FEUDALISM IN INDIA

Feudalism was a kind of socio-political organisation which

arose in medieval Europe and was based on land tenure given
by the Lord to the Vassals, who served their masters in various
ways. In other words, feudalism was a part of the feudal
society where the subordinate subjects showed loyalty to their
Lords and obtained from them a piece of land there by serving
their master, in various ways seeking protection from them for
their life and property.

The early medieval period in Indian history has been described

by historians a rather dark phase of Indian history
characterised by political disintegration and cultural decline.
The absence of political unity is the key factor that led to the
emergence of rich regional cultures and the kingdoms of early
medieval period. The decentralised nature of early medieval
polity, according to Marxists historiography, is to be
appreciated, analysed and situated in the broader context of a
new type of formation in the early medieval period, viz. the
emergence and crystallization of what is termed as the Indian
feudalism.

The early medieval state and society in north India has been
explained in the context of Indian feudalism by historians like
D.D. Kosambi, R.S. Sharma, D.N.Jha, B.N.S. Yadava, and
various others. The period from 750 – 1200 in Indian history
has been termed as a period of ‘Indian feudalism’ by these
historians. The multiplicity of regional powers and the absence
of a unitary or paramount power have obliged historians to
suggest a shift in the nature of polity during this period. They
believed that a number of changes took place in Indian society.

It is important to understand main features of European

feudalism. As we know that Feudalism was a kind of socio-
economic system and political organisation. We understand
different aspect of European Feudalism. On behalf of economic
basis we can understand that there was not trading activity,
only useful things were traded. The feudal system was agrarian
in nature. Manorial system was available at that time. Land
distributed in between knights as manor. Barter system was in
existence and currency was used in lesser amount. On behalf of
social basis there were privileges on the basis of two things,
First, Family which they belonged and Second, on the basis of
fighting. There was one important system i.e. Hierarchy which
was come in existence at that time. The political aspects of
European feudalism were: First, there were no any rulers which
have sufficient resource to centralise his power. The ruler or
lord depend on the relationship with their neighbourhood lord
this was because lord was not powerful. Second, land was
given on the basis of the relationship and family in which they
belonged. Third, exploitation of labour, but these labourers
were not a slave.
The first assimilation of 'feudalism' in the Indian context
occurred at the hands of Col. James Tod, the celebrated
compiler of the annals of Rajasthan's history in the early part of
the nineteenth century. For Tod, as for most European
historians of his time in Europe, lord-vassal relationship
constituted the core of feudalism. The lord in medieval Europe
looked after the security and subsistence of his vassals and they
in turn rendered military and other services to the lord. A sense
of loyalty also tied the vassal to the lord in perpetuity. Tod
found the institution and the pattern replicated in the Rajasthan
of his day in good measure

D. D. Kosambi gave feudalism a significant place in the context

of socio-economic history. He conceptualised the growth of
feudalism in Indian history as a two-way process: from above
and from below in his landmark book, An Introduction to the
Study of Indian History, first published in 1956. From above the
feudal structure was created by the state granting land and
rights to officials and Brahmins; from below many individuals
and small groups rose from the village levels of power to
become landlords and vassals of the kings.

Kosambi, in his characteristic mode, formulated the notion of

feudalism in the shape of a formula rather than in a detailed
empirical study. This major task was taken up by Professor R.
S. Sharma in his Indian Feudalism, 1965. However, R. S.
Sharma did not follow the Kosambian formula of feudalism
from below and from above; instead, he envisioned the rise of
feudalism in Indian history entirely as 'the consequence of state
action, i.e. from above. It is only lately that he has turned his
attention to the other phenomenon.

The most theoretical construct that contributed towards a better

understanding of the early medieval period was developed by
R.S. Sharma. He calls this type of agrarian setup as feudal
based on the pan-Indian character of land grants. He talks
about various issues like:

 Administrative structure based on the control and

possession of land
 Fragmentation of political authority
 Hierarchy of landed intermediaries
 Dependence of peasants on landlords
 Oppression and immobility of peasants
 Restricted use of metal money

According to him, there were a decline in trade and urbanism,

paucity of coins, and increasing numbers of land grants to the
state officials in lieu of salary and to the Brahmans as charity or
ritual offering in the post-Gupta period. He described the
period, in political terms, as one which stood witness to a
continuous process of fragmentation and decentralisation,
caused by the widespread practice of granting land holdings to
feudatories and officials who established their control over
these territories and emerged as independent potentates.
Almost all features of west European feudalism, such as
serfdom, manor, self-sufficient economic units, feudalisation of
crafts and commerce, decline of long-distance trade and decline
of towns, were said to be found in India. The most crucial
aspects of Indian feudalism were the increasing dependence of
the peasantry on the intermediaries who received grants of
land from the state and enjoyed juridical rights over them. This
development restricted the peasants’ mobility and made them
subject to increasingly intensive forced labour.

In his article “How Feudal Was Indian Feudalism?” while

accepting the fact that feudalism was not a universal
phenomenon, he argues that this was not true of all the pre-
capitalist formations. Thus “tribalism, the stone age, the metal age,
and the advent of a food-producing economy” are universal
phenomena. They do indicate some laws conditioning the
process and pattern of change’. According to him, there was
feudalism in India, even though its nature was significantly
different.

R.S. Sharma’s theory is taken forward by the works of scholars

like D.N. Jha and B.N.S. Yadava. Yadava elaborates the concept
of kali age as a period of allegedly sharp class antagonism,
which led to the emergence of Feudal order. He provided an
evidence for increasing land grants to military officers during
the post-Gupta period. However B.D. Chattopadhyaya says
that these post-date the assumed genesis Feudal polity. Hence
service land grants acted as a facet and not as precondition to
the emergence of the overall pattern of political dominance.

The Feudalism theory generated considerable debate among

scholars about the nature of early medieval social formation.
The most influential structural criticism comes from Harbans
Mukhia. He says that applying Feudalism to India is inapt,
because its defining characteristic is absent i.e. the structure
dependence between the landlords and the peasant where the
landlord is the land owner and a peasant is merely a tenant.
Moreover, there is a free peasant production as the peasant
controlled the process of production. In addition, Mukhia says
that the landlords didn’t need to enserf the peasant because of
the high soil fertility and the low subsistence needs of Indian
peasantry, which resulted in high surplus.

R.S. Sharma responds to Mukhia’s criticism, saying that the

lord does not mean anything without its product. The peasant
may have possessed land, labour, cattle, and agricultural
implements but his control over the means of production was
not very effective as the fruits of production were taken by the
landlords. Mukhia contends that serfdom is an incidental
feature in India. But Sharma says that evidence from the ‘skand
puranans’ produced by Yadava leaves little doubt that
hundreds of people were compelled into forced labour.

Mukhia also blames Sharma for producing empirical evidence

indicating similar developments in India and Europe. He adds
that in India the establishment of Feudalism is attributed
primarily to state action in granting land in lieu of salary and
the action of grantees in subjecting the peasantry by means of
legal rights assigned to them by state. Mukhia ends by saying
that if Feudalism ended in the 11th-12th centuries as Sharma
says, then it remains to characterize the 6th centuries falling
between this decline and India’s colonization- ‘a sad comment
on the lack of rigour in the concept of Indian Feudalism.
The construct of Indian feudalism by R.S. Sharma drew
criticism from scholars like D.C. Sircar who was of the view
that a large number of grants were made to Brahmins and other
religious institutions; there was scant evidence of the existence
of land grants of a secular kind with service tenures.

B.D. Chattopadhyaya says the role of land grants as a mean of

exploitation is over emphasized, because one doesn’t know the
proportion of the total cultivable land that was being granted.
He has raised conceptual and empirical arguments against de-
urbanization and de-commercialization. He provides evidence
to show that foreign trade did not decline but continued.
Similarly, he says that economic basis of the urban centre was
an agricultural surplus generated by expansion and new
methods of cultivation. So cities could not decline due to trade
decline because they were not dependent on it.
Chattopadhyaya also says that even if some early medieval
cities did decline, agrarian expansion led to trade and exchange
which led to development of local exchange nodes from the 9 th
century onwards, providing the kernel of a new kind of
urbanization in early medieval times.

Criticism of Indian Feudalism have resulted in certain other

schemes being put forward to explain the state structure in
early medieval times. One such is the ‘Segmentary State’
concept by Burton Stein, which speaks of dual sovereignty
mainly in the context of South India. The other is an
‘Integrative Model’ which focuses on intensive state
development at the regional level, mainly by Herman Kulke
and B.D. Chattopadhyaya.

Chattopadhyaya suggests an alternative way of looking at the

developments in this period. He identifies 3 major inter-related
historical processes that help us understand the intense process
of state formation; and examines their crystallization in their
specific temporal and spatial contexts. The first is economic, i.e.
agricultural expansion that intensified and widened its
geographical horizons in this period. The social process was
consequence of the economic, as due to the spread of
agriculture, the pre-existing indigenous tribes got incorporated
into caste system at lower levels, leading to a spurt in
untouchability. Agrarian expansion into newer areas led to a
surplus, which was a pre-requisite for the formation of state
society.

The Indian Feudalism debate has led to a critical evaluation of

several important aspects of medieval Indian history. The
concept of Indian Feudalism broke away from the conventional
methods of history-writing and took a definitive ideological
position. Supporters of the Feudalism theory themselves say
that Indian Feudalism has yet to achieve greater theoretical
sophistication in historical analysis. Others like
Chattopadhyaya feel that view of political formation needs to
be revaluated. Subrahmanyam notices the dependence of the
historiography on received models, particularly from Europe
and complaints of the failure to develop adequate asianist
models. However, before such a model is elaborated, a number
of crucial question, which the prevailing models have raised,
require further clarification. The fruitful debate about certain
key institutions of medieval Indian society and their conceptual
meaning may have to continue for rather a long time yet.

The growth of Indian feudalism is characterised by D.D.

Kosambi as two way process-feudalism from above and
feudalism from below. However, for R.S. Sharma feudalism
was the result of state action - i.e. from above. Sharma's
arguments were further strengthened and developed by B.N.S.
Yadava and D.N. Jha. In 1979, however, Harbans Mukhia
questioned, 'Was there feudalism in Indian History?'
Countering Mukhia R.S. Shanna in his essay 'How feudal was
Indian Feudalism?' once again tried to emphasise the feudal
character of Indian economy in a more subtle way.