• The focus on the cultivation of basic staples did not mean that agriculture in medieval India was only for subsistence. We often come across the term Jins-i Kamil (literally, perfect crops) in our sources.
• The Mughal state also encouraged peasants to cultivate such crops as they brought in more revenue. Crops such as cotton and sugarcane were Jins-i Kamil par excellence.
• Cotton was grown over a great swathe of territory spread over central India and the Deccan plateau, whereas Bengal was famous for its sugar. Such cash crops would also include various sorts of oilseeds (for example, mustard) and lentils. This shows how subsistence and commercial production were closely intertwined in an average peasant’s holding.
• During the seventeenth century, several new crops from different parts of the world reached the Indian subcontinent. Maize (makka), for example, was introduced into India via Africa and Spain, and by the seventeenth century, it was being listed as one of the major crops of western India. Vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes and chillies were introduced from the New World at this time, as were fruits, like pineapple and papaya.
Tobacco
• This plant, which arrived first in the Deccan, spread to northern India in the early years of the seventeenth century. The Ain does not mention tobacco in the lists of crops in northern India. Akbar and his nobles came across tobacco for the first time in 1604. At this time smoking tobacco (in hookahs or chillums) seems to have caught on in a big way. Jahangir was so concerned about its addiction that he banned it. This ban was totally ineffective because by the end of the seventeenth century, tobacco had become a major article of consumption, cultivation and trade all over India.
