Pahi-kashta

Topic: Mughal Agrarian Society and Economy · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Peasants, Zamindars and the State"

Meaning

Pahi-kashta ("outsider cultivator") was a peasant in Mughal India who lived in one village but farmed land in another village on a contract basis. He did not own that land.

This matters because pahi-kashta show that Mughal peasants could move around. A peasant could leave a village with a harsh tax demand for one with better terms. This set a limit on how hard the state and the zamindars could squeeze the peasant.

Explanation

Who the peasant was

• No single word meant "peasant". Indo-Persian sources of the 16th–17th centuries use raiyat (plural riaya) and muzarian. Hindi-belt sources add kisan and asami.
• raiyat later became ryot in British records. It is the same word with English spelling. [2]
• The peasant paid the tax on the crop. That tax was the main source of income for the Mughal rulers. [2]
• The sources split peasants into two kinds by where they lived and farmed. These were khud-kashta and pahi-kashta.

Main features of pahi-kashta

• Home and fields in different villages. The pahi-kashta lived in one village and ploughed fields in another.
• Contract, not ownership. He farmed the other village's land under an agreement. He did not own it. This is the key exam point.
• The opposite case: khud-kashta ("self-cultivating"). These peasants lived in the village where their fields lay, and they owned the land they tilled.

Why peasants became pahi-kashta

• By choice: to get better revenue terms
• Another village might ask for a lower or softer tax.

• Moving there was a way to bargain.

• By force: famine or hunger

• Hard times at home pushed peasants out.
• They looked for land to farm somewhere else.

What this led to

• Peasant mobility helped farming expand. Three things worked together in the 16th–17th centuries:
• Abundant land: plenty of forest, scrub and waste land still waiting to be cleared.
• Available labour: enough people to clear and plough it.

• Peasant mobility: peasants could leave for a village with better terms. This is the pahi-kashta route.

• The state and zamindars had to attract peasants. They had a reason to offer fair terms, not only to squeeze. As a result, new land kept coming under the plough.

• The tax still had to be paid. The peasant usually paid through zamindars. In Mughal usage this was an umbrella term for every middleman, from the village headman to a powerful local chief. [2]

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the Mughal Empire in the 16th–17th centuries.
• Setting: the villages of the Mughal agrarian economy. Most peasants farmed small plots. A family rarely had more than a pair of bullocks and two ploughs.
• In Gujarat, about 6 acres counted as an affluent (rich) peasant.

• In Bengal, 5 acres was the average ceiling (the upper limit for a normal peasant), and 10 acres made a rich asami.

• Land was private property. Fields were bought and sold. They were marked off by raised earth, brick and thorn borders. The sources speak of "thousands of such fields" in a single village.

• Revenue background: under Akbar, the zabt system (measure the land in bighas, classify the crop, then fix a cash rate) was used mainly in north India. [3] The demand was commonly about one-third of the average produce. [3] Todar Mal, Akbar's revenue minister, studied yields, prices and cultivated area over a 10-year period to set these rates. [2] Differences in this demand from village to village are why a peasant might choose to become a pahi-kashta.
• How we know:
• The terms khud-kashta and pahi-kashta come from Indo-Persian sources of the 16th–17th centuries.
• The main record of Akbar's revenue system is the Ain-i-Akbari, compiled by Abul Fazl. Indian Culture (Ministry of Culture) holds and has digitised its volumes as rare books. [4]
• NCERT Class 12, Ch 4 "Peasants, Zamindars and the State" covers these terms. [2]

Don't confuse with

• Khud-kashta: a resident peasant who lived in the same village as his fields and owned the land he tilled. A pahi-kashta lived elsewhere and farmed on contract.
• Zamindar: a middleman who collected revenue and stood between the peasant and the state. A pahi-kashta was a cultivator, not a revenue collector.
• Raiyat / ryot / asami: general words for any peasant. Pahi-kashta is one kind of peasant, the non-resident kind.
• Zabt: Akbar's revenue system (land measured in bighas, cash rate fixed). It is not a class of peasant. Pahi-kashta moved partly in response to how such demands varied.

Prelims Hooks

• Pahi-kashta = non-resident cultivator farming another village's land on contract. Khud-kashta = resident cultivator who owned his land.
• Two reasons pahi-kashta moved: choice (better revenue terms) or compulsion (famine or hunger).
• Trap: pahi-kashta did not own the land they farmed in the other village. Their tie to it was a contract.
• raiyat (pl. riaya) and muzarian are Persian terms for the peasant. kisan and asami are Hindi-belt terms. ryot in British records is the same word as raiyat. [2]
• Three drivers of agricultural expansion: abundant land, available labour, peasant mobility.
• Bengal: 5 acres = average ceiling, 10 acres = rich asami. Gujarat: about 6 acres = affluent.

Mains Points

• Mobility was the peasant's bargaining chip.
• Land was plentiful, so a peasant could leave for better terms, as the pahi-kashta did.
• This limited how hard zamindars and the state could squeeze.

• It challenges the picture of a wholly helpless Mughal peasantry.

• Mobility and expansion went together.

• Villages competed to attract cultivators.

• Pahi-kashta helped bring new land under the plough, which widened the revenue base. Revenue was the main source of income of the Mughal state. [2]

• Mobility was not always freedom.

• Many pahi-kashta moved because of famine, not by choice.
• Answers should present both sides: for some peasants mobility was a way to bargain, and for others it was a forced response to hardship.

Related concepts

• Ryot
• Khud-kashta

Read more

• Peasants and their lands