Statement I : The Pahi-kashta peasants were non-resident cultivators cultivating lands on a contractual basis. Statement I : The Pahi-kashta peasants worked under the temptation of favourable terms of revenue or the compulsion of economic distress

In the seventeenth-century Mughal agrarian structure, peasants were primarily classified into two categories: khud-kashta and pahi-kashta. Statement I is true as pahi-kashta were non-resident cultivators who belonged to a different village but cultivated land elsewhere on a contractual basis [1]. Statement II is also true and provides the correct explanation for why these peasants engaged in such labor. Historical sources indicate that individuals became pahi-kashta either out of choice, attracted by more favorable revenue terms in distant villages, or out of compulsion due to economic distress, such as the aftermath of a famine [1]. The state often encouraged this mobility by offering concessional land revenue rates and assistance in hutment construction to bring waste or depopulated lands under cultivation. Thus, the contractual nature of their work was directly linked to these economic incentives or pressures.