in their own countries. India was his example of what Europe should avoid.

The main argument, step by step

Bernier said the biggest difference between India and Europe was that India had no private property in land. His chain of reasoning:

• The emperor owned all land and gave it out to his nobles.
• So a landholder could not pass the land to his children.
• So he had no reason to spend money improving it, for example by digging wells or planting trees.

• India therefore had no class of "improving landlords", unlike Western Europe.

• The results, he said:

• "uniform ruination of agriculture";
• "excessive oppression of the peasantry";
• falling living standards for everyone except a small ruling aristocracy (the small group of powerful nobles).

The picture of society that followed

• India, he said, was a huge mass of poor people who were all alike, ruled by a tiny rich class.
• His famous line: "There is no middle state in India". In other words, there was no middle group between the very rich and the very poor.
• His warning to Europe: if European kings copied the Mughal model, they would become "kings of deserts and solitudes, of beggars and barbarians".

Why it was wrong, and how the idea lived on

• No Mughal official document ever claims the state was the only owner of land. This is the strongest point against Bernier.
• Abu'l Fazl, Akbar's court chronicler, called land revenue "remunerations of sovereignty":
• a payment the ruler claimed in return for protecting his subjects;

• in plain words, a tax on the crop, not rent paid to a landowner.

• How the mistake happened:

• The revenue demand was very high.
• Travellers saw a large payment going to the state and took the tax to be rent.

• Rent suggests an owner, so they decided the emperor owned the land.

• Rural society was not one flat mass. In the 16th–17th centuries it had clear layers, from top to bottom:

• big zamindars, who held superior rights in land;
• big peasants, who hired labourers and grew crops for the market;
• small peasants, who grew mostly enough to feed themselves;
• landless labourers, treated as "untouchable".

• The big peasants and zamindars were the "middle" that Bernier said did not exist.

• The idea grew into theory:

• 18th century: Montesquieu used it for his idea of "oriental despotism". In this idea, Asian kings had total power, all land belonged to the king, and subjects lived in poverty.
• 19th century: Karl Marx developed the "Asiatic mode of production". He said the state took the surplus (what was produced beyond people's needs). He pictured villages as equal, self-sufficient and cut off from one another, and so the whole system as stagnant (never changing by itself).
• NCERT says this picture of rural India was far from true.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: Mughal India, mid-17th century, mainly the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.
• Key events Bernier saw:
• the war of succession of 1656–59, in which Aurangzeb defeated Dara Shikoh and took the throne; [2]

• a journey with Aurangzeb to Kashmir in 1664. He was probably the first European to visit that province. [2]

• Key people: François Bernier, Dara Shikoh, Danishmand Khan, Aurangzeb, Abu'l Fazl, and later Montesquieu and Karl Marx.

• How we know:
• Bernier's account, published in French at Paris in 1670–71 as Histoire de la dernière révolution des états du Grand Mogol. Its English title is Travels in the Mogul Empire. [2]
• Other European travel accounts of the 16th–17th centuries, which repeat the same view.
• Mughal official records, which never claim state ownership of all land.
• Abu'l Fazl's writings from Akbar's court, which describe revenue as "remunerations of sovereignty".
• Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws (1748), which took up the idea. [3][4]

Don't confuse with

• Rent vs land revenue: rent is paid to the owner of the land. Mughal land revenue was a tax on the crop, claimed for protection. Europeans mixed the two up.
• Zamindars' superior rights: zamindars held superior rights in land inside a layered rural society. This fact goes against Bernier's claim that the Crown alone owned the land.
• Oriental despotism vs Asiatic mode of production: oriental despotism is Montesquieu's 18th-century idea about absolute Asian kings ruling through fear. The Asiatic mode of production is Marx's 19th-century idea that the state took the surplus from equal, self-sufficient, stagnant villages.
• Abu'l Fazl vs Bernier: Abu'l Fazl was Akbar's own chronicler, writing from inside the Mughal system ("remunerations of sovereignty"). Bernier was a foreign visitor writing for European readers (no private property in land).

Prelims Hooks

• "There is no middle state in India" was written by François Bernier, a French physician from the University of Montpellier. [2]
• Bernier served Dara Shikoh first, then the noble Danishmand Khan, and lived in India from 1658 to 1669. [2]
• Travels in the Mogul Empire is the English title of Bernier's book, first published at Paris in 1670–71. [2]
• "Remunerations of sovereignty" was Abu'l Fazl's term for land revenue. It meant a tax for protection, not rent.
• Chronological order: Bernier (17th c.) → Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws (1748) → Marx's Asiatic mode of production (19th c.). [3][4]
• Trap: Montesquieu linked despotism with fear, monarchy with honour and republics with virtue. [3][4]

Mains Points

• Travellers' accounts are evidence and argument at once. Bernier wrote for Europeans who were debating private property, so his India partly reflected European concerns. When using any traveller's account, ask who it was written for and why.
• The best counter-evidence is the silence of the records plus a confusion of categories. No Mughal document claims the state owned all land. Abu'l Fazl's "remunerations of sovereignty" shows the state was taking a tax, not rent. Europeans saw a very high demand and mistook it for rent. Proof that rural society had layers, from big zamindars and market-oriented big peasants down to "untouchable" landless labourers, also breaks the "flat poverty" model.
• Ideas can outlive their evidence. Bernier's mistaken observation became Montesquieu's oriental despotism (1748) and then Marx's Asiatic mode of production. Together they described a stagnant East. NCERT calls this picture far from true, and it later helped Europeans justify colonial rule.

Related concepts

• Camp towns
• Montesquieu
• Oriental despotism
• Asiatic mode of production

Read more

• The landownership debate and the "degenerate East"