DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

10.5] PLUNDER, NOT PRODUCTION 387
of grain, and demolishing the walls in hopes of finding concealed treasure, they
conclude by setting fire to what they cannot carry off : although there is scarcely
anything that does not turn to account in the camp bazar, where a rusty nail is taken in
exchange for some article of provision.... These pindarees, and various descriptions
of unarmed followers of the” camp, swell the Indian armies to an amazing number.
When Raghoba’s forces marched towards the ministerial troops, after the junction,
they consisted of an hundred thousand, including camp-followers of all sorts; the
cattle exceed two hundred thousand : the confederates were still more numerous....
Raghoba’s encampment covered a space of many square miles; the bazar, or marketplace,
belonging to his own division, and to the principal generals, contained many
thousand tents, where every trade and profession was carried on with as much
regularity as in a city. Goldsmiths, jewellers, bankers, drapers, druggists, confectioners,
carpenters, tailors, tent-makers, corn-grinders, and farriers, found full employment;
as did whole rows of silver, iron, and copper-smiths; but those in the greatest and
most constant requisition, seem to be cooks, confectioners, and farriers.” (FOM.
1.344-5).
This descriptive of the camp of Raghunatha Rao Peshwa in 1775
would apply to virtually any later feudal camp. With its women, children,
servants, merchants, and artisans, the camp became a city the moment it
ceased moving. But it was not a city that produced commodities for the
use of society, rather one that devastated the countryside while eating
up local produce.
At the other end, however, there developed a class of workers
who took the place of the serf, and upon whose existence the system really
depended. These were not the slaves but the workers who had little or no
land of their own. They came into their own at harvest time, and for the
pre-monsoon tillage. The weather made concentrated use of all
labour-power essential (as to this day) because of the primitive tools
employed. The feudal zamindar or tax-farmer did not scorn to press
such labour, to appropriate the plough and oxen of the tenants for
work on his own land, but that, only meant ruin and lesser revenue
next year; the pressed labour either starved to death or ran away. An
early decree of Jahanglr tried to suppress this type of encroachment.
The Khots in the Konkan, as tax-collecting agents for an average of two
or three villages each, took at least a third of the total crop from the cultivator
against a fixed cash payment to the state. By the time of the Peshwas,