Emergence of Production Centres During 16th 17th Century Under Mughal in North India

Abstract

It is considered by the historians worked on medieval Indian economy that the Indian economy was booming under the Mughals due to stable and effective governance. Development of infrastructure like road and transport, coinage system, enhanced technology, comprehensive urbanization, flourished land and sea trade and commerce further strengthened the Indian economy. This resulted in emergence of various production centers during sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Although emergence of production centers was not confined to Mughal period only, the production centers existed during sultanate period, continued and enhanced under the Mughals. newlineProduction center was the area where commodities were produced at large scale. There were mainly two types of production centers in medieval India. First, the independent artisans who produced on the basis of the market. Second, category included those artisans who were hired for producing goods exclusively for royal families and karkhanas, however, the last category employed very small number of artisans, so this group was not having much impact on the economy during period between sixteenth-seventeenth centuries. newlineSultanate period consisted numbers of specialised production centers like Bayana for indigo, Kannauj for scent and sugar, Banaras for sarees and ornaments, Bengal for silk etc. In comparison with Sultanate period, sixteenth-seventeenth centuries witnessed emergence of various new production centers. However, the list of centers is very long but mentioning some of them is important to understand the trend which became very important in this period, like Patna for saltpeter, Sambhal, Shahjahanpur (UP) and Bihar Sharif (Bihar) for paper, Bhagalpur (Bihar) for silk, Lakhawur (Bihar), Bulandsahar and Khairabad (UP) for cotton.