Locating Meritocracy in Early Modern Asia: Qing China and Mughal India

This chapter seeks to define “merit” in the states of early modern China and India. Rather than projecting any one definition of merit, such as individual examination success, onto the past, the authors suggest that merit ought to be contextually understood within the parameters of the Qing and Mughal political systems. By examining many personnel records from the Chinese civil service and then tracking several individual career profiles from the Mughal court, the authors argue that the three factors of family, loyalty, and job competencies were the chief attributes of “merit” across both societies. Individuals were evaluated by their superiors for their familial ties and personal backgrounds, factors that cannot be separated from their achievements. This comparative analysis of the Qing and Mughal administrative worlds raises the critical question of whether families, not individuals, should be the proper unit of inquiry in attempts to locate “meritocracy” in early modern Asia.