In the Mughal period, who were identified as pahi-kashta peasants?

The correct answer is Option (4) → Non-resident cultivators who belonged to some other village, but cultivated lands elsewhere on a contractual basis.

Seventeenth-century sources speak of two kinds of peasants. The khud-kashta were residents of the village in which they held their lands; the pahi-kashta were non-resident cultivators who belonged to some other village but cultivated lands elsewhere on a contractual basis.

Option (1) Peasants who were residents of the village in which they held their lands. — Incorrect. This describes the khud-kashta, the other kind of peasant.

Option (2) Peasants having large amount of land and rural magnates. — Incorrect. The rural magnates of the Mughal period were the zamindars, not a kind of peasant cultivator.

Option (3) Peasants who till their own land out of choice. — Incorrect. Choice comes in only as a reason for becoming pahi-kashta: peasants became pahi-kashta out of choice, when revenue terms in a distant village were better, or out of compulsion, after a famine. Tilling one’s own land is not what defines them.

Option (4) Non-resident cultivators who belonged to some other village, but cultivated lands elsewhere on a contractual basis. — Correct. This is the definition of the pahi-kashta.