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Many Indian posters here try to paint Mughals as invaders and looters while ignoring their various positive contributions. I am making this thread to highlight some of those contributions.
Here is the list:
Architecture: Mughals managed to achieve incredible architectural achievements. One of their buildings (Taj Mahal) is now considered as one of the seven wonders of the world. Another example would be Red Fort in Delhi.
Bringing Indian subcontinent under one domain: Prior to Mughals, Indian subcontinent was divided into many different empires. Mughals managed to unify some of those empires. I think it is fair to say Mughals have had a significant contribution behind Akhand Bharat.
Administrative Contributions: Various administrative features of Mughals were eventually adopted by future empires (Rajput, Maratha, and British).
Economic Contributions:
Agricultural Contributions:
Shipbuilding Industry:
Mughal Textile Industry:
References:
Here is the list:
Architecture: Mughals managed to achieve incredible architectural achievements. One of their buildings (Taj Mahal) is now considered as one of the seven wonders of the world. Another example would be Red Fort in Delhi.
Bringing Indian subcontinent under one domain: Prior to Mughals, Indian subcontinent was divided into many different empires. Mughals managed to unify some of those empires. I think it is fair to say Mughals have had a significant contribution behind Akhand Bharat.
Administrative Contributions: Various administrative features of Mughals were eventually adopted by future empires (Rajput, Maratha, and British).
Economic Contributions:
The Mughal economy was large and prosperous. India was producing 24.5% of the world's manufacturing output up until 1750. India's economy has been described as a form of proto-industrialization, like that of 18th-century Western Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution.
The Mughals were responsible for building an extensive road system, creating a uniform currency, and the unification of the country. The empire had an extensive road network, which was vital to the economic infrastructure, built by a public works department set up by the Mughals which designed, constructed and maintained roads linking towns and cities across the empire, making trade easier to conduct.
The main base of the empire's collective wealth was agricultural taxes, instituted by the third Mughal emperor, Akbar. These taxes, which amounted to well over half the output of a peasant cultivator, were paid in the well-regulated silver currency, and caused peasants and artisans to enter larger markets.
Agricultural Contributions:
Indian agricultural production increased under the Mughal Empire. A variety of crops were grown, including food crops such as wheat, rice, and barley, and non-food cash crops such as cotton, indigo and opium. By the mid-17th century, Indian cultivators begun to extensively grow two new crops from the Americas, maize and tobacco.
The Mughal administration emphasised agrarian reform, which began under the non-Mughal emperor Sher Shah Suri, the work of which Akbar adopted and furthered with more reforms. The civil administration was organised in a hierarchical manner on the basis of merit, with promotions based on performance.[125] The Mughal government funded the building of irrigation systems across the empire, which produced much higher crop yields and increased the net revenue base, leading to increased agricultural production.
A major Mughal reform introduced by Akbar was a new land revenue system called zabt. He replaced the tribute system, previously common in India and used by Tokugawa Japan at the time, with a monetary tax system based on a uniform currency. The revenue system was biased in favour of higher value cash crops such as cotton, indigo, sugar cane, tree-crops, and opium, providing state incentives to grow cash crops, in addition to rising market demand. Under the zabt system, the Mughals also conducted extensive cadastral surveying to assess the area of land under plow cultivation, with the Mughal state encouraging greater land cultivation by offering tax-free periods to those who brought new land under cultivation. The expansion of agriculture and cultivation continued under later Mughal emperors including Aurangzeb, whose 1665 firman edict stated: "the entire elevated attention and desires of the Emperor are devoted to the increase in the population and cultivation of the Empire and the welfare of the whole peasantry and the entire people."
Mughal agriculture was in some ways advanced compared to European agriculture at the time, exemplified by the common use of the seed drill among Indian peasants before its adoption in Europe. While the average peasant across the world was only skilled in growing very few crops, the average Indian peasant was skilled in growing a wide variety of food and non-food crops, increasing their productivity. Indian peasants were also quick to adapt to profitable new crops, such as maize and tobacco from the New World being rapidly adopted and widely cultivated across Mughal India between 1600 and 1650. Bengali farmers rapidly learned techniques of mulberry cultivation and sericulture, establishing Bengal Subah as a major silk-producing region of the world. Sugar mills appeared in India shortly before the Mughal era. Evidence for the use of a draw bar for sugar-milling appears at Delhi in 1540, but may also date back earlier, and was mainly used in the northern Indian subcontinent. Geared sugar rolling mills first appeared in Mughal India, using the principle of rollers as well as worm gearing, by the 17th century.
According to economic historian Immanuel Wallerstein, citing evidence from Irfan Habib, Percival Spear, and Ashok Desai, per-capita agricultural output and standards of consumption in 17th-century Mughal India were probably higher than in 17th-century Europe and certainly higher than early 20th-century British India. The increased agricultural productivity led to lower food prices. In turn, this benefited the Indian textile industry. Compared to Britain, the price of grain was about one-half in South India and one-third in Bengal, in terms of silver coinage. This resulted in lower silver coin prices for Indian textiles, giving them a price advantage in global markets.
Shipbuilding Industry:
Mughal India had a large shipbuilding industry, which was also largely centred in the Bengal province. Economic historian Indrajit Ray estimates shipbuilding output of Bengal during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at 223,250 tons annually, compared with 23,061 tons produced in nineteen colonies in North America from 1769 to 1771.[145] He also assesses ship repairing as very advanced in Bengal.[145]
An important innovation in shipbuilding was the introduction of a flushed deck design in Bengal rice ships, resulting in hulls that were stronger and less prone to leak than the structurally weak hulls of traditional European ships built with a stepped deck design. The British East India Company later duplicated the flushed deck and hull designs of Bengal rice ships in the 1760s, leading to significant improvements in seaworthiness and navigation for European ships during the Industrial Revolution.
Mughal Textile Industry:
The largest manufacturing industry in the Mughal Empire was textile manufacturing, particularly cotton textile manufacturing, which included the production of piece goods, calicos, and muslins, available unbleached and in a variety of colours. The cotton textile industry was responsible for a large part of the empire's international trade. India had a 25% share of the global textile trade in the early 18th century. Indian cotton textiles were the most important manufactured goods in world trade in the 18th century, consumed across the world from the Americas to Japan. By the early 18th century, Mughal Indian textiles were clothing people across the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East. The most important centre of cotton production was the Bengal province, particularly around its capital city of Dhaka.
References:
Mughal Empire - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Contribution of the Mughals in Various Fields
The Mughal rulers made a great contribution in various fields i.e. administrative, cultural, economic, political and religious. Administrative contribution: Several aspects of the Mughal administration were adopted not only by the Rajput and Maratha rulers but also by the British. The land...
www.historydiscussion.net
New Seven Wonders of the World | Britannica
This Encyclopedia Britannica History list explores the New Seven Wonders of the World.
www.britannica.com