Widespread poverty

Widespread poverty Pelsaert, a Dutch traveller, visited the subcontinent during the early decades of the seventeenth century. Like Bernier, he was shocked to see the widespread poverty, “poverty so great and miserable that the life of the people can be depicted or accurately described only as the home of stark want and the dwelling place of bitter woe”. Holding the state responsible, he says: “So much is wrung from the peasants that even dry bread is scarcely left to fill their stomachs.”