Village community in Mughal India
Topic: Mughal Agrarian Society and Economy · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Peasants, Zamindars and the State"
Meaning
The Mughal village community had three parts. These were the cultivators, the panchayat (council of elders) and the headman (muqaddam or mandal). Each peasant owned his own land and could buy or sell it. Villagers also shared a common fund. It paid for feeding visiting revenue officials, helping families after disasters, and building bunds (earth banks) and canals that no single peasant could afford.
Example
In eastern India, a marriage needed the mandal to be present. This shows how closely the headman and panchayat watched over caste rules in daily life. They punished people who broke the rules with fines or expulsion from the village.
Don't confuse with
- "Little republic": some 19th-century British officials described the village as a self-sufficient community of equals. This picture is wrong. Peasants owned land individually, caste and gender inequality was deep, a small group of powerful elders ran things, and money was already widely used.
Related concepts
- Caste mobility in rural Mughal India
- Begar
- Village panchayat in Mughal India
- Muqaddam
- Patwari
- Jati panchayat