Question

Give an account of the social developments during the Mughal Age under the following headline:

Social Structure

Answer 1

The society comprised of, a general, three classes of people;

1. Princes and the Nobles,
2. The Middle Class, and
3. The lower orders,i.e., the Ordinary People, the peasants, and the laborers. As regards the princes and the nobles, they rolled in wealth and luxury, Costly silks and precious jewels graced their persons and beautiful carpets decked their dining halls. They ate the choicest food and could taste the choicest ‘ wines. They lived in highly decorated palatial buildings. Many of them kept men and women as slaves who could be bought and sold as they liked. The middle classes, i.e., the merchants, traders, artists, musicians, scholars, and those belonging to the class of priests and the clergy had a living standard suited to their respective professions. The living conditions of the lower orders were hard. The landless peasants and laborers could eke out a bare existence. Towards the end of Shah Jahan’s reign, the peasants got much harassed by the revenue officials. Whenever there was a famine it was this class of peasants who suffered the most