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Criticalpoliticalevaluationofmughalindiathroughfrenchtravelersandadventurersrecords
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University of Delhi
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Critical Political Evaluation of Mughal India Through French Travellers And Adventurers’ Records’, The Punjab Journal of Politics, 2013, vol. 37, issue no 1-2, pp. 53-78, ISSN 0253-3960.
CRITICAL POLITICAL EVALUATION OF MUGHAL INDIA THROUGH FRENCH TRAVELERS AND ADVENTURERS’ RECORDS
Dr. SAKUL KUNDRA 1
ABSTRACT
The French travelers and adventurers in the northern India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries made a critical political evaluation through their memoirs, travelogues and letters. This article have tried to analyze these French records [translated and untranslated] through which their authors tried to compare and contrast the political state of India and France. These voyagers made significant political assessment of both the states and tried to give a veiled warning to Louis XIV absolutist policies by highlighting the negative impact of Aurangzeb’s despotic measures. The objective of this paper is to make a critical political evaluation of Mughal India through French eyes. Thus earlier these travelers then followed by adventurers raised invaluable issues such as Louis XIV absolutist and Aurangzeb’s despotic policies, consequences of taking away of private property, drawbacks of system of escheat, negative connotations attached to sale of offices, result of not abiding the law of primogeniture, unnecessary wasted of money in emperor’s glorifications and nature of precious metal.
Keywords: French absolutism, Mughal despotism, law of primogeniture, system of escheat, private property, glorification of empire, precious metal
The French travelers and adventurers in the northern India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have made a crucial contribution towards the comprehensive evaluation of Indian political structures. This article systematically attempts to evaluate the copious judgments of Indian political structures made in their travelogues and memoirs written in French, both translated and untranslated. Their testimonies in these two eventful centuries are analyzed with 1 Assistant Professor, Department of History, Motilal Nehru College (Morning), University of Delhi, New Delhi, India; jnulec@gmail.
regard to not just their understanding of the political structures of Mughal India but also counter relationship with the contemporary French political state. In order to scrutinize their perceptions, one needs to take into consideration the political developments in France during these centuries as they directly and indirectly influenced the thinking of the French travelers and adventurers about Mughal India.
- FRENCH TRAVELERS’ AND ADVENTURERS’ RELATIONS WITH THE FRENCH STATE
Most of the French travelers and adventurers from the early seventeenth century to the end of eighteenth century were in constant touch with the French state. Although their accounts varied according to the time and space, almost all of them dedicated their travelogues to the French king. For instance, Français Martin de Vitré and Jean Mocquet were in touch with Henry IV and dedicated their accounts to the French state. François de Gouz de la Boullaye was the first ambassador of Louis XIV to the Mughal court. Colbert wanted to establish a French trading company in the Indies and thus sent an embassy of his five deputies towards the East. 2 Boullaye was in charge of the political mission when he wrote to Colbert, giving useful information on the potential for trade with the Indies.
Following them were the two most popular French travelers, Bernier and Tavernier who were in direct correspondence with the French state. Tavernier, during the course of his six voyages to the East, sold varied merchandise and diamonds to the French king, while Bernier answered several queries of people attached to the French state regarding the possibility of trade with India. Tavernier constantly boasted that he travelled under the patronage of the kings of France and Persia, whose protection he was accustomed to claiming when he incurred losses or was subjected to any indignity. 3 He even obtained the license for printing his travelogue from Louis XIV. 4 Jean de Thevenot, John Chardin and Charles Dellon, too, gave important insights into the Indian political system, while Abbe Carre was directly associated with the French state as he had been sent by Louis XIV and Colbert to support the recently started French trade in
2 Henri Castonnet des Fosses., ‘Une lettre inedite de la Boullaye le Gouz’, p. 1. Henri Castonnet Des Fosses, ‘La Boullaye le Gouz : sa vie et ses voyages’, p. 170. 3 Tavernier, Travels in India,Vol. 1. p. xxxvii. 4 Ibid., Vol, Book III, p. 326. The book was published first time in 1676 where the right, as the traveller had ceded and transferred his right to Gervais Claouzier and Claude Barbin, Merchant booksellers.
everyone according to their whims and fancies. He informed that the people did not have the right to property, the sovereign was the owner of all the land in his kingdom, the industry and trade suffered heavily because of the arbitrary powers of the king and his provincial governors, and justice was very badly administered. 8 Tavernier believed that the Mughal government was a paternalistic government and rulers like Shah Jahan ruled over their people, more as a father ruled over his family than as a king governed his subjects. 9 Both Bernier and Tavernier emphasized that the Mughal emperor exercised absolute control over land and people. They reinforced their argument by pointing to what they perceived as the important features of the Mughal and French state: the absence of private property, the role of gifts and presents to obtain positions of power, the sale of offices, the law of primogeniture, the glorification of French and Mughal monarchies, the parallels between Mughal despotism and Louis XIV’s Absolutism, and the hoarding of precious metals in India.
- ABSENCE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN MUGHAL INDIA AND PARALLELS WITH THE FRENCH STATE
The prominent French traveller Bernier, like Thomas Roe’s earlier, attributed the abuses in the Mughal empire to the fact that the emperor owned all the land and distributed it among his nobles for lifelong tenure in lieu of fixed sums of money as rent. 10 Bernier felt that the roots of oriental despotism and tyranny lay in the very absence of private property in oriental states. He stated, “those three countries, Turkey, Persia and Hindoustan, have no idea of the principle of meum and tuum 11 relatively to land or other real possessions; and having lost that respect for the right of property, which is the basis of all that is good and useful in the world, necessarily resemble each other in essential points: they fall into the same pernicious errors and must, sooner or later, experience the natural consequences of those errors—tyranny, ruin and misery.” 12 Bernier simply referred to the regimes of Turkey, Persia and India not just as negative examples,
8 Bernier, Travels, p. 315. 9 Tavernier, Travels in India, Vol. 1, p. 260. 10 Bernier stated, “it must not be imagined that omrahs or lords of the Mogol’s Court are members of ancient families, as our nobility in France. The king being proprietor of all lands in the empire, there can exist neither Dukedoms nor Marquisates; norcan any family be found possessed of wealth arising from a domain and living upon its own patrimony. The courtiers are often not even descendants of omrahs, because, the king being heir of all their possessions, no family can long maintain its distinction, but after the oto enlist as mere troopers in the cavalry of somemrahs’s death , is soon extinguished and sons or at least the grandsons reduced generally, to beggary and compelled omarah”. (Bernier, Travels. pp. 211-212.)
11 Note: means ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ or recognition of private ownership of property. 12 Bernier, Travels, p.
but rather to assert that economic prosperity and the common good required that the monarch respects the property rights of his subjects.
Further, Bernier indirectly warned the French state not to take away private property right in a bid to achieve complete centralization, as such a move could lead to the decline of the state as had happened in the Asiatic states. He mentioned that “how happy and thankful should we feel, My Lord [Colbert] that in our quarter of the globe, kings are not the sole proprietors of the soil! were they so, we should seek in vain for countries well cultivated and populous, for well built and opulent cities, for a polite, contented and flourishing people. If this exclusive and baneful right prevailed, for different would be the real riches of the sovereigns of Europe and the loyalty and fidelity with which they are served. They would soon reign over solitudes and deserts over mendicants and barbarians.” 13 Tavernier’s travelogues also cited evidence to prove that the Asian states were characterized by the absence of private property, which in turn accounted for their lack of economic development and the impossibility of dynamic change. He informs us that once the governor of Brampour, who was the Mughal emperor’s nephew, was murdered by one of his employees but when the body of the governor, along with his harem, reached Agra, “Shahjahan, who then reigned, having heard the news, was in the least distressed, because he inherited the property of all his subjects.” 14
Bernier pictured the consequences of taking away the private property in France: “if you take away the right of private property in land, and you introduce, as a sure and necessary consequence, tyranny, slavery, injustice, beggary and barbarism, the ground will cease to be cultivated and become a dreary wilderness... the road will be opened to the ruin of kings and the destruction of nations.” 15 Defending the right to private property, he gave out a veiled warning to the French state under Louis XIV: “if we take a review of the different kingdoms in the world, we shall find that they prosper or decline according to this principle is acknowledged or contemned... prevalence or neglect of this principle which changes and diversifies the face of the earth.” 16 Therefore, Bernier tried to portray the possible consequences of withdrawing the right to private property in the increasingly absolutist French state by depicting the consequences of the
13 Ibid., p. 232. 14 Tavernier, Travels in India, p. 44. 15 Bernier, Travels, p. 238. 16 Ibid., p. 238.
as a warning against the heavy taxation of peasants, artisans and merchants by Louis XIV for funding his ambitious expansionist foreign policy.
Some eighteenth-century French adventurers in their memoirs agree with Bernier’s view about the private property and system of escheat with some exceptions. Lauriston said that “the soubah or the viceroyalties were divided into provinces except for those belonging to the rajas like Marathas, Rajputs, Jats and other inferior rajas and the rest was owned by the emperor and their government at his disposal or at least at that of the soubahdars. There were lots of post filled by the Hindu Rajas, nearly all the divans or the viceroys of the ministers were Hindus or gentils and the soubahdars also prefer these hindus because of their loyalty. The provinces were divided into parganas and some were given the title by the prince named as fief for the maintenance of certain officers, but these fief were reversible at the death of the subject unless the prince judged in connection to continue in the families which is named as Jagir. The other parganas were distributed to the zamindars and acted as an intendant charged to reply to the government of the perception of the rights which was raised following the tariffs of the chancellery, on house tax, trade goods which enter or left and on food items sold in public market”. 27 Wendel on the other hand mentioned that the Jat subjects were the owners of land and served as warriors when their state was in danger. On the subjects of the Raja of Bharatpur, he wrote, “With his Jats, he made himself master of a vast territory. They cultivated the land, they defended it, he made warriors of them and after their military duties for which he had needed them, and they returned to their ploughs, no less industrious peasants than courageous soldiers, when it was a matter of defending the lands where they were settled”. 28
Essentially, his description of Indian political structures conveyed a veiled warning to the French state about the problems faced by different sections of the French society due to the implementation of Louis XIV’s absolutist policies. Bernier indirectly expressed the need for a workable organization in France by depicting the negative effects resulting from the imposition of despotic policies by the Indian states. He believed that if these despotic policies were implemented in France then the results would be inevitably the same as that in the Oriental states. Bernier concluded that the fundamental cause for the prevalence of tyranny in India and
27 Lauriston, Mémoire sur quelques affaires de l’Empire Mogol (1756-1761), p. 31. 28 Wendel, Les Mémoires de Wendel sur les Jats, Les Pathans et les Sikhs, p. 68.
other Asiatic states was the absence of private property in land. He also tried to present a picture of the uncertain future of France in the event of Louis XIV’s absolutist policies withdrawing the right to private property.
- CRITIQUE OF FRENCH TRAVELERS’ ACCOUNTS ON PRIVATE PROPERTY
Bernier’s travel records became the primary source for other European writers to study ‘Asiatic’ or ‘Oriental’ societies. For instance, Montesquieu used Chardin’s accounts of Persia and Bernier’s accounts of the Mughal Empire to formulate his theory of Oriental Despotism in his 1748 work The Spirit of Laws. 29 Anquetil criticized his study for the misuse or selective use of these accounts in support of his thesis. Marx, too, turned to the same sources as the basis for his ideas on Asiatic mode of production. Marx had already read Bernier in 1853 and in a letter to Engels, he quoted Bernier extensively. 30 He agreed with Bernier’s main thesis that the Mughal empire and other Oriental states were declining because there was no private property in the soil. 31 In a study of the Marx’s theory of the Asiatic mode of production, Brendan O’Leary criticized Marx for his selective use of Bernier’s records and his lack of judgment, and suggested that he shamelessly shaped material to fit in with his preconceived ideas; as with a careful inspection of Bernier’s text suggested that any reader drilled in the critical skills of the enlightenments would have been skeptical of the French doctor’s generalization. 32
O’Leary further suggested that Bernier’s account of Mughal land ownership contained a half-disguised warning to its addressee, Colbert, about the French nobility’s apprehension that Louis XIV intended to claim all French land as royal property. 33 Irfan Habib, in his Agrarian System of Mughal India (1963) based on the revenue records of the Mughal administration, negated Bernier’s observations on the absence of private property in Mughal India. Habib argued that the land belonged to both the king and the peasants on certain conditions, and that since man-land ratio was favourable to man, there were natural limits to the oppression of peasantry
29 Siep Stuurman, “ Francois Bernier and the Invention of Race classification.” History Workshop Journal No. 49-50.(2000), p. 8. 30 Irfan Habib, Essay in Indian History:Towards a Marxist perception. (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 1995), pp. 22-23. 31 S. Ryazanskaya (ed.), Selected Correspondence of Marx papers. (Trans.) by late I (Moscow,1955). 32 O’Leary, Brendon, The Asiatic mode of production, p. 58. 33 Ibid., pp. 58.
subjects to buy, sell, and dispose of among themselves”. 39 Bernier explained that India had no concept of hereditary property, thus nobles lived extravagantly, hoarded wealth underground and made ornaments and hid them to appear like indigent, which led to a blockade of bullion circulation. After the confiscation of the property of a deceased noble, his son would have to start his career from scratch; this resulted in a complete absence of loyalty to the state or a sense of duty towards the people, and self-interest predominated. 40 The landholders were only concerned with the immediate accumulation of wealth, having no intention to maintain or improve the land, since they could not pass it down to their children. Thus, peasantry, traders and artisans were exploited and tyrannized. 41 This system of escheat prevented the growth of property right in office and this signifies an Asian version of agrarian bureaucracy and royal absolutism. 42 Bernier was hinting at the futile attempts of Louis XIV to resume the hereditary property in a move towards absolutist centralization. Irfan Habib showed that Bernier had a wrong perception about hereditary property in Mughal India. He argued that in Mughal India, zamindari in itself (not the land under zamindari) had all the hallmarks of private property: it was inheritable and could be freely bought and sold. Hereditary succession to zamindari was a general law in the Mughal India. He also showed from records that if Hindu and Muslim laws of succession applied to property, these laws provided for the equal shares of sons in their father’s property; the zamindari was invariably divided among the sons. 43 Thus, to sum up, Bernier’s observations on the supposed absence of private property under the Mughal escheat system had as its backdrop the political changes in the contemporary France.
- SALE OF OFFICES IN FRENCH AND MUGHAL REALMS
Bernier highlighted that in the Indian states there was “sale of different provincial government for sums of hard cash,... thus it becomes the principal object of the appointed Governor, to obtain repayment of the purchase money, which he borrowed as he could at a
39 Ibid., p. 204. Bernier showed that Aurangzeb also knew that this policy of escheat was harsh on the masses. He stated that “This practice is advantageous, no doubt; but can we deny its injustice and cruelty” (Bernier, Travels, p). Bernier tried to use this as a warning against the ambitions of Louis XIV. 40 Aniruddha Ray, “Francois Bernier’s idea of India,” in Habib (ed.), India-Studies in the History of an Idea, (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2004), p. 182. 41 Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed, European and British Writing on India. 1600-1800 (Delhi: OUP, 1995), p. 29. 42 Stanley J. Tambiah, “What did Bernier actually say? Profiling the Mughal empire,” in Veena Das et al. (eds.), Tradition, Pluralism and Identity: Essay in honour of T.N. (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999), p. 43 Irfan Habib, Agrarian system of Mughal India 1556-1707 (New Delhi, OUP, 1963,1999), p. 91.
ruinous rate of interest”. 44 Bernier then explained that these provincial governors and officers had to give valuable presents to the emperor, the vizier, the ladies of the seraglio and other important officers at the court to get these offices, in addition to annual presents at festivals which these officers gave to retain their posts. Bernier regarded the giving of these presents as equivalent to the sale of offices in France where annual payments were made to the king in lieu of appointments to offices. This French system of venality of office 45 reflected the advances made by the money economy in that the offices became marketable commodities which could be bought, sold, transferred and bequeathed. Merchants who wished to acquire social status and political influence or simply consolidate their assets invested in office and land. 46 The system thus introduced wealthy, local magnates into state edifice through the backdoor just as the traditional noble opposition was being ushered out the front, producing a new potential for collegial, structured resistance to change within the royal system itself. Venality of office in France encouraged the practice of selling posts in the government to royal officers for life, and then guaranteeing them the right to bequeath or sell the office at any time in return for payment of the annual paulette tax. 47 Bernier compared the presents made by Indian provincial governors to the payments made by French officers to secure appointments to state offices. In making this comparison, he warned against such abuse of offices in the French state. The provincial Indian governors heavily taxed the peasantry to repay the loans that they had taken at exorbitant rate of interest, and the French office holders, who acted as despots in their areas of jurisdiction at the provincial level and resented paying taxes to the French state, resorted to similar measures. Law de Lauriston also highlights that “Bernier speak about the court life of the Mughal, as in the Aurangzeb court presents were given to the emperor secrecy”. 48
- LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE
44 Bernier, Travels, p. 45 Venal offices created new avenues for social and political advancement in the service of the crown and a mechanism for extracting the wealth of the labouring population. Office holders became a parasitic burden on the realm. This sale of offices alsodiverted resources and energy into non-productive channels but it involved a fragmentation of royal authority.
46 David Parker, “Absolutism, Feudalism and Property rights in the France of Louis XIV’ in Past and Present, No 178-179, 2003, Oxford University Press, pp. 60-97. 47 J. Lough, “France Under Louis XIV,” in F Carsten (eds.) In The New Cambridge Modern History: The Ascendancy of France 1648-88, vol. V, (Great Britain, 1961). pp. 222-247. 48 Bernier, Travels, p. 11
of dissension among his four sons by appointing them as viceroys of his four provinces. 52 Citing the Mughal war of succession as a consequence of Shah Jahan’s ill-advised decision, Bernier sought to give important lessons to Louis XIV: he should avoid the unwise delegation of authority, support primogeniture, listen to the advice of wise councilors, never waver from slaying the chief enemy when the opportunity arose 53 and never forget one’s supporters (it is to be noted here that Dara was the first to offer employment to Bernier as a physician). Following Bernier, Montesquieu argued that in the Oriental state the successor to the throne was chosen arbitrarily by the most powerful despot. However, Anquetil pointed to fixed laws of succession in Turkey and Persia, though, like Montesquieu, he criticized the Mughals for not following the law of primogeniture.
- FRENCH AND INDIAN MONARCHICAL GLORIFICATION
Louis XIV’s political ideas can be gleaned from his memoir, Instructions pour le Dauphin. 54 This work presented the king as the vicegerent of God on the earth, as superior to all mortals and as the source of special qualities that he alone possessed irrespective of any ability and experience. Further, he acquired his profound political insight and capacity for decision as a result of the unparalleled range of vision that he alone possessed—because he was born to rule and called to the office by birth and by the right of inheritance. The intelligence and common sense that he shared with no other mortals entitled him to extraordinary rights and privileges. Louis XIV’s memoir emphasize the splendour and might of kingship and the elevation of the king above all others. Convinced of his divine appointment and task, Louis XIV would brook no criticism or opposition from his servants or allies. Louis XIV used the theories of Jean Bodin, 55
52 Ibid., pp. 15-16, 115 53 Glenn Joseph Ames, “Mughal India during the Age of the Scientific Revolution: Francois Bernier’s Travels and lessons for Absolutist Europe,” in Glenn J and Ronald S. (ed.), Distant Land and Diverse Culture, The French Experience in Asia 1600-1700, (Westport: Praeger, 2003), pp-155. 54 It is true that this work was not the product of the king’s own hand; it was worked up by secretaries from notes and general indications, but it can fairly be considered, inspite of much ornamentation and literary embellishment in its drafting, the mirror ofhis ideas and of his concept of monarchy. (Burke, Peter, “The Philosopher as Traveller: Bernier Orient,” in Jas Elsner and Joan- Pau Rubies (eds.), Voyages and Visions: Towards a Cultural History of Travel, (London, 1999). p. 55 Jean Bodin’s Six livres de la Republique (Six books on the Commonwealth) (1576) was the earliest fully developed statement of governmental absolutism in western political thought.(Burns, pp. 713-716)
Thomas Hobbes 56 and Jacques Bossuets 57 to justify his policy of absolutism in France and presented himself as a “demi-god” 58 who simply dictated the answers to every problem to his ministers and the secretaries as if he were L’etat, c’est moi (“I am the state”). Tavernier, Bernier and other travelers also observed that the entire French administrative machinery derived its momentum from the emperor who was not just the highest temporal authority but also got the religious sanction behind his power. He was also regarded as the shadow of God on earth. 59
The seventeenth-century French travelers such as Bernier took India as an example to advice Louis XIV to contain his huge financial expenditure on self-glorification and on war and conquest that led to monetary losses for the state. Discussing the functioning of the Mughal state, Bernier hinted at how Louis XIV should govern the French state. He wrote, “Although the Great Mogol is in receipt of immense revenue, his expenditure being much in the same proportion, he cannot possess the vast surplus of wealth that the most people seem to imagine... I should call that king effectively rich who, without oppressing or impoverishing his people, possessed revenues sufficient to support the expenses of a numerous and magnificent court, to erect grand and useful edifices, to indulge a liberal and kind disposition, to maintain a military force for the defense of his dominions and besides all this, to reserve an accumulating fund that would provide against any unforeseen rupture with his neighbors, although it should prove of some years durations”. 60 Bernier’s remarks on the state of fiscal management under the Mughal emperor and his notion of the ‘ideal’ role of a ruler seem to have an underlying injunction against Louis XIV’s extravagant self-glorification policy. By drawing such parallels between the French and the Indian states, he suggested how one monarch should govern his domain effectively without oppressing his people. He also suggested that Louis XIV reserve his resources for unforeseen exigencies, military operations and commercial expansions. Citing the self-glorifying names of
56 Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) whose reaction to the English Civil war made him the most forceful advocate of unrestrained state power of all time. He was also moved by St Bartholomew’s Day (27 August 1572) to formulate a doctrine of political absolutism and move by the turmoil of the English civil war to do the same in his classic of political theory entitled Leviathan(1651) Bodin assumed that the absolute sovereign power would be a royal monarch, the more radical Hobbes said that sovereign could be any ruthless dictator whatsoever. Hobbes state existed to rule over atomistic individuals and, thus, was licensed to trample over both liberty and property (Burns, pp. 713-16). 57 His ‘Politics Drawn for the very words of Scripture’ (1708), written during the reign of Louis XIV, to sustain the case extended for monarchical control (Burns, p. 822). 58 King became sacred, the paternal guardian of the people’s welfare, and accountable to God alone for his acts, and ruled with the divine right to rule. 59 Bernier, Travels, p. 227, Manucci, Storia do Mogor or Mogul India 1653-1708, Vol. I, pp. 194-204. 60 Bernier, Travel, p. 222.
their religion and the code of laws by which they have been governed since then”. 69 Chevalier further stated that if the Assamese were asked about the character of the king, they replied that was he was a divine king, adding that after the assigned task of the king in a human form was finished, he returned to the heaven to re-unite with his divine essence. Therefore, given his divine stature, the king had pompous titles, placing him on higher pedestal in comparison to the common people.
- CHANGING CONTOURS OF THE MUGHAL COURT
French travelers such as Bernier described the wealth and grandeur of the Mughal empire in exaggerated terms. Bernier compared Shah Jahan amassing huge wealth without engaging in warfare to Louis XIV embarking on ambitious programmes of military expansion and thereby creating financial bankruptcy in France. In his words, “Shah-Jehan... was a great economist and reigned for more than forty years without being involved in any great war”. 70 Tavernier and Bernier also described the Mughal emperor’s appearance. Bernier wrote, “King appeared seated upon his throne, at the end of the great hall, in the most magnificent attire, his vest was of white and delicately followed satin, with silk and gold embroidery of the finest texture”. 71 Describing the Mughal throne, he wrote, “the throne was supported by six massy feet, said to be of solid gold, sprinkled over with rubies, emeralds and diamonds and the throne valued at four kourours of roupies”. 72 These accounts of the Mughal emperor’s appearance and throne probably echoed Bernier’s concern about the ongoing trend of the glorification of French monarchy under Louis XIV’s rule since his coronation in 1661. This exaltation of royalty became conspicuous in 1682 with the building of Versailles palace by Louis XIV. 73 The palace was designed to appear, to his subjects, as a temple dedicated to the worship of king as a demi-god rising above the rest of mankind. 74 Bernier certainly wanted to draw the attention of the French state towards the huge financial expenditure incurred in Louis’s ostentatious celebration of monarchy. Further, he also described the ways in which the Mughal emperor collected huge
69 Ibid., p. 37. 70 Bernier, Travels, p. 71 Ibid., p. 72 Ibid, p. 73 Versailles was hailed as the ‘abode of the Sun King’ with his proud motto Nec pluribus impar (greatest of all); its very doors bore in gold, the emblem of his greatness. (The Cambridge Modern History, The Ascendancy of France, 1648-1688, vol-5, pp. 239-240). 74 J. Lough, “ France Under Louis XIV”, pp-247.
amounts of wealth. In his words, “all these precious stones, and valuable articles, are the spoils of ancient princes, patans and rajas, collected during a long course of years, and increasing regularly under every reign, by presents which the omrahs are compelled to make on certain annual festivals”. 75 This enormous amount of precious material belonged to the king. He said, “the whole of this treasure is considered the property of the crown, which it is criminal to touch, upon the security of which the King, in a time of pressing necessity”. 76 This forcible collection of wealth created dissatisfaction among some Indian nobles. The latter’s situation was comparable to the French nobles whose financial privileges were taken away after the enthronement of Louis XIV in 1661. Boigne also noticed that “the emperor of the Great Mughal were early described by the Arab and Persian travelers who gave the marvelous accounts of the ostentation of this sovereign and splendors of his court. 77 This adventurer further gave a description of the imperial court offered a contrast to that given by Bernier when it was at its peak. Lauriston and Gentil also described the grandeur and glorification of Mughal court but they also described its deteriorating changes after Aurangzeb’s death. 78 After hundred years, Modave described the misery of the monarchy. Modave went on to say that “the Court does not have any more magnificence. The spectacle pomp of the audiences of Aurengzeb that Bernier describes us with such an amount of pleasure and exactitude was replaced by the strangest parsimony who is born from a relic misery and not of a weakening in the taste of an external pump”. The “carriers of money club” had yielded the place to “a hundred or so of bagger armed with large sticks” and “this throne of solid gold and charged by heaps of precious stones of a priceless price is replaced by a gilded wood armchair which must constantly remind to this inactive prince who fills the visit that Nader-cha made in Delhi”. 79 “Indigence (extreme poverty) and lowness of this Court formerly so proud and so opulent. I can only let myself to admire the astonishing contrast of pride and misery that it presents at the first aspect”. 80 Modave then detailed the miserable condition of the emperor who received only five rupees per day for his subsistence. 81 Thereafter, Modave described the misery
75 Bernier, Travels. pp. 213, 223. 76 Bernier, Travels, p. 223. 77 Victor de Saint-Génis, Une Page Inédite de l’histoire des Indes Le Général du Boigne, p. 75. 78 Lauriston, Mémoire sur quelques affaires de l’Empire Mogol (1756-1761), p. 286; Gentil, Mémoire sur L’Indoustan ou Empire Mogol, pp. 63. 72 79 Comte de Modave, Voyage en Inde du Comte de Modave 1773-1776, p. 190. 80 Ibid., p. 187. 81 Ibid., p. 188.
absolutism was one of a convulsive progression towards a centralized monarchical state, a process repeatedly interrupted by relapses into provincial disintegration and anarchy, followed by an intensified reaction against centralization of royal power, until finally an extremely hard and stable structure was achieved by Louis XIV’s 88 absolutist government. Bernier’s account of Mughal despotism was meant to criticize the absolutism of Louis XIV and its centripetal tendency for progressively disempowering the traditional local institutions in France. This new form of coercive centralized monarchy was superimposed in 1660s upon the existing French social structure and political institutions. All the traditional checks on the royal power—the Estate General 89 and the provincial estates; the prime minister of the French state; the French parliament; the independent power of the provincial governors 90 and of the town councils; and the political and administrative functions of the sovereign courts—were ignored or relegated to the background to make way for the uncontrolled power of Louis XIV’s personal government from 1661 onwards. Bernier’s writings on Mughal India and the projection of ‘Asiatic tyranny’ tacitly conveyed his opposition to Louis XIV’s absolutist policies which posed a great threat to the liberty of his subjects. Since it was not possible for him to openly criticize Louis’s absolutism, he used his portrayal of the consequences of Aurangzeb’s despotism in India as a convenient blind for his criticism of Louis’s absolutism in France. In his account of India, Bernier, thus, added a subtle caveat for the French ruler: France would face an ominous future if his ongoing moves towards centralization of power were not reversed. 91 In this context, it is important to compare the linkages between the grievances of different sections of the society and the ongoing political changes in France with those in India. “The emperor of Hindustan was like a despot whose ambitions and miserliness do not have any limit. 92 These despots wanted to be the absolute than the law of the God do not allow. In India does not exist the nobility, rich bourgeoisie, large merchants, who in Europe sometimes succeeded in revolted against the King. The Omerahs were totally dependent on Emperor and their fate depends on his good will. Omerahs were not the
88 Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, (London, 1974), pp. 85-86. 89 Estate General was of course never summoned, but they were simply forgotten and not abolished. The national French representative assembly last summoned in 1614 was again held in 1789. (The Cambridge Modern History,France, 1648-1688, vol-5, pp. 222-247). The Ascendancy of
90 Governors were appointed for three years and they were forced to reside at the court. 91 Aniruddha Ray, “Francois Bernier’s idea of India,” in Habib (ed.), India-Studies in the History of an Idea, (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2004). pp. 159-186. 92 Bernier, Travels, p. 326.
owners and does not enjoy independent income like the French aristocracy. It is the sovereign who gives them a pension. After the death of Omerah his property passes in the hands of the emperor”. 93
Mughal despotism was also reflected in the records of Lauriston. He said the Mughal government is despotic and military by its constitution which is nearly the same in all the Oriental countries. 94 The law was made by the whims and fancies of the Emperor and who gives orders to the army of the state to act, the Vizir, Mir Bakshi or general of the armies, Mir Ateche or head of the artillery, the prince of the blood having the big provinces or viceroy, under them were the governors, commanders and the ministers humbly subjugated to the order flow out from the channel of the Vizir. 95 This spirit was maintained to follow the orders of the emperor and sometimes the precautions were taken to make the orders followed in the vast empire. All the fortresses in some provinces were dependent only on the emperor who placed there a keledar with some troops independently of those which were in faujdar. The family of keledar resided in Delhi, Agra or other places close to the court, does not have any order to receive from viceroy of the province and watch only the safety to the safety of the place. 96 Lauriston also tried to show the despotism in the administration of the Mughals and the methods which were used to control the Rajas of the provinces. Thus in a way he suggested the French state to follow the policies of checks and balances to run a successful government. According to him the over centralization or absolution could lead to downfall of any empire. 97
- BLOCKADE OF PRECIOUS METALS
Bernier pointed out a major paradox of the Indian economy: the Mughal empire was an abyss for gold and silver, but the “inhabitants have less appearance of a moneyed people than those of many other parts of the world”. 98 Bernier explained that northern India received large quantities of gold and silver which were melted, re-melted and wasted in the process of
93 Ibid., p. 291. 94 Lauriston, Mémoire sur quelques affaires de l’Empire Mogol (1756-1761), p. 21. 95 Ibid., p. 21. 96 Ibid., p. 21. 97 Ibid., p. 26. 98 Bernier, Travels, p. 223.
Criticalpoliticalevaluationofmughalindiathroughfrenchtravelersandadventurersrecords
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University: University of Delhi
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