Describe the main sources of agriculture history of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Peasants are the main actors of agrarian history. But peasants did not write about themselves which is why we hardly get information from them about activities of rural society. Our main sources of the agrarian history of 16th and 17th centuries are chronicles, historical texts and documents which were written under the supervision of the Mughal court. Ain-i-Akbari: Ain-i-Akbari was one of the most important chronicles of its time. It was written by a court historian of Akbar, i.e., Abul Fazl. This chronicle describes very minutely about the arrangements made by the State to ensure cultivation, enable the collection of revenue by the agencies of state and regulate the relations between the State and the Zamindars.The main objective of Ain or Ain-i-Akbari was to present a vision of Akbar’s empire where a strong ruling class was providing social harmony. According to the author of Ain, any revolt against the State or assertion of autonomous power was predestined to fail. In other words, whatever information we got from Ain about peasants was a point of view of top officials of Mughal court.
