Asian despotism? Mughal government as seen from the Dutch East India Company factory in Surat

Journal of Early Modern History

Volumn 3, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 256-280

  Tracy, James D ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA   (United States)

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EID: 14644413036     PISSN: 13853783     EISSN: 15700658     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157006599X00260     Document Type: Review

References (110)

1. Raymond Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance. Europe's Rediscovery of India and the East, trans
2. Gene Patterson-Black and Victor Reinkring (New York, 1984), from his La Renaissance orientale (Paris, 1950), with a respectful Foreword by Edward Said
3. Edward Said, Orientalism. Western Conceptions of the Orient (London and New York, 1978), especially 76-79: "Whereas Anquetil opened large vistas, Jones dosed them down, codifying, tabulating, comparing ... What the European took from the classical Oriental past was a vision (and thousands of facts and artifacts) which only he could employ to the best advantage; to the modern Oriental he gave facilitation and amelioration - and, too, the benefit of his judgment as to what was best for the modern Oriental."
4. See also Carol A. Breckenridge and Peter van der Veer, eds., Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament Perspectives on South Asia (Philadelphia, 1993)
5. Dane Kennedy, "Imperial History and Post-Colonial Theory," Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 24 (1996): 345-63
6. and the editor's Introduction in Stuart B. Schwartz, ed., Implicit Understandings (Cambridge, 1994)
7. Boulanger, Origin and Progress (Amsterdam, 1764), copy in Special Collections, University of Minnesota Library, flyleaf signed by Robert Blackie. A note in another hand identifies it as "one of the few books printed by the notorious John Wilkes at his private press in Westminster. Professor Blackie's copy with his autograph. From his sale, 1895."
8. On Boulanger, see the unsigned "Lettre écrite à l'éditeur sur la vie et les ouvrages de feu M. Boulanger," in his Antiquité devoilé par ses usages (Amsterdam, 1764), iii-v
9. Badreddine Kassem, Décadence et Absolutisme dans l'Oeuvre de Montesquieu (Geneva, 1960), 111-44: Montesquieu drew his portrait of Persian society not from the writings of knowledgeable sojourners in Persia, like Sir John Chardin, but from Christian polemical writings against Islam, like Humphrey Prideaux's Vie de l'Imposteur Mahomet (Paris, 1698)
10. a translation of his The True Nature of Imposture Fully Display'd in the Life of Mahomet (London, 1697 )
11. on Prideaux and his work, P. M. Holt, "The Study of Islam in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England," Journal of Early Modern History 2, no. 2 (1998): 113-23
12. For the Greek, medieval, and Renaissance antecedents of the idea of Asian despotism, Melvin Richter, "Despotism," in Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Philip Wiener, 5 vols. (New York, 1968-74), 2: 1-18
13. A term suggested by Wang Gungwu, "Merchants without empires: the Hokkien sojourning communities," in The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350-1750, ed. James Tracy (Cambridge, 1990), 400-422
14. Chardin, Journal de Voyage du Chevalier Chardin en Perse et aux Indes Orientaux (London, 1686)
15. and Voyages en Perse et autres lieux d'Orient, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1711)
16. Bernier, Histoire de la Dernière Révolution des États du Grand Mogol (Paris, 1670)
17. and Suite des Memoires du Sr. Bernier (Paris, 1671)
18. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 5 (the quotation), 237-39, 65
19. This is particularly true of Chardin, who, unlike Bernier, presents Iranian commoners as secure in the enjoyment of property and tenure rights in land: Voyages, 2: 40-41, 212-13, 223-24, 245-47. The idea that "Asian" monarchs made themselves the sole proprietors of land traces back to quotations from the lost Indike of Megasthenes, a companion of Alexander the Great on his Indus valley campaign: Murr on Bernier (cited below, note 16), 281
20. Worthy of comparison with the works of Chardin and Bernier is Paul Rycaut, The History of the Turkish Empire (London, 1680)
21. See the essay on "The Asiatic Mode of Production" in which Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London, 1974), 462-549, proposes a "decent burial" for the notion that all of pre-modern Asia can be classified under a single mode of production
22. Roger Savory, Iran under the Safavids (Cambridge, 1980), chap. 4
23. cf. Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 3 vols. (Chicago, 1974), 3: 55-57
24. Despite the continuing vitality of Portuguese trade in Asia, especially the private traders operating beyond the control of the Estado da India: Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce. Southern India, 1500-1650 (Cambridge, 1990)
25. This characterization of the EIC by K. N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660-1760 (Cambridge, 1978), 22-28, applies as well to its Dutch rival
26. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, "Slaves and Tyrants: Dutch Tribulations in Seventeenth-Century Mrauk-U," Journal of Early Modern History 1, no. 3 (1997): 1-52, here 48
27. Balkrishna Govind Gokhale, Surat in the Seventeenth Century, Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, no. 28 (London and Malmø, 1979)
28. Surendra Gopal, Commerce and Crafts in Gujarat: 16th and 17th Centuries (New Delhi, 1975)
29. and O. P. Singh, Surat and its Trade in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century (Delhi, 1977)
30. Om Prakash, "Restrictive Trading Regimes: VOC and the Asian Spice Trade in the Seventeenth Century," in his Precious Metals and Commerce (Aldershot, 1994), chap. 2
31. Niels Steensgaard, The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century (Chicago, 1974)
32. Philip Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge, 1984), chap. 9
33. Om Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630-1720 (Princeton, 1983), 119-34. From 1639, the VOC factory on Deshima, an island in Nagasaki harbor, was the only authorized outlet for Japanese exports
34. The Governor-General and High Council received their instructions from the Heren Zeventien (the 17 Gentlemen) in the Netherlands. Directors of the Surat factory normally reported to Batavia, rather than to the Board of Directors; the VOC archive in The Hague (see note 36) has copies of this correspondence (sometimes the originals), as sent from Batavia "to patria."
35. H. W. van Santen, "De VOC in Gujarat en Hindoestan (1620-1660)" (Ph.D. diss., University of Leiden, 1982), 30-33
36. Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, 290-96
37. For remittances to Hugh (Bengal) and Masulipatnam (Coromandel coast), see Om Prakash, "The VOC in the Trade of the Indian Ocean," in India and the Indian Ocean, c. 1500-1800, ed. Ashin Das Gupta and Michael Pearson (Oxford and Calcutta, 1987), 188-207, here 198
38. and Subrahmanyam, Political Economy of Commerce, 82
39. For example, Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed. European and British Writing on India 1600-1800 (Delhi, 1995): Bernier is the only non-English writer mentioned in chapter 1, "Compare and Contrast: Seventeenth Century European Writing about India."
40. D. H. A. Kolff and H. W. van Santen, eds., De Geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal Indie, Linschoten Vereeniging, vol. 81 (The Hague, 1979)
41. Remonstrantie omtrent de handel en de manieren in Mughal Indie, chap. 3, "Indigo," 255-64
42. For Dutch accounts of the journey, A. J. Bernet Kempers, ed., Journaal van Dircq van Adrichems Hofreis naar den Groten Mogol, 1662, Linschoten Vereeniging, vol. 45 (The Hague, 1911)
43. The series "Overgekomene Brieven en Papieren" (hereafter abbreviated as OBP) at the Rijksarchief van Zuid-Holland in The Hague, dating from 1636, is described in H. Raben, ed., De archieven van de Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie. The Archives of the Dutch East India Company (1602-1795) (The Hague, 1992)
44. For the campaigns of Shivaji Bhonsle (1627-1680), leader of the Maratha insurgency, John F. Richards, Mughal Empire (Cambridge and New York, 1993), 205-16
45. Tapan Raychaudhuri, "The Agrarian System of Mughal India: a Review Essay," in The Mughal State, ed. Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Delhi, 1998), 259-83
46. Neera Darbari, Northern India under Aurangzeb. Social and Economic Condition (Meerut, 1982), 252-56
47. Ashin Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat (Wiesbaden, 1979), 15: "It seems that some Mughal officials would try to 'monopolize' certain trades on occasions. This urge has been well documented, but I believe it could only happen in relation to trades which were easily controlled."
48. For another view, Michael Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat (Berkeley, 1976), chap. 5
49. Singh, Surat and its Trade, 190-92. Jahangir (Shah Jahan's father) maintained a certain interest in the heterodox religious ideas of his father, Akbar I
50. Gokhale, Surat in the Seventeenth Century, 51-54
51. Douglas E. Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire (Delhi, 1989), 108-14. Civil officials like the mutasaddi were also members of the mansabdar military hierarchy, meaning that they commanded troops and received proportional allotments of imperial revenue
52. Gokhale, Surat in the Seventeenth Century, 62 (chaap = stamp)
53. Singh, Surat and its Trade, 13-15
54. Makrand Mehta, Indian Merchants and Entrepreneurs in Historical Perspective (Delhi, 1991), 22-24
55. Mehta, Indian Merchants and Entrepreneurs, 35: "It was customary for a European traveler to use the term 'banian' for the Hindu merchants and traders. The term was used as an occupation category and did not explain the caste affiliation of the bania. Though it is true that most of the traders and bankers belonged to the vaishya castes (known as vania in Gujarat), in the 17th century quite a few banias of Surat belonged to the non-vaishya castes."
56. Mehta, Indian Merchants and Entrepreneurs, 65-90
57. Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, 80, identifies the family as Jain, but Mehta points out (68) that it was only in the 1760s that a leading member of the family converted to Jainism
58. Gokhale, Surat in the Seventeenth Century, 47-48, 167: Mohandas Parekh, leader of the exodus referred to in note 44, was the foremost broker for the VOC
59. Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, 94-133
60. Richards, Mughal Empire, 68
61. Kolff and van Santen, Geschriften van Pelsaert, "Inleiding," 22-26
62. For interest rates on loans contracted by the VOC in Surat, P. Boomgaard, "Geld, Krediet, rente en Europeanen in Zuid- en Zuidoost Azie in de zeventiende eeuw," in Kapitaal, Ondernemerschap en Beleid: Afsheidsbundel voor Prof. Dr. P. W. Klein, ed. C. A. Davids, W. Fritschy, and L. A. Van der Valk (Amsterdam, 1996), 483-510, especially Table 6, 509
63. Many such brokers are mentioned in Ruby Maloni's selection of EIC documents: European Merchant Capital and the Indian Economy (Manohar, 1992), Appendix A, 444-49
64. Van Santen, "De Voc in Gujarat," 153
65. Sinappah Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies, and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast, 1654-1740 (Oxford, 1986), 142-43
66. Sinappah Arasaratnam and Aniruddha Ray, Masulipatnam and Cambay. A History of Two Port-Towns 1500-1800 (New Delhi, 1994), 16, 21
67. W. Caland, ed., De Remonstrantie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh, Linschoten Vereeniging, vol. 31 (The Hague, 1929), 18
68. Kolff and van Santen, Geschriften van Pebaert, Remonstrantie, 305-6 (my translations)
69. De Laet, De Imperio Magni Mogolis (Leiden: Elzevier, 1631), copy in Ames Library, University of Minnesota, p. 122
70. J. S. Hoyland and S. N. Banerjee, The Empire of the Great Mogoll: a translation of De Laet's "Description of India and Fragment of Indian History" (1927; reprint, Delhi, 1975), chap. 4, 92-94
71. Hoyland and Banerjee, Empire of the Great Mogoll, 244
72. In the words of Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1617), "the good old free manner of our nation is highly praised" among Asian traders, while "the proud severity of the Spaniard is hated throughout the world": H. T. Colenbrander, ed., Jan Pieterszoon Coen: Bescheiden omtrent zijn Bedrijf in Indie, 7 vols. (The Hague, 1917-53), 1: 215-16. The Eighty Years' War, in which the Netherlands won independence from Spain, lasted from 1566 to 1648
73. Arasaratnam and Ray, Masulipatnam and Cambay, 35-52. Masulipatnam was ruled by the Shi'ite Qutb-Shahi dynasty from 1565 until the conquest of Golconda by the Mughals in 1687
74. See also Markus Paulus Vink, "Encounters on the Opposite Coast: Cross-Cultural Contacts between the Dutch East India Company and the Nayaka State of Madurai in the Seventeenth Century" (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1998)
75. H. Terpstra, De Opkomst der Westerkwartieren van de Ooost-Indische Compagnie (The Hague, 1918), 60-70
76. S. A. I. Timirzi, Mughal Documents (A.D. 1628-1659) (Manohar, 1995), document no. 1, p. 41
77. Pietersen to Van Diemen, 7 July 1637, OBP 1128, 87-92
78. according to Gokhale, Surat in the Seventeenth Century, 70-71, Hakim Masih-us-Zaman was governor from 1635 to 1638
79. Pietersen to Van Diemen, 20 April 1639, OBP 1130, 1110-13
80. Croocq to Van Diemen, 28 November 1641, OBP 1139, 403v-406: after being replaced as "governor of Surat" in 1641, Mir Musa still held Broach and Cambay as his jagir, and still owed the imperial treasury "2,300,000 mahmudis regarding the lease of Surat." On the jagir system, Richards, Mughal Empire, 66-68
81. Pietersen to Van Diemen, 20 April 1639, OBP 1630, 1110-13, 1127-29
82. Cf. the comment of court official Haqiqat Khan to Johan Tack, a Company servant in Delhi in 1648, as quoted in George D. Winius and Markus P. M. Vink, The Merchant Warrior Pacified: The VOC and its Changing Political Economy in India (Oxford, 1991), 64: "You desire to be allowed all privileges of His Majesty here [in India], whereas you behave like a thief with your ill-mannered unreasonableness. If we send out ships [to Malacca and surroundings], we will find a way to defend ourselves."
83. Van Santen, "De VOC in Gujarat," 22-24
84. Gokhale, Surat in the Seventeenth Century, 126: in 1666 the Surat factory sold its incoming goods to Haji Zahid Beg, a leading Muslim merchant, after Zahid Beg complained to the High Council in Batavia that incoming goods for a previous year were committed to Virji Vora, even though Vora's bid for the purchase contract was lower than his
85. Prakash, "Restrictive Trading Practices," 122: "The Company's [dumping] strategy might well have worked but for collusion between the Company's servants at Surat and a few leading merchants. Evidently in return for a consideration, the factors confined the sale of cheap doves to a very small number of merchants, at whose request the price was not publicly disclosed."
86. Pelgroms to Van Gent, 12 April 1655, OBP 1215, 598-602v
87. Winnincx to Maetsuycker, 11 April 1661, OBP 1236, 320-24; cf. Winnincx to Maetsuycker, 14 October 1660, OBP 1236, 20: in order to impress "the arrogant and proud Ottomans" with the Company's power in the east, the Surat factory held a public celebration of a VOC victory against Macassar (Sulawesi). On the European usage of "Moor" for Asian Muslims of all nations, above, note 70
88. Winnincx to Maetsuycker, 11 April 1661, OBP 1236, 324
89. Winnincx to Maetsuycker, 2 June 1661, OBP 1236, 649-50. On Haji Zahid Beg, Singh, Surat and its Trade, 182
90. According to Gojhale, Surat in the Seventeenth Century, Mustafa Khan was governor from 1660 to 1663. On Haji Zahid Beg, above, note 77
91. Winnincx to Maetsuycker, 25 August 1661, OBP 1236, 746
92. Commander Abraham Hartman to the Heren Zeventien, 31 December 1665, OBP 1251, 1486
93. Hartman to the Heren Zeventien, 31 December 1665, OBP 1251, 1489; for Aurangzeb's reimposition of the jaziya or poll-tax on non-Muslim subjects of the Mughal empire, see above, note 39
94. Van Adrichem to the Heren Zeventien, 7 October 1664, OBP 1254, 966; Hartman to the Heren Zeventien, 31 December 1665, OBP 1251, 1490
95. Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, 27, note 1: "In discussing the officials I have relied heavily on Zwaardekroon's memoir."
96. Zwaardekroon, "Memorie," no. 830, E-Ev
97. "Memorie," no. 830, B-Bv, no. 829, 16-17
98. "Memorie," no. 830, Ev, C-Cv, H. For Mughal conceptions of the State, see the essays by Ram Prasad Tripathi and J. F. Richards in Alam and Subrahmanyam, The Mughal State, 115-25, 126-64
99. "Memorie," no. 830, Cv, H
100. Chardin, Voyages, 2: 290-91
101. S. P. Sangar, "Administration of Justice in Mughal India," and I. H. Qureshi, "Institutions for the Dispensation of Mughal Justice," in Political, Legal and Military History of India, ed. H. S. Bhatia, vol. 5 (New Delhi, 1984), 67-81, 81-106
102. and Jadunath Sarkar, "The Condition of the People in Aurangzib's Reign," in Alam and Subrahmanyam, The Mughal State, 319-20
103. Winnincx to Maetsuycker, 28 October 1659. OBP 1230, 194-96: the Company lost its plea (about an alleged debt to the Company) before Raja Jaswant Singh, the Hindu "regent" of Ahmadabad, not because Jaswant Singh had business dealings with the defendant and alleged creditor, but because a very junior Company servant was so impolitic as to insult him by blurting out the Company's awareness of this relationship
104. Story by Fred Hiatt, International Herald Tribune, 25 February 1999
105. Editor's "Introduction" in The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade, 1350-1750, ed. James Tracy (Cambridge, 1991), 10-13
106. and Simon Ockley's The History of the Saracens (1708)
107. W. M. C. Juynboll, Zeventiende-eeuwse Beoefenaars van het Arabisch in Nederland (Utrecht, 1931), and Peter van Rooden, Theology, Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinical Studies in the Seventeenth Century (Leiden, 1989), 25, 59-61, 195-96
108. J. Brugman, "Arabic Scholarship," in Leiden University in the Seventeenth Century: An Exchange of Learning, ed. Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer and G. H. M. Posthumus Meyjes (Leiden, 1975), downplays religious motivation for Arabic studies at Leiden
109. Holt, "The Study of Islam," quoting from an edition of 1840
110. Matar, Islam in Britain, 1558-1685 (Cambridge, 1998), 11-20, sees the turn of the eighteenth century as a making a new era, both in terms of the decline of Ottoman power, and in terms of the emergence of a more dispassionate or "possessive" style of European writing about Islam