A European traveller warned his kings that if they followed an empire…

A European traveller warned his kings that if they followed an empire's model, their cities would become uninhabitable because of ill air. What single reason did he give for that empire's ruin?

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 1

The correct answer is Option (1) → Crown ownership of land

Option (1) Crown ownership of land — Correct. The traveller is Bernier, writing about the Mughal Empire. He traced its ruined towns and neglected fields to one cause: crown ownership of land. In his view, no one cared to improve land that the king owned.

Option (2) Frequent wars of succession among the princes — Incorrect. Wars of succession did take place in Mughal times, but Bernier did not blame the ruin on them.

Option (3) Heavy spending by the imperial court — Incorrect. Bernier called the Mughal ruler a king of beggars and barbarians. He put all of the ruin down to one cause: crown ownership of land.

Option (4) Decline of trade with European merchants — Incorrect. Bernier noticed a prosperous merchant community and precious metals flowing into India, so falling trade was not his reason.

NCERT (2026-27): “6.1 The question of landownership …
Bernier warned that if European kings followed the Mughal model: Their kingdoms would be very far from being wellcultivated and peopled, so well built, so rich, so polite and flourishing as we see them. Our kings are otherwise rich and powerful; and we must avow that they are much better and more royally served. They would soon be kings of deserts and solitudes, of beggars and barbarians, such as those are whom I have been representing (the Mughals) … We should find the great Cities and the great Burroughs (boroughs) rendered uninhabitable because of ill air, and to fall to ruine (ruin) without any bodies (anybody) taking care of repairing them; the hillocks abandon’d, and the fields overspread with bushes, or fill’d with pestilential marishes (marshes), as hath been already intimated.”

“This, then, is how Bernier saw the Mughal Empire – its king was the king of “beggars and barbarians”; its cities and towns were ruined and contaminated with “ill air”; and its fields, “overspread with bushes” and full of “pestilential marishes”. And, all this was because of one reason: crown ownership of land. Curiously, none of the Mughal official documents suggest that the state was the sole owner of land. …”