Indian civilizations as major powers

There were Indian pioneers in several scientific fields but they were few and far between.

Say WHAT?! India was a major center of innovation in at least medicine, artillary and mathematics

Furthermore, most of the weaknesses you mention India having, Europe also had during the same time period.

As far as mercantile weakness, India during the period before the British took over was taking over the markets next door with such underhanded tactics as having better accounting techniques and better "corporate" organization and accountability to home office. Indian mercantile techniques were weaker than those of the British to be sure, but the British were rather advanced for Europe. India as a whole was probably ahead of Western Europe as a whole at this point. And indeed, that was one of the reasons why the British could take them over so easily. Kinda like the way the US having advanced corporations made it easy for Japanese companies to move in and buy those companies. In the same sense, the British moved into India and bought bought and sold goods and services like Toyota buys and sells their goods and services in the US. And for most of the history the British were doing this, they were no more likely to dictate the running of the country than Toyota can dictate the running of America today. Indeed, they appeared so weak and innocuous that they were often preferred to locals competing in the same markets.

All the territory falling under the Mughal empire was deemed to be owned by the emperor. Land or rather landlord rights might be given as a reward to a courtier and in return he would be given a rank relating to the number of cavalrymen he was supposed to provide the emperor during wartime. But on the nobleman's death, the land reverted to the emperor. By tradition he would parcel the landlord rights back to the heir, but this didn't always happen.

That is rather counter to my understanding which is that land was owned by the local villages, the Mughals and the nobility only had the right to tax it. Which is why there was a dissinterest in improving the land - they didn't get the benefit, because however good or bad the land was, they only had the right to tax X, so they may as well focus their efforts on improving the efficiency of their extraction technique, rather than put effort into the difficult business of improving productivity.

You would probably then also have to change the Hindu faith. Make it more adaptable and easier to meld itself to local cultures and customs. A stronger Hindu faith is better for India in the long run. if I were you I would look more towards Classical Era Afghan Empires that established themselves in the North of India.

The Hindu faith is rather masterful at adapting itself to local cultures and customs. Indeed, the Hindu faith is the borg of religions. It is still busy borg-ing away and assimmilating its way through Southern India, to such a degree that we think of Southern India as being indivisible from Northern India today, when historically these were culturally and geographically very, very different regions.

Anyways. As the old saying goes "there is alot of ruin in a nation", well, that's even more true in a sub-continent. There is also a great deal of amazing stuff in a nation. So India in 1730, like Western Europe in 1730, was a place of amazingness and ruin. It is easy to cherry pick from stories of ruin and stories of amazingness to bias the reader as you (the author) likes. Which is a real problem, since there isn't alot of unbiased history about India.

I think the main problem India had was the collapse of the Mughal Empire - a centralized, comercially advanced empire - whosel timed to allow the British to take advantage and use the levers of power built by the Mughals to extend their trade in the sub-continent. Protecting that trade would then force them to start ruling the sub-continent. Had the Mughal collapse moved by say 50 years, so in coincided with the French Revolution, then the British might have been too distracted to take advantage before a more local group took advantage of the untended levers of power to take control. At that point, the sub-continent probably would have followed a trajectory like China - too strong to colonize, too weak to avoid quasi-colonization. Or possibly, India would have given birth to one or several imperialist states, that while still playing catch up with Britain, would still be ahead of Europeans like the Russians, and ended up being some of the big players in the 19th Century.

Or alternatively, if the Mughals had been less successful, so instead of a centralized empire whose fate was effectively the fate of the whole of South Asia, from Iran to Vietnam, there were alot of small competing states, each following their own small rises and falls.

fasquardon
 
My Understanding of Chinese History is a bit bare to say the least, but before the Quin, China was a decentralized power. It had 4 leaders I think that each hold power in different regions. It was only after the Quin conquered the other rulers that a centralized hierarchy was placed. I think I read somewhere that he only revealed this post the conquest, to make sure that none could oppose him changing the way Chinese politics worked.

I think you misunderstood something here. The 4 leaders thing may refer to the situation that lasted for a few months in the Central Plain immediately after Beijing fell to rebels and emperor Chongzhen hanged himself, or the decade of political chaos in Southern Ming where four princes vied for the throne, but neither is the norm. And Qing did gave large swaths of land away after the conquest, which eventually backfired and is known as the Three Feudatories' Rebellion
 
The Hindu faith is rather masterful at adapting itself to local cultures and customs. Indeed, the Hindu faith is the borg of religions. It is still busy borg-ing away and assimmilating its way through Southern India, to such a degree that we think of Southern India as being indivisible from Northern India today, when historically these were culturally and geographically very, very different regions.

I disagree that this is Hinduism borg-ing- after all South India is home to it's own religious traditions but I'd argue that these are just as valid parts of Hinduism as North Indian variants- to see Hinduism in such a North-centric way ignores the complexity of the situation. For example the great Hindu reformer Adi Shankar was a Malayalee and he's probably the largest single influence on modern Hinduism- the entire bhakti concept is an originally South Indian concept despite being one of the central movements in most modern Hindu belief systems.

You're right about Hinduism's adaptability, though- I just thought I'd point out the complex nuances of the situation.
 
I disagree that this is Hinduism borg-ing- after all South India is home to it's own religious traditions but I'd argue that these are just as valid parts of Hinduism as North Indian variants- to see Hinduism in such a North-centric way ignores the complexity of the situation. For example the great Hindu reformer Adi Shankar was a Malayalee and he's probably the largest single influence on modern Hinduism- the entire bhakti concept is an originally South Indian concept despite being one of the central movements in most modern Hindu belief systems.

I think you are missing what borg do. Assimilation is not a one way process. The act of exporting a cultural framework to a foreign culture means the foreigners do new stuff with the framework and export the changed ideas back to you. Usually new and interesting things. It doesn't change that the framework is a Vedic and Sanskrit one.

fasquardon
 
I think you are missing what borg do. Assimilation is not a one way process. The act of exporting a cultural framework to a foreign culture means the foreigners do new stuff with the framework and export the changed ideas back to you. Usually new and interesting things. It doesn't change that the framework is a Vedic and Sanskrit one.

fasquardon

One could argue that despite what the Borg claim, assimilation by them is a one way process :D

But that aside, fair enough, I see your point.
 
That is rather counter to my understanding which is that land was owned by the local villages, the Mughals and the nobility only had the right to tax it. Which is why there was a dissinterest in improving the land - they didn't get the benefit, because however good or bad the land was, they only had the right to tax X, so they may as well focus their efforts on improving the efficiency of their extraction technique, rather than put effort into the difficult business of improving productivity.

fasquardon

You're right - I went back and checked. Eraly says this (The Mughal World, p269)

"But whose land was it anyway? Bernier says that the Mughal emperor was 'the proprietor of every acre of land in the kingdom, excepting, perhaps, some houses and gardens which he sometimes permits his subjects to buy, sell, and otherwise dispose of, among themselves." Says Terry: "No subject in this empire hath land of inheritance, nor have other title but the King's will." In such views Bernier and Terry were apparently misled by the absence of manorial landlholdings in India, as in Europe. In India it was the peasant who owned the land, not the lords and squires. Certainly not the emperor."

In my defence I've read Bernier more recently :p

Actually Eraly goes on to say that Akbar did at one point convert the entire empire into khalisa land, ie crown lands of which revenue was reserved for the emperor. But that created even worse corruption than before so Akbar reverted to the jagir system.

The system of land is a bit more complicated, in that there were different types of holding, but I doubt we need to get into that. The only thing is that the levels of complication, the different categories of land and the way revenues were collected, meant that there were "a thousand avenues for corruption", as Eraly puts it.

I'm convinced I read somewhere in the same book that excessive taxation caused peasants to flee the land to become dacoits but I can't find it.

By the way, my memory was partly right on my description of the emperor parcelling out land to courtiers - even if he didn't necessarily own the land, he could give particular areas to people. And freehold, the unit of land for peasants, was not always inheritable. The tradition was that if you cleared the land and cultivated it, then you obtained the freehold that way, but it could also be given by the emperor.
 
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You're right - I went back and checked. Eraly says this (The Mughal World, p269)

"But whose land was it anyway? Bernier says that the Mughal emperor was 'the proprietor of every acre of land in the kingdom, excepting, perhaps, some houses and gardens which he sometimes permits his subjects to buy, sell, and otherwise dispose of, among themselves." Says Terry: "No subject in this empire hath land of inheritance, nor have other title but the King's will." In such views Bernier and Terry were apparently misled by the absence of manorial landlholdings in India, as in Europe. In India it was the peasant who owned the land, not the lords and squires. Certainly not the emperor."

In my defence I've read Bernier more recently :p

Actually Eraly goes on to say that Akbar did at one point convert the entire empire into khalisa land, ie crown lands of which revenue was reserved for the emperor. But that created even worse corruption than before so Akbar reverted to the jagir system.

The system of land is a bit more complicated, in that there were different types of holding, but I doubt we need to get into that. The only thing is that the levels of complication, the different categories of land and the way revenues were collected, meant that there were "a thousand avenues for corruption", as Eraly puts it.

I'm convinced I read somewhere in the same book that excessive taxation caused peasants to flee the land to become dacoits but I can't find it.

By the way, my memory was partly right on my description of the emperor parcelling out land to courtiers - even if he didn't necessarily own the land, he could give particular areas to people. And freehold, the unit of land for peasants, was not always inheritable. The tradition was that if you cleared the land and cultivated it, then you obtained the freehold that way, but it could also be given by the emperor.


Akbar was trying to remove corruption in any ways that he could, so he experimented with what you mentioned, converting everything to crownlands, and paying cash salaries to men under his command; problem was, he didn't have enough people to adequately watch over those in command.

One might see a 'secret police' doing very well in India- to essentially monitor local landholders and nobles.

While you're correct that the peasants owned the land, the nobles were aggressive in taxation, and were still pretty much acting as landholders, as the zamindars were.
 
@Badshah- I love your 'cardamom dreams' TL. It actually is pretty damn good. You recently in the last update if i am not mistaken institued a much more modern and a more robust bureaucracy for the Empire.

But is there another way to go about it? Any other means to implement similar reforms?

Is there really a way in which the central imperial administration, i.e, the Mughal emperor and his court, keep and eye on the more peripheral bits and the people who are in charge of a Jagir?

Taxation was lop sided and was driving people into dacoity (banditry) also because there was no initiative to actually improve the Jagir the nobles never really invested in the estates to improve them.

Is there a way in which the Mughal system could evolve into a more robust administration with a lot more accountable bureaucracy?

@Flocculencio, OP and others this point i raise above might be the biggest challenge Hindustan had to ever becoming a great power.

P.S.- Anybody know any TLs related to Dara Shikoh? Or the 1857 sepoy mutiny/revolt/war of independence (call it whatever you like, it was still an attempted power grab by the dispossessed nobles)?

P.P.S- @fasqudron some very strong points. Especially the one about the French and American Revolutions distracting the British and delaying the British imperialist ambitions in the sub-continent.

Although about the pioneers in medicine, artillery and mathematics you have me mistaken. I never said there weren't any, they were fewer in number in comparison to the size, both population and economy wise, of western Europe. Or maybe there were more and we lost their discoveries to the lack of institutionalized education post destruction of the Universities in Nalanda and Taxila, etc., by the 12th century. I guess that is a disadvantage worth taking into account. Its a shame we barely know about the grand achievements of our ancestors (or, well atleast of the sub-continentals on this forum)

Peace!
 
@Badshah- I love your 'cardamom dreams' TL. It actually is pretty damn good. You recently in the last update if i am not mistaken institued a much more modern and a more robust bureaucracy for the Empire.

But is there another way to go about it? Any other means to implement similar reforms?

Is there really a way in which the central imperial administration, i.e, the Mughal emperor and his court, keep and eye on the more peripheral bits and the people who are in charge of a Jagir?

Taxation was lop sided and was driving people into dacoity (banditry) also because there was no initiative to actually improve the Jagir the nobles never really invested in the estates to improve them.

Is there a way in which the Mughal system could evolve into a more robust administration with a lot more accountable bureaucracy?

@Flocculencio, OP and others this point i raise above might be the biggest challenge Hindustan had to ever becoming a great power.

P.S.- Anybody know any TLs related to Dara Shikoh? Or the 1857 sepoy mutiny/revolt/war of independence (call it whatever you like, it was still an attempted power grab by the dispossessed nobles)?

P.P.S- @fasqudron some very strong points. Especially the one about the French and American Revolutions distracting the British and delaying the British imperialist ambitions in the sub-continent.

Although about the pioneers in medicine, artillery and mathematics you have me mistaken. I never said there weren't any, they were fewer in number in comparison to the size, both population and economy wise, of western Europe. Or maybe there were more and we lost their discoveries to the lack of institutionalized education post destruction of the Universities in Nalanda and Taxila, etc., by the 12th century. I guess that is a disadvantage worth taking into account. Its a shame we barely know about the grand achievements of our ancestors (or, well atleast of the sub-continentals on this forum)

Peace!


Regarding Taxila, (I hate to use someone else's thread for a diferent use) when did they exactly stop functioning? I know Nalanda was sacked many times and came back each time.
 
@Badshah- I love your 'cardamom dreams' TL. It actually is pretty damn good. You recently in the last update if i am not mistaken institued a much more modern and a more robust bureaucracy for the Empire.

But is there another way to go about it? Any other means to implement similar reforms?

Is there really a way in which the central imperial administration, i.e, the Mughal emperor and his court, keep and eye on the more peripheral bits and the people who are in charge of a Jagir?

Taxation was lop sided and was driving people into dacoity (banditry) also because there was no initiative to actually improve the Jagir the nobles never really invested in the estates to improve them.

Is there a way in which the Mughal system could evolve into a more robust administration with a lot more accountable bureaucracy?

@Flocculencio, OP and others this point i raise above might be the biggest challenge Hindustan had to ever becoming a great power.

P.S.- Anybody know any TLs related to Dara Shikoh? Or the 1857 sepoy mutiny/revolt/war of independence (call it whatever you like, it was still an attempted power grab by the dispossessed nobles)?

P.P.S- @fasqudron some very strong points. Especially the one about the French and American Revolutions distracting the British and delaying the British imperialist ambitions in the sub-continent.

Although about the pioneers in medicine, artillery and mathematics you have me mistaken. I never said there weren't any, they were fewer in number in comparison to the size, both population and economy wise, of western Europe. Or maybe there were more and we lost their discoveries to the lack of institutionalized education post destruction of the Universities in Nalanda and Taxila, etc., by the 12th century. I guess that is a disadvantage worth taking into account. Its a shame we barely know about the grand achievements of our ancestors (or, well atleast of the sub-continentals on this forum)

Peace!

I think you're only looking at mediaeval North India- take, for instance the Kerala School of Mathematics which came up with a precursor to the Calculus.

Also I think rather than looking at North India, the South Indian kingdoms, may, in many ways be better candidates for institution building and advancement.
 
Although about the pioneers in medicine, artillery and mathematics you have me mistaken. I never said there weren't any, they were fewer in number in comparison to the size, both population and economy wise, of western Europe. Or maybe there were more and we lost their discoveries to the lack of institutionalized education post destruction of the Universities in Nalanda and Taxila, etc., by the 12th century. I guess that is a disadvantage worth taking into account. Its a shame we barely know about the grand achievements of our ancestors (or, well atleast of the sub-continentals on this forum)

In a sense the knowledge was lost. Alot of it still seems to be there, and gets rediscovered by modern science every so often. The problem is, the stuff isn't written in European languages and the institutions that hold the information were damaged by the British colonization.

By the way, my memory was partly right on my description of the emperor parcelling out land to courtiers - even if he didn't necessarily own the land, he could give particular areas to people. And freehold, the unit of land for peasants, was not always inheritable. The tradition was that if you cleared the land and cultivated it, then you obtained the freehold that way, but it could also be given by the emperor.

Actual ownership of the land could be given? I thought only the rights to tax areas could be given...

fasquardon
 
I think you are missing what borg do. Assimilation is not a one way process. The act of exporting a cultural framework to a foreign culture means the foreigners do new stuff with the framework and export the changed ideas back to you. Usually new and interesting things. It doesn't change that the framework is a Vedic and Sanskrit one.

fasquardon
err not really.Modern hinduisms basis is not the vedas no matter how many people say it is. The modern basis of hinduim is the bhagavad gita, ramayana, and the puranas. As for Puranas it is evident that while they were written in sanskrit they were an adoption of local gods. It makes sense too because if the vedic people were originally nomadic then when they settled in India they adopted the culture and religion of the urbanized natives. After all thats the usual situation when a nomadi society takes over an urban one the nomads become assimilate into the urban society. We see this by the medeival period given by that point the veidic gods Indra, Varuna, Mitra, Dyaus, etc are superseded by the dravidian gods such as linga shiva, matsya(fish) vishnu, etc...

So the framework is not really vedic though it is a sanskirt framework.

Plus this makes sense in the context of the period because now evidence does point to a great war like the mahabharatha but it occured circa 1200-800 b.c.e. In this war you had Iranian migrant pandavas who settled in the south and adopted local customs and traditions allied with the Dravidian yadava clan lead by a krishna yadava fight a war against the northern vedic states lead by the kurus ending in victory for the south and in turn the supremacy of the Dravidian gods replacing the vedic ones with the vedic gods being relegated to a smaller role and the major dravidian gods taking on the roles formerly held by the vedic gods. Its all complex to be quite honest.

As for major indian civilizations, I thik the only way for this to ocur is for their to be a powerful centralized state. Even in mughal times the rajas of india were basically autonomous so as to say. The government wasnt really centralized. Basically what you need is a strong state that curbs the power of the /sultansand basically turns the aristocracy into loyal subjects of the King/Emperor akin to say UK, pre revolutionary France, or russia.What you need is for a state to prevent rajas from doing whatever they want and do what the government tells them to do. . So if you can get a strong state with a entralized govenrment and bureaucracy getting the sultans/rajas in line with the ccentral govenrment then I could see India becoming an industrial powerhouse. As for industril materials india had a ton of gold reserves and riches before the europeans arrived. whoever once it was colonized all those riches were basially taken for the metropols, so if you hvae an india that resists colonization and unites the entire subcontinent and takes control of all the rajas lands then you'd have a huge surplus of gold reserves for the state to use to buy any materials it lacks and create powerful armies and navies.
 
I think you're only looking at mediaeval North India- take, for instance the Kerala School of Mathematics which came up with a precursor to the Calculus.

Also I think rather than looking at North India, the South Indian kingdoms, may, in many ways be better candidates for institution building and advancement.

If we're talking medieval era, then certainly the Cholas would also be good candidates, but that doesn't mean discount North India.

What makes South India endemically better candidates for institution building and advancement? Mysore was the one power that actually attempted expansion, and for the most part, the region was usually subject to a tTamil/Kannada feud...Kerala becoming a power would be very difficult.
 
err not really.Modern hinduisms basis is not the vedas no matter how many people say it is. The modern basis of hinduim is the bhagavad gita, ramayana, and the puranas. As for Puranas it is evident that while they were written in sanskrit they were an adoption of local gods. It makes sense too because if the vedic people were originally nomadic then when they settled in India they adopted the culture and religion of the urbanized natives. After all thats the usual situation when a nomadi society takes over an urban one the nomads become assimilate into the urban society. We see this by the medeival period given by that point the veidic gods Indra, Varuna, Mitra, Dyaus, etc are superseded by the dravidian gods such as linga shiva, matsya(fish) vishnu, etc...

So the framework is not really vedic though it is a sanskirt framework.

It isn't at all clear that the Vedas were composed by a nomadic people. Much more likely is that they were composed by agriculturalists.

In any case, you are projecting a different cultural bias onto my arguement what I was meaning. I wasn't meaning "Vedic" in any ethnic sense, but rather "Vedic" in the sense of the poetry used and the social organization it hints at. Particularly the importance of the priestly caste.

Plus this makes sense in the context of the period because now evidence does point to a great war like the mahabharatha but it occured circa 1200-800 b.c.e. In this war you had Iranian migrant pandavas who settled in the south and adopted local customs and traditions allied with the Dravidian yadava clan lead by a krishna yadava fight a war against the northern vedic states lead by the kurus ending in victory for the south and in turn the supremacy of the Dravidian gods replacing the vedic ones with the vedic gods being relegated to a smaller role and the major dravidian gods taking on the roles formerly held by the vedic gods. Its all complex to be quite honest.

There is very little evidence that there was any migration of Iranic peoples into India, and even less evidence that the people already in Northern India were Dravidian. Since alot of the evidence placing the Mahabharata in the 1200-800 period are implicitly assuming that there was a migration between about 1600-1200, I am not terribly convinced by that dating.

Also, we know so little of the period between the Vedas and Mahabharata that projecting ethnic identities back onto the changes in those centuries (whenever they were) is problematic. It could as easily been changes in which cities were important, or which classes held power where, or any number of other potential reasons.

As for industril materials india had a ton of gold reserves and riches before the europeans arrived. whoever once it was colonized all those riches were basially taken for the metropols, so if you hvae an india that resists colonization and unites the entire subcontinent and takes control of all the rajas lands then you'd have a huge surplus of gold reserves for the state to use to buy any materials it lacks and create powerful armies and navies.

Gold was mostly an ornimental metal at this point. Silver was the monitary metal. And yes, India had most of the world's silver, but this wasn't looted by the British. Most of it stayed in India. I think India still had the largest silver reserves (mostly in the hands of private persons mind) even in the 70s. And alas, all that silver hasn't speeded India's postcolonial progress very much.

fasquardon
 
In a sense the knowledge was lost. Alot of it still seems to be there, and gets rediscovered by modern science every so often. The problem is, the stuff isn't written in European languages and the institutions that hold the information were damaged by the British colonization.



Actual ownership of the land could be given? I thought only the rights to tax areas could be given...

fasquardon

There were six types of land according to Eraly, who only gives general sources but mentions Nizamuddin Ahmad a few times in this section. They were:

khalisa - crown lands "the revenues of which were reserved for the emperor".

jagir - land administered by a jagirdar who farmed it for tax. The jagir right was temporary and easily reassigned by the emperor. Jagirs were usually a large area - I'm guessing they would be about the size of an English county, and vary considerably.

watan-jagir - hereditary jagirs which were bequeathable to an heir, although the rajas of these jagirs still had to adopt a Mughal system.

altamgha - similar to watan-jagirs - a hereditary grant of land given away as a favour by the emperor, and rarely used by the big six emperors, but often used by Aurangzeb's successors.

zemindari - belonging to hereditary revenue collectors. They "derived their power from settling a village, distributing its land and offering local protection to peasants". There's not much difference between the practice of zemindars and jagirdars other than scale, but the principle by which the land right was acquired seems to have been different. "Gradually the status of zemindars began to change, and they converted their right to a share of the produce of the land into an absolute property right." Eraly doesn't say when this happened, although it seems to have started before the 17th century from the context of the passage.

freehold - land assigned free of revenue obligations, usually to set up a seminary or a school. "Freehold grants, like all grants, were sanctioned by the emperor, but were given under the authority of the Chief Sadr" the Chief Sadr being the chief ecclesiastical officer/chief justice.


There seems to me to be a considerable blurring between the right of ownership of the land and the right to collect taxes. Both enable a person to collect the revenue resulting from using the land. The only effective difference is the ability to sell it to someone, and I can't see that the system necessarily meant that an owner had a right to sell the land, or that many people with resources would want to buy it.

If a peasant farmer is the owner of a particular plot because he is allowed to farm it by the zemindar, then that right of ownership would be limited in scope and value - after all, anyone would bought the land would still need to pay the zemindar at least 30pc of the revenue from it and probably a lot more, and they would also probably need the zemindar's permission. There would be little incentive to get a plot of land and do something different with it like build a house or some sort of business because the zemindar was the power in the village and may well have thrown a peasant off the land for doing so. The fact of ownership was not backed up by law, unless the peasant managed to appeal to a higher authority, and what would happen even if a raja or the emperor ordered the zemindar to relent? Let's not also forget that the person who "owned" the land was in a better position than the landless peasants who he probably paid subsistence to work on it. He might sell the land, but then what? Who would buy it for a large amount? Better, in most cases, to keep it in the family.

Akbar also introduced the 'karori' system. His idea was to persuade people to cultivate new, difficult land areas, and the system was to divide up the land so each area would produce a crore of tankas (which is 500,000 rupees). The karoris who administered each area basically just taxed to death the people who were already making money, rather than put in the hard graft of opening up difficult areas. That lasted five years until he abandoned the scheme.
 
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