Oriental despotism

Topic: Medieval India through Travellers' Eyes · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Through the Eyes of Travellers"

Meaning

Oriental despotism was an idea set out by the French thinker Montesquieu in the 18th century. It drew directly on François Bernier's account of Mughal India. The idea said that rulers in Asia had absolute power: their subjects lived in subjugation (being kept down) and poverty, all land belonged to the king, and there was no private property.

It matters because it shows how one traveller's mistaken guess about land turned into a big European theory. That theory later helped justify colonial rule over a supposedly changeless East. Modern historians and NCERT reject it.

Explanation

Background: where the idea came from

• The source was François Bernier, a French doctor who stayed in India for about 12 years, 1658–1669. [2]
• He worked first as personal physician to Dara Shikoh, and later for Danishmand Khan, a noble at Aurangzeb's court. [2]

• He was an eyewitness insider at court, so Europeans trusted what he wrote.

• Bernier's main claim: India had no private property in land, and the emperor owned all the land and handed it out to his nobles.

• Not Bernier alone: NCERT notes that the same view appears in most travel accounts of the 16th–17th centuries.

Bernier's chain of reasoning, which fed the theory

• No ownership meant no improvement:
• a landholder could not pass the land to his children;
• so he had no reason to spend money on improving it (wells, better ploughing, trees);

• so India had no class of "improving landlords" like Western Europe.

• The result, in his words: "uniform ruination of agriculture", excessive oppression of the peasantry, and falling living standards for everyone except a small ruling aristocracy.

• A society with nothing in the middle: "There is no middle state in India." There was only a tiny rich class above a huge mass of poor people.
• A warning to Europe: if European kings copied the Mughal model, they would become "kings of deserts and solitudes, of beggars and barbarians". So his book took a side in European debates of his time about the state, society and private property.

Main features of Montesquieu's "oriental despotism"

• Absolute authority: the Asian ruler stood above all law and limits.
• Subjects in subjugation and poverty: people had no rights against the ruler.
• All land belonged to the king: there was no private property.
• The text: Montesquieu set this out in The Spirit of Laws (1748), one of the great works of political theory. [3][4]
• Three kinds of government, each with its own driving principle: [3][4]
• republic, driven by virtue;
• monarchy, driven by honour;

• despotism, driven by fear.

• Climate theory: he argued that climate shaped politics. Hot climates, he said, made Asians physically weak, so Asia was "condemned to eternal despotism". [3]

How the idea changed over time, and why it is rejected

• 17th century: Bernier's observation that there was "no private property in land".
• 18th century: Montesquieu turned it into the theory of oriental despotism.
• 19th century: Karl Marx developed it further into the Asiatic mode of production.
• The surplus (what was produced beyond what people needed to live) was taken by the state.
• Villages were pictured as self-sufficient, internally equal communities, cut off from each other.

• So the whole system was called stagnant, meaning it never changed on its own.

• Rejection 1: Mughal records say otherwise.

• No Mughal official document ever claims that the state was the sole owner of the land.
• Abu'l Fazl, Akbar's chronicler, called land revenue "remunerations of sovereignty". This was a payment the ruler claimed for the protection he gave, which was really a tax on the crop. It was not rent paid to an owner.

• Europeans saw a very high revenue demand and mistook a tax for rent. Rent suggests an owner, so they assumed the king owned the land.

• Rejection 2: village society was layered, not flat. In the 16th–17th centuries there were clear layers of rich and poor:

• big zamindars, who held superior rights in land;
• big peasants, who hired labour and grew crops for the market;
• smaller peasants, who grew mainly enough to eat (subsistence);

• landless labourers, treated as "untouchable".

• NCERT's verdict: this picture of rural society was far from true.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the idea was formed in the 18th century (Montesquieu, 1748) [3][4]. It was based on observations of Mughal India in the 17th century, under Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.
• Region described: the Mughal empire. Bernier also travelled with Aurangzeb to Kashmir in 1664, and was probably the first European to visit that province. [2]
• Key people:
• François Bernier, the traveller and source;
• Montesquieu, who built the theory;
• Karl Marx, who later developed it into the Asiatic mode of production;

• Abu'l Fazl, whose writing shows the theory was wrong.

• How we know:

• Bernier's travel account: Histoire de la dernière révolution des états du Grand Mogol (Paris, 1670–71); in English, Travels in the Mogul Empire. [2]
• Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws (1748). [3][4]
• Mughal official records and Abu'l Fazl's chronicle, which never claim that the state owned all land.

Don't confuse with

• Asiatic mode of production: this is Karl Marx's 19th-century idea, focused on the state taking the surplus and on self-sufficient, equal, stagnant villages. Oriental despotism is Montesquieu's 18th-century idea, focused on the ruler's absolute power and the king owning all land.
• Bernier's "no private property in land": this was a traveller's observation, made in the 17th century. Oriental despotism is the political theory Montesquieu built on top of it.
• "Remunerations of sovereignty": this is Abu'l Fazl's description of land revenue as a tax for protection. It is the Mughal-side evidence against oriental despotism, not a part of it.
• Monarchy in Montesquieu's scheme: monarchy runs on honour, while despotism runs on fear. Do not mix up the principles in "match the following" questions. [3][4]

Prelims Hooks

• Oriental despotism → Montesquieu, set out in The Spirit of Laws (1748). [3][4]
• Montesquieu's principles of government: republic: virtue; monarchy: honour; despotism: fear. [3][4]
• The main source behind Montesquieu's idea was François Bernier, a French physician in India from 1658 to 1669. [2]
• Chronological order: Bernier's book (1670–71) → Montesquieu's oriental despotism (1748) → Marx's Asiatic mode of production (19th century).
• Trap: Abu'l Fazl called land revenue "remunerations of sovereignty", meaning a tax, not rent to an owner. No Mughal document claims the state owned all land.
• Famous Bernier line used to support the theory: "There is no middle state in India."

Mains Points

• How a theory grew from one mistake: Bernier mistook a heavy crop tax for rent, and so concluded that the king owned all the land. Montesquieu turned this into oriental despotism (1748), and Marx turned it into a stagnant "Asiatic" society. This chain is a good example of how ideas can outlive their evidence. It also shows why traveller accounts must be read with their European audience and debates in mind.
• Evidence against the theory:
• Documents: no Mughal record claims state ownership of land, and Abu'l Fazl describes revenue as "remunerations of sovereignty".

• Society: rural India was clearly layered, with zamindars, big market-oriented peasants, small subsistence peasants and "untouchable" landless labourers. This is the opposite of a flat mass of poor subjects under an all-owning king.

• Colonial use: the picture of a despotic, unchanging East suited European justification for colonial rule. Rejecting oriental despotism is therefore part of writing Indian history from Indian evidence.

Related concepts

• Crown ownership of land
• Camp towns
• Montesquieu
• Asiatic mode of production

Read more

• The landownership debate and the "degenerate East"