trade, state policy and regional change: aspects of mughal-uzbek

Trade, State Policy and Regional Change: Aspects of Mughal-Uzbek Commercial Relations, C.1550-1750Author(s): Muzaffar AlamSource: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 37, No. 3 (1994), pp.202-227Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3632256 .Accessed: 15/02/2011 11:09

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bap. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

BRILL is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Economic andSocial History of the Orient.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bap

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3632256?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bap

JESHO, Vol. XXXVII, ? E.J. Brill, Leiden

TRADE, STATE POLICY AND REGIONAL CHANGE: ASPECTS OF MUGHAL-UZBEK

COMMERCIAL RELATIONS, C. 1550-1750"*

BY

MUZAFFAR ALAM (Centre for Historcal Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

The coming of the Mughals to India in the sixteenth century deepened the pre-existing links between India and Central Asia. The two regions drew closer in terms of trade, population and culture. Material life in both

regions was deeply affected by the accelerated movement of goods and

people, while institutions of learning, religion and politics in each area bore the imprint of the other. Not much work has been published in English, until recently, even on general aspects of India's relationship with Central Asia. Indeed, the significance of the trade of these regions has often been overlooked in modern writings on the Mughal-Indian economy. A major reason for this has been the nature of - or perhaps the way in which we have used - the available sources. In recent years, however, there have been some notable publications in English which enable us to ask some new

questions relevant to this trade'). The present paper is intended to be an

attempt in this direction, drawing principally on some materials from the sixteenth to early eighteenth centuries. The paper opens with an account of the movement of goods, followed by an examination, in the second and third sections, of the evidence on merchants and their relations with the

* An earlier draft of the paper, presented at a conference on the Political Economies of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires, Istanbul, June, 1992, elicited useful comments from Stephen Dale, Suraiya Faroqhi, Ashraf Ghani, Edmund Herzig, Halil Inalcik, David Ludden and Andre Wink. Seema Alavi, Daniel Balland, Neeladn Bhattacharya and Sanjay Subrahmanyam helped in revising the paper. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the late Professor S. Nurul Hasan for facilitating access to the valuable archival holdings in Tashkent, Dushambe and St. Petersburg. The maps are based on Historical Atlas of Iran (Tehran, 1971) and Irfan Habib's An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (Delhi, 1982).

1) S. Gopal, Indians in Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries, English translation with introduction and notes of a selection of Russian Document (Calcutta, 1988); idem, Indians in Cen- tral Asia, 16th and 17th centuries, Presidential Address, Medieval India Section of the Indian History Congress, 52nd Session, (New Delhi, 1992); Stephen F Dale, 'Indo-Russian Trade in the Eighteenth Century' in Sugata Bose (ed.), South Asia and World Capitalismrn (Delhi, 1990), pp. 140-156; idem, 'Indian Merchants in Iran', paper presented at the Conference on Political Economies of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires, Istanbul, June, 1992; Jos Gommans 'Mughal India and Central Asia in the Eighteenth Century- An Introduction to a Wider Perspective', Itinerarno, 15, 1, (1991) pp. 51-70.

TRADE, STATE POLICY AND REGIONAL CHANGE 203

state. The relevant materials on this particular question are limited. But

they allow us to raise doubts about the oft-repeated view that the Mughal or the Uzbek rulers were hostile or, at least, indifferent to trade and traders and that before the dawn of modern era the merchants of these two regions had no significant role in politics. In the fourth section I have considered the impact of this trade on the northern Indian economy and politics.

I

The vast expanse of Central Asia was connected with India both through land and sea-routes. Seafarers first reached the Persian shores and hence took the land routes to the north of the Amu Darya across Khurasan. The

principal routes on the mainland went through the Khyber and Bolan

passes. Lahore, Multan, Kabul and Qandahar were the major entrepats of these roads. In addition, there were the Kashmir routes which led through the Kara Koram to Yarqand, where the routes from Ladakh, Tibet, China, and India were joined by those leading to Kashgar. From Kashgar the caravans proceeded to Samarqand and Bukhara. Samarqand, the first

major city of Transoxiana, was the junction of the main routes from India

(via Kabul and Kashmir), Persia (via Merv) and the Turkish territories2). The city of Samarqand, together with Bukhara, was thus the centre of the

Indian merchants for their trade in Central Asia. In a late sixteenth century manuscript collection of papers relating to the office of the chief qddf (qadf-al- quddt) of Samarqand, titled MajyimCa-t-Wathhfiq, numerous Multanis are

reported to have been involved in commercial and monetary transactions in the city3). As early as 1326, Indians, next to Turks and Tajiks, were

reported in a waqf-nama to be among the notable visitors (d'inda-o-rawtnda), while in the fifteenth century lands (ar•di), villages (dih, qarya, mawda) and rest-houses (ribat) of the Hindus are mentioned in the sale and purchase deeds from the Samarqand region. Interestingly, according to the author of

2) W Barthold, Turkistan Down to the Mongol Invasion, English translation by H.A.R. Gibb (London, 1928), p. 83; Irfan Habib, An Atlas of the Mughal Empire. (Delhi, 1982), Sheets 4B and 5B and Notes, pp. 11-12 and 15-16; Mohan Lal, Travels in the Punjab, Afghanistan and Turkistan to Balkh, Bokhara, and Herat (Patiala, 1971), Chapter VII, pp. 373-462.

3) MajmiCa-z- Wathd'iq (a collection of papers from court of the Qadi of Samarqand, mostly related to the late sixteenth century), Abu Rayhan al-Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies, Tashkent Ms. No. 1386, ff. 182a-184a and 188b-189a. In addition, documents on the sale and purchase of Indian slaves also refer to several Multinis and Ldihoris. Some of these documents have been reproduced with Russian translations in H.G. Mukminova, Sot- szalnaya Defferentstatsta Naseleniya Gordov Uzbekistana (Tashkent, 1985). But Mukminova's decipherment and translation are not always accurate.

204 MUZAFFAR ALAM

30 D 50 60 70 SO 90

n7/ > I I

X Astrokhon

Boku SEA

Tobriz

*B9ghdod Bukhoro *Toshkent

?S \ ,- U2

?

.•rqond

asro *Isfoahan

4

1Nz E rS

Koshghor Basra mwYorknd

THE SAFAVIDS Herat

Shorhoe

4 hAS

S._

ARABIAN GUJARAT /y

'-BN SEA * goon

100

Hyderabad /BENGAL

t 7e 0

1E 1 1 1

? •" •" Io"

Map I. India, Central Asia and Iran.


Rashhdtft Cayn al-haydt, the place where Khwaja Bahd al-Din Naqsband, the founder of the Naqshandi order, was born and which by the time of the author had come to be identified as mawlid (birthplace) of the saint and also as qasr-z cdanfdn (palace of the saints) was earlier known as Kushk-i Hindudn 4). The Sharaf-ndma-z-shdhT mentions the business of the Indian merchants in the

Shaybani territory5). This information is corroborated by other sources. In 1558, Anthony Jenkinson of the English Muscovy Company, for instance, met in Bukhara a number of merchants from North India and Bengal6). The fabulous wealth and unmatched trading skill of the Indians often seem to have excited enough jealousy on the part of the local people to land them into trouble 7).

On the basis of the Persian material it is difficult to identify all the commodities which the Indian traders brought into Central Asia. Textiles of varied range appear, however, to have been important items of export. In the Majmina-t- Wathd'iq the Multdnis figure as trading in chint of different hues, plain coarse calico (fota) and fine cloth of Thanesar, silk brocade (jdmawdr), and fine calico (solagazi), as well as napkins and handkerchiefs

(mzndil) of Lahore8). Varthema saw Indian goods in Central Asia from as far as Bengal and Gujarat, and according to him many of these Indian

goods manufactured in Bengal and Khambayat also reached 'Tartary', Per- sia and Turkeyg). Varthema's observations are confirmed by a Persian sale

4) O.D. Chekhovich, Bukhavrskye Document, XIV Veka (Persian documents with Russian translations and note, Tashkent, 1965), pp. 40 and 51, and also pp. 91 and 109 for tujladr-z- Hind and Hindif; dem, Samarkandskye Document, XV-XVI Veka (Moscow, 1974) pp. 67, 72, 125, 244 and 247; Fakhr al-Din CAli bin Husayn WaCiz Kishiff, Rashhdt Cayn-al-Haydt, ed. by Ali Asghar Muiniyan (Tehran) pp. 743 see also Mir Muhammad Yfisuf bin Khwaja Baqa, Tadhktra Muqfm Khnf, Firdausi Library, Dushambe, Ms. No. 521, f. 34a.

5) Hdfiz Tanish bm Mir Muhammad Bukhiri, Sharaf-nama-t-shdhf, Institute of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg Ms. No. D88, ff. 451, Fasc. edited and translated into Russian in 2 parts by Munira Salakhetdinova (Moscow, 1983 and 1989).

6) Anthony Jenkinson, Early Voyages and Travels to Russta and Persia, edited by E. Delmar Morgan and C.H. Coote, 2 vols. (London, 1886) 2, pp. 87-88.

7) In Bukhara It was generally believed that a successful way that a lover could meet the exorbitant demands of his beloved was to locate and plunder the fabulous wealth of a rich Hindu merchant. Tadhkira Muqim Khant ff. 33a-35a; Muhammad Hakim Khdn, Muntakhab- al-tawarkh, ed. Ahrar Mukhtarov, 2 vols (Dushambe, 1982 and 1985) 2, pp. 195-198 for such an incident in Imdm Qull Khlin's time.

8) MiajmCa-t- WathgPiq f. 184a. 9) Ludovico di Varthema, Itinerary, English translation by John Winter Jones and a

discourse by R.C. Temple (London, 1928), p. 79. See also K.M. Ashraf, Life and conditions of the people of Hindustan (Delhi, 1970), p. 145, and W H. Moreland, India at the Death ofAkbar (Delhi, 1962), p. 209. Moreland questioned the veracity of Varthema's evidence, principally because, as he concluded in the 1920s, Varthema has no support from any other account. See also Jean Aubin, 'Deux Chr6tiens au Yemen Tdhiride', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Socrety, Third Series, 3,1, April, 1993, pp. 36-52 for an evaluation of Varthema.

206 MUZAFFAR ALAM

deed of 1589, which gives details of a transaction in Samarqand. Napkins, handkerchiefs, coarse and fine calico from Bengal (mmdfl sondrgadm and khdssa sondrgdmi), multi-colour chintz from Khairabad, and silk brocade from Gujarat (katdn Gujardti) were among the different items which passed between a Multani merchant and a local noble'0). Anthony Jenkinson further identified the kinds of cloth imported from India in Samarqand and Bukhara. He writes: "The Indians doe bring fine whites, which the Tartars doe all roll their heads, and all other kinds of whites which serve for apparell made of cotton wool and Crasca..." ") Kashmiri shawls, of course, were

prized possessions of the Central Asian elites in medieval times12). Later in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, textiles continued to

be the chief exports from India. An important duty of some of the special envoys of the Uzbek rulers to the court of the Mughal Emperor AwrangzZib (1658-1707) was to procure varieties of cloth suitable for the royal establishment 13) Some of the Indian merchants had brought Indian master weavers and encouraged them to settle in Samarqand. IHusayn, Ustid Rajab, Ustdd Kajar, all from Multan, and Jitkar, from Lahore, were among such weavers14). Generally these weavers worked only for the Indian merchants; in cases of defiance, they had to appear at the court of the qeidi to reaffirm their loyalty and commitment'5).

Spices, sugar, indigo, together with some drugs, precious stones, as well as animals were some important additional trade items. According to a Spanish visitor to Timur's court during 1404-1406, "the best varieties of

10) MajmtCa-z-Watlhd)iq, f. 183. 11) Jenkinson, Early Voyages, p. 87 12) Muhammad Hakim KhAn, Muntakhab-al-tawdrfkh, 2, 504; see also for the eighteenth

century, Maktibdt-o-Asndd (a collection of letters and documents of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries), Institute of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg, Ms. 680, f. 77a.

13) "Ibztiyda-z anwdc aqmzsha wa amtiCa ld'iq sarkdr falak-asas" cf. Mirak Shih Munshi, Makhibit, Munsha'dt, Manshiirdt (a collection of letters and royal orders of the Uzbek rulers, compiled in the eighteenth century), Abu Rayhan al-Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies Library, Tashkent Ms. No. 289, Subhlin Quli Khin's letter (nama) to Awrangzib, ff. 3b-5a; see also his letter (Cindyat-ndma) to an Iranian noble, f. 72a.

14) Majmiica-t-Wathdriq, f. 188b. The phrase 'Hindf-al-Asl', which figures in a document here to describe a slave, has been translated by Mukmmova as 'Hindu' (op. cit. p. 61, as cited by Gopal, Indians in Central Asia). The phrase simply means 'of Indian origin' Many Indian (Hindf-al-Asl) slaves in Samarqand were also Muslims.

15) Jitkar L•hori has to do so by taking an oath before the qddi, "If I deviate from the orders of Dary Kh•n I divorce my wife three times" (Ibid, f. 182a). Here again, Mukminova mistranslates a conditional clause, "agar man...., zan bar man sih taldq bashad, as "he divorced his wife by uttenng the word taldq three times." Op. cit. p. 60 as cited by Gopal, Indians in Central Asia, p. 12.


nutmegs, cloves, mace, ginger, etc." in Samarqand came from India16). Babur mentions sugar and medicinal herbs among the special export items from India17)

Slaves, both Hindus and Muslims, also figured prominently among the most favoured Indian commodities in the bazaars of Central Asia. But it

may be noted that Indian slaves reached there in a number of ways. Some of them were secured in exchange for Central Asian goods, horses in particular; some were taken as prisoners during wars, while many others were

captured during raids on trading caravans 18). Slaves with specialized skills were much sought after Timfir, after his invasion of Delhi, handed over a

large number of skilled craftsmen to princes, nobles and other members of his entourage, in order to have them taken to Samarqand. Many Indian stonemasons were employed in the construction of his mosque in Samar-

qand. There was a colony of slaves on the bank of the river Baran, who had been brought by a Timfirid prince from the suburbs of Multan to catch fish and birds 19). In the course of the Mughal reverses during Shahjahan's Cen- tral Asian campaigns in the 1640s, many Indians were taken prisoner and sold for petty sums in Balkh, Samarqand and Tashkent20).

On occasion, some unfortunate Indian merchants also found themselves sold as slaves in the bazaars. One such story of a turn of fortune comes from the experience of one CAla-al-Din Khan. Around 1645, CAla-al-Din was in Balkh as a trader. After two years, having sold his goods, while returning home, he was enslaved and taken to Bukhara, to be sold to the Khivans three years later. He found himself eventually owned by a Tatar woman, but he managed to escape after stealing a horse. He was arrested at Cher-

noyar and was then sent in 1661 to Astrakhan, where he is reported to have

applied to the Russian Tsar to become a Christian21). However, the fate of

CAli-al-Din was a very rare feature of the Indo-Central Asian trade. It is not without significance that while we have references to numerous

instances of the sale, purchase and manumission of Indian slaves in the rele-

16) Gopal, Indians in Central Asia, p. 12.

17) Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, Bdbur-naima, English tr. A.S. Beveridge (London, 1969), p. 202; Gopal, Indians in Russia, Document No. 71, p. 68.

18) Several documents in MajmiCa-z-Wathd)iq refer to both Hindu and Muslim Indian slaves (ghuldmadn-o- kanfzdn-i-Hindi) with Islamic and Hindu names, like Ibrahim and Manik, or with Persian secular names which also indicated their qualities, like Khwush-gulu, Mushk-ndz, Gul-bahar, Triti, Zirak and Dawlat-qadam (ff 36a, 42b, 43b, 46b, 49b, 73a, 203b and 209a).

19) Gopal, Indians in Central Asia, p. 4.

20) Ibid, p. 17 This was however an unusual situation. 21) Ibid, p. 18.

208 MUZAFFAR ALAM

vant Persian records of the earlier centuries22), the seventeenth to early eighteenth century sources do not talk much about the markets for these either in India or Central Asia. However, we do know that in the eighteenth century when the slave trade entered a new phase of expansion, at the markets of Bukhara, Khiva and Kashgar, India was no longer the main source of supply. Most slaves came from Africa or from the mountain and desert fringes of Iran and Afghanistan23). We know little about the status of the slave trade under the Mughals, let alone about the import of slaves into Central Asia. If a significant decline occurred it could be explained both in economic and social terms. By the seventeenth century India had begun to manufacture enough textiles to clothe nearly the whole of Central Asia as well as Iran and thus there was no longer the need for exchanging Central Asian horses and other goods far Indian slaves24). We cannot establish the precise volume of India's trade. Our sources have little concern for statistics. But it is notable that by his time, as we shall see below, Indian merchants had brought the trade of almost the entire Eurasian region under their control.

Horses, dry and fresh fruits and musk, furs, falcons, corals were the principal imports from Central Asia, while later, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when Indian traders reached, through Astrakhan, as far as Moscow and St. Petersburg, sables, bird feathers, white fur coats, red yuft, mirrors, copper and iron became those Russian items in demand in Indian markets 25).

Horses were imported to India in very large numbers right from the early middle ages. The Gurjara Pratiharas, the Pilas, and the Rdshtrakfitas kept large standing armies which included cavalry. The importance of horses

22) Diya al-Din Barani, Tdrfkh-z-Ffr~iz Shdhf, ed. Salyld Ahmad Khan (Calcutta, 1862), pp. 310-315, for instances of slave figures in the routine price list of the bazaar. In the Mughal chronicles one rarely finds the prices of the slaves. This may have been a result of Mughal ideology To the Mughal Emperor Akbar (1556-1605), according to Abul Fadl, the institution of slavery was "abominable", Cf. Abul Fadl, A~fn-z-Akbarf, tr. H. Blockmann (Calcutta, 1927) I, p. 263.

23) Gommans, 'Mughal India and Central Asia', p. 60. 24) K.N. Chaudhan, The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660-

1760 (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 237-305 for the general state of textile production dunng this period. The Punjab specialized in the manufacture of cotton goods for export and was, together with Bengal, Gujarat and the Coromandel, one of the four major industnal regions in India. Om Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630-1720 (Princeton, 1985), pp. 73, 176-181 points at the enormous rise in the export of textiles dunng the second half of the seventeenth century and the Dutch factors' efforts to capture the markets in Persia.

25) Gopal, Indians in Russia, pp. 29-31, 77, and 199-200.


during the period is indicated by numerous manuals on horses such as the

Asvayurveda of Gana, the Aiva"-stra of Salihotra, of Nakula, and others26). It was perhaps during this period also that the use of the iron stirrup and

heavy armour, both for the horses and horsemen, became more general and had a significant impact on warfare and social organization.

As cavalry came to be the mainstay of the political and military system under the Delhi Sult~ns and the Mughals, the trade in horses became a

major component in the relations between India and the territories beyond the North-West frontier, known collectively in the Delhi Sultanate as mulk-z-

bdlad or mulk-: bdlddast ('the high land' or 'the land on the higher side'). These

bdlddastf lands seem to have been the principal source of supply of war- horses under the Sultans, even though a large number of fine horses also came to India through the sea-routes from the Gulf countries and Persia.

Early in the fourteenth century Mongol tribal groups, amongst others, used to come down with their herds for the winter and sell them in the territories of the Delhi Sultans2). According to Ibn Battfita28), the people of Asaq or Azaf in the steppelands of southern Russia exported horses to India in droves of 6,000 or thereabout. Various merchants had a share of about 200 horses each in these herbs. For each fifty horses, they engaged the services of a keeper called qdshf who looked after them and their feeding on the way. These traders wholly travelled by a route north of the Caspian Sea, through the Dasht-z-Qtzpidq and Transoxiana down to the Khyber Pass.

The trade in horses was voluminous as well as profitable. Throughout medieval times, Central Asia remained the principal source of supply of horses for all purposes. In the sixteenth century, according to Babur, seven to ten thousand horses arrived in Kabul every year29). During the seventeenth century the demand rose enormously and the Indian traders, accord-

ing to a report, sometimes purchased as many as a hundred thousand Central Asian horses at Kabul30). As early as in the fourteenth century the

profit in this trade was estimated at 2500 per cent" ).

26) R.S. Sharma, 'Central Asia and Early Indian Cavalry, C. 20 B.C.-1200 A.D ', min A. Guha (ed.) Central Asia: Movement of Peoples and Ideas from Times Prehistoric to Modem (Delhi, 1970), pp. 174-181.

27) Simon Digby, War Horse and Elephant in the Delhi Sultanate, (Oxford 1971), pp. 35-36. 28) Ibn Baptfita, The Travels of Ibn Battpta, English tr. H.A.R. Gibb (Cambridge, 1962),

2, pp. 477-479 29) Bdbur-ndma, p. 202. 30) FranCois Bernier, Travels in the Moghul Empire, English tr. A. Constable (New Delhi,

1968), p. 203; N. Munucci, Stona do Mogor, English tr. W Irvine, 4 vols. (London), 2, p. 391.

31) Cf. Iftikhar Ahmad Khan, 'Commerce in Horses between Central Asia and Indian during Medieval Times' (mimeographed).

210 MUZAFFAR ALAM

Trade in horses often had a close connection with medieval Indian

politics. The services of horse traders and breeders were considered valuable

by medieval rulers. Many of the well-known Indo-Afghan rulers started their own careers as horse dealers. This applies to the Lodis and Stirs of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as well as to northern Indian Afghan chiefs of the eighteenth century, some of whom established their powers along the trade routes to Central Asia. The political and military dimension of this trade diminished only in the nineteenth century, when large Indian armies of horsemen were substituted for small ones of infantry32). With this, the nature of the relationship between India and the countries beyond its north- western borders underwent an obvious change.

Some of the Central-Asian chroniclers also noted cotton as a precious export item from Bukhara to India. Narshakhi mentions a village, Zan- dana, near Bukhara as a production centre of an expensive variety of cotton, which was named after the village as Zandajaf and sold at the price of silk (ba-qimat-i-abrisham) in Fars, Iraq, Kirman and Hindustan33).

In addition, India received a large supply of dry fruits from Central Asia. Fruits from "Persia, Balkh, Bukhara and Samarqand" were available in the markets of Delhi34). In the seventeenth century, when caravan routes

grew stable and began to the more frequently used, fresh fruits also began to be received from Central Asia. The Mughal Emperor Jahaingir (1605- 1626) received melons from Karis and grapes and apples from

Samarqand35). This became possible, as we will notice below, in an

atmosphere in which the rulers, notwithstanding their differences, gave due

regards to the safety of the roads passing through their respective domains and recognized the importance of trade. Jahd.ngir appreciated the achieve- ment of his time as he highlighted India's close trade links with the Uzbek

country. He boasts that Akbar loved Central Asian fruits, but that during the latter's rule the fine and the celebrated varieties did not reach India36). Things improved further in the later half of the seventeenth century. Ber- nier noted the sale of Central Asian fruits even in the Deccan37).

32) J. Gommans, 'The Horse Trade in Eighteenth Century South Asia', see JESHO 37,3 (1994), 228-247

33) Abfi Bakr Muhammad bin Jacfar al-Narshakhi, Tdrikh-t-Bukhdra (Persian version by Muhammad bin Zafar) ed. Mudarris Rizawi (Tehran, 1972), pp. 21-22.

34) Bermer, Travels, p. 249 35) Nir al-Din Jahdngir, Tgzak-z-Jahdngfrf ed. Saiyid Ahmad Khan (Aligarh, 1864), pp.

173, 2098 and 212. 36) Ibid, p. 173. 37) Bernier, Travels, pp. 203-204.


II

Tahjiks, Uzbeks, Khurasanis, Afghans, Hazaras, Barkis and Im-qis and Multanis were the principal carriers of this trade38). The Armenians also had a share in it and a good deal of this trade was transmitted through pastoral nomads who traversed the pastures between the Indus and Oxus rivers. These trading nomads were known as "Powindas". They were

chiefly made up of the Ghilza5i and Lodi tribes - of which the Lohanis, Nasiris and Niyazis were the most marked subgroups39).

But it seems that Indians themselves, throughout the period, aspired to be the chief carriers of even the Central-Asian articles in India. They seem to have had a keen appreciation for precious metals and a dislike for passing them on to the foreign merchants. Jenkinson noted that 'gold, silver, precious stones . . they (Indians) bring none' 40). However, this did not

apply to certain merchants who were especially commissioned by Central- Asian rulers to sell or to buy goods in India for their masters and who were

exempted from customs duties everywhere41). The extraordinary strong Khatri participation in this trade, it should be

noted, seems to have coincided with the rise and growth of Mughal power in India. The fourteenth-century historian Diya-al-Din Barani already noticed the presence of Hindu Multanis, precursors of the Khatris, as traders and moneylenders42). We saw that in the sixteenth century many Multanis, both Hindus and Muslims, figured in a variety of monetary and commercial transactions in Samarqand. But, until about the end of the sixteenth century, traders from almost the entire subcontinent participated in India's trade with its north-western neighbours. The Central Asian documents in effect mention other Hindustanis and Hindus in general together with the Multdnis43). Jenkinson met in Bukhara Hindu traders from the farthest parts of India, including Bengal and the Gangetic plain 44). The Sharaf-ndma-z-Shdhi noted Deccani merchants in Kabul and Peshawar, on their way to Khurasan, Transoxiana and Turkistan45).

38) Mirak Shdh Munshi, Maktibadt, Subhan Qull Khan's letter (nzshdn) for the rdhdderf (route-in-charge) of wilaydt Khinjan, ff. 152a-153b.

39) For Powinda qdfilas and qdfilabdshz, see Gommans, 'Mughal India and Central Asia' pp. 55-56.

40) Jenkinson, Early Voyages, p. 87, see also Ashraf, Life and Conditions, p. 147 41) Mirak ShTh Munshi, Maktzibdt, ff. 4a-5b and 72. 42)

Diyf,-al-Din Barani, Tdrfkh-z-Firziz Shdhf, pp. 309-311.

43) Majmuca-t- Wathdiiq, ff. 182a, 188b; see also Dale, 'Indo-Russia Trade', pp. 149-151. 44) Jenkmnson, Early Voyages, pp. 87-88. 45) "jamckathlr az tuj`ir azjamicbildd-a-Hind wa Dakan wa Gujardt ... " (Hdfiz Tanish, Sharaf-

nama-t-Shadh, f. 451b).

212 MUZAFFAR ALAM

We also cannot rule out the presence in Central Asia of a sizeable number of merchants from Sind, Gujarat, and the Deccan, who also reached the Persian shores through the sea-routes and then took the land-routes to the areas south and north of the Oxus. The fact that CAbd-al-Razziq of Samar-

qand, the envoy of Shah Rukh (1409-1447), arrived in Vijayanagar vta the sea-routes is well known*6). Many Iranians at the courts of the Deccan sultanates were from Khurasan, the Iranian province which extended into Central Asia 47). The ports of Thatta and Lahari Bandar, which linked Sind, Multan and the Punjab to Hurmuz, Bushahr and Basra, also mediated the trade of Western India to Persia. The bulk of the trade of Sind went to the

west, to the great Persian Gulf entrep6t state of Hurmuz centred on the land

ofJarun, but coastal navigation also linked the ports of the Indus delta with

Khambayat, in Gujarat, and the Konkan. It was perhaps because of Thatta's central position that the Portuguese, after taking over Hurmuz, made a bid to capture it. One of the most formidable ports in India, Thatta was the meeting point of several routes, some terrestrial and some fluvial. In 1622, when the Portuguese still held Hurmuz, about one seventh of all

shipping to that port originated from Sind"8). Thus, until about the end of the sixteenth century, the participants in

India's trade with Central Asia and Persia, both along the overland and maritime routes, came from almost the entire subcontinent. Some nodal transit points like Multan and Lahore had emerged in the north-western

region, the merchants from this region profiting conspicuously from this trade. But their share in it was still not overwhelming. The seventeenth and

early eighteenth centuries, however, belonged, almost exclusively to the traders from the north-western provinces of the Mughal empire. A number of developments around this time may explain this change. One of these was the spurt of the caravan trade, which, in part, resulted from the tightening European control over the sea-routes49). The India-Central Asia caravan

46)Khwindmir, Habfb al-Siyar, 4 vols (Tehran, 1954), vol. 3, part 3, p. 335; see also 'Abd- al-Husayn's Introduction to his edition of CAbd al-Razziq Samarqandi's Matlac SaCdayn wa MajmaC Bahrayn (Tehran, 1974), pp. 9-10.

47) H.K. Sherwani and P.M. Joshi (eds), History of the Medieval Deccan, 1295-1724, 2 vols. (Hyderabad, 1974) 2, pp. 77-115, 218-220. It was in consideration of the Decanis' familiarity with Khurasan that the fifteenth century Russian traveller, Athanasius Nikitin chose to live in Bidar under the assumed name Khwaji Yfisuf Khur~isini (ibid. 1, p. 185); see also H.K. Sherwani, The Bahmanzs of the Deccan (Hyderabad, 1953), p. 148.

48) Sanjay Subrahmanyam, 'The Portuguese, Thatta and the External Trade of Sind, 1515-1635', Revtsta de Cultura (1991), pp. 48-58.

49) Ya. G. Gulyamov (ed.) Istorzya Uzbekzstan, (Tashkent, 1967) 1, p. 537, quoted in Gopal, Indians in Central Asia, p. 6.


trade was, in a large measure, a latter-day continuation of the enterprise which centuries earlier had led Indian Buddhists to move out along the same

routes50). There were, however, some obvious disadvantages in these routes. As they passed through difficult terrain, possibilities for their

improvement were extremely limited. Conditions were particularly unfavourable to wheeled heavy traffic. Pack animals, which were the principal means of transport could carry only limited loads. Further, the cost of such transport was very high, all the more so because the animals had to be unloaded for rest every day51). Again, because of the danger of theft and

violence, the merchants had to wait at the major sard)is until a sufficiently large convoy had been formed.

W.H. Moreland cites the case of Manrique, who having missed a caravan at Multan, found he would have to wait six months for the next. In another case, Bento de G6es, a Portuguese missionary who travelled from Lahore to China via Kabul, was to encounter difficulties from thieves between Attock and Peshawar and then from marauders in the hilly passes, who used to roll stones down on caravans, and wounded many of his fellow

travellers, even though his convoy had obtained a guard of 400 soldiers at Peshawar. After reaching Kabul they halted because some of the merchants would go no further, and others dared not, being so few52). The carriers of the trade along such routes could not have afforded to be mere passive onlookers to the politics around.

It was an indication of the importance of the sea-routes to Central Asia and Persia that the Sind ports in Thatta and Lahari Bandar, yet again, became significant towards the sixteenth century. As Henry Pottinger, a member of the British mission to Sind in 1809, observed, "Thatta had been an important trade centre between the Indian Ocean and Central Asia before the Portuguese sack of the city in the sixteenth century. During the

period of Portuguese control of its trade, Thatta continued to be an active commercial centre, boasting 40,000 weavers of calico and loongees ...... and artisans of every other class and description to the number of 20,000 more, exclusive of baners, money changers, shopkeepers and sellers of

grains, who were estimated at 60,000 more"53). Thatta also occupied a

50) Andre Wink, Al-Hind: the Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Vol. 1, Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam, 7th-llth Centuries (Leiden, 1991), pp. 45-64.

51) A.M. Peterov has briefly discussed the rationale and historical reasons of the shift from land to sea routes in his 'Foreign Trade of Russia and Britain in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries', Modern Asian Studies, 21, 4, (1987), pp. 625-637

52) Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar, p. 205-207 53) E.H. Aitken, Gazetteer of the Province of Sind (Karachi, 1979), p. 116.

214 MUZAFFAR ALAM

distinct place in India's trade with the Persian Gulf and Africa in the seventeenth century"54).

The emergent European domination over the western Indian Ocean seems to have reduced Indian control over the seas. In Sind in the seventeenth century the Mughals made some efforts to regain ascendancy, but the Indians could not re-establish themselves as the prime navigators there. Thatta, however, continued to be of some import, and India maintained its sea trade with Persia and its neighbours, in particular through the Arme- nians. The Armenians, as trading partners of the Europeans, had acquired a dominant position in the trading world of Persia and India in the seventeenth centuries. Among the various trade treaties the Armenians signed with the Europeans, their agreement with the English in 1688 was of special significance in this connection. Since 1605, when Shi.h CAbbas set up their colony at Julfa, in the suburbs of Isfahan, they were well established in Per- sia. Their strength and share in India's trade grew as they arrived at a trade agreement with the English both in Persia and India in the seventeenth century. The English utilized the Armenian familiarity with local language, customs and the political authorities to promote their interests, while the Armenians themselves used the European ships for their own goods and exploited the new connections, to emerge as the chief carriers of European goods from India to Persia55). According to the agreement of 1688 they were to share in all the trading privileges enjoyed to the English in matters of employment to the Company's service. The Armenians, in return, pledged to give up exporting Indian goods by the land-route and promised to send these on Company ships.

III

All this, however, also created a climate in which the rulers of both Kabul and Qandahar recognized the necessity of a policy of protection of the land- route, notwithstanding their political rivalries. Thus, the land-route in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries not only competed successfully with the maritime route, but it also seems to have posed a kind of threat to it. The English had to persuade the Armenians to send their goods m ships. The caravan routes proved reasonably secure and also quick, to the extent

54) Calvin H. Allen Jr., 'The Indian Merchant Community of Masqat', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 40,4,1 (1981) pp. 39-53.

55) Mesrovb Jacobs Seth, The Armenzans in India (Calcutta, 1937), pp. 122-126, 282-283, and 604-606; Gopal, 'Armenian Traders in India in the Seventeenth Century', in Guha (ed.) Central Asia, pp. 200-213.


that Jahangir, as we noticed earlier, could boast of getting even fresh fruits from Central Asia56). Further, in Iran in the seventeenth century, "the

Multanis", with support from the Safavid Shah, had also acquired a notable position in money transaction and trade57). The stability of the route, in a measure, also encouraged an unprecedented movement during this period of Central-Asian scholars and poets, many of whom were also involved in trade58).

This was so in spite of the fact that the relations among the rulers along the routes were always volatile. Rivalry between the Mughals and the

Safavids over Qandahar, and the outbreak of wars with the Uzbeks around

Kabul, Balkh and Badakhshan in Shahjahan's time (1626-1656) did not affect the traffic. Relations between the Uzbeks and the Safavids were rarely cordial. But they regularly informed each other of the details of their caravans to ensure appropriate protection in each other's territory What is more interesting is that for this purpose the ruler of one territory often had direct contact with the provincial and local officials of the other, and only in case of their failure or violation of norms was the ruler approached59). Protection of trade and traders was integral to rulership. This was the case even when the traders were just in transit, without concluding any formal transactions. An illustration of this can be found in the letters of Imam Quli Khan, the ruler of Bukhara (1612-1642), to the Safavid Shah and his officials, written when agents or traders from his territory passed through Persia on their way to Masqat60). Interestingly, in the early eighteenth cen-

tury when Nadir Afshar came to power, the Uzbek ruler, Abul Fayd Khan tried, though in vain, to arrive at an agreement with him. He postulated that he give up the earlier Safavid policy and never invade Turan so that the people and the traders of their respective territories could move in and

56) Seth, The Armenians, p. 231.

57) Mehdi Keyvani, Artisans and Guild life in the Later Safavzd Period, Contributton to the Social and Economic History of Persia (Berlin, 1982), p. 215.

58) Sanjay Subrahmanyam, 'Iranians Abroad: Intra-Asian Elite Migration and Early Modern State Formation', Journal of Asian Studies, 51,2, (1992), pp. 340-363.

59) Mirak Shah Munshi, Makthbdt, ff. 35a, 49b-50a for Imim Quli Khan's letters to the Shah of Persia, ff. 82a-83b for his letter to an Iranian noble. In one of his letters (f. 36b) the Uzbek ruler mentions, In particular, how a governor of Mashhad in collusion with (ashdnadF payda kardeh) the frontier tribes (of Turkmen) caused consternation to the traders in the area (sabab-i-khawf turuq-z-tujjDr wa biddbtagF-ye aqtir wa amsar mishud); see also CAbd-al- Mucmin Khan's letter to Shah cAbbis in a valuable collection of letters exchanged between the Mughal, the Ottoman, the Uzbek and the Safavid rulers of the late 16th and early 17th centuries titled Maktiibdt, Institute of Onental Studies, St. Petersburg, Ms. No. B2501, ff. 36.

60) Ibid, f. 75.

216 MUZAFFAR ALAM

out without any difficulty6'). Such letters were also exchanged between the

Mughal rulers, on the one hand, and the Persian Shdih and the Uzbek

Khans, on the other. Again, special letters from rulers to their counterparts in other areas accompanied big merchants, which in turn also indicated a close relationship between trade and politics62).

The traders thus often saw the rulers as their allies. Such was the case, at least, in Mughal India. The vast overland trade of the Punjab and the

unprecedented share in it of the Khatris, the major local trading com-

munity, owed a good deal to the general climate of peace and stability under the Mughals. In the early eighteenth century, when rural uprisings in the

Punjab shook the Mughal state, the Khatri traders aided the Mughals in

suppressing the peasants63). This aid assumes special importance in view of the fact that, like the rebel

peasants, very many of these Khatris were also Sikhs64). The Khatris, like the Kayasthas, had long been associated with Mughal administration. They now started making attempts to acquire high positions in the various key departments, in an apparent bid to reinforce the Mughal state which had

helped create conditions for their trade to flourish. In a different context I could locate twenty-six Khatris in Mughal state service at different levels. Four of them held very high ranks, one as high as 700 ddt. Two others are referred to as 'nobles' (amfrs), which obviously meant high ranking. The

remaining twenty are all mentioned as notables (acydn), with some of them close to high Mughal nobles both at court and in the provinces, others being local officials in the Punjab and Delhi siibas and still others holding financial and fiscal offices at the centre. In addition, there were a large number of Khatris in the category of petty functionaries and minor officials (pfshkdrs, mutasaddfs) in revenue and finance departments or in the establishments

(sarkdrs) of the big nobles65). The increase in strength of the Khatris in state service could also be seen

in light of the fact that the fortunes of the merchants in Mughal India were tied to those of the ruling elites. Trade, according to one view, was subser-

61) Ibid, ff. 51b-53a and 54a-55b "wa ba hama muntasibdn-z-bilid wa daydrjihat-i-tarfth tujiar wa fuqard darim ki ba fardghat idmad wa shud numiyand."

62) Mirzd Sadiq Munshi Risald, Institute of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg MS. No. A212, ff. 20b-22a for a letter of the Amir of Bukhara to the Amir of Kabul sent through CUmdat-al-Tujjar, who was also the leader of the caravan (qdfilabfshi).

63) Muhammad Qdsim Lahori, Clbrat-ndna, British Museum, Or. 1934, f. 33A. 64) Muhammad

H.shim Khdfif

Kh.n, Muntakhab-al-lubdb ed. K.D., Ahmad and Wolseley

Haig, 2 vols (Calcutta, 1869) 2, p. 651. 65) M. Alam, The Crists of Empire in Mughal North India, 1707-1748 (Delhi, 1986), pp.

169-175.


vient to the coercive state system, while the markets were generated through the unproductive lifestyle of the ruling class, which thrived, in turn, on an

irrationally high claim over the social surplus66). The financial difficulties of the nobles, it could well be argued, affected the prospects of trade as well. But this model helps us appreciate the situation within a limit only. Further, the trade in India in general was little affected because of the financial distress of the Mughal nobles in the eighteenth century.

Much work is to be done before we can say anything in definitive terms about the nature and extent of the Khatris' share in political power. But it is interesting to note that the Khatris saw themselves as a people who com- bined tjyarat or trade with amdrat or dominion. Anand Ram Mukhlis, a noted

eighteenth century Khatri poet and author speaks boastfully of numerous Khatris who excelled in both67).

What is of greater interest to us is that if, on the one hand, the Khatris who were principally a business community had a share in administration and politics, some of the members of the Mughal ruling elites, on the other, also participated in trade. Shahjahan not only defended the Indian overseas

merchants, especially the Muslim shippers, he also had his ships in Surat, kdrkhdnas in Burhanpur, like his son, Prince' Ddra Shukoh, and daughter Princess Jahdn Ara68). Awrangzeb, as a prince, tried to build his own port in Sind, and his grandson, Prince CAzim-al-Shan, as is well known, was accused of saud-z-khas, monopolistic control over business, in Chittagong and Dacca69). Among the nobles, Shdyasta Khhn and quite a few others in

Bengal, for instance have been noted in our sources as merchants or

descending from a family of merchants (tiajrat-plsha and tdjir-zddeh)70). From the history of the trade with Central Asia we get a considerable

amount of evidence of a close link between trade and politics. The majmica- z- Wathd'iq refers to one Mirzd Salim, son of Mawlana Ibrdahim Sadr, an

important member of the ruling elite (natyjat-al-umdra, amadrat mai 'b) who was

66) Irfan Habib, 'Potentialities of Capitalistic Development in the Economy of Mugha India',Journal of Economic History, 29,1, (1969), pp. 32-78.

67) Anand Rim, 'Mukhlis', Safar-ndma, ed. S.M. Azhar Ali, Rampur, 1946, pp. 4, 8, 10, 12, and 17-18 and 25-6 for his relations in Mughal service, and editor's Introduction, pp. 22 for Mukhlis's view of tyarat and amdrat.

68) Shaykh Abul Fath Qabil Kh-in, Adab-z-CAlamgfrF ed. Abd-al-Ghafur Chaudhan, 2 vols

(Lahore, 1971). 1, pp. 147, 200, 463, 640; 2, p. 819 69) Subrahmanyam, 'The Portuguese, Thatta and the External Trade of Sind', p. 57 70) Compare Ghulirn Husayn Salim, Rzydd-al-Salltin, ed. Maulavi Abd-al-Haq

(Calcutta, 1890), pp. 225, 229, and 344; Mir Ghuldm CAlI Azdd Bilgrrmi', Ma dthzr-al-Kiram, 2 vols (Hyderabad, 1913), 2, pp. 222 and 224.

218 MUZAFFAR ALAM

engaged in commercial transactions 71). Further, a number of the letters of

Imam QulT Khan and Subhan Qul Khin record instructions to local officials to encourage the merchants from different parts of the neighbouring countries to come to and trade in the Uzbek lands. Trade and traders were seen as a source of bliss for society. These royal orders are Invariably reinforced with such Quranic verses and traditions of the Prophet which

highlight the importance of trade in Islam72). By promoting trade and

traders, they believed, they also served their religion. The rulers, then, would not merely encourage trade, but many of them

would be keen to participate in it, albeit indirectly or symbolically. Sym- bolic is the case which Mutribi recorded at the court of Jahingir, when the

Emperor sold some slaves to his courtiers, avowedly to earn a lawful livelihood (wajh-z-haldl) according to the Quranic injunction73). From Uzbek Central Asia our sources record at least two instances of the ruler's involvement in trade. Imam Quli Khan preferred to secure goods from

Masqat and Subh.n

Quli Khin from India, both for consumption in the

royal establishment and for sale to the nobles and the members of the royal family, through their favourite slaves. And since the Hajj offered an ideal occasion for trade, they showed not merely special concern for the protection of the Uzbek HSijjis and traders, but also tried to promote good relations with the Sharif of Mecca 7 ).

Further, our sources also help us in getting some idea of how Indian merchants adjusted to different social and political situations to maintain their

credit-worthy status and to protect and promote their trade. Their participation in administration and politics apart, the fact that they operated across frontiers imposed constraints on them. It had to appear that their movements ensured good for all. They were thus allies, at home, of the

Mughals, earned favours from the Safavids and succeeded in maintaining their own autonomous organization in Central Asia. In Astrakhan, as

Stephen Dale tells us, the Indian merchants lived in separate quarters and followed their own customs and rituals. But, being unaccompanied by

71) Majmica-z-Wathd)iq, f. 183a. 72) Muhammad Rldi Balkhi, Rawdat-al-Inshd (a collection of letters, specimens of royal

orders, dedicated to CAbd-al-cAziz Khdn, ruler of Bakhara (1645-1681), in two volumes) Fir- dausi Library, Dushambe, Ms No. 351, ff. 22a-24a and 28. Another anonymous tnshi collection, titled Munshaldt, in Firdausi Library, Ms No. 1862, also contains three such letters. See also A.K.S. Lambton, 'The Merchant in Medieval Islam', in Idem, Theory and Practice in Medieval Persian Government (London, 1980), pp. 121-130.

73) Mutribi Samarqandi, KJittrdt-i-Mutribf, ed. A.G. Mirzoyef (Karachi, 1977), pp. 53-54.

74) Mirak Shih Maktibdt, f. 74a.


women, they had mistresses and sometimes even married women from the local Turkic groups75). In the Uzbek territory too, the Hindus had their own leader (dqsaqdl, kaldntar) to take care of their needs and maintain com-

munity cohesion. The aqsaqdl appointed by a royal order (manshur), enjoyed the ruler's support to deal autonomously with the affairs of his community spread over the towns of the Uzbek Khanate 76). Not much is known about their internal organization. We can only speculate that they were there with their own priests and had their own places of worship, like in Baku in Azer-

baijan. We can also speculate that the Hindu Khatris, like the other trading communities in the region 77), settled their disputes, including commercial and succession issues, according to their own caste and family rules 78).

The facilities for autonomous community organization, again, seem to be a seventeenth-century phenomenon, a follow up of the Indians' Increasing strength of number and of a newly developing general policy in the region of tolerance and co-existence. The earlier pattern seems to have been a bit different. While we notice Hindu quarters in fifteenth-century Bukhara and

Samarqand, we also see the Indian merchants and master craftsmen getting almost completely absorbed into local society. They lived in mixed mohallas, their houses and shops surrounded by those of the local Uzbeks or the

Ta-jiks. Many abandoned their ancestral religion, took Muslim names, married Uzbek women and were identified with their in-laws 79). And in commercial and money matters they all had to approach the courts of the local

qddis.

IV

That the trade with Central Asia had an important impact on the history of the region is stating the obvious. But the details of this impact are yet to be identified. We now probably know enough of the history of Mughal North India to be able to suggest a link between this trade and the

75) Dale, 'Indo-Russian Trade', pp. 147-148. 76) Mentioned among others are Bukhara, Balkh, Badakhshan, Qunduz, Taleqan,

Aibak, Ghur, Baghlan, Shabarghan, Termez, Samarqand, Nasf, Kesh, Shahr Sabz. Mirak Shih Munshi, Maktibdt, ff. 187a-188a.

77) For a useful discussion of the internal organization of the Armenians in Isfahan, see Edmund Herzig, 'Family Firms, Formal Partnerships and the Community Structure of Seventeenth and Eighteenth century Armenian Commercial Organisation', paper presented at the conference on the Political Economies of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires, Istanbul, June 1992.

78) Herzig, 'Family Firms...' 79) Majmica-t- Watha'iq, f. 186a, where one Nanfi Multdni is identified with his local wife,

Sandal bint CAbd-Allah.

220 MUZAFFAR ALAM

60 657 707'

oshkent -

KwUZOE"

Nosof / (Sk jhre-Sobz BA-AKHSHAN

Termer Bodkhson Mvry 4 urduz

Balkh 0 Tokeqofl

isNshopur Shoborghot (blBahhl

SM shtodAibok 35'

Herot Firuzkuh Kobul a

)Peshowor

THE AFAVIDS hn

Lahore

..

r)a m

HU DI A N

25

*(' 70'

Map II. * Towns with Hindu Settlements in Central Asia.


vicissitudes of the North-Indian economy. A major impact of the trade was the emergence in the Punjab of an ideology which was expressed in a

language borrowed from the world of trade. This new ideology, in a

measure, represented the traders' worldview. I am referring here to the initial phases of Sikhism. In some passages of the Sikh scriptures of the Guru Granth Saheb, the value system appears to be strongly influenced by a con- sciousness intimately connected with trade and commerce80).

"The true guru is the merchant: The Devotees are his pedlars, The capital - stock is the Lord's Name and to Enshrine the Truth is to keep its Accounts"

Further:

"Oye Traders, Trade in the True Merchandise Buy ye the goods that last with ye The Buyers is all-wise, let Him receive the goods with Pleasure"

And:

"Without capital, the Trader looks about in the four continents (in vain), For he knows not the Reality that his capital lies buried within himself. Without the merchandise, he grieves and grieves, The False one is deceived by Falsehood. He who has the knowledge of the Jewel (within himself) reaps profit, over and over again, And gathers his goods at home and fulfils himself, (Mind), Trade with the True Traders and dwell on the Lord, through the Gurfi's words"

The visible growth by the sixteenth century of big and small towns in the

Punjab, Multan and Sind and the areas north of Delhi was another significant feature of North-Indian history All these towns were connected with each other through roads and riverine routes. The entire area then came to be linked, on the one hand, to India's eastern and western seashores, while

opening up, on the other, to Central Asia and Persia through Kabul and

Qandahar. The well-known road building activity of Shar Shah Stiri (1530- 1545) here is worth noting: ".... and he [Sher Shih] built a road with resthouses which commenced from the fort that he had constructed in the

Punjab and it ran up to the town of Sonargaon, which lay situated on the

edge of the Bay of Bengal. He built another road that ran from the city of

Agra to Burhanpur, on the borders of the Deccan. He made another road

80) Chetan Singh, Regzon and Empire: Punjab in the Seventeenth Century (Delhi, 1991), pp. 173-203.

222 MUZAFFAR ALAM

which ran from the city of Agra to jodhpur and Chittor. He then built still another road with resthouses which ran from the city of Lahore to Multan. In all he built 1700 resthouses on the roads which lay in various regions and in every resthouse he built apartments for both Hindus and Muslims" 81). Among other things, the attempt was clearly to improve the facilities for the growing commercial connections between India and Central Asia.

The areas around the routes bustled with rich commercial and manufac- turing centres, which in turn also encouraged growth in the neighbouring countryside. Urban centres in the Punjab and in its neighbourhood began to emerge and thrive in two lines running along the roads, Attock, Hasan Abdal, Jhelum, Gujrat, Wazirabad, Sialkot, Emanabad, Bajwara, Machiwara, Rahon, Phillaur, Nur Mahal, Govindwal, Sultanpur Nakodar, Ludhiana, Sirhind and Ambala, Thanesar and Karnal all lay astride the grand road to Kabul. These towns emerged in the late sixteenth and seventeenth century, following and accompanying the great building activities of the Stirs and the Mughals. Lahore, chosen to be the provincial headquarters in the sixteenth century, kept expanding underJahdngir, Shdihjahan and in the early years of Awrangzeb's reign82). From these towns as their bases, the Khatris became the principal carriers of India's trade with countries beyond its north-western borders.

Many of the goods in demand in Central Asia then began to be produced also in these towns themselves. Lahore, Bajwara, Machhiwara and Sialkot were noted, among other things, for textiles. In Lahore were manufactured shawls and in particular the mixture of silk and wool. The Punjab towns were also stocked with indigo, both locally produced and from other parts of the country. Lahore served together with Agra as "the chief market for indigo.....because it was more convenient for the merchants who travelled in caravans at fixed seasons by way of Kandahar and Ispahan to Aleppo; and this is why the indigo which reached Europe from Aleppo or the Levent was known as Lauri [or more properly Lahori]". Punjab also exported sugar and rice to Central Asia83).

This development in almost the entire north-western region of Mughal empire occurred in close connection with the markets for Indian goods in Iran and Central Asia. An early eighteenth-century Mughal chronicler notices Mult.ni and Lahori merchants in different parts of Iran including

81) 'Abbas Khan S~rwani, Tirfkh-i-Shir Shdih, ed. Imamuddin (Dacca, 1964), pp. 216-217

82) Chetan Singh, Regton and Empire, pp. 173-203. 83) Ibid, pp. 216-219


720 730 740 INA 750 760 770 780

34 ,/A Sultanpur abada To pur4

Hasan Abdaa Punch

apur Nila Rawalpindi Baramgala

Ralaur

) aKishtwar N ushahra 3 331 Jelu

-himbar]

Alhtasa Khoara ,(hari ltabad Khawaspu rat / Chamba

Bhera Wazralkot Shahpur

,

"9,irabad.Paithan

I

K ab Jamia Ghakkar Kangra -32

32- Eminabad *Kahnuwahan•

eas

S BS MS 91 ,RA Khan Nuruddin jh

Naurangba Fatehabad ar Go?vindwa , oJalandhar

Jhang Siatan Patti Haibatlpur SuanN~d ar Naushahra Nurrnahat Phillaur - -31

1Sadghara Firozpur Ludhlana• oMhachhiwar Plaur S adghara

La h ar Shor K Lasnr Khanna

,du ••

Khan ahri Suo arappa Dipalpur

/ Lluwa

h Tulamba Pattan

Ambal hzrabad

Qabula Bhatinda

am a

Shahabad /

Su"amu

-( -7' / O Thanesar

.

1 Saharanpur Tirawari e

Karnal Sarai Pul.cc

oBhatnair Gharaunda PaLPan'at rana

Samalkha aissar H Gnur ? Bhadra Hsr Hans Sonepat 29

*0 Sidhmukh Nareta Hapur

T Luckn DELHI Ghaziud in Nagar FCh al Sikandara

20

20_40

60 80 Pataudiallabga

Khurl _40 60 8 Pataudi *u Kms

.Jhunjunu Rewar, Sohna 'al Narnaul

.

28

720 73o

740 75•

760 ~77 780

Map III. Towns and Production Centres in Punjab and Delhi Provinces in the 17th Century

Tabriz 84). Our sources also mention the Afghan tribes of Qandahar in markets of Sind"5). Towards the later decades of the seventeenth century, Shikarpur began to emerge as a major entrep6t mn Sind, where, later in the

eighteenth century, many trading families from the upper Indus country,

84) Muhammad Hddi Kimwar Khan, Tadhkirat-al-Salatin Caghta, (Portions dealing with the post-Awrangzeb period). ed. Muzaffar Alam (Bombay, 1980), pp. 53 and 335.

85) Khwajd CAbd-al-Karm Kashmiri, Bayan-z-Wdqic, ed. K.B. Nasim (Lahore, 1970), p. 57

224 MUZAFFAR ALAM

including the Multinis and the Khatris, also settled down86). The Shikar-

punis together with the Khatris and Multinis spread in almost all the

regions of Iran and Central Asia 87). We would not, perhaps, be wide off the mark if we suggest a connection between these markets and the stability of

Mughal power in the region. But this requires a careful examination of the sources to re-evaluate how the internal dynamics of Mughal society were related to the markets and economic trends in the outside world. We obtain, however, a somewhat clearer vision of this link as we move to the period of the Mughal crisis.

While the Punjab registered unprecedented growth in the seventeenth

century, its economy suffered serious setbacks by the turn of the century. The silting of the Indus, first, affected its trade through the ports of Sind. But the great caravan trade more than made up for the losses accruing from the silting Indus. At any rate, trade through the Sind ports by the middle of the century was no longer of a very grand scale. The Punjab was still

among the richest provinces of the Mughal empire. Towards the mid-

eighteenth century the economy of the Punjab and its neighbours plunged into a crisis, which can very largely be explained in terms of the decline of its trade with Central and West Asia88). The Ghilza'i risings under Mir

Ways in Qandahar in 1709 disturbed the route to Persia. The rapid decay of the Safavid empire, leading to the capture of Isfahan by Malhmfid Ghilza'i in 1722, Nadir Afshar's loot and plunder of Delhi and the Punjab, all dislocated the existing pattern of this trade and the economy of the north- western provinces of the Mughal empire. On the other hand, Central Asia was in a state of deepening political crisis. The governments in the Uzbek Khanates had ceased to be effective. Resurgence of tribal forces and increas-

ing interference of the Kazakhs and Turkmen in Bukhara and Khiva

86) For Shikarpur, see Selectron from the Bombay Records, N.S. No. 17, Memoirs on Shikarpoor, etc. Bombay 1855; J. Postans, Personal Observations on Sindh, (London, 1843). It is interesting to note that certain Shikarpur families were known as Multanis even as late as the early decades of this century (see Report of the Bombay Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee 1929-39, Bombay, 1930, vol. 1, p. 195). I am grateful to Claude Markovits for bringing these references to my notice.

87) Mohan Lal, Travels, (1971) pp. 398, 406, 412, 438 and 441, See also letters of an eighteenth century Naqshbandi sifif who used to receive hadiya (gifts) in cash from his Central Asian disciples through

"Hindu.n-i-Shikirpir", Maktibit. St. Petersburg Public Library,

Chanykov Collection, No. 83, ff. 167a-174b. Unfortunately the name of this particular sUfi is not given; but the MS contains a number of letters written by the Indian Naqshbani sfiTs, including Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, Mirz; Mazhar

Jin-i-Jiin.n and Shaykh Ghulimn All to

their associates and disciples in Central Asia. 88) Alam, Crisis of Empire, pp. 134-147, 180-185.


resulted in the disruption of economic life89). The revenue of the Punjab and Multan declined sharply. In these circumstances, the artisans, the petty urban communities, the peasants, as well as the half-settled tillers and

pastoral communities who had profited from the sixteenth-seventeenth cen-

tury boom suffered the worst. Both the Sikh risings and the other rural and urban disturbances concentrated on and around the great route or its branches. Appreciating the reasons for the malaise, the rich Khatri merchants initially supported the Mughals, but eventually, in the wake of a series of Afghan raids, they also lost their strength.

The trade with Central Asia continued in the eighteenth century, but

effectively it was then mostly under the control of the Afghans, who benefit- ted most from the reversal of the bullion flow through plunder. Some Khatri families migrated to the east, some others moved down to the south of Multan, where in Shikarpur they maintained their trade, while still others in the upper Indus country gradually regained their earlier position, as allies, perhaps even subordinates, of the Afghansg9).

V

It is difficult to ascertain the volume of the India-Central Asia trade for

any phase of the period we have surveyed. It is, however, noteworthy that in Mughal times traders and the production centres of almost the entire subcontinent were involved in this trade and that the merchants from Central- Asia-Khurasan, Maward al-Nahr and Turkistan-reached as far south as

'Malibar'91). Their trade was of no insignificant consequence for the societies they moved in. Again, we do not have enough data to be able to arrive at a figure for the income this trade generated for the Mughals as customs dues or as mint charges. But it is clear that this trade had a close

bearing on the economy, on state power and on the politics of the regions in which it flowed. It seems also clear that the political authorities, on either side of the frontier, appreciated the importance of the links between trade as such and the overall stability of political power. The Mughals, the Safavids and the Uzbeks were not oblivious of commercial affairs or economic concerns in general. Several historians have recently put forward

89) L. Lockhart, Nadir Shah (London, 1938) pp. 35-45; Roger Savory, Iran under the Safavtds (Camaridge, 1980), pp. 226-54; Encyclopedia Irantca, Vol. 5, pp. 193-195.

90) Commans, 'Mughal India and Central Asia' 91) Hifiz Tanish Sharaf-ndma-z-shadhT, f. 451a.

226 MUZAFFAR ALAM

a positive interpretation of Mughal and Safavid policy towards trade92) In the early eighteenth century Mughal context I have also adduced some evidence in line with this position93). In our discussion here the evidence of the Uzbek rulers' concern for trade is of special significance. The rulers

acted, reacted and intervened94). Further, the ability of Indian merchants to adjust the diverse social and political conditions also deserves particular attention. They appear to be rather thoroughly integrated in the local alien

society at one stage. Later, at another stage, they acted as allies of the

Mughals at home, earned favours from the Safavids in Iran, and had their own autonomous organisation in the Uzbek lands. Still later, they found in the Afghans a new ally to protect and promote their trade. In all their

actions, there is an anxiety to maintain and enhance their creditworthy status as merchants95).

Finally the foregoing evidence also enables us to re-evaluate the thesis of the crisis of the Mughal empire. When the crisis thesis was initially for-

mulated, two themes were analysed: the inner contradictions of thejdgfrdidr system, and the oppressive fiscal structure of the Mughal state which

disrupted the fabric of agrarian society and limited the possibilities of

growth96). In recent years historians began questioning these arguments, and an alternative picture has started to emerge. Instead of a generalized crisis, evidence of dynamism and growth was discovered in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries97). However, an unqualified thesis of

92) Compare H.W Van Santen "De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compangle in Gujara en Hindustan, 1720-1660", Ph.D. thesis, Leiden University, 1982, cited in Ashin Dasgupta, 'Indian Merchants and the Western Indian Ocean: the Early Seventeenth Century', Modern Asian Studies, 19, 3 (1985), pp. 441-449; Subrahmanyam, 'Iranians Abroad'

93) Alam, Crisis of Empire, pp. 8-9, 203. 94) For a different interpretation of these rulers' approach to trade, see M.N. Pearson,

'Political Participation in Mughal India', The Indian Economic and Soczal History Review, 11,2 (1972), pp. 113-131, idem, 'Merchants and States' in James D. Tracy, (ed.) The Political Economy of Merchant Empires (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 41-116. See also the review by Andre Wink, The International History Review, XV.I, February 1993. pp. 106-112.

95) For a recent discussion on 'Hindu merchants adaptability and the mtnnsic stability of their organisation', see C.A. Bayly, 'Pre-Colonal Indian Merchants and Rationality' in Mushirul Hasan and Narayani Gupta (eds.), India's Colonial Encounter. Essays in Memory of Erzc Strokes (Delhi, 1993), pp. 2-24.

96) ForJdgfrddrf andjadgfr crisis, see Satish Chandra, Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707-1740 (Aligarh, 1959) Introduction; review in idem, Medieval India: Society, the Jagirdari Crisis and the Village (Delhi, 1982) pp. 61-75; M. Athar Ali, The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb (Bombay, 1966). For agrarian crisis, see Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (1556-1707) (Bombay, 1963) pp. 317-351.

97) Compare C.A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870 (Cambridge 1983); Andre Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India: Agrarian Society and Politics under the Eighteenth Century Maratha Swardjya (Cambridge 1986); Alam, Crists of Empire.


dynamism is not always tenable. I would suggest the need for a cautious re-

thinking There is evidence of an agrarian crisis in regions like in Punjab. But the explanation for this should not be traced back only to the internal working of the Mughal system. To understand the crisis we also need to look at the fluctuations of trade caused by the factors beyond the pale of the

Mughal jurisdiction as well as at the vicissitudes in the relationship of the

Mughal state with the outside world.

trade, state policy and regional change: aspects of mughal-uzbek

Documents