Moreland, India at the Death ofAkbar, pp. 9-22; cited in Habib, "Potentialities,"
p. 54, n. 6.
Habib, "Population," p. 167, gives a probable figure of "a little under 150 mil
lion in 1600." Habib, "Potentialities," pp. 34-35. Comparing 1600 and 1900, Habib
argues that, balancing abundant land in the earlier period (hence higher average fer
tility) against increased social overhead capital in the later (British investments in irri
gation canals, railroads, etc.), and allowing for stagnant techniques of cultivation over
the interval, one may infer that productivity per head in Indian agriculture was at least
as high at the earlier date as at the later. He also thinks that per capita productivity in
Moghul India was "not in any way backward when compared with other contempo
rary societies, including those of western Europe." I think this unlikely. For similar ar
guments, cf. Parthasarathi, "Rethinking Wages."
Kautsky, Politics, p. 188, citing Lybyer, The Government of the Ottoman Empire,
p. 295. And Kautsky points out that since these estimates were based on pre-World
War I dollars, one would have to multiply them by 10 to convert to 1981 values. My
own multiple would be 20 or 25 to match 1994 values.
Lybyer, Government, p. 293, quotes Alexander Dow, The History of Hindustan, 3
vols. (London, 1770-72), that "to be born a prince" of the Moghul empire was "a
misfortune of the worst and most embarrassing kind. He must die by clemency, or
wade through the blood of his family to safety and empire." Cited in Kautsky, Politics,
p. 240; he also quotes Herbert A. Gibbons, The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire,
p. 180, who refers to the theological sanction for these bloody intrafamiiial conflicts:
"The new emir justified this crime by a verse conveniendy found for him by his the
ologians in the Koran: 'So often as they return to sedition, they shall be subverted
therein; and if they depart not from you, and offer you peace and restrain their hands
from warring against you, take them and kill them wheresoever ye find them' (Sura IV,
verse 94). They declared that the temptation to treason and revolt was always present
in the brothers of the ruler, and that murder was better than sedition."
On the huge personal fortunes of the Moghul ruling class and the consequences
of their systematic hoarding, see Raychaudhuri, "The Mughal Empire," p. 183. The
ultimate beneficiaries were the British, who pensioned off the local potentates and still
had plenty to spare for the Raj (the British government in India) and themselves.
Cf., among many others, Chaudhury, "Trade, Bullion and Conquest." At stake
here are larger issues about the role of the Europeans in a world already prosperous:
Why so much fuss about them? Who needed them?
Cf. Root, "Le marché des droits de propriété," p. 299.
J. Ovington, A Voyage to Surat in the Tear 1689, ed. H. G. Rawlinson (London,
1929), cited by Raychaudhuri, "The Mughal Empire," p. 185, who calls this descrip
tion of "fear and servitude" "typical of a hundred others."
Macaulay, "Lord Clive," p. 222.
On the business interests of the company and its agents, many of them engaged
in all manner of private enterprises, and the British desire to help the local government
into friendly hands, see Chaudhury, "Trade, Bullion and Conquest," pp. 27-30.
The quote is from a letter of 9 April 1757 from Luke Scrafton to "Clive's confi
dant" John Walsh—Chaudhury, "Trade, Bullion and Conquest," p. 28.
Cf. Adas, " 'High Imperialism' and the 'New History,' " pp. 9-10; also Edwards,
Battle of Plassey.
Keay, Honourable Company, pp. 318-19.
Macaulay, "Clive," p. 253.
Ibid., p. 250.
Marshall, Problems of Empire, p. 60.
Cf. Pearson, "India and the Indian Ocean," p. 72: "For the sixteenth century, we
are distressingly dependent on European sources."
