Read the passage and answer the question:
An excerpt from Bernier's description of the peasantry in the countryside:
Of the vast tracts of country constituting the empire of Hindustan, many are little more than sand, or barren mountains, badly cultivated and thinly populated. Even a considerable portion of the good land remains untilled for want of labourers; many of whom perish in consequence of the bad treatment they experience from Governors. The poor people, when they become incapable of discharging the demands of their rapacious lords, are not only often deprived of the means of subsistence, but are also made to lose their children, who are carried away as slaves. Thus, it happens that the peasantry, driven to despair by so excessive a tyranny, abandon the country.
According to Bernier, what was one of the fundamental differences between Mughal India and Europe?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Lack of private property in land.
Option (1) Lack of resources in provinces. — Incorrect. Bernier did not set India and Europe apart by the resources of their provinces. His contrast was about who owned the land.
Option (2) Lack of wealth in state. — Incorrect. Bernier did not claim the Mughal state lacked wealth. In his picture the emperor owned all the land, and only the ruling aristocracy escaped the decline in living standards.
Option (3) Lack of private property in land. — Correct. According to Bernier, one of the fundamental differences between Mughal India and Europe was the lack of private property in land in the former. He was a firm believer in the virtues of private property and saw crown ownership of land as harmful for both the state and its people.
Option (4) Lack of intelligentsia and nobles. — Incorrect. Bernier did not say India lacked nobles. He wrote that the emperor distributed the land among his nobles.
NCERT (2026-27): “6.1 The question of landownership … According to Bernier, one of the fundamental differences between Mughal India and Europe was the lack of private property in land in the former. He was a firm believer in the virtues of private property, and saw crown ownership of land as being harmful for both the state and its people. He thought that in the Mughal Empire the emperor owned all the land and distributed it among his nobles, and that this had disastrous consequences for the economy and society.…” |