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200 THEMES IN NDIAN H ISTORY – PART II Irrigation projects received state support as well. For example, in northern India the state undertook The spread of tobacco digging of new canals (nahr, nala) and also repaired This plant, which arrived first old ones like the shahnahr in the Punjab during Shah in the Deccan, spread to Jahan’s reign. northern India in the early years Though agriculture was labour intensive, peasants of the seventeenth century. The did use technologies that often harnessed cattle Ain does not mention tobacco in the lists of crops in northernnergy. One example was the wooden plough, which India.Akbarandhisnoblescame was light and easily assembled with an iron tip or coulter. It therefore did not make deep furrows, which across tobacco for the first timpreserved the moisture better during the intensely in 1604. At this time smoking tobacco (ihookahs orchillum) hot months. A drill, pulled by a pair of giant oxen, seems to have caught on in was used to plant seeds, but broadcasting of a big way. Jahangir was so seed was the most prevalent method. Hoeing and concerned about its addiction weeding were done simultaneously using a narrow iron blade with a small wooden handle. that hebannedit.Thiswas totally ineffective because by the 1.4 An abundance of crops end of the seventeenth century, Agriculture was organised around two major tobacco had become a major articleofconsumption,cultivationseasonal cycles, the kharif (autumn) and the rabi andtradeall overIndia. (spring). This would mean that most regions, except those terrains that were the most arid or inhospitable, produced a minimum of two crops a year (do-fasla), whereas some, where rainfall or irrigation assured a continuous supply of water, even gave three crops. This ensured an enormous variety of produce. For instance, we are told in the Ain that the Mughal provinces of Agra produced 39 varieties of crops and Delhi produced 43 over the two seasons. Bengal produced 50 varieties of rice alone. However, the focus on the cultivation of basic Agricultural prosperity staples did not mean that agriculture in medieval India was only for subsistence. We often come across and population growth the term jins-i kamil (literally, perfect crops) in our One important outcome of such sources. The Mughal state also encouraged peasants varied and flexible forms of to cultivate such crops as they brought in more agricultural production was revenue. Crops such as cotton and sugarcane were a slow demographic growth. jins-i kamil par excellence. Cotton was grown over a Despite periodic disruptions great swathe of territory spread over central India caused by famines and epidemics, India’s population and the Deccan plateau, whereas Bengal was famous for its sugar. Such cash crops would also include increased, according to various sorts of oilseeds (for example, mustard) and calculations by economic lentils. This shows how subsistence and commercial historians, by about 50 million production were closely intertwined in an average people between 1600 and 1800, which is an increase of about peasant’s holding. 33 per cent over 200 years. During the seventeenth century several new crops from different parts of the world reached the Indian Reprint 2026-27