Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Deccan Villages: How Peasants Survived the War
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about Aurangzeb's big campaigns — the sieges, the elephants, the cannons. But I keep wondering: what was it like for the people who lived in the Deccan villages caught between the Mughal and Maratha armies for nearly thirty years? Luna: I never really thought about that. It must have been terrifying. Lucas: Absolutely. And the sources are tricky because they're mostly from the court perspective — the maasir i alamgiri talks about victories, not the cost to local peasants. But we do have these Maratha chronicles called Bakhar, which are a bit closer to the ground, and some European travel accounts. Lucas: What emerges is a picture of incredible resilience. Villages weren't just passive victims. They developed strategies to survive. One of the most common was hiding grain in underground pits, often lined with straw or clay, so that when an army passed through and demanded supplies, they could claim to have nothing. Luna: Did that actually work? Lucas: Sometimes. If the army was just passing through, they might not have time to search thoroughly. But if a garrison was stationed nearby, they'd often force local headmen — the zamindars — to reveal the caches. And the zamindars themselves were in a difficult spot. They had to negotiate with both the Mughal revenue officials and the Maratha raiders, often paying tribute to both sides just to keep their villages from being burned. Lucas: It's a classic example of what historians call 'political ecology' — how people adapt their farming and settlement patterns to avoid predation. In the Deccan, we see evidence of shifting cultivation, where communities would move their fields to less accessible areas, or plant multiple small plots instead of one big field, so that any single raid couldn't wipe out the entire harvest. Lucas: And then there's the jizya tax. We've talked about it as a policy — but in the countryside, it had a very real impact. The maasir i alamgiri notes that collection was often outsourced to local tax farmers, who were notoriously corrupt. They'd demand extra payments and sometimes seize cattle or grain in lieu of cash. For a peasant family already squeezed by war, it could push them over the edge into debt or flight. Luna: So people just abandoned their villages? Lucas: Yes, and it was a major concern for the Mughal administration. Deserted villages meant lost revenue. The maasir i alamgiri records several instances where Aurangzeb ordered that abandoned lands be reassigned to new cultivators, often at reduced tax rates, to try to bring them back into production. But in the most war-torn areas, like the Western Ghats and the plateau around Bijapur, the depopulation was so severe that some regions never fully recovered. Lucas: One interesting figure from the Bakhar is a local strongman named Nagoji Bhat, who seems to have switched sides multiple times — first supporting the Marathas, then the Mughals, then back again. He was typical of many village-level leaders who used the chaos to carve out a bit of autonomy. They'd collect taxes on behalf of whichever power was dominant at the moment, and skim off a share for themselves. Luna: Sounds like a very precarious way to live. Lucas: It was. And the toll was enormous. Recent estimates suggest that the Deccan population may have declined by as much as 15 to 20 percent during Aurangzeb's reign — from war, famine, and disease. But the people who stayed developed a culture of toughness and adaptability that later Maratha chieftains like the Bhonsles would build on. Lucas: You know, all this talk about survival and resilience makes me think about how much we owe to the people who keep this show going. If today's episode gave you a new perspective on the human cost of empire, honestly, if it was worth a coffee to you, there's a link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's how we stay ad-free and keep digging into these stories. Luna: Yeah, it really does make a difference. And it keeps us from having to interrupt with commercials. Lucas: Exactly. So back to the Deccan — one of the most striking things I've come across is the account of a Mughal official who visited a village near Ahmadnagar in 1695 and described finding only a handful of families living in huts made of thornbush, with no grain reserves at all. The village well had collapsed, and the fields were overgrown with weeds. That was the reality for many villages after decades of being squeezed between two empires. Luna: So the war didn't just decide who ruled — it reshaped the entire landscape? Lucas: Exactly. And not just physically. There were social changes too. The constant pressure broke down old caste hierarchies in some places, because everyone was equally desperate. But in other areas, it reinforced them, as upper-caste zamindars used the chaos to tighten their grip on land and labour. The Deccan after Aurangzeb was a very different place from what it had been under the Deccan sultanates. Lucas: We should also mention the role of the monsoon. The Deccan's agriculture was completely dependent on the rains, and armies timed their campaigns to avoid the wet season. But when a campaign dragged on into the rains, it could be catastrophic for both soldiers and peasants. The maasir i alamgiri describes how in 1693, a Mughal army got stuck in the mud near Satara and had to be resupplied by pack animals through flooded rivers. Meanwhile, local villagers had to watch their fields get trampled by thousands of horses and camels. Luna: I guess there's no such thing as a clean war. Lucas: No, there really isn't. And what strikes me is that the peasants had no stake in the outcome — whether the Mughals or the Marathas won, they'd still have to pay taxes and submit to some overlord. Their only goal was to survive. And the fact that so many did is a testament to their ingenuity and endurance. Lucas: It also makes you rethink the whole narrative of Aurangzeb's reign. We focus on his military campaigns, his religious policies, his administrative reforms. But for millions of people in the Deccan, the story of his reign was simply one of hardship and loss. Luna: It's humbling, really. Lucas: It is. And it's a perspective we don't often get from the court chroniclers. But by looking at the village level, we can start to understand the real cost of empire.