A history student is reading seventeenth-century accounts of farming in western India. She finds village fields that carry the old staple crops beside a crop that had reached India only recently, by a long route across two continents. The records also show villages clearing fresh land and adding new crops year after year, so that the area under the plough kept growing. She writes down two questions for her teacher: which newly arrived crop had become a major crop of the region, and whose effort lay behind this growth of farming.
The student's teacher explains that this growth of farming shaped agrarian relations in Mughal society. Agricultural production in this period involved the intensive participation and initiative of which group?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → The peasantry
Option (1) The peasantry — Correct. The clearing of land and the taking up of new crops came from the cultivators themselves. Agricultural production rested on the intensive participation and initiative of the peasantry, and this shaped agrarian relations.
Option (2) The zamindars — Incorrect. Zamindars held rights over land and collected revenue. They stood above the cultivators, but the daily work and initiative in farming came from the peasants.
Option (3) The Mughal revenue officials — Incorrect. Revenue officials assessed and collected the state's share of the harvest. The work and initiative of farming lay with the cultivators.
Option (4) The village panchayat — Incorrect. The panchayat was the council that ran village affairs. It regulated village life but did not itself drive farming.
NCERT (2026-27): “2. The Village Community |