Did the Mughals Plunder India?

Shashi Tharoor in his speech in Oxford said the British plundered India which nearly accounts for 45 trillion pounds and is documented. Jawed Akhtar renowned Indian writer in his interview said to describe the richness of a person in showbiz the term Media Mughal is used.

It’s dangerous to generalize history, especially on communal lines. So how come, India became so rich.

Babur laid the foundation of the Mughal Empire and invaded India in 1526 AD. Historian Harbans Mukhia, an authority on medieval India wrote that Mughals came to India as conquerors but lived in the subcontinent as Indians, not colonizers. They merged their identity as well as that of their group with India and the two became inseparable, giving rise to an enduring culture and history. Since Akbar onwards, all Mughals were born in India with many having Rajput mothers, and their “Indianness” was complete.

Most Mughals contracted marriage alliances with Indian rulers, especially Rajput. They appointed them to high posts, with the Kachhwaha Rajput of Amber normally holding the highest military posts in the Mughal army.

This is hardly surprising considering that Sher Shah and the Mughals had encouraged trade by developing roads, river transport, sea routes, and ports and abolishing many inland tolls and taxes. Not only this marvel of architecture likes of Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Qutub Complex, and Humayun Tomb still attracts tourist and bring revenues to the Indian government.

A beautiful new style is known as Indo-Islamic architecture was born.

Madhuri Desai, in her book Banaras Reconstructed, writes: “The Riverfront Ghats bear an uncanny resemblance to the Mughal fortress-palaces that line the Jamuna river in Agra and Delhi.”

Art and literature flourished under the Mughal Empire. While the original work was being produced in the local and court languages, translation from Sanskrit to Persian, too, was taking place.

Akbar encouraged the translation of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to dispel the ignorance that often led to communal hatred.

There was a thriving export trade in manufactured goods such as cotton cloth, spices, Indigo, woolen and silk cloth, salt, etc. Indian merchants trading on their terms and taking only bullion as payment led Sir Thomas Roe to say, “Europe bleedeth to enrich Asia”.

In the 16th and 18th centuries, the Mughal Empire was the richest and most powerful kingdom in the world, and as French traveler Francois Bernier who came to India in the 17th century wrote, “Gold and silver come from every quarter of the globe to Hindustan.”

The Cambridge historian Angus Maddison writes in his book, Contours of the world economy, 1–2030 CE: essays in macro-economic history, that while India had the largest economy till 1000 AD (with a GDP share of 28.9 percent in 1000AD) there was no economic growth. It was during the 1000 -1500 AD that India began to see economic growth with its highest (20.9 percent GDP growth rate) being under the Mughals.

In 1700, when most parts of the country were ruled by the Mughals, India had a 24.4 percent world GDP share, higher than entire Europe’s 23.3 percent. However, thereafter, it started falling and slipped below four percent by 1952 and further to its lowest 3.1 percent in 1973.

In the 18th century, India had overtaken China as the largest economy in the world.

India went from having a 25% share of the world’s GDP in 1500 to 16% in 1820 to a meager 4.2% by the time the Britishers left.

Some of the Mughal rulers were good, and some were bad. We cannot overlook the fact that the regime erased and rewrote a lot of existing history, destroyed existing architecture, and introduced their own, and the fact that millions of Hindus were forcefully converted, or tortured and killed. But it was acceptable during those times.

The British Empire on the other hand were not conquerors or rulers. They were colonialists whose sole aim was to profit from it. They were after money, and not power.

The East India Company was a corporate behemoth sponsored by one of the most powerful military empires of all time.

William Dalrymple in his book Anarchy wrote about the humble origins of the East India Company, founded in 1599. to its rise by 1803, when they gained control over the entire subcontinent and commanded a large private army.

Rough estimates of the total British loot from India are not in billions or even trillions of dollars, but more than that.

A great work by Vishal Kale for Colonial Damage in Numbers by Blast from India’s Past for putting together this incredible estimate.

3.9 Million Pounds paid by Mir Jafar to East India Company in 1757
230000 pounds per annum from Mir Jafar’s Successor
Annual taking 1932900 pounds from Bengal Bihar and Orissa
Annual revenue from Bihar alone: 680000 pounds

Famine 1770: 10 million dead, directly due to British policies
Annual revenue from Bengal from 1793: 2.68 million pounds
Famines in 1783, 1792, 1807, 1813, 1823, 1834 and 1854

Famines in 1877, 1878, 1889, 1892, 1897, 1900: 15 million dead. Note how the incidence of famine has increased with the passage of colonial rule…

Revenue from Allahabad: Pounds 1682306 per annum circa the 1800s
Land Tax: 50% of produce
Maratha area: annual revenue 1,500,000 pounds per annum circa the 1800s

Indian Debt: pounds 51,000,000 in 1857
Indian Debt: pounds 97,000,000 in 1862
Indian Debt of pounds 200,000,000 in 1901

44 Million sterling annual outflows from India to Britain. Multiply this figure alone by around 150 which is approximately 6600 Million – 6.6 Billion. Now compound by 8% the number comes to 37 Trillion pounds – or nearly 73 Trillion Dollars. India’s external debt as on March 2011 was 345.8 Billion Dollars. (This last bit – the compounding and the extrapolation of annual revenues over 150 years is my guesstimate; to equal it out I have used a factor of 112 years)

Just one year’s revenue earnings to the British amount to 243 Billion Sterling- nearly 480 Billion Dollars even when I compound it by just 8% more than our total external debt. Just one year’s takings…

Now just compound the 1.5 Million taking in 1757 for 245 years at 8% – and you get a jaw-dropping number of 232 Trillion Sterling – or 475 Trillion Dollars.

Just like any other empire, the Mughals had their strength and weakness they assimilated into the local society and had intermarriages. Art and architecture flourished, trade flourished yes atrocities were committed just like in any other empire like the Roman Empire Persian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, and British Empire.

But they were not colonialist and they did not plunder India.

References

If the Mughals did not loot India, what exactly was their contribution to India?
Indian History 104: Mughals vs British – who was the bigger looters?