Nature of slavery and servitude in Mughal India

ABSTRACT The nature of service and submission in Mughal India was starkly different from modern times. The rhetoric of complete submission to the person of the Emperor guided the social relations of all orders. A reflection of this must have been experienced at the level of the household service gentry. Important elements in this service class were chelas (freed male slaves), sahelis (freed slave-girls) and khwajasaras (eunuchs). All three sections had an ambiguous placement in the social order. The chelas and sahelis were in principle free but their social realities and the nature of their services were similar to that of slaves. Eunuchs, on the other hand, provided widely varied services, ranging from administrative duties to mere harem attendance. The conditions of all these groups depended largely on the interactions between them and their immediate masters. The paper explores the dynamics of the varying nature of social realities and mobility experienced by these different sections, locating them within class and gender contexts.