This book examines the politics and culture of landholding in eastern India.

Professor John McLane explores the dual and sometimes conflicting roles of
the zamindars, the landed chiefs, in eighteenth-century western Bengal during
the decline of the Mughal empire and the rise of British hegemony. He focuses
on zamindari rent extraction, techniques of coercion, and the meaning of
gift-giving and gift-receiving. He shows how the zamindars kept alive the
rituals, patronage, and other traditions of normative Hindu kingship for their
subjects in the villages while they extracted revenue from the peasantry and
intermediate gentry for the government of the Mughals and then the English
East India Company. The author argues that the increased commercialization
of the eighteenth century and efforts to maximize land revenues imposed
severe strains on the paternalistic and gift-oriented culture of Bengal's huge
landlords. Hence, by 1800, the major zamindar families had surrendered their
estates to high caste zamindari and government employees who maintained
the often hollow forms of Hindu kingship while seeking new ways to increase
their rent collections from the peasant tenantry.
Professor McLane illustrates this analysis with a case study of Bengal's most
important and controversial zamindari, the Burdwan raj, which owned a 5,000
square mile estate that figured prominently in parliamentary debates as well
as in the fights between Warren Hastings and his enemies in Calcutta. The
maharajas and maharanis of Burdwan saved the estate from dismemberment
under harsh colonial tax policies through tenacity and creative legal innova-
tions.
Cambridge South Asian Studies

Land and local kingship in eighteenth-century Bengal

Cambridge South Asian Studies

Editorial Board

C.A. Bayly, G.P. Hawthorn, Gordon Johnson, W.J. Macpherson,

S.J. Tambiah

A list of the books in the series will be found at the end of the volume
Land and local kingship
in eighteenth-century Bengal

John R.McLane
Professor of South and Southeast Asian History,
Northwestern University, Evans ton, Illinois

CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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© Cambridge University Press 1993

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1993

First paperback edition 2002

A catalogue recordfor this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

McLane, John R., 1935-
Land and local kingship in eighteenth-century Bengal / John R. McLane.
p. cm. - (Cambridge South Asian Studies; 53)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 52141074 6
1. Land tenure - India - Bengal - History - 18th century. 2. India -
Kings and rulers. I. Title. II. Series.
HD879.B4M35 1992
306.3'2-dc20 91-47552 CIP
ISBN 0 52141074 6 hardback
ISBN 0 521 52654 X paperback
For Joan
 Contents

List of tables page xi

Preface and acknowledgments xiii
List of abbreviations xvii
Select glossary xix
Map of southwest Bengal xxv

Part I Bengal
1 Introduction 3
2 Nazims of Bengal and the large zamindars 27
3 Collecting rents and revenues 45
4 Coercion 69
5 Political gifts and patronage 96

Part II Burdwan
6 Mughal Burdwan and the rise of the Burdwan raj 125
7 Burdwan's expansion 139
8 The Maratha invasions, 1742-1751 161
9 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 172
10 The famine of 1770 194
11 Revenue farming, 1771 -1777 208
12 Zamindari family politics: the Burdwan raj, 1770-1775 223
13 The politics of Burdwan family debt and marriages,
1775-1778 235
14 Testing the limits, 1778-1790 251
x Contents

15 Burdwan under the Decennial and

Permanent Settlements 267
16 Patnis and the elusive quest for independence
and security 287
17 Conclusion 306

Bibliography 323
Index 336
 Tables

1 Servants of the Burdwan raj page 118

2 Deserted land, 1778 201
3 Net revenue collections, 1768-69 to 1771 -72 202
4 Cotton and silk investments, 1768-75 203
 Preface and acknowledgments

That the major landed magnates occupied an enigmatic position in South Asian
society became clear to me in a previous research project, on early Indian
nationalism. Indian National Congress supporters, with some exceptions,
showed a respect to the maharajas (great kings) of both British and princely
India that seemed out of proportion to objective measures of their power and
influence. The fact that the major landholders acted as partners of the colonial
rulers and helped them extract taxes from the cultivating tenantry did not destroy
their reputations with many fellow Indians. Long after the colonial government
had spiked the maharajas' last dangerous cannon and dismissed their non-dis-
play soldiers, educated nationalists appointed titled landholders to head their
cultural organizations and listed them first in newspaper accounts of public
meetings. Even if some maharajas seemed to live out European fantasies of
"oriental" pageantry and excess, they apparently fulfilled indigenous cultural
expectations, especially in the rural population, about how society should
operate, about the merit to be gained by honoring a superior being. Maharajas
were almost as much a part of the normative, hierarchically arranged landscape
as Brahmins.
One impulse to embark on the present study, therefore, was desire to
understand the persistence of kingship's esteem in local imaginations, after
the colonial government had appropriated ruling functions from the big
landowners and left them with powers more ceremonial than substantive. A
broader purpose was to search for clues about how agricultural land served
simultaneously to uphold the ritual order and to support political authority.
Yet another goal was to analyze what happened to the many tiers of
intermediate authority between the villages and government of Bengal in the
eighteenth century, as Bengal first gained de facto independence from the
Mughal emperors at Delhi and then, after some decades, passed into the hands
of the English East India Company. The position of the landholders did not
change radically with the beginning of British rule. The maharajas kept their
positions of local dominance before and after the British conquest by cooperat-
ing with regimes determined to use the maharajas' agency to maximize the
revenue collections. Land revenue collections paid for the bulk of the East India
xiv Preface and acknowledgments

Company's trade investments. The large landholders were a vital cog in the
colonial political economy.
Segments of Bengal's eighteenth-century economy, including the credit
system that financed both trade and land revenue collections, were highly
developed. The eighteenth century as a whole was a period of growing com-
mercialization and monetization, and the start of East India Company rule
brought no immediate general transformation of the political and economic
systems. But in time, British laws and mores strengthened the individualistic,
profit-seeking elements in rural society. By the end of the century, rights to
collect rents and act out the role of the local raja were being delegated, sold,
and mortgaged to smaller and smaller landholders. As a result, kingship became
less benevolent and familiar and it fitted less well with Hindu expectations of
how a good king should behave and sustain the ritually oriented community.
To better understand how Hindu traditions of kingship, Mughal institutions,
and British colonial practices jointly shaped the behavior of the landholders, I
decided to proceed at two distinct levels: the provincial and the local. Part I of
this study examines the broad Hindu and Mughal bases, textual as well as
institutional, of kingship in Bengal. Part I argues that Mughal policies of
incorporating local rajas combined with Hindu norms to keep alive a local
version of the Hindu raja. Yet this Hindu raja was often in jeopardy, balancing
two sets of ultimately incompatible expectations and facing culturally in two
directions, below and above. The raja won legitimacy in the eyes of his subject
population as if guided by a Hindu template, by upholding social and ritual order
through the punishment of improper behavior, the patronage of priests, rites,
and temples, and the gifts to persons of exceptional geheological status or moral
worth. But in order to obtain or keep his rajaship, he simultaneously was obligated
to accept from the Mughal and then the British colonial state the sometimes
rewarding, usually vexatious role of drawing taxes and tribute from his tenantry. A
cost of governing everywhere, of course, is coercion. Yet in eighteenth-century west
Bengal, the state was controlled by people alien to the region and its largely Hindu
culture and by people intent on the maximization of revenue. Impatient with the
indulgent practices of local kingship, the alien rulers acted to curtail the raja's use
of gifts, patronage, and exemptions from taxation and brought the state into repeated
conflict with local ruling families. The state was tending to monopolize the
functions of rulership that in a more feudal age it had not claimed exclusively for
itself.
Part II is a chronological case study that illustrates many of the principles and
historical trends discussed in Part I. The case is the Burdwan raj, the wealthiest
estate in late Mughal and British Bengal. In the mid-eighteenth century, Burdwan
reached from the outskirts of Calcutta northwest across rich, flat rice fields to the
sparsely settled hills towards the border of Bihar. Despite its deltaic flatness, the
area exhibits extraordinary and varied beauty in its quilted pattern of paddy and
 Preface and acknowledgments xv

sugar plots, its clumps of bamboo and palm trees that shade thatched-roofed
villages, its terracotta temples that house images and elaborate devotional
activities, and numerous ponds, canals, and rivers that offer relief from the sultry
heat. The Burdwan estate was selected because it was sufficiently important and
long-lived to have attracted the continuous attention of Bengal's rulers, and
therefore it stimulated the production of historical records of depth. Yielding
over a tenth of Bengal's land revenue and encompassing vital weaving centers,
Burdwan appeared in East India Company records both when it failed to meet
the stiff revenue demands and when the Burdwan raj family experienced severe
division or scandal. In other words, it was chosen not simply because its
evolution mirrors trends elsewhere in western Bengal; it also was the most
valuable estate and district in eastern India.

Many individuals and institutions helped me during the years I worked on this
project. Barun De gave me sage advice when I was seeking a new project and
he first took me to the Burdwan raj palaces that now are part of Burdwan
University. Tarun Mitra, friend and polymath, taught me a lot about Bengal,
intellectually and experientially. He enriched my understanding of both folk
and literary wisdom. Phil Calkins was another stimulating companion and
fellow student of the eighteenth century.
Members of the Burdwan raj family were generous with their hospitality
and good conversation. I am especially indebted to Danny Mahtab for
communicating his interest in his family's past and in preserving the monu-
ments of the Burdwan raj. He permitted me to consult what are apparently
the few documents relevant to the eighteenth century remaining in the
family's possession.
Niranjan Sen Gupta guided me to knowledgeable people and important villages
and temples within and outside the former Burdwan zamindari. He also helped with
translations of Bengali materials.
I have benefited from the advice of friends who have read parts of this work.
They include Jerry Barrier, Tim Breen, Hiren Chakrabarty, Bob Frykenberg, Blair
Kling, Pamela Price, and Aditi Nath Sarkar.
Tridip Ghose, Mukul Ray, Mrinal Basu, and Bharati Roy gave various kinds
of research assistance.
The American Institute of Indian Studies and the Joint Research Committee
on Asia of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science
Research Council provided fellowship support. Both the College of Arts and
Sciences and the Research Committee of Northwestern University helped
financially.
Tor Faegre helped to prepare the map. Joan Stahl, Sue Wentzel, and Paula
Blaskovits did most of the typing.
xvi Preface and acknowledgments

The staffs of the State Archives of West Bengal, Calcutta, and the India Office
Library, London, connected me to necessary sources.
Finally, my wife Joan has been a wonderful companion and source of vital
support.

A version of Chapter 3 was published in Bengal, Past and Present, vol. 104
(1985).
The University of Hawaii Press granted permission to quote from [Ganga-
ram], The Maharashta Purana: An Eighteenth Century Bengali Historical Text,
translated by Edward C. Dimock and Pratul Chandra Gupta (Honolulu, 1965),
pp. 32-38.

John R. McLane
 Abbreviations

Ag. Acting
App. Appendix
Asst. Assistant
BDG Bengal District Gazetteers
BLI Burdwan Letters Issued, 1788-1800
(West Bengal District Records, New Series,
ed. Ranajit Guha and A. Mitra [Calcutta, 1956])
BLR Burdwan Letters Received, 1788-1802
(West Bengal District Records, New Series,
ed. Asok Mitra [Calcutta, 1955])
BOR Board of Revenue
BR Bengal Revenue
C Council
COD Court of Directors
Col. Collector
Com. Commissioner or Committee
Consult. Consultations
COR Committee of Revenue
Crim. Criminal
Div. Division
Ft Wm-IHC Fort William-India House Correspondence
GG Governor General
GOB Government of Bengal
Gov. Governor
JP Judicial Proceedings
Jud. Judicial
Mag. Magistrate
Misc. Miscellaneous
Offg. Officiating
PCOR Provincial Council of Revenue
Prog. Proceeding
Rev. Revenue
xviii Abbreviations

Rs. Rupees
SDA Sadr Diwani Adalat
TR Territorial Revenue
WBDG West Bengal District Gazetteers
 Select glossary

abwab cess levied in addition to

ordinary revenue or rent
adalat court of justice
aimma literally, plural of imam or
Islamic religious leader but extended
in Mughal usage to cover revenue-free
or low-revenue tenures, given to religious
and other leaders.
aman winter rice crop
amil temporary revenue collector appointed
by government
amin temporary revenue collector or assessor
amla officer or officers employed by higher authority
anna one sixteenth of a rupee
asaljama original revenue demand
aus summer rice crop

bania merchant
banian Indian manager of a European's affairs
bazi zamin lands exempted from state's revenue
assessment
benami in the name of someone other than
the actual owner
bhakti Hindu devotionalism
bhuiya landed chief
bigha area of land usually equal in Bengal
to a third of an acre
boro rani senior queen
brahmottar rent-free land granted originally to Brahmins
xx Select glossary

chakaran maintenance lands for public or village servants

chakla large subdivision of a province
chaudhuri revenue collection supervisor,
usually a zamindar
chaukidar village watchman
chauth cess theoretically equal to one quarter
choto rani junior queen
chuar robber or tribal

daftar office
dakait gang robber
dana gift
danda literally a stick; punishment, coercion
darbar royal court or assembly
daroga police officer
darpatni permanent lease held under a patnidar
dastak pass for duty-free trade
debottar rent or revenue-free land for
maintenance of deities and temples
Dewry Mahals section of Burdwan zamindari for
support of widowed ranis
dharma code of conduct, obligation
dharma-shastras code-books of Hindu behavior
diwan minister, usually in charge of revenue
diwani revenue ministry or department;
jurisdiction of the Mughal diwan, as distinct
from the Company's ceded territories
diwani adalat civil court

faqir ascetic
farman imperial order
fatwa judicial decree
faujdar military officer in charge of a district
faujdari adalat police court

gadi throne
Gajan festival honoring Shiva
ghatwal guard, typically of a frontier area
gomashta village agent of a superior landholder
 Select glossary

gosain ascetic
gotra subdivision of jati sharing same name
gram village
grihastha non-cultivating, "respectable" person
guru preceptor

ijara farmed revenue holding

ijaradar revenue farmer
inam gift, usually of revenue-free holding

assignment of revenue in lieu of salary

jagirdar holder of revenue assignment
jajmani system of jati interdependence
and exchanges
jama land revenue demand
jati caste or usually endogamous
social grouping
jotdar substantial tenant in village

kabuliyat counter-agreement for a tenant's rent

kachari office where rents are received
khal water course
khalsa, khalisa treasury department or office;
lands paying revenue to the state,
in contrast to jagir lands
khansaman manager of household
khas land from which revenue or rents
are collected directly by government or
zamindar, without intermediaries
khilat robe given to honor a dependent
khudkasht resident raiyat who cultivates in his
residential village
kist monthly installment
korta master
kotwal police officer
kror 1,00,00,000
Kshatriya the second or warrior varna
kutkinadar holder of under-farm beneath a zamindar
xxii Select glossary

lakh 1,00,000
lakhiraj revenue- or rent-free land
lathi stave used for coercion or fighting
lathial man employed to use lathi to coerce people
lingam Shiva's phallic symbol

mahajan money-lender
mahal small revenue-paying area
mahant chief temple priest
maharaja great king
malguzari land subject to revenue assessment
malzamin security for payment of revenue
mandal village headman
mangalkavya poem eulogizing a deity
mangun cess for superior's life-cycle ceremony
mansab imperial rank
mansabdar imperial officer
math monastery
mathut occasional cess
maulvi Islamic religious scholar
mofussil area away from capital or headquarters
mohussil peon used in coercive collections of
rents or revenue
moshaira state stipend to a zamindar when dispossessed
mufti person qualified to give opinions on Islamic law
mukhtar legal agent
munsif judge in subordinate court
muqaddam village headman
mustajir revenue farmer
mutasaddi clerk, accountant

nabasakha group of clean Shudra castes

naib deputy
naqdi household or, literally, ready-cash
nawab ruler of province
nazim ruler of province
nazr ceremonial present, offering to a superior
nazrana presents
nirikh standard local rental rate
nizamat government: criminal justice administration
 Select glossary

nizamat adalat criminal court

paik irregular infantry, village militia or watchman

paikasht a raiyat who cultivates land away from
his residential village
pandit learned Brahmin
pargana group of villages forming a revenue unit
parwana order or warrant
patni permanent lease held under a zamindar
patnidar holder of a permanent lease
patta lease
patwari village accountant
peshkar manager for a superior officer
peshkash tribute, present for an appointment
pir Muslim saint
puja worship ceremony
pulbandi embankment
puniya rent- or revenue-collection
ceremony at start of year
purohit Brahmin priest who serves a raja

qanungo record keeper

qazi Islamic judge

rairayan major revenue officer

raiyat cultivator, peasant
raj kingdom, principality, large zamindari
raja king, large zamindar
rajadharma code of conduct for a raja
rajbari zamindar's house or palace
rani queen, female zamindar, wife or mother of a r
rasad progressive increase in revenue demand

sadr chief
sadr diwani adalat chief civil court
salami present for a superior
samaj society
sanad official deed or decree
xxiv Select glossary

sannyasi ascetic
sardar, sirdar leader, chief
sarkar large territorial division
sazawal temporary collection officer
sepatni permanent lease held under a darpatnidar
sepoy, sepahi Indian soldier
shahzada Mughal prince
shiqdar intermediate rent or revenue collector
shraddha funeral ceremonies
Shudra fourth of four varnas
siropa dress of honor given to a dependent
subah province
subahdar governor of province

taluq unit of revenue territory

taluqdar holder of revenue-collecting rights to a taluq
taqavi state loans for agriculture
taraf small territorial divison
tarafdar revenue collector for a taraf
thakur deity or honored person
thana police jurisdiction or station
thanadar police officer in charge of a thana

ulama Islamic theologians; plural of alim

Vaishya third of the four varnas

vakil ambassador, agent, legal practitioner
varna one of the four divisions into which
"clean" jatis are grouped

zamin land
zamindar landholder, person paying land revenue
directly to the state
zenanna women's apartments
 Krishnagar

'Hughli

Calcutta,
SOUTHWEST
BENGAL
o so \oomiles
50 100 ISO km tased ma, map by J.Remdl
PART ONE

Bengal
 Introduction

The eighteenth century in India began with the disintegration of one great
empire and ended with the birth of another. The wars of succession, rebellions,
invasions, and warlordism gave rise to "the Black Legend of the eighteenth
century"1 which emphasized economic decline and patterns of disorder during
the dissolution of Mughal power. Pre-World War II historical analyses attrib-
uted the chaotic condition of the century to extractive absolutism or moral
decay, with a surge of disloyalty, opportunism, and corruption. British accounts,
seeking to justify European colonialism and demonstrate the inferiority of
Indian culture and political forms, tended to portray Indian states as arbitrary
and predatory, without the mitigating checks of private property, an hereditary,
intermediate aristocracy between the Mughal elite and agrarian society, or even
a coherent legal framework. They credited colonial rule with substituting
administrative and commercial stability for what they described as pre-colonial
despotism disintegrating into anarchy.

Historical revisionism
Since World War II, and especially in the 1980s, scholars have revised the older
dominant view that the British conquest marked such a clear disjuncture in
Indian development. Historians have noted the growing monetization and
commercialization of the pre-colonial economy, made possible by the Mughal
collection of money taxes, the importation from Europe of silver bullion that
Indian rulers minted into rupees, and rising commodity production and trade,
both internal and foreign. Instead of seeing British rule as reversing the trajec-
tory of dominant trends, the new school sees the late Mughal economy having
evolved communities of profit-oriented entrepreneurs and military adventurers,
some of whose interests converged with European interests. Consequently,
groups of Indians cooperated with European soldier-merchants in the fluid

1
C.A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British
Expansion, 1770-1870 (Cambridge, 1983), p. 35.
4 Bengal

competitive politics of the eighteenth century. By 1760, the English East India
Company and its Indian allies were the most cohesive and powerful military
and commercial interest in India.2
The reassessment of the transition between Mughal and colonial rule was
stimulated by the shift of scholarly attention from the highest levels of govern-
ment and the fierce struggles in the imperial heartland around Delhi. The new
focus has been the regions away from the capital, the secondary and tertiary
levels of power, and the multitude of institutions and social groups essentially
independent of the imperial state. As historians have reexamined the causes of
the Mughal empire's rapid disintegration after 1700, they have directed their
interest to the relatively stable and compact dynastic "successor states" and local
chiefdoms which carried on the Mughal administrative system long after
emperors had lost their decisive role. The result of these new analyses has been
a revised understanding of both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It now
seems that the Mughal state was never as absolute or centralized as once
believed and that even at its apogee it depended heavily on non-military factors
of support, especially on the cooperation of Hindu government employees,
bankers, merchants, and landholders. The significant cooption and participation
of intermediate, locally based groups in the Mughal empire, in its successor
states, and in the transition to British rule is the bridge or common ground
between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Historians now acknowledge
more insistently that the collaboration of intermediate groups between states
and agrarian society was necessary to incorporate local areas into either an
India-wide empire or regional state systems and that both provided arenas for
the fulfillment of personal ambitions among enterprising regional and local
leaders. In fact, those ambitions first enabled the successor states to achieve
their independence from Delhi and then were instrumental in British expansion
and consolidation.
Bernard S. Cohn was one of the first people to reorient attention away from
imperial politics to the relations between regional governments and "little
kingdoms." He argued that although a group such as the Mughals might claim
"absolute authority," in fact "power and authority most frequently are distrib-
uted among vertically or hierarchically ordered groups." The perpetual "conflict
and competition" between these intermediate groups "paradoxically" led to an
uneasy balance of political forces at the regional level. 3 Subsequent studies of

2
See C.A. Bayly, The New Cambridge History of India, II. 1, Indian Society and the Making of
the British Empire (Cambridge, 1988); also, Burton Stein, "Eighteenth Century India: Another
View," Studies in History, vol. 5, no. 1 (1989), pp. 1-26.
3
Bernard S. Cohn, "Political Systems in Eighteenth Century India: The Banaras Region," Journal
of the American Oriental Society, vol. 82, no. 3 (July-Sept. 1962), p. 313. See also Bernard S.
Cohn, "Structural Change in Indian Rural Society, 1596-1885," in Robert Eric Frykenberg
(ed.), Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History (Madison, WI, 1969).
 Introduction 5
the eighteenth century have utilized variations on the same theme, maintaining
that "the dignity and power of kingship" were widely shared through the
political hierarchy so the Mughal emperor was "Shah-an-Shah, 'king of kings,'"
rather than an "oriental despot" presiding over a centralized state. 4
Muzaffar Alam,5 Christopher Bayly,6 Philip Calkins,7 and Andre Wink,8
among others, have emphasized the vitality of the intermediate structures of
power in Awadh, Bengal, the Punjab, and the vast Maratha domains which
covered most of the former Mughal territory. Together they have suggested that
a redistribution rather than a decline of resources took place in the eighteenth
century, with actual expansions of agricultural production, trade, and state
revenue collections over broad areas. The principal beneficiaries from the
decentralized but growing economy were the regional gentry - merchants,
government "service" groups, and zamindars (the hereditary local rulers and
collectors of the state's land revenues).
C.A. Bayly has been especially important in demonstrating the adaptive,
dynamic role of the merchants and service gentry "between the revenue-based
state and the mass of agrarian society" in the eighteenth century.9 The commer-
cial classes and service gentry were vital agents in the growth of trade and the
money economy, in the emergence of relatively stable successor states, and in
the commercialization of kingship, in which a market developed for "the
perquisites of kingship and local lordship."10 These intermediate groups pro-
vided credit, marketing, accounting, revenue collecting, and other crucial
services to both the villages and the successor states and, eventually, to the
European colonial state. In the process, they made themselves indispensable to
the elites above them and the villagers below. They were "the oil of the Indian
state system" in the period of political decentralization and redeployment that
preceded and coincided with the rise of the colonial state.11 Many members of
the service gentry came to occupy a "dual role...as state servants and rentier
landlords" or zamindars.12
Andre Wink, discussing the Maratha territories and building on Bayly's

4
Bayly, New Cambridge History of India, II. 1, p. 13.
5
Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab, 1707-48
(Delhi, 1986).
6
Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars.
7
Philip B. Calkins, "The Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling Group in Bengal, 1700-
1740," Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 29, no. 4 (Aug. 1970).
8
Andre Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India: Agrarian Society and Politics under the Eight-
eenth-Century Maratha Svarajya (Cambridge, 1986).
9
Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp. 6 and 187-89.
10
Ibid., pp. 194-95 and 459-63.
11
Ibid., p. 30.
12
Ibid., p. 465.
6 Bengal

rejection of "the Black Legend of the eighteenth century" 13 and his emphasis
on the vitality of local networks of commercial, landholding, and service
interests, has pushed furthest the argument for the continuity between the
Mughal past and the eighteenth century. He suggested that the empire's "con-
tinued existence" had depended not on Mughal absolutism, centralism, military
conquest, or the absence of "a counter-balancing territorial nobility" but instead
on "the political incorporation of ever more aspiring gentry groups and nobility
of indigenous or foreign extraction which rose to fortune and power."14 In the
eighteenth century, the "intermediary gentry or zamindar stratum," elevated by
the Mughals and always "the prop of Muslim domination everywhere in the
subcontinent," achieved new power as they asserted themselves and allied
themselves with Mughal nobles competing for the remnants of the empire. Once
the alliances established regional states, they consolidated their sovereignty
through official appointments and revenue deductions and exemptions for the
local gentry.15 "A case can be made, then, that Muslim domination in
India...in the end fell prey to its own success," with the "gentrification" of
the Muslim empire. Not only was Maratha sovereignty established "within
the political and socio-economic context of Mughal expansion itself," it
employed the forms, nomenclature, and "structures of dominance estab-
lished by the Mughals."16

Mughal Bengal
Bayly's and Wink's formulations apply, with slight modification, to pre-colo-
nial Bengal. Commercialization in Bengal had probably proceeded further than
in any other part of the Mughal empire and had lifted new, mostly Hindu, elites
to prominence. Although agriculture was still largely subsistence, a thriving
market and the requirement that rents and state revenues be paid in cash drew
villagers into money relationships. The richer peasants and artisans produced
rice, sugar, tobacco, indigo, cotton goods, and silk for market. Perhaps a million
weavers wove textiles at mid-century for local consumption, the gigantic inland
trade, and foreign export. Money-lending and banking were highly developed
and linked villages to both trading and tax-collecting networks. The wealth of
the Jagat Seth banking family, financiers to the nazims (governors) of Bengal,
was so great that the family played a major role in determining who would rule.
Revenue farming was common at both the zamindari and sub-zamindari levels

13
Wink, Land and Sovereignty, p. 4.
14
Ibid., pp. 26-27, 34, and 379.
15
Ibid., pp. 8 and 31.
16
Ibid., pp. 7-8.
 Introduction 7

although peasant holdings were not generally alienable.17 Long before British
rule began, then, "objective monetary values" were used "to express social
relationships" across broad segments of the elites in Bengal.18 It was the
presence of various kinds of competing Indian entrepreneurs - commercial,
military, and political - that made possible the East India Company's entry to
the subcontinent's interior.
As Delhi's hold on Bengal loosened in the early decades of the eighteenth
century, Mughal patterns of government remained in place. The continuities
with the seventeenth century were especially strong because Bengalis, unlike
the Marathas and the Sikhs to the west, did not displace the Mughals at the
highest levels of provincial government. No indigenous military challenge to
the Mughals developed in Bengal in the early eighteenth century. Moreover,
unlike the Maratha zamindars of the Deccan,19 Bengali zamindars had not risen
out of the cultivating classes and did not possess kinship ties with and similar
life styles to the peasantry.
Murshid Quli Khan, appointed as diwan (revenue minister) in November
1700 by Aurangzib, carried on the Mughal system while the empire broke apart.
A series of non-Bengali Muslim governors succeeded Murshid Quli after his
death in 1727. Nevertheless, Murshid Quli and his successors encouraged the
gentrification of Bengal by relying heavily on the indigenous zamindars and
diminishing the role of non-Bengali bureaucrats and military officers. Murshid
Quli Khan permitted a few zamindars in western Bengal to absorb smaller
zamindaris. These zamindars became the prop of British colonial government
also. After the English East India Company established its rule in the 1750s and
1760s, it preserved these large zamindars and collected the land revenue through
them, while progressively limiting their autonomy and privileges. Throughout
the century, competition at the intermediate levels of society for the favors of
the rulers was so prevalent that it precluded efforts to replace foreign governors
with indigenous authorities. Western Bengal in the eighteenth century, then,
was a land of small-scale artisan production and peasant cultivation20 dominated
by large landholders whose authority expanded in the early decades and shrank
in the last decades.

17
P.J. Marshall, The New Cambridge History of India, II. 2, Bengal: The British Bridgehead
Eastern India (Cambridge, 1987), pp. lOff; Dharma Kumar and Meghnad Desai (eds.), The
Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. II: c. 1757-c.1970 (Cambridge 1983), pp. 6ff and
151.
18
Bayly, New Cambridge History of India, II. 2 , p. 11.
19
Wink, Land and Sovereignty, p. 35.
20
Bayly has warned against exaggerating the size of the agricultural majority, pointing to the
"massive local expenditure by the elites on warfare and display" and to the large numbers of
"village servants, ritual specialists, artisans," soldiers, carters, itinerants, etc. He suggests that
"at least four out of ten people in the total population could be viewed as non-agriculturalists."
Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp. 51-52.
8 Bengal

The zamindari system

The politics of land and the large landholders of western Bengal are the subject
of this study. Politics are central to an understanding of eighteenth-century rural
behaviors and values because political-administrative decisions, far more often
than market forces, determined how control of land was distributed. Zamindaris,
the largest individually held land units, were theoretically saleable but before
1790 they were rarely sold except on temporary leases. Village holdings were
not ordinarily marketable. Although a powerful market for credit and commer-
cial goods operated in rural Bengal, in the distribution of land and its rents and
revenues, the market was subservient to the state before the Decennial Settle-
ment of 1790. The zamindari was "a polity" and, unlike a contemporary British
estate, not "a unit of production."21 Zamindars and their officers almost never
took an interest in how or what crops, except indigo, were grown. Their
economic interests were confined to the sharing of the profits of cultivation, to
the distribution of rights to their collection, and to encouragement of the
cultivation of vacant land.
The zamindari system was the administrative-social formation through which
the superior landholders extracted agricultural revenues for the Mughal and
English East India Company states in eighteenth-century Bengal. Muslim
administrators around 1400 coined the term zamindar from Persian components
(zamin = land and dar = holder) and the Mughals used it to refer to the hereditary
chiefs and landholders who paid tribute or the assessed revenue to the emperor.
In nineteenth-century British usage, the term zamindar denoted a proprietary
landlord although at times it also referred to the dominant peasants ("village
zamindars") who engaged with a superior landlord for a village's rent.22 In this
study, it will be used in the restricted sense of the landholder who had a sanad
(patent) from the state to collect the state's share of the land revenue. The
zamindars under examination therefore had a dual role. Simultaneously, they
were hereditary rulers or rajas of a territory in which they generally enjoyed
broad autonomy and they were servants of the state, pledged to keep order and
promote the welfare of their subjects, and removable if they failed to pay the
revenue demanded by the state.23
Zamindars certainly "owned" a right to a share of the revenue as money
passed through their hands on the way to the provincial treasury in the sense

21
Ratnalekha Ray, Change in Bengal Agrarian Society, c. 1760-1850 (New Delhi, 1979), p. 21.
22
Man Hzbib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (1556-1707MBombay, 1963), pp. 136-37,
and W.H. Moreland, The Agrarian System of Moslem India: A Historical Essay with Appendi-
ces (2nd edn., Delhi, 1968), p. 18.
23
John Shore, Minute of 2 April 1788, Walter Kelly Firminger (ed.), The Fifth Report from the
Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company. Dated
28th July, 1812 (3 vols., Calcutta, 1917-18), vol. II, p. 746. Hereafter cited as Fifth Report,
1812.
 Introduction 9

that, with state permission, they could sell, mortgage, and inherit that share.24
But they did not own the land itself in a meaningful sense before the end of our
period.25 Rather than owning a physical area of the earth's surface, they held
rights over most of the inhabitants of the territory assigned to their management:
rights to their deference, their labor, their crops, occasionally even their women.
Landownership was therefore conceived of in more social and less physical
terms than in contemporary western societies. Individual plots of land were in
the possession of superior peasants who cultivated them or rented them to other
peasants, usually without interference from the zamindar, and who usually were
succeeded by their heirs on payment of a succession fee to the superior
landholder. The rights of the superior peasantry fell short of absolute ownership
because they could be dispossessed by the zamindar or his intermediaries and
they rarely were known to sell permanently their rights of cultivation. Even a
transfer between generations required in theory a superior's permission. Abso-
lute individual ownership of land, with legally protected rights of inheritance,
sale, and mortgage, was a British innovation.26 As late as the 1780s, East India
Company civil servants were still locked in debates among themselves about
whether land in Bengal belonged to the state, the zamindars, or the peasants or
whether ownership was shared. The debate was revived more than once in the
nineteenth century. The indeterminate, corporate reciprocity in which many
individuals had complementary rights to the same piece of ground and the
absence of written codes defining rights of the layered interests to specific plots
of land baffled British administrators who looked upon legally protected,
absolute individual ownership as a natural right and a condition for economic
progress.27
The absence of juridically defined rights of individual ownership fed the
British assumption that the Indian political system was despotic.28 In a charac-
teristic comment, John Shore wrote: "the constitution of the Moghul empire,
despotic in its principle, arbitrary and irregular in its practise, renders it
sometimes almost impossible to discriminate between power and principle; fact

24
Almost any generalization about landownership requires qualification. Many zamindars were
dispossessed of their share of the revenue in the administrations of Murshid Quli Khan
(1700-27) and Mir Qasim (1760-63).
25
An exception was the sir or ny-jot lands or home farm of a zamindar which were cultivated by
laborers or tenants directly under the zamindar's control.
26
See John Shore, Minute of 2 April 1788; Ray, Change, chapters 2 and 4; and Walter C. Neale,
"Land Is to Rule," in Frykenberg (ed.), Land Control, pp. 3-15.
27
Thus the term "landowner" is misleading for almost all eighteenth-century situations in Bengal.
See Dharma Kumar, "A Note on the Term 'Land Control,'" in Peter Robb (ed.), Rural India:
Land, Power and Society under British Rule (London, 1983), pp. 59ff.
28
The ancestry of the theory of Asian despotism, widely accepted by the British in Bengal, is
traced by Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutisp State (London, 1974), pp. 462 ff.
10 Bengal

and right; and if custom be appealed to, precedents in violation of it are pro-
duced."29 Four or so decades later, Holt Mackenzie, one of the most knowledge-
able students of Bengali and north Indian tenures, said he had spent his life
studying the varied and complex forms of land tenures "without understanding
them."30 Nevertheless, from the beginning of British rule in the 1750s, Com-
pany officers proceeded as if there were "principles" that guided relations
between zamindars and their dependents that study and time would reveal. At
least until the 1790s, the Company acted with caution, apprehensive about
introducing change that might stir resistance from vested interests and jeopard-
ize revenue collections, and aware that, however "despotic," the local land
systems were regulated by their own logic and moral restraints. The exemption
from revenue and rent demands of substantial areas for the purpose of support-
ing religious specialists and menial servants engaged in revenue collection and
peace-keeping tasks was clear evidence that tenurial forms served vital com-
munity purposes.31 A major concern of this study is how the patrimonial,
corporate values of local kingship clashed with individualistic, legalistic British
culture. However, the tension between what the raja owed to subjects below and
the state above was not new to the colonial era. Rather, there was inherent in
Indian kingship a conflict between the norms of paternal indulgence and ritual
obligation, on the one hand, and the necessity of fiscal extraction, on the other.
The zamindars of Bengal experienced the tension with particular intensity and
pathos as the Mughal and colonial states heightened their demands and as
commercial forms penetrated the higher ranks of society.
The imperial institutions of the Mughal and Company states met the landed
rural hierarchies in the pivotal role of the zamindar. The zamindars were
subordinate but vital partners to the Mughal and Company states in governing
the scattered villages in which most Bengalis lived. The later Mughal emperors
appointed the larger zamindars as mansabdars (holders of mansab or imperial
rank) to incorporate them into the hierarchically ranked governing body of the
empire. In the literature of seventeenth-century Bengal, "even the small
zamindars appear as Rajas, omnipotent within their territories, while the repre-
sentatives of the imperial power seem to be a distant reality hardly intruding

29
John Shore, Minute of 2 April 1788, p. 737.
30
Quoted in B.H. Baden-Powell, The Land-Systems of British India (3 vols., Oxford 1892), vol. I,
p. 1.
31
See chapter 3. Frykenberg, in emphasizing how "a veritable jungle of overlapping terminolo-
gies" has hampered "understanding of the very nature of the entities and interacting processes
relating to land in India," has reminded us that "whatever the terminology, attempts to classify
and differentiate between myriad varieties of zamindars, jagirdars, and ryots ... become
meaningful only if the observer recognizes that all kinds of holdings and rights were intricately
linked to definite socio-ceremonial and communal as well as economic and political roles."
Frykenberg (ed.), Land Control, p. xv.
 Introduction 11

into the zamindar's sphere of influence." 32 Under both Mughal and Company
rule, the provincial government of Bengal solicited from Delhi confirmation of
the titles of raja and maharaja by which their subjects addressed them. Accepted
as a sovereign by their subjects and accustomed after centuries of Muslim rule
to paying tribute or revenue to alien rulers, zamindars were the agents by which
imperial governments obtained village resources.
The cultural and structural distinction between the hereditary, local raja-
zamindars and the temporary imperial mansabdars was a source of conflict in
Mughal principle and practice. The zamindars of Bengal were not only more or
less permanent, they were Bengali-speaking and far more committed to local
than to provincial or imperial Mughal interests. In their rituals, distribution of
patronage, and allocation of resources, the Hindu zamindars were guided by
pre-Muslim custom, the dharma-shastras, and mythical accounts of Hindu
kingship. Before the early 1700s, the non-zamindari mansabdars, on the other
hand, were almost always Muslim, Persian-speaking, temporary, and dependent
for their assignments upon powerful patrons in and imperial favor from distant
Delhi. Bengal was not a favorite area of service and was sometimes used as a
punitive assignment for officers who had performed unsatisfactorily elsewhere.
Mansabdars often distrusted zamindars. Mughal administrative manuals and
orders indicated that zamindars were considered oppressive to the peasantry and
politically untrustworthy.33 The revenue regulations issued under Akbar and
Aurangzib failed even to recognize zamindars as part of "the standard revenue
machinery," despite the fact that zamindars were used in many areas to gather
the revenue. 34 Manucci wrote about 1700 that "usually the viceroys and gover-
nors are in a constant state of quarrel with the Hindu princes and zamindars -
with some because they wish to seize their lands; with others, to force them to
pay more revenue than is customary."35 When Mughal officers saw behavior
they disapproved of, they said it was zamindarin. Thus, after the raja of
Burdwan's diwan and his army deserted Nazim Alivardi during the Maratha
invasion of 1742, Yusuf Ali wrote that he ran away "in the manner of a
zamindar"36 The refractory and exploitive reputation of zamindars was re-
flected in the exasperation of a Mughal who, commenting in 1761 about
pillaging raids of Maratha leaders in areas they conquered, said they "were not

32
Tapan Kumar Raychaudhuri, Bengal under Akbar and Jahangir: An Introductory Study in
Social History (Calcutta, 1953), pp. 22 and 31.
33
Habib, Agrarian System, pp. 136ff.
34
M. Athar Ali, The Mughal Nobility under Aurangazeb (Bombay, 1968), pp. 84-85.
35
Niccolao Manucci, Storia do Mogor or Mogul India, 1653-1708, tr. William Irvine (4 vols.,
London, 1906-08), vol. II, pp. 431-32.
36
Yusuf Ali, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Jadunath Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs (Calcutta, 1952),
p. 98.
12 Bengal

behaving as rulers, but as zamindars."37 Their frequent failures to deliver the

full revenue demand punctually and their pragmatic hesitancy in times of
political disturbance led Mughal officials and their British successors to equate
zamindars with deviousness and inconstancy. However, in a land of difficult
communications, scattered settlements, and entrenched local hierarchies, the
small bodies of alien administrators in Bengal never found a satisfactory
alternative to entrusting the zamindars with revenue collection and, until the
1790s, maintenance of order.
Low population density and an abundance of arable but uncultivated land
contributed to the difference in outlooks between zamindars and the provincial
government. With probably fewer than 25 million people both before the 1770
famine and in 1800, after recovering from the famine, 38 Bengal had only a small
fraction of the current population of west Bengal. The estimates of how much
land was waste although cultivable varied from one third to two-thirds of
Bengal's 90,000 square miles but all agreed the area was vast. 39 A common
zamindari objective was to attract settlers into the waste lands. A principal
means of opening up lands to cultivation was to exempt them partially or fully,
temporarily or permanently, from the payment of rent and revenue. Zamindars
did this on a liberal scale by alienating land, sometimes explicitly as land-clear-
ing grants, sometimes as religious endowments. In periods of weak vigilance
by the Mughal and British governments, zamindars and their officers exempted
vast areas of cultivated land from the payment of rent, as a form of beneficence
to favored subjects. Like the Mughals before them, the Company's government,
whose main object was maximization of the revenue, regarded the zamindars
as perfidious because their land gifts were imperiling the state's revenue base.
To a certain extent, the zamindari and the state were different types of
political systems and were in conflict over "principles of social organization
and of ideology." 40 The local, hereditary zamindari system was what one
scholar has described as "immanent" and was "characterized by customary,
informal, even intuitive but always patrimonial relations."41 Another described
it as "a form of lordship, but localistic, relativistic, or collegial, and redistribu-

37
M. Athar AH, "The Passing of Empire: The Mughal Case," Modern Asian Studies, vol. 9, no. 3
(July 1975), p. 392.
38
H.T. Colebrooke in 1803 estimated the population of Bengal and Bihar to be "at least" 24
million, using local, sample surveys of population, land use, and salt consumption. Henry
Thomas Colebrooke, Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce of Bengal (Calcutta,
1884 reprint of 1804 edn.) pp. 9-20.
39
Fifth Report, 1812, vol. I, p. 25.
40
Burton Stein, "State Formation and Economy Reconsidered," Modern Asian Studies, vol. 19,
no. 3 (July 1985), p. 408.
41
Richard B. Barnett, North India between Empires: Awadh, the Mughals, and the British,
1720-1801 (Berkeley, CA, 1980), p. 9.
 Introduction 13

tionist."42 The foreign Mughal and British states, by contrast, were "transcen-
dent" and were "based on relatively abstract, codified, objective rules, and on
the relative uniformity and centralization which allows them to demand a
monopoly on legitimate authority."43 Or again, the Mughal (and British) state
was "universalistic, absolutistic, fiscally- and extractively-oriented." 44 By the
early nineteenth century, the differences had narrowed and the zamindari
system had become more bureaucratic, profit-oriented, impersonal, and less
expressive of fundamental Hindu culture.
Despite the distinctions of ethnicity, purpose, and permanency of tenure, the
zamindar and the nazim (provincial Mughal governor) at Murshidabad had
much in common. Most obviously, both performed extractive as well as
redistributive functions. When either indulged a dependent with a grant of
revenue-free land, he needed to find expanded resources or exact the foregone
income from other people. Although the population probably grew through
most of the eighteenth century until the famine of 1770, although Bengal
contained unused but arable land, and although the revenue system did not
operate hydraulically, one man's benefice often led to increased extraction for
others. For both zamindars and nazims, extraction and redistribution were
interrelated. Moreover, neither zamindars nor nazims were notably unavailable
to their subjects. Murshidabad was not Delhi and its court was far less formal
and grand than the emperor's. In the eighteenth century the nazims copied the
zamindari practice of bringing together major revenue payers in a ceremony
(puniya) that marked the end of one revenue year and the beginning of the next.
The zamindars distributed khilats (robes of honor) to their subordinates, in
imitation of the Mughal practice. The political authority of both zamindars and
nazims was of a patrimonial sort, based on personal, face-to-face relations with
broad discretion vested in the office-holder's person. The exercise of authority
in turn was eased by the apolitical character of the population outside the narrow
group of political elites who made decisions at the courts of the zamindars and
nazims. We will look first at patrimonial authority, at the way in which familial
forms of patriarchy suffused the relations between a major zamindar or nazim
and his subordinate bureaucrats and revenue payers.
Zamindari power was centered in two buildings, both in the raja's chief place
of residence: the revenue kachari (office) and the court. The revenue kachari
was an office building in which rents were received roughly ten times a year,
records of great complexity wefe kept by clerks, disputes over revenue obliga-
tions and rights were settled by the diwan (revenue minister), and subordinate

42
Stein, "State Formation," p. 408.
43
Barnett, North India, p. 9.
44
Stein "State Formation," p. 408.
14 Bengal

landholders or collection officers in arrears were punished by detention or

bodily coercion. The zamindari diwan was ordinarily not kin to the raja and his
kachari was a bureaucratic place, often associated with exaction and pain. There
were also small subordinate kacharis, thatched clay or mat structures, located
in outlying villages where peasants paid their revenue to intermediate landhold-
ers and where peasants in arrears were frequently detained or beaten.
By contrast, the zamindari court (rajbari) was where the raja presided and
presented a less extractive and more beneficient, fatherly face to his subjects. 45
It was architecturally grand by Bengali standards and in the British period was
often built in neo-classical European style, with columned facades. The raja's
relatives, ministers, and subordinate landholders congregated here to honor their
superior, ask and receive favors, and be entertained and honored in return. In
court, the raja consulted his advisers, heard disputes and distributed justice with
the help of pandits, conferred rent-free land on learned men and priests, gave
honorary turbans and robes from his wardrobe to his subordinate officers and
landholders, and entertained with poets, singers, musicians, and jesters. On the
occasion of weddings and funerals and major pujas (ceremonies of worship),
he gave communal feasts. In many zamindaris, even the mandals (village
headmen) came to court and no doubt went away gratified to know their
standing had been recognized and were impressed by the magnificence of the
surroundings, the sophistication and refinement of the courtiers, and the power
of the weapons and large stature of the often non-Bengali uniformed guards in
attendance. The respect the mandals had for their raja depended more than
anything else on his revenue-collecting arrangements, which were balanced
between privileged rates for local elites such as the mandals and the danger of
over-assessment and perceptions of excessive inequality among others. The
mandals and other elites also must have judged their raja by the ability of his
militia and judicial decision-making to afford them protection and on the ritual
services he arranged to have performed.
As leader of his territory's samaj (society), the raja provided maintenance for
Brahmins in the form of revenue-free land grants. In a large zamindari, invari-
ably administered in decentralized fashion, this was the key to the raja's
socio-ritual hegemony. He issued sanads (written authority) to Brahmins per-
mitting them to perform marriages. And when a man had been excommunicated
from his jati (caste) for violating its rules of behavior, a zamindari sanad was
sometimes required for readmission. 46 The raja built and endowed some of the

45
There were female zamindars in the eighteenth century but they were rare enough that masculine
terminology will usually be employed in general discussions for the sake of stylistic simplicity.
46
This was true of the Burdwan zamindar in 1774 even though the management of the land
revenues had been transferred from the raja to temporary revenue farmers. PCOR Prog, of
Burdwan of 30 May 1774, vol. 1.
 Introduction 15
temples in his territory and provided for the performance of certain pujas which
Hindus believed affected their welfare. He built roads and dug ornamental tanks
in the vicinity of his major residences; he usually was responsible for the repair
of flood-control embankments; and he encouraged the clearing of waste and
jungle land with low-rent or rent-free tenancies. In general, though, zamindars'
redistributive spending away from their residences rarely included public works
other than temple construction, river bank repairs, and, occasionally, a road.
Their hold on their subjects' loyalty rested more on their patronage, their
distribution of revenue obligations, and the way their ritual and ceremonial
functions matched the expectations their subjects had of Hindu kingship. 47
Judging from Mukundaram's Candi-mangala (1589), Edward Dimock and
Ronald Inden have written:
the ideal unit in Bengali society...is not the Bengal region as a whole; nor is it Bengal
as represented in a simple rural village or its regional capital. The ideal unit of Bengali
society is considered to be the local chiefdom with its capital; and the highest social ideal
that a man can attain is to become the raja and master of his own local chiefdom and to
live at the pinnacle of the complex urban life which goes on in the chiefdom's capital
town., 448

The nature of political authority

The nazim's court at Murshidabad shared some of the patrimonial character
found in the zamindar's rajbari. The Mughal buildings in Bengal were unim-
posing49 compared to those in Delhi or even in other provincial capitals such as
Hyderabad, Lahore, and Lucknow, as if to conform to the preference for
scaled-down pomp among high-status Bengalis,50 who, for example, traveled
with a smaller retinue than their up-country counterparts.51 The nazims distrib-
uted robes of honor from their personal wardrobes to mansabdars and
zamindars, graded in costliness to distinguish the ranks of the recipients. They
furnished them with horses from their stables. They fed Muslim mansabdars,
shaikhs (chiefs, elders), and ulama at their own table, varying the number and
quality of the dishes with the guest's rank. Nazims also made themselves

47
The fullest cultural analysis of Bengali zamindaris between the fifteenth and eighteenth
centuries is Ronald B. Inden, "The Hindu Chiefdom in Middle Bengali Literature," in Edward
C. Dimock, (ed.), Bengal Literature and History (East Lansing, 1967), pp. 21—46.
48
Edward C. Dimock and Ronald B. Inden, "The City in Pre-British Bengal, According to the
mangala-kavyas," in Richard L. Park (ed.), Urban Bengal (East Lansing, MI, 1969), p. 14.
49
Philip B. Calkins, "The Role of Murshidabad as a Regional and Subregional Center in Bengal,"
in Park (ed.), Urban Bengal, pp. 25-26.
50
Calkins, ibid., suggested the reason was that Mughal officials assigned to Bengal did not expect
to remain there long.
51
Francis Buchanan, An Account of the District ofPurnea in 1809-10 (Patna, 1928), pp. 155-56.
16 Bengal

available in public audience on a regular basis to renew personal contact with

their employees and other subjects and listen to complaints against their
subordinate officers and zamindars.52 They personally led their troops on
military expeditions and in times of peace toured the countryside on hunting
trips, reducing the distance between themselves and their subjects.53 All of this
was characteristic of "the mixing of household and state" found in "the patri-
monial-bureaucratic" form of Mughal government.54
Deference to the authority of one's personal superior was so strong in the
eighteenth century that there seemed to be a predisposition to ascribe charis-
matic, transcendent qualities to the highest, hereditary office-holders. Coming
into the presence of a nazim or a powerful raja was akin to obtaining darshan,
the "auspicious sight" received from viewing a sacred image or famous bhakta
(devotee).55 In Islamic terms, the experience was similar to baraka, the blessing
or sense that "the divine reaches into the world" when in the presence of a person
of exceptional character and force or genealogical background.56 Mughal
notions of the divinity of the emperor reinforced this tendency. Akbar's minis-
ter, Abul Fazl, had described Mughal royalty as
a light emanating from God, and a ray from the sun, the illuminator of the universe, the
argument of the book of perfection, the receptacle of all virtues ... It is communicated
by God to kings without the intermediate assistance of anyone, and men, in the presence
of it, bend the forehead of praise towards the ground of submission.57
Hindu rajas and Muslim nazims encouraged this tendency to see divinity in
kingship by associating themselves with royal and sacred symbols, through their
darshans, celebration of rites, personal devotions and religious study, and
patronage of holy persons from whom darshan and baraka were more conven-
tionally available.
The inclination to perceive superior qualities in the nazim or one's own raja
was not limited to relations with people in positions of highest authority. It could
be found in many of the small groups to which Bengalis belonged: the family,
the sect led by a gosain or p/r, or the local taluqdar (one of a zamindar's
subordinate landholders). Virtually everyone was a member of a group or

52
Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Sein Mutaqherin; or View of Modern Times, Being an History of
India from the Year 1118 to the Year 1194, of the Hedjrah (3 vols., Calcutta, n.d.), vol. II, p. 432,
and vol. i n , p. .170.
53
Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin (A History of Bengal), tr. Abdus Salam (Delhi, 1975,
reprint of 1903 edn.), p. 280.
54
Stephen P. Blake, "The Patrimonial-Bureaucratic Empire of the Mughals," Journal of Asian
Studies, vol. 39, no. 1 (Nov. 1979), p. 83.
55
See Diana L. Eck, Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India (Chambersburg, PA, 1981), p. 3.
56
See Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia
(Chicago, IL, 1971), pp. 4 4 - 4 5 .
57
[Abu'1-Fazl Allami], The Ain-i Akbari, tr. H. Blochmann, rev. D.C. Phillott, vol. I (2nd edn.,
Calcutta, 1939), p. 3.
 Introduction 17

groups with a leader to whom personal loyalty was owed and who would
represent or connect his followers to a broader mundane or supernatural sphere.
"Each group had a head of some sort - a seth (merchant head), a pir (Muslim
saint), a zamindar, a street chief, a village headman or council,"58 or a father or
grandfather. The group leader linked each hierarchical social unit to the one
above it, like many small pyramids stacked on top of one another, forming a
gigantic pyramid.
British observers commented on both the intensity of the personal, face-to-
face bonds and the attenuation of loyalties over geographic and social distance.
They saw the failure of political allegiance to carry upwards from one pyramid
to the next, because of the isolation and self-containment of social units, as a
source of political weakness peculiar to India or at least different from European
society. Robert Orme, writing in the mid-eighteenth century, said "a real
attachment to their prince" was "rarely found to influence the people of
Indostan."59 Henry Strachey, who served in western Bengal at the turn of the
century, wrote that "in fidelity and attachment to a master or a chief," the lower
classes "are not surpassed by any people." On the other hand, they "have no
idea of loyalty, or disloyalty, except to their masters who support them ... No
government ever stood more independent of public opinion. I never knew one
native, who had even a remote idea of the political state of the country."60 Sir
John Malcolm made the same point: "neither individuals nor the community
can recognize, much less feel an attachment to what we call the state, as
separated from the persons who, for the time being, preside over the different
branches of its administration. The sovereign has his servants and adher-
ents;...but the latter owe no fidelity or allegiance, except to their immediate
superiors."61 A political system without a strong and visible leader, without an
absolute ruler, was not comprehensible or legitimate. When the historian Sayyid
Ghulam Husain Khan tried to explain why "constant failure" plagued "every
endeavour" of the British in the early years of their rule, he concluded that their
political practices clashed with Indian "customs and usages." Company em-
ployees were repeatedly transferred, they governed by committee, committee
members were "perpetually at variance" with each other, there was no "head
over them all, with full power and authority." "This country seems to have no
master at all," he concluded. 62

58
M.N. Pearson, "Shivaji and the Decline of the Mughal Empire," Journal of Asian Studies, vol.
35, no. 2 (Feb. 1976), p. 223.
59
Robert Orme, Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, of the Morattoes, and of the English
Concerns in Indoostan; from the YearMDCLIX (London, 1805), p. 419.
60
H. Strachey, Midnapur Judge and Mag., to Jud. Dept., 30 Jan. 1802, Fifth Report, 1812, vol. II
p. 607.
61
John Malcolm, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive (3 vols. London, 1836), vol. I, p. 223.
62
Khan, Seir, vol. Ill, pp. 184-86.
18 Bengal

Beginning in the family, the individual Bengali child was taught the princi-
ples of hierarchical authority which were transferable beyond the family and
which led people to rely on the head of their social unit to mediate for them in
a larger realm. A Christian missionary wrote that affluent families near the
Hughli river "employ persons to teach their children, even of five years of age,
how to behave on the approach of a bramhun, a parent, a spiritual guide, &c,
how to sit, to bow, and appear to advantage in society." A boy learned to call
his father thakur (lord) and his mother thakurani. "When he returns from a
journey, he bows to his father and mother, and, taking the dust from their feet,
rubs it on his head."63 Marvin Davis has written that in a modern Bengali village,
in Midnapur district, the male head of the family is "referred to as malik, chief,
or korta, doer,...and in principle exercises mastery and authority (adhikara)
over all affairs of the family; internally with regard to the interaction between
family members, and externally as spokesman for the family in all public
affairs." He is also "responsible for maintaining the behavioral code," or
dharma. The family head's duties were thus homologous with that of the
zamindar-raja's who was expected to uphold dharma "within his realm."
Conversely, the raja "is often described as the parent (ma-bap; literally, mother
and father) of his people, while all persons within his kingdom are termed his
offspring (praja)" the term used to describe a married couple's children. Both
the father and the king "exercise adhikara. And both are said, in the local idiom,
to lord it over (prabhuputra kora) others."64
Another sign that hierarchy was inculcated in the family was that "hierarchi-
cal love" was more valued than "egalitarian love." The egalitarian conjugal love
between husband and wife, for example, was seen as potentially "divisive"
because it separated the married couple from the husband's parents. "The love
that unites the family, as the set of par excellence sharing relatives, is the hard
hierarchical love of the senior for the junior. This is the only form of love that
can go on incorporating persons indefinitely without excluding any." Egalitar-
ian love was also valued but it had to be subordinated to hierarchical love, in
which the korta (master) nourished the members of his family "by commanding,
instructing, and punishing them" and in which family members were expected
to "show respect for" their korta "by obeying and serving him."65
If those charismatic qualities which people seemed to see in leaders of
long-standing had been routinely transferred to their successors and deputies,

63
W. Ward, A View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos (2nd edn., 2 vols.,
Serampore, 1818), vol. I, p. 118.
64
Marvin Davis, Rank and Rivalry: The Politics of Inequality in Rural West Bengal (Cambridge,
1983), pp. 114-15.
65
Ronald B. Inden and Ralph W. Nicholas, Kinship in Bengali Culture (Chicago, IL, 1977),
pp. 2 5 - 3 0 and 87.
 Introduction 19
Bengal's political life would have been more stable and harmonious than it was.
But successions among the families of both the nazims and the zamindars
frequently produced crises. Disputes or usurpations followed the deaths of
nazims Murshid Quli Khan (1727), Sarfaraz Khan (1740), Alivardi Khan
(1756), and Siraj-ud-daula (1757). Hardly a zamindari family in west Bengal
escaped major family dissension surrounding successions, with military skir-
mishes, court battles, and formation of rival factions among the zamindari
servants, some of whom took advantage of the feuding to plunder the estate.
Rajas Chaitanya and Damodar Singh, first cousins, sent both their militia and
lawyers against each other in their struggle over the Bishnupur zamindari. Raja
Tejchandra fought for many years with his mother, Rani Bishnukumari, for
control of the Burdwan zamindari. Rani Saraswati of Dinajpur was so displeased
by the management of her nine-year-old adopted son's zamindari by his relative
and guardian that she kidnapped her son.66 When a Mughal general was
wounded or killed in battle, or even dismounted from his elephant, his officers
and their men sometimes stopped fighting and fled.67 Perhaps a source of the
difficulty in transferring allegiance was that the great concentration of authority
in an exalted figure, and the emotional attachment it engendered, inhibited a
quick or automatic submission to the new holder of the same office, as if the
transfer implied disloyalty to the deceased master. The problem of succession
disputes may have been even more severe in the smaller zamindaris where the
Mughal and Company states less often enforced rules of primo-geniture. What-
ever the cause, the effect was that political attachments at the time of succession
seemed to have a shale-like quality. And the power struggles that broke out
when a nazim, zamindar, or general died may have contributed to the sense that
politics were a nasty, self-serving, incomprehensible, and dangerous affair that
should be left to those few families who had a claim on the office. The fact that
the rulers were foreigners who spoke, dressed, ate, and worshiped in alien
manners would have made this especially likely for the politics of Murhidabad
or Calcutta.
So the expectation that political authority would be hierarchically distributed
among hereditary and often ethnically distinct leaders was one factor that led
most Bengalis to take little interest in administrative or political matters outside
their villages. The scattered location of small villages, connected by rivers and
paths which became difficult to traverse in the rainy season, and the absence of
significant cities other than Murshidabad, Dacca, and Calcutta reinforced the
sense of isolation and indifference to regional politics. Rural Bengalis lived in

66
See chapter 12 below.
67
Orme, Historical Fragments, p. 419, makes the general point. Mughal warfare in Bengal
provides examples.
20 Bengal

very small communities. By one late eighteenth century estimate, the average
Bengali village contained roughly 160 people or perhaps 32 families. 68 Depend-
ence, being personal and owed to particular persons, tended to extend only as
far as physical communication and face-to-face contact permitted. In such a
decentralized society, overwhelmingly occupied by the seasonal tasks of agri-
culture, the raja's or nazim's court would seem remote, even irrelevant, to most
non-elite Bengalis.
One indication of how apolitical and segmented the population was is the
absence of any corporate body of zamindars. Before they began to build houses
in Calcutta in the latter decades of the eighteenth century, zamindars seem rarely
to have met or communicated in any manner except when summoned to the
capital to enter into the annual revenue engagements. Another indication was
the infrequency of rebellions and the localness of protests against the abuse of
political authority. Not only were regimes of foreign origin able to govern
Bengal continuously for ovpr six centuries with few major indigenous chal-
lenges, 69 they did so for extended periods with minimal use of military power
except to protect the province from external invasion and reduce the frontier
rajas. Even when nizamat and British taxes and oppression reached unprece-
dented heights in the 1750s and 1760s, changes of leadership were arranged
through conspiracies between the British and disaffected mansabdars and Hindu
bankers, without popular participation. Company officials in the 1760s and
1770s maintained the pressure for increased collections, coerced spinners and
weavers to produce for the Company, extorted presents, and used their new
political power to monopolize trade, without provoking significant collective
violence. And when the working of unforgiving revenue regulations at the end
of the century caused almost all the major zamindars to forfeit the bulk of their
land, the protests were largely confined to petitions and sullen non-cooperation.
In most interior districts, zamindari dependents did not rise up; Company militia
rarely had to be deployed. Supra-village politics was an elite affair even though
the massive flow of revenue from the villages to the Mughal and British
governments brought minimal return in the form of irrigation, flood control,
famine relief, road building, or judicial administration.
Another factor which has been said to have inclined villagers to disassociate
their own concerns from the politics of the rajbari and the nizamat was the view
that each jati (caste) had specific duties and complementary occupations. The
high level of occupational mobility in Bengal, where individuals among the

68
Colebrooke estimated that the population of Bengal and Bihar was perhaps 24 million, living
in cities, towns, and 135,000 villages. Therefore, if 90 percent lived in villages, then the average
village would have contained 160 persons. Remarks, p. 10.
69
It might be argued that the more than three decades of Bengali and Afghan resistance to the
Mughal conquest and pacification efforts is an exception to this generalization.
 Introduction 21

non-literate jatis moved often between agriculture, artisan production, and

other forms of manual labor,70 does not invalidate the argument. Occupational
mobility rarely carried a member of the laboring castes across the social divide
into the grihastha (gentry) estate of the high literate castes who shunned manual
work and, with elite Muslims, filled administrative positions. The view, insti-
tutionalized in Hindu law, that different jatis were endowed with special talents
and diverse ends conditioned people to expect inequality, diffuse identities, and
a plural moral order, and produced a "preference for harmony over abstract
justice."71 Since an individual's obligations and privileges were specific to his
or her family, jati, and age, universal standards of political-moral behavior
rarely galvanized people into cooperative political effort. The association of
nishkama (desireless work), "impulse control," "self-abnegation," and suppres-
sion of hatred with the ideal, pure mind operated in the same direction. 72
Without shared expectations of checking leaders' outrageous behavior, or at
least without patterns of association that taught political opposition and expres-
sion of aggressive feelings, collective action to change leadership or policy
outside one's primary group was unlikely. Efforts to alter the principles of the
political system were almost inconceivable in the absence of known reflection
on or discussion about alternative forms of government.
The above discussion may seem to have implied that Bengal possessed a
homogeneous pattern of behaviors. In fact, while particular behaviors and ideals
prevailed, alternate models existed and were even dominant in certain sections
of the population. The zamindar and his officers typically were authoritarian,
alternating beneficence with coercion. The village community was more con-
sensual, despite its hierarchy and ranked inequalities. Village headmen were
chosen by agreement of the principal peasants. Villagers probably settled their
disputes by compromise more often than by decision of a judicial authority.
Villagers punished infringements of social convention by communal pressure,
including social boycotts. New abwabs (irregular imposts) and revenue in-
creases were accepted by peasant consent (frequently motivated by fear of
coercion), not through formal agreement or contracts. When villagers opposed
new demands, they assembled noisily, sometimes descending on local officials
and occasionally even traveling to Calcutta.
There was a major religious reorientation in the Mughal period that may have
simultaneously strengthened the self-consciousness of low and middle castes,
softened Bengal's pluralism, and modified its social distinctions. This was the

70
Colebrooke, Remarks, pp. 7 and 31.
71
Ashis Nandy, "The Culture of Indian Politics: A Stock Taking," Journal of Asian Studies, vol.
30, no. 1 (Nov. 1970), pp. 66.
72
Ibid., pp. 67-72.
22 Bengal

broad spread of Vaishnavism. The effects of Vaishnavism on political behavior

were ambiguous. The Gaudiya Vaishnava teaching of Chaitanya (1486-1533)
and his disciple Nityananda, which stressed the accessibility of Krishna through
devotional practices, without the need of Brahminical mediation, ritual, ritual
purity, or jati dharma, swept through the lower and middle artisan and cultivat-
ing castes especially but also through numerous high caste families, leaving
most high caste families, including most zamindars, as worshipers of Shakti or
Shiva.73 The Vaishnava emphasis on humility, non-violence, abstention from
blood sacrifice and alcohol, control of sexual appetites, and intrinsic merit rather
than inherited status, no doubt had a humanizing and self-esteem enhancing
effect on the movement's followers. J.T. O'Connell has argued that the ethical
patterns and "moral probity" encouraged by Vaishnavism may have defused
potential "Hindu - Muslim confrontations" and "increased the effectiveness of
Hindu businessmen and administrators in leading the Hindu population into
fuller participation in the institutional life of Bengal while it was still under
Muslim rule." Simultaneously, it helped integrate Hindu society by populariz-
ing vegetarianism, avoidance of alcohol, and sexual restraint among the lower
castes, thus lessening social distance by making them more acceptable to the
higher castes who followed Sanskritic norms on these matters.74 Yet to the
degree that Vaishnavism encouraged quietism and accommodation with any
polity which tolerated its devotional practices,75 it may have promoted political
passivity. Krishna-Dasa-Kaviraja's Chaitanya-charitamrita described the ideal
bhafcta, the true devotee, this way: he "will be humble as grass; he will take the
name of Hari incessantly; he will be modest, and will honor others. He will be
patient as a tree; though he be beaten and cursed, he will say nothing, as a tree
says nothing even when it is cut."76 Such attitudes may have given the exercise
of arbitrary authority a freer field in which to operate in the eighteenth century,
however much they may have paved the way for the egalitarian and participa-
tory movements of the twentieth.
Mughals and British often commented on how easy Bengalis were to rule.

73
Ralph W. Nicholas suggested that the "primary religious orientation" of Bengali Brahmins,
Baidyas, and Kayasthas is "toward the manifestations of Sakti and, to a lesser extent, toward
Shiva." "Ordinary people in rural Bengal pay primary allegiance" to Vaishnavism or Islam.
"Vaishnavism and Islam in Rural Bengal," in David Kopf (ed.), Bengal Regional Identity (East
Lansing, MI, 1969), pp. 33 and 37.
74
Joseph T. O'Connell, "The Impact of Devotion upon the Societal Integration of Bengal," in
Warren M. Gunderson (ed.), Studies on Bengal (East Lansing, MI, 1975), p 37. See also
H.H. Risley, The Tribes and Castes of Bengal: The Ethnographic Glossary (2 vols., Calcutta,
1891), vol. I, p. 442.
75
O'Connell, "The Impact of Devotion," pp. 36-37.
76
Edward C. Dimock, "The Ideal Man in Society in Vaisnava and Vaisnava - Sahajiya Literature,"
in Dimock (ed.), Bengal Literature and History, p. 71.
 Introduction 23

The author of the Tarikh-i-Bangala claimed that nazim Murshid Quli Khan
"employed none but Bengali Hindus in the collection of the revenues, because
they were most easily compelled by punishment to discover their malpractices;
and nothing was to be apprehended from their pusillanimity."77 The author of
the Siyar al-Mutakhkherin, in discussing nazim Siraj-ud-daula's defeat of a rival
in Purnia district, wrote that after the fighting, "everyone on both sides retired
to his home, without any hindrance from the peasants of Pooraniah, who were
not courageous enough to come down in numbers, and to plunder the living, or
strip the dead, as they do in Hindostan."78 British comments made similar points,
emphasizing a willingness to suffer without complaint, or a perceived lack of
courage.
Despite the rarity of armed rebellion, the elaborate etiquette of submission
among inferiors, and the authoritarian presumptions of superiors, contrary
currents were visible in Bengali culture. For all the willingness to allow ascribed
leaders to monopolize decision-making, for all the strength of village-level
consensus, individualistic strategies and resistance to community norms were
far from absent. Visitors to Bengal today might say that a persistent contrariness
permeates contemporary economic and political life; in the eighteenth century
individual deviancy and autonomy-seeking were present but not dominant.
These counter-currents took many different forms: the search for independent
livelihood out from under the control of a master; an obdurate, non-violent
resistance to what were considered as unreasonable exactions; and membership
in religious sects which opposed the established social order and its consensu-
ally enforced norms. Brahmins and other high caste villagers eagerly sought to
separate their lands from the parent estate as revenue-free holdings which
liberated them from contentious encounters with local revenue collectors and
from attendance at the superior's annual puniya or revenue ceremony. Cultiva-
tors worked to obtain their own agricultural holdings, rather than serve as the
sub-tenants or laborers of other villagers, in order to avoid "the humiliation of
dependence" and "the need to beg and curry favor."79 Village watchmen and
other village menials joined dakaiti (gang robbery) bands and pillaged affluent
houses after the Company suspended zamindari police powers.
Perhaps nowhere was the tension between the norm of subordination to a
superior and the aspiration to autonomy clearer than in the dismemberment of
large zamindaris in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The
largest estates in western Bengal had been cobbled together from smaller ones

77
Jadunath Sarkar (ed.), The History of Bengal, vol. II, Muslim Period, 1200-1757 (Dacca, 1948),
p. 409.
78
Khan, Seir, vol. II, p. 214.
79
Paul R. Greenough, Prosperity and Misery in Modern Bengal: The Famine of 1943-1944 (New
York, 1982), p. 27.
24 Bengal

in the early eighteenth century and then stabilized under late Mughal and early
Company rule. After the Permanent Settlement of 1793, thousands of taluqs
(dependent tenures) were split off from the large estates and purchased at public
or private auction by the former dependents of the major zamindars. Once-de-
pendent tenure-holders, zamindari servants, and others flocked to the sales to
buy up their ex-masters' holdings and become the superior landholder, demon-
strating that while dependency had been a traditional state, for many it may not
have been the preferred condition. In the commercial spirit of the age, many of
these new rentier-speculators split their holdings into lots and sold their rental
rights to other intermediaries between themselves and the cultivator.
Unquestionably, disintegration of older hierarchies and the quest for auton-
omy grew after the Permanent Settlement of 1793. As the Company collected
revenue with unprecedented regularity and empowered rent collectors to arrest
and distrain the property of tenants in arrears, the coercive pressures spread
down through agrarian society until they reached the poorest villagers. Both the
Company and landholders resumed chakaran (revenue-free service lands) held
by low-caste village servants, converting land used for community purposes
into individually owned holdings. It is reasonable to suppose that when the
largely low-caste dakaits (gang robbers) ransacked the houses of more affluent
villagers, they were responding to the new economic pressures and decline of
indulgence that accompanied the Permanent Settlement. They may also have
been expressing resentment at their exploitation and exclusion from most
community affairs.80
Eighteenth-century Bengal was a highly complex and pluralistic society.
Hinduism alone held out a broad spectrum of behavioral options, some that were
acquisitive, violent, and sexually indulgent, others that were renunciatory,
pacifist, abstemious, and celibate. Islamic and Christian rulers introduced their
own imported models. Even before East India Company rule began, village
societies mixed elements of a command and a capitalist economy, transactions
in kind and cash, and free and unfree labor.

This book is divided into two parts: the first is general and largely thematic
while the second is chronological and is organized around a case study of the
Burdwan zamindari. Part I describes west Bengal's eighteenth-century agrarian
political culture in terms of the major features of the local kingdoms and their
relations with their subjects and with the Mughal and British states. It begins
by examining the rise of the large zamindars in early eighteenth-century Bengal

80
John R. McLane, "Bengali Bandits, Police and Landlords after the Permanent Settlement," in
Anand A. Yang (ed.), Crime and Criminality in British India (Tucson, AZ, 1985), pp. 26-47.
 Introduction 25
and the growing pressure of the land revenue demand in the middle decades.
Chapter 3 describes how the state and the major landholders extracted land
revenue from their dependents. Chapter 4 analyzes the uses of coercion and the
employment of detention and bodily pain in the Mughal and early Company
periods. Chapter 5 examines beneficence, the role of gifts and patronage in
binding the zamindar's subordinates to his person.
Part II is centered on a narrative of the evolution of a single zamindari: the
Burdwan raj. Located to the west of the Hughli or Bhagirathi river, both
southwest and northwest of Calcutta, the Burdwan estate was one of the largest
and wealthiest zamindaris in eighteenth-century India. Its prosperity stemmed
from the rich, alluvial rice and sugar-growing plains in its eastern sections and
the proximity of its cultivators and weavers to the markets along the Hughli
river.
The Burdwan raj family was non-Bengali, belonging to a Khatri jati of the
Punjab. Punjabi Khatris were prominent among the groups who mediated
between Mughals and agrarian society as administrators, bankers, and power
brokers. An ancestor of the Burdwan rajas migrated from his native Punjab to
Bengal a short time after the Mughal conquest from the Afghans began in the
1570s. Finding administrative employment under the Mughals, the family built
up a modest zamindari by 1700. Then its fortunes soared. By 1760, the Burdwan
zamindari covered over 5,000 square miles, or roughly double the size of
Burdwan district as it existed in the last century of British rule. It contained,
besides Burdwan district, most of the modern districts of Hughli and Howrah
and northeastern Midnapur district as well. It was ceded to the English East
India Company in 1760 and served as a laboratory for British administrators
and Bengalis seeking more efficient methods of maximizing land revenue
collections. After Company officials tried setting aside the zamindar of Burd-
wan and farming out the revenue to temporary collectors, the practice was
copied for a brief period in the rest of Bengal in the 1770s. In the first decade
of the nineteenth century, the raja of Burdwan adopted the innovative practice
of auctioning permanent leases for his subordinate rent-collection rights. Other
landholders throughout west Bengal subsequently imitated it.
Although Burdwan's land management and family politics are illuminating
for other areas of west Bengal, in some ways it was an atypical estate. In contrast
to the other great zamindaris created in, or surviving from, the early eighteenth
century, Burdwan emerged from the upheavals following the Permanent Set-
tlement of 1793 with most of its territory intact. The Burdwan estate before
zamindari abolition was over 4,000 square miles in area, with a population, less
than a fifth of which was Muslim, of over 2 million.
Apart from its unusual size and survival, the Burdwan raj's evolution under
Mughal and British rule parallels the changes in the zamindari system elsewhere
in west Bengal. It expanded at the expense of its neighbors early in the century;
26 Bengal

it suffered in the 1740s from Maratha brigandage; its revenue was raised beyond
its apparent capacity to pay in the middle decades of the century when internal
trade had ceased to grow and when the British began to use the territorial
revenues, instead of bullion imports, to pay for their "investment"; it was turned
over to temporary revenue contractors in the 1770s; its management was
returned to the raj family in the late 1770s; its survival was threatened by the
debts and the division of the family and the zamindari servants into bitter,
feuding factions; it lost (but only temporarily) a major part of its territory in the
post-1793 auction sales; it was forced to adopt more profit-oriented and less
paternal management techniques in order to prevent the loss of the whole estate.
The justification for local history, if it is not to become antiquarianism, is to
illustrate concretely the trends and processes in the surrounding society. We
lack local histories for eighteenth-century Bengal and we lack provincial
histories which view the early British period in Bengal in its necessary Mughal
context.81 This study aspires to contribute to the filling of both lacunae. Using
the subject of revenue extraction as an entry into Bengali society, it searches
for clues about the character of hierarchy and dependency, competition and
autonomy-seeking in the agrarian society of late Mughal and early British
Bengal.

81
A notable exception to the practice of dividing Bengal's history at the British conquest is Shirin
Akhtar, The Role of the Zamindars in Bengal, 1707-1772 (Dacca, 1982). Akhtar's book treats
the zamindari system in greater technical detail than the present work and it analyzes the whole
Bengali-speaking region but it gives less attention to the colonial period and to the normative
Hindu bases of zamindari behavior. Marshall, New Cambridge History of India, II.2, also begins
with the late Mughal period.
 Nazims of Bengal and
the large zamindars

The distinctive feature of political life in eighteenth-century rural Bengal was

the continuous domination of the revenue-collecting system by a small number
of very large landholders. At the close of nawabi rule, fifteen landholders paid
60 percent of the province's revenue;1 three decades earlier and three decades
later, the distribution was similar. To the steeply graded hierarchy of interme-
diaries and cultivators below, these landholders were rajas who gathered rents,
dispensed patronage and entitlements, and upheld the ritual-moral order; to the
government at Murshidabad above, they were zamindars who were the principal
agency of local revenue extraction. The larger raja-zamindars controlled hun-
dreds of villages and upwards of 1,000 square miles. This extreme concentration
of territory in the hands of a small number of rajas dates from the administration
of Murshid Quli Khan who led the Mughal provincial administration, apart from
a three-year interruption, from late 1700 until his death in 1727. In this period,
Bengal became virtually independent of the Mughal emperor, and the subahdari
or governorship became hereditary, for the first time, in the family of Murshid
Quli.
This chapter examines the higher or nawabi administrative-polical milieu in
which the zamindars lived before 1750. The first chapter commented on the rise
in the late Mughal period of new groups who took advantage of expanding
commercial and political opportunities and who formed the base of support for
newly autonomous regions. The expansive zamindars in Bengal were one such
group. Unlike landed magnates in western India, the zamindars of Bengal
confined their entrepreneurial ambitions largely to collaborative land steward-
ship and revenue farming; they did not develop significant military capabilities
or rebellious designs, in contrast to the Jats of the north, the Marathas of the
west, and the poligars (predatory chiefs) of the south. With the potential for
large rental income and patronage to dispense, attentisme rather than rebellious-
ness characterized the zamindars of Bengal.
Both the zamindars and the governors of Bengal were served by members of

Marshall, New Cambridge History of India, II.2, p. 55.

27
28 Bengal

a second group, the high caste service gentry of scribes, accountants, and
revenue collectors. As the role of imperial officers appointed from Delhi
receded, the service gentry, like the zamindars, found their aspirations could be
met under the existing regime. Similarly, commercial groups posed no threat to
the continuation of nawabi rule until mid-century. In addition to trading, they
provided credit to the government, zamindars and other revenue payers, and the
growing communities of European traders along the rivers.
Prior to Murshid Quli, Bengal, as a frontier province, had not been fully
integrated into the Mughal pattern of governance and had not been subjected to
the same set of bureaucratic controls which the Mughals imposed in upper India.
Raja Todar Mai, Akbar's finance minister, had prepared a revenue settlement
for the province in the 1580s, before Bengal was pacified, before the Mughal
conquest was completed. Todar Mai's settlement of Bengal differed from the
upper India ones in several ways. First, the Bengal settlement was apparently
based on the records of the Afghan administration and on what local landholders
had paid in the past, without fresh assessments of the villages or measurement
of peasant holdings, without an examination of the economic capacity of each
peasant to pay revenue. The Mughal ideal elsewhere was to send assessors into
the villages, fix an assessment on the individual peasant, and then collect
directly from the peasant rather than from hereditary superior landholders. The
ideal was not put into universal effect in any other province but Bengal was
unusual among the major provinces in that no systematic village-by-village
measurement and few direct state collections were attempted in Bengal before
the eighteenth century.2 Figures from Aurangzib's reign (1657-1707) indicate
that only 1,538 of Bengal's 112,788 villages had been measured for purposes
of the state's revenue assessment, whereas in the central provinces of Agra,
Allahabad, Delhi, and Lahore, 93 percent of the villages had been measured. 3
Mughal revenue administration in broad areas of Bengal, including Burdwan
and most of the southwest, was indirect, through the hereditary rajas, chiefs,
and other landholders. Moreover, again in contrast to other integral parts of the
empire, Bengal's settlement underwent but slight revision over time. As a result
of both large territorial additions (Assam and Tippera) to the province and a
reassessment in 1658, Bengal's jama (revenue assessment) in the late years of
Aurangzib's reign was about 22 percent higher than it had been after Todar
Mai's original settlement in 1582. This was a much smaller increase than in
most of the empire, whose average increase was 69 percent. 4 The relative
stability of the state's demand on Bengal and the common reliance on hereditary
landholders to collect it led Irfan Habib to conclude that the demand was made

2
Habib, Agrarian System, pp. 169-70, 218, and 230.
3
Computed from table in ibid., p. 4.
4
Ibid., p. 328.
 Nazims of Bengal and the large zamindars 29

"as if it were tribute rather than a varying tax on land or its produce." 5 Whether
the state regularly collected its full theoretical demand is not known.

Bengal's economy
The semi-permanence of Bengal's revenue demand meant that the state's formal
share of agricultural production declined in value during the seventeenth
century, leaving Bengal "much under-rated" compared to other provinces in the
empire.6 Seventeenth-century Bengal enjoyed a high degree of stability, with
freedom from major wars and famines, after Mughal armies subdued the
rebellious baro bhuiyas (twelve landed chiefs) in the first two decades of the
century. The population and area under cultivation are presumed by virtually,
all scholars to have risen. The rapid growth in the European and Asian markets
for Bengal's cotton and silk goods and food products during the second half of
the seventeenth century probably created new jobs and certainly brought an
influx of American silver from Europe. The number of workers engaged in the
manufacture of handicraft textiles may have risen to 1 million or 5 percent of
the total population of perhaps 20 million.7 With lowly-paid, highly-skilled
artisans responsive to the particular tastes of foreign consumers, with inexpen-
sive riverine transportation giving Indian merchants and the Dutch and English
East India Companies access to the communities of weavers, spinners, and
winders in the interior, and with Mughal authorities eager to profit from the
silver imports and duties paid by the European companies, Bengal became
Europe's "chief trading partner."8 And since much of the silver with which
Europeans purchased Bengali goods was minted into rupees, the value of the
currency was inflated and the real value of the state's jama (revenue assessment)
declined. By one estimate, the real value of the state's formal demand in the late
1600s was 50 percent less than in the late 1500s for the same area of Bengal. 9
Many Europeans commented upon Bengal's prosperity. Francis Bernier
wrote after two visits between 1656 and 1668 that Bengal was "the finest and
most fruitful country in the world" although he admitted "strangers seldom find
the air salubrious."10 Thomas Bowrey, a factor for the English East Company

5
Ibid., p. 177.
6
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 27.
7
The figures for both workers and total population are highly speculative. Om Prakash, The Dutch
East India Company and the Economy ofBengal, 1630-1720 (Princeton, NJ, 1985), pp. 246-47.
8
K.N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660-1760
(Cambridge, 1978), pp. 207 and 247. Also, Prakash, The Dutch East India Company, p. 43.
9
Philip B. Calkins, "Revenue Administration and the Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling
Group in Bengal, 1700-1740" (University of Chicago, Ph.D. dissertation, 1972), p. 101.
10
Francis Bemier, Travels in the Mogul Empire AD. 1656-1668 (2nd edn., London, 1916),
pp. 437 and 441.
30 Bengal

in Bengal in the 1670s and 1680s, said it "is one of the largest and most Potent
Kingdoms of Hindostan ... this Kingdome is now become most famous and
Flourishinge."11 Robert Orme, in 1752, thought Bengal "is the most fertile of
any [province] in the universe." 12 Whenever other parts of India experienced
dearth, Europeans assumed Bengal could send food since it normally exported
sizeable quantities of rice, sugar, and clarified butter. 13
Bengal appeared fertile and productive because it provided at favorable
prices large quantities of goods desired in other parts of India, Asia, and Europe.
However, virtually no one claimed that the general population of Bengal was
well-off or that the bullion used to purchase its goods was broadly distributed.
Few of the seventeenth-century European travelers' accounts commented on
the standard of welfare for the Bengali lower classes, because the authors tended
to keep to the rivers and were primarily interested in trade conditions and
perhaps because their experience in Europe had conditioned them to expect
extreme poverty. Travelers to other parts of India, however, did remark on how
the Mughal nobility expropriated all but a meager subsistence from the produc-
ing classes. Francis Bernier, for example, sought to explain why the people of
India "have less the appearance of a moneyed people than those of other parts
of the globe" and placed the major blame on the extortionate practices of the
people who collected the Mughal revenue who, he wrote, "have an authority
almost absolute over the peasantry, and nearly as much over the artisans and
merchants of the towns and villages within their district; and nothing can be
imagined more cruel and oppressive than the manner in which it is exercised."
He believed they exercised "a tyranny often so Excessive as to deprive the
peasant and artisan of the necessaries of life, and leave them to die of misery
and exhaustion."14
Modern historians have reached similar conclusions without specifying, just
as Bernier did not, whether their generalizations included Bengal. 15 Irfan Habib,
who was especially interested in the condition and treatment of the lower orders
throughout Mughal territory, is significantly silent about the subject in Bengal,
which suggests that the Persian sources did not comment on the subject. There
are a few clues about the distribution of income in seventeenth-century Bengal.
Habib does mention a rare famine in Bengal, in the Dacca locality in 1662-3.
In that famine, "official exactions and obstructions" interfered with the supply

1
' Thomas Bowrey, A Geographical Account of Countries Round the Bay of Bengal, 1669 to 1679
(Cambridge, 1905), p. 131.
12
Orme, Historical Fragments, p. 404.
13
Chaudhuri, Trading World, p. 207.
14
Bernier, Travels, pp. 225-26.
15
For example, Habib, Agrarian System, chapter 6; Jadunath Sarkar, Mughal Administration (4th
edn., Calcutta, 1952), p. 69.
 Nazims of Bengal and the large zamindars 31

of foodgrains to the stricken area.16 Bihar experienced a major famine in 1671

which stretched into the northwest corner of Bengal. It is clear from John
Marshall's diary entries that neither the Mughal government at Dacca nor local
private agency took effective or perhaps any action to relieve the suffering. He
wrote at Patna:
Great number of Slaves to be brought for 4 an. and 8 an. per peece, and good ones for 1
r. per peece; but they are exceeding leane when bought, and if they eat but very little
more than ordinary of rice, or eat any flesh, butter or any strong meat their faces and
hands and codds swell immediately exceedingly.

The Mughal kotwal (police officer) recorded over 90,000 starvation deaths in
Patna and its suburbs.17
Apart from rare anecdotes, we have only indirect evidence of how Bengal's
growing wealth was shared. Bengal's marginal advantage in international trade
was, after all, a function in part of the low wages paid to its artisans and low
prices paid to the peasants who grew rice, sugar, cotton, mulberry leaves, and
other items. Bengali textile artisans were said to have earned one sixth of what
their counterparts in France received. 18 Weavers usually would not undertake
a contract without an advance, perhaps because they were too poor to do so.
It is possible that population growth absorbed much of the new wealth of the
late seventeenth century, limiting the opportunities of common cultivators to
share it. In addition, Mughal officials assigned to Bengal may have siphoned
off a major portion of the new currency. As the margin between the formal claim
of the state and the money in circulation widened, Mughal officials found means
to divert large sums to their personal treasuries, despite imperial regulations
designed to limit this. Members of the imperial ruling family assigned to Bengal,
such as Shah Shuja, Shaista Khan, and Azim-ud-din, and other officials as well,
accumulated extraordinary fortunes while in Bengal, partly through extortion
and unauthorized exactions, partly through monopolistic trading practices, and
partly through the administration of their personal revenue assignments. 19
Reports of uncertain reliability said that Shaista Khan (nazim 1664-78 and
1679-88) personally accumulated Rs. 9 krors20 in eighteen years, Khan Jahan
Bahadur Khan (nazim 1688-89) removed Rs. 2 krors in one year, and Prince

16
Habib, Agrarian System, p. 107.
17
Shafaat Ahmad Khan, John Marshall in India: Notes and Observations in Bengal, 1668-1672
(London, 1927), pp. 150-53.
18
Chaudhuri, Trading World, p. 273.
19
See Abdul Karim, Murshid Quli Khan and his Times (Dacca, 1963), p. 3; Satish Chandra,
"Commercial Activities of the Mughal Emperors during the Seventeenth Century," Bengal Past
and Present, vol. 78 (July-Dec. 1959), pp. 92-97; and Moreland, Agrarian System, pp. 198-
200.
20
One kror equals 10 million or 100 lakhs.
32 Bengal

Azim-ud-din (nazim 1697-1712) removed Rs. 8 krors in 1706 after his first nine
years.21 This suggests that these nazims personally accumulated Rs. 19 krors or
the equivalent of over half Bengal's jama in those years (Rs. 1.13 krors X 28
years = Rs. 36.68 krors). Such figures seem barely creditable and perhaps were
figurative rather than real. They leave open the possibility that the taxes
recorded in Mughal records grossly understated the amount officials collected.
Even if we assume that nazims accumulated huge fortunes by taking pay-
ments for the right to collect the revenues and by other means, the opportunities
for other imperial officers to draw money out of rural Bengal in the seventeenth
century were probably limited by a special feature of Mughal administration in
that province. This was the relatively small portion of Bengal that was assigned
to temporary, imperial officers. By Aurangzib's reign, four-fifths of the empire
as a whole had been assigned asjagirs (maintenance land) to centrally appointed
officers (mansabdars).22 The revenue from jagir land went to the jagirdars in
lieu of salary to cover personal expenses, support imperial troops or the imperial
navy, and to pay for the judicial and revenue administration. But in Bengal, only
one third of the revenue was so assigned. 23 The other two thirds of the revenue
was collected by hereditary chiefs and zamindars, who paid into the provincial
treasury for transmission to the emperor, and was designated khalisa (resources
reserved for the imperial treasury), to distinguish it from the jagir land. 24
In the Mughal system of checks and balances, the state appointed two sets of
officers to watch the zamindars in the khalisa lands. Faujdars (regional military
commanders) were assigned to Burdwan, Hughli, and perhaps eight other
widely scattered towns to observe and, when necessary, coerce recalcitrant
zamindars. The faujdar's "special business" was to ensure that no zamindar
accumulated an excessive number of rifles or cannon, built a fort without
permission, 25 or used more royal paraphernalia, such as elephants, palanquins,
or kettle-drums, than had been sanctioned. The nazims also employed an
elaborate set of record keepers called qanungos (expounders of laws and
customs) to check on both the zamindars and the temporary revenue officers.
They were expected to keep records on many matters connected with cultivation
and revenue, including the particulars of each harvest, receipts, arrears, crop
prices, the areas cultivated and left waste, land transfers, revenue-free land, and
zamindari successions. The position was usually hereditary and a qanungo or

21
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, pp. 391-92,405, and 413.
22
AH, Mughal Nobility, pp. 74-75.
23
James Grant, "An Historical and Comparative Analysis of the Finances of Bengal" (1786), Fifth
Report, 1812, vol. II, p. 186.
24
At any given time, a portion of the khalisa lands was under the charge of temporary collectors
(amils) or revenue farmers (ijaradars) because of zamindars' defalcations or failure of heirs.
25
Khan, Seir, vol. Ill, p. 176.
 Nazims of Bengal and the large zamindars 33

two served in each of the hundreds of parganas or fiscal units into which Bengal
was divided.26 In theory, they provided the provincial diwan (chief revenue
officer) and his subordinates with the capacity to audit accounts, settle local
disputes, and learn about local customs. Abul Fazl, in the Ain-iAkbari, described
the qanungos as "the refuge of the husbandmen," assuming that without state
oversight the zamindars would exploit their dependents. 27 The main source of
information about how they functioned in the Mughal period was the testimony
of hereditary qanungos in the 1780s.28 If those accounts are accurate, the early
eighteenth-century qanungos offered a vigilant diwan useful information for
checking fraud and oppression in revenue collection although they colluded
with landholders and temporary officers at least occasionally. 29
Despite the qanungos and the faujdars, the Mughal government maintained
no extensive revenue machinery or administrative presence in many parts of the
khalisa lands capable of drawing out much more than the formal revenue
demand and the customary fines levied upon the hereditary succession of a new
zamindar.30 Southwestern Bengal (south of the Ganges, west of the Hughli) was
almost entirely free of jagirdars, judging from Mir Qasim's accounts of 1763,
when the contiguous southwestern zamindaris of Bishnupur, Burdwan, Mu-
hammad Aminpur, and Pachet, covering over 10,000 square miles, contained
jagir lands with a jama of only Rs. 20,063.31 Mughal mansabdars, most of whom
were non-Bengali, typically held their assigned lands in the north-central
districts of Dacca, Murshidabad, Nadia, and Rajshahi.32 Before Murshid Quli
Khan's administration, mansabdars were transferred frequently from one jagir
to another, often every three or four years, 33 so that they relied on subordinate
officers, including qanungos and local landholders, for their collections and
knowledge of their villages.
The structural conflict between zamindars and mansabdars was a factor in
the collapse of the Mughal empire outside Bengal at the end of Aurangzib's
reign. The progressive rise in the mansabdars' demands upon the landholders
and the peasantry, occasioned by the inflation in the stated value of their jagirs,

26
At the time of the 1728 settlement, Bengal had 1,660 parganas.
27
R.B. Ramsbotham, Studies in the Land Revenue History of Bengal, 1769-1787 (London, 1926),
p. 135.
28
Report on the office of qanungo by J.D. Patterson, 18 May 1787, in ibid., pp. 162-97.
29
Habib, Agrarian System, pp. 290 and 297.
30
Calkins speculated that "although many groups probably shared in the increased profits of the
revenue collection" in the first four decades of the eighteenth century, "it is likely that those
who benefited most, proportionately, were those at the lower levels of the revenue system."
"Revenue Administration," p. 78.
31
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," pp. 248-50.
32
Ibid., p. 245.
33
Habib, Agrarian System, pp. 267-70.
34 Bengal

alienated important dominant peasant groups such as the Jats in the Agra region,
the Satnamis and Sikhs in the Punjab, and the Marathas in the Deccan. 34 As
peasant revolts against the rising revenue demands broke out, zamindars often
joined or assumed the leadership of the rebels. Why were peasants willing to
fight alongside zamindars? Because, according to both European and Persian
sources, hereditary zamindars were less oppressive to the peasantry than the
often-transferred jagirdars and had a much longer-term relationship to pre-
serve.35 In Man Habib's view, zamindari leadership of the revolts which shook
the empire "seems to have been of decisive significance in merging the risings
of the oppressed with the war between two oppressing classes." 36

Murshid Quli Khan

Bengal experienced only one significant conflict between zamindars and mans-
abdars while Mughal authority unraveled in upper and western India. This was
the revolt of Shova Singh and Rahim Khan in 1696-98.37 The stability of the
nominal revenue demand and the paucity of mansabdars in Bengal may account
for absence of trouble before the 1690s. After Murshid Quli Khan was appointed
diwan in 1700, he reduced the potential for conflict by curbing the influence of
the major mansabdars and by strengthening the role of certain zamindars. Both
policies were ostensibly based on ethnic considerations. From the outset of
Mughal rule, partisan ethnic loyalties among the Mughal, Turani, Persian, and
Afghan clans who occupied the higher mansabdari appointments required the
emperor's vigilance. Akbar built his marital and political links with the Rajputs
to offset the threats from the Mughal and Turani nobility.38 A similar strategy
motivated Murshid Quli's policies towards the non-Bengali mansabdars and the
local zamindars. Murshid Quli arrived in Bengal as an outsider to the mansab-
dari class. He had been born into a poor Brahmin family in the Deccan, had
been sold to a Persian as a small child, had been raised in Persia as a Shi'a
Muslim, and had returned as a revenue officer to the Deccan where he attracted
Aurangzib's attention and respect. Aurangzib transferred Murshid Quli to
Bengal as diwan in 1700,39 at a time when most of the empire's revenue had
been alienated to jagirdars and when the imperial treasury was dangerously low,

34
Ibid., pp. 341-47.
35
Ibid., pp. 320-21.
36
Ibid., p. 333.
37
It is discussed in chapter 7 below. It is not known to have been a peasant revolt.
38 wink, Land and Sovereignty, p. 53.
39
Murshid Quli was sent back to the Deccan upon Aurangzib's death in 1707 and then returned
to Bengal as diwan in 1710. He was appointed nazim in 1717 and he died in 1727. Karim,
Murshid Quli Khan, pp. 15-59.
 Nazims of Bengal and the large zamindars 35

drained by the expensive effort to subdue the Deccan where the mansabdars'
pay was three years in arrears. 40 Previous executives in Bengal had been lax in
their fiscal management, had been distracted by their private trading activities,
and, in the case of Ibrahim Khan (nazim 1689-97) and his faujdars, had failed
to act effectively against the major rebellion by Shova Singh and Rahim Khan
in southwest Bengal in 1696-98.41 Aurangzib supported Murshid Quli against
other imperial officials in his efforts to restore discipline and to reorganize the
province's finances. An astute and harsh administrator, Murshid Quli began
immediately to send the hard-pressed emperor about Rs. 1 kror each year.42 His
success in supplying Delhi with revenue, combined with the erosion of imperial
power following Aurangzib's death in 1707, eventually gave Murshid Quli
virtual autonomy in the conduct of Bengal's affairs.
Murhid Quli imposed a much stricter regimen on Bengal than it had pre-
viously. His officers arrested, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured zamindars
who were in arrears. He sent officers to measure and reassess particular villages.
He appointed temporary revenue farmers (ijaradars) to collect the revenue from
many localities. 43 A Persian chronicle completed about 1787 stated that Mur-
shid Quli initially put "a complete stop to the authority of zamindars over the
collection and disbursement of the Imperial Revenue" (an obvious exaggera-
tion), that he starved and forcibly converted to Islam some Hindu zamindari
servants, with their families, whose estates were in arrears, and that he forbade
zamindars to ride in palkis (litters). 44 With his aggressive fiscal measures,
Murshid Quli raised the annual collections closer to the state's demand. In 1722,
he promulgated a new settlement for the whole province. The 1722 settlement
was Rs. 142 lakhs or 9 percent higher than the 1656 settlement of Rs. 131 lakhs.
Since his predecessors probably failed to collect the full demand, Murshid Quli
may have increased the actual collections by 20 percent or more. 45
Mansabdars whose families had served the Mughals for generations were

40
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 401.
41
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, pp. 1-2.
42
Ibid., p. 97.
43
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 409.
44
Salim, Riyazu, pp. 255-58.
45
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 191, and Karim, Murshid Quli Khan,
pp. 76ff. Estimates of the increase are plagued by different methods of calculation. F.D. Ascoli,
using Grant's figures, estimated the increase between 1658 and 1722 at 13.5 percent. Early
Revenue History of Bengal and the Fifth Report, 1812 (Oxford 1917), p. 28. Calkins suggested
on the basis of Persian figures that Murshid Quli lowered the jama on his arrival in Bengal to
reflect the actual, low level of collections so that his 1722 settlement was 20 percent higher
than the 1700 jama but only 9 percent higher than the 1658 jama. "Revenue Administration,"
pp. 29-30. Calkins also cited figures used by John Shore to show that Murshid Quli raised the
actual collections from Rs. 117 lakhs in 1700 to Rs. 141 lakhs in 1722, or by 22.5 percent. "The
Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling Group," p. 802.
36 Bengal

also victims of Murshid Quli's new discipline, austerity, and eventual freedom
from imperial protection. Murshid Quli transferred some of their jagirs from
Bengal to Orissa while distributing the major offices and remaining jagirs in
Bengal to his newly arrived relatives from Persia. The result was that the
proportion of Bengal's revenue assigned to jagirdars fell to one fourth, the
khalisa income was correspondingly increased, and potential mansabdar oppo-
nents, who were jealous of this relative newcomer's power, were removed from
the province.46 Later, Murshid Quli cut back the allowances of the remaining
mansabdars, including his own, and he reduced the size of the imperial armed
forces.47 With these economies, he was assured of having sufficient revenue to
send annual payments to Delhi and, in effect, to purchase freedom from imperial
interference. His motive in increasing revenue was clear enough. His removal
of members of the older mansabdar class may have been more than a strength-
ening of his political base. He may have sensed the "demoralization" of the
empire's mansabdars that was most noticeable in the south. By the time of
Aurangzib's death, Mughal military failures had "shaken" mansabdars who
"saw that the structure that - for over a century - had supplied order, rationality,
sustenance, and meaning to their lives was rapidly weakening." After Aurang-
zib's military failures and death, the warrior-administrators whose identity was
bound up in personal service to a strong emperor and in military victory
increasingly pursued individualistic strategies of survival.48 Perhaps an under-
standing of this disintegration of mansabdari mission and morale shaped Mur-
shid Quli's administrative innovations in Bengal. After 1713, the emperor
stopped transferring mansabdars to Bengal.
More important for the evolution of Bengal's agrarian structure was Murshid
Quli Khan's policy of allowing certain landholders in western Bengal to absorb
the small territories of their neighbors, with the result that where many
zamindars had once paid directly to government, now a small number of giant
holdings dominated much of Bengal. The process, as best as it can be recon-
structed, had two stages. In the first, Murshid Quli awarded contracts for some
of Bengal to revenue farmers or ijaradars to collect from the small landholders.49
The most successful farmers were men who had held or whose recent ancestors

46
James Grant, "Historial and Comparative Analysis," p. 191. The largest remaining jagirs were
Murshid Quli's own, covering about 5,500 square miles, scattered mostly within the Nadia and
Rajshahi zamindaris; the diwan's jagir, covering about 2,000 square miles; and the bakshi's
(army commander), encompassing about 800 square miles. Ibid., p. 237.
47
Ibid., p. 188.
48
J.F. Richards, "The Imperial Crisis in the Deccan," Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 35, no. 2 (Feb.
1976), p. 249. Wink doubted that the mansabdars in the Deccan were demoralized: "This was
rather a period of unprecedented opportunities." Land and Sovereignty, p. 63.
49
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 411. Karim emphasizes that "there is no evidence to
show that Murshid Quli Khan farmed out the lands to the highest bidder... nor of the zamindars
or collectors being allowed a free hand to deal with the ra'yats." Murshid Quli Khan, p. 93.
 Nazims of Bengal and the large zamindars 37

had held revenue administration positions under the nazims. Each farmer had
to offer a malzamin or a security who would co-sign in return for a small
percentage of the revenue, in case the farmer failed in his obligations. The
malzamin was often a banker, in some cases a member of the Jagat Seth banking
family who enjoyed the privilege of minting coins for Murshid Quli's and
subsequent regimes and whose influence on nawabi financial and political
affairs was increasingly decisive.
In the second stage of the elevation of the large zamindars, certain zamindars
and ijaradars were permitted to absorb the taluqs of other landholders. This
expansion took place through military conquest, administrative transfer, and
occasionally purchase, all sanctioned by Murshid Quli. Given Murshid Quli's
emphasis on efficient revenue collection, it may be presumed that he encour-
aged or allowed the aggregation of land under those zamindars who demon-
strated promptness in their payments and that he found large zamindars and
ijaradars, backed by bankers' guarantees, improved agencies of collection. It is
also apparent that he trusted the local zamindars more than most Mughal
mansabdars, who in many cases resented Murshid Quli's policies and ethnic
background and were no longer subject to Delhi's restraining discipline. Thus
the pattern of personnel practices was to collect most land revenue in west
Bengal through large Hindu zamindars50 and in east and north Bengal through
a mixture of jagirdars and smaller Hindu and Muslim zamindars; to use the
Marwari Hindu banking house of the Jagat Seths for banking, minting, and
remitting revenue to Delhi; to staff the superior military and non-revenue
positions with his own Shi'a relatives from Persia; and to assign important
revenue administrative positions to a combination of Bengali and upcountry
Hindus.51 It adroitly balanced ethnic groups and government functions: Ben-
galis and non-Bengalis; Hindus and Muslims; and district collectors, central
administration, bankers, and the military. It achieved relative stability and
harmony, at least until the Maratha invasions of the 1740s.
The most powerful Hindu zamindars of mid- and late eighteenth-century
Bengal acquired the bulk of their estates under Murshid Quli Khan. These
estates were so large that when Shuja-ud-din, Murshid Quli's son-in-law and
successor, concluded a new settlement in 1728, he reorganized Bengal's fiscal
divisions around these zamindaris. The four estates with the largest jama, all
newly expanded, were Burdwan, Dinajpur, Nadia, and Rajshahi. The rajas of
two were non-Bengali Hindus: the Burdwan zamindar was descended from

50
The Birbhum zamindari, 5,000 square miles in area but lighly populated, was left under its
Muslim "Pathan raja," whose family may have been converts to Islam. Asim Roy, The Islamic
Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton, NJ, 1983), p. 24.
51
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, pp. 68-70.
38 Bengal

Punjabi Khatris and the Dinajpur zamindar, on Bengal's northern frontier, was
an upcountry Kayastha. The zamindar of Nadia, lying east of the middle section
of the Bhagirathi or Hughli river, was a Bengali Brahmin, as was the zamindar
of Rajshahi, which sprawled to the north and northeast of Nadia on both sides
of the Ganges, encircling Murshidabad. These four zamindaris, whose rajas'
ancestors had risen from modest revenue or administrative posts, paid a third
of Bengal's jama under the settlement of 1728.52 The rapid growth of these
Hindu zamindaris was a sharp reversal of the Mughal policy of distrusting
zamindars. Jadunath Sarkar wrote that Murshid Quli had created "a new landed
aristocracy" in Bengal.53 Philip Calkins described the elevation of the zamindars
and domiciled Hindu officials and bankers as "the formation of a regionally
oriented ruling group."54 The realignment of regional elites and the removal of
part of the non-Bengali mansabdar class from their role as competitors with and
supervisors of the domiciled elites led to a fresh concentration of power, status,
and wealth. The large zamindars established themselves as major partners with
the Mughal subahdars (governors) in ruling Bengal, commanding small armies,
administering justice, and building palaces, forts, and temples that by Bengal's
modest architectural standards were impressive in size. The rajas of Burdwan,
Dinajpur, and Rajshahi had made the coveted transition from service to land-
holding, to local kingship.55

Later Nazims
Murshid Quli's restructuring of the zamindari system survived through the
nawabi period and well into the Company period. His revenue demand of Rs.
141 lakhs did not. The later nazims of Bengal imitated Murshid Quli' s example
and after 1756 raised the demand to unrealizable levels. Murshid Quli's increase
of 9 percent in 1722 appears modest enough, in view of inflation and presumed
population growth over the many decades since the previous settlement of 1658,

52
The largest zamindari assessments under the settlement of 1728, which confirmed the arrange-
ments made by Murshid Quli Khan, were:
Burdwan Rs. 20,47,506
Rajshahi Rs. 16,96,087
Nadia Rs. 5,94,846
Dinajpur Rs. 4,62,964
Birbhum Rs. 3,66,509
Rokinpur Rs. 2,42,943
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," pp. 194-98.
53
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 409.
54
Calkins, "The Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling Group," p. 799.
55
Rokinpur, the sixth largest zamindari in 1728 and scattered "throughout Bengal," belonged to
the chief qanungo of the province who was thus simultaneously a zamindar and in service.
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 197.
 Nazims of Bengal and the large zamindars 39

although as we have seen his hasil (actual collections) may have exceeded that
of earlier nazims by much more than 9 percent. Shuja-ud-din (1727-39) imposed
abwabs (additional cesses) of Rs. 19.14 lakhs,56 after the naib (deputy) qanun-
gos, in order "to ingratiate themselves" with the new nazim, pointed out sources
of zamindari income he might tax.57 Alivardi Khan (1740-56) added further
abwabs of Rs. 22.25 lakhs.58 Altogether, Murshid Quli Khan, Shuja-ud-din, and
Alivardi Khan added roughly 40 percent to the pre-1722 jama of Rs. 131.15
lakhs.
Virtually no information survives to indicate how the increments were
distributed among various classes of intermediate collectors and peasants. At
the highest level, Shuja-ud-din and Alivardi continued to collect through large
zamindars in western Bengal and through a combination of various sized
zamindars and jagirdars elsewhere. Shuja's and Alivardi's new abwabs pro-
duced few known strains in agrarian society. John Shore believed that the
purpose of the abwabs was to obtain the zamindar's increased profits but that
the effect was to lead the zamindars to raise the peasants' rents by at least 50
percent.59 James Grant was critical of the abwabs because the subahdars made
little effort to apportion them according to the state of cultivation in particular
areas rather than because he doubted the ability of the population in general to
pay more.60
If the later nawabs or their qanungos had information about how much the
peasants were producing or how much their superiors were assessing them,
British commentators of the late eighteenth century did not have access to it. It
does appear, however, that an increased portion of the state's income was spent
or hoarded within Bengal, beginning with Alivardi. Alivardi suspended pay-
ments to the emperor during the Maratha invasions and did not resume regular
payments after the invasions ended in 1751.61 When not paid, this saved the
government of Bengal roughly Rs. 1 kror annually or over half of Alivardi's
jama. It is evident, nevertheless, that the nazims and their relatives continued
to engross enormous sums, far in excess of what their personal jagirs could have
yielded. Alivardi was said to have found and confiscated Rs. 5 krors from
Sarfaraz's private treasury when he overthrew him in 1739.62 When Afghan
rebels seized and tortured Alivardi's brother, Haji Ahmad, in 1748, they found

56
Ibid., p. 212.
57
Report on the office of qanungo, in Ramsbotham, Studies, p. 168.
58
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 221.
59
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, paras. 4 0 - 1 .
60
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," pp. 219 and 223.
61
Ibid., p. 222.
62
Yusuf Ali, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, p. 90. Yusuf Ali was
Sarfaraz's son-in-law. Ibid., p. 79.
40 Bengal

a treasure of Rs. 70 lakhs. Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Haji Ahmad's son and faujdar
of Rangpur, had an estimated fortune of Rs. 1 kror upon his death.63 When Raj
Ballav, the Vikrampur Baidya who was diwan to Ghasiti Begam, Alivardi's
widowed daughter, asked the British for refuge in Calcutta from Nazim Siraj-
ud-daula in 1756, his "treasure and Jewells" were estimated to be worth Rs. 53
lakhs.64 Ghasiti Begam's own treasure, inherited from her husband, Nawazish
Muhammad Khan, long-time governor of Dacca, was valued at over Rs. 10
krors.65 In a province in which the annual revenue demand was under Rs. 2
krors,66 if these fortunes approached the estimates, their accumulation may have
depressed economic activity. Of course, some of the hoarded wealth found its
way back into circulation. For example, Shuja-ud-din, anticipating his death,
awarded two months pay to every person in his service, including the menial
servants in his harem.67 And the nazims escheated the fortunes of deceased
officers. But even when put back into circulation in the pay of the army and
administrators and in building projects, probably not much reached villagers
other than weavers because nawabi spending in rural areas on irrigation, flood
control, roads, and relief from natural disaster was practically non-existent. 68
Whether or not major portions of nawabi fortunes were extorted from
zamindars, the collaboration between the nazim and both large and lesser
zamindars grew during Shuja-ud-din's subahdarship (1727-39). Shuja exam-
ined the cases of zamindars arrested by Murshid Quli and still confined, and he
released those he believed to be innocent of embezzlement and other crimes.
He gathered the remaining imprisoned landholders around him and invited them
to state how they would behave if he gave them their freedom. "The poor people,
who had been for years languishing in confinement, and had undergone a variety
of torments and racks, surprised at this address, broke forth in encomiums on
his generosity and goodness" and swore to be punctual with their revenue and
"obedient and dutiful in whatever services his goodness might think fit to
command." Shuja gave each a khilat appropriate to his rank, took written
agreements, and dismissed them with instructions to remit their revenues
through the banking house of Jagat Seth.69 He also demanded nazrs (offering,

63
Khan, Seir, vol. II, p. 137, translator's footnote.
64
William Tooke's Narrative, S.C. Hill (ed.), Indian Record Series, Bengal in 1756-1757. A
Selection of Public and Private Papers Dealing with the Affairs of the British in Bengal during
the Reign of Sirajuddaula (3 vols., London, 1905), vol. I, p. 249.
65
Karim Ali, Muzaffar-namah, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, p. 62.
66
John Shore estimated in 1789 that Bengal's gross agricultural product did not exceed Rs. 8.5
krors. Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 109.
67
Khan, Seir, vol. I, p. 322.
68
However, the nazims did provide for flood control by granting zamindars deductions in their
jama for use in river embankment construction.
69
Ibid., pp. 279-80.
 Nazims of Bengal and the large zamindars 41

presents) from them, beyond what Murshid Quli had demanded. He raised Rs.
40 lakhs by selling to the zamindars the horses, cattle, carpets, and curtains he
had confiscated from the estate of Murshid Quli Khan.70
While Shuja relaxed the pressure on the interior zamindars, he tightened
control over the chiefs towards Bengal's frontiers. In the first half of the century,
the population in the outlying regions of the province was growing. As more
land was brought under the plough, the nazims demanded that the revenue or
tribute paid by the frontier rajas be raised accordingly. Shuja sent armies against
the rajas of Birbhum, Dinajpur, Kuch Bihar, and Tippera for this purpose.
Troops also "desolated" Rangpur.71 No doubt these expeditions served as
reminders to the interior zamindars of what they could expect if they resisted
the new abwabs.

Zamindari loyalty
After Shuja-ud-din's reign, the zamindars' partnership with the nazims of
Bengal disintegrated gradually and unevenly. It had never been a secure or easy
one, based as it was more on short-term convenience than shared language and
culture or long-term mutual interest. Murshid Quli Khan had shown his distrust
of local landholders by placing ijaradars and amils (temporary collectors) over
them, by arresting, torturing, and/or dispossessing defaulters and by crushing
Sitaram Ray of Bhushna, a large rebellious zamindari in southeastern Bengal.
His decision to allow the Burdwan, Dinajpur, and Rajshahi zamindaris to absorb
hundreds of smaller holdings was a mark of his lack of confidence in the lesser
landholders. The addition of abwabs to what had been a stable revenue demand
indicated that the nazims believed the zamindars had been paying less than
they were capable of. The abwabs can only have been unpopular with the
landholders.
From time to time, the nazims called on the larger zamindars for military
help. When zamindars responded, they were rarely more than a minor, auxiliary
factor in nawabi campaigns. Even during the repeated Maratha invasions of
1742-51, zamindars sometimes made their own arrangements with the invaders
rather than defend their territories or join the nawabi forces. Nawabi officials
in Bengal seemed to regard zamindars with the suspicious wariness of Mughals
elsewhere. Ghulam Husain Tabatabai, whose family served a succession of
eighteenth-century nazims, described the zamindars as
a set of men faithless to a high degree, short-sighted, impatient of control, ever ready,
on the least appearance of revolution, to turn their backs on their masters, and to forget

70
Salim, Riyazu, p. 289.
71
Ibid., pp. 300 and 305-06; and Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, pp. 426-28.
42 Bengal
the most important favours received at their hands ... Their strange and inconsistent
character [requires] at all times the strong grasp of a curbing hand.72
This may have been a common nawabi view.
The arrests, imprisonments, and dispossessions under Murshid Quli Khan,
the attacks on the frontier zamindars by Shuja-ud-din, and the volatility of
nawabi and imperial politics, especially in the dynastic succession disputes,
taught the zamindars how dangerous the higher political environment was and
helps to explain the conditional quality of zamindari loyalty about which
Ghulam Husain complained. The relative stability of nawabi rule in Bengal in
the first half of the eighteenth century was only relative to the fractious, deadly
struggles at the center of Mughal dominions. The threat of intrigue, violence,
and invasion hovered over nawabi politics. Nazim Azim-ud-din, grandson of
Aurangzib and son of the future emperor Bahadur Shah I, plotted to have
Murshid Quli killed in 1702. Ziaullah, the Bengal diwan during Murshid Quli's
temporary assignment to the Deccan, was assassinated by rebellious troops
in 1710 and Nazim Azim-ud-din was killed in upper India in 1712 during
his brother's war to succeed their father, Bahadur Shah I.73 Zamindars even
witnessed a father's violence against his own son, in 1727 when Murshid Quli
died. Shuja-ud-din, Murshid Quli's Afshar Turk son-in-law, deployed a large
army to prevent Sarfaraz, his own son and Murshid Quli's favorite, from
becoming nazim.74 As soon as the zamindars heard of Shuja's victory, "several"
called on him during his journey from Orissa to Murshidabad and received
khilats, and others planned to send their vakils (representatives) to meet him as
he approached Murshidabad and, if Shuja approved, to "pay their respects" in
person.75 Shuja's subahdarship (1727-39) was largely free of internal friction
among nawabi officers, despite his strained relations with his son, Sarfaraz.
Trouble resumed with Shuja's death in 1739.
Sarfaraz succeeded his father as nazim. He had less ability and a weaker
character. Sarfaraz's Turko-Arab diwan, Haji Ahmad, and his brother, Alivardi
Khan, the deputy governor of Bihar, conspired with the banker Jagat Seth and
others to overthrow Sarfaraz. In 1740, Alivardi led a sizeable army into Bengal,
defeated and killed Sarfaraz, and established a new ruling family at Murshid-
abad.76
When he arrived at the capital, Alivardi's Muslim military officers swore
allegiance on the Quran while Hindus pledged their loyalty by touching a
Brahmin's feet and a tulsi (holy basil plant) twig, and the officers of government

72
Khan, Seir, vol. II, pp. 393-94.
73
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, pp. 403-06.
74
Ibid., p. 423.
75
Akhtar, Role of the Zamindars, p. 28.
76
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, pp. 436ff.
 Nazims of Bengal and the large zamindars 43

and major citizens of Murshidabad presented him with nazrs. 77 However, for
all his talents and conciliatory treatment of surviving members of the family of
Murshid Quli and Sarfaraz, Alivardi was unable to overcome all the resentment
against his treachery in overthrowing the family on whose patronage the careers
of Alivardi and his brother had been built. Vengeful relatives and supporters of
Sarfaraz invited Raghuji Bhonsla, Maratha chief at Nagpur, to invade Bengal.78
From 1742 to 1751, western Bengal was subjected to devastating Maratha raids.
Nawabi revenue collections in the west plummeted and were increased in the
east and north to compensate. At the same time, local nawabi administrative
controls loosened, nawabi legitimacy was compromised. No previous Mughal
government had failed to protect the province from repeated external invasion
and the accompanying economic dislocation. The slippage in the nazim's
authority was demonstrated by the ascendancy and then alienation of the Afghan
general Ghulam Mustafa Khan, who commanded Alivardi's largely Afghan
troops. During the campaigns to drive the Marathas from Bengal, Ghulam
became so powerful, one chronicler wrote, that the aging Alivardi "had not the
power to issue any order on any affair of the realm without taking his advice ...
therefore every zamindar of Bengal turned to him, so that nothing but the name
remained to the diwan for the revenue collection of the Khalsa (Crownlands)." 79
Alivardi freed himself from Ghulam Mustafa Khan when the latter rebelled and
was killed. And Alivardi finally stopped the Maratha invasions by ceding them
Orissain 1751.
In the final, peaceful five years of Alivardi's life, nothing happened to suggest
that the bonds between the nazim and the zamindars had dissolved or turned to
hostility. Rather, the zamindars were less dependent, less supervised, less
integrated into the provincial administration. In the later decades of nawabi rule,
it seems that zamindars no longer had to account for what they collected. The
faujdars and the qanungos had ceased to provide the nazim with the military
power and information they once had.80 If the zamindars had identified with the
nazim, they might have been grateful for their augmented autonomy. Yet during
the 1757 conspiracies against Alivardi's successor, not a single major zamindar
came to Siraj-ud-daula's defence. By 1757, the nazim's authority was unravel-
ing, local administration had devolved to powerful zamindars, the provinces'
finances were controlled by the Jagat Seth banking family, and the nazim's army
was an unreliable, discontented force.
Apart from the size of their estates, what stands out about the zamindars of

77
Khan, Seir, vol. I, pp. 330-31 and 340.
78
Kalikinkar Datta, Alivardi and his Times (Calcutta, 1939), pp. 57-59.
79
Yusuf A\\, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Sarkar(tr.), BengalNawabs, pp. 110-11. Also Khan, Seir,
vol. I, p. 437.
80
Akhtar, Role of the Zamindars, pp. 76-77.
44 Bengal

Bengal, compared to similar landed elites elsewhere in India in this age of

political flux and martial opportunism, was their military inactivity and political
wariness. Bengal, whose deltaic terrain turned to mud in the monsoon, was not
a horse-breeding region. Zamindars developed neither significant cavalry forces
nor artillery and had become accustomed to non-Bengalis providing the region's
fighting men. The most effective military forces operating in eighteenth-century
Bengal were outsiders; Mughals, Afghans, Marathas, up-country mercenaries,
and Europeans. Zamindari militia confined themselves largely to the tasks of
guarding and escorting treasure, serving as display guards for rajas, and collect-
ing revenue from reluctant villages.
 Collecting rents and revenues

Accepting duties of rent collection from a raja-zamindar was a way to share in

kingship. From the time an intermediary received betel and clothes from his
raja's wardrobe, he began to participate in the noble condition of sovereignty.
However modest his powers and income, he was now a patron to whom clients
brought requests and expressed respect. He could use his discretion to distress
or forgive the tenant in arrears. When he met dependent jotdars or fed guests at
a wedding, his renters would be aware he stood on the multi-runged ladder of
kingship. Best of all was transforming a temporary right to rents of an area into
a perpetual holding to which he could retreat as the superior landholder rather
than as someone else's employee. Henry Vansittart described the urge in 1766:
When a man rises himself either by the army or finances - he is desirous of getting his
native village and two or three about it, that he may keep his holydays in pomp with his
family or if a foreigner, he covets an estate in land, that he may secure to himself a retreat
of the time when fortune may cease to smile. He accordingly either purchases from a
Zamindar, or gets a grant from the Nawab of five or six villages at a rent much below
their real value. *

Whether a small cog in the rent-collecting hierarchy or the holder of several

villages, an ambitious man typically sought a share of the rents in order to
fulfill some aspects of a ruler's dharma, such as celebrating "his holydays in
pomp."
Canonical Hindu discussions of statecraft stressed that the king needed
wealth to fulfill his rajadharma. Without ample resources in his treasury, the
raja could not carry out his most important duty: the protection of the people.
Taxes in theory were thus primarily for the people's material and spiritual
welfare and secondarily for rewarding the king for the protection he gave. At
the same time, the Sanskrit texts warned against over-taxing the people for to
do so might drive them to rebel. Yajnavalkya said "the fire springing from the
wrath caused by the harassment of the subjects does not cease without burning

Quoted in Akhtar, Role of the Zamindars, p. 24.

45
46 Bengal

family, the wealth and the life of the king."2 The king was counseled to husband
the roots of his power by keeping his taxes moderate. Manu said the king should
take "little by little," as the leech does from its host, the calf from the udder, and
the bee from the flower.3 The tigress carried her cubs between her teeth and the
rat gnawed at a sleeping man's feet without causing injury, and so should the
king levy taxes.4
Traditional Hindu authorities expected kings to draw income from agricul-
tural produce, tolls and duties, and judicial fines, and of these agricultural
produce was presumably most important. The usual share of the crops the king
was allowed to take was one sixth, according to a variety of sources.5 Whether
or not this limit once had practical effects, the Mughal and Company states, and
the rajas who served them, were not constrained by it. In the middle and late
decades of the eighteenth century, ruling groups in Bengal took much more than
one sixth of the crops. They seemed unmindful of the Santiparva's warning that
"as a person desirous of milk never obtains any by cutting off the udders of a
cow, similarly a kingdom afflicted by improper means, never yields any profit
to the king."6 While high rates of taxation did not ignite "the fire of wrath"
among the people of Bengal, over-taxation was a factor in the decline of the
nizamat, the persistent revenue arrears, and the economic deterioration which
was widely assumed to have occurred in the mid-eighteenth century. It also
imposed strains on the ethic of dependency that gave legitimacy to the agrarian
hierarchies in Bengal's little kingdoms.
Of all exchanges of resources, the most sizeable were those payments derived
from agriculture that were destined for the government. In most months of the
year, the superior raiyats paid a kist (installment) to the officers appointed to
receive the village obligations. If the raiyat held a patta (written agreement or
lease) and if he could read, he would have known from the itemized list of his
dues that a major portion of his payment was for a distant, hazy entity called
the badshah (emperor), nazim, or the Company. However, he was more likely
to be certain that much of his personal portion of his payment would never reach
the government. The Mughal and Company governments determined the de-
mand on each zamindar but the zamindar's subordinates had the discretionary
authority to distribute the demand among individuals in the villages and make
a profit or subsistence for themselves. These subordinates could increase or
lower the demand on any raiyat, without fear of interference by the state, as long

2
Pandurang Vaman Kane, History of Dharmasastra (Ancient and Medieval Religious and Civil
Law), (3 vols., Poona, 1930-46), vol. Ill, p. 187.
3
Ibid., p. 185.
4
Ibid., p. 186.
5
Ibid., pp. 185 and 190.
6
The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, tr. Pratap Chandra Roy, vol. VII (Calcutta,
n.d.),p. 168.
 Collecting rents and revenues 47

as the state's demand was met. They added to the malguzari (land revenue
payments) charges for the most routine administrative, economic, religious, and
social transactions. In fact, they altered individual obligations with such fre-
quency and with so little pattern or consistency of rates that one of the wisest
and best-informed students of revenue matters was moved to write that "of all
subjects relating to the revenues," the variability was "the most difficult to
explain."7
The zamindari subordinates' discretionary ability to alter the demand was in
part a necessary feature of a landscape subject to flooding, shifts in river courses,
extreme variations in rainfall, fluctuations in prices of individual crops, and
frequent expansions and contractions of areas under cultivation. However,
many shifts in the amounts individuals were required to pay were the result of
cultural preferences. A major benefit of holding office in a patrimonial system
of clientage was to be able to discriminate between one's closest or most
sanctified dependents and the rest of the subject revenue payers. It is at least
conceivable that the frequency with which people added or subtracted imposts
on their dependents was functionally a means of renewing authority, of keeping
authority active and alive, of emphasizing the discretionary and personal nature
of authority. More certainly, employment of power to benefit one's relatives,
servants, and other clients was a moral obligation from the Mughal emperor
down through the official ranks.
A host of factors had determined the traditional variations: the number and
type of crops grown, the fertility of the soil, the proximity to markets, and the
social status or the office of the payer. Judging from eighteenth-century evi-
dence, some cultivators were charged a fixed amount per plough, some had their
fields measured; some paid zamindari agents in kind, most paid in cash; a few
paid the same amount each year, most did not. But whatever the mixture of local
practice, whatever principles governed the distribution of obligations,
zamindars had enjoyed the discretion to allocate the demand in unequal portions
that discriminated between people of high rank or usefulness and the rest of the
population. And until Murshid Quli Khan's time, the long-term stability of the
state's demand in Bengal meant that in theory at least zamindars had no apparent
general need to increase the demand on their subjects except when assessing
them for ceremonial occasions such as weddings and funerals. We may suppose
that the notable degree of arbitrariness, exaction, and contention observable in
the second half of the eighteenth century was a direct consequence of the rapid
rise in the state's demand in the middle decades of the century. This chapter
describes how the revenue was collected and how discretionary power operated
in the distribution of obligations. The closely related subject of coercion in
revenue collection is the topic of the following chapter.
7
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 221.
48 Bengal

Puniya
The timing of the payments was tied to the cycle of peasant growing activity.
The revenue year began on the Bengali new year's day - the first day of Baisakh
(April-May). Baisakh was the month in which the aus or quick-growing
summer rice crop was planted in the paddy fields in high, dry, and sandy areas.
The slower, more productive aman rice was also sown, either in nursery seed
beds or the lower, richer soils, in Baisakh or in Jaistha (May-June).
The state formally inaugurated the revenue year with an official ceremony,
in some years on the first day of Baisakh but sometimes later and always at or
near the beginning of the main planting season before the monsoon rains settled
in. On the appointed day, the principal zamindars, revenue farmers, and amils
(government collectors) of Bengal converged on Murshidabad. They travelled
in state,8 by palanquin, by swiftly rowed boats, or, if authorized, by elephant.
They were accompanied by their major mutasaddis (accountants) and armed
escorts. They were expected to bring the final monthly kist to which they had
agreed when they had visited the capital twelve months earlier. And they were
to enter an agreement for the new year's jama (revenue assessment).
The nazim received the dignitaries in his darbar (assembly hall), seated under
a canopy on his masnad (cushion-throne)* leaning against a bolster. The canopy,
masnad, and bolster were richly embroidered with gold. In front of him was the
gold-embossed account book for registering payments and arrears. The bags of
treasure holding the final kist were placed before the nazim. The zamindars and
other officers, who numbered over 400 at one such ceremony in Alivardi's
time,9 were probably introduced as at other darbars by the public announcer or
chief mace bearer who called out the title of people of first rank but used a
different form of introduction for persons of second and third rank who made a
"profound bow."10 Each revenue payer presented a nazr (an offering or present
made to a superior) of gold coins for the nazim and his officers. The nazim, in
turn, gave each zamindar a khilat (honorary dress) which consisted of a gown,
a girdle, and a turban.11 The fineness of the material and the elegance of the
embroidery varied according to the rank of the recipient.12
The annual gathering of the zamindars and other revenue collectors of Bengal
is thought to have been an innovation of Murshid Quli Khan in the early years

8
Although perhaps not in Murshid Quli Khan's time. He was said to have "prohibited all
zemindars and Hindoosfromridingin palkees, and allowed use only of straight bamboos for
their chowpalehs [a meaner kind of palanquin]." [Salim Allah], A Narrative of the Transactions
in Bengal, tr. Francis Gladwin (Calcutta, 1788), p. 57.
9
Yusuf AH, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, p. 154.
10
Khan, Seir, vol. II, p. 200.
1
' This was also known as a siropa (literally, head to foot).
12
Khan, S«r, vol. I, p. 15.
 Collecting rents and revenues 49

of the eighteenth century.13 Mughal and English officers in Bengal referred to

this ceremonial occasion by the term punya or puniya (holy day), which has
strong Hindu connotations and a Sanskrit origin. Punyaha means "virtue, moral
merit, holiness" in Bengali, Hindi, and Marathi.14 Although the Mughals seem
not to have held a puniya prior to Murshid Quli Khan's reign for the closing of
one year's accounts and the opening of the next, among the many auspicious
objects and occasions the term puniya was applied to was the Hindu new year's
day when merchants and shopkeepers in Bengal settled their accounts by
discharging their debts, collecting what was owed to them, and performing pujas
to the appropriate deity, accompanied by "cakes, sweetmeats, fruits, and mu-
sic."15 Conjoining the celebrations that marked the turn of the Hindu agricultural
and fiscal years was ancient. Kautilya's Arthashastra described an auditing
occasion similar to the puniya: "All officers should assemble ... at the end of
the hot season, with sealed accounts and with balances to be paid in the treasury.
They are confined and forbidden to speak to each other. Fines are prescribed
for those coming late or without their account books." 16 What was new in this
increasingly commercial age was the Mughal blending of an assemblage of
Bengal's zamindars with an ancient "Hindu revenue usage." 17 Mughals in
Bengal and elsewhere mixed many non-Indian practices with Hindu customs. 18
The puniya was an annual affirmation of authority and of the obligation to
pay one's superior a share of agricultural income. The puniya ceremony brought
dependents in the revenue system face to face with their superior. This was
appropriate in a political system that gained legitimacy by converting every
power relationship, however bureaucratic, into a personal one. By going to
Murshidabad in person, the zamindar made a gesture of submission. And the
nazim demonstrated his power to honor and recognize the zamindar who
fulfilled the duties of his office and to punish the zamindar who failed. The
eating of sweets symbolized the community of the assembled zamindars with
the sovereign, while the distribution of khilats, appropriate to each rank,
confirmed the hierarchy within that community. The puniya expressed the
self-conscious stratification and unity of the Mughal social order.

13
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, p. 90.
14
H.H. Wilson, A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms, and of Useful Words Occurring in
Official Documents Relating to the Administration of the Government of British India (2nd
edn., Delhi, 1968), p. 681.
15
Joguth Chunder Gangooly, Life and Religion of the Hindoos with a Sketch of my Life and
Experience (Boston, MA, 1860), p. 93.
16
J.C. Heesterman, The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society
(Chicago, IL, 1985), p. 132.
17
Sarkar, Mughal Administration, p. 6.
18
For other examples, see C.A. Bayly, "The Pre-History of 'Communalism'? Religious Conflict
in India, 1700-1860," Modern Asian Studies, vol. 19, no. 2 (Aprii 1985).
50 Bengal

Murshid Quli Khan may have been imitating a traditional practice of the
zamindars he had observed in the mofussil (the countryside as distinct from the
headquarters), for the zamindars also held a puniya for their dependents and
continued to do so for more than a century after the British abolished the puniya
at the capital in 1772. Murshid Quli's desire to rule rural Bengal through the
zamindars, while diminishing the role of the imperial mansabdars, may have
enabled him to see the advantages of combining revenue collection with a
ceremony familiar to the mostly Hindu zamindars. It is also conceivable that
the banking house of Fatehchand, who received the title of Jagat Seth in 1723,19
suggested the puniya to Murshid Quli, considering the importance of the puniya
among commercial groups. What is certain is that when a zamindar was unable
to pay off his arrears at the puniya, the Seths and other bankers were present to
loan him money and to act as security for future payments.20 We may speculate
that Murshid Quli introduced the puniya at Murshidabad to restore obedience
and ordered hierarchy to a society disturbed by the rebelliousness of the
mansabdars in the twilight of Mughal imperial greatness and that the adaptation
of a money-lenders' ceremony was an indication of the growing commerciali-
zation and interdependence of bankers and government in Bengal.
Zamindars approaching Murshidabad for the puniya may have experienced
either a mood of fellowship or a sense of anxiety, depending on whether they
were in arrears or not and what they anticipated for the coming year. Beginning
with Murshid Quli, excuses for arrears were more often rejected, collections
more closely approximated the demand, and occasionally abwabs (additional
demands) were added to the existing jama. Arriving in Murshidabad in arrears
was a special source of discomfort, regardless of whether they resulted from
poor harvests, lax management, uncooperative subordinates, or over-assess-
ment. When in arrears, a zamindar and his officers used all the diplomatic arts
at their command in adjusting their accounts. A zamindar in arrears might
negotiate with the nazim's officers an agreement for a temporary or permanent
remission based upon pleas of drought or flood and future good faith. Persuad-
ing the officers required presents as well as arguments. If a zamindar failed to
bribe the scribes who kept the revenue accounts, they might overstate the
amount owed to the exchequer.21 If he could not turn the nazim's advisers in
his favor, they might recommend against leniency. The presence of the bankers
ready to guarantee payment of arrears was a mixed blessing because, according
to a British source, in the early Company period they charged 10 percent per

19
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, p. 99.
20
On the role of bankers in revenue collection, see Ranajit Sen, "Indian Money-Lenders: the
Sarrafs in Bengal in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century," Bengal Past and Present, vol.
100, pt. 1 (Jan.-June 1981), pp. 59-72.
21
Habib, Agrarian System, p. 269.
 Collecting rents and revenues 51

month on their loans to the zamindars.22 And if the landholder in arrears failed
to gain indulgence from the bankers and the nazim's officers, imprisonment and
dismissal from the estate were possible. Alexander Dow claimed that zamindars
feigned poverty at the puniya and "have even been known to carry the farce so
far, as to suffer a severe whipping before they would produce their money."23
Harsh though their treatment may have been at times, the major zamindars
seem to have negotiated their way around arrears more often than not. Despite
their frequent arrears, the largest zamindaris of the 1780s were the same ones
which dominated western and central Bengal in the 1720s: Birbhum, Bishnupur,
Burdwan, Dinajpur, Nadia, and Rajshahi. The environment was hazardous,
many major zamindars were confined, all were temporarily displaced, but
ultimately the system showed remarkable stability at the top from Murshid
Quli's time until the Permanent Settlement.
After the Murshidabad puniya, zamindars returned to their estates, knowing
what the coming year's jama would be, and held their own puniyas for their
subordinate revenue payers, with the assistance of Brahmins. It is recorded that
in 1771, when the Murshidabad puniya was held on 10 April, the raja of
Burdwan consulted Brahmins and fixed 5 June for Burdwan's mofussil puniya
and 25 June for his sadr (headquarters) puniya in Burdwan town.24 Information
about these ceremonies is scant but in large zamindaris, not only did the
zamindar hold a sadr puniya, his subordinate landholders held mofussil ones.
The patnidars of Burdwan, the principal intermediaries who held perpetual
leases under the raja after about 1800, continued until the 1940s to attend the
sadr puniya at Burdwan where they received sweets and food. At the mofussil
puniya in the Chakdighi patni (estate) under Burdwan, each tenant presented
the patnidar with a rupee coin, in addition to the final kist. The Chakdighi
patnidar regarded these ceremonial offerings as a source of good luck and kept
them wrapped in pieces of paper with the date written on them. 25 W.W. Hunter
reported that in Burdwan and Hughli districts when "the tenants assemble at the
zamindari court," by which he probably meant the patnidar's court, "to give his
offering, and are treated in turn to a refreshment of sweet meats, the mandal
[village headman] is first served, and gets a present of a cloth as a mark of
respect."26 An early nineteenth-century observer's account of a Hughli district
puniya was summarized as follows:

22
Alexander Dow, The History of Hindostan (3 vols., London, 1812), vol. I, p. cxxiii. The
Risala-i-ziraat stated the interest rate was 5 percent. Calkins, "Revenue Administration," p.
224.
23
Dow, History, vol. I, p. cxxiii.
24
COR Progs, of 1 June 1771, vol. I.
25
Interview with Mr. Singha-Ray of Chakdighi, Sec. of the British Indian Association, Calcutta,
3 March 1981.
26
William Wilson Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal (20 vols., London 1875-77), vol. Ill,
p. 318, and vol. IV, p. 65.
52 Bengal

First, in each village of the estate, worship of Laksmi was performed by a village
Brahman at the expense of the landlord. Then a male representative of the tenant family
longest in residence in the village (the puniya patra rayai) paid his rent by handing silver
rupees to the landlord's agent, who handed them in turn to the Brahman, who placed the
coins ceremoniously in a special collection vessel. The other tenants followed suit. At
the same time a new account book for the year was opened by the landlord's agent, after
it had been ritually anointed with vermillion, tumeric, ghee, and sandalwood paste by
the priest. Rent-collecting and accounting were thus drawn into the realm of ritual. 27

Zamindari collection
After the puniya, how did the zamindars gather the revenue from their own
territory? The only existing detailed descriptions of how the revenue was
assessed and collected within zamindaris were written after British rule began.
The best-known contemporary account is the Amini Commission's Report,28
submitted by three English officials in 1778 after more than a year's work with
the assistance of Gangagobind Sinha, an experienced revenue officer under the
Company and brother of a diwan under the nazims. The commission sent
Bengali amins (specially deputed officers) to the districts and collected three
rooms' full of Bengali and Persian accounts and records. These they analyzed
with the help of thirty clerks.29 Another useful account, written a decade or so
earlier and explicitly descriptive of pre-English revenue practice, is the Risala-
i-Ziraat of which no English translation has been published. It was prepared for
the East India Company by an author whose name was not preserved.30 Neither
account attempts to describe the many regional variations or changes in practice
and nomenclature in revenue collection; both are probably reasonably accurate
descriptions of the most common practices of the middle decades of the
eighteenth century, both before and after the transition from Mughal to British
rule, although they disagree on minor details.
What stands out in these two accounts is the degree to which the revenue-
collecting pyramid was layered and staffed in its middle levels by temporary
appointees. The temporariness of the positions and the elaborate record-keeping
requirements at all levels theoretically gave the highest zamindari officers the
ability to identify the source of shortages and defalcations and to remove the

27
Greenough, Prosperity and Misery, p. 47.
28
Published in Ramsbotham, Studies, pp. 99-134.
29
Ibid., pp. 77ff.
30
A rough translation appears as "Substance of a Treatise on the Revenues of Bengal, Translated
from the Persian," in Mr. Murray's Papers on the Revenues of Bengal, Home Misc., vol. 68.
The best summary is in Calkins, "Revenue Administration," chapter 6. It is also summarized
by Z.U. Malik, "Agrarian Structure of Bengal at the Beginning of British Conquest," in [Aligarh
Muslim University], Medieval India: A Miscellany (New York, 1977), pp. 177-202.
 Collecting rents and revenues 53

person responsible. The theory of complete information was offset by counter-

vailing realities of localism in large zamindaris. Many villages were up to a
day's walk from zamindari headquarters, many links in the revenue-collecting
chain separated the zamindari diwan from the cultivator, and so enterprising
were officers and dominant peasants in obscuring culpability that when a diwan
investigated a shortfall in the collections, he often found it difficult to discover
whether the cause was crop failure, peasant-local officer conspiracy, account-
ant embezzlement, or other factors.
The revenue passed through many hands before it reached the zamindar. A
large zamindar, we know from other sources, rarely supervised revenue collec-
tion closely and in the Company period was usually ignorant of the details of
revenue management.31 The zamindari diwan, with his naibs (deputies), man-
aged the collections and received the revenue from the mofussil. In large
zamindaris, the top intermediaries were revenue farmers, called kutkinadars and
mustajirs, who contracted to pay a fixed sum and profited from any excess
collections that they could obtain from their subordinate payers. 32 Below the
revenue farmers in large zamindaris were the shiqdars, who were the highest
intermediaries in smaller zamindaris. Shiqdars managed the collections for
"four or five" villages, 33 received a fixed fee which they deducted from the
collections, and were temporary, officers. A shiqdar, in turn, collected from
tarafdars. A taraf consisted of one village or three or four mauzas (the smallest
revenue unit, which in some cases was a small village). 34 A tarafdar also was a
temporary officer with a fixed allowance. He collected from the chief raiyats.
This elaborate hierarchy meant that between the time the revenue left the village
and was deposited in the zamindar's treasury, it might pass through at least five
offices: the tarafdar's, the shiqdar's, the kutkinadar's, the naib diwan's, and the
diwan's. Since most of these officers were assisted by clerks, gomashtas
(agents), rasngirs (land measurers), and/or foot soldiers, the number of people
involved in collecting, counting, recording, and transmitting each village's
installment was many more than five. Each office in the chain made deductions
in the process, to pay for their staffs of clerks and gomashtas, their record-keep-
ing expenses, and their own maintenance and profits. In addition, frequently
money-lenders and shroffs (money-changers) were present to make loans, to
count and weigh the payments, and to compute the shortages due to worn
coinage, all for a commission.

31
This view was nearly universal among eighteenth-century Company administrators. See John
Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, paras. 167-71.
32
Ramsbotham, Studies, p. 109; Calkins, "Revenue Administration," p. 181.
33
According to Risala-i-ziraat, Calkins, "Revenue Administration," p. 181.
34
According to Risala. But according to Raja Rajaballabh, the rairayan, a tarafdar was "a collector
of several villages." Calkins, "Revenue Administration," p. 196.
54 Bengal

Neither the Amini Report nor the Risala-i-ziraat indicates how often the
intermediaries were changed. However, the Amini Report states the shiqdar was
temporary and both imply that the kutkinadar or mustajir was also.35 We may
infer that the relations between these intermediaries and their subordinate
Revenue payers, where temporary, lacked the affective patrimonial qualities
associated with the zamindar himself.
Was the reliance on short-term appointees, rather than on hereditary local
chiefs, an eighteenth-century innovation adopted by the huge zamindars who
emerged under Murshid Quli Khan? Did the new zamindars imitate the more
centralized and bureaucratic practices of the Mughals, in an effort to increase
the efficiency of their collections in response to the pressure for higher revenue?
Did they seek to forge fresh chains of loyalty through the distribution of
patronage? We may surmise that this was so but evidence about pre-Murshid
Quli practices is too thin to permit a conclusion. The intermediaries performed
the extractive, bureaucratic work of the zamindari, sparing the raja from the
unpopular, coercive aspects of land management. "It is the custom of those who
are masters," wrote Jean Law after many years in Mughal Bengal, "to do nothing
themselves. The smallest zamindar has his clerks through whom business must
be transacted."36 The zamindar was left to act as the chief source of beneficence
and protector of his subjects against his subordinates' impositions, if he chose
to respond to complaints.
Zamindari accounting required professional training which was begun in
village schools and completed through experience in the kacharis. The Amini
Report listed eighteen separate accounts kept by village-level record keepers,
abstracts of which were sent upwards to the tarafdars, shiqdars, and kutkinadars.
These accounts specified the raiyats' names, boundaries, crops, leases, revenue
installments, payments, balances, etc.37 The number of specific charges de-
manded of raiyats in a single Mughal jurisdiction in Mir Qasim's time could
exceed 200.38 The complexity of the accounts required that intermediaries or
their naibs had advanced computational skills and this was one of the factors
that insured that they were recruited from the literate high castes.
In contrast to the chain of intermediaries appointed by the zamindari officers
and their temporary subordinates, the villagers involved in revenue collection
were part of a more or less permanent, corporate community. Within the village,
though, the peasants themselves were stratified. Most villages in western Bengal
had an "oligarchy" of dominant peasants, often of one or two castes, typically
Aguris, Kaibartas, or Sadgops, who controlled the use of the land and organized

35
Ramsbotham, Studies, p. 109; Calkins, "Revenue Administration," p. 181.
36
Memoir by Jean Law (1763), Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, vol. Ill, p. 160.
37
Ramsbotham, Studies, pp. 111-15.
38
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 59.
 Collecting rents and revenues 55

agricultural production. These dominant peasants are today called jotdars. 39

They cultivated part of their land, often with the help of hired laborers, and, if
their holdings were large enough, they rented out the balance, often on a half
and half share-cropping basis. Frequently, the most influential of the dominant
peasants was the mandal or muqaddam (village headman). He was selected by
his fellow villagers and he represented the village to outside interests and in
some villages settled disputes and collected the revenue. The Risala-i-ziraat
said that the mandal was in charge of five or six households,40 which probably
meant that he collected from the five or six major peasant families who in turn
sub-let to and hired a much larger group of cultivators. Another important
villager was the patwari, who was sometimes the same person as the mandal.
The patwari kept village revenue records and sometimes collected the revenue.
Since his position required knowledge of accounting, we may guess that he was
recruited from among literate families among the higher peasant castes or from
Brahmin or Kayastha families, some of whom were cultivators. British officials
usually assumed that the mandal and the patwari protected the villagers'
interests more often than the zamindar's, although in the Mughal period
patwaris may have been appointed by the qanungos (Mughal record keepers).
The mandal and other dominant peasants frequently enjoyed a privilege, in
addition to holding most of the land, that was denied to their more numerous
fellow villagers: they were permitted to cultivate more land than the land
management records showed. When the patwari and the gomashta of the
collection officer measured the lands of each peasant, they accepted a salami
(present) "at the time of seizing the rope" used for measuring and then under-
stated the area held.41 This under-measurement was depicted in English ac-
counts as a fraud perpetuated on the zamindar or the state. It was something
more. It must have provided the dominant raiyats with a reserve for years with
poor harvests. The high level of the state's demand provided little flexibility or
margin for such occurrences. If John Shore was right in estimating that revenue
collection under Company rule left peasants with only half their produce 42 and
if cultivation costs approximated half the balance, then most peasants who
sub-let from the dominant raiyats were perpetually close to the margin of
subsistence. In a drought or flood year, the dominant raiyats had to indulge their
sub-tenants with lower rents, loans, and/or postponement of debt repayment, or
risk having them migrate or fall ill. Viewed in this light, the common practice
of permitting the affluent raiyats to hold extra, hidden land should be seen as a

39
For an excellent discussion of the eighteenth-century "village oligarchies" of the jotdars, see
Ray, Change, pp. 52-72.
40
Calkins, "Revenue Administration," p. 183.
41
Malik, "Agrarian Structure," pp. 181-82.
42
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, paras. 109 and 145.
56 Bengal

functional and necessary compromise to maintain labor supply, minimum

nutrition, and the survival of the village community. The power of indulgence
was no less vital to the working of village moral economy than it was to the
operation of the zamindari as a whole.
British officials before 1800 did not comment often on relations between the
jotdars and their sub-tenants yet when they did, they rarely wrote of jotdar
indulgence. H.T. Colebrooke, in his measured, detailed account of Bengali
agriculture written on the basis of his experiences as a civil servant in north
Bengal in the 1790s, and while discussing bonded servitude and slavery,
commented that "the relation of master and slave appears to impose the duty of
protection and cherishment on the master, as much as that of fidelity and
obedience on the slave, and their mutual conduct is marked with gentleness and
indulgence on the one side, and with zeal and loyalty on the other." 43 The
numerous sub-tenants of the dominant raiyats were less well treated, in Cole-
brooke's view. Perpetually in debt and "depressed by excessive rent in kind ...
they cannot labour with spirit, while they earn a scanty subsistence without hope
of bettering their situation."44
The dominant peasants in the last three decades of the century, and presum-
ably throughout the century, acted collectively to protect their privileges. At the
mofussil puniya, they argued as a body against enhancements and measure-
ments which might have uncovered their hidden lands. They colluded with the
intermediaries to have the demand lowered. One common practice was for the
raiyats to obtain deductions at the start of the year on the pretext of a diminished
area sown and then agree to a special clandestine fee at the end of the year which
would not be entered into the intermediaries' records.45 They also engaged in
tumults, sent petitions, and descended in large bodies on the district headquar-
ters or even Calcutta to protest against the behavior of local zamindari or
Company employees. When these measures failed, groups and sometimes
whole villages migrated to escape oppression. The identity of interests among
the major jotdars in particular was sufficient to be a persistent source of
corporate action in rural areas where most supra-village political behavior was
organized around vertical patron-client ties.
Despite cooperative resistance of dominant jotdars to the exactions of
zamindari appointees, and despite presumed acts of indulgence, village unity
was limited by social and economic differentiation and segmentation. When
powerful jotdars obtained lower rents or unrecorded lands without a correspond-
ing reduction in the village's total assessment, others in the village might be

43
Colebrooke, Remarks, p. 80.
44
Ibid., p. 42.
45
Ranajit Sinha (pub.), Maharaja Debi Sinha (Calcutta, 1914), pp. 485-86.
 Collecting rents and revenues 57

assessed to make up the difference. Resentment of privileges may have been

tempered by a culturally conditioned expectation of differential rates of assess-
ments or by fellow-feeling when the caste of the privileged jotdars and their
sub-tenants was the same. But village solidarity was attenuated and frequently
met its limits in the structural divide between the clean castes and the degraded
jal-achal castes (from whom Brahmins will not accept water), such as Bagdis
and Bauris, who supplied most of the hired labor, lived in semi-detached
hamlets, formed separate worship groups without the service of respectable
Brahmins, and had distant relations with most middle and high caste people. In
northwest Bengal at the turn of the century, and perhaps elsewhere, almost half
the cultivators were landless laborers.46

Nawabi abwabs
The main variability in the revenue system came not from preferential arrange-
ments given to individual favorites, as common as that was. Rather, special
cesses or imposts, called abwabs, taken proportionally from all revenue payers
in each zamindari, were the more common source of instability in the revenue
demand. The accounts kept in the capital, in the zamindari kachari, and in each
village distinguished between the asal jama ("original" demand) and the
abwabs. The asal jama was a relatively stable amount and was theoretically
connected in some way to Todar Mai's land settlement of the 1580s or to some
subsequent Mughal settlement.47 In fact, in the Company period the abwabs had
no general proportional relation to what was called the asal jama because in
most areas some abwabs had been consolidated into the asal jama figure so that
the figure was no longer asal or original.48 In one area that total demand might
consist of one part asal jama and five parts abwabs while in another the
proportions might be reversed.
The great growth in the state's revenue demand in the eighteenth century took
place under the heading of abwabs. Abwabs continued into the nineteenth
century as the largest source of variation in what a zamindar demanded from
his tenants. James Grant, in his treatise on revenue, blamed the later nazims for
deviating from the ideal, systematic Mughal principles of revenue assessment,
by making increases by adding proportional abwabs onto an older assessment
instead of measuring cultivated land to form an accurate, current assessment.

46
Montgomery Martin, The History, Antiquities, Topography, and Statistics of Eastern India, vol.
II (London, 1838), pp. 686 and 912.
47
Amini Commission Report, Ramsbotham, Studies, p. 110.
48
See John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, para 397, and Narendra Krishna Sinha, The Economic
History of Bengal from Plassey to the Permanent Settlement (3 vols., Calcutta, 1956-62), vol.
II, p. 207.
58 Bengal

What Grant's argument minimized was that landholders had always levied
temporary cesses on their subjects to pay for special needs, such as wars,
weddings, and funerals, and that Bengal had never been systematically meas-
ured. But Grant's main point stands: the abwabs levied by the later nazims (and
continued by the British) were arbitrary in the sense that they were rarely based
on a detailed survey of the current state of cultivation. 49 Their magnitude and
arbitrariness seems to have provoked conflict and instability in the whole pattern
of zamindari relationships, and that accounts as much as any other factor for the
British perception that revenue obligations with the zamindari system lacked
regularity, fairness, and rationality.
Each of the abwabs levied on the zamindars by the eighteenth-century nazims
had a specific justification even though the actual motivation in any given case
may have been simply to increase the state's revenue. The stated purposes of
the dozen classes of abwabs added from Murshid Quli Khan to Qasim Ali ranged
from cesses on new zamindari profits (kaifiyat) resulting from extension of
cultivation and surplus collections, to cesses to pay the Maratha chauth, to
cesses to pay for gifts to the emperor on Islamic festivals, to build a mansion
for Alivardi's grandson (Siraj-ud-daula), and to compensate the state for the
short-weight of used coins. Some abwabs were distributed more or less evenly
throughout the province, as pro-rated increases on the former demand, while
others, such as kaifiyat, were confined to particular territories. 50 As we have
seen, the abwabs almost doubled the state's land revenue demands, from Rs.
1.31 krors to Rs. 2.56 krors between 1700 and 1763. In most years, neither the
nazims nor the Company m the early years of British rule succeeded in
collecting anything close to the full assessment. The Company's Permanent
Settlement of 1793 fixed the land revenue demand at Rs. 2.68 krors, of which
almost Rs. 2.20 krors was for Bengal proper, without Bihar and Orissa.51

Zamindari abwabs
After nawabi abwabs were added to the demand on the zamindars, the zamindars
naturally passed on the new obligations in their engagements with their subor-
dinates. Since accounting practices differed from those of the provincial gov-
ernment, as well as among themselves, only some of the nawabi abwabs showed
up in zamindari mofussil accounts. Moreover, zamindars levied a whole differ-
ent class of imposts. Zamindari abwabs, in contract to the nawabi abwabs, were
usually temporary and were ostensibly for a purpose related to the particular
circumstances of the zamindar. When a zamindar had a marriage, funeral,

49
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," pp. 205ff.
50
Ibid.
51
Marshall, New Cambridge History of India, II.2, p. 141.
 Collecting rents and revenues 59

pilgrimage, or other ritual occasion to observe, or debts to discharge, he added

temporary abwabs.52 In some years, the number of such abwabs mentioned on
one person's account ran into the dozens. The antiquity, range, and purpose of
these local cesses may be gauged by Aurangzib's farmans (imperial decrees)
of 1665 and 1673 banning unauthorized abwabs levied by zamindars and
mansabdars. Jadunath Sarkar grouped these banned abwabs into six categories.
It is notable that the categories included imposts on almost every group in the
population, including revenue-free landholders, and that all but the sixth
matched the abwabs listed in British government records in the nineteenth
century, long after the Company banned them:
1. "Duties on the local sale of produce," such as fish, milk and curds, clay pots,
and cow-dung cakes.
2. "Fee on the sale of immoveable property," such as land, houses, and trees.
3. "Perquisites exacted" by officials, such as collectors of arrears or land
measurers, for their own or the state's benefit.
4. "License-tax for plying certain trades," such as "carting, animal slaughtering,
cloth printing, thatching, vegetable selling, and cutting grass or wood in the
jungle."
5. "Forced subscriptions" of gifts or unpaid labor to visiting officials and other
dignitaries such as zamindars and religious preceptors.
6. "Special imposts on Hindus."
The multiplicity of abwabs implies that authority required repeated affirmation
and that it could not be reconfirmed without at least a symbolic payment to its
holder.
The variability of the zamindar's collections from year to year was rooted
both in the material conditions of agriculture and in Bengali cultural prefer-
ences. The fickleness of the weather produced a highly unstable income while
the state demanded a revenue with few downward variations before 1790 and
none after 1790. Those poor peasants who paid a share of their harvest in kind
were less vulnerable to price fluctuations than the dominant raiyats and the
intermediaries above them who paid rents in cash. Although Bengal experi-
enced fewer famines than most parts of India, its crop prices fluctuated widely.
H.T. Colebrooke wrote about rice that "when the crops of corn are very
abundant, it is not only cheap, but wants a real market ... Without famine or
scarcity we have known corn four times dearer at the first hand one year than
in preceding."54 If a jotdar found himself without sufficient income to pay the
zamindar's demand, he had three options short of disobedience or migration:
he could pay the current demand from his savings if he had any, he could borrow

52
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, paras. 437-40.
53
Sarkar, Mughal Administration, pp. 77-90.
54
Colebrooke, Remarks, p. 67.
60 Bengal

from his superior or another lender, or he could seek the zamindari agent's
indulgence in the form of a reduction or postponement of the demand. Given
that rental demands left many raiyats with little more than a subsistence, that
raiyats were generally indebted, and that zamindars went to prison or surren-
dered land while claiming deficiencies, it seems certain that zamindari officers
often had to choose whether to indulge or coerce individual raiyats. What the
Collector of Midnapur said in 1821 about that district was probably true of most
of the province: "it has been customary throughout this District for the Land-
holders on settling their accounts at the end of the year to make abatements on
account of Calamities of Season." 55 When they lowered the demand in one part
of their territory, they often tried to bring their aggregate collections up to the
level of the government's demand by imposing abwabs on the raiyats in the less
affected areas.56
Statistically, the smaller the unit ot collection, the greater was the probability
of wide fluctuation. The government of Bengal fixed its demand in relation to
the mean annual production for the whole province but the harvest and price of
crops in any particular village or pargana were likely to deviate from the mean
by a significant amount at least occasionally. To take an extreme case, the
Boonun pargana in Nadia had a jama of Rs. 91,211 in 1776-77 which, due to
crop failure and population loss, was reduced to Rs. 55,001 in 1788-89.
However, natural calamities in 1788-89 reduced the actual receipts to Rs.
28,000. 57 A zamindar in possession of such a decayed pargana would look to
his other parganas - and abwabs - to compensate for the deficiency.
Most abwabs in the Company period were not labeled or conceived as
meeting the state's demands but were instead intended for the special expenses
of zamindars, their officers, or village communities. The marriage of a zamindar
was the occasion for one of the largest abwabs, called a mangun. Mangun
literally means begging or request and it was imposed for a major life-cycle
ceremony in the zamindar's family, including marriages, the birth of a son or
daughter, or shraddhas (death ceremonies). 58 It was also an abwab which
villagers expected to pay. When Raja Tilakchandra of Burdwan was married in
1749, the raiyats paid a mangun of Rs. 1,18,718 or an addition of roughly 4
percent on the usual zamindari jama. The Burdwan Provincial Council com-
mented that Raja Tilakchandra's marriage mangun "appears to have been a
voluntary contribution from the Inhabitants in support of the credit and dignity
of their natural Zamindar."59 The mangun probably was "voluntary" in the sense

55
E.R. Barwell, Midnapur Col., to BOR, 7 Sept. 1821, BOR Prog. 35 of 12 Aug. 1822, vol. 643.
56
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 237.
57
Ibid., paras. 502-03.
58
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, pp. 135-36.
59
Burdwan PCOR to GG, 1 Nov. 1775, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 1 Nov. 1775, vol. II.
 Collecting rents and revenues 61

of "without objection" rather than that of "being volunteered." It is easy to see

why raiyats might have been willing to pay the mangun. If they believed, as
many villagers did, that they belonged to a hierarchical community headed by
the raja, they may have expected to benefit from their raja'sritualand conse-
quent good fortune. Part or all of the mangun was returned to the community
in the form of sweets, a communal feast, presents to Brahmins and other
important people, and a spectacle to enjoy. Similar reasoning may also have
worked in the Durga, Rath, and other public pujas for which abwabs, in cash
and kind, were commonly taken. The zamindar of Mysadul in Midnapur in the
1870s described the Rs. 4,000-4,500 expenditure on the Rath festival, which
his family had started performing long before 1790, as "incurred in feeding the
ryots and poor and helpless persons; all the ryots attend the festival, and
themselves pull the car from religious motives."60
Another occasional zamindari abwab was to help the zamindar when he
was in difficulty. This was also called a mangun or sometimes a bhikhya.
The most common kind of difficulty was falling into arrears to government
or in debt to bankers. How dependents felt about that abwab must have been
affected by how the zamindar's need originated. Natural disaster may have
generated more willingness to pay than a raja's profligacy or embezzlement
by his amla (officers). In deciding whether to protest or refuse payment of
abwabs, fear of an unknown, new zamindar and the arrival of new amla and
intermediate tenure-holders often outweighed the hardship of a temporary
abwab.
Privileged villagers who enjoyed unauthorized rent-free plots, conces-
sionary rental rates, or the positions of headman or gomashta were likely to
urge fellow villagers to accept unpopular abwabs. The uncertainties of new
management threatened their positions, their privileges. The Collector of
Burdwan wrote in 1820 that the village headman, who generally held hidden
unassessed land, dictated to the other raiyats what to do when new demands
were made upon them. "Whatever they dictate the Ryots will agree to
without a murmur of objection whether it be to resist paying a cowry of rent
or to encrease it or whether for every Ryot to present a Nuzzur to the
Talookdar or that they should turn out in a body and drive him and his
Gomastah out of the village."61
Another category of abwab-like payments emphasized the zamindar's social
dominance as bhuswami or lord of the soil and his responsibility for upholding

60
C.T. Buckland, Com. of Burdwan Div., to GOB, Jud. Dept., 27 March 1873, Papers Regarding
the Collection of Illegal Cesses in Bengal, Selections from the Records of the Government of
Bengal, no. XLVI (Calcutta, 1873), p. 208. This source is hereafter cited as "Papers Regarding
Illegal Cesses."
61
J.E. Elliott, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 22 Feb. 1820, BOR Prog. 15 of 14 March 1820, vol. 607.
62 Bengal

proper behavior. These were fines on the occasion of villagers' marriages and
other life-cycle ceremonies, as well as on a violation of sanctioned standards of
conduct. These fines were not of much economic importance to the zamindar 62
but were symbols of his mastership over his prajas or subjects. T e most
common such fine, according to a nineteenth-century inquiry into abwabs, was
the marriage abwab (marucha or bie-dan) which ranged from a few annas to
several rupees, depending on the status of the family. The zamindar of Mysadul
justified the marriage fee in the 1870s in these words: "according to the Hindoo
Shastra no one celebrates the marriage ceremony of his son and daughter
without paying something in the shape of pronamee (money paid out of
respect)."63 Similarly, when brothers separated their households, usually after
the death of their father, an abwab was demanded. Fines were also levied on
barbers, midwives, dhobis (clothes washers) and other occupational groups for
the privilege of serving a village. After a person was outcasted for transgressing
behavioral norms, reinstatement often required payment of a fine to the
zamindar. Fornication with a widow and a prohibited inter-jati marriage were
examples.64 And when villagers brought disputes or criminal complaints to a
zamindari court, they were fined. Many preferred this to the expensive and
lengthier procedures of the government courts.65 In some zamindaris, tenants
paid salami (presents) to the zamindar for the privilege of using status emblems
such as palanquins, umbrellas, and shoes.66
Other impositions taken by almost all zamindars in Bengal in the 1870s, eight
decades after they were declared illegal, were payments for the zamindar's
contribution to moving the dak (mail) through his estate; batta or oozun
(compensation for worn, light, depreciated coins paid as rent); 67 a fee equaling
25 to 100 percent of a tenant's annual rent when there was a change in the
tenant's name registered in the zamindari records; and a nazr to show respect
when an absentee landholder visited his estate. Begar or forced labor was often

62
In 1761-2, the Burdwan zamindari accounts show an estimated income of Rs. 50,000 under the
heading of Bazi (miscellaneous) Jama for fines and forfeitures. This equaled about 1.6 percent
of the zamindari's total jama. Gokhal Majumdar's Estimate of Burdwan Revenues, 1761-2,
Committee of New Lands, Accounts Received, 1761, Range 98, vol. 10.
63
List and analysis of Midnapur cesses submitted by L. Harrison, Midnapur Col., enclosure to
C.T. Buckland, letter of 27 March 1873.
64
H.A. Cockerell, Offg. Com. of Presidency Div., to GOB, Rev. Dept., 5 July 1872, Papers
Regarding Illegal Cesses.
65
E.W. Molony, Com. of Rajshahi Div., to GOB, Rev. Dept., 19 April 1872, ibid.
66
Sirajul Islam, The Permanent Settlement in Bengal: A Study of its Operation, 1790-1819
(Dacca, 1979), p. 225.
67
Zamindars could gain or lose in converting currency into a form which the government would
accept. In 1800, Burdwan zamindars were losing 3-4 percent to poddars who changed the six
kinds of rupees in circulation into acceptable currency. Y. Burges, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 9
Jan. 1800£L/,p.411.
 Collecting rents and revenues 63

required as well. This is by no means a full list but rather some of the most
common zamindari imposts.68

Village abwabs
A further category of cesses reinforces the notion that villagers may have
frequently understood abwabs to serve a corporate purpose. These were gram
mathuts (village cesses). Gram mathuts included demands imposed by village
leaders on their fellow inhabitants, usually for the benefit of the community.
Their character is revealed in a 1789 report about a village called Jyrambatty
from a Company officer assigned to Bishnupur. The village's jama was Rs. 693
and the mathuts consisted of fifty-one items amounting to an additional Rs. 60.
The mathuts were designated for a broad range of economic, political, charita-
ble, and ritual purposes. Two of the items were for the expenses of raiyats and
Bydenaut Mundull while at Indas, the administrative headquarters of Bishnu-
pur. Presumably a delegation of Jyrambatty raiyats and the village mandal had
gone in deputation to Indas to plead for a lower revenue assessment or against
the oppression of a local official. Perhaps it was a year of drought in Jyrambatty,
for one cess was paid to an amin for permission to drain the tanks (possibly for
irrigation), another was for coolie hire, a third for tank repair.69 Or perhaps the
village leaders had decided to improve the reservoir capacity of the village's
tanks.
Another group of cesses given that year in Jyrambatty went to notable
individuals. These payments included nazrs or presents to a new gosain (men-
dicant), a young raja, and the caretaker of a temple or shrine; faujdari salami or
a present to the police; and fish for one Ramnarain and one Pancharam Nundy.
Certain cesses were for services performed for the village, including wages for
the poddars or money-changers who may have counted and sorted the variety
of coinages in which the village paid its revenue, payments to aghatwal (guard)
and a mali (florist), and payments for the tank repairs mentioned above. Other
cesses were for charitable-type distributions tofaqirs and a bairagi (mendicant),
to "trembling girls," and to the shraddha of one Golamy Doss.70 The cess for
"trembling girls" might have been for a village entertainment but more likely it
was to engage a healing or ritual specialist to try to overcome a nervous disorder
or spirit possession. Golamy Doss' shraddh was paid for by the villagers,
perhaps because the deceased left no family to pay for the ceremony. The

68
H.A. Cockerell, letter of 5 July 1872.
69
A. Hesilrige, Asst. on deputation at Bishnupur, to C. Keating, Birbhum Col., 22 Oct. 1789,
BOR, Misc., Prog., 1-18 March 1790, vol. 86.
70
Ibid.
64 Bengal

villagers may have worried that Golamy Doss' spirit would bother them without
the proper rituals or they may have felt a communal responsibility to ensure that
the obligations of dharma were fulfilled, to keep up the village's sattvagun (that
which inspires virtue).71

Payments to intermediaries
The final set of payments taken from village revenue payers were the fees and
abwabs paid to the intermediaries in the collection hierarchy. We saw that
ijaradars, kutkinadars, shiqdars, and tarafdars each were permitted to deduct
from the village collections sums for the wages and expenses of their naibs
(deputies), writers, vakils (legal practitioners), and peons. John Shore estimated
in 1789 that the cost of collections from the zamindar downwards equaled 15
percent of the government's net demand and that the profits of the intermediar-
ies between the raiyats and the government amounted to an additional 35
percent.72 This meant that roughly a third of what raiyats paid went into the
hands of the zamindars and their subordinate collectors.
Some zamindari servants, including the village watchmen, received land
assignments in lieu of salaries73 but most seem to have been salaried, with
allowances authorized for their expenses. The salaries of many zamindari and
intermediaries' servants were so low that they often imposed unauthorized
demands of their own upon the villagers. The practice was so widespread that
there seems to have been an implicit understanding that naibs, amins, gomash-
tas, etc., would supplement their salaries. In the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries in Burdwan and elsewhere, naibs responsible for collecting
tens of thousands of rupees each year received monthly salaries of Rs. 6-20.74
Often their real income was greater by far. A collector in Jessore district reported
that a landholder with a jama of Rs. 14,599 replaced his naib every six months
or so, on a monthly salary of Rs. 20, and that each new naib paid Rs. 2-3,000
salami for the appointment.75 The general custom was for a naib or his subor-
dinates on tour to charge villagers both for their maintenance and for the revenue
transactions they performed. In Burdwan in 1872, presents required included a
patta salami when a tenant's lease was signed; a present to the clerk who wrote
a rent receipt; presents at the annual puniya when accounts were audited; and a

71
See M. Davis, Rank and Rivalry, pp. 142-43, on villagers' reaction to the failure of a family to
perform shraddh.
72
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 109.
7?
Minute by John Sumner on the Method of Revenue Collections, 10 Dec. 1765, M.E. Monckton
Jones, Warren Hastings in Bengal, 1772-1774 (Oxford, 1918), p. 71.
74
See career histories of applicants for the positions of qanungo. BOR Prog. 18 of 10 Aug. 1819,
vol. 599.
75
C. Tucker, Jessore Col., to BOR, 18 Dec. 1819, Prog. lOof 21 Jan. 1820, BOR, vol. 605.
 Collecting rents and revenues 65

present when a well, tank, or tree was consecrated.76 Similar payments were
required when land management officers came to a village to collect arrears,
settle disputes, or measure fields. In short, the employees of zamindars and of
their intermediaries lived off the land and their descent on a village was therefore
an unwelcome occasion for villagers who had to maintain and gratify them.
The indeterminancy of the gratuities, abwabs, and the land revenue demand
had a revealing parallel in the matter of military pay under the nazims. Infantry
and cavalry were recruited with the promise of a monthly salary and the
expectation of extra donations or "prize-money" and opportunities to pillage
after victories in battle. Yet at least from Alivardi's time, soldiers serving the
nazim were kept in arrears, sometimes for over a year at a time. The motive at
times was to discourage soldiers from deserting. The effect was to undermine
discipline and convert the start of military campaigns into a confrontation
between importunate soldiers and their commanders for payment of back and
future wages and promises of prize-money. On occasion, the negotiations
determined whether near-mutinous troops would attack their commander or the
enemy. As with revenue collection, the uncertainty and inherent need for
negotiation seemed to be a method to maintain control and reassert personal
authority.77

Conclusion
From the start of Company rule, British officials tried to impose greater order
and regularity on the collection of revenue from zamindari dependents. Through
several decades of experimentation and gathering information, they tried to
stabilize the state's demand on the zamindars so that the demand would be
predictable, known. They expected the zamindars to do the same for their
subordinates. They issued numerous regulations instructing zamindars about
what they could and could not collect, prescribing the form of pattas (written
agreements) each superior raiyat was to receive, and encouraging the use of
standardized rates of assessment.
A series of factors frustrated these orders. By the mid-eighteenth century,
zamindari abwabs had become, if they had not always been, much more than a
way of paying for a zamindar's rituals and occasional debts. They were rather
a necessary means of bringing zamindari income up to the level of the state's
revenue demand, a universal feature of land management. Hard-pressed reve-

76
T.B. Lane, Offg. Com., Burdwan, to GOB, Jud. Dept., 1 Oct. 1872, Papers Regarding Illegal
Cesses, p. 205.
77
See Datta, Alivardi, pp. 121 and 145; Khan, Seir, vol. II, p. 272; Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57,
vol. I. p. 265; and Robert Orme, Historical Fragments, pp. 417-19.
66 Bengal
nue payers clung to the hopes that abwabs were temporary, that government
officers or landholders would realize that the demand was impossibly high.
Most raiyats balked at accepting pattas, fearing that to do so would be tanta-
mount to agreeing to the permanency of the abwabs. Zamindari servants found
that raiyats could be compelled to pay a particular abwab for only a few years
and they then removed them and added new ones, on different pretexts. In that
way, the demand on most raiyats was in constant flux and raiyats did not know
what their continuing obligations were.78
Company officials sought to escape from the cyclical struggle by ordering
the consolidation of reasonable abwabs into a single demand and elimination
of unauthorized abwabs. The Committee of Revenue, recognizing that
zamindari accounting practices varied from village to village, considered "local
scrutiny" in 1776 but, realizing it would take at least two or three years, decided
against it. Instead, it advocated banning only certain abwabs, which it imagined
had been added since 1768-69, since the government's demand had stabilized.
These included abwabs for the repair of river embankments, village police, short
weight of coins paid by raiyats, and mangun (ceremonial costs).79
Zamindars continued to levy abwabs without regard to government regula-
tions; most raiyats still refused to accept pattas. The East India Company pressed
its revenue demands more efficiently than most of its Mughal predecessors and
compelled landholders, in effect, to employ all the collecting methods at their
disposal.
Abwabs were often the vehicle for these increases. Because many abwabs
were occasional, they gave zamindars a flexibility that the more permanent jama
did not offer. For example, after the famine of 1769-70 killed off as much as a
third of the population in some districts and left deserted perhaps 18 percent of
Bengal's cultivated land,80 zamindars raised the rent of the surviving cultivators
to compensate for the loss of their fellow villagers and to meet the Company's
virtually unadjusted, undiminished revenue demand.
Another situation in which new abwabs were likely to be added on to the
usual rental was following the turnover of zamindars and their intermediaries.
Two periods of Company rule were notable for such turnovers: the 1770s and
the 1790s. In the 1770s, Warren Hastings' administration auctioned off reve-
nue-collecting rights to ijaradars (revenue farmers) for five years. Ijaradars often
found that the rental assets of the villages they farmed were underrated, as a
result of collusive record falsification, and fell into arrears. Moreover, as their
leases approached expiration, the money-lenders and bankers refused, unless

78
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, paras. 220, 2 4 1 , 4 0 8 - 4 1 .
79
COR to GG, 28 June 1776, Burdwan PCOR, vol. 15.
80
Kumar and Desai (eds.), Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. II, pp. 131-32.
 Collecting rents and revenues 67

offered good security, to advance the loans that revenue payers traditionally
relied upon. Therefore, the farmers and the kutkinadars heaped new abwabs
onto the raiyats to achieve liquidity. In Burdwan, large numbers of raiyats
complained in 1775 that the ijaradars were charging them improperly for
settling their disputes; short-weighted coins; repairs of embankments; the costs
of ghi (clarified butter) used at pujas; weddings of the raja, the ijaradar, and his
naibs; share-cropped land; and trees, fish, and straw for which the raiyats said
they had never paid before. The Burdwan Provincial Council sent amins into
the mofussil to investigate the complaints and the result was, according to the
Burdwan ijaradars, that the raiyats withheld their rents and engaged in distur-
bances. The Burdwan Council, always primarily concerned about the security
of the revenue, decided to suspend the inquiry until the end of the collections
and accordingly withdrew the amins.81 The ijaradars and their dependent
kutkinadars, knowing their tenure was about to end, tried to collect as much as
they could from the raiyats so they could finish with a profit, or at least without
arrears and the prospect of prison.
The other period in which management of revenue collections changed hands
rapidly was in the decade following the Permanent Settlement of 1793. Once
again, abwabs were one means by which the new holders and their amla were
able to make up deficiencies in the rent rolls they obtained from the ousted
zamindars. Such deficiencies were common because zamindari officials often
falsified rent rolls and receipts prior to relinquishing to purchasers, in order to
undermine the newcomers and keep alive the possibility of recovering their
lands.
The high variability of zamindari demands and the political considerations
that entered into their distribution ultimately defeated British efforts to impose
reforms through administrative fiat. The very impermanence of the demands
led Company servants to focus on its opposite: a perpetual settlement. A
permanent tax was a fiscal oddity, born of perplexity and frustration. It was a
decision that was intended to let the market for forfeited rights and the new debt
laws accomplish what the British had failed to do - create regularity in agrarian
relations.
By the end of the eighteenth century, the British were trying to transform the
complex, localized, irregular, and contested exchange of services, produce, and
cash to a more uniform, regular, predictable, contractual, and commercial
system. They wanted to limit what they considered arbitrary, personal, and
despotic authority and to transfer much of that authority, including judicial and
police powers, from local magnates to state employees. They wanted an
impersonal market to allocate what personal authority had previously deter-

81
Burdwan PCOR, Prog, of 29 Dec. 1775, vol. II, and Prog, of 8 Jan. 1776, vol. 12.
68 Bengal

mined. When Company officials examined the zamindari system, they tended
to look at it exclusively as a revenue-collecting system and to miss both the
ways in which it had once worked as a moral economy based on personal and
constantly employed discretion and the ways in which the Company's own high
revenue demands had distorted the working of the traditional system and
compelled an increase in coercion.
Nevertheless, the abwab remained a central feature of the zamindari system,
a patrimonial survival. A resolution of the Revenue Department in 1873, after
noting the near-ubiquity of abwabs, concluded that "the system of illegal
exactions is ... in such universal vogue, is so deeply rooted, and so many social
relations depend thereon, that it becomes a question whether it is desirable that
Government" should take strong or general actions against abwabs. While
refusing to admit abwabs were legal, the government was resigned to their
continuation and it satisfied itself by ordering Magistrate-Collectors to "inter-
fere in the case of any extreme oppression."82

82
Resolution of the Rev. Dept., Land Rev., 30 May 1873, Papers Regarding Illegal Cesses, p. 187.
 Coercion

Physical coercion of delinquent rent and revenue payers was a routine feature
of Mughal Bengali life. Bengali political practice treated the administering of
corporal punishment according to dharmic rules as a necessary ingredient of
localized authority and as a ritual of power. Authority to punish wrong-doing
and compel the payment of revenue was delegated so that any person assigned
to gather revenue enjoyed a defacto power to punish and coerce, usually without
more than nominal supervision by state employees. Detentions, mild beatings,
and the use of peons or foot soldiers to force people to pay their revenue were
general phenomena in the early decades of Company rule and, almost as
certainly, in the pre-Company period as well.
By the time the British began to rule Bengal, British attitudes towards
non-familial chastisement were evolving towards a view that the individual
should be a special object of protection by society's rules, by formal law.
Eighteenth-century liberalism increasingly regarded physical coercion as the
proper monopoly of the state and viewed private or non-state detentions,
beatings, and torture as illegitimate, as a violation of the rights of individuals.
Implicitly, some employees of the East India Company began to question an
element of Bengali social organization that accepted the prerogative of leaders
of innumerable small, local hierarchies to assume and imitate the functions of
the raja in disciplining their subjects.
When Company servants objected to zamindari coercion of their tenants, they
initially faulted the private agency of corporate punishment rather than the
punishment itself. Michel Foucault is helpful here in understanding both British
and Bengali attitudes. He has reminded us that public torture of criminals died
out in Europe only in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. 1 At that
time, the penitentary and penal labor were institutions largely of the future.
Foucault's argument was that when an economy was still feudal, property was
not sufficiently individualized to make its seizure a common form of punish-
ment and the body was "in most cases the only property accessible."2 "Penal

1
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York, 1977), p. 8.
2
Ibid., p. 24.

69
70 Bengal

torture" was administered both as a means to find the truth and to punish. It
often was substituted for a formal inquiry.
Beneath an apparently determined search for truth, one finds in classical torture the
regulated mechanism of an ordeal: a physical challenge that must define the truth; if the
patient is guilty, the pains that it imposes are not unjust; but it is also a mark of exculpation
if he is innocent. In the practice of torture, pain, confrontation and truth were bound
together: they worked together on the patient's body ... It is as if investigation and
punishment had become mixed.3
In Bengali revenue collection, a similar process was at work. Often zamindari
collection agents did not know if tenants were able to pay the demands and
therefore the agents used detentions and beatings simultaneously to discover
the veracity of tenant pleas of poverty and to punish them for their delinquency.
Company employees in some cases objected to these procedures but had no
mechanism with which to replace them until the introduction of mofussil courts
in the 1790s.
Nevertheless, almost from the beginning of Company rule, Company ser-
vants sought to bring certain types of punishment under the control of state
institutions. In 1773, Warren Hastings asserted the principle that the state was
the proper locus of the right to sentence murderers, carry out the sentence, and
pardon murderers. He denounced as "barbarous" the Islamic laws which al-
lowed the kin of murdered people either to pardon or to carry out the sentence
on the convicted killer. They were, he said, "contrary to the first principle of
Civil society, by which the State acquires an interest in every member who
composes it and a right in his security."4 The authority and discretionary power
in murder cases that Hastings reserved for the state, and denied to private
individuals, was later also claimed in revenue- and rent-collection coercion.
British Company servants not only wanted to change the agency of coercion;
they ultimately came to regard customary modes of coercion as illegitimate,
even uncivilized. They still considered detention as acceptable, if publicly
authorized, but they denounced and then made illegal the infliction of pain on
debtors and criminals, with the exception of murderers and gang robbers.
Distraint or forfeiture of property (crops, money, moveable property, or land)
gradually replaced private detentions and beatings as the sanctioned form of
coercion, on the assumption that distraint and forfeiture were more humane and
efficient. Company servants tended to assume that, because compulsion was
discretionary, it must also have been arbitrary and that because cases of cruelty
were uncovered, the more common coercive practices were also inhumane.
They failed to understand that in revenue collection the degrees of compulsion

3
Ibid., p. 41.
4
Hastings to BOR, 3 Aug. 1773, Monckton Jones, Hastings in Bengal, p.333.
 Coercion 71
were finely graded and often moderated by a sense of limits, by a set of cultural
norms, just as they underestimated how the Company's policy of revenue
maximization operated to push people to violate those norms. Whether Bengalis
considered loss of property more humane that bodily coercion was not seriously
considered.
The frequency with which zamindars' agents found it necessary to resort to
physical compulsion did not mean that villagers questioned their obligation to
pay either the state's demand or the intermediates' personal expenses. State and
zamindari exactions were both historically familiar and culturally sanctioned.
The key to understanding the pattern of detentions and beatings which charac-
terized revenue collection seems rather to lie in the variability, high levels, and
state-driven increases of revenue demands and in the traditional Mughal and
Hindu views that physical compulsion was an essential ingredient of political
authority. Moreover, physical coercion often served as a substitute for field-by-
field assessments in determining what a peasant or intermediary could pay.
Measured coercion was a test of wills and endurance entered into repeatedly,
in game-like fashion. On one side, willingness to suffer confinement and
corporal punishment was often as much a method of avoiding increased de-
mands as a sign of over-assessment; on the other, force was applied to discover
whether an assessee was sincere in claiming the demands were impractically
high. In this endlessly repeated contest, coercion, like the periodic alterations
in revenue and rent demands, was a means of reaffirming authority.

The coercive enviornment

To understand better the use of compulsion in zamindari revenue collection, we
first consider how pervasively both the state and local powerholders employed
physical force in political competition, trade, and revenue and judicial admini-
stration. Distinctions between state and private authority were usually ignored
before the 1770s, except in the matter of capital punishment. Elaborate separa-
tion of state and private functions did not reach the mofussil until the 1790s
when the Company introduced a mofussil civil court system, legally forbade
physical coercion of renters, abolished zamindari police authority, and estab-
lished its own mofussil police force. Until that time, and sometimes after it, a
private individual might simultaneously collect revenue, coerce defaulters,
punish crime, settle civil disputes, and enforce Hindu or Islamic behavioral
codes.
Eighteenth-century nazims, with militaristic mentalities and with over-
whelming military superiority over the divided, poorly armed zamindars, at-
tacked, dispossessed, and imprisoned disobedient rajas without fear of effective
opposition. Murshid Quli Khan and Qasim Ali (1760-63) confined and replaced
large numbers of zamindars and Shuja-ud-din sent armed forces against outly-
72 Bengal

ing districts to increase their payments. The harshest pre-1760 collection

measures recorded are attributed to Murshid Quli's regime. He disciplined and
punished amils (collectors), accountants, record keepers, and land measurers by
placing guards over or confining them while denying them food, drink, and
"calls of nature."5 He was just as tough with zamindars.6 Nazir Ahmad, formerly
a foot soldier, was said to be responsible for trying to make defaulting zamindars
pay up.
He used to suspend the zemindars by the heels, and after rubbing the soles of their feet
with a hard brick, bastinado them with a switch. In the winter, he would order them to
be stripped naked, and then sprinkled with water. And he also used to have them flogged,
till they consented to pay the money.7
Sayyid Reza Khan, Murshid Quli's deputy diwan and husband of his grand-
daughter, was reported to put defaulting amils and zamindars into a pit
which was filled with human excrement in such a state of putrefecation as to be full of
worms, and the stench was so offensive, that it almost suffocated whoever came near it
... He also used to oblige them to wear leather long drawers, filled with live cats. He
would force them to drink buffaloe's milk mixed with salt, till brought them to death's
door by a diarrhoea.8
Whether these stories were true or not,9 there is no reason to doubt that
Murshid Quli Khan was uncompromising in his efforts to bring discipline to
this disorderly province. According to Salim Allah, when the kotwal (police
officer) of Hughli took a young girl from her father, Murshid Quli had him
stoned to death. The officer he appointed to suppress robbery along the road to
Burdwan always cut the criminals in two after he caught them.10 Murshid Quli
even executed his own son in connection with "the death of an oppressed
man."11
Murshid Quli used physical coercion for the "public" purposes of collecting
revenues and punishing criminal behavior; Shuja-ud-din and Alivardi are not
on record as using similar rigor for administrative goals. However, from
Alivardi's time onwards both political murders and the forcing of people to
gratify the sexual and other personal appetites of the nazims' family increased.

5
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, p. 92.
6
Sarkar (ed.), History, vol. II, p. 409.
7
[Allah], Narrative, p. 61.
8
Ibid., p. 80.
9
Karim doubts them because they were based on a single source (Salim Allah) and do not fit
Murshid Quli's reputation for justice. Murshid Quli Khan, p. 89. Ghulam Husain Khan (Seir,
vol. I, p. 279), however, said that Murshid Quli imprisoned zamindars and "tormented [them]
in such a variety of manners."
10
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, pp. 71-73.
11
Salim, Riyazu, p. 282.
 Coercion 73

Alivardi lured Bhaskar Pandit and twenty-one Maratha sirdars (military lead-
ers) to a meeting and then had them massacred in 1744.12 Previously, while
deputy governor of Bihar, Alivardi sent an expedition against the Banjara tribe
of Bettia to punish them for their plundering. The expedition captured 20,000
Banjaras and marched them towards Patna. En route, any Banjara who tried to
escape or otherwise disobeyed orders was cut down. By the time they reached
Patna, 5,000 had been killed. Alivardi subsequently ordered the leader of this
expedition slain for refusing to Share the booty he had taken from the Banjaras.13
In 1746, Alivardi had two rebel Muslim generals murdered when they tried to
surrender and pledge their loyalty to Alivardi.14 And he ordered the killings of
other officers whose accounts were faulty.15 Alivardi's grandson and designated
successor, Siraj-ud-daula, carried out his murders.16 Alivardi had finer feelings
than his impetuous, cruel grandson and he "retired to one of his houses or
gardens outside the town, so as not to hear the cries of the persons whom he was
causing to be killed."17
The nazims' violence escalated as the Maratha and Afghan challenges,
internal dissension, and finally British intervention threatened the government.
Siraj, Mir Jafar, and Mir Qasim all employed murder to eliminate their oppo-
nents. Siraj not only killed his enemies but exhibited a sadistic cruelty not found
in any other eighteenth-century nazim. He sent agents to kidnap pretty Hindu
women they saw bathing on the banks of rivers and he had ferry boats overturned
because he enjoyed seeing non-swimmers struggling to save themselves, ac-
cording to the usually reliable Jean Law.18 Pleasure-loving Mir Jafar left most
of his administration to his son, Miran, who murdered "promiscuously" and
who was said to have been carrying a list of two or three hundred people he
planned to kill when he was struck dead by lightning.19 Mir Qasim's murders,
on the other hand, were purposeful and confined to the end of his reign. When
he realized in 1763 that the East India Company had defeated his efforts to assert
his sovereignty, he took revenge on those whom he believed had betrayed him.
In the process, he caused the deaths, among others, of Ramnarayan, former
deputy governor of Bihar; Rajballabh, deputy governor of Dacca and then
Bihar; Gurjin Khan, his Armenian commander-in-chief who had introduced
European-style training in his army; two members of the Jagat Seth banking

12
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 461.
13
Karim Ali, Muzaffar-namah, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, pp. 17-18.
14
Ibid., p. 35.
15
Ibid., pp. 52-53.
16
Ibid., pp. 54-55.
17
Memoir by Jean Law (1763), Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, vol. Ill, p. 162.
18
Ibid.
19
Khan, Seir, vol. II, pp. 279-81 and 368-72. For Mir Mar's murders, see ibid., pp. 251,274, and
347.
74 Bengal

family; and fifty-six British prisoners.20 As the nazims' authority waned, murder
became a more common instrument of policy. Later nazims also confiscated the
property of wealthy people.
The nazims' aspirations to regulate Bengal's society were never matched by
their institutional strength. Until the transfer of the diwani (revenue administra-
tion) to the Company in 1765, the nazim had overall responsibility for main-
taining order, protecting his subjects, punishing wrong-doers, and settling
disputes. The long hours spent listening to judicial cases and the authoritarian
intrusiveness of energetic nazims into the life around the capital revealed that
their own vision of public virtue far exceeded the capacity of their decentralized
administration. Murshid Quli, for example, monitored the prices of food grains
in Murshidabad and if he found the poor were overcharged, he punished the
neighborhood leaders (mahaldars), grain dealers, and weigh-men, sometimes
by placing them on asses and conveying them through streets.21 Yet outside the
major towns, principal trade routes, and his own jagir, the nazim's institutions
for righting wrong and helping the poor were weakly articulated. His army could
cope with internal disturbance but was useless for routine tasks of revenue
collection and checking normal abuses by local officials and landholders. He
reserved the right to sentence capital offenders and to assess, dispossess, or
imprison sizeable zamindars. In theory at least, he or his officers apparently
claimed the exclusive authority to readmit excommunicated persons to caste. 22
In practice, his authority ran thin in niral areas. There is little evidence of a
system of local civil judicial codes, record keeping, or appeals from local
decisions. His civil courts did not operate far from Murshidabad23 and the towns
in which his faujdars resided. The ten or so faujdars, each of whom had many
zamindaris in his jurisdiction, sent troops against uncooperative zamindars and
dakait (robber) gangs but their judicial and coercive activities, legendary though
they were, normally were confined to the environs of their seat. A supervising
officer at Murshidabad assigned qazis, learned in Islamic law, to enforce that
law wherever bodies of Muslims lived,24 and perhaps in every pargana. Apart
from the qazis, the faujdari adalats (criminal courts) in major towns, and the
thanas (police posts) on principal highways, the nazim's ordinary coercive and

20
Henry Dodwell, Dupleix and Clive: The Beginning of Empire (Gorakhpur, 1962, reprint of 1920
edn.), pp. 230 and 247; Henry Vansittart, A Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal, 1760-1764
(London, 1766, reprinted Calcutta, 1976, ed. Anil Chandra Bannerjee and Bimal Kanti Ghosh^,
pp. 561 and 566-67.
21
Salim, Riyazu, p. 280.
22
According to the Select Committee, 1769. D.N. Banerjee, Early Land Revenue System in Bengal
andBehar: 1765-1772, vol. I (London, 1936), p. 62.
23
Fifth Report, 1812, Firminger's Introduction, vol. I, p. xiv.
24
Khan, Seir, vol. Ill, p. 165, contrasted the probity of the qazis in the early decades of the century
with their corruption in the Company period.
 Coercion 75
judicial presence within zamindaris was minimal. The nazim left the zamindars
to force their dependents to pay the revenue.
Early European merchants often commented on what they regarded as the
arbitrary, despotic nature of Mughal authority and soon learned how to employ
limited forms of physical force themselves. They were impressed that in the
decentralized society of late Mughal Bengal local officials compelled people to
pay more or accept less than prevailing market rates. Writing about Hughli port
in the 1680s, William Hedges said the nawab "hath little more than the name,
and for the most part sits still whilst the Nabobs officers oppress the People and
monopolize most commodities even as low as grass for Beasts, canes, firewood,
thatch." These officers either held back the revenue owed to the nazim or they
obtained money from the capital at Dacca and loaned it to Hindu merchants at
the confiscatory rate of 50 percent per year. They forced the merchants to buy
goods at 10-15 percent above the market value and to make gifts on numerous
ceremonial occasions.25 Streynsham Master concluded in 1679 that in Hughli
there "is no order or Government. Every petty Officer makes a pray of us and
abuscing us at pleasure to Screw what they can out of us."26 Local officials
frequently stopped European trading boats and caravans, despite imperial
farmans (orders) exempting them from transit duties, and released them only
after a present or a show of force by the Europeans or an order from the nazim.
Long before Plassey the Europeans exerted their own coercive power where
the nazim's authority was weak. They seized merchants who owed them money
and held them in their factories and they sent soldiers to the houses of the paikars
(petty brokers) and weavers to ensure they did not sell the contracted goods to
other parties.27 In the last decades of nawabi rule, the English East India
Company took advantage of Mughal decline to force weavers to produce for
the Company and to allow their dependents to carry dastaks (permits) for
duty-free trade, in violation of the intent of the emperor's farman that gave the
Company permission to trade in Bengal.28 In the 1750s and 1760s, Company
servants sold dastaks widely to non-Company Indian merchants so they too
could avoid paying duty. In the same period, they used their new power to
monopolize many items of trade.
For all the exactions and oppressive activities by Europeans and Indian
powerholders in the late nawabi and early Company periods, the bulk of the
population seemed to be law-abiding. Dakaiti, for example, was a common

25
[William Hedges], The Diary of William Hedges, Esq. during his Agency in Bengal (1681-1687)
(2 vols., London, 1887-88), vol. II, pp. 238-39.
26
Richard Carnac Temple (ed.), The Diaries of Streynsham Master, 1675-1680 (2 vols., London
1911), vol. II, p. 275.
27
Prakash, The Dutch East India Company, pp. 109-110.
28
Sinha, Economic History, vol. I, pp. 8ff.
76 Bengal

phenomenon only in frontier and jungly areas in the middle decades of the
century,29 in contrast to the early nineteenth century when it was prevalent in
the interior districts. Nor, apparently, was individual theft common. Warren
Hastings, with many years of experience around Qasimbazar beginning in 1753,
wrote in 1772 "there are not many instances of robbery in India,...scarce any
of murder" in areas where murder was punished by execution. "A traveller may
pass through a whole province unarmed and sleep in security in the open plane.
He will have no enemies to dread but the wild beasts." Hastings attributed this
both to "the natural timidity of the people" and the deterrent effect of execu-
tions.30 Luke Scrafton, who held positions in Dacca, Calcutta, and Murshidabad
in the 1750s, claimed in about 1760 that "so free is the country from robbers,
that I doubt there having been an instance of one in the memory of man."31 J.Z.
Holwell also claimed that in Bishnupur "no robberies are heard of."32 Sayyid
Ghulam Husain Khan, writing in the 1780s, believed that as late as Alivardi's
reign, people were so prosperous and faujdars so vigilant that people "lived with
their doors open"33
Both the British and the nazims understood well that military power and its
display would determine the willingness of Bengal's elites to cooperate with
them. The ability to compel compliance implied legitimacy. The Company's
1686-90 war with the Mughals had taught the British they were at that time no
match for the nazim in a land war but it also strengthened their conviction about
the need to fortify their factories and to have armed guards accompany their
inland trade to prevent local officers from exacting unauthorized payments.
From 1690 to the 1750s, the combination of European arms and the nazims'
desire to encourage European trade ensured an uneasy balance of strength
between the Company and local officers.
With Siraj-ud-daula's seizure of Calcutta in 1756, this balance evaporated.
The Company used the opportunity in the ensuing war to demonstrate the
immense destructive power of their cannons and the efficient discipline of their
enhanced army, "to strike a terror into the Suba's troops and encourage any
malcontents to declare in our favour,"34 and "to re-establish the reputation of
the British in Bengal." For ten days in January 1757, Company ships shelled
Hughli town, the nazim's forts, and the granaries and salt warehouses on both

29
Monckton Jones, Hastings in Bengal, p. 330.
30
Ibid., p. 158.
31
Luke Scrafton, A History of Bengal before and after the Plassey (1739-1758) (Calcutta, 1975,
reprint of 1760 edn. of Reflections on Government etc., oflndostan), p. 11.
32
John Zephaniah Holwell, Interesting Historical Events (London, 1766), p. 198.
33
Khan, Seir, vol. Ill, pp. 179-81.
34
Letter from Select Com., Fort William, to Secret Com., London, 26 Jan. 1757, Hill (ed.), Bengal
in 1756-57, vol. II, p. 167.
 Coercion 77
sides of the river. Company troops burned and plundered houses in Hughli so
that the town was destroyed.35 The pillaging and destruction was not different
in character from Mughal warfare (the Mughals, for example, had killed some
10,000 people when they destroyed Portuguese Hughli in 1632);36 the main
distinction was that the British were usurping power from the established
government. Previously, the Company had refrained from executing people
unless they had the nazim's permission; after 1757 when sepoys mutinied over
the differentials in prize-money paid to European and Indian troops, Company
officers "picked out" men to make examples of and blew them from guns. 37 As
part of the price for establishing Mir Jafar as the new nazim of Bengal in 1757,
the Company obtained a new sanad (charter) granting the Company the "power
to punish" any person who asked for any payments on articles of trade.38
As soon as the British appreciated the magnitude of their own strength and
the nazim's weakness, inhibitions on their own acquisitiveness fell away and
they scrambled to enrich themselves by monopolizing trade and demanding
presents for the exercise of their new influence. During the rule of Mir Jafar
(1757-60) and Mir Qasim (1760-63), complaints multiplied that the Com-
pany's servants and their gomashtas were usurping the nazim's authority by
insisting on not paying duties on their internal trade, by forcing people to buy
above and sell below current market rates, and by setting themselves up as
judicial officers. A Company army sergeant wrote from Bakarganj in 1762 that
gomashtas working for Company servants were flogging and confining people
who refused to trade with them.
Before, justice was given in the public cutcherree, but now every gomestah is become a
judge, and every one's house a cutcherree; they even pass sentences on the Zamindars
themselves, and draw money from them by pretended injuries, such as a quarrel with
some of their peons, or their having, as they assert, stole something.39
Mir Qasim complained vigorously to the Company that their servants not only
refused to pay duties but were forcing raiyats to give up items for a quarter of
their value and to purchase goods at five times their real price. "Your gentle-
men...make a disturbance all over my country, plunder the people, injure and
disgrace my servants, with a resolution to expose my government to contempt;
and from the borders of Hindustan to Calcutta, make it their business to expose
me to scorn."40

35
Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, vol. I, pp. cxxxvii-cxli.
36
Amiya Kumar Banerji, WBDG: Hooghly (Calcutta, 1972), p. 119.
37
Dodwell, Dupleix and Clive, p. 257.
38
Ibid., pp. 234-35.
39
Vansittart, Narrative, pp. 198-99.
40
Letter from nawab to Gov. H. Vansittart, May 1762, ibid., pp. 191-92.
78 Bengal

Zamindari coercion
The nazims and the early Company government allowed rajas considerable
latitude within their petty kingdoms to compel and punish their subjects. Both
the coercive environment of the age and traditional theories of Hindu kingship
encouraged local powerholders to use physical compulsion whenever their
authority and the habits of deference failed to produce compliance. The norma-
tive texts on kingship recognized both coercion and taxation as the prerogatives
of the raja but coercion seemed to be the preeminent function, "the cultural
element.. .that distinguished the kingly role from other roles."41 Therightto tax
was presented as merely "an accessory of the royal function" while coercion was
"a divine institution itself," created by the highest deity for the maintenance of
human welfare.42
The king's main duty was protection of his subjects and for this danda was
necessary. Danda means literally mace, scepter, rod, or stick but is also synony-
mous with chastisement and coercion. Dandaniti (the rule of danda) was a
common term for the science of government in recognition of the central role
of the king's coercion in enabling subjects to fulfill their respective svadharmas
(own duties). Law commentaries assumed that in this degraded age, without
danda, without restraint, the strong would prey on the weak, just as big fish feed
on little fish.43 Many aphorisms expressed the necessity of the sovereign's force
to maintain the social and spiritual order, to ensure that "wholesome barriers
are maintained,"44 rituals are performed, the good are rewarded, and the bad are
chastised. The Mahabharata states "right leans on might {danda) as a creeper
on a tree. As smoke follows the wind, so right follows might."45 And "if the rod
of chastisement be not uplifted, the dog will lick the sacrificial butter." 46 Bhisma
told Yudhishtara in the Santiparva of the Mahabharata that Manu's "first words"
were that "he who protects all creatures the loved and odious equally, by impartially
wielding the rod of Chastisement, is said to be the embodiment of righteousness."47
Most of the lengthy discussion of danda in normative texts on kingship relates to
the expansion and protection of kingdoms and the punishment of evil but the need
to use danda in tax collection was not questioned.48 Without the wealth derived

41
Ronald Inden, "Ritual Authority and Cyclic Time in Hindu Kingship," in J.F. Richards (ed.),
Kingship and Authority in South Asia (Madison, WI, 1978), p. 35.
42
Robert Lingat, The Classical Law of India, tr. J. Duncan M. Derrett (Berkeley, CA, 1973), p.
214.
43
Kane, History, vol. Ill, pp. 5-7 and 21-22.
44
Mahabharata, tr. Roy, vol. VII, p. 165.
45
Quoted in Benjamin Walker, The Hindu World: An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism (New
York, 1968), vol I, p. 267.
46
Mahabharata, tr. Roy, vol. VII, p. 29.
47
Ibid., pp. 278-79.
48
See example, ibid., pp. 304 and 306.
 Coercion 79
from taxes, the raja is helpless to protect his subjects, and, without danda,
subjects will not obey their raja, cultivate their fields, pay taxes, or live dharmic
lives. Danda thus was identified with wealth, dharma,49 vyavahara (law and
justice), and Vishnu himself.50 Rajas were warned against avarice and cruelty
but since dharma depended on danda, the king was told that power appears "to
be superior to Righteousness,"51 and that if he wanted more wealth, he should
increase his taxes slowly, like a person breaking in a young bullock. If he moved
with care and mildness, he could slip the reigns on to his people and they would
become manageable.52
While there is no doubt about the wide freedom zamindars enjoyed to employ
normatively approved danda under the nazims, it is less clear whether they used
it With restraint. For example, in theory the Mughal government reserved to
itself the right to execute or maim those found guilty of major crimes. The
nazims are not known to have exercised the right with great frequency. What
about the zamindars? Did they become more coercive in the middle decades of
the eighteenth century in their judicial administration and revenue collection as
the Maratha invasions, the rise in the state's revenue demand, and the European
usurpation of the nazims' authority all contributed to an erosion of order
and established hierarchy? Without knowing more about the operating of
zamindaris in the early decades of the century, we may only guess at the answer
and indicate that evidence for the middle decades points to zamindars employ-
ing physical coercion without external restraints.
One of the most vivid and suggestive descriptions of a pre-Company
zamindar's use of discretionary power over human life appears in the Vidya-
Sundara episode of the Annadamangal kavya by Bharatchandra Ray (1712-60),
written in 1752 or 1753. It was a work of hyperbolic fiction but its depiction of
the raja of Burdwan appears to be a plausible, if exaggerated, portrait of a major
zamindar, given what we know about the operation of zamindari power in the
mid-eighteenth century. When the stranger-hero, Sundara, came to Burdwan
town, he passed six forts and garrisons before reaching a central square.
In the middle of the square was a prison and the execution ground. And all around were
thousands of robbers and thieves, chains on their legs, begging for food... The noise was
like that of hell itself, with the cracking of bones and the snap of the lash and slap of
leather on human flesh. Some of the wretched prisoners, were praying, some were
screaming, and some moaning "Father, O father! I am dying! Save me!" and in fear of
their chief, some of the guards showed mercy.53
49
Heesterman, Inner Conflict, p. 122.
50
Mahabharata, tr. Roy, vol. VII, pp. 278-79.
51
Ibid., p. 306. The usual principle in the smriti (non-Vedic sacred tradition) is that "a rule of
dharma has more weight than a rule of artha." Lingat, The Classical Law of India, p. 157.
52
Mahabharata, tr. Roy, vol. VII, p. 205.
53
"The Vidya-Sundara of Bharatchandra," in Edward C. Dimock, (tr.), The Thief of Love: Bengali
Tales from Court and Village (Chicago, 1963), p. 34.
80 Bengal

Was Bharatchandra describing the reality of a zamindari in Bengal or was he

employing the literary conventions used to describe danda, such as the Santi-
parva's account of danda as a deity, "piercing and cutting and afflicting and
lopping off and dividing and striking and slaying and rushing against its
victims?"54 Either explanation is possible. The fact that the raja of Burdwan in
real life had confiscated Bharatchandra's family estate in 1740 and imprisoned
Bharatchandra for protesting may have colored his account: he may have been
taking revenge on his former raja.55
The name of the captain of the Burdwan raja's guard was Dhumaketu. Among
his responsibilities was guarding the apartments of Vidya, the raja's daughter.
The stranger, Sundara, managed to sneak into Vidya's quarters with the help of
Hira, the flower woman, and he and Vidya fell in love. When the raja of
Burdwan discovered that Vidya was pregnant, he ordered his swordsmen and
mace-bearers to bring Dhumaketu to him:
Hear me. If you catch not him who has defamed my name before this day is out, you will
know the power of my vengeance. You are a treacherous rogue who eats my salt and
gives me nothing in return. You have ruined my kingdom; you are nothing but a robber.
You have plundered my whole country until only my own palace is left, and now you
have begun on that. But I shall see you, you bastard, buried in a pit of excrement; you
will know my pride for what it is.56
While the raja of Burdwan would not hesitate to kill Dhumaketu, he realized
that dharma, although apparently not the Mughal government, made it unwise
to execute Hira, the flower woman who had been the agent of Sundara's entry
into Vidya's rooms. "What will I gain if I kill her?" he thought. "On the contrary,
it will only make things worse. To kill a woman is a heinous crime." Instead,
he ordered that her head be shaven and her face disfigured with "lime and black
stain" and that she be taken to the far side of the river. Similarly, he did not dare
kill Sundara, in fear that he might be a Brahmin. "I can tell from his behavior
he is not low-caste. If I have him killed, how do I know what will happen at the
end?"57
This fictional account had the raja of Burdwan torturing "robbers and thieves"
in a public place and preparing to kill one of his own officers. There is no reason
to doubt that pre-Company zamindars and their officers used torture and murder
to deter others from disloyalty and wrong-doing. Company records provide
numerous examples even in the nineteenth century of landholders' amla,
dakaits, and the Company's own police torturing people, and these suggest that

54
Mahabharata, tr. Roy, vol. VII, p. 279.
55
Dimock (tr.), Thief of Love, p. 20.
56
Ibid., p. 96.
57
Ibid., pp. 120-25.
 Coercion 81
the application of severe pain to the human body may have been fairly common
at all levels of society. The power of large zamindars to do what they wanted
with their subjects was proverbial. At least on occasion this extended to
maiming or taking the lives of miscreants in real life as well as in literature.
There is a story that Raja Krishnachandra of Nadia "cut off the hands of a
goldsmith, who had mixed inferior metals in a golden image of Doorga: but
afterwards for his dexterity, granted him and his heirs an annual pension of a
thousand roopees."58 J.Z. Holwell told the story of how Raja Kirtichandra
(probably the raja of Burdwan who died in 1740) punished his diwan's naib
named Gopi Singh. Gopi Singh was "convicted" of "holding farms clandes-
tinely, of oppressing the people, of perpetrating other crimes." After the raja
had him imprisoned and lashed and confiscated his property, he had Gopi Singh
placed on a public road where passing people were ordered to kick him until he
died.59 Whether such incidences were common is not known.
After Company rule began, officials moved promptly to punish similar
behavior. In 1776, they ordered the arrest of Raja Jadhu Singh of Bagri in
western Burdwan district when they learned he had executed several people. 60
Two years later, they investigated rumors that a female cashkeeper of the Rani
Bishnukumari of Burdwan had died from injuries inflicted on her because of
suspicions of embezzlement.61 After the 1770s, reports of zamindari murders
and executions were rare.
Non-lethal coercion was another matter. Company officials sometimes de-
plored torture and they occasionally issued orders to regulate the use of physical
compulsion by zamindars, farmers, and their agents. Basically, though, they
saw no way to collect the land revenue without tolerating the detentions and
beatings with which rents were traditionally secured. In the zamindari system,
physical coercion was exercised both within and outside zamindari courts. The
organization of zamindari courts varied from estate to estate. Burdwan had one
of the most elaborate systems of local courts, in part because of its large size
but also because it was the only zamindari in Bengal to which the nazims had
granted faujdari (criminal) jurisdiction, including punishment of capital of-
fenses.62 In addition to the Burdwan criminal court, there were seven others in
1765, including separate courts for land and rental disputes, other debt suits,

58
Ward, View, vol. I, p. 100.
59
John Zephaniah Holwell, India Tracts (3rd edn., London 1774), p. 197.
60
Burdwan PCOR, 12 and 28 Feb. 1776, vol. 12.
61
Burdwan PCOR, 7 Sept. 1778, vol. 26.
62
Warren Hastings' Minute of 7 Dec. 1775, App. No. 15, Sixth Report from the Select Committee
Appointed to Take into Corisideration the State of the Administration of Justice in the Provinces
of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, 1782, Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, vol.
V, East Indies -1781,1782 (London, 1804), p. 940. Hereafter cited as Sixth Report on Justice,
1782.
82 Bengal

charges of misbehavior such as adultery and abortion, and suits over charitable
lands. The main court for revenue and rental matters was called the sadr kachari
and it not only heard disputes, it also collected revenue.63
Zamindari courts in Burdwan and elsewhere were not popular institutions,
according to British officials. William Hay, who served in Burdwan in the early
1760s, reported that litigants were charged high court costs in addition to the
traditional chauth or quarter share of the award which a successful creditor had
to give to the court.64 The Committee of Secrecy in 1773 confirmed that the
mofussil courts, whether under the qazis or the zamindars, were arbitrary,
irregular, and unpopular, and that victors were required to surrender one fourth
{chauth) or one fifth of their awards to the judges.65 Charles Stuart, Resident at
Burdwan, commented on the corruption of Hindu and Muslim Judges.66 Harry
Verelst, who had also served in Burdwan, said "every decision is a corrupt
bargain with the highest bidder."67 G.G. Ducarel, Supervisor in Purnia, claimed
"thefts and murders were compromised for four or five rupees, while fornication
and witchcraft were punished with four or five thousands."68 On the other hand,
Evan Law, Richard Barwell, and James Rennell testified to the probity of qazis,
muftis, maulvis, and pandits who advised on legal matters, and Charles William
Boughton Rous, former Provincial Chief at Dacca, denied that justice was
sold.69 Generally corrupt or not, at best zamindari courts were irregular, expen-
sive, and scarcely supervised.
In the absence of a comprehensive Company judicial system outside the
district headquarters before the 1790s, landholders, money-holders, and mer-
chants on their own authority distressed people who owed them money. Before
the Cornwallis reforms, most rural Bengalis probably found little to distinguish
between the way debts were collected under the nazim and the Company,
despite a growing British awareness of and hostility to the arbitrariness of the
processes employed.
Zamindari officers and their subordinate landholders used a wide range of
coercive measures against land revenue payers. Coercion could begin as early

63
N. Majumdar, Justice and Peace in Bengal, 1765-1793: A Study of the Nizamat in Decline
(Calcutta, 1960), p. 34.
64
Vansittart, Narrative, p. 293.
65
Seventh Report from the Committee of Secrecy to Enquire into the State of the East India
Company, 6 May 1173, Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, vol. IV, East Indies
-1772,1773 (London, 1804), p. 324.
66
Ibid., p. 328.
67
H.H. Dodwell (ed.), Cambridge History of India, vol. V, British India, 1479-1858 (Cambridge,
1929), p. 415.
68
Majumdar, Justice, p. 74.
69
Report from the Committee on Petitions Relative to the Administration of Justice in India, 8
May 1781. Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, vol. V, East Indies - 1781,
1782, pp. 14-16. Hereafter cited as Report on Petitions, 1781.
 Coercion 83

as the annual puniya, when principal payers gathered to discharge balances,

receive the coming year's demands, and enter into their annual agreements. If
the jotdar or intermediary refused the agreement offered, he might be confined
or have peons70 stationed around his house until he engaged for a mutually
acceptable amount. After an agreement was made, the relevant collecting agent
in pre-Company days sent a hal-i-shana, who was a foot soldier, to collect the
periodic kists from the jotdars.71 Under the Company, many zamindars may
have continued the practice of sending a soldier to collect the rent. The Amini
Commission report (1778) said that a hal-i-shana collected "where rents are
paid in kind" and that otherwise the karamchari or patwari, resident villagers,
collected the revenue.72 The main point here is that a man representing the
superior's military power sometimes came to the village, reminding the inhabi-
tants of the possibility of a visit by raja's militia or lathials (men who carried
lathis or bamboo staves) in case there was a general refusal.
General refusals were uncommon, except when a large increase was de-
manded or when a new zamindar or revenue farmer took over a tract of land
from a dispossessed holder. Individual and group failures to meet the demand
were frequent, and revenue receivers had a distinctive way of forcing payment.
The standard method of collecting arrears was to send one or more peons,
often referred to as mohussils, to the house of the person from whom payment
was sought. Sometimes the collector obtained permission from a zamindari or
Company court to dispatch peons but often he acted without specific authori-
zation. The peons either remained at the house of the renter in arrears until he
paid or they were ordered to withdraw, or they led him to their master's kachari
where they locked him in the interior or put him in stocks in public view. 73
Either way, the peons charged the debtor for their living expenses while away
from their homes. Thus the longer the debtor held out, the greater were his
expenses. As in colonialism, the victim was made to pay for his own subjection.
Not infrequently, the peons seized moveable property, such as stored food,
cooking utensils, or animals, from the victim. Often they beat or otherwise
physically abused the debtor. Sometimes they cut down the standing crop. The
fact that the peons were often north Indians or low caste Bengalis, typically

70
"Peon" entered Indian English from Portuguese. Meaning literally footman, it was used
originally for a foot soldier and later for an orderly or a messenger. Peon is a cognate of piyada,
the Hindustani word for foot soldier. Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary
of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Histori-
cal, Geographical and Discursive (New Delhi, 1969, reprint of 1903 edn.), p. 696.
71
According to the Risala-i-ziraat, Calkins, "Revenue Administration," p. 180.
72
Ramsbotham, Studies, pp. 108-09.
73
The naib of Swaruppur, formerly part of the Rajshahi zamindari, told J.H. Harrington in 1790
that he first beat the amin and the patwari of a village in arrears and "if the Ryots are not awed"
by this, he beat the raiyats. Ray, Change, p. 51.
84 Bengal

Bagdis, lessened the chance that feelings of ethnic solidarity would interfere
with the performance of their duties. And because the peons received much,
perhaps most of their income from exactions from the peasantry, the system
enabled the zamindars "to maintain a large body of dependents at modest cost
to themselves."74
Beatings by peons were often administered with a rattan or palm-stem switch.
A leather whip (kora) was sometimes used. Floggings with a thorny branch and
an inflammatory nettle plant were also known.75 If the victim was high caste,
slippers were often substituted for the switch. The victim was normally the
recorded revenue payer but if he had absconded, a surrogate such as his son,
vakil, or surety was sometimes beaten instead.76 Female revenue payers and the
wives of absconding tenants were not beaten, only confined.77
Although British officials recognized that beatings were a universal practice,
they suspected that peasants sometimes falsely accused their superiors of torture
in order to avoid payment. This was the conclusion of a special commission
appointed to investigate an unusual uprising by small "zamindars" (intermedi-
aries) and peasants in Rangpur in early 1783 which the Company suppressed
with "the loss of many lives." The revolt was ostensibly against the high
demands and severe collection methods used by Raja Debi Sinha, the new
revenue farmer of Dinajpur and Rangpur districts and former revenue employee
of the Company.78 The commission found that in addition to the customary
forms of detentions and beatings, various unusual tortures were used, including
driving wedges between two fingers tied together and pinching flesh in the lock
of a gun.79 They failed to confirm that Raja Debi Sinha's agents burned raiyats'
houses, squeezed nipples in cleft bamboos, raped, or stripped people. Many
witnesses examined by the commission denied having made their original
complaints. The commission concluded that "there is no language of complaint
which the natives will not adopt to evade the payment of their revenue," 80 and
that a shortage of money, rather than unusual oppression, was at the base of the
revolt.81 Whether or not the commission was justified in its skepticism about.
torture, it did document more fully than any other source that confinements and

74
E. Barnett, Rajshahi Ag. Col., to BOR, 16 Aug. 1811, BOR Misc. Prog. 11 of 31 Dec. 1811,
vol. 799.
75
Report of the Rungpore Commission, 23 March 1786, Sinha, Maharaja Deby Sinha, pp. 5 6 8 -
69.
76
"As late as 1775," many Bhats, who were geneologists and bards, "made their living by pledging
themselves as hostages for the payment of a revenue." Risley, Tribes and Castes, vol. I, p. 101.
77
Sinha, Maharaja Deby Sinha, pp. 571-73.
78
COR to GG, 27 Jan. 1784, ibid., pp.12-13.
79
Report of the Rungpore Commission, 23 March 1786, ibid., pp. 520-21.
80
Ibid., pp. 571-75 and 583.
81
Ibid., p. 520.
 Coercion 85
beatings were used routinely "throughout Bengal" against the intermediaries
and raiyats.
The investigation into the Rangpur disturbances also revealed instances of
the use of shame to punish people. Shame was commonly employed in Bengal,
as in the common practice of putting people in arrears into stocks outside
zamindari kacharis. The Rangpur Commission reported that Raja Debi Sinha
learned that the manager of one of his parganas in Dinajpur district was
oppressing the peasants and he therefore ordered the manager to be paraded
through the bazar on a bullock to the beat of a drum.82 In another case, when a
Brahmin naib to some intermediate "zamindars" complained about the raja's
unreasonable demands, Debi Sinha first ordered the same bullock ride punish-
ment but then altered it to "a most severe and cruel flogging" when bystanders
objected the ride would lead to the Brahmin's excommunication from his
caste.83

Hinduism and infliction of pain

In a loose way, the procedures used to recover rental arrears conformed to
methods prescribed in the legal texts for the recovery of debts. It is remarkable
that the law commentaries gave little attention to agricultural rents. But the
discussion of recovery of loans is extensive and some of these rules seemed to
guide Bengal's practices in rent collection. For example, several sources permit
debt recovery without reference to the king. In fact, this was the one general
area in which a person was explicitly "allowed to take the law into his own
hands," although people of very low status could be punished for so doing
without the king's authorization.84 A creditor might recover what he was owed
on his own initiative and should "not be blamed by the king." If necessary, he
could use force.85 Brihaspati allowed a creditor to bring a debtor to his own
house and confine and beat him. Katyayana provided that a debtor could be
restrained "openly before an assembly of people until he pays what is due." 86
Confining in stocks and sending peons to a renter's house were consistent with
these rules. Similarly, the cutting of an indebted peasant's crop and the sale of
his possessions was authorized by Bharadvija.87 When the Company's Hindu
pandits were asked in 1798 whether these measures were consistent with Hindu
law, they replied that Manu allowed a creditor to confine a debtor and to seize
his family, cattle, and other property, and then if that did not work, to flog and

82
Ibid., p. 565.
83
J.D. Peterson to GG in C, 6 June 1785, ibid., p. 270.
84
Kane, History, vol. Ill, p. 408.
85
G. Buhler (tr.), The Laws of Manu (Oxford, 1886), p. 262.
86
Kane, History, vol. Ill, pp. 439-^0.
87
Ibid., p. 441.
86 Bengal

imprison him. However, they added that Manu approved of these measures only
if they were carried out with the knowledge and approval of "the hakim" (Arabic
for ruler or governor). Since the zamindari courts were established under the
hakim's regulations, the pandits said that Manu's laws appeared to sanction the
measures if authorized by zamindari officers.88
In eighteenth-century Bengal, the pressure applied to collect rental arrears
and other debts, as well as to punish crimes, often took on some of the
characteristics of an ordeal. The ordeal (divya) was a well-known institution in
Indian juridical texts, as in medieval Europe and many other pre-modern
societies.89 In India, ordeals were used in both criminal and debt cases. Raghu-
nandana Bhattacarya's Divyatattva, an authoritative statement on ordeals, was
well known in Bengal among pandits90 and his work remained the basis of the
curriculum of the Calcutta Sanskrit College well into the nineteenth century.91
Although ordeals were intended to discover the truth behind an accusation of
wrong-doing only when other forms of evidence were unavailable, the spirit of
the ordeal seemed to pervade various forms of coercion, including those used
to collect the land revenue. The ordeal, in effect, absolved its administrator from
some responsibility for the pain inflicted because it rested on the expectation of
divine intervention. If the victim was telling the truth, the deity would protect
him from injury. "For Raghunandana the oath or ordeal was a means of
beseeching the deity to 'give testimony' on behalf of the one undergoing the
ordeal."92 Similarly, the application of duress to persons who failed to pay their
rents or debts seemed at times to be an effort to discover if they were telling the
truth in claiming their resources were exhausted. If they were being truthful,
either the deity would intervene to save them or at least the pain would be
purificatory. The king's danda fulfilled "the priestly function of purifying the
evil-doer."93 Either way, the ability to pay did not have to be established in
advance by the person in power. And the victim, if not broken, might emerge
as a "hero," as a person who struggled against "the monstrousness of the strong
and powerful."94 The East India Company made trials by ordeal illegal but

88
Translation of a representation from Hindu Law Officers of the SDA, 5 Jan. 1798, JP, Crim.,
Prog. 29 of 10 Oct. 1799, vol. 54.
89
Kane, History, vol. Ill, pp. 361-78.
90
Dinesh Chandra Sen wrote that Raghunandana's "jurisprudence up till now governs Hindu
society in Bengal." History of Bengali Language and Literature (Calcutta, 1954), p. 365.
91
Richard W. Lariviere, The Divyattava of Raghunandana Bhattacarya: Ordeal in Classical
Hindu Law (New Delhi, 1981), p. xi.
92
Ibid., p. xiii.
93
Heesterman, Inner Conflict, p. 110.
94
This phrase was used by Foucault in a different context, to describe European literature
glorifying the condemned man's struggle "against the law, against the rich, the powerful, the
magistrates, the constabulary or the watch, against taxes and their collectors." Discipline and
Punish, p. 67.
 Coercion 87
Bengalis continued to use ordeals as a means of testing guilt or proving innocence.
W. Ward related an instance in 1807 in a village near Nadia in which a woman was
"charged with criminal intrigue, while her husband was absent." Before 7,000
spectators, she put her hand in boiling ghi (clarified butter). The crowd, "on
beholding this proof of her innocence, burst forth into applauses of dhunya, dhunya,
i.e., happy! happy! The whole concluded with a feast" to the Brahmins, and word
of the woman's virtue "spread through all the neighboring villages."95
The common subjection to physical coercion had a distinct echo in the
popular religion of western Bengal's lowest castes, in the worship and myths
of Manasa and Dharma Thakur. In the Manasa mangalkavyas (poems eulogiz-
ing the deity), Manasa, the goddess of snakes, compelled people to worship her.
Her "ways with men follow a defineable pattern: first an act of terror, followed
by submission; second the revelation of herself and the granting of boons,
followed by the institution of regular worship."96 In Ketaka-Dasa's Manasa
Mangal, Manasa stole 1,600 cows from some cowherds, took the catch from
two fishermen, and sent an army of serpents to kill all the people of Hasan's
city in order to force them to worship her. Manasa's chief protagonist was
Chando, the merchant, whose crops she destroyed, sons she killed, and ships
she sank. In her struggle with Chando, she alternated random violence with an
"equally random compassion,"97 not unlike a revenue collector with his subor-
dinates.
Unlike Manasa, Dharma Thakur, who is associated with the sun and brings
rain and fertility, did not so much compel people to worship him as rescue them
from terrible ordeals and suffering if they became his devotees. In the main
episode of the numerous Dharma Mangalkavyas composed from the fifteenth
to eighteenth centuries, Lausen was the hero. Before Lausen's birth, his father,
Kama, had been driven from his fort on the Ajay river, between Burdwan and
Birbhum districts, and saw his six sons killed by Ichhai Ghosh, an oppressive
agent of the eleventh-century emperor of Gauda. Kama then remarried and his
wife gave him a new son, Lausen. Lausen struggled through dozens of hard-
ships, penances, and challenges, including attacks by vicious wild animals, false
accusations of theft, attempts at sexual seduction, attacks on his life, war against
the rebellious people of Kamrup (Assam), and war against the evil Ichhai
Ghosh. In the end, Lausen triumphed over all adversity, with the help of and
because of his devotion to Dharma Thakur.98

95
Ward, View, vol I, p. 45.
96
T.W. Clark, "Evolution of Hinduism in Medieval Bengali Literature: Siva, Candi, Manasa,"
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 17, pt. 3 (1955), p. 507.
97
Dimock (tr.), Thief of Love, pp. 202-06.
98
Asutosh Bhattacharyya, The Sun and the Serpent Lore of Bengal (Calcutta, 1977), pp. 85-88;
Sen, History of Bengali Language and Literature, pp. 62-65.
88 Bengal

The immense popularity of Manasa and Dharma Thakur among Bagdis,

Bauris, Doms, Haris, and other "degraded" castes may be connected to the
parallels between their own suffering and experience of coercion as laborers
under the jotdars and the travails of Chando, Lausen, and the other victims
whose faith in Manasa and Dharma Thakur redeemed them. Their religious faith
may have been part of an ideology of the oppressed. Indeed, a popular saying
was "Dharma nichagami" or "Dharma favors the low." 99 Living on the physical
and cultural margins of village societies, excluded from major parts of village
ritual cycles, they had been incorporated into the ideological hegemony of puja
but with a special twist, an emphasis on pain and suffering. 100
Self-infliction of pain was an important part of the annual Gajan festivals at
which either Dharma Thakur or Shiva was honored. (In Bengali folk religion,
Shiva is conceived of as a poor man who took to agriculture to feed his hungry
family.) Gajan festivals in the twentieth century are probably the most numerous
and most popular ones in southwest Bengal 101 and they may also have been in
the eighteenth century. Typically, the final ritual of the Gajan was charak or
hook-swinging. Large numbers of Bauris and other low caste men participated
in this rite. They swung high above the ground, from a beam which rotated from
the top of a vertical pole, suspended by metal hooks which had been inserted
under the flesh and tendons in their back. Associated rituals included piercing
their skin or bodies with sharpened sticks or iron spikes, walking on burning
coals, other play with fire,102 and reclining on a bed of nails. 103 The explicit
purpose of these exposures to pain was to demonstrate that the deity was so
pleased with the bhaktas (devotees) devotion that he protected them from
injury. Yet, it is also possible to suggest, without denying either the authenticity
of the bhaktas spirituality or physiological immunity to the sensation of pain,
that these lower caste mortifications may have functioned as both preparation
for the hardships and physical chastisements experienced in daily life and a
means of deriving some meaning or ennoblement from otherwise grim subjec-
tion. Self-induced pain or the imperviousness to pain might even have func-
tioned as a message to social superiors that their capacity to tolerate bodily
coercion was vast.

99
J.C.K. Peterson, BDG: Burdwan (Calcutta, 1910), p. 58.
100 p o r a discussion of the theories of peasant acceptance or rejection of dominant belief systems,
see James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven,
CT, 1985), pp. 314 ff.
101
Over 100,000 people have attended recent annual Shiva Gajans at Tarakeswar where hook-
swinging used to be practiced. A.K. Banerji, WBDG: Hooghly, p. 207. Of the 201 Bankura fairs
and festivals listed in the 1951 census, 117 were related to the Gajan festival. Amiya Kumar
Banerji, WBDG: Bankura (Calcutta, 1968), p. 204.
102
A.K. Banerji, WBDG: Bankura, pp. 5 4 2 and 553, and Bhattacharyya, The Sun, pp. 6 5 - 6 8 .
103
Piyushkanti Mahapatra, The Folk Cults of Bengal (Calcutta, 1972), pp. 114 and 118.
 Coercion 89

What is the significance of the fact that by the eighteenth century Brahmin
poets were writing mangalkavyas in honor of Manasa and Dharma Thakur and
that in the nineteenth century, if not earlier, Brahmin priests had begun to preside
over some of the worship of these presumably pre-Aryan deities?104 There are
several possible, complementary explanations that do not diminish the theory
that Manasa and Dharma Thakur worship expressed the experience of social
oppression. Learned men often absorbed popular, aboriginal practices into
Hinduism, by Brahminizing them and providing Hindu mythological associa-
tions, as they did with Manasa and Dharma Thakur. For their part, low caste
devotees may have welcomed and aided the process of Sanskritization because
it brought their religion closer to the mainstream Hinduism of the prestigious
higher castes. When Brahmins conducted pujas for Manasa and Dharma
Thakur, they increased their control over the lower caste population and added
to their income in the process.105 The mangalkavyas' praise for patient suffer-
ing and submission to a higher order was compatible with the maintenance of
the existing social order. Finally, being the victims of coercion was not a state
unique to the lower castes. High caste people also suffered from arbitrary
authority and other misfortunes and could identify with Chando, the merchant,
and Lausen, the feudatory chief, who were victimized. So the worship of
Manasa and Dharma Thakur, while remaining most widespread among the
lowest castes, penetrated the middle and high castes, as their stories entered
the literary tradition and as Brahmin priests conducted parts of their ritual
cycles.
Kali was another Bengali deity associated with violence and coercion,
whose worship was spread more evenly through all social strata. Although
she does not force people to worship her, she reels around out of control,
drooling blood, decapitating her enemies, threatening to destroy the uni-
verse. It is particularly interesting that worship of this unpredictable, terri-
fying goddess spread so rapidly in the eighteenth century when Bengal's
political life was turning chaotic and violent. Maharaja Krishnachandra of
Nadia is said to have introduced public worship of Kali, threatened to punish

104
Sen, History of Bengali Language and Literature, pp. 33, 4 1 - 4 2 , and 324-25. Also, A.K.
Banerji, WBDG: Hooghly, pp. 197-98 and 201, and WBDG: Bankura, pp. 2 1 0 - 1 2 and 2 2 0 - 2 1 .
105
Pandit Hara Prasad Sastri wrote in the Bengal Census Report of 1901 that "all the lowest forms
of worship rejected by the Brahmans gradually rallied! around Dharma, and his priests,
throughout Bengal, enjoy a certain consideration, which often excites the envy of their
highly-placed rivals, the Brahmans, who though hating them with a genuine hatred, yet covet
their earnings wherever these are considerable, and there are instances in which the worship of
Dharma has passed into Brahman hands and has been, by them transformed either into a
manifestation of Siva or of Vishnu." Quoted in A. Mitra, Census 1951, West Bengal. The Tribes
and Castes of West Bengal (Alipore, 1953), p. 217.
90 Bengal

his subjects if they did not worship her,106 and patronized the most popular
author of devotional hymns to Kali. This was Ramprasad Sen (1718-75) who
had been a writer or accountant for the manager of a zamindari before devoting
himself to poetry in simple language with rustic images.107 Ramprasad "sees in
Kali the world revealed in all its harsh, indifferent, seemingly capricious
aspects, and a constant theme in his poetry is petulant complaint to this
'stoney-hearted' deity."
Yes, Mother, to some you have given wealth, horses, elephants, charioteers, conquest.
And the lot of others is field labour, withriceand vegetables. Some live in palaces, as I
myself would like to do. O Mother, are these fortunate folk your grandfathers and I no
relation at all?
Some wear shawls and comfortable wrappers, they have sugar and curds as well as
rice. Someridein palkis (palanquins), while I have the privilege of carrying them.
Mother, through what grain land of yours have I driven my plough?
Prasad says: If I forget you, I endure the burden of grief that burns. Mother, my desire
is to become the dust of those Feet that banish fear.108
Ramprasad's lyrics seemed to say that no human agency would lift the random-
ness, inequality, ceaseless exaction, and fear of the material world-only loving
surrender to the goddess, who would be protective and maternal if approached
correctly, could do that.

Coercion and British reforms

Few Europeans in Bengal in the middle decades of the eighteenth century found
anything remarkable in the detentions and controlled beatings commonly used
in rural areas. Europeans beat their own servants109 and they took if for granted
that Indian superiors would whip their inferiors. When the Nizamat Adalat
(criminal court under the puppet nazim at Murshidabad) passed a death sentence
on one Khan Muhammad "for beating his slave girl so that she died," Warren
Hastings reviewed the sentence and decided the accused should be acquitted on
the grounds that "it does not appear that there was any intention of murder and
Mahomedan Law as well as our admits of moderate correction to a slave or even
a hired servant."110 An officer in the Company's offices was acquitted of murder

106 David R. Kinsley, The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krsna, Dark Visions of the Terrible and
the Sublime in Hindu Mythology (Berkeley, CA, 1975), pp. 99-100. Gopal Singha, raja of
Bishnupur, 1720-45, is still remembered for compelling his subjects to perform Vaishnava
rituals. Abhaya Pada Mallik, History of Bishnupur-Raj (An Ancient Kingdom of West Bengal)
(Calcutta, 1921), p. 52.
107
Kinsley, The Sword and the Flute, p. 115.
108
Quoted from Edward J. Thompson and Arthur Marsham Spencer (tr.), Bengali Religious Lyrics,
Sakta (Calcutta, 1923). pp. 3 4 - 3 5 , in ibid., pp. 116--17.
109
H.E. Busteed, Echoes from Old Calcutta (4th edn., London, 1908), pp. 131-36.
110
Majumdar, Justice, p. 316.
 Coercion 91

after he flogged a man to recover a debt and the victim consequently died. The
officer had argued in his defense that the flogging was "justifiable or at least
excusable from the common practice of the country."111
Thus initial British attitudes to physical chastisement were not notably
different from those prevalent in Bengal. Although Company servants com-
mented on instances of what they considered as cruel behavior, many also said
in general Bengalis were a gentle, mild-mannered people. A common British
view was that Bengalis were so peaceful or timid that they submitted to
oppression without complaint. James Rennell, for example, said "the Bengali
People certainly suffer Pain and misfortune with much greater Philosophy than
Europeans do." 112 An early nineteenth-century observer felt that Bengali par-
ents treated their children too indulgently. While "the Bengalee school-masters
punish with a cane, or a rod made of the branch of a tree," Bengali children were
"seldom corrected" by their parents, "and having none of the moral advantages
of Christian children, they ripen fast in inequity, and among the rest in disobe-
dience to parents."113
The Company at the start of its administration was pragmatic rather than
reformist and relied on bodily pain when other measures failed to realize the
revenue. The Company's investment from the 1760s depended on the land
revenue, and collection of the revenue would have been impossible without
coercion. In 1764, Burdwan officers were ordered to imprison and confiscate
the belongings of those revenue farmers and their securities in arrears. "If these
means prove ineffectual, and it should appear it will answer the end intended,"
they shall be punished "with stripes." These are "the punishments in
zemindarys."114
In similar manner, the zamindars' subordinates were permitted until the
1790s to send peons to detain and whip their tenants although periodically they
were ordered to obtain administrative permission from zamindari or Company
authorities before doing so. Company servants were not of a single mind about
coercion. When the highest Company officials assumed administrative control
in the 1750s and 1760s, much of their outrage over the misuse of power was
directed towards British merchants and revenue collectors who used force
broadly to procure the investment, control the population in the neighborhood
of their aurangs (places of manufacture; depots), and pursue their private
trading and money-lending interests. Warren Hastings denounced the mer-

111
Utter to Court of Directors, 31 March 1773, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. VII, 1773-1776 (Delhi, 1973).
112
Percival Spear, The Nabobs: A Study of the Social Life of the English in 18th Century India
(London, 1963), p. 196.
113
Ward, View, vol. I,pp. HOand 120-21.
114
Progs, of 26 Jan. 1764, James Long (ed.), Selections from Unpublished Records of Government
(2nd edn., Calcutta, 1973), article 753.
92 Bengal

chants-turned-collectors as "devils" who still monopolized trade through their

banians and committed "oppression on the people and an obstruction of the
Revenue." The oppression he referred to was "the practice assumed by every
European, and the servant of every European, of arresting the person of the
inhabitants, placing peons [guards] upon their houses, seizing boats and inflict-
ing punishments in their own houses many times to a shocking degree of
barbarity."115
The participation of Company servants in judicial and administrative deci-
sions affecting land revenue probably diminished the incidence of torture but
physical coercion was still common, even routine. In 1775, the Burdwan
Provincial Council reported "it has been usual to punish the Vakeels of the
principal Farmers in notorious cases of failure in the payment of rents, first by
placing Mohussils [peons] over them, the next gradation is by Imprisonment,"
and then by "corporal punishment."116
In 1777, the experiment with collecting revenue through temporary revenue
farmers instead of hereditary zamindars was terminated. Complaints of violence
were less frequent in the next decade and a half. The restored zamindars
possessed a greater natural authority than the temporary farmers and may have
had less need to employ coercion. They also had better means of preventing
complaints from reaching Company officers and courts in the district headquar-
ters. And few Company revenue officers, who had no illusions that the revenue
could be obtained without coercion, encouraged such complaints. Expediency
prevailed over the principle of providing security of persons when the principle
jeopardized the collections. This became evident when the Supreme Court,
established in Calcutta under the Regulating Act of 1773, first claimed jurisdic-
tion over non-Europeans in Bengal and then extended the doctrine of habeas
corpus to Indians. Subordinates of zamindars quickly learned to apply for writs
of habeas corpus to challenge the customary forms of detention used in rent
collection. Reviewing a dozen such complaints made by farmers and under-
farmers in the Burdwan zamindari, the raja's diwan replied that "when Com-
pulsion is offered to any Person in the Mofussil, they threaten with Habeas
Corpus, and Damages," and "withholds what is justly due from him." The diwan
argued that "such Processes can never suit with the Inhabitants of Bengal" who
were accustomed to using "severities" first and only then filing complaints with
government officers. 117
The government of Bengal strenuously objected to the Supreme Court's

115
Monckton Jones, Hastings in Bengal, pp. 158 and 258-59.
116
Burdwan PCOR to GG, 3 Nov. 1775, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 3 Nov. 1775, vol. II.
117
Petition from Kali Prasad Singh, diwan of the Burdwan zamindari, Report from the Committee
on Petitions Relative to the Administration of Justice in India, 8 May 1781, General app. no.
26, pp. 167-68.
 Coercion 93

extension of jurisdiction over Indians and even more to the application of British
jurisprudence to revenue-collection matters. These issues came to a head in
1780 when the Supreme Court sent armed men to arrest the raja of Cossijura in
Midnapur district for a debt claim. The Board of Revenue, denying the Court's
jurisdiction, dispatched a large body of sepoys who arrested the Supreme
Court's party and issued a public notice informing zamindars they were not
under the Court's authority. A Parliamentary Act of 1781 resolved the conflict
by exempting revenue administration from the Court's purview. 118 Private
detention and chastisement of rent defaulters continued.
After the restoration of collection through zamindars in 1777, the Company
itself detained the principal revenue payers in arrears. These revenue payers in
much of western Bengal were now a relatively small number of major zamindars
rather than a large number of temporary farmers. Because of the major
zamindars' high status, the Company made special arrangements to protect their
dignity. An example from neighboring Bihar illustrates this. Raja Kheali Ram,
naib to Maharaja Kallian Singh, the Company's diwan at Patna, was arrested
for arrears on his zamindari in 1781 and kept under house arrest at first. When
he failed to respond to this mild duress, he was removed to the Company's fort
at Patna and provided "with proper apartments." Then his confinement was
made still "more rigorous" by shifting him to less spacious quarters, permitting
him only one servant, and denying him a "hooka and betle, or similar indul-
gences to those he has hitherto enjoyed" in the fort. The Company also ordered
the sale of "all his effects.. .including his house and palanquin" and the placing
his two sons "under restraint of Mohassils." 119 Similar indulgences, followed
by escalation of pressure, were used with zamindars in Bengal proper.
Revenue farmers and other intermediaries beneath the zamindars also con-
tinued to detain and beat their dependents. Officials normally intervened only
when unusual cruelty or a pattern of gross unfairness was brought to their
attention, as when a tenant or criminal suspect died as a result of torture, or when
tenants revolted, as in Rangpur in 1783. The crudest cases of torture more often
involved criminal suspects than tenants in arrears although people in both
categories were tortured here and there. In 1790, the Company tried Brindaban
Bysack, the zamindar of a village whom witnesses said had arrested a man, Ram
Hari, suspected of having purchased stolen goods from thieves. Brindaban
detained Ram for fifteen days, trying to make him confess to being a receiver.
When he refused, Brindaban was said to have had &paik (armed attendant) stand
on Ram Hari's hands while another drove a nail under his thumbnail. 120 In

118
Dodwell (ed.), Cambridge History of India, vol. V, pp. 240-47.
119
Reginald Hand, Early English Administration of Bihar, 1781-1785 (Calcutta, 1894), pp. 19-22.
120
Justice Hyde's Notes, vol. 11, 24 Dec. 1790, Rex v. Brindabun.
94 Bengal

another case, after the turn of the century, several government employees in
Burdwan district were convicted and given prison sentences for "seizing,
beating and torturing" Manik Suri and Kasinath Thakur on "a groundless
suspicion" that they had stolen three boxes containing Rs. 2,300 worth of jewels
and money. Manik Suri died seven months later, as a result of a ruler being
thrust "up the fundament" to make him confess. 121 These examples were typical
in that restraint and corporal punishment were still used widely, without
government sanction. These cases also illustrate that as more British officers
were willing to listen to such complaints and when courts were placed within
reach of rural victims of unsanctioned violence, a growing number of people
utilized the opportunity to seek official protection.
Not only did local notables continue to apply customary forms of coercion,
so did the Company's Indian employees when they were directed to collect
directly from estates taken from zamindars in arrears. A Company naib in charge
of Swaruppur in the Rajshahi zamindari told J.H. Harrington in 1778 that when
arrears were due, he sent peons to summon the head raiyats to his headquarters
"where after hearing any Complaints I oblige them to pay what is due and if
necessary to borrow" from the mahajans (money-lenders). If they refused, he
confined them or beat them "with the Rattan."122 Thus, while the Company
occasionally acted to moderate the use of violence in revenue collection from
the 1770s, it depended upon physical coercion to make payments more punc-
tual.
Then in the early 1790s, it institutedmajor changes in the forms of sanctioned
coercion. Until this time, the human body, not an individual's property, was the
object of most coercive processes designed to obtain money claimed. In 1792,
the Company passed a regulation forbidding landholders from confining and
physically punishing rent defaulters. Regulation XVII of 1793 empowered
landholders to distrain and sell the crops and personal property of tenants in
arrears, without need of a court order. This was a potent weapon in the hands
of rent receivers, notwithstanding the stiff penalties provided for wrongful
distraint and sales. And Regulation III of 1794 ended the government practice
of imprisoning landed proprietors in arrears; hereafter, they would forfeit parts
of their zamindaris, the sale proceeds of which would pay the arrears to
government. The shift to making property rather than the body of debtors
answerable for sums owed was a radical one. Coercion was not being eliminated
but its approved forms were fundamentally altered.
The effect of the new regulations was much greater on people at the top and

121
Judge D. Campbell, Calcutta Court of Circuit, to Nizamat Adalat, 4 Dec. 1809, Jud. Prog. 2 of
22 Dec. 1809, JP, Crim., vol. 219.
122
Ray, Change, pp. 50-51.
 Coercion 95
middle of the rent-collecting hierarchy than at the bottom. In the villages, jotdars
continued to use traditional means of coercion on their share-cropping sub-ten-
ants with little fear of official interference. And there is little evidence to show
whether Bengalis at any level preferred loss of property to detention and
beatings. Few British Company servants were in doubt about their preference.
By the turn of the century, a general British consensus had emerged that beatings
were uncivilized. The Collector of Midnapur commented in 1802 on the ban on
confinements and physical punishments.
Formerly there was no such thing as collecting the revenues without personal chastise-
ment. A whipping was considered a necessary part of a tehseeldar's [collector's]
establishment; and a whip might very properly have been represented as the symbol of
his office. Nor could the revenues have been collected without it. In those days, sales of
land, and distress of crops were entirely unknown.123
While whipping declined (but certainly did not disappear), illegal confine-
ment remained common. In one of the few efforts to estimate their frequency,
a Judge and Magistrate in Dinajpur guessed in 1811 that on any given day in
his district, 4,500 persons were wrongfully detained outside the Company's jail,
which held 500 prisoners. Perhaps 500 were held illegally on suspicion of
crimes, 1,000 for debts to mahajans (money-lenders), and 3,000 for arrears to
their superior landholders.124 The familiar expressions of local political author-
ity in Bengal's rural society were personal, direct, aggregative, and discretion-
ary within known cultural forms. The ability to coerce and punish one's own
dependents was as integral to the exercise of power as the practices of benefi-
cence and indulgence. British efforts to disaggregate, depersonalize, and codify
authority faced an uphill battle. As legal reforms made the land held by
zamindars and supra-village intermediaries effective security for debts, private
coercion outside the village dwindled. But in the village, peasant holdings were
rarely recognized by Company courts as saleable for the realization of debts
until the middle decades of the nineteenth century.125 In the village, private
coercive ejectment and beatings continued.

123
John Herbert Harrington, An Elementary Analysis of the Laws and Regulations Enacted by the
Governor General in Council in Fort William in Bengal (3 vols., Calcutta, 1805-17), vol. Ill,
pp. 514-15.
124
W. Leycester, Dinajpur Judge and Mag., to SDA, 29 March 1811, BOR Misc. Prog. 106 of 7
June 1811, vol. 492.
125
Kumar and Desai (eds.), Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. II, p. 152.
 Political gifts and patronage

Kingship wore multiple masks. Coercive in one context, beneficent in the

next, rajas had numerous roles and ceremonies available in their repertoire
to deter disobedience, induce compliance, and reward loyalty. While rajas
preferred to delegate coercion, they liked to dramatize their own giving of
pleasure. And as they exchanged gifts and distributed patronage, they drew
on Hindu, Muslim, and British cultural models and sometimes mixed them
in hybrid forms. In Hindu and Islamic normative texts, the gift was but
slightly less central to political authority than coercion. These sources
stressed the intrinsic, morale-enhancing value of beneficence although the
practical goal of incorporating dependents gave added incentive. In the
eighteenth century, political flux and the spread of commercialization and
profit seeking brought new levels of calculation, instrumentality, and ambi-
guity to the exchange of presents. What had once been conveyed as gifts
were being converted into payments, entitlements, and even extortions. The
routinization and commercialization of the age were draining the political
gift relationship of some, although by no means all, of its affective and ritual
content.
Mughal India was a gift-giving society. Hindu and Islamic values encouraged
the generosity and self-sacrifice that the surrender of something valuable
entailed. A major motive for accumulating wealth was to obtain the benefits of
parting with it. These benefits might be individual or social, spiritual or political,
or all at the same time. Gifts made to recipients of special sanctity, such as a
Brahmin, alim (Islamic learned man), temple, or madrassa (Islamic school),
earned spiritual merit and social esteem. They also tended to incline the
recipients to support the authority of the donor among the surrounding popula-
tion. Communal feasts given on the occasion of sacred holidays and life-cyle
celebrations had similar effects. The gift of food and other objects was a means
of strengthening kinship ties, which in Bengal were not confined to people who
shared "blood" or in-law relations. "One's own people" (atmiya-swajana)
included blood relatives and in-laws but they also encompassed an "indefinite
and open-ended" group of people who shared food, gifts, and land and were
considered to be related by virtue of inhabiting the same household (as servants,
96
 Political gifts and patronage 97

for example) or neighborhood, receiving initiation from the same guru, or some
other bond.l
The motive for making a gift, it has been argued, was never disinterested,
never without an expectation of reciprocity. The donor always anticipated a
return, whether in the form of higher spiritual standing in this life, a better
after-life, reciprocal presents and favors, or more appreciative and loyal mem-
bers of the community. But the return was ideally disassociated temporally from
the act of giving. This imbued the gift with an aura of generosity and moral
character which the explicit contract and market exchange lacked. Yet the gift
was far from being the opposite of the contract for, like the contract, its offer
and acceptance resulted in obligation. In fact, the political gift was a type of
contract, a pledge of loyalty and incorporation that was nevertheless morally
superior to the pure contract.2 It was superior when it was "seen and experienced
as an inaugural act of generosity, without any past or future, i.e., without
calculation," when "the law of self-interest" seemed to be suspended.3
Gifts from persons holding and seeking political authority are the main
concern here. Food, betel (pan), tobacco, clothes (khilats), money (nazr), and
land were all given away. The gift of rights to the produce of land was most
coveted, especially when exempt from payment of rent and/or revenue. Two
categories of land were exempted from payment: bazi zamin or revenue-free
land for which no service was required and chakaran or maintenance land for
servants of the zamindars, the village, and the state.
Gifts played a special role in a segmented society with political communities
fragmented at the higher levels. In the absence of an integrated state or a concept
of common citizenship, the exchange of presents played a vital symbolic
function in committing people to one another, in establishing or renewing
political discourse. What Marcel Mauss wrote about the ceremonial occasions
in which gifts were given in state-less societies is relevant to the uncertain,
shifting conditions of our period:
at these times men meet in a curious frame of mind with exaggerated fear and an equally
exaggerated generosity... In these primitive and archaic societies there is no middle path.
There is either complete trust or mistrust. One lays down one's arms, renounces magic
and gives everything away, from casual hospitality to one's daughter or one's property.
It is in such conditions that men, despite themselves, learnt to renounce what was theirs
and made contracts to give and repay.4

1
Inden and Nicholas, Kinship, pp. 88-89.
2
Arjun Appadurai (ed.). The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective
(Cambridge, 1986), pp. 5-25.
3
Quoted from P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, 1977), p. 171, in ibid.,
p. 12.
4
Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, tr. Ian
Cunnison (New York, 1967), p. 79.
98 Bengal

Mughal India, of course, was neither "primitive" nor state-less and few
people gave "everything away." Yet in periods of political instability, superiors
and their dependents did exchange the customary gifts in "a curious state of
mind." Behind the etiquette of generosity and spontaneity, anxious calculations
of self-interest determined when to give and how much to part with. Frequently,
the political gift, which bound people morally, immediately preceded the entry
into or renewal of a formal contractual relationship such as appointment to
collect the revenue or perform some other bureaucratic task. Such a political
gift was quickly repaid and thus tended to lose part of its gift quality. But so
potent was the symbolism of the gift, its form persisted even when quid instantly
followed the quo. The gift exchange announced the culturally normative rela-
tionship of the follower to the leader, of the inferior to the superior.
To the extent that gifts secured loyalty or favors, gifts were reciprocal.
However, at the imperial and provincial levels, the material value of presents
exchanged was usually not equal. At these upper levels, in balance the real
transfer of moveable property was upward in the political system. The token
small gift given by the political leader to his dependent seemed as if it was
intended to mask the extractive, exploitive character of the Mughal and British
fiscal systems.5
The zamindar in Bengal was the fountainhead of land gifts and local patron-
age. He granted rent-free shares of the agricultural surplus to a major portion of
the elites in his territory. The large zamindar and his officers also appointed
thousands of persons to conduct the police, judicial, revenue, and military
functions of his territory. The raja of Burdwan, for example, had eight judicial
and revenue daftars or offices at his capital, revenue-collecting kacharis in each
pargana, and eight forts to staff. He endowed, built, and repaired numerous
temples. The major zamindars seemed to vie with each other in demonstrating
generosity, in attracting noted poets and scholars to their courts, in the distinct-
iveness of their temples, and in their patronage of the centers of Sanskrit
scholarship at Bansberia, Guptipara, Nabadvip, Tribeni, and other places near
the Bhagirathi river. The rajas of Burdwan never matched Raja Krishnachandra
of Nadia's reputation for patronizing poets and scholars but the list of persons
associated at various times with the Burdwan court was nevertheless impressive
and included Ghanaram Chakravarti, author of Dharmamangala (1713);6
Baneswar Vidyalankar, poet, legal scholar, and one of the most learned men of
the mid-eighteenth century;7 Raghunath Ray (1750-1836), a religious song-

5
This point is suggested by discussion by Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (Chicago, IL,
1972), pp. 133-35.
6
Sen, History of Bengali Language and Literature, p. 13.
7
A.K.Banerji, WBDG: Hooghly, p. 680.
 Political gifts and patronage 99

writer;8 and Kamalakanta-Dasa, Vaishnava song-writer and compiler of Pada-

ratnakara (1806).9 The Burdwan rajas also endowed a major math (monastic
institution of Hindu ascetics) in the Rajganj section of Burdwan town and
claimed a right to take "the leading part in the election" of the head mahant
(leader of the monastic order) when the mahants of the outlying, subordinate
maths met to choose a successor to the gadi (throne). In the mid-nineteenth
century, the value of the math's property was stated to be close to Rs. 18 lakhs.10
Some zamindars were notably catholic in selecting the objects of their
beneficence, as if to impress their subjects, and sometimes the nazims in
Murshidabad, with their incorporating broad-mindedness. The raja of Burdwan,
for example, conferred land on a Sufi pir (teacher) in Kaiyanpur in modern
Howrah district who had impressed the raja with his super-human powers.11
The Burdwan rajas also maintained the darga (tomb) of a famous pir, Bahram
Sekka, in Burdwan town. The Muslim raja of Birbhum, on the other hand,
donated 360 bighas (one bigha equals one third of an acre) of land to maintain
the sripat (Vaishnava seat) of a noted descendant of one of Chaitanya's twelve
companions, at Muluk near Bolpur.12
Hindu attitudes towards gift-giving in Mughal Bengal were shaped by caste
custom, Hindu mythology, Hindu legal codes as refracted through the learning
of Brahmins and other educated people, as well as by Mughal administrative
practices. This chapter begins with a discussion of specifically Hindu attitudes
towards prestations because chronologically they were primary and because
land gifts by Hindu zamindars, which were a central feature of the revenue
system, derived more from Hindu than Mughal or Islamic sources.

Hindu gifts
To say that Hindu writings on gifts are numerous would be an understatement.
Manu and others listed the religious goals that were most appropriate for each
of the four yugas (ages) and said that gifts were for the present Kali-yuga.
(Austerities, metaphysical knowledge, and sacrifices were associated respec-
tively with the three earlier yugas.)13 The Santiparva and Anushasanaparva

8
Sen, History of Bengali Language and Literature, p. 606.
9
Sukumar Sen, A History ofBrajabuli Literature Being a Study of the Vaisnava Lyric Poetry and
Poets of Bengal (Calcutta, 1935), p. 345.
10
Greedharee Doss v. Nundokissore Doss, Mohunt, 17 and 19 July 1867, in Edmund F. Moore,
Reports of Cases Heard and Determined by the Judicial Committee, and the Lords of His
Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, on Appeal from the Supreme and Sudder Dewanny
Courts in the East Indies (1^ vols., Calcutta reprint, 1915), vol. XI, pp. 249-65.
1
' A.K. Banerji, WBDG: Hooghly, pp. 587-88.
12
D. Majumdar, WBDG: Birbhum (Calcutta, 1975), p. 573.
13
Kane, History, vol. II, pt. II (Poona, 1941), p. 837.
100 Bengal

sections of the Mahabharata contain lengthy, frequently cited discussions of

dana (gifts), as do the Agni, Matsya, and Varaha Puranas. Legal scholars
prepared at least half a dozen digests on the subject of dana.14 The twelveth-
century jurist Apararka quoted a verse which summed up the importance of
gifts: "two persons should be drowned in water after tying around their neck a
large stone, viz. a rich man not making gifts and a poor man who is not a tapasvin
(who undergoes austerities or who is restrained)."15
Generosity thus was a principal obligation of an affluent Hindu's dharma.
Bengali Hindus related all actions to the four ends of existence which in
ascending order of value were: kama (pleasure), artha (wealth, advantage),
dharma (moral obligation), and mukti (liberation from rebirth). All Hindus were
obliged to pursue the first three ends (trivarga), the lower of which had to be
sought in order to achieve the next. Therefore, moral obligations could not be
fulfilled without wealth, and wealth could not be obtained without the family
which was a by-product of sexual pleasure.16 Generosity was the particular
obligation of the householder. Among householders, the raja, with his superior
resources and his responsibility to uphold moral order, was the premier gift-
giver.
The ruler who gave presents to textually approved recipients was upholding
dharma. Bengalis distinguished between three ranked categories of "activities
and substances" according to their closeness to or distance from universal
dharma. The highest activities were sattvik or those associated with dharma.
Sattvik activites included "self-control, forbearance, discrimination, truthful-
ness," generosity, and worship. Rajasik activities were the morally neutral ones
involved in normal temporal activities. Tamasik activities were lowest and
included violence, sex, and hunger.17 The raja, like other individuals, combined
all three categories in his behavior. But the raja's appropriate gifts18 were
sattvik, ones that encouraged worship and moral guidance for his subjects.
Bengalis tended to associate the gifts they made to social superiors with puja
(worship), perhaps the most sattvik activity of all. The individual inherited rank
(jati, kula) but believed that his or her actions would elevate or lower that rank
without one's own life-span. In its most general sense, puja means "honor or
respect, an act of offering something to someone." Gods are the most common
objects of puja. Akos Ostor, describing his observations in contemporary

14
Ibid., p. 841.
15
Ibid., p. 845.
16
Ronald B. Inden, Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture: A History of Caste and Clan in Middle
Period Bengal (New Delhi, 1976), pp. 84-85.
17
Davis, Rank and Rivalry, pp. 74-78.
18
Inappropriate gifts included those to unworthy recipients and those which disabled the donor
from supporting his family.
 Political gifts and patronage 101

Bishnupur, found that people most frequently defined a puja with "an analogy
between the service of a deity and the treatment of a guest." In most Bishnupur
pujas, small as well as large, sixteen separate items including food, water, and
cloth are offered to the deity.19 The gifts with which Bengalis worshiped the
gods were homologous with those they used to honor human superiors, such as
their gurus and priests. Both the act of honoring a natural superior and the act
of sacrificing something of value were considered meritorious and bQth added
to an individual's rank or "embodied substance." Thus, rank was nourished by
the constant exchange of resources, whether in the form of food or wealth ("the
source of food") or brides.20 What a person ate, gave away, and received were
simultaneously a determinant and a measure of his or her rank.
Ethnographic descriptions of Bengali villages and towns demonstrate how
pervasive puja activities, including gifts to deities, were among all Hindu social
strata. The ubiquity of complex ritual cycles for the worship of dozens of deities
leave little doubt about the partial hegemony of the notion that human welfare
depended upon the repeated gifts to and honoring of the gods.21 The ideology
of puja was spread to non-literate villagers through public readings of and/or
discussions about "great tradition" texts such as the Manu Dharmashastra, the
Bhagavad Gita, and the Bhagavata Purana.22 As a result of this exposure to
upper caste culture and of their observations of the working of local society,
low and high status villagers alike understood how political power and the
hierarchy of puja activities were intertwined, with the king and other givers of
gifts ranked higher than the human receivers, with the exception of the ano-
molous Brahmins.
Classical Hindu sources particularly enjoined rajas to give gifts of money and
land to learned Brahmins, many of whom performed Vedic rites. The texts
treated Vedic sacrifices (yajna) as "the ultimate source of the power to bring
about order and well-being." As the chief sacrificer (yajamana) of his realm,
the king's responsibility was to ensure that Brahmins conducted sacrifices for
the health and prosperity of his subjects. Theoretically, the king's powers of
coercion depended on and were secondary to the Brahmin's performance of the
sacrifice.23 The texts described a raja's gifts to a Brahmin as a sacrifice (yajna)
in itself. By the eighteenth century, Brahmins in Bengal were much more likely

19
Akos Ostor, "Puja in Society: A Methodological and Analytical Essay on an Ethnographic
Category," The Eastern Anthropologist, vol. 3 1 , no. 2 (April-June 1978), pp. 123-25.
20
Inden, Marriage and Rank, pp. 86-87.
21
See Lai Behari Day, Bengal Peasant Life (new edn., London 1878); Tara Krishna Basu, The
Bengal Peasant from Time to Time (Calcutta, 1962); Gouranga Chattopadhyay, Ranjana: A
Village in West Bengal (Calcutta, 1964); and Akos Ostor, The Play of the Gods: Locality,
Ideology, Structure and Time in the Festivals of a Bengali Town (Chicago, IL, 1980).
22
Davis, Rank and Rivalry, p. 46.
23
Inden, Marriage and Rank, p. 52.
102 Bengal

to offer puja to material representations or images of deities than to perform

Vedic sacrifice to invisible gods in the atmosphere.24 But in high caste concep-
tions, the interdependent roles of the local king and Brahmin remained much
the same because puja was now "often equated with Vedic worship (yajna) and
service". The foods donated to deities and Brahmins were distributed to upper
caste devotees as sanctified left-overs that were considered equal to "the
powerful coded substance of the Veda itself."25 In consequence, high caste
Hindus continued to view the king's gifts to Brahmins as necessary for social
welfare and dharmic existence. Without such gifts, "order and prosperity"
would collapse.26 Moreover, low caste Hindus were more likely in medieval
Bengal than earlier to be conscious of the king's patronage of Brahmins and
temples since many pujas at which Brahmin's officiated were open to them
whereas Vedic sacrifices had been closed. Altogether, the gifts of the raja-
zamindar nourished the ritual life which was so essential to rural society.27
The relationship between the king and the Brahmin has presented special
problems for scholars interested in identifying the organizing principle in Hindu
constructions of hierarchy. Those who see the social system revolving around
the Brahmin and Brahmanical principles that oppose purity and impurity have
not convinced their colleagues that the purity-impurity dichotomy is the major
determinant of social relations. The latter group point to the pivotal position of
the king in the larger society and of the dominant peasant caste in village
society.28 The view accepted here is that "power and wealth, rather than purity
and impurity, are the chief bases for social hierarchy" and that "religious
institutions are fundamental features of the political system. Kings derive much
of their power from worship, and bestow their emblems and privileges in a
cultural atmosphere that is permeated by the language and attitudes of wor-
ship."29
Rajas in Bengal had given gifts to induce learned Brahmins to settle in their
territory at least since the mythical arrival of the first Rarhi Brahmins in the
eleventh century. At that time, Adisura, king of Bengal, had sent to north India
for five Brahmins who brought the Veda and five "devoted" Shudras to Bengal.
After Adisura questioned the Brahmins and watched them perform Vedic
worship, he gave "villages, gold, cows, clothes, and so forth to the twice-born

24
Ibid., p. 30.
25
Ibid., p. 91.
26
Ibid., p. 52.
27
See Heesterman, Inner Conflict, pp. 36ff, and David Shulman, The King and the Clown in South
Indian Myth and Poetry (Princeton, NJ, 1985), pp. 23-24.
28
See especially Gloria Goodwin Raheja, The Poison in the Gift: Ritual, Prestation, and the
Dominant Caste in a North Indian Village (Chicago, IL, 1988).
29
Nicholas B. Dirks, "The Original Caste: Power, History and Hierarchy in South Asia," in
McKim Marriott (ed.), India through Hindu Categories (New Delhi, 1990), pp. 6 0 - 6 1 .
 Political gifts and patronage 103

as their honorarium (daksina). And so all the Brahmans and Sudras settled here
in this country."30 Adisura had formed an alliance with the Brahmins who
hereafter guided the raja and his subjects in the proper performance of their
respective duties. Important classical Hindu texts exempted Brahmins from
taxation,31 extolled gifts of land as "the most meritorious,"32 and declared that
the donor would secure all the benefits of the sacrifices and rites the gift made
possible.33
In the Mughal period, both Mughal rulers and zamindars tolerated old
exemptions and granted new ones to Brahmins. Today, former dependents of
the rajas of Bishnupur, Burdwan, and Nadia say that these rajas intended that
no Brahmin in their territory be without a gift of land.34 Each may have made
good his intention. Apparently, the small zamindari grants of land to Brahmins,
called brahmottar, did not reduce the total demand of a village. Rather, the
demand was redivided among the remaining inhabitants or, if the land granted
had been uncultivated, the demand was left the same. It is not clear if Bengali
Brahmins were paid to persuade them to accept land gifts. To accept a gift
implied dependence and inferiority. In some areas of India, donors induced
Brahmins to accept gifts of land by first giving them a piece of gold.35
Land was often alienated to endow temples and the pujas performed in them.
This land was called debottar. The sebait or temple custodian did not always
or perhaps usually spend the land's total income on religious activity and
physical maintenance so that these grants became a source of income for the
sebait. Sebaits often hired low-paid pujaris (temple priests) to conduct temple
rites.36 Debottar land was hereditable but unlike brahmottar, was not alienable.
After the Permanent Settlement of 1793 and the extension of the civil court
system, landholders created debottar alienations as a device to protect their
estates from attachment for debts. Money-lenders were reluctant to attach land
that had been given to a goddess.
Village artisans and specialists who helped in village rituals also received
lands with reduced rental obligation. These were not as common in Bengal as
in many other parts of India but nineteenth-century accounts indicated that
jajmani-type arrangements still existed in some areas, A general account of
Bengal's villagers in 1874 said that "when the village is one in which the

30
Inden, Marriage and Rank, pp. 5 7 - 5 8 .
31
Kane, History, vol. II, pp. 1 4 3 ^ 5 , and vol. Ill, p. 194.
32
Ibid., vol. II, pt. II, p. 858.
33
Ibid., p. 857.
34
For example, see Mahendra Nath Gupta, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement of Certain
Government and Temporarily-Settled Estates and Zamindari Estates in the District ofHooghly,
1904-13 (Calcutta, 1914), p. 28.
35
Winks, Land and Sovereignty, pp. 228-29.
36
J. Duncan M. Derrett, Introduction to Modern Hindu Law (Bombay, 1963), pp. 4 9 6 - 9 8 .
104 Bengal

zamindar resides, it will often be the case that the barber who shaves the
members of his family, the dhobi who washes for them, the head darwan (or
porter) and other principal servants, all hereditary, hold their portion of the
village land at relatively low rents or even rent free, in consideration of their
services."37 W.W. Hunter, while discussing Burdwan district in the 1870s, said
the kamar (blacksmith) who sacrificed goats, the napit (barber) who assisted in
ceremonies, the mail (gardener) who made garlands for festivals no longer held
alienated maintenance lands38 but his accounts of Bankura (formerly Bishnu-
pur) and Birbhum stated that in some villages blacksmiths, barbers, gardeners,
potters, and carpenters still held rent-free land for their ritual services and in
some cases for serving the zamindar or his gomashta.39
Rajas also gave uncultivated land to Brahmins and non-Brahmins in order to
bring it under the plough, induce more people to settle in their territory, and
ultimately increase their revenue and number of dependents. These grants, in
contrast to religious gifts to Brahmins and temples, were limited by conditions
meant to prevent the erosion of the rajas' income. These land-clearing grants
might consist of half revenue-paying and half revenue-free land, of revenue-free
land that would become revenue-paying after a fixed period, or of land with a
permanently low rent. The permutations were numerous. Again, in contrast to
religious gifts, land-clearing grants were often subjected to a state tax, at a lower
rate than ordinary revenue land.
Raja Tejchandra of Burdwan, when challenged by the Company's govern-
ment in 1791 about the existence of low-rent tenancies in his zamindari,
responded with a revealing explanation of their origin. He said that in pre-British
times, "it was customary for men of family & consequence, both Hindoos &
Mussulmans, to travel a great deal through the Country & the Zemindars in
those days were of opinion that if they could prevail on men of Rank to stay in
the District it would greatly benefit the object of Cultivation." In Burdwan,
low-rent grants intended to bring fallow land under the plough were called
aimma (literally, plural of imam or Islamic religious leader but extended in
Mughal usage to cover revenue-free or low-revenue tenures, given to religious
and other leaders). Raja Tejchandra said that Nazim Shaista Khan (1664-77 and
1680-88) had introduced a'imma grants into Bengal to encourage cultivation
and that, although it was "the general policy," the raja's ancestors had utilized
the policy "particularly." A'imma grants were resumable by the raja of Burdwan

37
J.B.P., "Rustic Bengal," Calcutta Review, vol. 59 (1874), p. 200.
38
Hunter, Statistical Account, vol. IV, p. 66.
39
Ibid., pp. 243-45 and 368-69. Also see Risley, Tribes and Castes, vol. I, pp. 231 and 525, and
vol. II, p. 127, and Tarasish Mukhopadhyay, "The Jajmani Relationship in Rural West Bengal/'
in Alexander Lipski (ed.), Bengal East and West (East Lansing, MI, 1969), pp. 139-49.
 Political gifts and patronage 105

on failure to produce an heir. Since Shaista Khan's time, the state had taxed
a'imma land at the reduced rate of Rs. 1 for three bighas. 40
Another kind of alienation designed to promote economic development
was the exemption of land when it was converted into a tank (pond). The
zamindar of Birbhum, for example, charged Rs. 50-100 in salami (present)
for digging a tank in malzamini (revenue-paying) land and required the
grantee "to clear as much Waste land and pay for it at the Rate of the Lands
appropriated to the Tank." This was a productive investment when the tank's
owner irrigated his fields, stocked fish, and planted valuable trees on
the tank's banks. The zamindar of Burdwan used a different arrangement
for tanks. He also charged salami but he required an additional payment
equal to nine years' rent, after which the land used for the tank became
rent-free.41
A less common but significant type of alienation was the gift of revenue-
free land to a raja's relatives, favorites, and employees. Often, these grants
were made under the guise of debottar or land-clearing a'imma grants in
order to give them greater legitimacy in the event of a government investi-
gation. A marriage settlement sometimes included a land grant for a child-
bride's father. Rajas rewarded loyal diwans with revenue-free grants. Gifts
to a raja's relatives and zamindari employees were usually larger than those
to Brahmins and might consist of whole villages. They were also more likely
to be resumed when a raja found himself under state pressure for more
revenue or when the holder displeased the raja. In the 1790s, Rani Bishnu-
kumari of Burdwan filed a law suit to resume eighty-seven villages origi-
nally assessed at Rs. 60,000 but then granted by Raja Tejchandra for a rent
of Rs. 15,062 to Raghunath Singh, a former friend and employee of Raja
Tejchandra.42
Zamindars were not the only persons who alienated zamindari land. Few
large zamindars supervised their amla closely. "The ignorance of the zamindars,
and their great inattention to the management of the concerns for which they
are responsible" was said to be "universal." Zamindari amla secretly exempted
their masters' land as favors to their dependents and as sources of bribes to
others in most estates in Bengal. Intermediaries managing the collections in
subdivisions under the rajas did the same. The result was to increase the burdens
on the non-exempt population who had to make up the defalcation on the
exempted land.43

40
Raja Tejchandra to BOR, n.d., BOR Prog, of 16-30 Sept. 1791, vol. 120.
41
J. Sherbume, Birbhum Col., to BOR, 14Feb. 1788, BOR, Misc. Prog, of 20-31 Aug. 1789, vol.
75.
42
BLR, pp. 655 and 730-36.
43
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, paras. 174-86.
106 Bengal

Mughal gifts
In Mughal theory, zamindars were not empowered to alienate land revenue.
That was the emperor's (badshah's) prerogative. In practice, the Mughals
generally tolerated such alienations when they did not reduce the state's
collections from the zamindari as a whole. When a zamindari changed hands,
non-badshahi alienations were liable to resumption. The emperors themselves
granted revenue-free land or land at a nominal revenue. These grants, resumable
according to their deeds, were termed madad-i ma'ash (aid for subsistence) or
a'imma. The Ain-i Akbari explained that Akbar, "from his desire to promote
rank distinction, confers land and subsistence allowances on four classes of
men." They resembled the recipients of Hindu land gifts. They were seekers of
knowledge who had given up "worldly occupation"; self-deniers who had
withdrawn from society; the "weak and poor"; and "honourable men of gentle
birth who from want of knowledge are unable to provide for themselves by
taking up a trade."44
The Mughal emperors, however, seem never to have alienated land on the
same scale as the zamindars of eighteenth-century Bengal. Akbar initiated an
inquiry into fraudulent grants made by his subordinates, resumed such grants,
and ordered madad-i ma ash-ho\&trs with more than 500 bighas to produce their
documents for inspection.45 The Ain's statistics for madad-i ma ash show that
the alienations from the total state revenue varied from 5.4 percent in Delhi to
1.8 percent in Gujarat and Lahore. The Ain did not give figures for Bengal but
Nazim Shaista Khan countermanded an order by his predecessor to resume
non-badshahi grants in Bengal and permitted the retention of those grants if
they did not amount to over 2.5 percent of the revenue in each jagir. In 1672-73,
Aurangzib ordered the resumption of grants to Hindus but enforcement of the
order was spotty.46 Some notion of how much less frequently the Mughal state
alienated land than the zamindars may be seen from an 1839 government
estimate that fifty out of fifty-one rent-free grants in Bengal were non-bad-
shahi*1 In Burdwan district in the early 1870s, there were only 1,343 estates,
covering about 2,26,000 bighas, that paid no revenue to government while
170,240 small plots, assessable by government, paid no rent to the zamindars.
This represented an average of one rent-free plot for each 2.5 houses in the
district.48
The Mughal government did assign much of the empire's territory as jagirs

44
[Allami], Ain-i Akbari, tr. Blochman, vol. I, p. 278.
45
Ibid., p. 279.
46
Habib, Agrarian System, pp. 311-16.
47
F.J. Halliday, S e c , Rev. Dept., to Landholders' Society, 15 Jan. 1839, BR Prog. 37 of 15 Jan.
1839, vol. 976.
48
Hunter, Statistical Account, vol. IV, pp. 1 and 77-78.
 Political gifts and patronage 107

for the support of the mansabdars and their troops. But this was classified as
khiraj (revenue-paying), not lakhiraj (without revenue). Moreover, in Bengal
beginning with Murshid Quli Khan, the proportion of jagir land declined. How
much land in Bengal was held free of either rental demand or government
revenue demand? The most comprehensive survey in the eighteenth century
was made by the Amini Commission of 1777. When its findings are combined
with an earlier survey of Burdwan, the totals of alienated land are 45.25 lakhs
of bighas of bazi zamin and 10.50 lakhs of bighas of chakaran. If we assume
that similar proportions of land were alienated in the unsurveyed districts, with
one quarter of the province's cultivated land, and that only one fifth of Bengal
was cultivated, then 60 lakhs of bighas or 23.9 percent of the cultivated land
may have been bazi zamin, and 14.0 lakhs of bighas or 5.6 percent may have
been chakaran. James Grant guessed that another 7 lakhs of bighas or 2.8 percent
were held revenue free as nankar (support land) by zamindars and qanungos.49
Thus, by Grant's calculations in 1786, based largely on the Amini Commission
survey of 1777, the total alienated land was 81.0 lakhs of bighas or an area equal
to 32.2 percent of the area he guessed was cultivated in Bengal.50 The percent-
ages probably exaggerate the proportions of cultivated land that had been
alienated because exempted land often contained uncultivated and scrub land51
and in many districts rent-free holders cultivated a smaller part of their land than
rent payers. Moreover, it is possible that much more than one fifth of Bengal's
total area was cultivated. What may be said with confidence is that in the late
Mughal and early British periods, landholders took advantage of lax state
control to exempt large numbers of people from payment of rent and revenue.
While rent-free land was the characteristic gift of a zamindar to his depend-
ents, the gift of a khilat was the usual way, apart from appointments and jagirs,
the emperor or the provincial governor honored and incorporated his important
subjects. Khilat was an Arabic word meaning "robe of honor" and it was used
interchangeably with the Persian term siropa (literally, head to foot). It mini-
mally consisted of a turban, a gown, and a girdle or sash. If the recipient was
important enough, a second gown was added, the khilat was embroidered with
gold, silver, and silk thread, and it was decorated with jewels.52 In Bengal,
nazims, mansabdars, and zamindars conferred khilats at the celebration of the

49
The zamindars of Bengal received most of their income from a share of their collections, not
from nankar. John Shore estimated that zamindari nankar "does not in the aggregate exceed
one per cent in the revenues." Minute of 2 April 1788, p. 747.
50
One fifth of 90,000 square miles = 18,000 x 1,396 bighas per square mile = 2,51,28,000 bighas
of cultivated land. James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," pp. 269-72.
51
See accounts of the bazi zamin or alienated lands of Vishnupur, Misc. Records, Rev. Dept., 54
volumes.
52
Khan, Seir, vol. I, p. 15.
108 Bengal

puniya, successions, and weddings, and on the occasion of delegating authority

or making appointments. When an important zamindar died, the nazim sent his
condolences and a khilat to the heir. If the successor was female, she was given
shawls instead of a gown and turban. After a major zamindar's funeral, an adult
male heir was presented to the nazim and received a khilat and a betel leaf. The
heir was not given a farman or sanad confirming the succession until the
deceased zamindar's arrears were adjusted and until the heir had paid peshkash
(tribute) to the emperor and a nazr (gift) to the nazim. Often, the completion of
these transactions took several years. If the succeeding zamindar was female, a
minor, or of "secondary rank," the nazim deputed an officer to confer the khilat
and give the betel. 53 By conferring a khilat, a ruler proclaimed his sovereignty
and incorporated the recipient into the governing class; by accepting a khilat, a
man acknowledged the donor's overlordship and pledged loyal service.
Mughal use of gifts of clothes to cement political bonds fit easily with
indigenous beliefs about "the transformative and symbolic qualities of cloth."
"Like ceremonial food offerings, donations of cloth to temple deities among
Hindus or to saints' shrines among Muslims were appropriate because they
could be redistributed after worship as sanctified substances." 54 Hindus gave
cloth in a vast number of worship and life-cycle ceremonies. Cloth did not have
as much potency as food to transfer purity or pollution, but it retained "'bio-
moral energy' longer" and was used as gifts to Brahmins, temples, and depend-
ents. By one mid-nineteenth-century estimate, only one fifth of India's "raw
cotton production was sold as such in internal or external markets," while the
rest was used in social, political, and ritual transactions. 55
The significance of the khilat was in its symbolism for unlike the gift of land,
the khilat's value was less in its material value than in its intrinsic meaning. Part
of its meaning derived from the fact that the robes came from the personal
wardrobe of, and in theory if rarely in reality might have been worn by, the
donor. F.W. Buckler stressed the bodily contact involved. He argued that the
khilat was a symbol of "continuity or succession" and that "that continuity rests
on a physical basis, depending on contact of the body of the recipient with the
body of the donor through the medium of the clothing. Or, to put it rather
differently, the donor includes the recipient within his own person through the
medium of his wardrobe." 56 Considering other examples of "corporeal trans-

53
Charles William Boughton Rouse, Dissertation concerning the Landed Property of Bengal
(London, 1791), pp. 232-36.
54
C.A. Bayly, "The Origins of Swadeshi (Home Industry): Cloth and Indian Society, 1700-1930,"
in Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things, p. 297.
55
Ibid., pp. 301-02.
56
F.W. Buckler, "The Oriental Despot," in Legitimacy and Symbols: The South Asian Writings
of F.W. Buckler, ed. M.N. Pearson (Ann Arbor, MI, 1985), p. 179.
 Political gifts and patronage 109

ferences" and "corporeal contact,"57 including communal meals and the taking
of a predecessor's widow or concubine, Buckler concluded that the Mughal and
other "Eastern" kings stand
for a system of rule of which he is the incarnation, incorporating into his own body, by
means of certain symbolical acts, the persons of those who share his rule. They are
regarded as being parts of his body, membra corpohs regis, and in their district or sphere
of activity, they are the King himself-not servants of the King but 'friends' or members
of the King.58
Buckler's "organic" view of Mughal kingship fits the argument that "patri-
monial domination originates in the patriarch's authority over his household"
and that as the patriarch extends his authority over people who were not
originally part of his household, the larger realm is still "conceived as a huge
household."59 High Mughal officers fed their Muslim friends, either by sending
gifts of cooked food to their houses 60 or by eating communally. At a communal
dinner, the master of house was said to sit at the northern end of a cloth spread
on the floor with a dozen dishes for himself. Another four or so guests, sitting
close to the host on either side, had similar assortments of dishes. "But below
those four guests, the number of dishes go on diminishing in each assortment,
until they reach the southern side; and there the number shrinks to two or three,
and these too of an inferior sort very often, as being destined for people of a
very different station."61
Common meals, then, like khilats could draw Muslims of various ranks into
relations that may have had resonance with the hierarchical extended family.
But what of Hindus? They accepted khilats-rejecting a khilat was regarded as
a sign of treason62-but it is almost inconceivable that many Hindu officers and
zamindars would have shared meals with Muslims. Would a Muslim look upon
a Hindu zamindar who would not eat with him and who had to be coerced into
paying his revenue as part of the same corporate group? Perhaps yes, perhaps
no. The point is that there were multiple symbolic systems operating, one that
encompassed relations between persons of proximate rank and culture and
others that could bridge broader cultural and social distances, that would allow
for the less familial acts of extraction and coercion and for the language of
etiquette in which a petitioner to the emperor described himself as "the smallest

57
The phrases are from M.N. Pearson's introduction to ibid., pp. 26-27, which is a valuable
discussion of "the rites of incorporation."
58
Ibid., p. 177.
59
Blake, "The Patrimonial-Bureaucratic Empire of the Mughals," p. 79.
60
Khan, Seir, vol. II, p. 135.
61
Translator's note, ibid., p. 168.
62
M.N. Pearson's introduction. Buckler, Legitimacy and Symbols, p. 25.
110 Bengal

particle of sand" and addressed the emperor as "a Support and shade to all that
inhabite the world."63
In the mid-eighteenth century, relations between the state and the zamindars
of Bengal were becoming less "organic" and familial, despite the persistence
of activies such as khilat-giving that implied kinship. Revenue farming had
spread in late Mughal Bengal. The estates of many large zamindars had
expanded through the money-oriented role of revenue farming. The rituals of
incorporation could not disguise the financial motives that lay at the base of the
extractive system. One piece of evidence that demonstrates the weakening of
the kinship model was the fact that from Shuja-ud-din's reign (1727-39), at
least, nazims charged zamindars for the cost of the khilats they distributed at
the annual puniya. Shuja imposed a special abwab called baha-i-khilat for the
purpose.64 In other words, the conferral of khilats, on this occasion anyway, was
no longer a free gift. East India Company officials converted the charge for
khilats at the puniya into a major exaction. Whereas before the grant of the
diwani to the Company in 1765, the nazims charged Rs. 83,000 for khilats, the
Company charged over Rs. 2,67,000 annually from 1766 to 1770.65 Sub-
sequently, the Company ceased to hold the puniya or give annual khilats. But
the practice of charging recipients for khilats spread to some zamindaris. A
gomashta in Rangpur reported in 1786 that he was charged Rs. 188 for his khilat
which he sold for Rs. 60. A government commission in Rangpur reported that
year that
we find it is the general custom throughout the country for the native to request Khelauts
(Honorary dresses) on all public occasions from those invested with power and authority,
particularly from a person newly entered into an office under whom they are to act, and
that a compliment of superior value is made in return for such Honorary dresses.66
While khilats and communal feasts were given by superiors to inferiors,
inferiors gave their superior a money gift, a nazr, which was "the counterpart
of the khilat and expresses the same relationship-the donor acknowledges the
recipient as the source of all his wealth and being." An Arabic and Persian word
which originally meant "a vow," nazr came in Mughal India to mean "an
offering" or "a gift" because the vow was "always symbolically expressed in

63
John Russell, President of the English East India Company at Fort William, to Emperor
Farrukhsiyar, 27 March 1713, C.R. Wilson, The Early Annals of the English in Bengal, (2 vols.,
London, 1895 and Calcutta, 1900), vol. II, pt. I, p. I l l
64
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 210.
65
Fourth Report from the Committee of Secrecy Appointed to Enquire into the State of the East
India Company, 1773, Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, vol. IV, East
Indies-! 772, 1773, pp. 112-13. Hereafter cited as Fourth Report from the Committee of
Secrecy, 1773.
66
Report of the Rangpur Commission, 23 March 1786, Sinha (pub.), Maharaja Debx Sinha,
pp. 490-91.
 Political gifts and patronage 111

gifts of the earth or stock, of coin, of a daughter in marriage."67 Nazrs were most
often coins. The Mughal mints produced gold coins that were largely used as
presents for high-ranking officers.68 Mughal emperors and nazims not only
welcomed nazrs, they often demanded them. Men seeking imperial audiences,
appointments, or promotions sent sizeable nazrs to the emperor and/or his
principal officers and these "were in practice compulsory."69 When a zamindar
wanted his estate enlarged or his succession confirmed, presents were obliga-
tory. Ramjiban was required to make three contributions when he became
zamindar of Rajshahi in 1733: Rs. 8,17,000 for the emperor, Rs. 1,67,000 for
the nazim, and Rs. 27,000 for certain provincial ministers. Because they
equalled more than half of Ramjiban's ordinary annual revenue obligation, the
payments were allowed to be made in installments over seven years. 70 When
Raja Krishnachandra of Nadia refused the Rs. 12 lakh nazr demanded of him,
Alivardi (nazim 1740-56) imprisoned him.71
Although emperors and nazims demanded nazrs as a matter of course, they
periodically attempted to check the extortion of presents by lesser officials.
Aurangzib's farman (order) to Rasikdas required him to see that "no Oppression
may be exercised upon a single Ryot." To lessen the opportunity for present-
giving, he was told not to see the chaudhuris (revenue collectors) and amins
(temporary estate managers) "in private but make it a Rule for them to attend
publicly in the Cutcherry."72 Nazim Shuja-ud-din (1727-39) dismissed servants
of government who demanded gratuities and rewarded the people who informed
on them.73 Such efforts had no lasting effect. Present-taking was so common
that salaries of lesser officials were probably set with the understanding that
they would supplement their income with nazrs and exactions. Presents to
inferior and superior officers were so ordinary that they were institutionalized
and recorded in zamindari sanads (patents) and in zamindari demands on
subordinate revenue payers, as nazrana, abwabs, and other items. Nazrs had
become a routine supplement to the land revenue.74
Frequently, though, presents were little more than extortions, exacted by the
powerful from the weak, without being entered into any account or record but
taken on the occasion of performing ordinary official duties or of an important
event in a superior's life. Walter Clavell wrote that in Hughli in the 1680s, the

67
Buckler, "The Oriental Despot," p. 181.
68
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, p. 93.
69
W.H. Moreland, From Akbar to Awangzeb (New Delhi, 1972, reprint of 1923 edn.), p. 271.
70
Calkins, "Revenue Administration," pp. 250-51.
71
Datta, Alivardi, p. 58.
72
Aurangzib's farman to Rasikdas, Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, p. 988.
73
Khan, Seir, vol. I, p. 324.
74
James Grant. "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 277.
112 Bengal

faujdar compelled Indian merchants to buy goods from him at 10-15 percent
higher than their market value and to give "small presents, at all feasts, his or
his Sonns birth dayes, Circumcisions, Marriages, or his goeing to or coming
from Dacca."75 William Bolts estimated that zamindars paid the equivalent of
25 percent of their assessed revenue to Mughal officials and their agents to
secure their "influence."76

Gifts and the British

From the time of their arrival in India, the British entered networks of gift
exchange. As ambassadors and traders, Company employees traveled inland to
the imperial courts, gave the expected nazrs, and obtained the farmans which
allowed them to trade duty-free. Duty-free did not mean gift-free. European
accounts from the seventeenth century usually treated the presents traders were
asked for as extortion devoid of symbolic meaning. Officials from the petty
chaukidar (local guard) on up asked European merchants to produce the
documents which exempted them from duties and demanded payments suitable
to their station. Numerous chaukidars stopped John Marshall in 1670 on his trip
from Balasore through Bengal to Patna. Most were satisfied with a rupee. 77
Streynsham Master wrote in his diary at Hughli in 1679: "Here is noe order or
Government. Every petty Officer makes a pray of us and abuscing us at pleasure
to Screw what they can out of us."78 The British believed that vexatious pressure
on the factors and their commercial partners violated the imperial agreements
under which they traded and they attempted to gain more latitude and respect
by attacking the Mughals on both the eastern and western coasts in 1686. The
military results were unimpressive but in 1696 the British received permission
to build Fort William and two years later, after giving appropriate nazrs to the
nazim and diwan of Bengal, they were allowed to buy the zamindari rights to
the neighboring villages of Kalikata, Gobindapur, and Sutanuti. The East India
Company had demonstrated that it had the military strength to interfere with the
export trade if pushed too far.
The size and armed strength of the European merchant companies and the
importance of their trade to the Indian economy gained them a measure of
protection from the demands for presents. Indian traders were more vulnerable.
Thomas Bowrey wrote that Nazim Shaista Khan "always kept in his court

75
From "Mr. W. Clavell's Accompt of the Trade of Hugly," in [Hedges], Diary of William Hedges,
vol. II, p. cxxxix.
76
William Bolts, Consideration on Indian Affairs; Particularly Respecting the Present State of
Bengal and its Dependencies{2nd edn., London, 1772), p. 161.
77
Khan, John Marshall in India, pp. 63ff.
78
Temple (ed.), Diaries of Streynsham Master, vol. II, p. 28.
 Political gifts and patronage 113

Sharpe witted fellows that made it theire business to prye into the Estates of the
Hindoo merchants." The nazim demanded a payment of Rs. 1,00,000 from
Khemchand Shaw, a wealthy Balasore broker who traded with the British, and
accepted Rs. 50,000. The faujdar of Cuttack also shook down Khemchand,
detaining him until he paid Rs. 30,000. Bowrey commented that such happen-
ings "have occasioned every house of any Esteeme to Entertain many peons."
Khemchand employed fifty guards.79
British observations of exactions from merchants and their isolation from the
courts of the nazim and zamindars probably created an exaggerated notion of
the arbitrariness in the exchange of resources in eighteenth-century Bengal.
Moreover, as the British began to look more closely at nawabi politics in the
1740s and 1750s, some behavioral standards were growing more fluid. In
periods of political stability, the amounts demanded and given were usually
limited by mutually recognized parameters of what was expected and what was
possible. However, in transitions between regimes, when major changes in
personnel and policy occurred, the usual conventions did not hold. This was
particularly true of the middle decades of the eighteenth century, during the
destructive Maratha invasions in Alivardi's reign (1740-56) and during the
revolution effected by the English East India Company (1757-65). In this
period, first the nazim's government and then the Company pressed unabash-
edly for payments beyond the customary presents, as normal constraints on
conduct eroded.
During the Maratha invasions, the raiders took payments from some
zamindars in return for not plundering their estates.80 Alivardi, deprived of
zamindari revenue in the western districts, found himself without the resources
to pay his soldiers who began to plunder villages near Murshidabad. In despera-
tion, Alivardi "began to fleece everybody, high and low, merchants, rajas and
even his own relations." European merchants at Qasimbazar, near Murshidabad,
reported in 1744 that "every person who was reputed to have money was seized
and whipped until he disgorged his wealth while sums of 500 and 1000 rupees
were taken from 'those who had not double the sum in the world.'" 81 The
extortionate behavior of the nazim and his subordinates probably fed the
growing perception that European factories offered more security than nawabi
territory.82 It also may have whetted European appetites for political power.
After Alivardi's death, the Europeans used what they had learned about the
etiquette and symbolism of presents to influence the rapidly evolving course of

79
Bowrey, Geographical Account, pp. 154-56.
80
Datta, Alivardi, p. 70.
81
J.H. Little, "The House of Jagatseth," Bengal Past and Present, vol. 22, no. 43-44 (Jan.-June
1921), pp. 10-13.
82
Datta, Alivardi, p. 118.
114 Bengal

events. Both before and after Nazim Siraj-ud-daula's capture of Fort William
in 1756, British and Dutch officers utilized signifiers of political fidelity in their
relations with Siraj. These included the gift of a nazr, acceptance of khilats, and
the exchange of betel (a customary pledge of honor).83
The British recovery of Fort William and defeat of Siraj-ud-daula at Plassey
in 1756-57 demonstrated that the Company, not the nazim, was the dominant
force in Bengal. As influential people in Bengal saw where their future oppor-
tunities lay, the net flow of presents shifted. The British quickly exploited their
new advantages and proved themselves prodigious present-takers. They had the
power to choose and displace nazims. They also assumed the right to exempt
trade, both inland domestic and oceanic, from the nazim's duties. They distrib-
uted dastaks (duty-free passes) to their Indian servants and to others willing to
give a present or the purchase price. The privilege of trading without paying
duty gave dastak-holders a decisive price advantage in commercial competition.
Nazim Mir Qasim complained that the agents of the Company servants took
goods at a quarter of their real value and forced people to buy at five times the
fair price.84 From one point of view, the British were merely extending the
practice of extorting presents, peddling influence, and setting up local monop-
olies. From another vantage point, they had usurped power from the Mughal
governor and put their influence up for sale on a scale possibly unmatched by
the preceding regimes.
Company employees came to Bengal in the hope of making a quick fortune
and then returning to Britain. "Some enjoyed life in Bengal... But the majority
seemed to have disliked Bengal."85 Mortality rates among Europeans were so
high that the urge to exploit the new opportunities for making money after
Plassey was compelling. Two-thirds of the Company's civilian employees who
came out before Plassey died in India, as did 59 percent of those who came
between 1757 and 1766. Roughly a quarter of the European soldiers "seem to
have perished every year."86 Faced with such grim odds, Company servants
eagerly grasped at private trade and present-taking to supplement their official
compensation from the Company.
By one estimate, Indians in Bengal made political gifts to the British worth
£2,500,000 from 1757 to 1765,87 or an annual average of Rs. 28.41 lakhs during
those eight years.88 The Company exacted an additional £3,770,833 as compen-

83
Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, vol. I, pp. 54 and 251-52.
84
Translation of letter from the nawab to Governor H. Vansittart, May 1762, Vansittart, Narrative,
p. 192.
85
P.J. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford,
1976), p. 214.
86
Ibid., p. 219.
87
Ibid., p. 179.
88
Calculations assume that a lakh of rupees was worth £11,000 before 1770 and £10,000 after.
 Political gifts and patronage 115

sation for losses suffered in the upheavals in those years,89 or an annual average
of Rs. 42.85 lakhs. The combined payments for presents and restitution thus
equaled Rs. 71.26 lakhs annually or 27.8 percent of the 1763 revenue demand.
Much of this money left Bengal. Company officials probably sent a higher
proportion of their private income out of Bengal than nawabi officials had. Peter
Marshall estimated that individuals, as distinct from the Company itself, sent
home some £15,000,000 from 1757 to 178490 or Rs. 52.91 lakhs annually.
Presents, therefore, were a major component in a significant drain of wealth in
the early decades of British rule.
Acceptance of such massive presents by Company employees was consid-
ered scandalous by Company directors and members of Parliament in London.
Parliamentary investigations and legislation led in the early 1770s to a ban on
the receipt of presents and to the discontinuance of the government's puniya,
the most common occasion for giving nazrs. The Governor's Council in
Calcutta assured the Court of Directors in 1774 that they agreed that the receipt
of even "trifling presents...forms a precedent very liable to be extended and
abused." The Council said (disingenuously) that it was refusing all presents and
explaining its motives to Bengalis while giving "assurances of regard and other
marks of respect according to the rank of the persons" offering presents in order
not "to give them offence."91 The Company continued to confer khilats on
zamindars and other persons of importance upon occasion but the ban on receipt
of presents and the suspension of the puniya curtailed the ceremonial inter-
change between the rulers and the major zamindars.

Resumptions of land and patronage

Restoring alienated land to the tax rolls was a much more direct attack on elite
privilege than suppressing present-giving to government employees and was
therefore a more prolonged and politically sensitive task. From its initial control
of territory in Bengal, Company administrators were concerned that extensive
areas paid no revenue to the state and that zamindars were making new,
unauthorized alienations. In 1786, James Grant estimated that the amount of
alienated land had doubled since the acquisition of the diwani in 1765, from 40
to over 80 lakhs of bighas.92 With an area equivalent to almost one third of the
estimated cultivated land93 either paying no rent to the zamindars or no revenue

89
Percival Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India, 1740-1947 (Oxford, 1965), p. 75.
90
Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, p. 225.
91
Letter to Court, 30 Nov. 1774, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. V11J773-1776, p. 493.
92
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 228.
93
Grant, ibid., p. 272, suggested that 18,000 square miles or 251.28 lakhs of bighas were
cultivated.
116 Bengal

to the state, resumption of improper alienations was a tempting means of

increasing the Company's income. At least some Company employees thought
the alienations reinforced "the natural or factitious indolence of the inhabitants
of Hindostan" and that "a judicious spur in taxation" might "excite reasonable
efforts of greater industry."94 Resumptions, though, were constrained by politi-
cal and administrative obstacles. To have assessed lands held by Brahmins and
the sebaits (care-takers) of temples would have outraged popular sentiment as
few other administrative acts and therefore was not a practical option.95 To have
resumed chakaran (service-land) holdings of village servants would have
yielded little revenue since, while numerous, they were small. Moreover, most
of the perhaps 150,000 holders did perform vital functions as village headmen,
patwaris (record keepers), chaukidars, and paiks and other militia who escorted
shipments of rents and revenue and guarded the frontiers.96
Officials repeatedly looked for unauthorized alienations to resume. Company
policy was that revenue-free lands were resumable if granted without govern-
ment permission since the grant of the diwani, since 1765. Grant-holders were
required to prove the validity of their privileged tenures by producing their
sanads. Beginning in 1772, government agreements with superior revenue
payers specifically prohibited landholders from exempting people from rent
without government permission. Nevertheless, revenue farmers and zamindars
continued to issue many kinds of exemptions and government tried to resume
them in their periods of direct management and close supervision. In 1782, John
Shore proposed the creation of bazi zamin daftars (offices) in which all revenue-
and rent-free grants would be registered. The number of claims submitted
overwhelmed the staff assigned to the daftars. In Midnapur and Jellasore, 85,000
people registered documents; in Birbhum, over 10,000 did so.97 Sanads were
forged with old zamindari seals and made to look aged with the help of oil, dirt,
and smoke.98 The staff of the offices were believed to be "protecting fraudulent
alienations" rather than exposing them. Accordingly, in 1793 the bazi zamin
daftars were abolished.99 Regulations of 1793 provided a new mechanism for
registering alienated land. Again, more documents were deposited than could

94
Ibid., p. 321.
95
See John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 118. The Amini Commission discovered that
Rani Bhawani of Nator (Rajshahi) had "fraudulently alienated" 4,29,149 bighas "to Brahmins,
held for the most part collusively for her private benefit." They were not entirely resumed.
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 320.
96
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 113, and James Grant, "Historical and Comparative
Analysis," pp. 269-70.
97
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, pp. 270-72.
98
C.R. Blunt, Commissioner, Bishnupur, to Burdwan Col., 16 Jan. 1802, BOR Prog. 32 of 29 Jan.
1802, vol. 349.
99
Fifth Report, 1812, vol. I, p. 51.
 Political gifts and patronage 117

be thoroughly examined. In Burdwan district alone, 99,000 sanads were deliv-

ered to government.100 Most holders of rent- and revenue-free land retained
their privileges although large, new alienations were resumed when discovered.
When James Grant estimated in 1786 that the area of alienated land may have
doubled in the preceding two decades, he recommended broad resumptions.
Other officials questioned whether wholesale resumptions would be wise
economic policy. John Shore, for example, pointed out in 1789 that "it is a
certain fact, that the zamindars are almost universally poor." 101 To have re-
sumed their nankar (private support) lands would have further disabled them
from paying their revenues. Shore also believed that in many districts, the
Company's assessment was already so heavy that raiyats managed to pay
zamindari demands only by cultivating rent-free lands. 102 Shore's views were
seemingly confirmed by the general difficulty people had in meeting their
obligations in the 1790s. Systematic resumption of illegal alienations was
postponed until well into the nineteenth century.
The Company also made inroads on zamindars' discretionary authority by
ordering dismissals of zamindari employees to increase government revenues.
A large zamindari had vast powers of patronage, as the example of Burdwan
shows. A table from 1766 gave the following breakdown of Burdwan employ-
ees and their support lands (see table I). 103 This table suggests that the majority
of the Burdwan employees were village (gram) servants who ordinarily took
orders from village-level elites and the intermediaries between the Burdwan raj
headquarters and the villages. At the village level, the duties of mal (land
revenue) paiks (militia or footmen) were often functionally mixed and many of
them were utilized simultaneously in collecting rents, escorting rents to the
kachari, and guarding standing crops, harvested crops, and the village as a whole
from thieves.
In addition to reducing modestly the numbers of Burdwan chakaran servants
and cutting significantly their support lands, the Company disbanded a major
part of the raja of Burdwan's naqdi or cash-paid army. Between 1761 and 1767,
naqdi salaries were slashed from about Rs. 4 lakhs to just over Rs. 1 lakh.104

100
Y. Burges, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 12 Dec. 1799, BLI, p. 406.
101
Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 129.
102
Ibid., para. 117.
103
The table appears in Ray, Change, p. 96. Total of bighas column actually adds up to 3,59,116.
It was copied from Santosh Kumar Chakrabarti, "The History of the Relations of the Rajas of
Burdwan and the East India Company during 1760-1832" (University of Burdwan, Ph.D.
thesis, 1970) p. 162. It is possible that the table refers to the situation in 1761, at the start of
Company reductions, because a 1765 source refers to the Burdwan raja's 29,000 servants
supported by only 1,46,000 bighas of chakaran. Letter from Court, 24 Dec. 1765, Ft Wm-IHC,
vol. IV, 1764-1766 (Delhi, 1962), p. 121.
104
Chakrabarti, "History," p. 163.
118 Bengal

Table 1 Servants of the Burdwan raj

Servants Bighas

1. Huzuri or servants attending the Raja 4,710 81,840

and his relations; also mutsuddis
(officers for collection)
2. Guards in different forts and passes 4,793 82,332
3. Pargana saranjami or servants in 2,683 38,038
the high roads and head kacharis in each pargana
4. Gram saranjami or servants such as 19,846 1,56,906
paiks, peons, and kotwals allotted for
the service of the several villages
throughout the province

Totals 32,032 3,59,116

In the first four decades of Company rule, the government also ordered other
zamindars to dismiss some zamindari servants and it resumed chakaran in order
to increase the Company's revenues. But the Company proceeded cautiously
with regard to village-level servants. Company authorities wanted to avoid
giving zamindars additional excuses for failure to pay their revenue. 105 In 1794,
Burdwan still had 17,284 village mal paiks and chaukidars, supported by
1,38,718 bighas of chakaran,106 nominally under the zamindar's orders but in
reality subject to the authority of the zamindar's ninety or so revenue farmers.
Until the early 1790s, the Burdwan zamindar was also in charge of the district
police who were commanded by an officer called the bakshi. Thirty-six than-
adars or police officers managed 3,043 thanadari chaukidars, peons, and paiks
and together they held 43,472 bighas of chakaran.107 Company officials were
less impressed by their suppression of crime than by the thanadars' payment of
nazrs or salami to obtain their position, by police collaboration with robber
gangs, and by their extortion of money from villagers.108 In December 1792,
the Company abolished zamindari police powers, transferred command of the
police to British Magistrates, and began to resume some thanadari chakaran.
For many decades, the position of village paiks remained ambiguous as they
worked alternately for their fellow villagers, their superior landholders, the

105
Akhtar, Role of the Zamindars, p. 131.
106
D.J. McNeile, Report on the Village Watch of the Lower Provinces of Bengal (Calcutta, 1866),
p. 84.
107
Ibid., p. 87.
108
Akhtar, Role of the Zamindars, pp. 135^46.
 Political gifts and patronage 119

Company's thanadars, and the sirdars (leaders) of the dakait (robber) gangs.109
The lines of authority and the field of loyalty became remarkably diffuse by the
time they reached the village.

Conclusion
Late eighteenth-century Company reforms reduced the scope for Bengalis to
give and receive gifts of cash, land, and employment. The Company's abandon-
ment of the puniya, at which khilats had been conferred, signaled a retreat from
symbolic to more purely contractual relations with its principal subjects. The
Company's own servants were likely to be dismissed if they were found to have
accepted a gift. With the virtual disappearance of the Mughal and Company
models of present exchange at the top of society, the practice was less instru-
mental. Narrow profit margins and penalties for non-payment of the revenue
limited the ability of landholders to give away cash. Company regulations and
vigilance, better record keeping by government and zamindari administrators,
and the greater profit orientation of auction purchasers diminished the number
of new land alienations. As C.A. Bayly has suggested, the diminution of the
ability to make gifts and distribute patronage struck at the currency of political
bonding. He wrote that the rulers' patronage of weavers of khilats "can be
regarded as something like a political discourse upholding the legitimacy of the
ruler and pledging the attachment of subjects." The end of "royal patronage for
India's weavers and spinners," the importation of European goods, and, by
implication, the termination of political gift-giving in general thus constituted
"a crisis of legitimacy for the new colonial rulers," "tantamount to a denial of
political obligation."110 The crisis, though, was slow to develop in Bengal
because of British caution and forbearance in resuming non-badshahi aliena-
tions of land.
Each time the Company embarked on the resumption of unsanctioned aliena-
tions, it exempted those made in the distant past. Under the 1793 regulations,
only lands fraudulently alienated since 1765 were resumable; in 1840, the year
1790 was made the cut-off point.111 Any general resumption would have injured
a major part of Bengal's elite and might have alienated the even more numerous
dependents of the landholders, civil servants, and religious specialists who
held the privileged tenures. So common were the non-taxed holdings that
eighteenth-century Bengalis seemed to regard elite exemptions from taxation

109
McNeile, Report on the Village Watch, pp. 8 8 - 9 1 .
110
Bayly, "The Origins of Swadeshi," p. 302.
1] ]
Chittabrata Palit, Tensions in Bengal Rural Society: Landlords, Planters and Colonial Rule,
1830-1860 (Calcutta, 1975), p. 51.
120 Bengal

as a fundamental right. Sayyid Ghulam Husain Tabatabai, a non-Bengali,

expressed his gratitude in 1782 to the British for leaving "unmolested" the
hereditary revenue-free lands conferred by the Mughals: 'Thanks be to God
Almighty.. .that it is become customary and established, that those who satisfied
with little, have let themselves down the scanty stream of resignation and
contentment, should be suffered to glide safely in it with their children and
families."112
Beginning in 1828, the Company began more systematic resumptions of
unsanctioned alienations. The large increase in rents, coupled with the stability
of the state's demand and the relative ease with which zamindars were paying
the demand, made resumptions a more palatable policy than it had been in the
eighteenth century. Nevertheless, landholders protested vigorously. The Cal-
cutta Landholders' Society submitted a petition with about 20,000 signatures
in 1837 arguing that the Company was inappropriately extending "European
Rules" to "Hindoostan." It claimed that in Europe "it is necessary for all
Subjects to defray the expenses of Government." In India, on the other hand,
there had always been "rent free lands being calculated to encourage the
acquisition of knowledge, to secure the maintenance of learned and ingenious
men, and to preserve the observance of the religious orders and the sacerdotal
Functions." Moreover, in Europe, "all the Subjects in common are authorized
and empowered to consider the income and expense of Government." Because
the inhabitants of India were not "empowered to consider" tax policy, the
Company could not "with propriety" apply European rules to India.113 Despite
the perhaps unprecedented concerted opposition to a Company policy in Ben-
gal, the government by 1846 had managed to resume almost 86 lakhs of bighas
of alienated land in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, which was more than the total
of alienated land which James Grant had estimated (81.25 lakhs) for Bengal
alone in 1786. The government tried to allay the strenuous objections by
assessing the land at half the rate of ordinary land and by sparing from
resumption scattered lakhiraj estates of less than 50 bighas.'14 The resumptions
were therefore but a partial step towards the principle of equal taxation.
It must be stressed that this chapter has identified a trend rather than a
complete transformation. Indian kingship was always extractive. The expansion
of money-value in political relationships does not negate mutuality. The in-
crease in fiscal efficiency and discipline does not imply that reciprocity and
generosity ceased to bring honor. Rather, the tighter administrative-legal

112
Khan, Seir, vol. Ill, pp. 12-13.
113
Petition from Calcutta Landholders' Society, Oct. 1837, Bengal Rev. Prog. 35 of 15 Jan. 1839,
vol. 976.
114
Palit, Tensions, pp. 42-54. In 1938, over 1 million tenants still held more than 3.6 million bighas
of "rent-free cultivated land." Greenough, Prosperity and Misery, p. 56.
 Political gifts and patronage 121

framework diminished opportunities for beneficence and forced the multiplicity

of human aspirations into slightly different channels. The local raja continued
to share mutual interests with both the inhabitants of his estate below and the
government above. But the raja who failed in his extractive work faced loss of
position and of his ability to fulfill a central obligation of this kali-yuga: the
giving of giffc> to honored subjects.
PART TWO

Burdwan
 Mughal Burdwan and the rise of the Burdwan raj

The Burdwan raj and other expanded local kingdoms of eighteenth-century

Bengal were products of nawabi patronage rather than military adventurism.
Whether the productive partnership between the Punjabi ancestors of the
Burdwan raj family and the Mughals began outside of Bengal or within is not
known. The collaboration was established by 1657 when the Mughal govern-
ment appointed Abu Rai to the office of kotwal (police officer) in Burdwan
town. By 1680, the Burdwan family had obtained a small zamindari and had
entered the Mughal revenue-collecting hierarchy. In subsequent decades, the
Burdwan zamindari expanded over hundreds of villages and gained broad
autonomy over its internal affairs. By the mid-eighteenth century it covered
some 5,000 square miles and was a virtual Hindu kingdom within the weakening
provincial Mughal hegemony.
The Burdwan raj family was geographically positioned to benefit from
Mughal favor by virtue of its domicile, first near and then in Burdwan town.
From the outset of Mughal rule in Bengal, Burdwan was a vital imperial outpost
from which Mughal armies had marched to fight the Afghans who had pre-
viously ruled Bengal and to bring the largely independent chiefs to the south
and west of Burdwan under Mughal administration. The town of Burdwan lies
on the northern bank of the Damodar river, some 75 miles by the Grand Trunk
Road northwest of Calcutta. The Damodar was more a hindrance to than a
facilatator of Mughal Bengal's integration. The river's broad, sandy bed was
fordable in the dry season but the river was unbridged and the river was
navigable by small boats in its central and upper reaches only for a brief spell
each year. During the monsoon, a high, man-made embankment imperfectly
protected the military cantonment, administrative offices, bazars, temples,
mosques, and mostly earthen residences of Burdwan town from the coursing
waters of the Damodar in the eighteenth century. When unusually heavy rain
fell or when the embankments were inadequately maintained, the Damodar
breached the earthworks, flooded Burdwan town, and destroyed the crops and
huts of neighboring^ villages. Decades of trying to contain the river with
embankments on both sides of the river left deposits of sand and silt on the
river bed so that in the eighteenth century the Damodar was higher than the
125
126 Burdwan
surrounding countryside. When cultivators cut the banks to obtain irrigation
water, they heightened the likelihood of flooding.1 Stagnant pools and swamps
in which mosquitos bred often lay behind the embankments.
In its upper, western reach, the Damodar drained the sparsely settled, laterite
hills of Chota Nagpur and the Santal Parganas which were largely populated by
aboriginals. Some 30 miles before it reached Burdwan, it had descended into
the flatter deltaic, alluvial tracts, peopled overwhelmingly with Hindus. At the
time Rennell surveyed Bengal (1764-76), he showed the Damodar abruptly
turning south about a dozen miles east of Burdwan town, as it does today, and
flowing southward through modern Hughli, Howarh, and Midnapur districts,
on its way to join the Bhagirathi or Hughli river. However, Van de Broucke's
map (1658-64) shows a branch of the Damodar continuing westward and
entering the Bhagirathi near Tribeni.2 In the eighteenth century, though, the
Damodar went to the south and frequently flooded the villages as it progressed
towards the sea. In its lower reaches, in modern Howrah district, the periodic
combination of heavy rain water and a high tide driven by hurricane winds often
deposited sea water on cultivated fields, with disastrous results for crops.
The Damodar in its western section marked the southern border of both the
Burdwan zamindari and the British district of Burdwan. In the eighteenth
century, the territories of the rajas of Burdwan lay mostly to the north and east
of the Damodar and those of the rajas of Bishnupur to the south. The northern
boundary of Burdwan district was formed for most of its length by the shallow
Ajay river which separated Burdwan from the territory of the Afghan rajas of
Birbhum. The Ajay joined the Bhagirathi river at the town of Katwa where both
the Afghans and the Mughals had maintained a fort.
Through much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Burdwan
district's boundaries roughly coincided with the limits of the Burdwan
zamindari. It was shaped like a crude hammer or elm tree, with the narrow,
60-mile handle or trunk, between the Damodar and Ajay rivers, covering the
rolling Asansol subdivision in the west, broadening out on the alluvial plain in
the east and extending some 70 miles north to south, of which roughly 40 miles
bordered the Bhagirathi river, considered by local inhabitants to be the Ganges.
In the early twentieth century, the Burdwan district covered 2,689 square miles;3
in the early nineteenth century when the Burdwan zamindari extended south
into most of modern Hughli and Howrah districts, as well as northeast Mid-
napur, the district's area was roughly 5,000 square miles.

1
For discussion of the effects of the Damodar embankments on the surrounding countryside, see
Selections from the Records of the Bengal Government, no. XL, Papers of 1859 to 1863,
Regarding the Damoodah Embankments (Calcutta 1863).
2
A.K. Banerji, WBDG: Hooghly, pp. 24-25.
3
J.C.K. Peterson, BDG: Burdwan, pp. 1-5.
 Mughal Burdwan and the rise of the Burdwan raj 127

For the first century or so of Mughal rule, the Damodar to the west of Burdwan
remained the effective Mughal administrative frontier. To the south of the
Damodar lay the territories of the raja of Bishnupur who enjoyed virtual
independence as a subordinate tributary. South of Bishnupur was the subah
(province) of Orissa which in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included
all but the northern part (Ghatal) of modern Midnapur district. To the west and
southwest of Burdwan town, the population grew thinner, more aboriginal, and
more unruly. Burdwan town, then, served as a frontier post; not literally on the
frontier of Mughal territory, it resembled Jahanabad (modern Arambagh in
Hughli district) in being a town on the old Badshahi (royal) road from which
Mughal officers defended Bengal from Afghan, Maratha, or chuar (tribal)
depredations.4 Burdwan begins to appear prominently in Muslim chronicles
during the late sixteenth century as a market, halting place, and base for
Mughal armies engaged in the protracted conquest of western Bengal and
Orissa from the Afghans. Sometime around the turn of the century it supplanted
Sulaimanabad (modern Salimabad, 15 miles southeast of Burdwan) as the
administrative headquarters of the area around Burdwan. 5
Burdwan was almost due south of the successive Muslim capital towns at
Gaur, Pandua, Tanda, and Rajmahal along the Ganges until the Mughals shifted
the capital of Bengal to Dacca in 1608. The great Badshahi road from those
capitals ran south through western Murshidabad and eastern Birbhum districts
to Burdwan, leaving the hills and jungle areas of Jharkhand (southeast Bihar
and northwest Bengal) to the west. This road existed at least as early as the
fifteenth century. From Burdwan it crossed the Damodar and traveled 24 miles
to Mandaran, the frontier fort near modern Arambagh, and further south through
Midnapur to Orissa. The early twentieth-century remains of the road showed
that in later Mughal times it was a magnificent highway: it was a raised roadway
some 75 yards wide, lined with shade trees. Each 8 miles there was a mosque
with endowed lands for its upkeep and presumably a serai (hostel and resting
place). 6 South of Burdwan, the Badshahi road in early Mughal times was not
much more than a footpath.7
The Mughal armies, with their horses, elephants, camels, foot soldiers, and
numerous camp followers, used the Badshahi road as they subdued the Afghans

4
In the early decades of Mughal rule, Burdwan was in sarkar Sulaimanabad while sarkar Madaran
or Mandaran formed the actual frontier. Sarkar Mandaran was a giant semi-circular adminis-
trative unit that reached from Nagar (Birbhum) "over Raneganj, Jahanabad, Western Hughli,
and Howrah, to Chitwa in Midnapur, and Mandalghat in Howrah, and Mahishadal in Hijli." H.
Blochmann, "Geographical and Historical Notes on the Burdwan and Presidency Divisions of
Lower Bengal," in Hunter, Statistical Account, vol. I, p. 368.
5
J.C.K. Peterson, BDG: Burdwan, p. 203.
6
Ibid., p. 136.
7
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II. p. 200.
128 Burdwan

and Mughal rebels in western Bengal and Orissa in the late 1500s and early
1600s. It was also the main route for Hindus from north India and Bengal who
journeyed to the Jagannath temple in Puri, Orissa. After Chaitanya (1486-1533)
and his followers spread the devotional Vaishnava sect throughout Bengal,
undoubtedly the traffic of Bengali pilgrims going south to Puri and northwest
to Brindaban on this road increased substantially. The Badshahi road was a
major thoroughfare for the integrating forces of the Mughals and Vaishnavism.
It is likely that Sangam Rai, the Punjabi ancestor of the Burdwan rajas who by
family tradition first settled in Bengal following a pilgrimage to Puri, traveled
this road.
Yet the Mughal military and political integration of Bengal into an all-Indian
empire was never easy or complete. Abul Fazl wrote that "the country of Bengal
is a land where owing to the climate's favoring the base, the dust of dissension
is always rising."8 Many of the stories best known in Burdwan today are tales
that reflect the resistance to the Mughal conquest and, especially, the violent
struggles within the Mughal nobility. Few of the Mughal mansabdars (holders
of military rank) looked upon Bengal as their home; many regarded Bengal as
an undesirable assignment. Eight of the twenty Mughal subahdars (governors)
of Bengal were related to the emperor (four as sons or grandsons),9 and both
the subahdars and mansabdars were often preoccupied with struggles for
succession or factional maneuvering at the imperial capital over reassignment.
The fact that the Mughal conquest of Bengal was a military effort to subdue
local chiefs and zamindars by people who were foreign to Bengal, were assigned
to Bengal on a temporary basis, and were riven by ethnic and factional rivalries
repeatedly slowed the Mughal incorporation of the region into the empire.
Mughal generals such as Raja Todar Mai and Raja Man Singh used Burdwan
town as their headquarters in their campaigns to subdue Afghan resistance and
Mughal dissidence during the last quarter of the sixteenth century.10 The
Muslim and Hindu chiefs and zamindars of western Bengal made their peace
with the Mughals somewhat earlier than the local magnates of central and
eastern Bengal. In general, it seems that most of the western chiefs retained their
territories as long as they paid the annual tribute or revenue and the succession
fees demanded of them.
After Subahdar Islam Khan (1608-13) reduced the eastern bhuiyas (chiefs),
the Mughals gradually introduced standard forms of administrative organiza-

8
Quoted from Akbarnama, vol. Ill, p. 428, by Atul Chandra Roy, History of Bengal: Mughal
Period (1526-1765 A.D.) (Calcutta, 1968), p. 113.
9
Ascoli, Early Revenue History, p. 12.
10
Charles Stewart, The History of Bengal from the First Mohammedan Invasion until the Virtual
Conquest of that Country by the English, A.D. 1757 (Calcutta, 1903, reprint of 1813 edn.),
pp. 176-205.
 Mughal Burdwan and the rise of the Burdwan raj 129

tion in much of Bengal. This usually meant that a faujdar (military governor)
was head of the executive government in a sarkar or a group of parganas
(sub-districts). But the loyalty of Bengal's chiefs and zamindars to the faujdars
seems to have been contingent and pragmatic. The wars of succession that broke
out near the end of each emperor's rule meant that the subahdars themselves
calculated the relative strength of different factions at the capital before obeying
imperial commands. The hereditary chiefs were forced to develop a similar
tactical sensitivity to the maneuvers of the mansabdari factions. Few chiefs or
zamindars resisted Prince Khurram, and some helped him, when he captured
Burdwan in 1622 and made Bengal independent of his father, Jahangir. When
Aurangzib sent Mir Jumla against his brother, Subahdar Shah Shuja, in 1659,
the zamindars of Birbhum and other areas guided Mir Jumla's army through the
jungly hills of Jharkhand and Birbhum, thus enabling Mir Jumla to outflank
Shuja who was guarding the Teliyagarhi pass on the Ganges. 11 In 1696-97, when
the rebels Shova Singh and Rahim Khan killed the zamindar of Burdwan and
seized west Bengal, the local zamindars offered little resistance to the rebels.
But as Aurangzib's grandson, Azim-ud-din, moved down the Badshahi road
from Rajmahal to Burdwan in late 1697, zamindars came forward to show their
allegiance.12 It seems that chiefs and zamindars found the wisest course to be
one of watchful, respectful reserve, recognizing that the politics of the imperial
family and court were kaleidescopic and unpredictable.
During more than a century and a half of Mughal rule, Burdwan town
acquired the character of a provincial Mughal administrative center and military
outpost. In the time of Raja Man Singh (1594-1605), Burdwan contained a fort,
a mosque, a bazar that provisioned Mughal troops, a Muslim settlement, and
the grave of the noted Turkistani pir, Bahram Sekka. Bahram Sekka had been
a water-carrier in Mecca and Najaf before coming to Delhi where he gained
Akbar's admiration. He then settled in Burdwan. The Arabic inscription on his
tomb instructed that "the rich should, according to the injunction of the Koran,
with pleasure, help orphans, beggars, the afflicted and the homeless." 13 At least
by the nineteenth century, his tomb was revered by both Hindus and Muslims.
There were other colonies of Muslims scattered along the Badshahi road at
places such as Mangalkat and Mandaran and in the strip of land between that
road and the Bhagirathi river, some 30 miles east of Burdwan town. These
Muslim colonies, the most prominent of which were at Pandua and Hughli,
consisted of revenue collectors, learned men, merchants, ex-soldiers, and their
converts and dependents. Elite Muslims enjoyed revenue-free a'imma land

1
• Richard Burn (ed.), The Cambridge History of India, vol. IV (Cambridge 1937), p. 225.
12
D. Majumdar, WBDG: Birbhum, p. 106.
13
[Burdwan Raj], A Handbook of Useful Information Regarding Burdwan (n.p., n.d., reprinted by
the Burdwan Raj in 1938), p. 1. This publication is hereafter cited as Burdwan Handbook.
130 Burdwan
grants. In 1802, one of every sixteen residents of Burdwan district was said to
be a Muslim.14
The zamindars who collected the land revenue for the Mughal government
were mostly Bengali Hindus but they were supervised by non-Bengali mansab-
dars who came to Bengal, as we have noted, on temporary assignments. The
mansabdars, not the zamindars, were the "officers of the king." They provided
most of the recruits for the umara or nobility, which M. Athar Ali described as
persons holding mansabdari ranks of 1,000 or more zat (Mughal rank number).15
The highest ranks and salaries, the largest jagirs, and the greatest political power
were held by these men. The mansabdari ranks in the seventeenth century were
all but closed to Bengalis, being generally restricted to up-country or non-Indian
Muslims, Rajputs, Marathas, and, in fewer cases, to north Indian commercial
castes such as the Khatris. Of the 575 major mansabdars throughout India
between 1679 and 1707 identified by M. Athar Ali, apart from Muslims there
were seventy-three Rajputs, ninety-six Marathas, and only thirteen "other
Hindus."16 No major mansabdar, Hindu or Muslim, was identified as a Ben-
gali.17 Even superior non-military administrative posts went to non-Bengalis.
According to Jadunath Sarkar, before 1700 "the higher posts in the revenue,
accounts and secretariat departments were reserved for Muslims and Hindus
from Upper India, such as Katris from the Punjab and Agra and Lalas from the
U.P."18 They were more likely to have served the Mughals before entering
Bengal and know Persian than Bengalis were, and less likely to have local
connections subversive of the imperial interest.
Among the up-country Hindus to receive Mughal appointments was Abu Rai,
the founder of the Burdwan raj. Abu Rai's grandfather, Sangam Rai, a Khatri
Kapur19 from Kotli mahalla (neighborhood) in Lahore, first came to Bengal in
the sixteenth century, according to Burdwan raj family tradition. Sangam Rai
was said to have accompanied "a band of pilgrims" to the Jagannath temple in
Orissa and, while returning, was so impressed by the beauty and fertility of the

14
Fifth Report, 1812, vol. II, p. 627.
15
Ali, Mughal Nobility, p. 2. Zat was a rank number used to determine the personal pay of a
mansabdar, as distinct from sawar, the number which indicated the military force he was
required to maintain.
16
Ibid., p. 35.
17
Ibid., pp. 216-71. Raychaudhuri, Bengal, p. 163, states that "we do not hear in any place of
Bengalis being actually given mansabs," apart from zamindars who were "drafted into service"
to support Mughal military campaigns.
18
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 223.
19
The Kapurs were one of the four highest gotras or exogenous groups in the Khatri jati or caste.
These four (Kapurs, Mehras, Khannas, and Seths) formed an endogamous unit. The interme-
diate twelve gotras constituted a separate endogamous group while the lowest gotras (conven-
tionally fifty-two) formed a third. W.H. McLeod, The Evolution of the Sikh Community (Oxford,
1976), p. 99.
 Mughal Burdwan and theriseof the Burdwan raj 131

Burdwan area that he settled in the village of Baikunthapur, a few miles from
Burdwan, where he became a trader and money-lender.20
The story of the pilgrimage to Puri should be viewed with skepticism because
it is the conventional means used to explain the origin of many raj families in
west Bengal who probably hoped to establish a non-materialist, pious motive
for their migration to Bengal. What is not in question is that the Burdwan raj
family are members of a Punjabi Khatri caste. The fact yields clues to both the
arrival of Sangam Rai in Bengal and his descendants' preferment under the
Mughals.
The Khatris were a Punjabi mercantile caste who claimed to be Kshatriyas.
Nineteenth-century Indians and British administrators failed to agree whether
that claim should be accepted.21 The fact that the overwhelming majority were
engaged in Vaishya (mercantile), not Kshatriya (military), pursuits was bal-
anced against the Khatri origin myths, the apparent derivation of "Khatri" from
"Kshatriya," the large physical stature of Khatris, the superior status accorded
Khatris by fellow Punjabis, and the willingness of the Khatris' purohits ("chap-
lains"), the Saraswat Brahmins, to accept cooked food from the Khatris. Among
the inhabitants of Burdwan district they are generally recognized as Kshatriyas.
In the Mughal and British periods, the Khatris were noted for their energy,
astuteness, and mobility as traders, money-lenders, accountants, administrators,
and religious leaders.22 Shyam Das, the gosain who helped initiate a Vaishnava
revival among Hindu traders in the southwest Punjab in the mid-sixteenth
century, was a Khatri. So, too, were Nanak (1469-1537), the founder of Sikhism,
and the other nine Sikh gurus.23
Most Khatris remained Hindus. The Khatri reputation rested primarily on
their commercial activities. By the eighteenth century, and probably long
before, they were a dominant group in the trade of the Punjab and Afghanistan,
and they had penetrated into Turkistan and also east and south into many parts
of India. The Pathans were said to be particularly dependent upon the Khatris
as merchants and money-lenders.24 This raises the possibility that Khatris were
resident in Bengal in pre-Mughal times. However, Khatri adoption of adminis-
trative and military roles outside the Punjab was mainly the result of the
patronage of Mughal nobles. One of Akbar's leading generals who fought the
Afghans in western Bengal and Orissa was a Khatri. This was Raja Todar Mai

20
Burdwan Handbook, p. 8, and J.C.K. Peterson, BDG: Burdwan, pp. 26-27.
2
' John Nesfield and George Cambell were inclined to accept the claim; Herbert Risely and Denzil
Ibbetson doubted it. Risley, Tribes and Castes, vol. I, pp. 478-80.
22
H.A. Rose (compiler), A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West
Frontier Province (3 vols., Lahore 1911-19), vol. II, pp. 501-06.
23
Ibid., vol. I, pp. 388-89 and 676-86.
24
Ibid., vol. II, pp. 506-07.
132 Burdwan

who stayed in Burdwan and who, as imperial diwan, was responsible for the
land revenue settlement of 1582. Todar Mai's son, Raja Kalyan, was governor
of Orissa early in the seventeenth century.25 It is conceivable that Sangam Rai
entered Bengal in the train of one of these imperial Khatri officers although the
only evidence about how he came is the vague pilgrimage legend. During the
seventeenth century, srnall communities of Khatris developed in a number of
Bengali towns. When the ninth Sikh guru, Tegh Bahadur, visited Dacca in 1666,
he was welcomed by a Khatri community.26 At that time there were also Sikh
communities (probably Khatri) in Bengali towns such as Sylhet, Chittagong,
Sandip, and Lashkar.27
The Khatri-Mughal partnership grew closer and more complicated in the late
1600s and early 1700s. A nineteenth century Khatri legend said that, until the
time of Aurangzib, Khatris followed the military profession. After many Khatris
were killed during Aurangzib's Deccan campaign, the emperor, out of compas-
sion, ordered their widows be remarried. When the leader of the Khatris' caste
affairs refused to obey the order, the legend continued, Aurangzib terminated
Khatri military service and directed them "to be shopkeepers and brokers for
the future."28 A tradition of far greater plausibility is that the Sikh rebellion in
the Punjab in the early eighteenth century damaged the commerce on which
Khatri traders depended and obliged some Khatris to choose between the Jat
Sikh followers of the rebel leader, Banda, and the imperial Mughals. Mughals
suspected Khatri officials of sympathizing with or supporting Banda. Khatris
in Mughal service, whose commercial associates stood to lose from prolonged
civil disorder, submitted to the Mughal order of 1710 to shave their beards so
that loyalists could be more easily distinguished from the rebels. Khatris not
only shaved but some contributed money for the imperial campaign against the
Sikhs.29
The disruption of the Punjab's trade and Khatri alienation from Sikh rebels
may have increased Khatri pursuit of non-commercial activities both within and
outside the Punjab in the early eighteenth century. As imperial hegemony
waned, the Khatri importance to Mughal officers increased. Khatris were
employed as vakils to manage the financial affairs of various mansabdars.
Khatri accounting skills and connections with bankers equipped them for this
role. The nazim of Bengal and the nizam-ul-mulk of Hyderabad both employed

25
Beni Prasad, History ofJahangir (5th edn., Allahabad, 1962), p. 281.
26
There was still a sizeable Khatri community in Dacca in 1830 when a census showed that 1,070
out of Dacca's 31,429 Hindus were Khatris. Almost half (523) belonged to "service" families
while 494 came from commercial households. Sharif Uddin Ahmed, Dacca: A Study in Urban
History and Development (London, 1986), pp. 20-21.
27
Rose, A Glossary, vol. I, pp. 686-87.
28
Hunter, Statistical Account, vol. IV, p. 48.
29
Alam, Crisis of Empire, pp. 149-52.
 Mughal Burdwan and the rise of the Burdwan raj 133

Khatri vakils, as did lesser nobles. Khatris were also appointed to lower-level
administrative positions, such as diwan (revenue officer) and peshkar (manager
for a superior official) under local officials. Atma Ram, a Khatri, served as the
diwan of Awadh province. A contemporary chronicle referred to particular
Khatris as umara (nobles) and ayan (notable), which indicated their wealth and
the importance of the services they provided the Mughals in the early eighteenth
century. 30
A handful of Khatri families prospered in Bengal in the first half of the
eighteenth century. This was the period in which the Burdwan raj grew into the
richest and most powerful landholding family in the province. By mid-century,
Omichand, a Sikh Khatri, was one of the richest merchants in Calcutta. In 1757,
Manikchandra was one of Nazim Siraj-ud-daula's leading generals. In the
1770s, Hazari Mai, Omichand's brother-in-law, served as the East India Com-
pany's official banker. But Burdwan district was the main area of Khatri
settlement in the province of Bengal. A considerable number of Khatri families
settled in Burdwan district, often as landholders under the Burdwan raj, and
gradually assimilated Bengali life styles. The first count of Khatris in Burdwan
seems to have been the 1872 census which enumerated 13,660. 31
Thus, Khatris accompanied the Mughals to Bengal from the conquest in the
1500s, benefited through trade and service from the extension of the Mughal
domain into Afghanistan and the far corners of India, and then opted to serve
the Mughals in more cases than ever in the waning years of the empire as the
Jats became dominant in the Sikh panth (community) and revolted against
Mughal rule under Banda's leadership (1708-15). As Khatris settled across
India in Mughal towns, some remained in trade and money-lending, others
served in official or unofficial positions under Mughal officers. And as Mughals
looked for reliable collectors of the land revenue, they inevitably turned to
Khatris upon occasion. In the early eighteenth-century Punjab, when Mughal
officials "feared" the hereditary zamindars and other rebellious elements, "the
Khatris seem to have often been the ijaradars [temporary revenue farmers] in
the province, since they had money and were in a position to ensure undisturbed
realization of the revenue, through their social and professional connections
with the villages." 32 In Bengal in the second half of the seventeenth century,
members of the Burdwan raj family made a familiar Khatri transition from
trader to local official and then to modest landholder.
Abu Rai, grandson of Sangam Rai, the original immigrant to Bengal, was the

30
Ibid., pp. 169-75, 203, and 316-17.
31
This figure is misleading because it combined pure Khatris with the endogamous Piruwal jati
which was formed by the offspring of the Khatris' concubines. Hunter, Statistical Account, vol.
IV, p. 49.
32
Alam, Crisis of Empire, p. 152.
134 Burdwan
first member of the family known to have been employed by the Mughals.
Apparently, he was a successful merchant because he was said to have provi-
sioned the faujdar's troops "at a critical time." Subsequently, Abu Rai was
appointed chaudhuri (revenue collector) and kotwal (police chief) of Rekhabi
bazar in Burdwan town, serving under the faujdar of chakla Burdwan. The date
of that appointment may have been either 1657-58 or 1679-80, depending on
whether Abu Rai received one or two appointments. 33 What seems clear is that
Abu Rai did receive an appointment, either his first or his second, in 1679-80,
as a kotwal of a bazar as well as a chaudhuri of pargana Ibrahimpur. 34 Thus it
seems possible that Abu Rai began with police and collection powers over a
bazar and then received additional authority to collect one pargana's land
revenue.
Nothing else is known about Abu Rai. Yet we may find clues about the growth
of his family's influence in the vicinity of Burdwan town by considering the
extensive functions assigned to the Mughal kotwals in general. It may be that
Abu Rai executed his duties as kotwal in a manner that convinced his superiors
that he and his relatives could collect the neighboring villages' revenues as well.
The kotwal's duties are described in iht Ain-i Akbarv?5 in Hedayetullah Bihari's
Hedayet-ul-Quwaid, a Mughal administrative manual written in 1715; 36 a
farman from Akbar instructing a kotwal on his duties; 37 another Mughal farman
appointing a kotwal to Daulatabad; 38 and Manucci's description of a kotwal's
duties in Aurangzib's reign. 39 The picture of a kotwal in these five sources is
similar and it seems reasonable to speculate that Abu Rai's functions may have
resembled it.
The kotwal's primary duty was to provide security for both the state and the
local population. He appointed watchmen and commanded a body of foot
soldiers and horsemen to guard the town at night and catch thieves. He also
watched strangers and other suspicious persons and employed nightwatchmen
and sweepers to spy on the people and gather intelligence for the Mughal
government. According to Akbar's farman, he was to keep track of the

33
J.C.K. Peterson, BDG: Burdwan, p. 27, and Burdwan Handbook, p. 8, both state that the first
appointment was in 1657, corresponding to 1068 A.H. Other sources mention 1679-80 as the
first appointment. These include Rouse, Dissertation, p. 242; "A Genealogical Account of the
Burdwan Family: Translated from a Persian Manuscript," Hindoo Patriot, 26 March 1857; and
a note on zamindari inheritance, B O R Prog, of 2 April 1788, vol. 128, app. 15.
34
The location of pargana Ibrahimpur is unknown. H. Blochmann mentioned a mahal called Bazar
Ibrahimpur in Birbhum district. Hunter, Statistical Account, vol. I, p. 370.
35
[Allami], Aini-i-Akbari, tr. Blochman, vol. II, pp. 4 3 - 4 5 .
36
Sarkar, Mughal Administration, pp. 57-59.
37
Ibid., p . 59.
38
Dow, History, Vol. Ill, pp. 376-77.
39
Manucci, Storia do Mogor, vol. II, p. 420-21.
 Mughal Burdwan and the rise of the Burdwan raj 135

expenditures of each household "because when a man spends in excess of his

income it is certain that he is doing something wrong." 40 He was to protect
public morality by preventing the sale and consumption of liquor, prohibiting
prostitution, and ensuring that there were separate wells and ferries for men and
women. He was to "have the hands shortened" of "insidious old women, pimps,
or jugglers, who lead the wives and daughters of honest men into the ways of
evil."41
He was further instructed to organize the population into mahallas (neigh-
borhoods), appointing headmen to each as well as to lead each craft guild. The
Daulatabad farman charged him with settling "all quarrels and vexatious
disputes which may arise." And, finally, he was expected to regulate prices in
the bazars, prevent merchant monopolies, and, according to Manucci, collect
government revenues such as cesses on trade.
The intrusive functions assigned to the kotwal do not correspond to what is
known about the relaxed control of local state officials in eighteenth-century
Bengal except during Murshid Quli Khan's reign and it is an open question
whether kotwals exercised such sweeping power in the seventeenth century in
many Bengali towns. However, Burdwan was the seat of a faujdar and at times
it was also a garrison town and the temporary residence of various nazims. In
such Mughal administrative outposts, vigilance for seditious persons, enforce-
ment of Islamic prescriptions, and regulation of food prices were not out of the
ordinary in Bengal.
There are references in imperial edicts and European travelers' accounts that
show that the great power conferred upon kotwals was often abused and that
kotwals frequently ignored the Mughal guidelines about protecting people from
oppressive behavior. Francisco Palsaert, who resided in Agra in the 1620s,
reported that the local administration was "absolutely autocratic," that laws
were "scarcely observed at all." In non-capital legal cases, the faujdar and
kotwal "merely confiscated" the property of the accused. The kotwal and the
qazi settled "ordinary questions of divorce, quarrels, fights, and the like," but
they did so only for bribes. "Their eyes are bleared with greed, their mouths
gape like wolves for covetousness, and their bellies hunger for the bread of the
poor."42 Thomas Bowrey wrote that local officials in Bengal in the 1670s
accepted monthly payments from prostitutes in return for allowing them to
practice their trade and that the prostitutes were required to "dance and Singe,
and make many Salams" each Thursday night at the governor's and kotwal's
house. "Then the handsomest of them must stay all night to Suppresse the

40
The Ain also said he should keep track of incomes.
41
Dow, History, vol. Ill, p. 376.
42
Francisco Pelsaert, Jahangirs India: The Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert, tr. W.H.
Moreland and P. Geyl (Cambridge, 1925), p. 57.
136 Burdwan

Leachery of him and his Punes [peons]."43 Yet, under a vigilant subahdar,
blatant misbehavior could bring dire punishment. Murshid Quli Khan had the
kotwal of Hughli stoned to death for taking a young girl away from a Mughal
merchant.44
In whatever manner Abu Rai performed as kotwal, he apparently extended
his influence without disappointing his Mughal superiors because his successors
were also appointed to the office of chaudhuri with the additional title of
zamindar. The position of chaudhuri in the seventeenth century was part of the
system of checks and balances that characterized Mughal administration. "Usu-
ally" or "invariably" the chaudhuri was himself a zamindar.45 But he had special
functions assigned to him and had to be appointed by a special sanad. The
chaudhuri's primary concern was with the collection of the revenue but he also
"stood surety for the lesser zamindars" and for taqavi (state advances for
agriculture) loans, for which he received a commission on what was owed. He
was the counterpart of and the check on the qanungo, one or two of whom were
assigned to each pargana to keep records on assessment levels, receipts, culti-
vation, and local customs. The chaudhuri was an important local functionary
and "in most cases he was the leading zamindar of the locality."46 In addition
to sanctioned commissions and nankar (support allowance), many chaudhuris
obtained bribes and a'imma (revenue-free) lands.47 Like the position of
qanungo, it was a useful one from which to build capital for land investments,
learn land management techniques, accumulate local knowledge, and attract
official notice. It is not surprising that the founders of the three fastest growing
zamindaris in eighteenth-century Bengal (Burdwan, Dinajpur, and Rajshahi)
had worked as chaudhuris or in the qanungo department.
Abu Rai was succeeded by his son, Babu Rai, as chaudhuri and zamindar of
pargana Burdwan and three other mahals. Babu Rai moved his family's resi-
dence from Baikunthapur village to Burdwan town which remained one of the
family's principal homes until World War II.
In Babu Rai's time, the faujdar of the area lived in or near the Burdwan fort.
The regular presence of an important Mughal official and occasional visits of
the imperial army presumably meant that the Burdwan zamindar was less in-
dependent than most zamindars of the period. Undoubtedly, Babu Rai's family
derived advantages from contacts with the military governor and other officers.
The contact would have provided a window into the workings of Mughal
politics and enabled them to learn what made for advancement. Imperial officers

43
Bowrey, Geographical Account, pp. 206-07.
44
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, p. 71.
45
Habib, Agrarian System, pp. 174 and 291.
46
Ibid, pp. 289-93.
47
Ibid., pp. 254 and 294.
 Mughal Burdwan and theriseof the Burdwan raj 137

also would have been able to appraise the talents and loyalty of members of the
Burdwan zamindari family. The size of the family's holdings grew modestly in
the late seventeenth century. Babu Rai was succeeded by Ghanashyam Rai and
he by Krishnaram Rai.48
Krishnaram Rai obtained new estates in an unspecified manner and received
a farman from Aurangzib in 1695-96, confirming him as zamindar and chaud-
huri of "parganas Burdwan, etc." To obtain the farman, Krishnaram paid the
emperor a nazrana of Rs. 1 lakh.49 James Grant estimated that the size of the
zamindari at this time was four or five parganas. 50 How large was a zamindari
of four or five parganas? A crude estimate is possible although the variation in
the size of Bengal's parganas was huge. Shah Shuja's revenue settlement of
1658 had divided Bengal into 1,043 parganas.51 If the parganas held by
Krishnaram were of average size and if Bengal had 110,000 villages, 52 then the
Burdwan zamindari might have contained 400 villages. Probably it was
smaller.53 By the standards of seventeenth-century Bengal, the Burdwan
zamindari was a significant estate, in part because it contained a major garrison
and market town and the seat of a faujdar.
It is interesting that the only acts attributed to Ghanashyam and Krishnaram
by a Burdwan raj handbook were not deeds of bravery or economic development
but rather the construction of the Shyamsagar and Krishnagar tanks (ponds) in
Burdwan town.54 Tank excavation was one of the principal charitable behaviors
expected of a zamindar of Bengal. As with the origin myth linking the family's
arrival to a pilgrimage to Puri, the Burdwan family was projecting itself in the
role of the pious, religiously oriented, and beneficent Hindu raja. An early
nineteenth-century account explained that the digging of a tank "to supply the
thirsty traveller with water" was an expensive undertaking, often costing Rs.
4,000 for the excavation, the installation of steps, and the assembly of Brahmins
for its consecration. At the latter, a priest recited verses from the Shastras and

48
The family genealogy states that in each of the four successions between 1657 and 1696, sons
succeeded their fathers. This seems biologically unlikely.
49
According to a farman from Emperor Muhammad Shah to Kirtichandra, zamindar of Burdwan,
in 1736-37. This farman will be subsequently cited as "Muhammad Shah's farman of 1736—
37." A photocopy and a translation of the farman are in an album, in the possession of the
Burdwan raj family in Calcutta, entitled "Photographs of Farmans, Sanads, etc., Received by
the Rajas, Maharajadhirajas of Burdwan from the Mogul Emperors and the British Govern-
ment."
50
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 194.
51
Ascoli, Early Revenue History, p. 23.
52
Habib, Agrarian System, p. 10.
53
In Todar Mai's time, the average revenue roll for a pargana in the sarkar of Sharifabad, in which
Burdwan was located, was smaller than in most Bengal sarkars. [Allami], Ain-i Akbari, tr.
Blochman, vol. II, p. 153.
54
Burdwan Handbook, p. 7.
138 Burdwan
then, in the name of the donor, said "I offer this pond of water to quench the
thirst of mankind." One Burdwan resident, apparently not a member of the
Burdwan zamindari family, was reputed to have dug 100 tanks around Burdwan.
In villages where water was scarce, villagers approached this benefactor who
then obtained the zamindar of Burdwan's permission and excavated a tank.55
On the eve of Shova Singh's revolt of 1696, in which Krishnaram Rai was
to die, the Burdwan raj family had completed the transition from commerce and
money-lending to town police chief to zamindar. In shifting from the position
of kotwal to zamindar, the Burdwan family was moving across one of the major
fault lines in Mughal society, the line that separated the appointive imperial
bureaucracy and military service from hereditary, landholding, local gentry.
The move from one career arena to the other was an important sterrtowards the
domestication of the family in Bengal. Members of the imperial bureaucracy
were not only appointed, they were subject to frequent transfers, often outside
their own province. They were often paid with temporary assignments of land
(jagirs) that were scattered and therefore difficult*© manage. They were subject
to escheat of their property upon death. The position of zamindars before 1700
was in many respects the opposite. Most zamindars held their territory by
heredity. They were rarely transferred. Their property was not normally subject
to escheat. Their territory was less likely to be assessed by local survey than
those held by members of the imperial military-bureaucracy. In general, they
were dispossessed only when they rebelled or failed to pay the succession fees
or revenue demand. Zamindaris could be sold or divided by their holders. They
were, in fact, a species of private property.56
There was overlap between the categories of zamindar and mansabdar. Many
mansabdars held hereditary, non-transferable home estates known as watan-
jagirs51 in which they were effectively zamindars. Moreover, zamindar chiefs,
when defeated and incorporated into the empire, were restored to their lands as
their estates were returned to them as jagirs. Of the 575 mansabdars identified
by M. Athar Ali as having zat (Mughal rank number) rank of 1,000 or more
between 1679 and 1707, "81 were zamindars also."58 But the basic distinction
holds. In general, zamindars were hereditary leaders of local communities who
preserved the forms of Hindu kingship and ritual communal life; mansabdars
were temporary, appointive, mostly Muslim representatives of the imperial
government from whose ranks the higher bureaucrats and military officers
came.

55
Ward, View, vol. II, p. 287.
56
Habib, Agrarian System, p. 179.
57
Ibid., p. 184.
58
Ali, Mughal Nobility, p. 12.
 Burdwan's expansion

A major revolt, led by Shova Singh and Rahim Khan, shook Mughal admini-
stration in Bengal in 1696-98. The rebels almost obliterated the Burdwan raj
family and they overran most of western Bengal. The uprising broke a prolonged
period of relative peace and growing prosperity in the province, fueled by the
trading activities of local entrepreneurs and northern European trading compa-
nies. The inability of imperial officers to suppress the revolt quickly revealed
serious weaknesses'in both local administration and the empire's superstructure.
Discipline among imperial officers was weakening as Aurangzib's campaign
in the Deccan proceeded inconclusively, as the emoluments in the form of jagir
assignments no longer provided expected incomes, as nobles began to anticipate
a succession struggle following Aurangzib's death, and as some officials in
Bengal neglected administrative duties in favor of trading opportunities.
The 1696-98 revolt led to the appointment of Murshid Quli Khan as the
province's diwan. Murshid Quli's regime in Bengal, coupled with Aurangzib's
death and the attenuation of Delhi's authority, produced a lowering of the center
of gravity in Mughal India's decision-making processes, a localization of
power, and the emergence of a regional dynasty. Not only did Bengal become
virtually independent in the following decades, much of the authority once
commanded by temporary mansabdars appointed from Delhi now devolved
upon hereditary and newly enlarged zamindars. Murshid Quli Khan relied on
fewer but expanded zamindaris to collect the state's revenue. The growth of the
Burdwan zamindari under Kirtichandra Rai (1702-40) and Chitrasen Rai (1740-
44) affords an opportunity to examine in detail the process by which power was
restructured and one eighteenth-century zamindari absorbed its neighbors. In
many parts of India in the eighteenth century, provincial governors were
breaking away from Delhi's control and aligning themselves with an emerging
class of powerful zamindars. As imperial power waned, the influence of local
magnates willing to cooperate with the provincial successor states expanded.
So did the opportunity to share in the honorable enterprise of local kingship.
The rebel Shova Singh belonged to a Chauhan Rajput family which had
migrated to Bengal four generations earlier, joining other Chauhan Rajputs
in the Chandrakona-Ghatal region of what is now northern Midnapur district,
139
140 Burdwan

40 miles southwest of Burdwan town. The region was an important trading and
manufacturing center at least by the early eighteenth century, producing both
sugar and woven goods, and it is likely that at the time of Shova Singh's revolt
it was already prospering from the rising demand of the Europeans at Hughli,
Hijili, and other ports. As early as 1661, Indian merchants at Hughli were
supplying English factors with Chandrakona sugar.1
Shova Singh had emerged as a powerful landholder, having obtained pargana
Chitwa near Chandrakona and then pargana Barda (modern Ghatal),2 perhaps
from fellow Rajputs who had long dominated the area. The area had been part
of the Bishnupur zamindari in the past and there is strong evidence, overlooked
in other accounts of Shova Singh's revolt, that Shova Singh was expected to
pay his revenue through the raja of Bishnupur.3
Shova's original motives are obscure. It is not known, for example, whether
he was emboldened to challenge Mughal authority as a result of a perception
that the Mughal hold on Bengal was weakening. He must have known that the
English East India Company had been permitted to return to their trading posts
after declaring war on the Mughals, shelling and burning much of Hughli town,
attacking Thana fort, burning Balasore, and capturing Hijili in 1686-87. Nor is
it clear if Shova's revolt was originally aimed at the expanding power of the
Burdwan zamindari or at the Mughal government itself. Charles Stewart stated
that Shova was "dissatisfied" with the Burdwan zamindar;4 an early twentieth-
century account said that the Burdwan zamindar, Krishnaram, "plundered
Shova Singh, the troublesome Zamindar of Chitwa."5 On the other hand,
Ghulam Hussain Salim wrote in 1787 that the Burdwan zamindar "smarted
under" Shova's "oppressions" and offered military resistance.6 Perhaps the best
piece of evidence is the 1736-37 farman from Emperor Muhammad Shah to
Kirtichandra of Burdwan which said that Shova rebelled after Raghunath Singh
II, zamindar of Bishnupur from 1694 to 1730, "failed to pay the revenue" of
parganas Barda, Chitwa, etc., "the Zamindari Mahals of the miscreant." The
farman goes on to say, without explanation of the motive, that Shova rebelled
against the Mughal government and "plundered the entire property, Cash &c.
of Kishen Ram deceased [Krishnaram of Burdwan] and killed Kishen Ram
himself and 25 members of his family."7 The variations in the accounts might
be explained by the hypothesis that Krishnaram provoked Shova Singh by

1
Wilson, Early Annals, vol. I, p. 380.
2
Shumboo Chunder Dey, Hooghly Past and Present (Calcutta, 1906), p. 36.
3
Emperor Muhammad Shah's farman of 1736-37 to Kirtichandra clearly implies that.
4
Stewart, History of Bengal, p. 370.
5
Dey, Hooghly, p. 35.
6
Salim, Riyazu, pp. 231-33.
7
Emperor Muhammad Shah's farman of 1736-37.
 Burd wan' s expansion 141

aiding the Mughal provincial government in trying to recover Shova's revenue

arrears to Raja Raghunath Singh II of Bishnupur.
In any case, Shova Singh invited Rahim Khan, the slit-nosed leader of the
Afghans living in Orissa, which then included all but the northern part of
Midnapur district, to bring his army north and join in an attack on Burdwan in
January 1696. Shova Singh and Rahim Khan attacked Burdwan town which
was defended by few soldiers, killed Krishnaram, and seized his money and
jewels.8 Most accounts say that Shova captured Krishnaram's wives and daugh-
ters; a Burdwan Raj family tradition recorded in the nineteenth century said that
all but one daughter committed suicide by poisoning themselves to avoid
capture and that the family still honored the women's heroism with an annual
spring ritual.9 Krishnaram's young son, Jagatram, escaped and fled to the safety
of the nawab's court at Dacca.10
The nawab at Dacca and the faujdar at Hughli were slow to recognize the
seriousness of the rebellion. After taking Burdwan, the rebels marched east to
Hughli and captured that rich port from the Mughals in July 1696, driving out
the Europeans in the process. Shova Singh then returned to Burdwan where
Krishnaram's daughter, Satyabati, was held captive. When he tried "to stain the
hem of the maiden's chastity," she killed him by cutting "him up from below
the navel to the belly" with a knife she had hidden and then took her own life.l {
The revolt, instead of being checked by Shova's death, took on major
dimensions. The Afghan, Rahim Khan, assumed leadership of the revolt under
the title of Rahim Shah (king). He was assisted by Shova's brother and was
joined by other rebels and "soldiers of fortune," including Rahim's fellow
Afghans domiciled in Orissa.12 Relations between Mughals and Afghans, whom
the Mughals had displaced by their conquest of Bengal, were prickly even when
the Mughals employed them as mercenaries. Alivardi Khan's Afghan troops
were a major threat to his regime in the 1740s. Sayyid Ghulam Husain Khan's
contempt for the Afghans may have been common among Mughal officers of
Persian or Turani ancestry: he described them as courageous, covetous, coarse,

8
[Allah], Narrative, p. 5.
9
William Wilson Hunter, Orissa (2 vols., London 1872), vol. II, pp. 26-27.
10
At least according to most accounts. However, Dey wrote that Krishnaram first sent his son to
the protection of the raja of Nadia and "slew the females of his family in order to avoid their
falling into the hands of the enemy." Hooghly, p. 36.
1
' Salim, Riyazu, p. 233. A contemporary French account by Francois Martin of Chandanagar
states that Shova Singh died as a result of a fall from a terrace. Aniruddha Roy, "Revolt of
Sobha Singh: A Case Study," Bengal Past and Present, vol. 88 (July-Dec. 1969, Jan.-June
1970), pp. 218-19. Jadunath Sarkar cited Mughal evidence that Shova Singh was alive in
September 1698, which casts doubt on the story that he was killed in 1696. History ofAurangzib
Based on Original Sources, vol. V (2nd edn., Calcutta, 1952), p. 308.
12
Stewart, History of Bengal, p. 371.
142 Burdwan

ungrateful, and vengeful.13 The editor of the Siyar wrote that women "always
preferred a well to an Afghan" and that both officers and their soldiers "swarm
with vermin."14
In the autumn of 1696, the rebels advanced through Nadia with a force of
10,000 cavalry and 60,000 infantry to north Bengal where they captured
Makhsusabad, Malda, and Rajmahal, each of which had European trading
factories nearby. By March 1697, they held the whole west bank of the
Bhagirathi river, about 180 miles in length, and much of the territory to the west.
Emperor Aurangzib was furious when he learned of the ineffectiveness of
the Bengal government's response to the revolt. He dispatched reinforcements
to Bengal and appointed his grandson, Muhammad Azim-ud-din, as subahdar
of Bengal. However, Prince Azim proved a dilatory general. Like other mem-
bers of the royal family, he was watching events outside Bengal and anticipating
the succession struggle upon his grandfather's demise. His campaign was
handicapped by jealousies between Mughal officers and he dallied at Burdwan
for almost a year. Not until September 1698 did Azim's army defeat and kill
Rahim near Chandrakona and bring an end to the rebellion.15
Prince Azim then went to Pir Bahram's tomb in Burdwan to offer gratitude
to Allah and to distribute alms to the poor.16 Azim restored Jagatram Rai to the
zamindari of Burdwan and Azim's grandfather, Aurangzib, confirmed the
appointment, recognizing Jagat as the zamindar and chaudhuri of fifty mahals,
four more than held by his father.17 Prince Azim took up residence in the
Burdwan fort and built a new public mosque in the town. The subahdar may
have wanted to keep under surveillance those people who had supported Shova
Singh and Rahim Khan and he may have sought proximity to the lucrative
Hughli trade in which he and his officers were engaged. Burdwan became the
virtual capital of Bengal for close to three years during Prince Azim's stay. 18
On first sight, the revolt of Shova Singh and Rahim Khan might have
suggested that Bengal, like other parts of the empire, was entering a period of
zamindar-led peasant revolts against a demoralized and divided imperial ruling
class. Certainly, the failure of the Bengal government to protect its subordinate
zamindars or to suppress the rebellion promptly indicated a deterioration in
mansabdari discipline. That the faujdar of Hughli was so preoccupied with
private trade that he neglected the town's defenses illustrated the allure of the
export trade and the reorientation in the priorities of mansabdars stationed in

13
Khan, Seir, vol. I, pp. 437-38.
14
Ibid., vol. Ill, pp. 349-50.
15
Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 395.
16
Stewart, History of Bengal, p. 389.
17
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 119. In this area a mahal was not equivalent to a pargana.
18
Stewart, History of Bengal, p. 390.
 Burdwan's expansion 143

Bengal. Yet in contrast to the Jat, Satnami, Sikh, and Maratha revolts in northern
and western India, the Bengal disturbance was a single episode rather than the
beginning of a process of local upheaval. Little is known about the composition
of the rebel forces in Bengal but apparently Afghans rather than discontented
Bengali peasants were the main source of their strength. The revolt was
immediately followed not by further rebellions but by a tightening of Mughal
control and a restoration of administrative discipline.
One of the consequences of the revolt in Bengal was the fortification of the
European trading factories in the province. After Rahim Khan's army looted
Hughli and seized the European factories at Qasimbazar, Malda, and Rajmahal,
the European companies increased their hiring of Indian mercenaries and
requested permission to fortify their factories at Chinsura, Chandarnagar, and
Sutanuti.19
The belief that fortifications were necessary to protect factories from local
rebellions and raiders and better to resist the frequent Mughal demands for
duties and bribes was by no means new. 20 The difference was that in 1698, the
subahdar allowed the English, Danes, and Dutch to fortify themselves. An
English delegation visited Prince Azim at Burdwan in July, paid him Rs. 16,000,
and obtained permission to complete their fort and to rent the villages of
Kalikata, Govindpur, and Sutanuti. Almost two years later, the East India
Company also received a renewal of their duty-free trading privileges. 21 With
their fort, the English were in a better position to protect their trade and their
Indian partners.
More important for the immediate future of the zamindars of Bengal was the
appointment of Murshid Quli Khan 22 as diwan or chief financial officer in 1700.
Aurangzib selected him to tighten the administration and to increase the flow
of revenues to the emperor's faltering campaign in the Deccan where the
imperial officers' pay was three years in arrears. In the quarter of a century
between Murshid Quli's arrival in Bengal and his death, he significantly
strengthened the zamindars of Burdwan, Dinajpur, Nadia, and Rajshahi at the
expense of both their neighboring zamindars and the non-Bengali Mughal
mansabdars. As we have seen, this process was the result of personal animosities
between Murshid Quli and his fellow mansabdars and of new administrative
policies. The older mansabdars distrusted him for a combination of reasons
including his strict methods of discipline, his arriviste background as an
Indian-born Brahmin convert to Islam and a Shi'a, his favoritism to his Shi'a

19
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, pp. 1-3, and Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 305.
20
Wilson, Early Annals, vol. I, p. 89.
21
Ibid., p. 150.
22
He was known as Kartalab Khan at the time of his appointment but received the title of Murshid
Quli Khan from Aurangzib in about 1703.
144 Burdwan

Persian relatives, and his transfer of mansabdari jagirs to Orissa. Murshid Quli's
policy of allowing particular zamindars to swallow up the surrounding small
estates apparently was designed to build a counter-weight to the distrustful and
jealous mansabdars and to develop a more efficient mechanism of revenue
extraction.
The Burdwan zamindari's growth in the early decades of the eighteenth
century resembled the expansion of Dinajpur, Nadia, and Rajshahi (Nator). In
each case, the expanding zamindars used a combination of administrative and
military means to gain revenue-collecting rights over their neighbors. In some
cases, they annexed adjoining zamindaris through force of arms and then
applied to the nazim and through him to the emperor at Delhi for confirmation.
In other cases, the transfer was effected after their neighbors fell into arrears,
disobeyed the nazim's orders, or failed to produce an heir. Occasionally, a
zamindari was expanded through purchase. In some cases, the previous
zamindars were left in control of their forfeited lands as subordinate chiefs or
revenue collectors while in others they were replaced and left to exist on what
few villages and revenue-free lands they had succeeded in retaining. In the
Burdwan example, expansion was pushing settled agriculture and caste-based
social organization into jungly areas that had been more exclusively tribal and
nomadic.
The most abrupt and extensive growth of a zamindari in the early decades of
the eighteenth century was the Nator raj of Rajshahi which by the 1760s covered
almost 13,000 square miles with over 16,000 villages, mostly to the north and
east of Murshidabad. Its founder was a Varendra Brahmin named Raghunandan
who was employed by Darpanarayan Roy, one of the two Mughal sadr qanun-
gos. Murshid Quli Khan was so impressed with Raghunandan's abilities that he
made him his "most trusted counsellor in revenue matters" while Raghunan-
dan's brother, Ramjiban, assembled the family's gigantic and scattered estate
until his death in 1730. 23
The Dinajpur zamindari in northern Bengal dates back to the first half of the
seventeenth century when another employee of the qanungo department, a north
Indian Kayastha, began to accumulate land. Its holder from c. 1682 to 1733,
Prannath, "enormously expanded the zamindari by seizing all the smaller
zamindaris in the neighborhood, some twelve in number," as well as more
distant ones. His son, Ramnath, "even more warlike" than his father, continued
the expansion from 1733 to 1760. By 1765-66, the Dinajpur zamindari covered
4,119 square miles. 24

23
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, p. 70; Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 414; Sinha,
Economic History, vol. II, p. 120.
24
Ray, Change, p. 176.
 Burdwan's expansion 145

The Nadia zamindari was neither new nor huge but it did grow during
Murshid Quli Khan's rule. In terms of social status, the raja of Nadia probably
stood first in Bengal. The Brahmin raj family traced its ancestry and the origin
of its estate back to Bhattanarayan, chief of the five Brahmins who came from
Kanauj in the time of Adisura (AD 1032). In Akbar's reign, Raja Durgadas of
Nadia assisted Raja Man Singh, the Mughal governor, in subduing Raja Prata-
paditya. As a reward, Emperor Jahangir gave him the title of maharaja and
confirmed him in charge of his father's estate which consisted of fourteen
parganas.25 Although Ramjiban and his son, Raghuram, zamindars under Mur-
shid Quli, spent years in Mughal prisons, apparently for arrears, they increased
the zamindari's size to its mid-eighteenth-century size of over 3,000 square
miles and 3,400 villages.26
Three other large but non-expanding zamindaris of early eighteenth-century
western Bengal remain to be mentioned: Birbhum, Bishnupur, and Pachet. All
three occupied a special status in the early eighteenth century, being relatively
free of Mughal interference and enjoying light revenue assessments, without
efforts to determine their true revenue capacity. None was favored by Murshid
Quli Khan or his successors with new territories. The raja of each was often
exempt from the usual requirement of zamindari attendance at puniyas in
Murshidabad. The Birbhum rajas were Afghan Pathans. Covering close to 4,000
square miles, the Birbhum zamindari was lightly assessed, presumably because
much of it was held on low-rent military tenures by up-country soldiers who
were expected to block incursions from southern Bihar.27 The rajas of Bishnu-
pur were almost certainly descended from the aboriginal Bagdis although their
family legends claimed they were north Indian Kshatriyas from near Brindaban
who settled in Bengal while on a pilgrimage to Puri in the seventh century. In
the eighteenth century, their territories were under pressure from the expanding
Burdwan zamindari to the north. By the start of Company rule they had been
reduced to 1,256 square miles.28 Pachet, to the west of Bishnupur in modern
Manbhum district, was only a nominal part of Mughal Bengal. Its 2,779 square
miles and sparse tribal population paid a small peshkash (tribute). 29
Thus, at the time of Shova Singh's rebellion in 1696, the small Burdwan
zamindari had as neighbors Bengal's largest Muslim zamindari, Birbhum, to
the north, the tributary zamindaris of Bishnupur and Pachet to its south and
southwest, and numerous smaller zamindaris in the richer plains towards the

25
J.H.E. Garrett, BDG: Nadia, (Calcutta, 1910), p. 26; W.W. Hunter, Statistical Account, vol. II,
pp. 146-48; and James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," pp. 196 and 359.
26
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," pp. 359 and 361-63.
27
Ibid., p. 224.
28
Ibid., p. 396.
29
Ibid., pp. 398-99.
146 Burdwan

Bhagirathi or Hughli river in the east. Following the suppression of Rahim

Khan, during Prince Azim-ud-din's residence in Burdwan, Jagatram Rai re-
turned to Burdwan from Dacca to take charge of his dead father's zamindari.
Aurangzib gave Jagatram a farman in 1699, confirming him as "Zamindar and
Chaudhuri of Parganas Burdwan, etc." consisting of fifty mahals, in return for
a nazrana of Rs. 1 lakh. However, like his father he met a tragic end. In 1702
while bathing in the Krishnasagar, the tank excavated by Krishnaram, he was
assassinated.30 According to a 1774 letter from Rani Bishnukumari, the killer
was one of his own zamindari officers.31 His motive is not known.
Jagatram was succeeded by Kirtichandra Rai, who was said by Burdwan
family tradition to be Jagat's eldest son but more likely was "collaterally
related."32 Aurangzib confirmed the succession to forty-nine mahals with a
farman in 1703-04. Kirtichandra was an ambitious, energetic warrior who
enjoyed the confidence of Murshid Quli Khan and Shuja-ud-din and who added
more land to the Burdwan zamindari than any other member of the line. It is
not recorded why Kirtichandra in particular, among the hundreds of zamindars
in Bengal, benefited from Murshid Quli Khan's policy of centralizing western
and central Bengal's revenue collections in the hands of a small number of
powerful zamindars. There is on record the fact that Abu Rai had helped a
distressed Mughal faujdar with provisions and that Krishnaram Rai had resisted
Shova Singh in 1696. It may be that the family's losses during that rebellion
and the bravery of Krishnaram's daughter in killing Shova Singh aroused the
sympathy and admiration of high Mughal officials. It may also be that the
subahdar, Prince Azim-ud-din, developed respect for Kirtichandra while living
in Burdwan from late 1698. However, Azim-ud-din was absent from Bengal
from 1703 until the end of his subahdarship in 1712 and Murshid Quli had
effective control of the revenue administration almost from his arrival in late
1700 or early 1701. We know that Murshid Quli was appointed faujdar of
Burdwan and Midnapur in July 1701. 33 Probably Murshid Quli was so busy
with his other duties that his faujdari responsibilities were exercised by a
subordinate mansabdar. Yet Murshid Quli was camped at Burdwan when the
East India Company decided, in January 1705, to pay the Rs. 20,000 as part of

30
Burdwan Handbook, p. 9.
31
Rani of Burdwan to Warren Hastings, 27 Dec. 1774, extract of Rev. Consult., 30 Dec. 1774,
Eleventh Report from the Select Committee Appointed to Take into Consideration the State of
the Administration of Justice in the Provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, 1783, Reports from
Committees of the House of Commons, vol. VI, East Indies-1783 (London, 1806), pp. 733-34.
Hereafter cited as Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783.
32
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 267. A Company memorandum on
"Zemindarry Inheritance" stated flatly that Jagat was Krishnaram's brother. App. 15, BOR
Prog., 2 April 1788, vol. 128.
33
Karim, Murshid Quli Khan, p. 3.
 Burdwan's expansion 147

the present he demanded in return for a sanad for trading privileges.34 It is

evident that Murshid Quli and his officers had ample opportunity to assess
Kirtichandra's ability and loyalty and that when Kirtichandra's neighboring
zamindars failed to pay enhanced revenue demands or otherwise displeased the
diwan, Murshid Quli allowed the Burdwan raja to occupy their holdings and
become responsible for the revenue.
The growth of the Burdwan zamindari under Kirtichandra (1702-40) was
spectacular. From a holding of six or seven parganas at the time of his accession,
by the Mughal settlement of 1728 the zamindari had grown to fifty-six parga-
nas.35 Thus, by 1728 the Burdwan zamindari covered most of Burdwan chakla
(one of the thirteen districts into which Murshid Quli divided Bengal) or most
of the modern district of Burdwan and a considerable part of Hughli district as
well. In terms of revenue demand, at Rs. 20,47,506 Burdwan's was the largest
of any zamindari in Bengal in 1728. Rajshahi, at almost Rs. 17,00,000, was the
only other zamindari that approached Burdwan's assessment.36
No record survives that explains how Kirtichandra obtained most of his new
parganas. It is reasonable to assume that most were acquired by administrative
transfers that did not disrupt local hierarchies of landholders and revenue
collectors. Murshid Quli Khan governed Bengal with a strong hand and it is
unlikely that he would have tolerated unilateral annexations on such a vast scale.
Moreover, if Kirtichandra had conducted military campaigns in the eastern
sections of Burdwan district, the Persian chronicles* reports from European
factories along the Bhagirjathi river, and the histories of local gentry families
would surely have mentioned them. Nevertheless, the surviving fragments of
information about Kirtichandra's annexations pertain mostly to military con-
quests to the south and southeast of Burdwan town, away from the Bhagirathi,
in the northern section of modern Midnapur district and the western sections of
modern Hughli and Howrah districts. This is an agriculturally rich and highly
populated area through which the seasonally navigable Damodar and Silai-
Rupnarayan rivers flowed on their southerly course to join the lower Hughli
river. The area was an important center of weaving and sugar production from
the late 1600s on. Because of this, in the 1700s the British, Dutch, and French
maintained factories at towns and villages here, including Chandrakona, Ghatal,
Radhanagar, and Khirpai. The doab (the area between two rivers) between the
lower reaches of the Damodar and Rupnarayan was also a major salt-manufac-
turing area in this period.
Kirtichandra's first recorded annexations were by military conquest, prob-

34
Wilson, Early Annals, vol. I, p. 266.
35
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," pp. 410-12.
36
The assessments were exclusive of abwabs. Ibid, pp. 194-201.
148 Burdwan

ably in 1702-03, and were accomplished with the aid of "a large army" of the
Mughals, according to the 1736-37 farman from Emperor Muhammad Shah.
They occurred in the area controlled by Shova Singh prior to his rebellion.
Kirtichandra took parts of the parganas of Chitwa, Barda, and Chandrakona,
corresponding roughly to the modern thanas of Daspur, Ghatal, and Chandrak-
ona, respectively, in northern Midnapur district. Kirtichandra placed Chandrak-
ona town and fort under the charge of his brother-in-law, Ramji Babu, and built
the 60-foot-high, five-turret Malleswar temple over a spring and shrine reputed
to be much older. Kirtichandra or his successor donated a debottar (revenue-
free) estate to support the rituals of the Raghunathji and Lalji temples there. 37
This was a pattern repeated by the Burdwan rajas. After acquiring a new
zamindari, they built new temples, restored or added walls, gates, or other
structures to old shrines, and endowed additional lands for the support of the
customary Vaishnava, Shaivite, and other religious ceremonies. The new terri-
tories were ritually as well as administratively incorporated into the Burdwan
raj.
In 1718, Kirtichandra annexed from the Bishnupur zamindari a further part
of pargana Chandrakona and the adjoining pargana Bagri (modern Garhbeta in
northern Midnapur district) to the west, as well as Raipur (southeastern part of
modern Bankura district). This war with Bishnupur was a complicated affair
which will be described briefly because it illustrates how the complex politics
of zamindari encroachment and estate building was sometimes facilitated by
the presence of disaffected parties within the victim zamindari. Both Bagri and
Raipur in 1718 were governed by Chauhan Rajput chiefs who had come to
Bengal with the Mughals and were subordinate to the raja of Bishnupur. Both
Bagri and Raipur were hilly, jungly areas with nominal revenue obligations and
sparse populations. The Bagri chief was feudatory to Bishnupur; he had under
him eighteen nayaka ghatwals or feudatory warriors to guard the passes leading
into neighboring chiefdoms. In 1718, the eighteen nayakas (who were probably
non-Bengalis) broke away from the Bagri chief and the Bishnupur raja, and they
joined Kirtichandra in a war against the raja of Bishnupur.38 The cause of the
war is unknown but the consequence was the addition of Bagri and an additional
section of pargana Chandrakona to the Burdwan zamindari.
Kirtichandra's attack on the raja of Bishnupur was described by one history
of the Burdwan raj as his "boldest achievement."39 On the other hand, a history

37
A. Mitra, Census 1951, West Bengal District Handbooks: Midnapur (Alipore, 1953), p. cii-iv.
38
W.B. Bayley, "Report on Boggraee," 15 Sept. 1815, J.R Crim. Prog. 56 of 29 Dec. 1815,
vol. 356. Nayaka is a Sanskrit term for a leader, usually military. It was used widely for warriors
in medieval south India. Burton Stein, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India (Delhi,
1980), p. 407.
39
[Anonymous], "The Territorial Aristocracy of Bengal: The Bardwan Raj," Calcutta Review,
vol. 59, no. 108 (1872), p. 174.
 Burdwan's expansion 149

of the Bishnupur raj claims that when Kirtichandra attacked Bishnupur town,
he was "totally repulsed."40 It seems clear that Kirtichandra did invade Bishnu-
pur, that he annexed feudatories on Bishnupur's borders, that he built a temple
to Raghunathji at Rajganj after defeating the raja of Bishnupur, 41 but that he left
the central territory of Bishnupur intact. It is likely that Murshid Quli Khan
would not have tolerated an effort to annex a major zamindari that had not given
offense to the Mughal government.
After the annexation of parts of Bagri and Chandrakona in 1718, Kirtichandra
appointed Dasu Nayaka, the chief of the eighteen Nayakas, to collect the
revenue of both parganas. But in 1735-36, Dasu rebelled and withheld his
revenue, apparently because the Burdwan raja sent a new shiqdar (revenue
collector) to Chandrakona.42 Kirtichandra regarded the people of Bagri to be
"turbulent" and "principally chooars" or robbers. The raja's diwan, Manik-
chandra, sent troops to subdue Dasu. They slew Dasu and brought his head back
to Burdwan. A year later, Kirtichandra confirmed Dasu's two sons as dependent,
tributary jagirdars of Bagri, "obeying every order of the Rajah of Burdwan."
The sons accompanied Kirtichandra on a pilgrimage to the Jagannath temple at
Puri. Afterwards, Fateh Singh, the younger son, returned to Burdwan, received
a siropa (a Mughal dress of honor) from the raja, and was appointed commander
of the Chandrakona fort, with command of four horse and twenty-five foot
soldiers.43 Bagri remained part of the Burdwan zamindari, except for a short
interlude, until it was sold for arrears of revenue in 1797. Its hereditary holders
styled themselves raja, and were in effect feudatories of the rajas of Burdwan.
Kirtichandra's annexations in western Hughli and Howrah districts were
along the Damodar river, south and southeast of Burdwan town. Balgarhi
pargana lay on both sides of the Damodar. The Balgarhi raj family were recent
immigrants to Bengal, having migrated from Awadh in the late 1600s or early
1700s. Legend says that Raja Vishnu Das brought with him 500 followers of
his own "Kshatriya" caste and 100 Kanauj Brahmins. The family's fame rests
on founding and providing the first mahants (chief priests) of the Tarakeswar
temple, the foremost Shaivite center in Bengal. As many Shiva lingams (phallic
symbols) were throughout India, legend says the Tarakeswar lingam was
swayambhu or self-revealed. After Raja Vishnu Das settled in Balgarhi, his
brother Varamal Singh, who was a religious mendicant, noticed that cows were
shedding their milk on a stone in the jungle. Recognizing the stone as Shiva's

40
Mallik, History of Bishnupur-Raj, p. 47.
41
Rakhaldas Mukhopadhyay, Bardhamaner Rajavamsanucarita (Calcutta, 1914), p. 31.
42
Paper on the zamindari of Bagri, delivered by the vakil of Jadu Singh of Bagri, Burdwan PCOR,
16 March 1779, vol. 28.
43
Ibid. Also paper on Bagri from the raja of Burdwan, Burdwan PCOR, 16 March 1779, and
J. Kinloch, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 14 March 1787, BOR Prog., vol. 13.
150 Burdwan
lingam, the two brothers then built a temple over the stone at Tarakeswar and
Varamal became the mahant (head) of the temple, as well as the chief mahant
of the Dasnami order of sannyasis (ascetics) which had subordinate orders in
many villages of west Bengal. The later mahants of the Dasnami orders were
north Indian Brahmins.44
There seems to be no record of the motive or circumstances of Burdwan's
incorporation of Balgarhi. Presumably, the Burdwan rajas welcomed the acqui-
sition of the area around a Shiva shrine of considerable popularity and that in
the mid-nineteenth century, at least, attracted 20,000 pilgrims for the annual
Shivaratri festivals. Shiva worship at Tarakeswar was open to women and to all
castes.45
Another of Kirtichandra's major forcible annexations was the ancient
zamindari of Bhursut, immediately south of Balgarhi. The Bengali Brahmin
zamindars of Bhursut lived in the village of Bhabanipur on the bank of the
Damodar in modern Howrah district. They had displaced the Bagdi rajas in the
first half of the sixteenth century.46 Bhabanipur was the site of a Dasnami
Shaivite math (residence of ascetic order) that was subordinate to the chief
Dasnami math of Tarakeswar. The Bhabanipur math had been endowed vith
lands by the raja of Bhursut in 1685. But there was nothing narrowly sectarian
about the Bhursut rajas. With the eclecticism and perhaps the competitive
ingenuity that a number of Bengali zamindars displayed, they built an unusual
two-storied temple inside their fort to house the images of no less than twelve
Shaivite and Vaishnava deities.47
Kirtichandra not only seized Bhursut in 1712, he also "looted the palace and
treasury and carried away the family deities" to Burdwan. The Bhursut raj
family left Bhabanipur and settled several miles to the east at Basantpur near a
collateral branch of the family who lived at Penro (Par Radhanagar) with a large
fortress surrounded by a moat. At Basantpur, the reduced circumstances of the
family apparently aroused the sympathy of the rajas of Burdwan, Bansberia,
and Nadia, who each gave the family rent-free lands.48 However, after Kir-
tichandra's death in 1740, the Burdwan zamindari confiscated most of the
remaining lands of Narendra Narayan Ray of Basantpur, who was the father of
the poet Bharatchandra.49
The annexations mentioned above were achieved through force of arms. A

44
L.S.S. O'Malley and Monmohan Chakravarti,BDG: Hooghly (Calcutta, 1912), pp. 321-33, and
A.K. Banerji, WBDG: Hooghly, pp. 209 and 724-26.
45
Hunter, Statistical Account, vol. HI, pp. 326-27.
46
A.K. Banerji, WBDG: Howrah (Calcutta, 1972), p. 81.
47
Ibid., pp. 593-94.
48
Ibid., pp. 461, 593, and 610.
49
Sen, History of Bengali Language and Literature, p. 558.
 Burdwan' s expansion 151

history of the Burdwan raj lists specifically those zamindaris seized militarily
by Kirtichandra and says that the annual revenue demand under the 1728
settlement for these territories was Rs. 4,41,161 Oi over one fifth of the
zamindari's total revenue obligation. The list includes not only the major
parganas mentioned above but also Monoharshahi50 which was in chakla
Murshidabad.
The nazims' favoritism to Burdwan was revealed both by their enabling the
zamindari to expand and in allowing Kirtichandra considerable autonomy in his
internal estate management. Localization of power was a general phenomenon
in the first half of the eighteenth century as the role of faujdars shrank while the
territories of a handful of zamindars grew. But Kirtichandra was specially
favored. Apparently alone among the zamindars of Bengal, he was allowed to
assume police and criminal judicial powers, including the right to retain fines,
which had previously been reserved to the nazim's own officers.51 Until 1726,
the nazims stationed faujdari officials in the thanas (police jurisdictions) in
Burdwan, as in other zamindaris, to check crime and arrest miscreants. How-
ever, in 1726-27, 1730-31, and 1741-42, the nazims surrendered police and
criminal justice authority to the Burdwan rajas in return for higher revenue
payments.52 With these transfers of faujdari powers, the nazim's authority
within the Burdwan zamindari was reduced although as late as 1734-35, the
father of the chronicler, Karam Ali, arrived from Delhi and was appointed
news-writer of Burdwan chakla on a salary of Rs. 200. The post remained in
the family until 177253 and was one of the agencies by which the nazims
gathered intelligence about zamindari affairs.
Kirtichandra's success in extending his territory and securing the Mughal
revenues probably could not have been achieved without ruthlessness. Nor
could he have expanded without diplomatic skill and the symbolic actions of
piety and liberality expected of Hindu rajas, ruthless or not. He built a number
of Shiva temples and donated revenue-free land to support both Shaivite and
Vaishnava deities.54 On the 1732 Shiva temple at Baikunthapur, the village in
which Sangam Rai had first settled, his dedicatory inscription contains a double
entendre phrase that may be read, depending where the reader breaks it, as
dedicated either "by the instructor of the good" (shastra satam) or "by the

50
Mukhopadhyay, Bardhamaner\ p. 23.
5!
Company civil servants debated in the 1770s whether zamindars had exercised criminal judicial
powers. Warren Hastings reversed his earlier opinion and concluded in 1775 that the Burdwan
rajas were exceptional in being the only instance he knew of with "a Foujedarry Jurisdiction."
Minute of 7 Dec. 1775, Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, App. 15, p. 940.
52
Diwan Bhawani Mitra's report on the faujdari of Burdwan. Prog, of 29 May 1775, Bengal Rev.
Consult., P/49/53.
53
S&rksir (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, p . 10.
54
Mukhopadhyay, Bardhamaner, p. 25.
152 Burdwan

punisher of the wicked" (shastra asatam).55 The ambiguity nicely captures the
complementary functions (dana and danda) of the ideal raja. Other epithets in
the inscription describe Kirtichandra as "the moon of all glory (or good deeds),"
"the jewel among all kings," and as "the protector of the dharma of Brahmins."56
The Burdwan raj faced the common problem of new rulers seeking to pacify
new territories. It needed to offset its unpopular extractive functions with ritual,
piety, and patronage amid a population vitally interested in its puja cycles and
conditioned to expect few benefits from a change of administration in a
provincial or zamindari capital. It is true that the Burdwan rajas had formidable
powers of patronage with which to attract loyal subjects. They had the ability
to appoint or confirm tens of thousands of people in their revenue-collecting,
judicial, peace-keeping, embankment, and household departments. But looking
beyond this significant group of dependents, there is reason to question the
degree to which the local population looked upon government institutions and
their agents, such as zamindars, as the principal source of prosperity and
dharmic order. Despite their patronage, zamindars were frequently experienced
as inhibitors of wellbeing. The impression conveyed by reading pre-colonial
literary works and modern district gazetteers and by listening to Burdwan-area
villagers discuss their communities' past is that the agency of the deities and
pious individuals was far more deeply implanted in folk memories than the
agency of the Burdwan rajas. The territory of the Burdwan raj was thick with
highly localized traditions of special sanctity to sectarian groups. These tradi-
tions pre-dated the Burdwan raj, endured after zamindari abolition, and, for the
most part, ignored temporal power. In particular, the theology of Bengali
Vaishnavism, which spread through the area in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, disassociates divinity from "prestige or power" and implies that "the
divine does not express itself in any essential way through history, nature, or
creation-maintenance-destruction of the world." 57
The sacred traditions that may have reinforced the notion that local puja and
piety mattered more than sacral kingship and temporal power included a sacred
geography that honored the places in which mythic individuals lived, performed
miracles, or experienced revelations. For example, in western Burdwan Pan-
daveshvar village was thought to have been the home of the five Pandava
brothers during their exile prior to the Mahabharata war.58 In northeastern
Burdwan, sacred memories of Chaitanya and his followers were linked to
Dainhat, Denur, Ekchaka, Kalna, Katwa, and Ketugram. In the same area were

55
A.K. Bhattacharyya, A Corpus of Dedicatory Inscriptions from Temples of West Bengal (c. 1500
AD. to c. 1800 A.D.) (Calcutta, 1982), p. 130.
56
Ibid., p. 8.
57
Kinsley, The Sword and the Flute, p. 72.
58
Government of West Bengal, WBDG: Barddhaman (Calcutta, forthcoming), p. 595.
 Burdwan's expansion 153

several Shaktapithas (sacred places) where parts of Sati's (Shiva's wife) body
fell to earth. Saspur, near Kalna, and Burdwan town contained dargas (graves)
of Muslim pirs worshiped by Muslims and Hindus.59 Numerous other commu-
nities also took pride in having their puniya (merit) increased by the presence
of deities, learned communities, pious individuals, and miraculous events that
preceded the creation of the Burdwan raj and that for many villagers fit into a
higher and less ambivalent order of value than the dharmic and extractive
activities of Hindu kings.
The late eighteenth-century Burdwan raj was know to be Shaivite but for the
century's middle decades the evidence suggests strong Vaishnava orientation.
We have seen that Kirtichandra once made a pilgrimage to the Vaishnava temple
at Puri; in 1730, his mother Brajakishori also went, carrying an order from
Nazim Shuja-ud-din to local functionaries (ghatwals and faridars, heads of
police outposts), requiring them to guarantee the safety of the party which
included fifteen palanquins for women and ten for men.60 In 1739, Kir-
tichandra's mother dedicated a Lalji temple at Kalna to Radha and Krishna. It
was large (c. 54 feet square), with three tiers and twenty-five pinnacles (pan-
cavimshati-ratna).61 Kirtichandra and his son, Chitrasen, had a Vaishnava guru,
Bhaktalal Gosvami, who built a Radha temple at Mankur.62
Kirtichandra's name is associated with non-temple construction projects as
well. According to a legend, he ordered the excavation of a large tank near
Katwa after he asked for drinking water while on his way to Murshidabad and
discovered there was little water locally available. Kirtichandra had requested
the water from a boy and then promised to excavate a tank as long as the distance
the boy could cover in one dash. Kirtichandra then marked the distance with his
spear and left. A few days later, a thousand laborers arrived and dug the tank
which apparently was named after the boy who fetched the water.63
While Burdwan town remained the raj's administrative headquarters, Kir-
tichandra made Kalna the center of the family's devotional activities, on the
bank of the purifying Bhagirathi river. He, or one of his successors, constructed
"a rest house, an elephant-shed, two Siva temples, and a tank" at 8 mile intervals
along the Burdwan-Kalna road.64 At Kalna, the family also built small struc-
tures adjoining the palace for the display of the remains and royal paraphernalia
of deceased rajas and ranis, as they had done at Dainhat prior to Kirtichandra.

59
Ibid., pp. 582-92.
60
Mukhopadhyay, Bardhamaner, pp. 32-33.
61
Bhattacharyya, A Corpus of Dedicatory Inscriptions, p. 133; David J. McCutchion, Late Medi-
aeval Temples of Bengal: Origins and Classification (Calcutta, 1972), p. 56.
62
Government of West Bengal, WBDG: Barddhaman, p. 594.
63
Mukhopadhyay, Bardhamaner, pp. 25-26.
64
Government of West Bengal, WBDG: Barddhaman, p. 309.
154 Burdwan

The family's offerings of food and changes of clothes resembled the puja
activities by Bengalis at many temples dedicated to deities and may have been
attempts at deification:
There is a separate building for each Maharaja or Maharani, in which is kept the bones
remaining from the funeral pyre, together with all the personal belongings of the
deceased ... The cooking and eating vessels of the Maharani, used by her in her lifetime,
with her umbrella, fans, scentholders, etc., are placed round her remains. The remains of
the late Maharaja Mahtab Chand are dressed in the clothes which he used during his life,
which are changed three times a day. They are regarded as if the Maharaja was living
himself and are placed on a velvet state cushion with silver salver, tumblers, hookahs,
and atar holders, just as the late Maharaja used to sit with all the paraphernalia of state
about him. They are surrounded by his utensils, chowries, walking stick and all the
articles daily used by him in life; in another room is shown his office table with the
inkstand, pens, waste paper basket, etc., used by him; in another the bed which he used.
The meals which they used to take in life are offered to the remains daily and are then
distributed to the poor.65

When Kirtichandra died in 1740, he left behind an immense, profitable estate

containing some of the richest alluvial agricultural land in west Bengal. Its
well-populated villages, with their expert weavers and agriculturalists, bene-
fited from their proximity to the trading entrepots along the Bhagirathi and from
the communities of literate, high caste families in the eastern parganas which
were a major source of employees to the Mughal government, the Burdwan raj,
and the European trading companies. Sanskrit and Arabic/Persian seminaries
and tutors dotted the banks of the Bhagirathi and their immediate hinterland and
trained both learned Brahmins and administrators literate in Persian who aided
the Burdwan raj in integrating its territory into the Hindu-Persian pattern of
zamindari life. The study of Persian was widely recognized as a passport to
professional advancement for not only was it the language of higher admini-
stration, few of the peripatetic mansabdars mastered Bengali. The emergence
of a bilingual intelligentsia was reflected in the well-known rhyme recited by
village Hindu girls as they drew with powder on the floor the symbol of a mirror:
Arshi, arshi, arshi,
Amar shy ami paruk Farsi.
(Mirror, mirror, mirror,
Let my husband-to-be learn Persian.)66

Kirtichandra also left a legacy of efficient, loyal service to his masters in

Murshidabad. Dozens of his neighbors incurred the wrath of Murshid Quli Khan
or Shuja-ud-din. In 1736, Raja Badi-ul-Zaman of Birbhum withheld his reve-

65
J.C.K. Peterson, BDG: Burdwan, pp. 197-98.
66
On the spread of Persian, see Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 223.
 Burdwan's expansion 155

nue, rebelled, and saw his zamindari invaded by troops from Patna and Mur-
shidabad. Only a visit of submission to Murshidabad, a promise of an extra Rs.
3 lakhs annually,67 and Kirtichandra's willingness to act as security for the
payment of the Birbhum revenues saved Badi-ul-Zaman's zamindari.68 Rajas
Ramjiban, Ramkrishna, and Raghuram of Nadia were all imprisoned, appar-
ently for revenue arrears.69 Raja Raghunath Singh II of Bishnupur suffered from
both Mughal severity and domestic trouble. Bishnupur lost land to Burdwan
because of his failure to collect revenue from Shova Singh, as we have seen.
Raghunath was said by a popular legend to have been murdered in 1730 in a
conspiracy led by his eldest rani on account of Raghunath's infatuation with a
Muslim courtesan named Lai Bai whom he had obtained in military action
against Shova Singh decades earlier. The conspiring rani became a sati (a widow
burned) on Raghunath's funeral pyre, according to this well-known story. 70 By
contrast, Kirtichandra is not known to have lost any land or suffered family
dissension. At least once, in 1730-31, he was imprisoned in Murshidabad for
arrears.71
Chitrasen Rai succeeded his father as zamindar of Burdwan in 1740 and
received a farman from the titular Mughal emperor which conferred the title of
raja. He was the first member of the line so honored. His brief reign was
overshadowed by the start of the devastating Maratha invasions in 1742, which
are discussed in the next chapter. Before his death in 1744, Chitrasen and his
diwan, Manikchandra, who apparently managed his revenue and military af-
fairs, added still more territories. Precisely what they acquired is uncertain. A
Burdwan raj family tradition credits Chitrasen with obtaining "the parganas of
Mandalghat, Arsa, and Chandrakona," all to the south and southeast of Burdwan
town. 72 But there is evidence that Mandalghat and Chandrakona became part
of the zamindari long before Chitrasen's accession. 73 Chitrasen's major annexa-
tions seem to have been the Arsa zamindari in eastern Hughli district and the
Gopbhum and Shergarh regions of western Burdwan.
In the late seventeenth century, Arsa had been part of one of the largest and
most important zamindaris in Bengal, adjoining the trading ports of Chinsura
and Hughliand extending along both banks of the Bhagirathi. However, Bengali
rules of inheritance and Mughal decisions, including the 1690 grant of the

67
D. Majumdar, WBDG: Birbhum, p. 106.
68
[Allah], Narrative, p. 151.
69
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 359, and Hunter, Statistical Account,
vol. II, pp. 151-54.
70
The rani's motive for conspiring was not jealousy but outrage that Raghunath fed food prepared
by Lai Bai to Hindus of Bishnupur. A.K. Banerji, WBDG: Bankura, pp. 98-99.
71
Letter from Raja Tejchandra of Burdwan, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 29 Jan. 1776, vol. 12.
72
Burdwan Handbook, p. 9.
73
Rouse, Dissertation, p. 224.
156 Burdwan

villages of Kalikata, Gobindapur, and Sutanuti to the English, led to the partition
and diminution of this major estate. It was the Arsa section of the estate,
consisting of one third of the Kayastha family's original zamindari, that Burd-
wan obtained in 1742. When Raja Raghudeb's son, Gobindadeb, died in
1740-41, Manikchandra, the Burdwan raj diwan, informed the nazim that there
was no heir.74 The nazim agreed to transfer the Arsa zamindari to Chitrasen "in
consideration of his having furnished a supply of grain" to the nawab's army
during the first Maratha invasion earlier that year.75
The other area Chitrasen is believed to have obtained, either during his
father's reign or his own, was the territory then known as Gopbhum and
Shergarh, in the western extremity of modern Burdwan district. In the early
eighteenth century, this area had been contested by the zamindars of Bishnupur,
Birbhum, Panchet, and Burdwan. It contained relatively few high caste Hindus,
being an area of aboriginal, low caste, and pastoral peoples, with communities
of agriculturalists increasing towards the east. Shergarh, the narrow, western-
most neck of land that lies between the Damodar and Ajay rivers, now covers
the Raniganj coal field but in the eighteenth century it was a jungly area
inhabited by the Bauri caste. The Bauris, according to J.C.K. Peterson, were
outside Hinduism and were "regarded by all orthodox Hindus as unmitigated
chuars" (robbers).76 At the time Chitrasen conquered Shergarh, it was held, at
least nominally, by the raja of Birbhum although it traditionally belonged to the
raja of Pachet.77 Its main value then was military rather than economic: it was
used to watch the turbulent chiefdoms and "chuars" of the western hills.
Chitrasen apparently left the raja of Pachet in possession of the earthen fort at
Dihi Shergarh because it still belonged to the family early in this century. He
also left undisturbed many of the ghatwali or feudatory military tenures that
were scattered through the western hills.78
The rolling, wooded headland of the central Indian hills also extended
eastwards into western Gopbhum. In eastern Gopbhum, around Mankur, 23
miles west of Burdwan town, the area was generally level, unforested, and
well-populated. Gopbhum contained a large concentration of the Gopa or Goala
caste of cattle-herders. At least by the sixteenth century, a section of the Gopas

74
However, a posthumous son, Nrisinghadeb, was born. In 1779, Warren Hastings restored to him
some ancestral lands in the Twenty-four Parganas that had not been annexed to the Burdwan
zamindari. A.K. Banerji, WBDG: Hooghly, p. 659, and L.S.S. O'Malley and M. Chakravarti,
BDG: Hooghly, p. 252.
75
The rairayan's testimony of 2 Feb. 1788, quoted in Harrington, An Elementary Analysis, vol. Ill,
p. 348.
76
J.C.K. Peterson, BDG: Burdwan, p. 81.
77
W.B. Oldham, Some Historical and Ethnical Aspects of the Burdwan District (Calcutta, 1891),
p. 4.
78
Ibid., p. 4.
 Burdwan's expansion 157

had shifted from pastoral to agricultural and trading occupations and over time
separated themselves from the pastoral Gopas. By the early nineteenth century,
the elevated section called themselves Sadgops or "pure" (sat) Gopas. The
ruling families of Gopbhum before the 1740s came from this elevated section.
The preeminent chiefs of Gopbhum were the rajas of Amragarh, 1 mile from
Mankur. The raja of Amragarh first became a feudatory of the Burdwan raj in
1694, by order of Aurangzib. With Chitrasen's invasion of the early 1740s, the
line of rajas came to an end. But the affluent group of agriculturalists now known
as the Sadgops continued to prosper.79 By the turn of this century, they ranked
near the top of the Nabasakha or clean Shudra castes, they claimed to rank with
the Kayasthas, and like the Kayasthas, they used the surname Ghosh.80
Burdwan's integration of the territory of the Sadgop rajas of Gopbhum is of
ethnographic interest because of the supposed marriages between Sadgop ruling
families and the Khatris of Burdwan. W.B. Oldham, a British civil servant and
ethnographer, wrote in 1891 that "within the last two hundred years, if not within
a still shorter period," the Burdwan Khatris formed marriage alliances with "the
Sadgops of the Gopbhum dynasty," meaning the rajas of Amragarh or their
subordinate, related feudatory chiefs. The Khatris then reverted to the practice
of marrying Khatris only,81 presumably to maintain their status in the eyes of
up-country Khatris with whom most of their marriages were arranged. Old-
ham's statement was vague and did not indicate whether the Khatri-Sadgop
marriages preceded or followed Chitrasen's invasion of Gopbhum. Nor did he
indicate if the Burdwan raj family ever admitted to taking Sadgop wives. If
Sadgop women became wives of the Burdwan rajas, presumably they were
minor wives because there is no historical record or admitted Burdwan raj
family memory of a Sadgop rani of Burdwan.
Oldham attributed the origin of the important Aguri caste to the Khatri-
Sadgop marriages, citing the Aguris' own claim to be "the product of unions
between the Khetris of the^ house of Burdwan and the Sadgops of the Gopbhum
dynasty."82 Here, Oldham was obviously misled because the Aguris are an old
caste who are mentioned in Mukundaram's Candi-mangala (1589) which
almost certainly pre-dates the arrival of Khatris in Burdwan. Mukundaram
described the Aguris as performing "their own work, always thinking of battle.
They are learned in many kinds of weaponry. They support their priest and
preceptors, and never do anything wrong."83 Even though it is unlikely that they

79
Hitesranjan Sanyal, "Continuities of Social Mobility in Traditional and Modern Society in
India: Two Case Studies of Caste Mobility in Bengal," Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 30, no. 2
(Feb. 1971), pp. 321-23.
80
J.C.K. Peterson, BDG: Burdwan, p. 63.
8
' Oldham, Some Historical and Ethnical Aspects, p. 18.
82
Ibid.
83
Dimock and Inden, "The City in Pre-British Bengal," pp. 12-13.
158 Burdwan

originated from Khatri-Sadgop marriages, the Aguris had a special relationship

with the Burdwan raj, constituting a successful caste of jotdars and small traders.
They made up 4.4 percent of the district's population in 1901. Like the Khatris,
they claimed Kshatriya status. But only one of their seven sub-castes wore the
sacred thread and Herbert Risley ranked them with the Nabasakha castes. At
the end of the nineteenth century, they were spread out through the district,
mainly as prosperous cultivators although many held tenures and estates under
the Burdwan raj. 84 They had a reputation for being short-tempered, violent, and
tough. They seem to have been an important element in the Burdwan raj's
success in consolidating its hold over its vast estate.
After Chitrasen occupied Gopbhum, he built forts at Rajgarh, near Kaksa,
and at Chirulia, on the Ajay river, where he left a cannon with his name inscribed
in Persian. He renamed the area around Chirulia's 40-foot-high fort pargana
Senpahari, after himself. It extended across the Ajay river into modern Birb-
hum 85 and it may have included territory which Chitrasen or his father had
seized from the rajas of Birbhum.
Little more is known about Chitrasen. In the style of his age, he apparently
wished to be seen as a patron of learning and religion. He employed as court
poet one of the eminent Sanskrit pandits of the time, Baneswar Vidyalankar,
who left the court of raja Krishnachandra of Nadia to come to Burdwan. In 1744,
Vidyalankar finished a prose and poetical composition about Chitrasen which
portrayed the raja as a highly religious man who composed and recited sacred
verses, performed sandhyas (religious rites), prostrated himself at the feet of his
guru, fed and made obeisance to a cow named Ganga, and feasted Brahmins.
The main story in Chitrachampu concerns a dream Chitrasen had after fleeing
from the first Maratha invasion. In the dream, Chitrasen traveled to Brindaban,
Ayodhya, and other sacred places, learned the principles of Vaishnavism, and
was presented to Krishna and Radha. 86 It is not known if Chitrasen became a
Vaishnava as Chitrachampu suggests. It was common for eighteenth-century
zamindars to be catholic in their patronage and worship. We have seen that both
Chitrasen's father and grandmother made pilgrimages to the Vaishnava temple
in Puri, perhaps in imitation of Sangam Rai, the original immigrant from the
Punjab. Chitrasen's aunt, the mother of Raja Kirtichandra, had built the Lalji
temple to Radha-Krishna at Kalna in 1739. On the other hand, Chitrasen had
built a Kali (Siddheshvari) temple, also at Kalna, in 1741 and his two widows
each constructed a Shiva temple there in 1753. 87

84
Risley, Tribes and Castes, vol. I, pp. 12-13.
*5 J.C.K. Peterson, BDG: Burdwan, p. 195.
86
Baneswar Vidyalankar, Chitrachampu, ed. Ramcharan Chakravarti (Benares, 1940), pp. 9-36.
87
Bhattacharyya, A Corpus of Dedicatory Inscriptions, pp. 4,9, and 30.
 Burdwan's expansion 159
We know almost nothing about how Kirtichandra and Chitrasen managed
their huge holding. Persian sources, such as the Riaz al-Salatin, Siyar al-Mu-
takhkherin, and Tawarikh-i-Bangala, focus on military campaigns and mans-
abdari and nawabi court politics and say little about individual zamindars,
despite the crucial role the larger ones played in nawabi administration and
revenue collection. This reflects both the independence of zamindari manage-
ment from nawabi oversight and interference and the non-Bengali origin of the
Persian chroniclers who, when they mentioned particular zamindars, rarely
gave their names. James Grant's analysis adds little about zamindari manage-
ment before Plassey, except the territorial divisions and the provincial govern-
ment's revenue demands within each zamindari. The Burdwan raj family itself
seems to have few documents from this period, apart from the farmans and
sanads from the Mughal emperor. The Burdwan collectorate contains bundles
of taidad papers or documents registering thousands of revenue-free holdings,
mostly small in size and many fraudulent. Those were not analyzed for this
study.
Despite the thinness of the sources, it is clear that from Murshid Quli Khan
on, the nawabs favored the large zamindars at the expense of the small ones in
western and central Bengal. They tolerated the large estates of Birbhum and
Bishnupur and they encouraged the growth and internal autonomy of Burdwan,
Dinajpur, Nadia, and Rajshahi, both by permitting their military annexations
and by transferring small estates to their control. It is also apparent from the
pattern followed after Plassey that the major zamindars governed their territo-
ries much as seventeenth-century zamindars had. The rajas displaced the rulers
of some freshly acquired estates and continued others. Thus under Kirtichandra
and Chitrasen, the ruling families of Shova Singh and others around Chandrak-
ona, the zamindar of Mandalghat, and the Sadgop rajas of Amragarh disap-
peared from the subsequent historical record. The rajas of Bagri, Raipur, and
Simlapal, remote from Burdwan, continued as feudatories while the rajas of
Balgarhi, Bhursut, and Shergarh were reduced to small holdings. After a new
area was annexed, the rajas of Burdwan probably continued most of the local
gentry and hereditary jotdars as payers of the revenue. No other explanation is
consistent with the apparent ease with which Burdwan's expansion occurred
and the peace that prevailed in subsequent decades. When resistance was given,
as in the Chandrakona and Gopbhum regions, the Burdwan zamindari army,
and if necessary the nawab's army, ensured that the transfer of control was
completed. Once the older ruling families were subdued, the rajas of Burdwan
conciliated local interests and ritually integrated the areas into the Burdwan raj
with revenue-free grants to Brahmins, concessionary rents for influential fami-
lies, excavation of tanks, and construction and endowment of temples. In
conferring subordinate revenue-collection rights, khilats, land gifts, and the
means to perform Hindu rituals, the Burdwan rajas were enabling their subjects
160 Burdwan
to participate in the widely dispersed "sovereign substance of the king." 88 The
zamindari militia and the forts at Rajgarh, Chirulia, and Chandrakona, and
lock-up rooms in Burdwan and the scattered kacharis, on the other hand, served
as reminders of where coercive power, another element of sovereignty, lay.

88
Dirks' ("The original caste," in Marriott [ed.], India through Hindu Categories, p. 67) phrase
for "the royal gift."
8 The Maratha invasions, 1742-1751

Chitrasen's expansion was largely completed by April 1742 when the expand-
ing Marathas invaded Bengal from central India for the first time. The Marathas
returned annually until 1751, usually withdrawing before the summer monsoon
turned the fields and roads to mud and made them almost impassable for the
light Maratha cavalry. The Burdwan, Bishnupur, and Birbhum zamindaris and
Midnapur district felt the brunt of these destructive incursions because of their
proximity to the Maratha base in central India. In the long run, the invasions
had no effect on the size of the Burdwan zamindari nor is there evidence that
any members of the Burdwan raj family were killed. But the invasions caused
immense hardship for the people of west Bengal. They also precipitated an
economic crisis and diminished the legitimacy of the Murshidabad regime.
They constitute a turning point in the history of the eighteenth century.
The invasions had their principal origin in the ambitions of Raghuji Bhonsla,
the Maratha chief at Nagpur, to collect chauth or a share of the revenue in
territories formerly under the Mughal empire. Yet the invasions might not have
occurred but for the circumstances surrounding Alivardi Khan's usurpation of
power from Nawab Sarfaraz in 1740. Sarfaraz, although a weak, debauched
ruler, was the grandson of Murshid Quli Khan and the son of Shuja-ud-din
(1727-39) and thus had legitimate claims to the masnad (throne). Alivardi, by
contrast, came from a Turko-Arab family of modest social position and rose
through the ranks of the Bengal government by the patronage of Sarfaraz's
father. Alivardi's good character and courageous leadership against the
Marathas were able to overcome most of the stigma of ingratitude and treachery
attached to his usurpation. However, the behavior of other members of his
family contributed to the growing political alienation that culminated in the
British-backed revolution of 1757.1 Alivardi's brother, Haji Ahmad, was noto-
rious. Upon Sarfaraz's assassination, Haji Ahmad seized for himself some of
the women from Sarfaraz's harem, an act considered dishonorable by people in

1
Datta, Alivardi, p. 41, suggested that "the battle of Plassey was the reply of historical justice"
to Alivardi's treacherous treatment of Nawab Sarfaraz.

161
162 Burdwan
Alivardi's court.2 He was also accused of abducting other women.3 Alivardi's
grandson and successor, Siraj-ud-daula (1756-57), was even more licentious.
His frequent violation of families, without regard to rank, to satisfy his sexual
appetites was said to have caused him to be detested widely.4
The main opposition to Alivardi after he overthrew Sarfaraz in 1740 came
from Rastam Jang, uncle of Sarfaraz and deputy governor of Orissa who wanted
t& "avenge the blood of Sarfaraz.5 Alivardi twice marched to Orissa to subdue
Rastam Jang and other partisans of Sarfaraz. In the first expedition, Rastam Jang
was defeated at the battle of Phulwari in March 1741 and he fled to the Deccan
to the territory of Asaf Jah, nizam-ul-mulk of Hyderabad. But Rastam Jang's
son-in-law returned to Orissa with a Maratha army and, it was believed, the
nizam's support, and he retook southern Orissa and also occupied Midnapur and
Hijili. So Alivardi entered Orissa a second time and defeated the supporters of
Rastam Jang in December 1741. Alivardi remained in Orissa for several months
to consolidate his rule. In the meantime, his nephew Zain-ud-din was securing
Bihar. By the spring of 1742 Alivardi's hold on Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa
seemed firm. It seemed momentarily that the relative peace Bengal had experi-
enced since Shova Singh's rebellion of 1696-97 had been restored.6
It was during his return towards Murshidabad in April 1742 that Alivardi
learned that the Marathas had entered Bengal and were advancing eastwards
towards Burdwan. This news came as a shock: Yusuf AH described it as "a
strange incident... which no man had ever imagined in his mind."7 The Maratha
invasion was sent by Raghuji Bhonsla, the Maratha chief at Nagpur. Raghuji
was encouraged to invade Bengal by the relatives of Sarfaraz and by Nizam
Asaf Jah, it was said.8 Raghuji saw Bengal as a prosperous province which had
not been paying chauth to the Marathas as other Mughal dominions were. He
therefore sent his chief minister, Bhaskar Pandit, at the head of perhaps 20,000
cavalry.9 They entered Bengal via Pachet (modern Manbhum district) west of
Burdwan.
Alivardi marched to Burdwan to intercept Bhaskar Pandit and the Marathas
although he had dismissed many troops before learning of the Maratha advance.
In Burdwan he camped next to Ranisagar, a tank excavated by the mother of
Raja Kirtichandra. Bhaskar's troops managed to burn down much of Burdwan

2
There were 1,500 women in the harem. Yusuf Ali, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Sarkar (tr.),
Bengal Nawabs, p. 90.
3
Khan, Seir, vol. II, p. 120. See also Datta, Alivardi, pp. 6-7.
4
Khan, Seir, vol. II, pp. 121-22.
5
Karim Ali, Muzaffar-namah, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, p. 24.
6
Datta, Alivardi, pp. 41-55.
7
Yusuf Ali, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Sarkar (tr.) Bengal Nawabs, p. 96.
8
Ibid. Also, Datta, Alivardi, p. 57.
9
Some contemporary estimates put the number much higher.
 The Maratha invasions, 1742-1751 163

town, seize Alivardi's baggage, and cut off his food supplies. After fruitless
negotiations with Bhaskar over the amount of chauth to be paid, Alivardi and
his hungry men made a desperate three-day flight, harassed by the Marathas, to
the Mughal fort at Katwa, 35 miles to the northeast, and then crossed the
Bhagirathi river and fled north to Murshidabad.10 During the rout, Diwan
Manikchandra's Burdwan troops deserted Alivardi but Alivardi's general,
Mustafa Khan, rallied his demoralized Afghan troops to counter-attack the
"infidels" by appealing to their pride in Islam and "their Afghan name." 11
Bhaskar Pandit intended to withdraw from Bengal before the June rains set
in. However, an influential officer of Alivardi's transferred his allegiance from
Alivardi to Bhaskar after being captured at Burdwan and persuaded Bhaskar to
remain in Bengal during the rainy season. This official was Mir Habib, a Persian
merchant from Shiraz who had settled in Hughli and had been a partisan of
Sarfaraz.12 With Mir Habib as their "principal adviser,"13 the Marathas stayed
in Bengal through the summer of 1742. They made Katwa their capital and
overran most of Bengal west of the Bhagirathi while Alivardi stayed to the east
of the rain-swollen river.
In this first year, as well as in subsequent invasions, the Marathas terrorized
western Bengal as no other invaders are known to have done. Their soldiers
raided widely, collecting revenue from the zamindars, looting and destroying
villages, and torturing people to force them to yield their valuable possessions.
The poet Gangaram listed the names of over fifty villages and towns in west
Bengal razed, burned, or plundered by Maratha bands. These included Mid-
napur, Chandrakona, Khirpai, Murshidabad, Burdwan, and Dainhat (the trading
village near Katwa where the Burdwan rajas kept the shrines of their ances-
tors).14 Gangaram, Ghulam Hussain Salim, and J.Z. Holwell each stated that
the Marathas (Bargis) cut off the hands, ears, and noses of their captives, in
addition to performing many other cruelties.15
A considerable migration took place, much of it crossing the Bhagirathi.
Gangaram graphically described the plight of the refugees:16
the Bargis began to plunder the villages, and all the peoplefledin terror. Brahman pandits
fled, taking with them loads of manuscripts; goldsmiths fled with their scales and
weights; and petty tradersfledwith their wares, and coppersmiths with their coppers and

10
Yusuf Ali, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, pp. 96-100, and Khan, Seir,
vol. I, pp. 377ff.
11
Khan, Seir, vol. I, p. 389.
12
Yusuf Ali, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, pp. 99-101.
13
Datta, Alivardi, p. 70.
14
[Gangaram], The Maharashta Purana: An Eighteenth-Century Bengali Historical Text, tr.
Edward C. Dimock and Pratul Chandra Gupta (Honolulu, 1965), pp. 32-38.
15
Datta, Alivardi, p. 73.
16
[Gangaram], Maharashta Purana, pp. 26-32.
164 Burdwan

brasses, and blacksmiths and potters, taking with them their wheels and equipment; and
fishermen of all kinds with their nets and lines, and conch merchants with their tools -
all fled. The people fled in all directions; who could count their numbers? Kaestas,
Baidyas17 - all who lived in villages fled, when they heard the name of the Bargis. Ladies
of good family, who had never before set foot on road fled from the Bargis with baskets
on their heads. And land-owning Rajputs, who had gained their wealth by the sword,
threw down their swords and fled. And Gosanis18 and Mohantas19 fled, riding on litters,
their bearers carrying bag and baggage on their shoulders; and many farmers and
Kaibartas20 fled, their seed for next year's crops on the backs of the bullocks, and plows
on their shoulders. And all the Sekhs and Saiyads and Mogals and Pathans21 who were
in the villages fled when they heard the name of the Bargis. And pregnant women, all
but unable to walk, began their labor on the road and were delivered there. And all the
sikdars22 and village officials fled for their lives when they heard the name "Bargi."
There were some people who stood in the road and asked of all who passed where the
Bargis were. Everyone replied: - I have not seen them with my own eyes. But seeing
everyone flee, I flee also.
So the poor and wretched people fled, their bundles of coarse and ragged clothing on
their heads. There were old people with staffs in their hands, and Canis and Dhanuks 23
leading their goats with ropes around their necks. From every village, big, or small,
people fled in fear of the Bargis. People fled in four directions to various places. People
of all thirty-six varnas fled, and there was no end to their numbers.
But then suddenly the Bargis swept down with a great shout and surrounded the people
in the fields. They stole all their gold and silver, leaving all other things aside. They cut
off the hands of some, and the noses and ears of others. Some they cut down with a single
blow. They seized and dragged off the most beautiful of the women, who tried to flee,
and tied ropes around their fingers and necks. When one had finished with a woman,
another took her, while the raped women screamed for help. The Bargis did many foul
and bestial things to the women, and then let them go. 24 Then, when they had plundered
all they could in the fields, they entered the villages and set fire to large houses.
Bangala,25 Chauari26 Visnu mandapas21 - they burned them all, large and small. They
destroyed whole villages and swept, looting into all the four directions. They bound some

17
I.e., Kayasthas, a Hindu caste cluster. Baidya also indicates a cluster of castes, most of which
practiced medicine. (The notes to this passage are quoted from the translation by Dimock and
Gupta.)
18
I.e., gosvami, The term is usually used to designate a leader of the Vaishnava sect or a highly
respected person of Vaisnava persuasion.
19
I.e., mahant, the head of a math or monastery, also usually Vaisnava.
20
The name of a caste, at the present time a caste of fishermen.
21
These names indicate the ancestry of groups of Muslims in Bengal.
22
Subordinate revenue collector.
23
Names of tribal people.
24
Unchastity, even when forced, could mean for a woman a life of misery.
25
Bungalows.
26
Thatch-roofed houses.
27
Pavilions for worship or celebration.
 The Maratha invasions, 1742-1751 165
people, their hands behind their backs, others they threw to the ground and while they
were on their backs on the ground, kicked them with shoes.28 They shouted over and
over again, "Give us money!", and when they got no money they filled peoples' nostrils
with water, and some they seized and drowned in tanks, and many died of suffocation.
In this way they did all manner of foul and evil deeds. When they demanded money and
it was not given to them, they would put the man to death. Those who had money gave
it. Those who had none were killed.
Before the end of the rains in 1742, Alivardi crossed the Bhagirathi and began
to pursue the Marathas. Bhaskar retreated to Nagpur in December 1742 only to
return in February 1743 to collect more chauth. The third Maratha invasion
began in March 1744. This time Alivardi lured the Marathas into negotiations
and used the occasion to have his most important Afghan general, Mustafa
Khan, assassinate Bhaskar and many of his officers. But in 1745, Alivardi was
deserted by the ambitious Mustafa, who resented Alivardi's failure to fulfill his
promise to appoint him governor of Bihar. Mustafa and his Afghan supporters
turned on Alivardi and invited the Marathas under Raghuji Bhonsla to invade
a fourth time, to avenge the murder of Bhaskar. Hereafter, Alivardi faced a
combined Maratha - Afghan enemy. In the winter of 1745-46, bands of
Marathas pillaged villages from Burdwan district south to Orissa. The sixth
invasion was led by Raghuji's son, Janoji, whom Alivardi defeated near
Burdwan town in 1747. In 1748, Alivardi began to gain the upper hand. He
decisively defeated the Marathas and Afghans in Bihar in April 1748, he beat
the Marathas near Midnapur in May 1749, and he routed Mir Habib in December
1750. Finally, in May 1751, Alivardi made peace with the Maratha government
of Nagpur by surrendering the revenues of southern Orissa and by agreeing to
an annual payment of Rs. 12 lakhs as chauth. Southwest Bengal continued to
experience occasional raids by Maratha bands but the main invasions were
finished.29
The final five years of Alivardi's reign were peaceful and he died in 1756.
He had held Bengal together through the sixteen years of his reign by the force
of his personality and his great courage and energy. But Alivardi's usurpation
of power, the Maratha invasions, the Afghan insurrections, and the dissensions
in his own family had sapped the foundations of the Bengal government.
Alivardi, instead of recruiting Mughal, Rajput, and Khatri mansabdars as his
seventeenth-century predecessors had, tried to rely upon Afghan commanders
and troops, who were often recruited from Bihar. The Afghans proved to be a
Trojan horse. Before his defection in 1745, Mustafa Khan had become so
powerful, according to Yusuf Ali,

28
One of the greatest indignities which can be visited upon a person in India.
29
Datta, Alivardi, pp. 80-118.
166 Burdwan
that Alivardi had not the power to issue any order on any affair of the realm without
taking his advice, nor did he venture to make any change in the execution of anything,
great or small, which he [Mustafa] proposed; therefore every zamindar of Bengal turned
to him so that nothing but the name remained to the diwan for the revenue collection of
the Khalsa [crownlands].30
Both in 1745 and 1748, major Afghan revolts threatened Alivardi. In 1748,
Afghan rebels killed Haji Ahmad, Alivardi's brother, and Zain-ud-din, Ali-
vardi's nephew, thereby eliminating two of his ablest relatives.31
These developments and the Maratha invasions, coupled with news of the
Persian invasions of north India in 1738-39 and the start of the Afghan invasions
in 1748, may have led some zamindars, merchants, and bankers to wonder about
the future stability and viability of the Mughal regime in Bengal. 32 Yet a review
of contemporary poetry by Edward Dimock and Pratul Chandra Gupta
suggested that poets at least did not connect the Maratha invasions to a
weakening of the nawab's government. Gangaram thought the Maratha
invasions were brought on by the immorality of the age and people's failure
to worship Radha and Krishna. Gangaram wrote that when the Earth could
bear the general sin no longer, she approached Brahma, who requested Shiva
to "strike down those evil people, and rid Earth of her burden." An apparent
effort to appeal to the common religious identity of Bengali- and Marathi-
speaking Hindus failed: Gangaram wrote that when a Maratha general
performed sacrifices to the goddess Durga, "Durga ordered her followers to
be gracious to the Muslim Nawab and oppose the Marathas, because the evil-
minded ones had killed Brahmans and Vaisnavas."33 The poet Ramprasad
apparently did not mention the Maratha invasion.34 Baneswar Vidyalankar's
Chitrachampu ascribed Maratha military successes to "the wonderfully fast
horses they ride." More interestingly, Bharatchandra's Annadamangal attrib-
uted the invasions to a specific communal cause: the destruction of temples
at Bhubaneswar, Orissa, by Alivardi's Muslim soldiers. According to
Bharatchandra, Shiva had caused Raghuji Bhonsla to dream about the
incident and the dream so angered him that he ordered the Maratha invasion
of Bengal. Somendra Chandra Nandy has speculated on the slim basis
of Bharatchandra's apparent justification of the Maratha invasions that
perhaps Bharatchandra's patron, Maharaja Krishnachandra of Nadia, had
reached an "understanding" with the Marathas. Krishnachandra, who had
been imprisoned by Alivardi, may have wanted the Marathas to punish

30
Yusuf AH, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, pp. 110-11.
31
Datte. Alivardi, pp. 133-34.
32
Ibid., p. 118, and Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, p. 452.
33
Marshall, New Cambridge History of India, II.2, p. 72.
34
[Gangaram], Maharashta Purana, pp. xiii-xv and 52.
 The Maratha invasions, 1742-1751 167
Alivardi for the temple desecration and might even have hoped to succeed
AlivardiasrulerofBengal. 35 On the other hand, the Persian chroniclers showed
no interest in what Bengalis thought of the invasions although Sayyid Ghulam
Husain Khan implied that character deficiencies, such as disloyalty, licentious-
ness, and profligacy, were the cause of the nizamat's decline, of which the
Maratha incursions were one sign.36
Zamindars outside the invaded districts as well as in were affected by the
Maratha raids. In west Bengal, zamindars could not collect from their ravaged
villages and they could not borrow because the shroffs (money-changers) and
other lenders had fled across the Bhagirathi river. Raja Chitrasen of Burdwan
himself fled, perhaps to the protection of Calcutta. Baneswar Vidyalankar tried
to make his patron's flight appear honorable:
leaving the administration of the city of Burdwan to the Council of ministers, Maharaj
Chitra Sen with a huge army of soldiers that could have easily covered the earth, after
offering solace to the poor and the needy, and making arrangements for the protection
of the Brahmins and the supplicants, left for the land between the two holy places of
Tribeni and the Sagarsangam which is the new city by the name of Bishala.37
The annual Maratha invasions crippled Alivardi's tax collections in west
Bengal. The Burdwan zamindari alorie was Rs. 22 lakhs in arrears in 1742-43.
In that year, Alivardi managed to collect only Rs. 64.52 lakhs or considerably
less than half Bengal's land revenue. In subsequent years, the shortfall was even
greater.38 Alivardi tried to compensate by harassing other zamindars, including
the rajas of Dinajpur, Nadia, and Nator.39 In 1744, British merchants at Qasim-
bazar reported that around Murshidabad "every person who was reported to
have money was seized and whipped until he disgorged his wealth." Fateh
Chand of the Jagat Seth banking family told the British vakil "at present there
is no government; they fear neither God nor the King but seem determined to
force money from everybody."40 With an acute shortage of cash, Alivardi was
unable to pay his soldiers who often refused to fight. On one occasion, Mustafa
Khan claimed his troops were owed Rs. 17 lakhs.41 Alivardi frequently had to
negotiate with his officers and make partial payments before they would march.

35
Somendra Chandra Nandy, "Citra Campu of Mahamahopadhyaya Banesvara Vidyalankara,"
Bengal Past and Present, vol. 102, pt. 1, (Jan-June 1983), p. 55.
36
Khan, Seir, vol. I, pp. 274-75, and vol. II, pp. 120-25, 2 4 1 ^ 2 , 261ff, and 368-72.
37
Nandy, "Citra Campu", p. 58.
38
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 216.
39
Kalikinkar Datta, Studies in the History of the Bengal Subah, 1740-70, vol. I (Calcutta, 1936),
p. 157.
40
J.H. Little, "The House of Jagatseth," Bengal Past and Present, vol. 23, no. 4 3 ^ 4 (Jan.-June
1921), pp. 11-13.
41
Datta, Alivardi, p. 121.
168 Burdwan

Even when soldiers did fight for Alivardi, at times they were not far behind the
Marathas in looting villages, 42 thereby hurting zamindari revenue collections.
A notable feature of the accounts of Alivardi's campaigns was the absence
of references to zamindari military assistance. Zamindari troops had never
played a central role in Mughal military affairs in Bengal but prior to the
Maratha invasions they had assisted the nazims at important junctures.
Zamindars had helped Murshid Quli put down the rebellion of Sitaram.43 And
when Alivardi marched from Bihar to overthrow Sarfaraz, zamindars joined
Sarfaraz in resisting.44 By the 1740s, zamindars had replaced mansabdars to a
large degree in the revenue administration but they were not assigned corre-
sponding military responsibilities. Possibly, Alivardi did not trust most
zamindars. J.Z. Hoi well claimed that at the time of the first Maratha invasion,
the rajas of Bishnupur and Birbhum refused to resist the Maratha advance from
Pachet towards Burdwan because they were angry at what they considered
Alivardi's oppressive treatment.45 James Grant wrote that the Birbhum raja's
"treacherous connivance" helped the Marathas enter Bengal from the west. 46
The Persian chronicles of Yusuf Ali, Karam Ali, and Sayyid Ghulam Husain
Khan are all but silent about the role of Bengal's zamindars in fighting the
Marathas and the Afghans. There is one exception and that is the part played
by Manikchandra, the diwan and military leader under Rajas Chitrasen and
Tilakchandra of Burdwan. But the accounts jof Manikchandra's military help to
Alivardi were intended to show how unreliable he was.
Diwan Manikchandra was the key figure in Burdwan's relations with the
nazims in the 1730s, 1740s, and 1750s. A non-Bengali Khatri, he seemed to
have conducted Burdwan's revenue and military affairs for much of this period,
as well as taking temporary assignments in the nazim's service. Manikchandra
brought an auxiliary force from Burdwan to help Alivardi in Orissa in 1741,
when Alivardi was attempting to subdue Rastam Jang, relative and supporter
of the deposed Sarfaraz. On the eve of the decisive battle of Phulwari, Manik-
chandra, it was said, tried to cross over to Rastam Jang but his offer was rejected
as suspicious and, as a result, Manikchandra "had to fight for Alivardi."47
During his return from Orissa, Alivardi learned of the first Maratha invasion.
Alivardi sent the paymaster of the Burdwan raja's troops, who was a Deccani
Muslim, to negotiate with Bhaskar Pandit, the Maratha commander.48 The

42
Little, "The House of Jagatseth," p. 6.
43
[Allah], Narrative, p. 92.
44
Salim, Riyazu, pp. 311 -12. At the same time, several zamindars of Bihar accompanied Alivardi
who then rewarded them by taking them into government service. Khan, Seir, vol. I, p. 358.
45
Cited by A.K. Banerji, WBDG: Bankura, p. 86.
46
James Grant "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 225.
47
Datta, Alivardi, p. 45.
48
Khan, Seir, vol. I, p. 382.
 The Maratha invasions, 1742-1751 169

negotiations failed. When Alivardi elected to fight his way from Burdwan to
Katwa, Manikchandra and his troops again accompanied him. This time also,
Manikchandra was accused of lack of courage. Following a night-time barrage
by Maratha guns 20 miles from Burdwan, Manikchandra and his men lost heart
and "in the manner of a zamindar fled away." 49 Manikchandra nevertheless
continued to be regarded as a useful officer. In 1750, while campaigning against
the Marathas, Alivardi camped for some time in his garden at Burdwan. By
1756, Alivardi had persuaded him to leave Burdwan to serve at Murshidabad
in an unknown capacity but possibly as a diwan.
Manikchandra's title of raja and incidents with the diwan of the Nadia
zamindari and with Alivardi's son, Siraj-ud-daula, indicate that Manikchandra
enjoyed high standing in the nazim's court. According to a legend, while
Manikchandra was still diwan of Burdwan, he and Raghunandan, diwan of
Maharaja Krishnachandra of Nadia, jostled each other while at the Murshidabad
court and exchanged hostile words. After Manikchandra moved to Murshidabad
to serve the nazim, he blamed Raghunandan for the theft of several lakhs of
rupees en route to Murshidabad from Nadia. In consequence, Manikchandra
ordered Raghunandan's execution, had him tied to the mouth of a cannon, and
blew him away, in the contemporary form of Mughal and British punishments. 50
If true, the story is interesting on two counts. It suggests Manikchandra had
considerable influence at court. It also raises the possibility that Manikchandra
was taking revenge against Maharaja Krishnachandra for the publication of
Annadamangal by his court poet, Bharatchandra. Bharatchandra had set the
second episode, in which a raja's daughter is seduced by a stranger, in the court
of the Burdwan rajas, thereby insulting the Burdwan raj family which had
deprived Bharatchandra's family of its estate. 51 Whether or not that was the
motive for Manikchandra's alleged execution of the Nadia diwan, it is widely
believed that the Burdwan raj family resented Maharaja Krishnachandra's
patronage of Bharatchandra's work.
Manikchandra was also one of the many nawabi officers who experienced
the impetuosity of Siraj-ud-daula. Late in Alivardi's life, his son Siraj wished
to demolish the portico of Manikchandra's Murshidabad house because it
interfered with the view from Siraj's new palace. Alivardi prevented him,
reportedly saying that "as you have many other palaces, it is proper that you
should demolish the mansion that you have built before his house" so that
Manikchandra's own view would be restored.52 In his death-bed instructions to

49
Yusuf Ali, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, p. 98.
50
Kumud Nath Mallik, Nadia Kahini (Ranaghat, B.S. 1319), pp. 4 6 - 4 7 .
51
Dimock (tr.), Thief of Love, p. 20.
52
Karim Ali, Muzaffar-namah, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, p. 59.
170 Burdwan

Siraj, Alivardi was heard to say "Monichund dewan, whose councils might have
been your dangerous enemy, I have taken him to favour."53 And Siraj did
employ Manikchandra during his brief reign. He appointed Manikchandra
governor of Calcutta after Siraj conquered it on 20 June 1756.
To conclude, apart from Manikchandra's Burdwan contingent, the Bengal
zamindari armies are noticeable by their absence in the Persian accounts of this
period. During the Maratha invasions, zamindars were more interested in
protecting their families than organizing resistance. Ghulam Hussain Salim
wrote that during the first Maratha invasion, Sis Rao, a Maratha officer,
"persuaded the Zamindars to assess and collect the revenue," and that "the
wealthy nobility and gentry, to save their family honour, quitted their houses
and migrated across the Ganges."54 The mother of the raja of Burdwan crossed
the river and lived on land at Mulajor rented from the Nadia zamindari while
the maharaja of Nadia moved his residence from Krishnagar to a safer site. 55
The short-term effects of the Maratha invasions were devastating. The chief
of the Dutch factory in Bengal estimated in 1755 that "close to 400,000 people
were killed in Bengal and Bihar" during the Maratha invasions.56 If we assume
that Bengal's population was roughly 24 million at their start and that 350,000
of the deaths were in Bengal, that would mean that some fourteen out of every
thousand people perished.57 One way of measuring the economic impact is
looking at East India Company imports to Britain from Bengal (in the absence
of figures for the total exports from Bengal). Imports from Bengal averaged
£462,854 from 1738 to 1742 and £355,633 from 1752 to 1756. In other words,
imports from Bengal averaged 23 percent less in the five years after the
invasions than in the five years preceding them. The price of ordinary rice in
Bengal rose sharply in 1743 to levels far above (sometimes double) prices
recorded in the previous thirty years, fell back to usual levels in the 1748-50
period, and then rose again.58 Such price increases presumably benefited rice
producers but they suggest a shortage of rice and they must have posed hardships
for the landless and non-agricultural population. There seems reason to accept
K.N. Chaudhuri's judgments that "the Maratha invasions and Alivardi's press-

53
J.Z. Holwell to COD, 30 Nov. 1756, Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, vol. II, p. 16.
54
Salim, Riyazu, p. 343.
55
Datta, Alivardi, p. 74.
56
Chaudhuri, Trading World, p. 253.
57
For reasons for guessing that Bengal's population might have been 24 million in 1742, see
Prakash, The Dutch East India Company, pp. 246—47.
58
Histogram of the price of rice in Bengal, 1712-60, Chaudhuri, Trading World, p. 101. Chaudhuri
points out that there was a long-term upward trend in the prices of Bengal textiles, raw silk, and
other products which could have been partially the result of increased money supply resulting
from increased bullion imports (pp. 100-08).
 The Maratha invasions, 1742-1751 171

ing financial needs began to push the economy of Bengal towards the brink of
a general collapse."59
The long-term effects of the Maratha invasions were probably more political
than economic although careful statistical analysis has not been done. Despite
high mortality, the migration of weavers and others to eastern Bengal, and the
interruption of revenue collections and trade, both the revenue collections and
European trade soon returned to pre-1742 levels and resumed their climb. 60
When Alivardi died in 1756, he left no relative to succeed in whom zamindars,
bankers, most nawabi officers, or opportunistic Europeans had confidence.
Many signs pointed to the possibility of a change in regime: Alivardi's own
usurpation, dissensions in Alivardi's family, the Maratha invasions, and the
chaotic, violent competition for power in upper India. British merchants were
the catalyst for change. Advocates of trade without state interference, they
paradoxically hungered for and sensed the possibility of despotically controlled
commerce.

59
Ibid., p. 308. Conversely, Sinha's (Economic History, vol. I, p. 10) statement that "this talk of
the economic decline of Bengal before Plassey is a myth" seems to be based less on evidence
than patriotism.
60
Tapan Raychaudhuri (Kumar and Desai (eds.), Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. II,
p. 7) believes that "despite the Maratha raids and Alivardi's extortions, the real decline in
Bengal's economy was largely a post-Plassey and even post-1813 phenomenon."
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule

C. A. Bayly has argued that "British conquest often meant no more than the slow
drift to the East India Company of soldiers, merchants and administrators,
leaving the Indian rulers with nothing more than a husk of royal grandeur."1 In
Bengal after Alivardi's death in 1756, the drift was relatively rapid and massive
even though tinged with ambivalent feelings. Certain bankers, merchants,
soldiers, and administrators led the way, and the zamindars, with no real options
available, fell in line after several years of hesitation and flirtation with resis-
tance.2
A deceptive calm had returned to Bengal during the five years between the
final Maratha invasion in 1751 and Alivardi's death. In the year of the last
Maratha incursion, after almost a decade of major arrears, Alivardi had felt
confident enough of his hold on Bengal to add abwabs of Rs. 22.2 lakhs to
Bengal's annual revenue demand, bringing the total to Rs. 186.4 lakhs.3 This
was the first in a series of revenue increases that came in rapid succession in the
1750s and 1760s. His diwan, Raja Kiratchandra, had succeeded in collecting a
huge sum from Burdwan on account of unpaid balances.4 The Burdwan raja
was Tilakchandra5 who at the age of fifteen had succeeded his uncle Raja
Chitrasen upon his death in 1744. Burdwan raj affairs were dominated in
Tilakchandra's youth by its diwan, Raja Manikchandra, who seems to have had
closer relations with Alivardi' s court than any other zamindari officer in Bengal,
perhaps because of partial success in discharging arrears that had accumulated
during the Maratha invasions.
The brief interlude of peace ended following Alivardi's death in 1756. The
rapid evolution of the East India Company from trader to king-maker to the

1
Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, p. 6.
2
For an excellent overview of the transition period, see Marshall, New Cambridge History of
India, II.2, pp. 70ff.
3
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 221.
4
Yusuf Ali, Ahwal-i-Mahabat Jang, in Sarkar (tr.), Bengal Nawabs, p. 152, wrote that "Raja
Kirat Chand, during his diwani took more than a kror of rupees over and above the fixed revenue
from the chakla of Bardwan and put it in the public treasury, which greatly pleased Alivardi."
Such a sum would have equaled over half Bengal's annual jama and thus is not plausible.
5
Temple inscriptions spelled his name in various ways, including Trailokyachandra.

172
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 173

governing power in Bengal in the years 1756 to 1765 surprised everyone

concerned. When Alivardi died, the divisions within his family and the weak,
unpredictable character of his successor Siraj-ud-daula were evident but the
Company had no plans to intervene in nawabi affairs nor did many Bengalis
anticipate what followed. From Siraj's seizure of Fort William in June 1756,
through the battle of Plassey and the Company's conspiracy with and installa-
tion of Mir Jafar in June 1757, through the Company's decisions to install Mir
Qasim as nazim in 1760 and then to bring back Mir Jafar in 1763, events moved
so rapidly and their consequences were so sweeping that they outstripped the
capacity of all parties to foresee trie final results: the eclipse of nawabi power
and domination by the Company.
As Company influence expanded, Company servants discovered undreamed
of opportunities to make money from both trade and revenue administration.
They and their Indian partners set up monopolies in the trade of salt and other
commodities, they exempted themselves from the payment of duty on both
Company and private trade, they sold their political influence to nawabi officials
and zamindars, they gave themselves and their dependents the most valuable
revenue-collecting rights. In the fluid, confused period in which the Murshid-
abad nawabs held formal authority while the Company exercised real power,
behaviors degenerated into a scramble for private gain. Bengal was now a
political bazar, with military power and administrative authority for sale.
The agrarian population was asked to pay more revenue than ever before as
military costs and the price of obtaining political influence escalated. In both
the lands retained by the nawabs of Murshidabad and those transferred to
Company management, the revenue demands rose at an unprecedented rate.
Between 1756 and 1763, the demand on Bengal lands increased by 40 percent. 6
Under Company control, the gross rental demand of the Burdwan zamindari
went from Rs. 33.3 lakhs in 1760-61 to Rs. 43.5 lakhs in 1768-69. The
simultaneous growth of revenue demands in Company and nawabi territory
complicated Bengali political responses to the Company's ascendancy. For
most Bengalis there was enthusiasm for neither the Company nor the Murshid-
abad government.
Remarkably little has been written about zamindari attitudes and reactions
to these transformations. Zamindars were as unprepared as other groups for
the successive "revolutions." Although Alivardi and his officers had treated
some zamindars harshly during the Maratha invasions, those invasions
had cast Alivardi in the role of Bengal's defender. In the final five years of
Alivardi's life, pressure on most zamindars was lightened as agriculture, artisan
manufactures, and trade recovered. Alivardi lacked neither ability, vigor, nor

6
Ascoli, Early Revenue History, p. 28.
174 Burdwan

statesmanship. On the eve of Alivardi's death in 1756, there were few signs that
Bengalis anticipated an end to rule by non-Bengali Muslims, a rule that had
lasted over five centuries. Yet signs of a changed political climate were
accumulating. Possibly Alivardi's usurpation and the collapse of the Mughal
imperium left the Murshidabad government with less legitimacy in the eyes of
zamindars than it had previously enjoyed. Reports of British and French military
intervention in succession disputes in south India raised anxiety among at least
Murshidabad officers. Within Bengal, the center of economic gravity had been
shifting to the European enclaves along the Hughli river where Indian merchants
seemed to have experienced more security than in nawabi territory.
Had Hindus come to resent Muslim or non-Bengali domination? We have
seen that Bharatchandra's Annadamangal, completed in 1752 or 1753, sug-
gested that the Maratha invasions had been a Hindu crusade to punish the
Yavannas (Muslims) for damaging temples at Bhubaneshwar in Orissa in
Alivardi's reign.7 Earlier events in Orissa may have offended Bengali Hindus
even more. In the late 1720s, Taqi Khan, Nazim Shuju-ud-din's son and
governor of Orissa, had "forcibly converted" the raja of Khurda to Islam. The
raja was the custodian of the Jagannath temple in Puri which was of particular
sanctity to Bengali Hindus. Thousands of Bengalis went on pilgrimage to Puri
each year and a number of zamindars, including the rajas of Burdwan, traced
their arrival in Bengal to an ancestor's pilgrimage to Puri. Because a Muslim
now held the Jagannath temple, devotees removed the Jagannath image from
the temple to preserve it from desecration and in consequence the stream of
pilgrims dried up, until 1734 when a new Muslim governor permitted the
image's restoration and worship at Puri.8
Evidence that many Hindus in Bengal questioned their ability to fulfill their
cultural ideals is lacking. Zamindars alienated land to Brahmins, built temples,
and celebrated pujas without recorded interference from the Murshidabad
nazims after Murshid Quli Khan. For example, at Kalna the mother of Raja
Tilakchandra of Burdwan built a Krishna temple in 1752; his aunt, Changa-
kumari (the widow of Raja Chitrasen), installed a Shiva-linga in the Jagannath
temple in 1754; and Kirtichandra's mother built a Shiva temple in 1755.9 Hindu
zamindars, revenue officials, and bankers received at least as much favor
and patronage under Murshid Quli Khan, Shuja-ud-din, and Alivardi as their
Muslim counterparts. The periods of imprisonment suffered by zamindars

7
Datta, Alivardi, p. 57.1 am indebted to Aditi Nath Sarkar for the suggestion that the Annada-
mangal may express Hindu doubts about their ability to fulfill their religious obligations under
nawabi rule.
8
Prabhat Mukherjee, History of the Jagannath Temple in the 19th Century (Calcutta, 1977),
pp. 14-15.
9
Government of West Bengal, WBDG: Barddhaman, p. 93-94.
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 175

defaulting on revenue demands interfered with their devotional and purification

rites. But that does not seem to have led them to aspire to new forms of
government. More likely, the autonomy of the large zamindars, the broad
influence of Hindu administrators and bankers at Murshidabad, the limited
religious syncretism of some domiciled Muslim officials, and the absence of
clear alternatives still left zamindars reconciled to the continuation of nawabi
rule, despite the news of momentous changes in other parts of India. The
behavior of zamindars as the "revolutions" of 1757, 1760, 1763, and 1765
unfolded suggests that zamindars had no shared expectation that the system of
government would change or even that zamindars would play a major role in
changing the personnel of government. But individual zamindars supported new
personnel, joining the Company or invaders from northern India as opportuni-
ties presented themselves. It was a time of confusion and opportunism, not
constancy or principled action. The zamindars' strategy consisted of backing
the least unattractive alternative without committing themselves earlier than
necessary. In practice, this meant sending messages of support to various parties
and then waiting to see who was likely to win.
Siraj-ud-daula, Alivardi's grandson and successor, was only about twenty
when Alivardi died in 1756, and his arrogance, peremptoriness, and profligacy
had already alienated many influential members of his court. In 1818, William
Ward quoted a descendant of Maharaja Krishnachandra of Nadia as saying that
Siraj's seizure of pretty women and sinking of passenger boats had filled the
country "with terror" and led the rajas of Birbhum, Bishnupur, Dinajpur,
Midnapur, and Nadia to submit a petition to "the prime minister." Siraj's rash
decision to drive the English East India Company from Bengal in June 1756
made the Company natural allies of the many enemies Siraj had created in his
own court and in the districts. The Nadia descendant also seems to be the
principal source for the story that Maharaja Krishnachandra approached the
British chief at Calcutta with a plan to overthrow Siraj.10 That S.C. Hill did not
mention the story when he published voluminous records concerning 1756-57
raises doubts about its authenticity, especially in view of Hill's efforts to show
that Siraj's deposition was largely an effort by Hindu bankers and officers to
free themselves from Muslim rule. Two documents published by Hill did show
that the British knew Krishnachandra would be sympathetic to their plots and
give refuge to Company servants escaping from Qasimbazar. In one, Roger
Drake informed Robert Clive that Krishnachandra "has been long discontented
and used ill by the Nabob" and he confirmed reports that the nawab's officers
were discontented.11

10
Ward, View, vol. I, p. 28.
1
' Roger Drake to Colonel Clive, 3 May 1757, and William Watts to Colonel Clive, 4 June 1757,
Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, vol. II, pp. 375.
176 Burdwan

Discontent was one matter; conspiracy was quite another. The memory of
Pratapaditya and Sitaram were no doubt reminders that dispossession and death
awaited disloyal zamindars. Moreover, nawabi rule prior to Siraj's brief reign
had represented stability and predictability far more than their opposites. And
in a polity in which the form and substance of social control were based On
personal ties of servants to masters, loyalty was a virtue in its own right and a
virtue that could not ordinarily be set aside because a current office-holder
lacked character. Zamindari betrayal of the ruler in eighteenth-century Bengal
was both uncommon and dangerous. Each of the major collaborators in the
Company-sponsored revolutions may have been torn between the obligations
of fidelity and the desire for a new nazim. In 1757, Jagat Seth, a few days after
the Company forces recaptured Calcutta and demolished the town of Hughli,
expressed mixed sentiments of prudence and principle that must have been
common among those disaffected from Siraj. He replied to Robert Clive's
request for his mediation:
You are pleased to say that the Nabob listens to what I recommend, and hope I will exert
myself for your good and the general benefit of the country. My business is that of a
merchant, and probably what I may recommend that way he may give ear to. You have
acted the very reverse part, and possessed yourselves of Calcutta by force, after which
you have taken and destroyed the city of Hughley, and by all appearances you seem to
have no design but that of fighting. In what manner then can I introduce an application
for accommodating matters between the Nabob and you? What your intentions are it is
impossible to find out by these acts of hostility. Put a stop to this conduct and let me
know what your demands are. You may then depend upon it I will use my interest with
the Nabob to finish these troubles. How can you expect that the Nabob will pass by or
overlook your conduct in pretending to take up arms against the Prince or Subah of the
country. Weigh this within yourself.1?
By April 1757, Jagat Seth, whom Siraj had threatened with circumcision, was
participating in the plot against Siraj and suggesting to Clive his own candidate
for the succession.13
It is unclear if Raja Tilakchandra of Burdwan was among those who sought
the overthrow of Siraj. Tilakchandra had been zamindar of Burdwan for a dozen
years when Alivardi Khan died in 1756 and was now twenty-seven years old.
The Maratha invasions had ended five years earlier and, judging from British
comments on Burdwan's prosperity in the late 1750s, Burdwan's economy was
once again one of the most prosperous in the province. Tilakchandra seemed
well positioned to assess the relative strengths and character of both the nawabs
and the English East India Company. The East India Company had numerous
aurangs or weaving centers within the Burdwan zamindari and, although the

12
Jagat Seth to Colonel Clive, 14 Jan. 1757, ibid., vol. II, p. 104.
13
Ibid., vol. II, p. 343; also Khan, Seir, vol. II, p. 225.
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 177

Company's trade was exempt from zamindari duties, the raja had officers
stationed in dozens of scattered chaukis (customs' stations) for collecting
duties on non-Company trade and their officers were no doubt a source of
information about the behavior of the British merchants and their agents. Their
behavior became remarkably coercive and monopolistic only after the removal
of Siraj-ud-daula in 1757 and there seems to be no way of determining what
Tilakchandra thought of them before this time.
Tilakchandra's best intelligence about the Company probably came from
Calcutta itself where he had a house and some financial dealings. Fellow Punjabi
Khatris may have been his main associates in Calcutta. Most important, he was
closely connected to the Sikh Khatri Omichand, Calcutta's wealthiest Indian
merchant and a key partner of the Company in the plot to oust Siraj-ud-daula
in 1757. Sometime before Alivardi's death, Omichand had introduced Tilak-
chandra, among other prominent individuals, to the Company's chief engineer,
Colonel C.F. Scott. Scott afterward observed that "in Bengal the Jentue [Hindu]
rajahs and inhabitants were very much disaffected to the Moor Government,
and secretly wished for a change and opportunity of throwing off the tyrannical
yoke." Scott thought they would be willing to join the Europeans in overturning
the government.14 If Tilakchandra was among those hoping for a new govern-
ment, events in 1756 and 1757 may have soured his view of the British. In 1756,
Tilakchandra became embroiled in Calcutta in a dispute over a debt to one Mr.
Wood. Wood filed a complaint in the Company's court against Tilakchandra
seeking repayment of Rs. 7,000. When both the raja and his gomashta, Pranjee-
boom Coberage, refused to appear, arguing that the raja neither owed the money
nor was subject to Company courts, the sheriff of Calcutta seized the raja's
Calcutta house containing "a quantity of money, jewels, and goods, and also a
great many bonds and papers, some for very considerable sums, both from
Europeans as well as blacks." Tilakchandra immediately complained to the
nawab in Murshidabad and tried to halt the Company's trade within his
zamindari. Alivardi's death prevented Tilakchandra from obtaining help. Ac-
cording to a Company servant, this was fortunate for the Company because
otherwise Alivardi would have stopped "our business at the aurrungs [places of
manufacture]." Nevertheless, the seizure of the raja's house "helped to inflame
the natives against us, as well as to add one, to many other [complaints] made
to the Nabob against the English." 15 There is no report of how this affair affected
Tilakchandra's attitude towards the Company's ascendancy. 16 Nor is it recorded

14
Extracts of letter from Charles F. Noble to Select Com., Fort St. George, 22 Sept. 1756, Hill
(ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, vol. Ill, pp. 326-28.
15
William Tooke's Account, ibid., vol. I, pp. 280-81.
16
Tilakchandra disobeyed Siraj's order to join him in the attack on Fort William in 1756. Ibid.,
p. 136.
178 Burdwan

how Tilakchandra reacted in 1757 to the Company's duping Omichand into

signing a fake agreement promising him rewards for his part in deposing
Siraj-ud-daula. According to Robert Orme, the humiliation and disappointment
caused by the deception unbalanced Omichand 17 and he died in December 1758.
His brother-in-law and successor to his fortune, Hazari Mai, served as one of
the Burdwan Raj's bankers in the following decades. The Company's seizure
of Tilakchandra's house and its betrayal of Omichand must have left the raja at
least wary of the Europeans.
Tilakchandra probably also learned about both the dissensions in Murshid-
abad and the character of the British from another close associate, his ex-diwan,
Manikchandra. Manikchandra was appointed faujdar of Hughli and he com-
manded troops under Siraj-ud-daula in the seige of Fort William in June 1756. 18
After the capture of Calcutta, Siraj appointed Manikchandra as Governor of
Calcutta, with the responsibility of defending Fort William and the lower Hughli
river from any Company attempt to return. He was governor during the "Black
Hole" incident.19 Simultaneously, he was described as the farmer of estates
along the Hughli river, mostly to the south of Calcutta.20 Presumably, he held
these lands under the raja of Burdwan.21
During the year between Siraj' s seizure of Calcutta and Siraj' s loss at Plassey,
Manikchandra corresponded with various Company officers and tried to convey
the impression he was the Company's ally. After Clive arrived at Fulta from
Madras on 15 December 1756 to prepare for the reconquest of Calcutta, Clive
and Manikchandra exchanged friendly letters, in which Manikchandra wrote of
"my desire of serving the Company which I shall continue to do to the utmost
of my power."22 Manikchandra made few preparations to defend the forts at
Fort William, Tanna, and Budge-Budge, and Clive overran them with ease in
late December. 23 In April 1757, Luke Scrafton reported that Manikchandra had
joined the conspiracy against Siraj.24 Manikchandra commanded one of Siraj's

17
Cited in introduction, ibid., p. clxxxix. Sinha, on the other hand, wrote that while Omichand
turned towards religion, there is no evidence that he became insane. Economic History, vol. I,
p. 244.
18
Stewart, History, p. 572.
19
Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, vol. Ill, p. 142.
20
Ibid., vol. I, p. cii.
21
Hoi well wrote that the Burdwan raj had lands paying Rs. 4 lakhs annually, "contiguous to the
bounds of Calcutta," a palace in Behala, and a fort at Budge-Budge. Interesting Historical
Events, pp. 195-96. By 1760, pargana Behala had been transferred to the Company. Fifth
Report, 1812, Firminger's Introduction, vol. I, p. cxxv.
22
Ram Gopal, How the British Occupied Bengal: A Corrected Account of the 1756-65 Events
(Bombay, 1963), p. 115.
23
Gopal, ibid., pp. 121-22, attributed Manikchandra's failure to defend the forts with vigor to
collaboration with the Company; Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, vol. I, pp. cii and cxxxvii,
suggested it may have been fear of, rather than support for, the British.
24
Cited by Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, vol. II, p. 343.
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 179

major forces at the battle of Plassey in June, was wounded, and was one of "the
first to retreat."25 After Plassey, Company officials treated him cordially al-
though they seemed unsure whether he had been committed to their cause.
During the Company's return to Bengal, Clive sensed the importance of
conciliating or reassuring major zamindars. Three days before Plassey, Clive
wrote Raja Asad-ul-Zaman Khan of Birbhum, who had expressed his hostility
to Siraj-ud-daula and his friendship for the Company, inviting him to join
Clive's forces against Siraj.26 In October 1757, the Birbhum raja informed Clive
that "My country is yours you may build Houses or whatever you please in it."
In November, when French troops were in Birbhum, he offered to "send their
heads" if Clive ordered it.27 Clive also approached Raja Tilakchandra of
Burdwan by having Omichand ask the raja to write him. Immediately after
Clive's victory at Plassey, Tilakchandra wrote Colonel Clive a letter clearly
designed to communicate support for the Company's new role. He told Clive
that because of the nazims' "rapaciousness ... nothing is left to me. These three
years I have no power left me in my Country, and my own Servants refuse to
obey me. But by the Blessing of God by your coming the Country shall flourish,
and all Men have their Hearts at Ease." Tilakchandra informed Clive that
Manikchandra was again "the Governor of the Country" and that Omichand
would give Clive further information.28
Whatever Tilakchandra really thought about nawabi rule, in 1758 his
zamindari was transferred temporarily to the Company. This was because the
new nawab, Mir Jafar, found himself in financial distress soon after Plassey. As
the price for Company support, he had pledged to pay the Company and its
officers over Rs. 200 lakhs as gifts and as compensation for the losses sustained
in Siraj-ud-daula's capture of Calcutta. In addition, he had agreed to pay
compensation of Rs. 47 lakhs to Omichand and various Armenians and Hindus
for their losses. Yet when his supporters had opened Siraj's treasury, they had
discovered only Rs. 140 lakhs instead of the Rs. 5,000 lakhs they had antici-
pated.29 Mir Jafar was also in political trouble. He faced problems in Midnapur
and Purnia; he suspected that Ramnarayan, his deputy governor in Bihar, and
Rai Durlabh, the influential ex-diwan at Murshidabad, were plotting against
him; and he was threatened by possible invasion by the nawab of Awadh. Yet
his treasury was empty and his army's pay was in arrears. He turned to Clive
for military help in subduing Ramnarayan at Patna and blocking the anticipated
invasion from Awadh.

25
Ibid., pp. 426-27. Manikchandra also had a bullet pierce his turban at Budge-Budge while he
sat conspicuously on his elephant. Stewart, History, p. 385.
26
Ft Wm-IHC, vol. II, 1757-59 (Delhi, 1957), p. xxvi.
27
Iris MacFarlane, The Black Hole: Or the Makings of a Legend (London, 1975), p. 270.
28
Raja Tilakchandra to Col. Clive, received 27 June 1757, no. 186, Home Misc., vol. 193.
29
Hill (ed.), Bengal in 1756-57, pp. cxci-ii and ccx.
180 Burdwan

Clive used Mir Jafar's discomfort to extract further concessions. He agreed

to send troops to Bihar in support of the nawab only on condition that Mir Jafar
give the Company tankhwas (assignments) of the revenues of Burdwan, Hughli,
and Nadia for two years for the discharge of his debts to the British and for the
employment of the Company's troops in Bihar. Accordingly, Mir Jafar issued
orders to people in those areas to pay their revenues to the Company instead of
to his own treasury.30 Burdwan zamindari officials traveled to Murshidabad and
settled a kistbandi (payment schedule) with Warren Hastings, the Company's
Resident. At first, the rajas of Burdwan and Nadia and the faujdar of Hughli
paid their revenues to Hastings. Then in August 1758, the Company appointed
Nandakumar, an experienced nawabi revenue official who had recently been
officiating faujdar of Hughli and was now Clive's munshi (Persian teacher or
secretary), as tahsildar (collector) of the "mortgaged areas." The Calcutta
Council gave Nandakumar a khilat and he began to collect the revenues from
his headquarters at Hughli.31 Thus one of the Company's first acts after
obtaining Burdwan was to appoint an outsider to oversee the zamindari collec-
tions. In August, the Calcutta Council reported "the country enjoys a profound
tranquillity ... and we are allowed to collect the revenues of Burdwan, Nuddea
and other places without any intervention of the Government's officers."32 Four
months later, the Council found that "most" of the revenue was being paid. 33
But in 1759 and 1760 balances accumulated in both Burdwan and Nadia. The
nawab, who was eager to discharge his debts so he could recover these valuable
lands, complained about Nandakumar's performance.34 In early 1760, the
Company dismissed Nandakumar and sent two of its covenanted servants to
Burdwan and Nadia to press the rajas for prompt payment.35
Nandakumar's suspected peculation,36 Raja Tilakchandra's resentment at the
curtailment of his authority over the collections, and the lingering impact of the
Maratha invasions may all have contributed to the Burdwan arrears. The
zamindari officials in the assigned lands and the nawab's officials at Murshid-
abad resented the growing power of the Company. Acting Governor Hoi well
wrote in July 1760 that as a result of the assignments of revenue to the Company,
the rairayan, mutasaddis, diwans, "and every Herpey employed in Zemindarree

30
Letter to Court, 23 Jan. 1758, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. II, 1757-1759, p. 307.
31
Benoy Krishna Roy, The Career and Achievements of Maharaja Nanda Kumar, Dewan of
Bengal (1705-1775) (Calcutta, 1969), pp. 2 4 - 2 7 .
32
Letter to Court, 26 Aug. 1758, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. II, 1757-59, p. 320.
33
Letter to Court, 31 Dec. 1758, ibid., p. 343.
34
Abdul Majed Khan, The Transition in Bengal, 1756-1775: A Study of Saiyid Muhammad Reza
Khan (Cambridge, 1969), p. 28.
35
Ibid., p. 28.
36
Percival Spear, Master of Bengal: Clive and his India, (London, 1975), p. 114.
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 181

and revenues, became our implacable enemies." 37 The English refusal to pay
duty on their internal trade and their coercive purchases and sales of goods
fueled the apprehensions about their ascendancy, as did their displacement of
the zamindars in their newly acquired Twenty-four Parganas. 38
In the Burdwan zamindari, though, a major additional source of revenue
deficiency in 1760 was the incursion of outside military forces in connection
with the invasion of the shahzada (Mughal prince) from Bihar. The largest
military cloud hanging over west Bengal in Mir Jafar's first reign was the
presence in Bihar of Ali Gauhar, Emperor Alamgir's eldest son. Shahzada AH
Gauhar had escaped from Delhi when Ahmad Abdali sacked the Mughal capital
in 1757 and had moved eastward through Awadh to Bihar. Encouraged by
Nawab Shuja-ud-daula of Awadh, Ali Gauhar hoped to invade Bengal which
had ceased making payments to the imperial treasury.39 In early 1760, Ali
Gauhar entered western Bengal with the help of Kangar Khan, uncle of the raja
of Birbhum, and proceeded by the southern route through Deoghar to Bishnu-
pur. His presence seemed to raise the hopes of zamindars in west Bengal of
throwing off the control of both Nawab Mir Jafar and the East India Company.
Ali Gauhar's father had been assassinated and the prince now had a good chance
of becoming emperor: he was in fact proclaimed Emperor Shah Alam II in 1761.
The three most powerful Bengal zamindars west of the Hughli, the rajas of
Birbhum, Bishnupur, and Burdwan, agreed to support Ali Gauhar, who was also
joined at Bishnupur by a Maratha army of 5-6,000 horse under Shivaram Bhat
Sathe, the Maratha governor of Orissa. 40 Henry Vansittart wrote in late 1760
that the rajas of Bishnupur, Ramghar, "and the other countries, bordering upon
the mountains, were ready to shake off their dependence, and had offered
considerable supplies" to the Birbhum raja who was planning to attack Mur-
shidabad.41 Had those rajas and the Marathas acted in concert and committed
their armies to help Ali Gauhar, they might have seriously tested the military
strength of Nawab Mir Jafar and the East India Company, which was being paid
to protect the nawab. However, the Marathas and the western zamindars did not
give the shahzada significant support. Ali Gauhar marched towards Murshid-
abad from Bishnupur and was confronted by the combined forces of the nawab
and the Company near Mangalkot, 20 miles north of Burdwan town, on 4 April
1760. After a skirmish, Ali Gauhar retreated from Bengal and the threat to the
Company and its "sponsored state" temporarily receded. 42 But the Marathas
remained to plunder.

37
President Holwell's Memorial to the Select Com., Vansittart, Narrative, p. 19.
38
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 24.
39
Dodwell (ed.), Cambridge History of India, vol. V, pp. 437-44.
40
Kalikinkar Datta, Shah Alam II and the East India Company, (Calcutta, 1965), pp. 8-11.
41
Vansittart, Narrative, p. 69.
42
Datta, Shah Alam II, p. 12.
182 Burdwan

Disturbances in west Bengal continued after the shahzada's withdrawal. His

return was expected. Disaffected relatives of Mir Jafar and zamindars in Bihar
and the hills of western Bengal offered him their support. Mir Jafar was failing
to make his authority effective in the nawabi territories. His desperation was
shown in the assassinations of his enemies, including five relatives of ex-Nawab
Alivardi Khan and "about seventy women of inferior note" at Dacca in June
1760.43 Mir Jafar's prospects declined further when lightning killed his son,
Miran, on 2 July. Immediately after, the nawab's troops, angry at the arrears in
their pay, surrounded the nawab's palace at Murshidabad, dragged his officers
from their palanquins, climbed the palace walls and threw masonry down on
the palace employees, and threatened to kill the nawab. 'The scene iasted two
days and seemed to portend the certain destruction of the Nabob," wrote the
Company's Resident, Warren Hastings. At this point, Mir Qasim, the nawab's
son-in-law, came forward with Rs. 3,00,000 from his personal treasury for the
soldiers' pay and the crisis passed.44
The chaos at Murshidabad encouraged Mir Jafar's enemies and kept alive the
belief that further political changes were likely. The raja of Birbhum continued
his preparations to rebel.45 In July, 1760, Hugh Watts reported from Burdwan
that Raja Tilakchandra was confining his ijaradars (revenue farmers) and was
trying to seize revenue payments as they were carried to the kachari, apparently
to prevent the Company from receiving them. The raja's soldiers were misbe-
having. Some halted the palanquin of Gokhal Majumdar, one of the raja's chief
revenue officers, and threatened to confine him. In addition, one Sukh Lai, "a
Jammadar & Userer," killed a Company sepoy. When Hugh Watts tried to arrest
Sukh Lai, 7-800 of the raja's soldiers opened fire on 200 Company sepoys,
killing 44 men and wounding 57, including their English officer.46
Several factor led Raja Tilakchandra and his army to resist Company efforts
to enforce revenue collections in the summer of 1760. First, the passage of Ali
Gauhar's army through the heart of the zamindari was disruptive and led the
raja to protest the Company's demand. Second, as the Burdwan collections fell
off, the Company, which was pressed for money, grew harsher in its revenue
collection. The Burdwan zamindar was accustomed to collecting his revenues
without interference from outside. The presence of Company officials infringed
upon the privileges of the raja and his officers. Third, the raja complained that
Telinga sepoys who had been employed by the Dutch at Chinsura and Fulta
prior to their defeat by the British had entered his eastern parganas and had

43
Vansittart, Narrative, pp. 67-68.
44
W. Hastings to Select Com., 18 July 1769, ibid., pp. 30-31.
45
Ibid.
46
Hugh Watts to J.Z. Holwell, 11 July 1760, Bengal Public Consult., 14 July 1760, Range 1,
vol. 32, p. 341.
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 183

plundered villages, causing many persons to flee and producing a revenue loss
of Rs. 2.3 lakhs. 47 Tilakchandra claimed he was entitled to deductions for the
incursions of Ali Gauhar, the Telingas, and the Marathas. He was especially
distressed by the Marathas whose presence would have interfered with the
planting of the aman or winter rice crop. He wrote in August 1760 "How can I
relate to you the present deplorable situation of this place. Three months the
Mahrattas remained here burning, plundering and laying waste the whole
country, but now, thank God, they are all gone, but the inhabitants are not yet
returned. The inhabitants have lost almost all they were worth." 48 Finally, it was
evident that Raja Tilakchandra was unable to control his troops, that in part the
resistance to the Company and the efforts to seize the treasure were carried out
independently of the raja. After the raja's troops fired upon the Company's
sepoys in July 1760, Hugh Watts wrote from Burdwan that the "enemy" there
had increased to 5,000 soldiers and that they were again planning to seize the
revenue. These men, he explained, "are the Rajah's unpaid discontented forces
with other malcontents that harass the inhabitants and disturb the peace of this
province." 49 Two days later, Watts requested Governor Holwell not to send
troops to Burdwan. "My Party and myself will be immediately sacrificed and
very likely the Rajah" also. 50 The implication is clear. Watts had concluded that
although Raja Tilakchandra was dissatisfied with the revenue demands, he was
not responsible for the attack upon the Company's troops. The troops were
agitated by the arrears in their pay. In the summer of 1760, when the raja's
collections were disrupted by the incursions of the shahzada, the Telingas, and
the Marathas, the raja had tried to keep up his payments to government by
holding back his troops' pay. In 1761, the raja owed his troops Rs. 4.5 lakhs,
equal to over a year's salary. 51 It was not surprising they were disruptive.
The assignment of the Burdwan, Hughli, and Nadia revenues to the East
India Company had expired in March 1760. Nawab Mir Jafar "instantly
demanded the restoration of the lands." As the nawab still owed the Com-
pany large sums and the Company's military expenditures far exceeded its
revenues, the Company refused. Instead, it decided to demand the permanent
transfer of Burdwan and other territories. The Council of Calcutta reasoned
that in peaceful times, Burdwan produced a large revenue and "lies contigu-
ous to Calcutta." 52 In September 1760, when they negotiated terms for installing
Mir Qasim in place of Mir Jafar, the Council made the cession of Burdwan,

47
Long (ed.), Selections, p. 317.
48
Ibid., p. 313.
49
Hugh Watts to J.Z. Holwell, 11 July 1760.
50
Watts to Holwell, 13 July 1760, Bengal Public Consult., 14 July 1760, Range 1, vol. 32, p. 346.
51
Letter to Court, 12 Nov. 1761, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. Ill, 1760-1763 (Delhi, 1968), p. 369.
52
Letter to Court, 16 Jan. 1761, ibid., pp. 289-92.
184 Burdwan

Midnapur, and Chittagong a central condition. Burdwan was now officially

British territory.
Raja Tilakchandra immediately showed his displeasure with the cession of
Burdwan by recruiting new troops. Some 15,000 "peons, pikes, and robbers"
had been enlisted "and others are daily entering."53 This time there was no
suggestion that the mobilization lacked the raja's support. The Company's
government also suspected he was corresponding "with the other disaffected
Rajahs."54
Why was Tilakchandra preparing to resist the grant of Burdwan to the
Company? He knew from the experience of over two years with the Company
agents supervising Burdwan's collections that the Company was prepared to
interfere in his administration as the nazims prior to Siraj-ud-daula had not.
Moreover, he had heard reports that the Company intended to take his zamindari
from him. 55 And he was disturbed by the Company's betrayal of Mir Jafar:
So bad an impression of us did the Revolution create in the Minds of the Country People,
that the Burdwan Rajah ... after the Breach of our Faith to the old Nabob, concluding
no Reliance was to be placed on our Engagements, he immediately flew off from his
former Declarations, and instead of acquiescing under our Government, he began to act
in open Rebellion.56

Shahzada Ali Gauhar's third and final invasion of Bihar in mid-1760 kept
alive Tilakchandra's and others' dream of escaping from the Company's and
the nawab's dual domination. As the Mughal prince advanced toward Bengal,
widespread disorders again spread across western Bengal, from Purnia through
Birbhum and Burdwan to Midnapur. Raja Asad-ul-Zaman of Birbhum, from
whom Mir Qasim was demanding a special revenue payment, was the leading
actor in the revolt and he raised 5,000 cavalry and 20,000 foot soldiers.
Tilakchandra stopped the Company's trade and suspended his revenue pay-
ments. At the same time, Maratha troops overran much of Midnapur and came
north into the Burdwan zamindari, at Tilakchandra's invitation. Some of the
rebels were found to be carrying letters from the shahzada. The Company and
Mir Qasim acted jointly to suppress the rebellion. When Major Martin White
informed Tilakchandra he intended to ford the Damodar river near Burdwan
town, the raja resisted. An estimated 10,000 troops from Burdwan, Birbhum,
and other areas, as well as a body of faqirs, tried to block the Company's

53
Long (cd.), Selections, pp. 319-20.
54
Letter to Court, 16 Jan. 1761, p. 298.
55
Ibid.
56
Council at Fort William to Secret Com., 11 March 1762, First Report from the Committee of
Secrecy, Appointed to Enquire into the State of the East India Company, 1772, Reports from
Committees of the House of Commons, vol. IV, East Indies-1772,1773, p. 254. Hereafter cited
as First Reportfromthe Committee of Secrecy, 1772.
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 185

detachment. In the ensuing battle, on 29 December, the Burdwan and allied

forces lost some 500 killed and 1,000 wounded - numbers equal to Siraj-ud-
daula's losses at Plassey - while the Company had only eleven wounded. 57
After this, Major White proceeded unopposed towards Birbhum where the
Company's and nazim's troops easily captured the Birbhum capital of Nagar.
Company troops next proceeded to Patna where they defeated the shahzada on
15 January 1761.
The disturbances in Burdwan were over by March 1761. So too probably
were zamindari illusions that large numbers of hastily recruited, poorly armed,
and ill-trained recruits were a match for the Company's compact, well-drilled,
and superiorly equipped detachments. Officials at Calcutta thought the defeat
of the Burdwan forces "will have a good effect and it certainly gives us a very
just reason for putting the Zemindarry upon what footing we think the most
convenient." They assumed that Tilakchandra had been misled by his advisers
and that he was "a young weak man" whose "people [are] of no consequence"
and were "incapable of giving us any obstruction" in revenue collection. 58
With mounting military expenses, the Company now set out to maximize its
land revenues. The ceded lands of Burdwan, Chittagong, and the Twenty-four
Parganas gave^ the Company 9,000 square miles, or one tenth the area of Bengal.
When added to Midnapur district, then in the province of Orissa, the ceded
districts had an estimated net revenue of about Rs. 51.5 lakhs, equal to almost
one fifth of the land revenue of Bengal. 59 Of the four ceded districts, the
Burdwan zamindari was the richest and the one the Company had "most wished
to obtain"60 It included almost 9,000 villages and over 5,000 square miles, much
highly cultivated.
The political and economic authority of local kings, of course, had not been
absolute under the Mughals. Rather, the government of Bengal and the Mughal
emperor had delegated a share of authority to the zamindars. Each time revenues
fell short of the government's demand, the government employed humiliating
coercive measures that cut into the rajas autonomy and diminished what C.A.
Bayly has called the dignity of local kingship. The East India Company, with
overwhelming military superiority and insistent fiscal needs, was prepared to
intrude even further than nawabs had been. It began in Mughal fashion by
sending a military force to Burdwan to compel the raja's officers to come to
Calcutta in December 1760 to sign a new revenue agreement and receive
khilats from the Company. It set the net revenue demand for 1760-61 at
Rs. 23.38 lakhs, but knowing how unsettled Burdwan political loyalties were,

57
Ibid, and Long (ed.), Selections, pp. 350-53.
58
Letters to Court, 16 Jan. 1761, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. Ill, 1760-1763, pp. 298-99 and 326-28.
59
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," pp. 254-55.
60
Letter to Court, 16 Jan. 1761, p. 290.
186 Burdwan
it allowed deductions of over Rs. 22 lakhs for 1759-60 and 1760-61 on account
of losses caused by the Maratha and the shahzada's armies.61
Collecting land revenue in an agriculturally rich area such as Burdwan
offered enticing profits to Company officials and local notables alike. The secret
of successful revenue settlements was the creation of mutually beneficial
arrangements between Company employees and key dependents of the Burd-
wan raj. After the Shahzada's final invasion and the end of the disturbances in
Burdwan in March 1761, William Brightwell Sumner arrived in Burdwan to
investigate the revenues and negotiate a new settlement. Sumner later stated
that an agent of the raja offered Sumner and another official Rs. 6 lakhs if they
would keep the settlement low. Sumner said they refused.62 Instead the net
demand for 1761-62 was raised to Rs. 30 lakhs, to which was added
Rs. 4,11,857 for the previous year's arrears and Rs. 2,50,000 for the Company's
military costs in putting down the rebellion in Burdwan.63 Sumner paid the
raja's soldiers their back pay to remove a potential source of trouble. The raja's
amla aided Sumner by identifying ways to add to the collections. Gokhal
Majumdar, a principal raj employee, suggested that land held rent-free or at only
5 annas per bigha by learned men, if assessed at 8 annas, would add over Rs. 1
lakh to the revenues. In making this suggestion, Gokhal informed the Company
that the "worth" of this land had doubled in an unspecified period, from 12 annas
per bigha to 1 rupee 8 annas.64 This information may have strengthened
Company servants in their belief that the zamindari could afford a higher
assessment. By October 1762, roughly nine-tenths of the net demand for
1761-62 had been collected. The Calcutta authorities rated this a distinct
"success."65 The raja, his officers, and the local gentry were accommodating to
the new order. During Mir Qasim's war with the Company in 1763-64, Burdwan
remained peaceful.
The Company was practically free to impose whatever settlement it chQse
upon the Burdwan zamindari without interference from Nawab Mir Qasim.
Although the nawab's sanad required the Company to leave the zamindars and
tenants on their land, the Calcutta authorities chose to ignore the stipulation.
They said that eventually they might measure and divide Burdwan into "small
parcels." But at present they considered this unadvisable "when the Country
was already full of Commotions.66 In the meantime, the Company's Resident

61
Bengal Public Consult., 18 Dec. 1760, Range 1, vol. 32, pp. 767-71.
62
First Report from the Committee of Secrecy, 1772, p. 163.
63
Letter to Court, 12 Nov. 1761, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. Ill, 1760-1763, p. 370.
64
Gokhal Majumdar's Estimate of Burdwan Revenues, 1761-62, Committee of New Lands,
Accounts Received, 1761, Range 98, vol. 10.
65
Letter to Court, 30 Oct. 1762, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. Ill, 1760-1763, p. 443.
66
Letter to Court, 16 Jan. 1761, p. 298.
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 187

depended on Raja Tilakchandra's officers for information about how much each
territorial unit was capable of paying and upon the raja's 29,000 "servants" for
collecting the revenue from Burdwan's 8,909 villages. 67 The raja's officers
made the annual settlement with the local revenue payers in the presence of and
under the general supervision of senior Company officials. Orders were issued
under the raja's seals, collections were made by the raja's officers in the raja's
kacharis, as they would be for the next three decades, with a few interruptions.
The one-year settlement of 1761 divided the zamindari into three categories
of holdings. The raja and his family were permitted to hold land with a jama of
Rs. 4,96,900 without any increase on the previous year's demand. In addition,
the Company allowed the raja over Rs. 2 lakhs for his expenses and close to
Rs. 4 lakhs for his troops.68 The Company's initial failure to insist either on a
reduction in his expenses and troop pay 69 or on a revenue increase for the lands
managed by Tilakchandra and his relatives may be presumed to have been an
effort to guarantee their cooperation in imposing an increase on the rest of the
zamindari. Allowing the Burdwan raj family and their amla to hold lands at a
favourable rate became an important strategy in the Company's successful
management of Burdwan and it reflected an estimation of the family's and
amla's power either to assist or create trouble for the Company.
The second category of lands in the 1761 settlement were lands, often whole
parganas with several hundred villages each, that were settled "by private
Agreement" with local notables.
The third and most interesting category were the lots (ijaras) sold at public
auction to revenue farmers (ijaradars), including Calcutta banians. The auction
continued for twenty days, during which 669 ijaras of varying sizes were sold
to the highest bidders. These lands were assessed at Rs. 16.9 lakhs or almost
half of the total demand. 70 Selling land revenue collection rights to ijaradars for
short periods became a general Company policy in the 1760s and 1770s. The
practice gained notoriety because it failed to bring in the expected revenues, it
displaced zamindars from their customary role as revenue collectors, and it led
to oppression of tenants and confusion in accounting practices.
Farming of the revenue to temporary collectors had been officially discour-
aged and considered an act of zulum (oppression) from Akbar's through

67
Letter from Court, 24 Dec. 1765, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. IV, 1764-1766, p. 121.
68
Ibid.
69
However, the Company did resume Rs. 1 lakh each for chakaran or rent-free lands of "land
servants" and mahattaran or maintenance land for non-Brahmins of respectable status. Gokhal
Majumdar's Estimate of Burdwan Revenues, 1760-61, no. 6, Committee of New Lands,
Accounts Received, 1761, Range 98, vol. 10.
70
Abstract Inventory of the Burdwan Lands and their Revenues, 1760-61, and Accounts of
Burdwan Lands Rented at Public Sale, 1761, nos. 17 and 19, Committee of New Lands,
Accounts Received, Range 98, vol. 10.
188 Burdwan

Aurangzib's reign. However, the practice was far from unknown and was even
common in the Deccan and in frontier areas and areas in which the state wished
to extend cultivation. It also may have been common in the jagirs of officers
who served at a considerable distance from their assigned lands. Revenue
farming was "a characteristic response to ... financial crisis" and thus spread
widely in the eighteenth century.71 The state or its officers often accepted secret
payments from the farmers in addition to the stipulated jama and typically
competitive bidding increased the jama, if not the collections, above what
hereditary holders had paid. Thus it was a favorite method of settlement in
periods of fiscal pressure. In Bengal, Mir Qasim (1760-63) resorted to farming
as he tried to raise the collections and dispense with the expensive agencies of
the zamindars in the nawabi or non-ceded territories. Henry Colebrooke wrote
that revenue farming in Bengal "did not become universal" until this period. 72
Company officials, accustomed to competitive bidding in their commercial
activities, were predisposed towards revenue farming. In and around Calcutta
they had farmed out excise taxes as well as agricultural lands to contractors
before 1757. 73 With this experience and the spread of farming under the nazim,
Company officers viewed leases through competitive bidding as a natural
alternative to collecting through reluctant zamindars in their new territories.
Revenue farming also appealed to Company servants as a means of supple-
menting their salaries. Company servants overseeing revenue settlements took
bribes from farmers in return for accepting their bids. They also held farms
themselves at an undervalue and either sold them at a profit to Indian ijaradars
or they turned them over to their own banians to manage. As they replaced
nawabi and ^amindari officials in the governing of Bengal, they used their
power with little restraint to enrich themselves. When parliamentary investiga-
tions later sought explanations for the decline in both the Bengal government's
revenues and the Company's profits, critics attacked the manipulation of the
farming system for private gain. 74
Revenue farming was broadened in Burdwan in May 1762 when John
Johnstone arrived there as the new Resident. Johnstone was probably the most
notorious of the Company's servants accused of profiting from both revenue
farming and private trade. He previously served as Resident in Midnapur, a post

71
Wink, Land and Sovereignty, pp. 340-49. Also, Habib, Agrarian System, pp. 159, 234-35,
277-78, and 284-85; B.R. Grover, "Nature of Land-Rights in Mughal India," Indian Economic
and Social History Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (July-Sept. 1963), pp. 9-10; Moreland, Agrarian
System, pp. 158-199, and 205; Sarkar (ed.), History of Bengal, vol. II, pp. 408-09.
72
Colebrooke, Remarks, p. 53.
73
George Blyn, "Revenue Administration of Calcutta in the First Half of the 18th Century," Indian
Economic and Social History Review, vol. 1, no. 4 (April-June 1964), p. 134.
74
For example, see Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, pp. 192-93, and Sixth Report on Justice,
1782, p. 855.
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 189

for which he was considered qualified because of his command of "the Moor's
language and thought."75 When Johnstone settled Burdwan for 1762-63, he
expanded the auction system and farmed out the whole zamindari, except the
raja's own estate valued at Rs. 5.7 lakhs, 76 to the highest bidders for a term of
three years. Johnstone hoped that the auction process would free him from
reliance upon the raja's officers whose advice about the value of particular
territorial units could not be trusted. Johnstone believed that an open market for
revenue-collecting rights would reveal the true value of the individual units. He
mistakenly assumed that the auction-buyers would not bid more than the lots
were capable of yielding. He professed surprise that the farmers agreed to pay
more than they could collect from their under-renters. He had no such difficulty
in the territories he personally farmed because when other potential bidders saw
that Europeans planned to bid, they remained silent, thus enabling Johnstone
and his partners, William Hay and William Bolts, to obtain the largest farms at
a low value. 77 Indian employees of the Company also farmed many of the most
valuable lands at a favorable rate.78
The bidding at the public "outcry" in the summer of 1762 was so competitive
that the total revenue commitment rose to Rs. 43,53,548, or Rs. 10 lakhs more
than it had been in 1760. 79 Many revenue farmers not only found that the rents
were not equal to their contracts, they discerned that bankers would not lend to
men with such short contracts. In the first year, the arrears were almost Rs. 9
lakhs. In the second year many farmers relinquished their farms. 80 By the end
of the three-year settlement, in the spring of 1765, the accumulated arrears
exceeded Rs. 26 lakhs.81 When Burdwan lands were put up for auction for a
second three-year period in 1765, acceptable bids were received for only
slightly more than two-fifths of the land, and many of those bids were benami
(false name) offers from Company servants and their Indian banians and
government employees. The rest of the land was managed khas (without inter-
mediaries) by Company amils until Harry Verelst arrived to replace Johnstone
in the autumn of 1765. 82
When Verelst came to Burdwan in 1765 to reform Johnstone's system, he
found that Raja Tilakchandra was poorly informed about Burdwan affairs and
"without the respect due to his office." The raja had gone to Calcutta to complain

75
Bengal Public Consult., 8 Nov. 1760, Range 1, vol. 32, p. 390.
76
Letter from Court, 24 Dec. 1765, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. IV, 1764-1766, p. 121.
.77 Harry Verelst, A View of the Rise, Progress and Present State of the English Government in
Bengal (London, 1772), appendix, p. 53.
78
Ibid., p. 217.
79
Ibid., p. 214.
80
Ibid., pp. 70-71.
81
Ibid., p. 215.
82
Ibid., pp. 71 and 217.
190 Burdwan

about Johnstone's administration but had been forcibly returned to Burdwan

without being granted a hearing. The raja and his officers had reason to be
unhappy. The officers, including Gokhal Majumdar, Ramkant Roy, Diwan
Amirchandra, and his nephew, Manikchandra, had held valuable lots under the
raja in the past,83 some of which under Johnstone they either lost to other bidders
or had to overbid or pay bribes to retain. They saw their own influence in
zamindari management slip. Moreover, the auction system was threatening to
damage the total value of the zamindari. Farmers who overbid pressed their
tenants to pay more rent than they were willing or able to pay. And the farmers,
with no guarantee of holding the ijara for more than three years, failed to
advance the customary loans for cultivation. The result was that many tenants
abandoned their lands, further reducing the ijaradars' ability to fulfill their
revenue obligations.84
Tilakchandra himself was deeply in debt to Jagat Seth and other creditors,
some of whom were said to have lent him "the whole of their fortunes."85 By
September 1764, the raja's debts had risen to Rs. 43 lakhs,86 a sum many times
larger than his annual allowance and profits from the part of the zamindari under
his own management. He owed Rs. 15 lakhs to the estate of Omichand. In 1765,
Lord Clive induced Omichand's Khatri executor, Hazari Mai, to write off
Rs. 3.1 lakhs of that debt,87 perhaps to make it easier for Tilakchandra to pay
his sizeable debts to Company servants. Tilakchandra was not only borrowing
from Company servants, he was also making large payments to British officers
stationed in Burdwan.88
Verelst was determined to reform this deteriorating situation. He decided that
farming of the revenues for short periods through public auctions violated the
customs of the country89 and, like khas management, was an inefficient method
of collecting the revenue. Therefore he revised the settlement concluded a few
months earlier. He set out to force those farmers who were government employ-
ees to quit their offices or give up their farms. And he dismissed "the vermin"
who had been appointed amils in the khas land and, in their place, settled with
"substantial people" at a moderate rent for the first year but increasing rents in

83
Accounts of Burdwan Lands Rented at Public Sale, 1761.
84
Verelst, View, pp. 70-71 and 214-15.
85
Ibid., p. 218.
86
Letter from Court, 24 Dec. 1765, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. IV, 1764-1766, p. 123.
87
Sinha, Economic History, vol. I, p. 246.
88
Lord Clive wrote in December 1765 that John Graham and A. William Senior had each received
over Rs. 1 lakh from the raja. George Rusby Kaye and Edward Hamilton Johnstone, India Office
Library Catalogue of Manuscripts in European Languages, vol. II (London, 1937), p. 48.
Verelst said the Burdwan Council "took an annual stipend" of almost Rs. 80,000 "from the
Rajah, in addition to the Company's salary." Verelst, View, p. 136.
89
Verelst,,View, pr*37.
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 191

each of the following two years. He negotiated settlements with each contractor
instead of holding auctions. His assurances that the Company intended to
continue the contractors in their lands if they behaved well, rather than return
to the auction or khas systems, persuaded many persons to enter agreements
with the Company for a lease with annual increases.90 Despite the annual
increments, the lease-holders managed to pay their revenues without apparent
trouble. The Burdwan revenues were paid in full before the end of 1766-6791
and the arrears in 1767-68 were only Rs. 58,832.92
Verelst's colleagues in Calcutta and the Court of Directors in London agreed
that public auctions of the revenues violated Indian custom, failed to maximize
the revenues, and afforded numerous opportunities for embezzlement and
deception. The Court remarked that farming "appears to have been deemed by
the natives an act of oppression and contrary to the customs of Indostan." The
Court of Directors suggested that the Burdwan settlement should have been
made with Raja Tilakchandra and ordered the Calcutta authorities to settle with
the rajas of large zamindaris wherever the rajas were capable people. 93 Accord-
ingly the three-year 1768 settlement for the Burdwan zamindari was made with
Raja Tilakchandra, although by mutual agreement between Verelst and the raja,
Verelst's banian, Gokhalchandra Ghosal, was permitted to farm lands worth
over Rs. 6 lakhs. Burdwan's total rent roll in 1768 was Rs. 43,53,923, which
gave the Company a net income of Rs. 36,50,000 after deducting the zamindar's
allowances and troop expenses.94 This was Rs. 2 lakhs higher than the first year
of Verelst's 1765 settlement.
The zamindari returned to Tilakchandra's management in 1768 employed
substantially fewer zamindari servants than it had a decade earlier when it was
first assigned to the Company. In the first decade of British control, the
Company searched for means of compensating for arrears by introducing
economies in Burdwan's management, by cutting back the numbers of people
supported by zamindari salaries and rent-free lands. In 1761, William Sumner
raised the revenue by Rs. 1 lakh by dismissing over 4,000 of the 10,363 "land
servants" and resuming their chakaran (rent-free support lands.)95 John John-
stone employed seventy persons in an eight-month investigation of Burdwan
lands held in bazi zamin or rent-free tenure.96 The survey revealed that almost

90
Ibid., p. 71.
91
Letter to Court, 30 March 1161, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. V, 1767-1769 (Delhi, 1959), p. 315.
92
Letter to Court, 13 Sept. 1768, ibid., p. 442.
93
Letter from Court, 17 May 1766, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. IV, 1764-1766, p. 186.
94
Letters to Court, 13 Sept. 1768 and 2 Feb. 1769, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. V, 1767-1769, pp. 442 and
510.
95
Kalicharan Mitra's and Other's Estimates of Burdwan Revenues, 1761-2, no. 7, Committee of
New Lands, Accounts Received, 1761, Range 98, vol. 10.
96
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative View," p. 416.
192 Burdwan
one fifth of the arable lands in the zamindari fell into this category. He imposed
a special cess of 9 annas per bigha, or less than half the normal rent, on these
lands.97 Johnstone also reduced the size of the raja's army by paring the military
payroll from almost Rs. 4 lakhs to Rs. 2.64 lakhs. 98 In 1767, further reductions
were made in the raja's 8,500 armed retainers, which were exclusive of the
"inferior ones." 99 The raja's naqdi or household guard was cut from 1,487 to
839 men. At roughly the same time, chakaran land used to support village paiks,
employed in collecting and escorting the rents and protecting the villages, was
resumed, bringing an additional Rs. 1.2 lakhs to government account. 100 The
Company's Burdwan officers wrote in September 1767 about "the dread of the
people ... of the oppression of the discharged troops." These and similar re-
forms elsewhere in Bengal were believed to be a cause of the subsequent growth
of dakaiti (gang robbery) as dismissed soldiers and paiks turned to crime to
support themselves.101
The dismissal of thousands of Raja Tilakchandra's employees seemed to have
no adverse effect on his revenue collections. From the return of the zamindari
to his management in 1768 until his death in 1770, his relations with the
Company were relatively free from friction. Verelst and others believed that
they were restoring the collecting mechanism to its traditional form with local
notables bringing in the revenue under the zamindar's authority. On the other
hand, the Company did keep a supervisor at Burdwan. And it maintained sepoys
at Burdwan to enforce the revenue collections if needed. 102 It is not recorded
how often those sepoys were sent from their barracks to help or coerce the local
revenue contractors. Nor is it known if Hastings' 1772 observation that the
Company's sepoys employed in revenue collection "turn money-lenders, Ad-
ministrators of Justice, and Judges of property" 103 applies to the Company
sepoys at Burdwan. What is recorded is that the Burdwan zamindari paid up
virtually the full demand during its three-year settlement which included the
famine, after falling into arrears in the first two years. 104
The Court of Directors in November 1768 urged the Calcutta authorities to
give Raja Tilakchandra "all the Indulgences which can any way alleviate the
loss of real Power and Dignity" he had suffered in the early years of the

97
Verelst, View, pp. 71 and 214.
98
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative View," p. 413.
99
W.W. Hunter, Bengal MS. Records: A Selected List of 14,136 Letters in the Board of Revenue,
Calcutta, 1782-1807, with an Historical Dissertation and Analytical Index (4 vols., London,
1884), vol. I, p. 99.
100
Long (ed.), Selections, articles 954, 955, and 958.
101
Warren Hastings, Minute on Dakaiti, BOR Prog, of 19 April 1774, vol. 10, part II.
102
Letters to Court, 5 Dec. 1766 and 16March \16&,FtWm-lHC, vol. IV, 1764-1766, pp. 473-74,
and vol. V, 1767-1769, pp. 99-100.
103
M.E. Monckton Jones, Warren Hastings in Bengal, 1772-1774 (Oxford, 1918), p. 373.
104
Fourth Report from the Committee of Secrecy, 1773, pp. 1 0 0 - 0 1 .
 Zamindars and the transition to Company rule 193

Company's administration. 105 They also ordered that "the Rajah and his minis-
ters," and not Company officers, should settle disputes in his zamindari. 106 The
Calcutta authorities approved the raja's request for waste lands to endow a
temple "as it will contribute much to aggrandise him without affecting the
Company's real interest." 107 They also transmitted a request to Emperor Shah
Alam II to elevate Tilakchandra's titles to maharajadhiraja (great king of kings)
and panch hazari zat or commander of 5,000. These were conferred on Tilak-
chandra in 1768. 108 The Company had reversed itself and restored to the raja
part of the authority it had taken away. In the late 1760s, the revenue system
established by Harry Verelst was being hailed as a model, especially when
contrasted with Johnstone's public auctions or the annual contracts with gov-
ernment amils in the diwani lands. 109
In 1769, both the Court of Directors and the Calcutta authorities decided to
assert a fuller British control over land management. The Court sent a letter
ordering Company servants to manage the diwani lands. Before the letter
arrived, the government in Calcutta, thinking along the same lines, appointed
Supervisors to go into the mofussil and prepare a rent roll that would be
"restrictive to the collector and indulgent to the ryot" and enable the Company
to make "a just and satisfactory settlement." Zamindars, resistant to the growing
revenue demands and jealous of their traditional freedoms, obstructed the
Supervisors. 110
By the famine of 1770, the position of the zamindars and the government
methods of rural control had evolved substantially from Alivardi's time in
Company and diwani lands. The revenue demand had grown dramatically
everywhere but without the local surveys that alone would have determined
whether production, agricultural prices, and rents were capable of meeting it.
The traditional accountancy and military checks on the zamindars, in the
institutions of the qanungos and faujdars, had fallen into disuse. 111 To enforce
their unprecedented demands, the Company and the Murshidabad governments
had interfered in what had been largely autonomous zamindari management.
They had appointed residents, diwans, amils, and sazawals (temporary collec-
tors) who either exercised joint authority with the zamindars or suspended their
authority almost entirely. The age of the semi-autonomous raja was drawing to
a close.

105
Letter from Court, 11 Nov. 1768, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. V, 1767-1769, p. 149.
106
Khan, Transition, p. 269.
107
Letter to Court, 14March 1768, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. V, / 767-/769, p. 391.
108
Burdwan Handbook, p. 10.
109
Letters to Court, 30 June and 3 0 Sept. 1769, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. V, 1767-1769, pp. 2 1 1 - 1 2 and
600-01.
110
Ramsbotham, Studies, pp. 5-10.
1
'' Akhtar, Role of the Zamindars, pp. 76-77.
10 The famine of 1770

Historically Bengal has been, relative to other parts of India, immune to

large-scale failures of the monsoon. The only major famines in Bengal in the
past three centuries have been in 1770,1866, and 1943-44. Generally sufficient
rainfall and low variability, relative to other parts of the subcontinent, are special
features of Bengal's climate. The western districts of Bankura, Birbhum,
Burdwan, and Hughli average between fifty and sixty inches of rain annually
while the central and eastern districts receive more.
The famine of 1770 was one of the greatest calamities in Bengal's history. It
carried off between one sixth and one third of the population. Coming in the
wake of the Maratha invasions and the unparalleled revenue exactions of
Siraj-ud-daula, Mir Qasim, and the East India Company, the famine must have
left many Bengalis wondering whether a darker yuga (age) or the wrath of the
deities had descended on their society. Despite the high mortality and suffering,
there were few signs that people blamed human agency for the absence of relief.
As in the subsequent famines,1 there was little violence, even when the East
India Company refused to lower its revenue demands on the survivors. That
refusal, we may infer, limited the ability of revenue payers to indulge their
dependents, as was customary, as they struggled to resume cultivation of
deserted fields and attract replacements for deceased laborers.
Before the 1770 famine, there was a British consensus that Bengal's economy
was deteriorating. The signs were evident in the severe shortage of coin, the
shrinking of Bengal's internal trade, and the decline in the net land revenue
collections. From 1766-67 to 1769-70, the Company's net land revenue annu-
ally declined, from £ 2,550,094 to £ 2,118,294. In the same years, the cost of
the Company's civil and military charges began to approach the net land
revenue collections, rising annually, from £ 1,274,093 to £ 1,752,556.2 The
Calcutta Council had warned in 1768 of the "danger of complete breakdown in

1 Greenough, Prosperity and Misery, p. 11.

2 Third Report from the Committee of Secrecy, Appointed to Enquire into the State of the East
India Company, 1773, Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, vol. IV, East Indies
-1772,1773, pp. 60-61.

194
 The famine of 1770 195

the commercial life of Bengal." 3 Richard Becher, Resident at Murshidabad,

lamented in 1769 on the economic decline of the diwani territories, observing
that there was
reason to think, that since the accession of the Company to the Diwani, the condition of
the people of this country has been worse that it was before ... This fine country, which
flourished under the most despotic and arbitrary government, is verging towards its ruin,
while the English have really as great a share in its administration.4

While Governor Verelst, the Select Committee at Calcutta, and Richard

Becher blamed the oppressive collection practices of the nawab's officers and
the export of silver from Bengal for the economic decline, 5 the causes were also
rooted in the Company's reliance on the land revenue to finance its exports and
in allowing its employees to divert trade into their own and dependents' hands
and to remove huge sums of money, taken as farming profits, trading profits,
and "presents," from Bengal's economy. The 1770 famine confirmed and
deepened the economic crisis; it did not create it. Even before the famine there
was a marked sense of crisis in Bengal. 6
Although the rains were lighter than normal in late 1768, the tragedy for many
families in eastern Bihar, north-western and central Bengal, and the normally
drier sections of far-western Bengal began when the summer rains of 1769 failed
entirely through much of that area. The result was that the aman crop, which is
harvested in November, December, and January, and provided roughly 70
percent of Bengal's rice, was negligible. Rains in February 1770 induced many
cultivators to plough but the following dry spell withered the crops. The
monsoon of June 1770 was good. However, by this time food supplies had long
been exhausted and heavy mortality continued at least until the aus harvest in
September.
W.W. Hunter wrote the classic description of this event:
All through the stifling summer of 1770 the people went on dying. The husbandmen sold
their cattle; they sold their implements of agriculture; they devoured their seed-grain;
they sold their sons and daughters, till at length no buyer of children could be found;
they [ate] the leaves of trees and the grass of the field; and in June 1770 the Resident at
the Durbar affirmed that the living were feeding on the dead.7

James Grant wrote in 1792:

In the country the highways and fields were strewed, in towns the streets and passages

3 Ainslie T. Embree, Charles Grant and British Rule in India (New York, 1962), p. 31.
4 Dodwell (ed.), Cambridge History of India, vol. V, p. 207.
5 Banerjee, Early Land Revenue System, pp. 44-45. Also, Letter to Court, 30 Sept. 1769, Ft
Wm-IHC, vol. V, 1767-1769, pp. 600-02.
6 Dodwell (ed.), Cambridge History of India, vol. V, p. 207.
7 William Wilson Hunter, The Annals of Rural Bengal (London, 1868), p. 26.
196 Burdwan

choaked, with the dying and the dead. Multitudes flocked to Moorshedabad, the capi-
tal ... In Moorshedabad alone 7,000 were daily fed for several months, and the same
practice was followed in other places; but the good effects were hardly discernible amidst
the general devastation ... It was impossible to stir abroad without breathing an offensive
air, without hearing frantic cries, and seeing numbers of different ages and sexes in every
state of suffering and death ... At length a gloomy calm succeeded.8

Few contemporary observers left detailed accounts of the famine. One of the
fullest came from an anonymous Company servant in Calcutta who wanted a
friend in London to believe that food shortages had been worsened by "Gentle-
men in the Company's service" who had bought "rice at 120 and 140 Seers for
a Rupee, which they afterwards sold for 15 Seers for a Rupee, to the Black
Merchants."9 His account was published in The Gentleman9s Magazine in
London in September 1771. Although the charges of profiteering were never
proven, the Court of Directors believed that "the ryots were compelled to sell
their rice to those monopolizing Europeans." W.K. Firminger speculated that
the charges may have arisen from well-intentioned efforts by district officials
to prevent rice from leaving the areas which they controlled. 10 In any case, the
anonymous author of the account of the famine in Calcutta wrote that "many
thousands" of hungry people came into the city seeking relief after supplies ran
out in Murshidabad:
Many thousands falling daily in the streets and fields, whose bodies, mangled by dogs,
jackalls, and vultures ... made us dread the consequences of a plague ... I have counted
from my bedchamber window in the morning when I got up ... many hundreds laying
in the agonies of death for want, bending double, with their stomaches quite close
contracted to their back bones. I have sent my servant to desire those who have the
strength, to remove further off, whilst the poor creatures, looking up with arms extended,
have cried out, Baba! Baba! my Father! my Father! This affliction comes from the hands
of your countrymen, and I am come here to die, if it pleases God, in your presence. I
cannot move, do what you will with me.11

The author said that during the famine Europeans would not eat fish, pigs,
ducks, or geese, all of which were feeding on human corpses, so they were
restricted to mutton. A hundred poor people gathered at his door to receive the
left-overs: "After one had sucked the bones quite dry, and thrown them away,
I have seen another take them up, sand and all upon them, and do the same, and

8 James Grant, "Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain,"
Gen. App. no. 1 to Reportfromthe Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company,
1832, British Parliamentary Papers: Colonies, East India, vol. 5 (Shannon, 1970), p. 11.
9 [Anonymous], "Account of the Late Famine in India," The Gentleman's Magazine and His-
torical Chronicle, vol. 41 (Sept. 1771), p. 402.
10 Fifth Report, 1812, Firminger's Introduction, vol. I, p. excix. The Court of Directors also
accused Muhammad Reza Khan of cornering rice for private profit. Ibid., p. cc.
11 [Anonymous], "Account of the Late Famine in India," pp. 402-03.
 The famine of 1770 197
so by a third, and so on." A cloud of insects appeared over Calcutta and its
neighboring areas and hovered there for days, obscuring the sun. Brahmins
prophesied that "if ever they descended to the earth, the country would be
destroyed by some untimely misfortune." They did not descend, but flew away
after causing "great speculation."12
One of the remarkable features about this account and about reports from the
districts is the relative absence of collective violence. Here and there officials
noted an increase in dakaiti (gang robbery). Boughton Rous, Supervisor of
Rajshahi, reported in 1771 that raiyats "who have hitherto borne the first of
characters among their neighbors" had turned to dakaiti to sustain themselves.13
Yet when Company officials began to discuss the increases in dakaiti in the
1770s, they rarely attributed it to the famine. As they began to take over the
administration of diwani lands, starting in 1770, they blamed dakaiti instead on
the resumption of service lands (chakaran) from local police employees who
then turned to gang robbery, the suspension of the zamindars' police authority
under the revenue farming system, and the difficulty of obtaining convictions
under Islamic law.14
The severest violence was committed by the bands of sannyasis and faqirs
from outside the province in their annual pilgrimages across northern Bengal
to visit the bathing and other religious fairs and festivals. Members of the bands
carried swords, matchlocks, and even rockets. The largest bands included as
many as 5,000 mendicants. They expected to subsist on donations from pious
and affluent inhabitants. When those donations were not forthcoming, they
plundered. Their depredations increased in the immediate aftermath of the
famine, and in consequence Company troops moved to block their passage
through Bengal. While it is possible that the famine caused inhabitants to be
less generous than in the past, this seems not have been suggested in official
reports on the sannyasi and faqir incursions.15 Dakaiti and other forms of
collective violence were only occasionally linked to famine by contemporary
observers.
Paul Greenough, in his fine study of the Bengal famine of 1943-44, has
discussed the failure of Bengalis in 1770 and 1943-44 to break into grain shops
and raid the rice supplies of affluent households. Greenough was impressed by

12 Ibid., p. 403.
13 Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 64.
14 Warren Hastings' Minute on Dakaiti, 19 April 1774, quoted in Fifth Report, 1812, Firminger's
Introduction, vol. I, pp. ccxiv-v.
15 Jamini Mohan Ghosh, Sannyasi and Fakir Raiders in Bengal (Calcutta, 1930), pp. 41-49.
Some historians have treated the sannyasi incursions as if they were connected to the famine
without convincingly demonstrating the causal link. See Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 64,
and Anil Chandra Bannerjee, The Agrarian System of Bengal, vol. I, 1582-1793 (Calcutta,
1980), p. 133.
198 Burdwan

the contrast between the non-violence of Bengalis and the assertiveness of the
lower classes in Europe when faced by scarcity. 16 He cited the observation of
Abbe Raynal who found it "remarkable" that, unlike Europeans, Bengalis
"pressed by the most urgent of all necessities remained in an absolute inactivity,
and made no attempts whatever for their self-preservation ... The unhappy
Indians, resigned to despair, confined themselves to the request of succour they
did not obtain, and peaceably waited the relief of death." Sometimes they threw
"themselves at the feet of the Europeans, entreating them to take them in as their
slaves." Had "any part of Europe [been] affected by a similar calamity," Raynal
anticipated "disorder," "fury," "atrocious acts," "crimes." 17 E.P. Thompson has
written about the frequency of food riots in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-
century England,
repeated cases of which can be found in almost every town and county until the 1840s.
This was rarely a mere uproar which culminated in the breaking open of barns and the
looting of shops. It was legitimised by the assumptions of an older moral economy, which
taught the immorality of an unfair method of forcing up the price of provisions by
profiteering upon the necessities of the people.

These food riots "were popularly regarded as acts of justice." 18

Paul Greenough has offered an explanation for the absence of violent efforts
to obtain food in the 1943-44 famine. He emphasizes that in Bengal's traditional
hierarchical society, paternal indulgence was the ideal. Social superiors were
expected to protect and share food with their dependent clients and relatives. 19
However, in the rare occurrence of famine in Bengal, patrons gradually aban-
doned their dependents as their resources gave out. Dependent laborers, tenants,
and artisans were let go first. Then less valued members of the family were
abandoned. Although the head of the family violated his "ordinary moral
obligations" by leaving his family to seek employment or by sending his wife
and children away to beg, this was a common way of adapting "to the threat of
total familial extinction." 20 Greenough sums up the difference with Europe:
In the European tradition, famine violence was turned "outward" and "upward" against
offending landlords, merchants, and officials; in Bengal the tradition was to turn violence
"inward" and "downward" against the clients and dependents. This was the cold violence
of abandonment, of ceasing to nourish, rather than of bloodshed and tumult. The

16 Greenough, Prosperity and Misery, pp. 267-70.

17 Abbe Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the
Europeans in the East and West Indies, tr. J.O. Justomond, vol. I, (2nd edn., London, 1798),
p. 437.
18 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1966), pp. 62-65, who
is cited by Greenough.
19 Greenough, Prosperity and Misery, pp. 15-25.
20 Ibid., pp. 207-17.
 The famine of 1770 199

quasi-legal notions in western Europe of subsistence "rights," of a "just price," and of

the duty of the state to uphold the "commonweal" gave legitimacy to the hot violence of
food disturbances, a legitimacy sometimes conceded by officials who refused to punish
enraged looters and leaders of hungry crowds. In Bengal, such notions were entirely
absent, and the cold violence of "masters," land-holders, and officials was morally
justified only by the need to salvage those who would construct a subsequent
prosperity.21

This explanation of the absence of collective violence during the Bengal

famines is the best we have. Nevertheless, there are unresolved problems with
it inasmuch as it implies that deferential Bengalis acquiesced to the abandon-
ment by their traditional patrons and masters. This may not accord with the fact
that principal raiyats of late eighteenth-century Bengal seemed to have a strong
sense of their rights when they believed their landlords were treating them
unfairly. They assembled in rowdy crowds, complained to government, and
withheld their rents frequently. In addition, beneath the jotdars were numerous
low caste peasants on the margins of village society who migrated often and in
the early nineteenth century joined dakait gangs by the thousands and terrorized
their affluent neighbors. Many Bengalis between the famines of 1770 and
1943-44 were far from acquiescent and compliant when they faced what they
perceived to be injustices.
The Company's government might have cushioned the effects of food
shortages in 1770 by foregoing some of its revenue demand and mobilizing for
the supply of food to the worst-affected areas. This happened only on a small
scale. The Company was only beginning to take over the district administration
from Muhammad Reza Khan, the naib diwan (deputy finance minister) in the
diwani areas of northern and central Bengal. Most of the newly appointed
British Supervisors did not take up their posts until February 1770.22 Officials
were smarting from scoldings from London about declining revenues and,
incredibly, the Company rejected most requests for revenue remissions. When
it did accede to requests, it stipulated that the remissions were temporary and
that the arrears were to be paid in the following years. Remissions in 1769-70
equalled but six percent of the year's collections.23 Government and private
distributions of relief were paltry compared to the need. W.W. Hunter reported
that government and "native" distributions amounted to £9,000 and £4,700,
respectively.24 These figures amounted to less than 0.1 percent of the govern-
ment's revenue demand although there was no practical means by which
officials could have known how much affluent Indians gave to hungry people.

21 Ibid., pp. 270-71.

22 Nandalal Chatterji, Verelst's Rule in India (Allahabad, 1939), p. 254.
23 Banerjee, Agrarian System of Bengal, vol. I, p. 131.
24 Hunter, Annals, p. 37.
200 Burdwan

Only the affluent could afford the market prices, which at Murshidabad rose to
twenty times the subsequent levels. 25
Comments from district officials in 1770 and the succeeding decades leave
no doubt the famine was a major disaster. Reports of whole villages being
deserted, families disappearing, and large areas reverting to jungle make it clear
that in the most severely affected areas, recovery would have taken years and
that many social bonds must have been dissolved. Yet there is reason to view
with skepticism the more extreme estimates of the famine's consequences.
These estimates include the assertion that one third of Bengal's population
perished; that one third of the cultivated area was abandoned; that two-thirds of
Bengal's aristocracy was ruined by the famine. 26
Estimates of both the pre-famine population and famine mortality were
matters of wild guesses, stabs in the dark. James Rennell estimated in 1781 that
Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa (i.e., Midnapur) had 10 million inhabitants. Harry
Verelst stated in the same year that the population was "at least" 7 million. 27
James Grant in 1786 thought this area contained 10 million people. 28 Alexander
Dow wrote in about 1770 that "Bengal" had 15 million people, but the dimen-
sions he ascribed to Bengal (600 x 300 miles) 29 could have covered an area
double that referred to by Rennell, Verelst, and Grant. Subsequent historians
have raised their estimates of the population. W.W. Hunter, writing almost a
century after the famine, thought the Company's territory in Bengal, Bihar, and
Orissa contained 30 million people before the famine. 30 Both N.K. Sinha31 and
Paul Greenough 32 estimated that close to 10 million may have died, implying a
pre-famine population of at least 30 million.
Warren Hastings estimated in 1772, soon after he returned to Bengal as
Governor, that "at least one-third of the inhabitants of the province" were lost
in the famine. 33 This estimate has been accepted by most historians who have
written about the famine. But where did this estimate come from? The Super-
visors of both Bhagalpur34 and Purnia35 reported in April and May 1770, well
before the famine ended, that one third of the local inhabitants had died.

25 Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, p. 144. On Murshidabad, see Gautam Bhadra, "The Famine
of 1770 and the Town of Murshidabad," Marxist Miscellany: A Collection of Essays, no. 7
(New Delhi, 1975), pp. 27^7.
26 Hunter, Annals, pp. 56-58.
27 Report on Petitions, 1781, p. 37.
28 James Grant, "Historical and Comparative Analysis," p. 271.
29 Dow, History, vol. I, p. cxxxvi.
30 Hunter, Annals, p. 34.
31 Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 55.
32 Greenough, Prosperity and Misery, p. 267.
33 Letter to Court, 3 Nov. 1772, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. VI, 1770-1772, (Delhi, 1960) p. 418.
34 Nani Gopal Chaudhuri, Cartier: Governor of Bengal, 1769-1772 (Calcutta, 1970), p. 40.
35 Letter to Court, 9 May 1770, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. VI, 1770-1772, p. 203.
 The famine of 1770 201

Table 2 Deserted land, 1778

Hastobudjama(Rs) Plateka (Rs.)

Birbhum 11,44,825 4,11,613

Jahangirpur (Dinajpur district) 3,63,570 1,04,629
Purnia 19,09,214 4,96,168
Rangpur 16,50,655 3,71,695

G. Ducarel, Supervisor of Purnia, later raised his estimate to "nearly half."36

Richard Becher, Resident at Murshidabad, reported in June that "the number
that has perished in those provinces that have most suffered is calculated to have
been, within these four months, as six to sixteen of the whole inhabitants." He
then added in July that "previous representations" were "faint in comparison to
the miseries now endured."37 There seem to have been few efforts by officers
on the spot to count systematically the deaths in any single district, although a
survey of four tarafs (divisions of a pargana) in the Rajshahi zamindari showed
that of 1,076 families, 507 families died and 153 migrated, leaving 416 fami-
lies. 38 Even if half of the population of the Bihari-speaking districts of Bha-
galpur and Purnia and of the worst-affected parts of the Bengali districts of
Rajmahal, Rajshahi, and Birbhum had died, there would be reason to doubt that
the total mortality for Bengal was one third. The suffering in the rest of western
and central Bengal was certainly severe, mortality and migration were higher
than usual, but the reports from officers on the spot do not suggest a level of
mortality that would have produced a province-wide death rate of one third.
Evidence of the uneven effects of the famine appears in the figures compiled
by the Amini Commission which reported in 1778. The Commission listed only
four areas in which the plateka or rated revenue of unoccupied land that
remained on the revenue rolls exceeded the hastobudjama or "gross revenue"
by over 20 percent (see table 2).
Other areas in which the plateka was between 10 percent and 20 percent of
the jama were Nadia, Mahomedshahi, Jessore, Saidpur, Alisoda, Pachet, Fateh
Singh, Laskarpur, and Rajmahal. This evidence indicates that depopulation was
most severe north of the Ganges and in Birbhum, moderately severe in central
Bengal, and slight in southwest and eastern Bengal. The huge districts of Dacca
and Rajshahi were reported to have no plateka?9

36 Ranajit Guha, A Rule of Property for Bengal: An Essay on the Idea of Permanent Settlement
(Paris, 1963), p. 54.
37 Hunter, Annals, p. 418.
38 Chaudhuri, Carrier, pp. 70-71.
39 Appendix to Amini Report, Ramsbotham, Studies, pp. 132-33.
202 Burdwan

Table 3 Net revenue collections, 1768-69 to 1771-72

1768-69 Rs. 1,52,54,856

1769-70 1,31,49,148
1770-71 1,40,06,030
1771-72 1,53,33,660

The rapidity with which land revenue collections recovered casts further
doubt on the estimates that one third of the population perished and one third
of the cultivated land was abandoned. The net collections fell in the year of the
drought but rose in the following two years (see table 3). 40
No doubt the increased collections may be attributed in part to the fact that
post-drought collections were "violently" made, as Warren Hastings stated,41
although Company officials believed that the nawab's government had also
been using violent means to gather the revenue in the diwani lands in the years
preceding the famine. The 14 percent decline in the 1772-73 collections 42 was
partly due to population loss but other factors included the disruptive effects of
the transfer of the diwani lands to Company administration and to the transfer
of zamindari lands to revenue farmers with five-year leases. Many of these
auction-purchasers were unpopular and inefficient and were impeded by dis-
placed zamindars and their dependents. Moreover, 1772-73 was a year of an
abundant harvest which depressed agricultural prices, and in turn damaged
collections.43 Thus the collection figures for the years immediately after the
famine, while not disproving the estimate of one third mortality leave open the
possibility that deaths among the cultivating population were significantly
lower than implied by the estimate of an overall population loss of a third.
Contemporary witnesses suggested that mortality was exceptionally high
among the non-cultivating population, including weavers, spinners, silk-wind-
ers, boatmen, and salt and chunam (lime) workers, as well as among growers
of non-food products such as cotton and silk-worms.44 The Resident at Dacca,
where the famine was not notably severe, reported in 1776 that ''the Dacca fabric
for these six or seven years has been upon the decline as to quality, great part
whereof may be attributed to the ravages of the famine in 1770 carrying away

40 Letter to Court, 3 Nov. 1772, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. VI, 1770-1772, p. 418.

41 Ibid., p. 419.
42 J.C. Sinha, Economic Annals of Bengal (London, 1927), p. 102.
43 Hunter, Annals, p. 31.
44 Sinha, Economic History, vol. I, pp. 15,20, and 190; Chaudhuri, Cartier, pp. 70-71; and Letter
to Court, 3 Dec. 1772, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. VI, 1770-1772, p. 451.
 The famine of 1770 203

Table 4 Cotton and silk investments, 1768-75

Season Piece goods (£) Silk(£)

1768 500,597 137,299

1769 576,281 142,328
1770 451,152 160,337
1771 571,542 170,457
1772 697,778 136,270
1773 508,622 94,431
1774 466,944 160,016
1775 659,255 239,514

great numbers of the best spinners and ryots who cultivated the cotton plant."45
The Malda weavers and the silk producers around Murshidabad were also
decimated. On the other hand, the weaving villages around Chandrakona and
Kirpai in the Burdwan zamindari and around Santipur in Nadia, suffered much
less. George Vansittart in 1775 noted a decline in the textile manufacturers of
southern Burdwan and Bishnupur but he blamed this in part upon the rise in
prices weavers were forced to demand to compensate for the increase in land
taxes "within these twenty years."46 While it is certain that mortality was higher
among artisans and producers of non-food crops than among common cultiva-
tors, the invoice values of the Company's investments in cotton piece goods
and silk did not develop a downward trend after the famine (see table 4). 47
The third long-term development attributed by some historians to the famine
was the destruction of Bengal's aristocracy. N.K. Sinha wrote that "the old
aristocracy [was] ruined by the famine."48 W.W. Hunter, who regarded the
famine as "the key to the history of Bengal during the succeeding forty years," 49
wrote that "from the year 1770 the ruin of two-thirds of the old aristocracy of
Lower Bengal dates."50 There is little reason to accept these judgments. The
zamindars in both the ceded and diwani lands had been experiencing high

45 Debendra Bijoy Mitra, The Cotton Weavers of Bengal, 1757-1833 (Calcutta, 1978), p. 54.
46 George Vansittart, late chief of Burdwan, to GG, 20 Jan. 1775, Bengal Rev. Consult. Prog, of
27 Jan. 1775, P/49/50.
47 Ninth Report from the Select Committee Appointed to Take into Consideration the State of
the Administration of Justice in the Provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, 1783, Reports from
Committees of the House of Commons, vol. VI, East Indies-1783, p. 112. Hereafter cited as
Ninth Report on Justice, 1783.
48 Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 65.
49 Hunter, Annals, p. 19.
50 Ibid., pp. 56-57.
204 Burdwan
assessments, loss of management to ijaradars, amils, sazawals, and banians of
Company employees, and they continued to experience those same pressures
after the famine. The impoverishment of major zamindars was a complicated,
uneven process. The famine of 1770 probably contributed no more to the
process than repeated increases in the revenue demand and periodic suspensions
of zamindari authority, both before and after the famine. The famine forced
many zamindars to borrow to meet the demand. But then the five-year settle-
ment with revenue farmers in 1772 allowed many zamindars a respite and an
opportunity to discharge debts from their moshaira (monthly stipend while
suspended from office). Most of the major zamindars recovered their territories
in their pre-famine dimensions in 1777 and still retained them at the time of the
Decennial Settlement of 1790.
The final general question to consider is whether the famine led to a general
shift of relative power among the various classes of cultivators and rent
collectors. Answering that question is problematical because the Company's
introduction of revenue farming in Burdwan and the Twenty-four Parganas in
1771 and in the rest of Bengal in 1772 was itself a disturbing factor in agrarian
relations. What impressed most contemporary observers in the 1770s and 1780s,
as well as subsequent analysts, was the strong position of the mandals and other
superior raiyats vis-a-vis both the common cultivators and the superior rent
collectors. Where they differ is whether the advantages of the mandals derived
from the famine or changes in revenue policy. Philip Francis in 1776 implied
that surviving raiyats in general had gained from the population decline: "in the
present state of the Country the Ryot has the Advantage over the Zemindar.
Where so much land lies waste, and so few hands are left for Cultivation, the
Peasant must be courted to undertake it."51 The Amini Commission's report of
1778 seemed to see no such shift and instead saw the mandals as mediating
between the raiyats and the petty collectors, lending money to the cultivators,
and helping them sell their crops. According to the Amini Commission, since
the mandal's "influence and services [depend] solely on the good opinion of the
ryots, it is not the interest of the zamindar to change him, so long as he preserves
their confidence."52 W.W. Hunter viewed the famine as crucial in leading to a
more pronounced stratification of the peasantry. He identified the enterprising,
non-resident or paikasht raiyats, rather than the mandals, as the major benefi-
ciaries of the famine. In his view, pre-1770 landlords often oppressed their
numerous cultivators. After 1770, there was a severe shortage of cultivators.
By degrees the agricultural population divided itself into two classes: the so-called
resident cultivators [khudkasht] who, from attachment to their ancient homes, or, as was

51 Extract of Rev. Consult, of 5 Nov. 1776, Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, p. 108.
52 Ramsbotham, Studies, p. 108.
 The famine of 1770 205

much more frequently the case, by reason of indebtedness to their landlord, continued
on the same estate as before the famine; and a more adventurous class, termed non-resi-
dent or vagrant cultivators [paikasht], who threw up their previous holdings and went in
search of new ones at the lower rates to which depopulation had reduced the market value
of land. Within six years after the famine this classification had distinctly taken place,
and the non-resident ryots who had previously formed an insignificant and degraded
order continued during thirty years the most prominent feature in the rural system of
Bengal.53

Paikasht raiyats often formed new villages just beyond the boundaries of their
former zamindaris so they would be beyond the jurisdictions of their former
masters and be able better to resist efforts to force them to return. Their new
zamindars gave them concessionary rental rates, often half of what the khudka-
sht raiyats paid, and the privilege of paying rents in kind. In time, if not
immediately, the long-resident cultivators came to resent the privileged position
of the paikasht raiyats. To prevent the resulting tension from interfering with
rent collection, zamindars and government officials gradually reduced the
differential between the two classes of peasants. The problem seems to have
been most severe in Birbhum district, to which paikasht raiyats had migrated
from Burdwan, Murshidabad, and Rajshahi and in 1788 paid almost one tenth
of the district's jama. 54
Ratna Ray's more balanced and cautious assessment is that jotdars with
capital, whether resident or not, seized the opportunity "to bring the waste lands
under their own cultivation." While acknowledging that depopulation strength-
ened the position of wealthy jotdars in many areas, she warns against seeing
jotdar oligarchies' command of village labor and resources as new or sudden.
Their dominance, which rested on privileged rental rates, control of the most
productive lands, money-lending and marketing activities, access to capital, and
their utility to intermediate revenue collectors, dated back to Mughal times. 55
While mandals and other affluent jotdars seem to have been strategically
placed to benefit from deserted lands following the famine, several factors
operated to limit their advantage and to guarantee that until the 1790's, at least,
power over villages' surpluses would be precariously balanced and shared
between the rich jotdars, the kutkinadars, ijaradars, and other intermediate
revenue collectors, and the zamindars. After the famine, the surviving cultiva-
tors were required to pay a special cess that represented the revenue that their
neighbors who died or migrated would have paid. This customary imposition,
called the najai, dates back to the seventeenth century at least. 56 Its effect may

53 Hunter, Annals, pp. 59-60.

54 Rajan Kumar Gupta, The Economic Life of a Bengal District, Birbhum: 1770-1857 (Calcutta,
1984), pp. 38-41. Also, Hunter, Bengal MS. Records, vol. I. pp. 62-63.
55 Ray, Change, pp. 54-59.
56 Habib, Agrarian System, p. 250.
206 Burdwan
have been to cause some villagers to flee; in other cases, it led villagers to
prevent the migration of their fellow villagers. Warren Hastings believed the
najai was the main mechanism by which the revenue collections were kept high
in the aftermath of the famine and he described it as "a kind of security against
desertion by making the inhabitants thus mutually responsible for each other."57
Second, close to half of Bengal's land was taken in farm in 1772 by auction-
purchasers who were not zamindars and who often used coercive measures to
realize the higher revenue demand they had bid for. These coercive measures
would have tended to nullify the competitive advantages jotdars were said to
have gained in relation to superior collectors in the post-famine years although
an unknown portion of jotdars struck advantageous bargains with the ijaradars
and acted instead as coercive agents over weaker villagers. And third, there was
such a shortage of labor due to famine mortality that the cost of wages jotdars
had to pay to bring land back into cultivation rose. Drought also had killed many
plough animals and presumably forced up the prices of replacement stock.
Therefore, enhanced production costs undercut the profits available to jotdars
from reopening abandoned lands.
The Burdwan zamindari suffered less from the famine than Birbhum and the
other districts to the north. And the Burdwan jotdars emerged with no new
advantages, it seems. Raja Tilakchandra complained in November 1769 that
tanks were drying up and that the withered crops were useless except as cattle
fodder. Consequently, grain prices were rising and peasants were deserting the
land.58 Nevertheless, the zamindar paid 95 percent of the net demand for
1769-70. In May 1770, Raja Tilakchandra died of "fever" and was succeeded
by his five-year-old son, Tejchandra, who was in the custody of his young
mother, Rani Bishnumukari. Raja Tejchandra's managers succeeded in paying
not only the 1770-71 demand but also the arrears from earlier years. Burdwan's
net collections for 1770-71 were 19 percent higher than in 1769-70. The year
1770-71 was the final year of the three-year settlement made with Tilakchandra.
The rani and the managers were no doubt anxious to please Company officers
so that they might continue to control the zamindari and be in a position to obtain
the new settlement in 1771. They had to borrow, in the young Tejchandra's
name, from "the Merchants" in order to meet the government's demand and pay
the costs of Tilakchandra's shraddha (death rituals).59
The Supervisor at Burdwan had proposed to grant a temporary abatement of
three lakhs for 1770-71 on account of the alleged loss of peasants but after local
inquiries, he reduced the recommended remission to less than 1 lakh on the

57 Letter to Court, 3 Nov. 1772, p. 419.

58 Hunter, Annals, p. 408.
^9 Petition from Tejchandra, received 14 May 1771, Home Misc., vol. 203.
 The famine of 1770 207

grounds that the revenue farmers had lost only Rs. 82,120 "by the death or
desertion of the ryots."60 This report and the high 1770-71 Burdwan collections
suggest that Burdwan's famine mortality had not been severe and that peasants
who fled had returned or been replaced. In 1775, George Vansittart reported
after leaving his post at Burdwan that although Birbhum, Pachet, and the
northern parganas of Burdwan "suffered a great loss of Inhabitants" during the
famine, the population of southern Burdwan and of Midnapur east of the jungle
areas "are well peopled," as much so as in 1760. He thought Bishnupur had not
suffered "any very considerable loss."61
In conclusion, it seems that the usual estimate of a mortality of one third is a
less reasonable guess than John Shore's estimate of one fifth62 or Monckton
Jones' of one sixth.63 Burdwan's mortality may have been considerably less
than one sixth. Population may have decreased further in the decade or so
following the famine as a result of births averted due to malnutrition and deaths
among young girls.64 In the famine of 1943-44, at least, heads of families in
deep distress abandoned the less valued members of their family in order to save
it from "total ... extinction," even though this contradicted "ordinary moral
obligations."65 Moreover, the famine brought no proven general alterations in
the relations or degrees of wealth between zamindars and the various orders of
their tenants although in some areas jotdars with capital and dependent tenants
and laborers strengthened their bargaining position with superior rent collectors.
Many zamindars temporarily lost control of their estates in 1772. This, however,
was not because of the famine but rather because Company officials tried to
raise revenue collections by farming them out to the highest bidder. The
Company's rejection of zamindari pleas for revenue remissions may have
reduced their willingness to enter the bidding process. The government's
inflexibility during the years following the famine was further circumscribing
zamindari ability to meet society's expectations of a raja's generosity and
indulgence to dependents in distress.

60 Letter to Court, 12 Feb. 1771, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. VI, 1770-1772, p. 276.

61 Bengal Rev. Consults, of 27 Jan. 1775, Home Misc., vol. 206, p. 147.
62 James Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789.
63 Monckton Jones, Hastings in Bengal, pp. 256-57.
64 Hunter, Annals, p. 60.
65 Greenough, Prosperity and Misery, p. 217.
11 Revenue farming, 1771-1777

The 1770 famine deepened the economic crisis the Company faced and gave
new urgency to the search for more efficient revenue-extraction methods. But
the decision to overhaul revenue administration and to take over direct control
of collections in the diwani lands had already been made in effect in 1769 when
the Company decided to send Supervisors into the districts to investigate each
district's resources and draw up rent rolls for a future settlement. Company
authorities in London, Calcutta, and Murshidabad had recognized by 1769 that
while Company servants were increasing collections in the ceded territories of
Burdwan, Chittagong, Midnapur, and the Twenty-four Parganas, the naib
nazim's administration in the diwani territories was failing. The experience in
Burdwan pointed to the system of the future. The rapid growth of the Burdwan
revenues argued that a modified form of farming should be adopted throughout
Bengal in which British officers would accept offers for an extended period of
years from zamindars or other persons of substance and reliability. British
officers would be free to reject bids from persons without security or good
character. This was the policy continued in Burdwan in 1771, when Burdwan
was farmed out for five years,1 and in the rest of Bengal in 1772, when the
Company "stood forth" as diwan in the diwani lands and entered a five-year
contract with ijaradars.
The central feature of the settlements made in Burdwan in 1771 and else-
where in 1772 was the sale of revenue-collecting rights for a term of five years
to the highest qualified bidders, with preference for hereditary zamindars and
taluqdars when their offers were at least equal to others. In fact, over half of the
1772 settlement was made with zamindars although many subsequently lost
their lands due to arrears.2 To the degree that the Company continued or restored
hereditary landholders as contractors in 1772, it was preserving customary
elites.

1
This chapter discusses revenue farming in Burdwan and elsewhere from 1771 to 1777 while
the following two chapters focus on the informal politics of the Burdwan family and zamindari
management in the same years.
2
Fifth Report, 1812, Firminger's Introduction, vol. I, p. ccxix

208
 Revenue farming, 1771-1777 209

Whether the settlements were made with older landholders or not, the
justification for the settlement process was infused with a commercial spirit that
was at odds with both traditional local kingship and the way the new system
actually functioned. As merchants who were turning their hands to administra-
tion, Company servants spoke as if they favored a competitive, capitalist
mechanism for maximizing the revenue collections. The rhetoric describing the
five-year settlements was phrased in terms of private property, economic
development, and individual rights. The Company' s stated objective in 1771 -72
in offering collection rights to competitive bidding was to use the market to
discover the real rental value of the land. Company officials believed that no
better avenue existed for learning how much the zamindars, farmers, and other
revenue collectors were receiving from the cultivators. They assumed officials
and revenue collectors had conspired to embezzle and to keep the Company
ignorant of mofussil collections. 3 The Company had tried to ascertain what
these collections were by both short-term farming and khas collections in the
ceded lands and by sending Supervisors to the diwani lands in 1770 but these
experiments had failed to increase the collections or provide the Company with
accurate knowledge.
The raiyats were expected to benefit from the new system. Officials believed
that the alleged unchecked despotism of nawabi officials and the total depend-
ence of the raiyats on their superiors inhibited individual initiative and industry.
Development of a sense of private property would counter the oppressive and
economically retarding behavior of social superiors. The Select Committee, in
its 1769 instructions to the new Supervisors, said every individual should know
what to "call and defend as his own." To help the raiyat know what was his own
and what were his rights, written pattas or leases were to be given to each raiyat.
Officials were instructed to persuade the raiyat that the pattas were in his
self-interest and "that every opposition to them would mean rivetting his own
chains, and confirming his servitude and dependence on his oppressors." The
pattas would protect the raiyat from the multitude of abwabs and illegal
exactions heaped upon him by the zamindars, amils, amla, darogas, paiks, etc.,
and "secure him from all further^ invasions of his property."4 The amilnama
(lease) granted to each ijaradar required him to grant pattas to his raiyats. 5
Governor Warren Hastings argued that the extended term of five years, in
contrast to the annual and triennial farming settlements of the recent past, would
lead the revenue collectors to make the necessary encouragements and invest-
ments for the expansion of cultivation. And the introduction of Company law

3
Letter to Court, 3 Nov. 1772, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. VI, 1770-1772, p. 420.
4
Banerjee, Early Land Revenue System, pp. 56-63.
5
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 85.
210 Burdwan
courts would prevent the usurpation of the fruits of the collectors' investments
or the cultivators' labor. He thought that the alarming erosion of Bengal's
industry and prosperity could be stopped only by checking the arbitrary inter-
ference with individual economic enterprise. He imagined that the combined
effect of the longer term of the settlements and the creation of Company law
courts in each district would be to provide "the security of private property."6
In the rhetoric of Company officers in the late 1760s and early 1770s, the
absence of clear notions of private property blocked Bengal's economic growth.
A close reading of Hastings' language shows that when he wrote of "private
property," he used the term loosely. When he wrote of the cultivators' payments
to the revenue farmer or zamindar, he called them "rents," and, similarly, he
referred to the farmers' payments to government as "rents" (not "taxes"), and
to the revenue farmers' agreement with government as a "lease." This language
implied that the state owned the land. What, then, did Hastings have in mind
when he referred to the need to protect private property? He meant that the raiyat
had a private right to keep the profits of his labor, minus the authorized rents to
be specified in written agreements, the form of which was prescribed by
government. The Company's new district courts were to enforce the pattas and
to punish those farmers who fined or demanded rents in excess of those
stipulated in the pattas.7 "Private property" thus meant a contractual share of
the land's produce rather than individual ownership of a specific plot on the
earth's surface. By this definition, property seems scarcely more private than in
pre-Company times.
The declarations about securing individual property rights from the despotic
exactions of oppressors sound hollow in view of what happened between 1771
and 1777. The colonial discourse denounced elite Bengali exploitation of the
peasantry at the very moment British Company servants were searching for
surreptitious ways to supplement their approved emoluments, ultimately at the
expense of the peasantry. In the 1770s, some forbidden sources of British
income were drying up. The decline in Bengal's internal trade and Company
restrictions on private trading activities narrowed commercial opportunities.
The reduction of the nazim to a figurehead stemmed the flow of presents from
Murshidabad. Company servants assigned to land revenue work compensated
by continuing to sell their influence in making the new settlements.
Despite the rhetoric of preventing oppression, the patta regulations under the
new, higher settlements gave meagre protection to tenants: for decades the
government made few systematic efforts to enforce the regulations and the
Company's court system was too rudimentary to give patta-holders protection

6
Letter to Court, 3 Nov. 1772, p. 421.
7
Ibid., pp. 420-26.
 Revenue farming, 1771-1777 211

in any case. The settlements of 1771 and 1772 provided little security of
property to revenue farmers, their intermediate collectors, or the raiyats.
While most raiyats did not sign contracts with revenue farmers and their
subordinates, the farmers had to sign contracts with government. Yet a sizeable
portion of revenue farmers failed to collect as much revenue as they contracted
to pay. Company servants naively expected that farmers would not overbid.
What they failed to anticipate was that hereditary collectors in some cases would
overbid in order to retain their holdings and that outsiders would overbid out of
ignorance of the actual capacity of the land or in the expectation that their
connections with government employees or the banians of Company servants
would enable them to have their arrears forgiven. Nor did Company servants
foresee that the artificially high price of grain following the famine had given
some bidders a false view of what a lot's normal profits were. Over-production
brought the price down in the first years of the farming contract and contributed
to the arrears.8
The terminology of the five-year settlement plans of 1772 sounded as if the
Company was conducting an open market for revenue-collecting rights. The
"bids," "auctions," and "competition" were purer than farming in the diwani
lands had been in the past but the system was far from open. The Committee of
Circuit had a broad discretion in deciding which bids to accept in 1772, as did
the Collectors when defaulted lands were subsequently re-farmed. If bids were
considered too low, then they were rejected. If bidders offered as securities
persons whom the Company servants disliked or distrusted, the bids were
refused. Many bidders gave presents to Company servants or their banians to
obtain their farms or to receive a reduction in the Company's demand. There is
no way to estimate the size of the presents but the practice probably was general.
In 1776, Raja Nabakrishna listed payments of Rs. 42 lakhs allegedly received
by "the gentlemen from the zamindars, talukdars and farmers" of Bengal
between April 1772 and October 1774.9 If a revenue contractor lacked the
resources to meet his obligations, a Company servant often loaned him money.
Peter Marshall wrote that "by 1773 Hastings believed that Collectorships had
become 'more lucrative than any posts in the service' and heard that collectors
made at least a lakh a year on the side (part of which was likely to have been
gained by trading as well as from administering the revenue.)" 10 The 1774
arrival of Philip Francis, George Monson, and John Clavering to take their seats
on the Governor General's Council, together with tougher sanctions, began to

8
Extract of letter from Rev. Dept., 18 Oct. 1774, Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, p. 899. For a
succinct analysis of revenue farming in the 1770s, see B.B. Misra, The Central Administration
of the East India Company, 1773-1834 (Manchester, 1959), pp. 171ff.
9
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, pp. 97-98.
10
Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, p. 198.
212 Burdwan

limit the exaction of presents by Company servants and to check the favoritism
displayed to their banians in settlement work. The new Councillors estimated
in 1775 "that not less than one-third of the Company's lands in these provinces
are, or have lately, been held by the banians of English gentlemen." 11
The main evidence of what the major zamindars thought of the farming
system of the early 1770s was their reluctance to bid. Three factors operated to
discourage them from engaging for the revenue. The first was their highly
developed sense of hierarchical status. They hesitated to compete in open
competition with their former dependents, banians of Company servants, and
others of inferior status. Warren Hastings observed that "few men of credit...
to cover their names from the discredit which may attend the rejection of their
proposals" bid under their own names. 12 Many zamindars refused to bid at all.
Second, the operation of the 1772 settlement threatened to undermine the
self-image of the zamindars as beneficent local rulers. As the auctions pro-
ceeded, bidders offered more revenue than many lots had paid to government
in the past, despite the depopulated state of those lands. Defaulting farmers
faced more certain imprisonment and dispossession than before 1772. This in
turn reduced the ability of farmers to be lenient with defaulting tenants. This
presented zamindar-farmers with a special dilemma for they liked to think of
themselves as more considerate than temporary collectors. Rani Bhawani of
Rajshahi put it this way: "I am a zamindar, so was obliged to keep the ryots
from ruin and gave what ease to them I could by giving them time to make up
their payments."13
The third factor which probably deterred zamindars from participating in the
bidding were the debts they and their dependent landholders were forced to
incur during and after the famine of 1770. With a high and annually rising
revenue demand and the prospect of fluctuating income, zamindars needed cash
reserves or access to credit in order to farm their lands. Yet the 1760s and the
famine not only depleted savings, they also left many zamindars with major
debts and diminished access to credit. Although it is impossible to trace
zamindar debts to a specific year, by the mid-1770s the rajas of Bishnupur,
Birbhum, Burdwan, Cossijura, and Nadia each had major debts. Many of these
debts arose out of the conjunction of famine losses and the refusal of the
Company to relax its revenue demands in 1770 and 1771. 14 The settlements of
1772 were not only bid high but they also included an annual increment or rasad.
The Company's proposed reforms designed to protect the peasantry may also
have discouraged zamindars from bidding. These reforms would have abolished

1
' Fifth Report, 1812, Firminger's Introduction, vol. I, p. ccxxvii.
12
Letter to Court, 22 Sept. 1775, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. VII, 7775-7776, p. 576.
13
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 74.
14
Letter to Court, 3 Nov. 1772, p. 419.
 Revenue farming, 1771-1777 213

the fines and taxes which landholders levied for petty crimes, misdemeanors,
and marriages and they would have required landholders to issue written leases
specifying what rents tenants would pay. 15 These reforms were rarely imple-
mented but their announcement may have persuaded some zamindars that the
Company intended to interfere in areas where they had enjoyed autonomy.
Similarly, the inclusion in the five-year contracts of the Company's right to
conduct a hastobud or village survey and the establishment of district courts
under the charge of the Collector to hear civil and criminal suits which, in many
cases, zamindars had been deciding, may also have scared some zamindars into
abstention from bidding.
If there were strong motives for zamindars not to bid, there were also dangers
in having others become farmers. With each year in which zamindari officers
had no control, their mofussil knowledge, records, and influence might atrophy.
Loss of collection rights also meant suspension of patronage, of beneficence,
and much of that authority on which the zamindars' prestige rested. Although
the settlements were to be for five years only, there was no guarantee or firm
expectation that the zamindars who failed to farm their land could ever recover
their territory.
The dilemma of deciding whether to bid or not was thus formidable for the
zamindars. For those zamindars who regarded public competition as demean-
ing, considered the level of settlements too high, or believed government was
too intrusive, abstention was a genuine option. What made abstention a viable
alternative was the government's provision of moshaira, the maintenance
allowance granted to zamindars while their revenue-collecting functions were
suspended. In Mughal India, this allowance was usually calculated as 10 percent
of the revenue demand16 but the British used no fixed formula. The raja of Nadia
received moshaira of over 20 percent while the average for Bengal and Bihar
was 8 percent of the gross jama. 17 In addition, most zamindars were granted
farms of small- or medium-sized estates so that their revenue-collecting rights
were not totally discontinued. By allowing zamindars moshaira and estates
around their residences, the government was partially acceding to the Court of
Directors' 1769 injunction not to suddenly "alter the constitution nor deprive
the zemindars etc. of their ancient privileges and immunities." 18
The five-year farming settlement is correctly regarded as a time when
banians, merchants, speculators, and outsiders replaced zamindars as collectors
of the revenue. Yet the 1772 settlement operations were begun with the hope

15
Ibid., p. 422.
16
Habib, Agrarian System, p. 146.
17
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, pp. 84 and 105.
18
Letter to Court, 3 Nov. 1772, p. 424.
214 Burdwan

that the established taluqdars and zamindars (especially "inferior zamindars")

would take the farms. Verelst's testimony from Burdwan and Becher's from the
diwani lands argued against settlements with temporary farmers who had
no hereditary connection with the land. Warren Hastings, no champion of
zamindars, wrote "from a long continuance of the lands in their families, it is
to be concluded they have rivetted an authority in the district, acquired an
ascendancy over the minds of the ryotts, and ingratiated their affections."19
Members of the Committee of Circuit began their tour of the districts in Nadia
in June 1772. They invited written bids. However, the bids they received lacked
uniformity and comparability and officials quickly resorted, contrary to their
original intent, to a public auction.20 In this, the first public auction of 1772, Raja
Krishnachandra of Nadia presented a bid to farm the whole district. The raja's
offer was rejected on the stated grounds that the raja had a "subtle and faithless
character" and that more revenue could be obtained by breaking the zamindari
up into pargana-sized lots. Accordingly, Nadia was settled with new farmers.
The Committee of Circuit next proceeded to Qasimbazar to settle the Ra-
jshahi zamindari, the largest in Bengal. The Committee had a better opinion of
Rani Bhawani's "substance, credit and character," and they found the means to
avoid bringing the rani into competition with rival bidders in a public auction.
They accepted written bids and persuaded the rani to agree to their plan to divide
the western section of the zamindari into fourteen under-farms, with the agree-
ments with the under-faimers serving as her collateral security. When bids were
invited for the eastern section, no one bid against the rani. Thus Rani Bhawani
farmed the whole of her zamindari.21 By 1774, she had large arrears. She was
dispossessed and the zamindari was settled with another farmer.
In Hughli, the bids of small taluqdars and large revenue farmers were
accepted. Birbhum, Bishnupur, and most of Midnapur were leased to new
farmers, not the zamindars. Most of Burdwan, which will be discussed below,
had also been let to farmers in 1771. Thus, the five-year settlements began with
Rani Bhawani as the only major zamindar in western Bengal in charge of her
zamindari. The other zamindars were provided for, however, by grants of
moshaira.
Between 1772 and 1775, many farmers failed to fulfill their agreements with
government. Some negotiated reductions or postponements in the revenue
demand but most defaulters were dispossessed and their lands were advertised
for new bids. When lands were re-let, zamindars were tempted to try to regain
their lands. The rajas of Nadia and Bishnupur are examples. After the Nadia
farmers defaulted and failed to find new securities whose credit the Collector

19
Ibid., p. 424. Also Dodwell (ed.), Cambridge History of India, vol. V. p. 417.
20
Letter to Court, 3 Nov. 1772, pp. 421-22.
21
Ibid., pp. 424-25.
 Revenue farming, 1771-1777 215

considered reliable, Raja Krishnachandra negotiated in 1773 to take over Nadia

in the name of his son, Shivachandra.22 The raja and his son had many debts
and they were unable to collect the Nadia revenues to which they had agreed.
In May 1777, Philip Francis visited the aged Raja Krishnachandra in "an
immense Palace in ruins" and found him "lodged in one Corner of it, in a State
of Beggary and Misery, not to be believed."23 However, Raja Krishnachandra
was unsurpassed in Bengal in social status and reputation for patronage of
learning, and the Company gradually lowered its demands until 1778, rather
than dispossess the family.24
Company servants were solicitous of the welfare, although cynical about the
managerial capacities, of the most powerful raj families, such as Nadia, Ra-
jshahi, and Burdwan. The collapse and alienation of the largest zamindars might
have endangered the revenue collections and possibly led to serious distur-
bances. The arrest or financial embarrassment of smaller zamindars was of less
concern. The ancient zamindari of Bishnupur was an example of a troubled
estate that the Company failed to protect. Before the 1760s, Bishnupur resem-
bled a tribute-paying, autonomous chiefdom more than a revenue-paying
zamindari. Company efforts to bring its revenue payments up to the standard of
zamindari lands began in the late 1760s, while Bishnupur was still under the
diwan, with the introduction of both khas management and the "outcry" system.
The Bishnupur raj family was poorly prepared to survive the transition. Burd-
wan's expansion, the Maratha invasions, and the religious absorption of mem-
bers of the raj family weakened the family. On top of these misfortunes, Raja
Damodar Singh engaged from about 1756 in a bitter, debilitating struggle with
his first cousin, Raja Chaitanya Singh, to gain control over Bishnupur and
recognition as zamindar in succession to their late grandfather, Raja Gopal
Singh, whose own two sons were insane. In 1759-60, Damodar seized the
zamindari by military force, with the help of Nawab Mir Jafar. Chaitanya fled
to Calcutta and argued for years that Bishnupur belonged to him because the
Bishnupur rajas traditionally followed rules of primogeniture. Finally in 1765-
66 the Sadr Diwani Adalat upheld his claim to undivided possession and Robert
Clive sent sepoys to reinstate him as zamindar. But in 1770-71, the Company
reversed its decision and split the zamindari between the two cousins. 25
When Bishnupur was opened to bids in 1772, initially neither the two rajas
nor farmers made offers.26 The Company managed to find farmers four months

22
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 73.
23
Guha, Rule of Property, p. 121.
24
James Grant, "Historical and Comparative View," p. 374.
25
Robert Ireland, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 17 May 1798, BOR, Misc., Prog. 17 of 22 May 1798,
vol. 260. Also, Abhaya Pada Mallik, History of Bishnupur-Raj, pp. 55-59.
26
John Sumner, Bishnupur Col., to COR, 11 July 1772, Comptrolling COR Prog, of 1 Aug. 1772,
vol. 3.
216 Burdwan

into the revenue year but during the next two years these farmers forfeited their
ijaras. Company letters from Bishnupur in 1772 and 1773, as from many parts
of Bengal, referred repeatedly to the farmers' oppressions, deserting raiyats,
raids by dakaits, and farmers' defaults. Finally, in 1774, the defaulting farmers
were dispossessed and the rival rajas entered into an agreement with the
Company for the remaining three years of the settlement.27 Bishnupur continued
in a disturbed state, with the rajas' private debts and revenue arrears growing
and the raj family in a state of genuine poverty.28 Raja Chaitanya spent most of
1115-16 in jail because of his debts.29 It seems likely that it was the family
rivalry and fear of each other that had induced the cousins to take the farm in
1774 when they would have been wiser to wait for expiration of the five-year
settlement.
The Burdwan zamindari emerged from the five-year settlement in a healthier
state than Bishnupur. When Burdwan was settled in 1771, a year earlier than
the rest of Bengal, the Company farmed most of the zamindari to new contrac-
tors, not to the Burdwan raja. Raja Tilakchandra had died in May 1770. His
widow, Rani Bishnukumari, was young and not knowledgeable about revenue
matters while her son was only a child. In these circumstances, both Company
officers and the rani's employees apparently considered it prudent, for different
reasons, for the family to relinquish partial control after three years in charge.
In April 1771 the Committee of Revenue ordered Charles Stuart, the Resident
of Burdwan, to settle with the same farmers who had held under the Burdwan
raj in the preceding three years. Thus, when Stuart and the experienced Com-
pany diwan of Burdwan, Bhawani Charan Mitra, leased out the zamindari, they
made relatively few changes in the mofussil management. As in other districts
farmed the following year, the major Burdwan contractors consisted of the
zamindar and his relatives, the Company diwan's relatives, banians of Company
servants, local district gentry, and Calcutta magnates. Altogether, Burdwan was
leased in roughly eighty lots.30 Fifteen lots had a jama of over Rs. 1 lakh each
and paid over half of Burdwan's revenue. Among the farms taken by residents
of Burdwan district, the largest by far belonged to the Burdwan raj family, in
the name of various Burdwan ranis, including the widows of Raja Chitrasen (d.
1744) and the mother and widows of Raja Tilakchandra. The family farm was
dispersed through the district and had a jama of Rs. 5.43 lakhs. Since this farm

27
Extract of Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 28 July 1774, BOR Prog, of 2 Aug. 1774, vol. 13, pt. I.
28
Burdwan PCOR prog, of 15 Dec. 1775, vol. 11.
29
Burdwan PCOR prog, of 31 May 1776, vol. 14.
30
The details of the 1771 Burdwan settlement are taken from two sources, the first of which is
partially illegible. The first is Statement of the Burdwan Settlement, 1178-1182, BOR Prog,
of 16 April 1773, vol. 4, part II. The second is Account Kistbundee of the Burdwan Province,
1180, BOR Prog, of 12 Nov. 1773, vol. 8, pt. I.
 Revenue farming, 1771-1777 217

was probably under-rated and the young raja, Tejchandra, had a moshaira of
Rs. 2.4 lakhs annually, the family was well provided for.
Bhawani Charan Mitra, the Company's diwan in Burdwan who was some-
times referred to as John Graham's banian, was the second largest resident
farmer, as well as the most powerful Indian in the district. As Company diwan
during and after the 1770 famine, he had succeeded in collecting the govern-
ment's full demand from the residents of the zamindari. When John Graham
joined the Committee of Circuit to settle the diwani territories in 1772, Bhawani
Mitra accompanied him and negotiated with revenue farmers on behalf of the
Committee, to his own private profit and presumably to Graham's as well.31 In
the following year, Bhawani was reappointed diwan in Burdwan. Although
Company regulations forbade its diwans from farming, his sons and dependents
took a number of leases in 1771, including pargana Balia, near Calcutta, rated
at Rs. 1.8 lakhs, in which his native village of Baksa was located. One of the
reasons most Burdwan farms were leased to Burdwan inhabitants may have
been that Bhawani Mitra was native to the zamindari and favored local people.
Although most of Burdwan's substantial farmers were natives of the district,
roughly a quarter of the jama (Rs. 12.8 lakhs) was farmed to Calcutta residents.
This was a substantially smaller proportion than in Birbhum, most of whose
farmers lived in Calcutta,32 in Midnapur, where forty-two of fifty-seven parga-
nas were leased to Krishnakanta Nandi, banian to Warren Hastings, or in Purnia,
held by the bankers Hazari Mai and Madan Datta.33 Calcutta farmers leased a
major part of southeastern Burdwan district. Shyam Chatterji farmed the huge
salt-producing pargana Mandalghat, with 563 villages in the extreme southeast-
ern corner of the zamindari. Relatives or connections of Sobharam Basak, a
wealthy Calcutta merchant, leased Bhursut and two other farms for Rs. 2.6
lakhs.
The single largest farmer in Burdwan was Gokhalchandra Ghosal, a Kulin
Brahmin banian from Calcutta. Both the size of his holdings and the special
treatment accorded him by the Company illustrate the ascendancy in land
management of the men who worked for the Company's servants in both public
and private capacities. Gokhal Ghosal had been banian to Harry Verelst when
the latter went to Chittagong after it was ceded to the Company in 1760 to make
the land revenue settlement. While Gokhal was working on that settlement in
his own house in Chittagong, his house burned down and with it all the district's
land records.34 After Verelst was assigned to Burdwan and then made Governor

31
Extract of Bengal Rev. Consult., 1 April 1775, Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, p. 836. Also,
examination of Bhawani Charan Mitra, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 26 Oct. 1775, vol. 10.
32
Alexander Higginson, Birbhum, to COR, 29 March 1774, BOR Prog, of 8 April 1774, vol. 10,
pt- II.
33
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, pp. 70 and 75.
34
Ramsbotham, Studies, pp. 184-85.
218 Burdwan
in 1765, Gokhal was given important revenue positions, including settlement
work in the Twenty-four Parganas. At the same time, he built up a number of
commercial enterprises, including money-lending, cloth manufacture and trade,
and salt contracting. Some of his business interests were in Burdwan town and
in the weaving center of Radhanagar near Chandrakona.
When Verelst had made the 1765 settlement of Burdwan, he could not find
anyone to farm some "declining" Burdwan lots. So after six months of receiving
no acceptable offers, Verelst turned to Gokhal and offered him an unusual
permanent lease for a giant farm which came to be known as taraf Polospoy. Its
1,007 villages were scattered through eighteen parganas mostly to the southeast
of Burdwan town, and were assessed at Rs. 4.1 lakhs.35 Similarly, in 1768,
Gokhal was induced to take over the management for three years of two more
decaying parganas, Burdwan and Chandrakona, for a jama of almost Rs. 2.5
lakhs.36 The trade of both Burdwan town and the cotton- and silk-manufacturing
area in Chandrakona had been damaged by the wars in north India and by the
Company's duties and monopolistic practices after 1757. Pathan and other
northern traders who formerly visited Burdwan district to buy salt and textiles
had stopped coming and Burdwan's trade with the northwest had dwindled.37
Gokhal apparently agreed to take on the management of parganas Burdwan and
Chandrakona both as a means of pursuing his commercial interests38 and as a
favor to his patrons in the Company service. Company officials granted him the
privilege of paying his Burdwan revenues by bills drawn on Calcutta bankers
instead of cash to the Burdwan kachari.
By the late 1760s, Gokhal was in substantial arrears although this did not
show up in the Burdwan accounts because his balances were recorded sepa-
rately. In May 1771, his balances had grown to Rs. 7.3 lakhs. But the Company
was indulgent because of the decayed state of his farms, his "indefatigable care
& attention" in increasing the collections in the Twenty-four Parganas, and the
Company's failure to fulfill its Rs. 6 lakh salt contract with him. 39 In the 1771
settlement, the Company intended to let Burdwan and Chandrakona to new
farmers but officials could find no other renters so they were re-let to Gokhal

35
Ghosal later described the lease as "a grant of Indulgence" from Raja Tilakchandra which
suggests the raja may have consented to the permanent surrender of part of his zamindari. John
Bathoe, Burdwan Col., to COR, 12 July 1773, BOR Prog, of 16 July 1773, vol. 6.
36
Claud Russell, Col. General, to COR, 15 March 1771, C o m p e l l i n g COR Prog, of 30 May 1771,
vol. 1. Also, Burdwan PCOR to COR, 11 Aug. 1778, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 11 Aug. 1778,
vol. 26.
37
John Bathoe, Burdwan Col., to COR, 7 Sept. 1773, BOR Prog, of 14 Sept. 1773, vol. 7, pt. I.
38
Gokhal said he farmed pargana Burdwan "'To retain an influence in the Purgunnah which might'
assist him in adjustment of his former mercantile 'Engagements therein.'" John Bathoe,
Burdwan Col., to COR, 7 Sept. 1773, BOR Prog, of 14 Sept. 1773, vol. 7, pt. I.
39
Claud Russell to COR, 15 March 1771.
 Revenue farming, 1771-1777 219

Ghosal.40 The reluctance to dispossess Gokhal and perhaps force him into
bankruptcy was no doubt related to the extensive financial dealings Company
servants had with him: four years after he died, forty-eight Europeans still owed
money to his estate.41 His reputation for generosity may also have protected
him. He was said to have daily fed 1,800 persons.42 Gokhal Ghosal was a typical
phenomenon of early Company rule. He accumulated a fortune through his
administrative and commercial services to Company employees, entered inde-
pendent commercial activities of his own, and diversified his investments into
land management. In the process, he took his place beside the larger zamindars
as a wealthy dispenser of charity and patronage. He not only held Burdwan lands
with a higher assessment than the raj family itself, he managed Burdwan
pargana around the family's chief residence at the heart of the zamindari.
During the five-year settlement, the Burdwan zamindari officers nominally
exercised a certain joint authority with the Company. The young Tejchandra
and his officers held an annual puniya attended by the farmers; zamindari courts
decided disputes between inhabitants of the district; zamindari seals were used
to authenticate the Company's orders to the farmers; zamindari paiks (militia)
escorted the farmers' kists (monthly payments) to the Burdwan kachari. In
reality, the Burdwan raj family had virtually no formal power outside its own
farms because the Company appointed Braja Kishor Roy as zamindari diwan
against the will of Rani Bishnukumari and he followed the Company's orders.
The rani's steadfast opposition to Braja led the Company in 1772 to deprive her
of even symbolic authority by taking from her both her son, Raja Tejchandra,
and her zamindari seals. From May 1772 until 1775, the rani lived at Kalna,
formally excluded from the district's management and isolated from her son
and the zamindari officers.43
With Bhawani Mitra as Company diwan and Braja Kishor Roy as zamindari
diwan, both their dependents and Company patrons profited. British supervision
of Company diwans in this period was loose. When under-tenants complained
of unfair or oppressive treatment by the farmers, Bhawani Mitra referred the
complaints to the farmers and did not send amins to investigate.44 Judging from
evidence from Hughli, Company diwans rarely gave written orders and were
not required to keep their British superiors informed about the use of corporal
punishment and imprisonment on small farmers.45 In Burdwan, Braja Kishor

40
John Bathoe, Burdwan Col., to COR, 7 Sept. 1773.
41
Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, p. 44.
42
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 223.
43
See the following chapter.
44
Mathew Dawson's Minute, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 8 Jan. 1776, vol. 12.
45
Testimony of Peter Moore, former Secretary to Calcutta COR, in Rada Caunt Gose v. Gunga
GovindSing andlabarry, Prog, of the Commissioner of Law Suits, 1 Nov. 1778-15 Feb. 1779,
pp. 279 and 284-91.
220 Burdwan
Roy negotiated a contract for Raja Tejchandra to supply over Rs. 1 lakh worth
of salt to the Company annually but the actual contractor seems to have been a
British Company servant.46 Bhawani and Braja also diverted many lakhs of
rupees from the zamindari treasury to Europeans47 and in at least one case leased
& farm benami (under a false name) to a Company servant.48 When the Company
re-let two farms in arrears, Bhawani leased them to his sons. He also gave to
his son over one tenth of the Rs. 3 lakhs in remissions approved by the Company
due to a poor harvest in 1773.49
During the five-year life of the 1771 settlement, most Burdwan farmers had
difficulty fulfilling the terms of their contracts. By the summer of 1773, many
farmers were in deep trouble. The government again indulged Gokhal Ghosal
and granted temporary remissions of Rs. 3 lakhs to some farmers. But in August
1773, it took away thirteen of the eighty-two Burdwan farms from people in
arrears and re-let them at public auction at a loss to the Company of Rs. 4.5
lakhs over the final three years of the settlement.50 In September 1773, Burdwan
was inundated by floods for the third time in two years. Forty-one farmers
petitioned the government for an investigation and relief from their revenue
obligations. They said that villagers had been forced to find safety on the roofs
of their huts and in trees and that in places half the people and cattle had died.
They reminded the Company that their motive for holding farms was not
necessarily to earn a profit - some made money and some lost money annually -
but rather "to Support us in Credit with the World." They concluded "when we
reflect on the miserable state of this Country we are bereft of Reason, and our
Thoughts are now Expressed amidst the confusion of our minds."51
During the final two years of the five-years settlement, the Burdwan farmers
stepped up their pleas for help. In February 1776, the Burdwan Council reported
that "many" farmers had asked to relinquish their farms, that raiyats, especially
in the northern parganas, had deserted, and that the credit of many farmers had
been destroyed in March 1775 when the Company dismissed Braja Kishor Roy,
the zamindari diwan. Braja had been security for four large farms as well as for
a number of smaller ones. The Burdwan Council summoned farmers in arrears
and warned them it would use "the most rigid severity" to collect the arrears.52
Most farmers faced higher obligations in the last two years because of earlier

46
Examination of Bhawani Charan Mitra, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 26 Oct. 1775, vol. 10.
47
Extract of Rev. Consult., 10 March 1775. Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, pp. 746-47 and
763.
48
Mr. Fleetwood held Shergarh benami. Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 19 July 1775, vol. 9.
49
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 26 Oct. 1775, vol. 10.
50
John Bathoe, Burdwan Col., to COR, 1 and 22 Aug. 1773, BOR Progs, of 6 and 24 Aug. 1773,
vol. 7, pt. I.
51
Petition from Burdwan farmers, BOR Prog, of 10 Dec. 1773, vol. 8, pt. II.
52
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 6 Feb. 1776, vol. 6.
 Revenue farming, 1771-1777 221

temporary remissions, the annual increments built into the original 1771 settle-
ment, and the advances the Company made for taqavi (government loans for
cultivation) and pulbandi (repair of river embankments). The government had
authorized loans of Rs. 4.4 lakhs to farmers, mostly in the southeastern sections
of the zamindari, for restoring the embankments after they were damaged by
the floods.53 Traditionally, the Burdwan zamindar, not the under-renters, had
been responsible for such repairs54 and the farmers were either unable or
unwilling to pay back these advances.
Company officials responded to the farmers' pleas of over-assessment and
insolvency with a new rigor. They tightened control over their Indian subordi-
nates and sent amins into the mofussil to investigate both the raiyats' complaints
of oppression against the farmers and the farmers' misappropriation of the
pulbandi advances.55 By March 1776, just before the five-year settlement was
to expire, thirty of Burdwan's farms were in arrears and at least ten farmers were
confined.56 Because the Company had decided to return the management of
Burdwan to the zamindar, it no longer was willing to listen to excuses or requests
for remissions from the lease-holders.
The five-year settlements in Burdwan and in the rest of Bengal failed to fulfill
the Company's revenue expectations. The Company had expected an annual
increase in land revenue because the 1772 settlement agreements included
progressive increases in the demand. However, as farmers defaulted and as the
Company resettled the land with new farmers, it lowered the demand where it
considered the demand excessive so that the demand actually declined in each
of the last three years of the settlement. Even so, collections fell substantially
short of the revised demand.57 Altogether, by 1780, the Company had collected
Rs. 13.58 krors, or almost 88 percent of the original gross five-year settlement
ofRs. 15.44 krors.58
The five-year experiment also failed to secure property rights. Few village-
level people received pattas or were protected by the new civil courts. Nor did
the "outcry" system develop a free market for land as Company servants had
anticipated. The market for revenue farms showed little elasticity because there
were few people with the financial credit, local authority, and local knowledge
available to bid for the land. As the 111\-71 experience indicated, the govern-
ment's demand was so high that farmers had little profit margin with which to

53
Account Poolbundy for Burdwan, 1772-73 to Ml5-16, App. to Burdwan PCQR Prog, of 5
Aug. 1776, vol. 16.
54
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 14.
55
Mathew Dawson's remarks, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 8 Jan. 1776. vol. 12.
56
List of Burdwan farmers' arrears, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 12 March 1776, vol. 13.
57
Abstract of Remissions and Balances, 18 July 1777, Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, pp. 864-65.
58
Abstract, 28 Nov. 1780, ibid., pp. 868-69.
222 Burdwan
absorb consecutive seasonal misfortunes. Moreover, the "outcry" system was
far from free as British and Indian Company employees often granted leases to
land for political and personal motives. A sizeable fraction of Bengali farmers
obtained their leases through bribes and presents to Company employees and
their banians. While many received favorable terms through these payments,
the cost of bribes and presents cut into profit margins. John Graham, who
probably made more money in Burdwan than any other civil servant, had a
fortune worth an estimated £ 95,000 or Rs. 9.5 lakhs when he left India in
1774.59 His successor at Burdwan, Charles Stuart, also received sizeable "pre-
sents."60 Rani Bishnukumari accused the Company-appointed zamindari offi-
cers of making illicit payments of over Rs. 3 lakhs to other British officials.61
The British practices of taking bribes or presents, permitting their banians to
lease farms, and lending money to zamindars were almost universal in this
period.62 The financial failures of the farming system and the arrival of new
members of the Governor's Council meant that in 1777 the Company would
turn to the zamindars to collect the revenue.

59
Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, p. 244.
60
Ibid., p. 195.
61
John Smith's report, 10 Dec. 1776, Ninth Report on Justice, 1783, App. IIIA, p. 382.
62
Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, pp. 190ff.
12 Zamindari family politics:
the Burdwan raj, 1770-1775

The death of Raja Tilakchandra in May 1770 left the Burdwan raj family without
an authoritative leader, without a person commanding respect from both major
factions within the Burdwan raj who was capable of protecting the family's
assets and settling the family's internal disputes. That the bulk of the zamindari
was farmed out to ijaradars from 1771 to 1776 may have minimized the damage
that the zamindari amla could inflict during the period when the inexperienced
young widow, Rani Bishnukumari, was titular head of the family. Yet from
1770 until her death in 1798, controversies swirled around her, one drama
followed another. These controversies afford a view into common problems of
zamindari family politics in Bengal. This and the following chapter trace the
disputes, largely unconnected to revenue matters, that deeply disrupted the lives
of Rani Bishnukumari and her young son, Raja Tejchandra.
From the beginning of British administration in Bengal, Company officials
tended to act as if zamindars were public servants rather than hereditary lords
of privately owned land. If more efficient agents of revenue collection could be
found, the zamindars were set aside on handsome stipends. Yet officials
recognized that zamindars possessed a genuine authority over the people of their
territories as well as hereditary privileges. So even when revenue farmers and
other temporary agents were vested with collection rights, the Company em-
ployed zamindari officers, zamindari seals and signatures, and the zamindari
puniya ceremonies to buttress the Company's authority. When a zamindar died,
the Company assisted his successor in gaining a sanad from the Mughal emperor
confirming his titles. The Company implicitly recognized that zamindars were
something more than public servants who sometimes collected revenue.
Zamindars possessed status, privileges, and immunities quite independent of
whether they controlled the collections.
Because zamindars embodied useful authority, received stipends from the
public revenues, and might be employed in future collection duties, the Com-
pany felt justified in interfering in the internal family affairs of the larger
zamindars. If officials believed that the heir to a zamindari was not receiving a
proper education or that a zamindar's stipend and other income were being em-
bezzled by zamindari officers, the Company sometimes intervened. Similarly,
223
224 Burdwan

if a succession was disputed, the Company moved to settle the conflict when it
threatened the public revenues. However, decisions to interfere in the internal
management or family disputes of major zamindars were usually influenced by
considerations unconnected to the security of public resources. Fortunes were
at stake in the decisions about which member of a family should receive charge
of zamindari treasuries and patronage. Zamindari family members and employ-
ees were willing to pay to shape Company decisions. And Company employees
were willing to receive "presents" for exercising their influence.
Factions within zamindari families offered avenues of opportunity for both
Company servants and zamindari amla. Factions were likely to form when new
people entered a raj family. Adoption of a male heir was one way outsiders were
brought into some families. Many marriages failed to produce children, making
adoption necessary. Multiple marriages were even more common. Zamindars
took new brides to increase the likelihood of the birth of a male heir, to
incorporate new allies, or to obtain younger sexual partners. Probably no older
rani welcomed a new rival for her raja's affection, not least of all because the
younger rani brought a fresh set of relatives into the extended family to compete
for zamindari lands, patronage, and other resources. When a young rani pro-
duced an heir after the older ones had failed, the sense of displacement was even
greater. Younger ranis usually outlived their husbands. When a widowed rani
was the mother of the designated heir, typically she experienced conflicting
pressures from zamindari amla who hoped to ingratiate themselves with the
young raja and from Company servants who sought to provide for his education
to manage the public revenues. A widowed rani so placed, restricted in her social
contacts and perhaps isolated from her natal family, sometimes reacted by trying
to keep her son close to her, by impeding his associations and education. And
when she was also placed in charge of the zamindari during her son's minority,
she found that her lack of managerial experience and enforced seclusion
inhibited her ability to prevent the chief zamindari officers from making
collusive rental arrangements or embezzling the zamindari's income. Alto-
gether, the minority of father-less zamindari heirs was a precarious time for raj
families.
During the 1770s and 1780s, Company officials developed an aversion to
permitting widowed ranis to manage zamindaris for their minor sons. District
officials expected to advise and converse with zamindars, but claimed that the
seclusion of high-status women impaired their supervision. Henry Vansittart
and Edward Baber, in their combined thirty-two years in Bengal, said they had
never seen "the Wife, or Women, of any Man of Rank." James Rennell, in his
thirteen years of residence, saw only one - on the way to burn herself on her
husband's funeral pyre. Rennell illustrated the depth of Bengali feeling about
female seclusion with two anecdotes. In the first, a government officer trying
to measure a Hindu's house "broke open the Door of the Zenana or Women's
 Burdwan family politics, 1770-1775 225

Apartment, upon which the Master of the House immediately destroyed himself
by cutting his Throat." In the other, a Hindu's house caught fire. "The Master
of the House, rather than expose the Women to the View of the Multitude, thrust
them into an inner Apartment, and was there burnt to Death with them."1
John Shore suggested in 1789 that female zamindars should not be permitted to
manage revenue collections. Many Company servants would have agreed with his
reasons. He argued that women in Bengal were "secluded" from the company of
unrelated males other than family priests, they were not educated in zamindari
management, and therefore they became "passive instruments in the hands of their
servants" who in many cases subverted the zamindari's and Company's interests.
Since Company servants could not converse with ranis, except on rare occasions
through a parda or curtain, they had few means of learning about their capacity for
administration or even if the ranis received Company communications or were the
source of orders issued in their names.2
These negative opinions about the capacity of female zamindars were shaped
by the Company's experience with widowed ranis in Rajshahi, Dinajpur,
Birbhum, and Burdwan. The Rajshahi, Dinajpur, and Birbhum cases deserve
brief discussion, before coming to the more famous and complex saga of the
rani of Burdwan.
The Rajshahi case, like the Burdwan one, exemplified the tendency of
zamindari factions to exploit the political divisions in the capital. A change in
the composition of the Governor General's Council in both cases shifted
zamindari management from one faction to another, and with that shift major
resources were exchanged.
Rajshahi (Nator) was geographically the largest zamindari in Bengal. When
the Company took over the administration of Rajshahi in 1772, the zamindar
was Rani Bhawani whose husband had died in 1748, fifty-eight years before
her death. In the 1772 settlement, Rani Bhawani took the zamindari in farm and
informed the Company she wanted her own adopted son and zamindari man-
ager, Ramakrishna, to succeed her.3 Another branch of the family favored the
claims of Gauriprasad to succeed. Company officials came to doubt Rani
Bhawani's ability to control zamindari affairs during her management from
1772 to 1774. Edward Baber, who was on the Murshidabad Provincial Council
of Revenue which supervised Rajshahi, did not even see her place of residence
and believed that she had virtually no role in the zamindari's "public business"
and "never appeared in public."4 When she fell into arrears in 1774, Warren

1
Report on Petitions, 1781, pp. 38-39.
2
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, paras. 321-27.
3
PJ. Marshall, The Impeachment of Warren Hastings (London, 1965), p. 143.
4
Testimony of Edward Baber, Report on Petitions, 1781, p. 33.
226 Burdwan

Hastings and the Calcutta Council transferred the collections to a new revenue
farmer and "expressly excluded" Ramakrishna from succeeding his adoptive
mother. However, after Philip Francis and the new Councillors arrived in
October 1774, Ramakrishna petitioned the Council, claiming that Warren
Hastings' banian, Kantu Babu, and other servants of Company employees
had embezzled over Rs. 15 lakhs from the zamindari. The new majority on
the Council then returned the zamindari to Rani Bhawani and recognized
Ramakrishna's right to succeed.5 The subsequent "decline of the revenues" and
"confusion" in Rajshahi's affairs were attributed to the rani's incompetence.6
The Dinajpur example did not involve factions on the Calcutta Council, but
like Rajshahi and Burdwan, the period of a rani's management brought severe
conflict within the zamindari and between the widowed rani and the Company's
government. Raja Baidhanath of Dinajpur died in 1780 without a male heir. His
widow, Rani Saraswati, adopted a three-year-old, Radhanath, whom the Com-
pany recognized as successor to the zamindari. In 1781, the Committee of
Revenue tried to arrange for Raja Radhanath's education but the rani refused to
permit him to leave her apartments and for some years allegedly restricted
efforts to prepare him to manage the estate.7 The rani's brother managed the
zamindari until the Company dismissed him for arrears in 1786. He died in 1790
in Calcutta where he was imprisoned for debt. The governor appointed as new
diwan and as guardian to the young raja a relative of Radhanath's named
Ramkant Roy. In 1790, Rani Saraswati, who was no longer consulted on
zamindari affairs or permitted to look after her son, kidnapped Raja Radhanath
and hid him in her apartments. The Company seized the young raja and exiled
the rani from the zamindari headquarters. In 1792, Raja Radhanath, aged fifteen,
was given formal charge of the zamindari, with Ramkant Roy still serving as
diwan. In 1793, the raja charged Ramkant with "large scale embezzlement."
The government blocked an official investigation, forbade the raja to dismiss
his zamindari servants, and in 1794 put the estate under the new Court of Wards
on the grounds of the raja's managerial "incapacity." Raja Radhanath was
restored in 1795 but by 1799 all but a minute piece of the zamindari had
been sold for arrears. Ramkant Roy and other former amla were the major
purchasers.8
No zamindari was damaged more by succession problems and unfaithful
amla than Birbhum. At the time that Raja Asad-ul-Zaman died in 1778, the raja
was at odds with Rani Kaniz Fatima, his principal wife, and was living with a

5
Marshall, Impeachment, p. 144.
6
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 325.
7
Ibid., para. 348.
8
Islam, Permanent Settlement, pp. 93-118. Actually Raja Radhanath's wife repurchased about
10 per cent of the estate. Ibid., pp. 117-18.
 Burdwan family politics, 1770-1775 227

mistress. The widowed rani claimed the zamindari but the Company granted it,
following Islamic law and in the absence of male children, to Bahadur Zaman
Khan, a half-brother of Asad-ul-Zaman and son of a slave belonging to Asad's
mother. Bahadur Zaman Khan, according to the Board of Revenue, was "of an
indolent disposition, and much addicted to dissolute habits, but allowed his
officers to plunder the country uncontrolled."9 In the early 1780s, large arrears
occurred. In 1786, the Company suspended Bahadur and for two years made a
settlement with revenue farmers. The district was severely disturbed for the
balance of the decade due to the irregular settlements and preferential leases
which the zamindari amla had made with the mandals and other principal
raiyats. In contrast with Burdwan, the Birbhum raj family lacked a strong
intermediate gentry class supportive of its interest and capable of controlling
the rebellious mandals. Violent peasant combinations, murders, gang robberies,
and tribal raids from the western hills were common.10
Bahadur Zaman died in 1788 and left seven minor sons by different women.11
The family was deeply divided between adherents of Rani Kaniz Fatima, who
still aspired to obtain the zamindari, and of Bahadur Zaman Khan. In 1789,
Bahadur's widow claimed that in the absence of an effective family leader,
women in the zenanna were sneaking out through openings cut by the slaves to
"form improper connections" and intrigue against her.] 2 The Birbhum raj family
entered the Decennial Settlement with a divided family and a decayed estate
and were in no condition to reform the mofussil settlement so that they could
pay the inflexible demand of the 1790s. By 1801, the illiterate, drunken raja,
Muhammad Zaman Khan, retained a single pargana, Deogarh, with a jama of
Rs. 15,172,13 and was reduced to begging and borrowing "from the meanest
people of the district."14
The Burdwan zamindari was also buffeted by family divisions, amla faction-
alism, and dissension between major Company servants. When Maharaja
Tilakchandra died of a fever in May 1770, he was survived by two young
widows, the first of whom, Maharani Bishnukumari, was mother to his desig-
nated heir, five-year-old Tejchandra. The second widow, Rupkumari, had no
children. Bishnukumari, who was to outlive her husband by almost three
decades, had a brother, Bakhtar Singh who lived in Burdwan and sometimes
took revenue assignments. However, he seems to have been distant from her,

9
Board of Revenue remarks, BOR Prog. 60A of 7 June 1786, vol. 1 Also, petition of widow of
Asad-ul-Zaman, ibid.
10
Durgadas Majumdar, WDBG: Birbhum, pp. 113-15. Also, Gupta, Economic Life, pp. 43ff.
11
Petition of Muhammad Shuja-ul-Zaman Khan, BOR Prog. 96 of 31 March 1789, vol. 63.
12
Enclosure to Christopher Keating, Birbhum Col., to BOR 16 Nov. 1789, BOR Prog. 9 of 3 Dec.
1789, vol. 82.
13
Islam, Permanent Settlement, p. 130.
14
BOR Prog, of 3 July 1801, vol. 336.
228 Burdwan
and her son seems to have been her only other close relative in the district. 15 As
mother to the young raja, she aspired to manage the zamindari or at least to
choose the zamindari officers. Of particular concern was the control of the
household treasury into which the Company paid Tejchandra's annual stipend
of Rs. 2.4 lakhs while Burdwan was leased to ijaradars from 1771 to 1776. Also
of concern was the preservation of a large, profitable, scattered estate within the
zamindari. Known as the Amboa Dewry Mahals,16 it had been given at little or
no rent by the Burdwan zamindars, although it was assessed by government, to
the widows of the Burdwan rajas for their maintenance and religious obser-
vances. Traditionally, it was held by the most senior rani. In 1770, when Raja
Tilakchandra died, that rani was Tilakchandra's aged mother. However, Rani
Bishnukumari expected to obtain the management of the Dewry Mahals upon
the boro rani's death. Until then, she was dependent upon her son's allowance
and rental income and upon the men who managed the zamindari during
Tejchandra's minority.
Upon her husband's death in 1770, Rani Bishnukumari proposed to demand
the customary extra cess from the peasants to pay for Tilakchandra's shraddha
or funeral ceremonies but the Resident, John Graham, denied her permission to
do so. Company policy prohibited the levy of irregular taxes or imposts. Instead,
Graham personally loaned her money at a rate of interest that was moderate by
current standards.17
The Company sent condolences to young Tejchandra, invited him to prepare
an arzi or petition for the Company to forward to the Mughal emperor,
requesting a sanad in recognition of Tejchandra's inheritance of his father's
titles, and ordered John Graham to bestow a khilat or a robe of honor and an
elephant on Tejchandra in honor of his succession.18 In May 1771, when
Tejchandra received his father's titles from the emperor and the nawab of
Bengal, the Company gave the young raja an additional ceremonial dress, a
string of pearls, a sword worth Rs. 8,850, and an elephant. It conferred smaller
presents on the zamindari diwan and mutasaddis.19
Rani Bishnukumari was pleased by the British and Mughal recognition of
her son's inheritance but she also wanted control of the raja's household treasury

15
In 1774, she said Tejchandra was her only relation "with me." Rani's petition, BOR Prog, of
30 Dec. 1774, vol. 14.
16
"Amboa" was Ambika-Kalna, the estate's headquarters and the old rani's residence on the
Bhagirathi river. "Dewry" most likely was the British spelling of the Hindi word dohri which
means "service land, or lands granted rent-free by Zamindars to village servants, to poor
relatives, or religious mendicants." Wilson, Glossary, p. 146.
17
Rani's letter to GG, extract of Rev. Consult., 1 March 1775, and J. Graham to GG, extract of
Rev. Consult., 6 Jan. 1775, Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, pp. 738 and 744.
18
Prog, of 16 June 1770, Home Misc., vol. 201, p. 55.
19
Burdwan COR Prog, of 25 June 1771, ibid.
 Burdwan family politics, 1770-1775 229

and the symbolic functions of the zamindari while most of its lands were farmed
out to ijaradars. The Company, on the other hand, had appointed its diwan, Braja
Kishor Roy, to manage in her place. She therefore petitioned the Company to
appoint one of her late husband's relatives as diwan. She described Braja as
"my Enemy" and said it would be difficult to preserve her "honor and credit in
the Eyes of the Public and to reside at Burdwan in the circle of my Enemies." 20
The Company refused.
The right of the rani to select her own diwan, manage the household treasury,
and keep custody of her son, Tejchandra, became the subject of parliamentary
investigation and a source of major dispute, not only between the rani and the
Company but later between Warren Hastings and Philip Francis as well. Rani
Bishnukumari claimed in 1774 that before he died, Raja Tilakchandra had
appointed a Punjabi relative and former diwan, Lala Amirchandra, as "sole
administrator of his affairs and guardian to his son."21 However, the Company
instead chose Braja Kishor Roy as zamindari diwan. Braja came from a family
with two generations of revenue experience under the Burdwan raj. His father,
Ratni Sur, had been shiqdar (revenue collector) of his family's native pargana
of Bali, near Hughli. Braja had succeeded his elder brother as a naib (assistant)
to zamindari Diwan Amirchandra and then from 1768 to 1770 was acting diwan
under Amirchandra.22 Braja won the respect of a series of Company officials in
Burdwan in the late 1760s and early 1770s. Perhaps it was because of this that
after Tilakchandra's death in 1770, Rani Bishnukumari sent him to Calcutta to
obtain the Company's recognition of Tejchandra as the new zamindar. Braja
took Rs. 84,500 worth of the raj family's gold, jewels, and other valuables to
cover his expenses and to give presents to British "gentlemen."23 He returned
to Burdwan with the diwanship. He was given much of the credit for the
collection without arrears of the revenues payable at Burdwan in 1770-71,
despite the great losses of the famine.24 Apart from his willingness to give
presents to his Company patrons25 and his skills as an administrator, the
Company may have favored him because he was unrelated to the Burdwan
family and thus was detachable from the family's interest.

20
Rani's petition received 16 August 1771, Home Misc., vol. 203.
21
John Graham, Resident at Burdwan in 1770, in denying the rani's charges, claimed that Raja
Tilakchandra distrusted Lala Amirchandra and had dismissed him from office. J. Graham to
GG, 6 Jan. 1775. Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, p. 738.
22
Rani's petition, extract of Rev. Consult., 7 March 1775, ibid., p. 745.
23
Rani's petition, BOR Prog, of 30 Dec. 1774, vol. 14.
24
Charles Stuart, Burdwan Resident, to COR, 12 April 1771, Comptrolling COR Prog, of 23 April
1771, vol. 1.
25
A list of his presents before and after Tilakchandra's death appears in Abstract of accounts
prepared from Braja Kishor's papers, extract of Rev. Consult., 10 March 1775, Eleventh Report
on Justice, 1783, p. 750.
230 Burdwan
On the other hand, Braja gave little satisfaction to Rani Bishnukumari. In the
summer of 1771, she complained to the Governor and Council that Braja was
disrespectful to her and her son, that he refused to inform her of zamindari
affairs, and that he was embezzling the young raja's allowance and revenues
"whereby the Servants, Elephants, Horses are reduced to a starving Condi-
tion."26 In September 1771, she complained again, stating that at the puniya
Braja had "distributed Kelats to Servants and no Servants or to whoever he
pleased and is settling several Districts at an under value."27 The Governor
ordered Braja to Calcutta for a hearing, after which he was reconfirmed as
zamindari diwan.28
From 1768 through 1774, Braja wielded immense influence in Burdwan in
his consecutive positions as acting zamindari diwan, Company diwan, and
khansamani (household) diwan. Company servants consulted him about the
reliability of prospective ijaradars and the proper levels of their assessments.
Moreover, he received and disbursed sizeable sums of money while he super-
vised the zamindari treasury. Judging from an abstract of his own incomplete
accounts, almost Rs. 30 lakhs passed through his hands. Of this amount,
Rs. 16.1 lakhs was the Company's annual allowance to Raja Tejchandra while
the zamindari was leased to revenue farmers.29 Rani Bishnukumari thought that
she, not Braja, should administer those funds.
The Company not only refused the rani's request for control of the house-
hold treasury, in May 1772 the Council at Burdwan also decided to separate
Tejchandra from his mother and entrust his care and education to Braja and a
teacher named Ramkant Roy.30 To deprive a mother of the care and compan-
ionship of her seven-year-old son may seem an extraordinary act but it was
consistent with the tendency to treat zamindars as public servants whose
semi-governmental functions and obligations overrode their personal rights.
The Burdwan Council seems to have been motivated by several concerns. It
wished to provide Tejchandra with a sound education and apparently be-
lieved Bishnukumari's obstructionist attitudes were interfering with his
development. It suspected that the rani had engaged in sexually scandalous
behavior and perhaps it concluded that she had thereby forfeited her right to
raise her son. And the Council hoped "to discourage all the factions and
cabals that have so long disturbed the {Burdwan] province and the Rajah's

26
Press List, C O R Separate Prog., 2 July 1771.
27
Prog, of 4 Sept. 1771, Home Misc., vol. 203, p. 105.
28
Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, p. 733.
29
Abstract of Braja's accounts, extract of Rev. Consult., 10 March 1775, Eleventh Report on
Justice, 1783, p. 750.
30
This Ramkant Roy, who died in 1773, should not be confused with Ramkant Roy who became
Bishnukumari's manager and supposed lover in subsequent years.
 Burdwan family politics, 1770-1775 231

house." 31 What the Council did not say was that by shutting the rani and
ex-diwan Amirchandra, who was acting as her vakil, out of the family's
management, Braja would be better able to continue his payments from the
family treasury to various Company servants.32
The rani was distraught because of the loss of her son. When she later pressed
her case to the anti-Hastings majority on the Calcutta Council in 1774, she
claimed that not only had the Resident, Charles Stuart, taken her son but that
he also denied her food for a week to force her to surrender the raja's seals which
were used to signify the authenticity of zamindari documents and orders. 33
Braja's victory over the rani and Lala Amirchand seemed complete in May 1772.
He had control over the raja and the Burdwan raj treasury, which now received a
monthly stipend for the raja of Rs. 16,000. The rani was assigned the remaining
Rs. 4,000. Warren Hastings claimed that the rani kept up her efforts to recover her
son and to have Braja dismissed, offering "many" lakhs, but to no avail. 34
With the arrival of Philip Francis, General John Clavering, and Colonel
George Monson in October 1774, the rani had a majority on the Governor
General's Council willing to give a sympathetic hearing to her charges against
Braja and Company servants. In December 1774, she sent a letter to the Council
charging that Braja had been appointed against her will, that he had embezzled
jewels, gold, and money from the household treasury, and that Charles Stuart
and John Graham, the former Collector and a friend of Hastings, had taken her
son from her. She also wrote she suspected that her and her son's lives might
now be in danger from Braja, much as Jagat Rai's had been in 1702 when he
was murdered by a zamindari employee. She asked permission for Tejchandra
and her to come to Calcutta for their safety. She also repeated her request to
have Braja dismissed. 35
Hastings and Barwell opposed the rani's requests to visit Calcutta and replace
Braja, on the grounds that the reversal of prior decisions, which had been
discussed at length, might excite factions and interfere with the revenue collec-
tions. They also opposed the rani's recommendation that Lala Koshalchandra
and Rupnarayan Chaudhuri be appointed diwan and peshkar (head clerk),
respectively. Barwell charged that Koshalchandra was "a secret agent in pro-
moting [the rani's] forbidden pleasures" and that Rupnarayan was "a man of

31
Extract of Charles Stuart, Burdwan Resident, to Warren Hastings, 25 May 1772, Eleventh
Report on Justice, 1783, p. 799.
32
These payments are discussed below.
33
Rani's petitions, extracts of Rev. Consult., 30 Dec. 1774 and 14 Jan. 1775, Eleventh Report on
Justice, 1783, pp. 7 3 3 - 3 4 and 741.
34
Extract of Warren Hastings' letter to Court, 25 March 1775, Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783,
p. 799.
35
Rani of Burdwan's letter to Warren Hastings and Council, 27 Dec. 1774. Extract of Rev.
Consult., 30 Dec. 1774, Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, pp. 733-34.
232 Burdwan

infamous character." The majority, however, granted the rani's request to visit
Calcutta. They held that subjects of British government ought to enjoy a right
to travel and present complaints.36 They later castigated Barwell for his "gross
insinuation" about the rani's sexual behavior and added "we leave it to the
mercenary auxiliaries of [Siraj-ud-daula] to ruin individuals, to burn villages,
and violate the sacred retirements of the Zenanah."37
While in Calcutta, the rani and her son stayed in their Calcutta house. The
Calcutta Council asked the rani to prove her charges against Braja and John
Graham and they summoned Braja to Calcutta. In drawing up a list of embez-
zlements of which she accused Braja and Graham, the rani used accounts
supplied to her by Braja on the Council's orders. The Council sent Alexander
Elliot, Superintendent of the Khalsa or treasury office, to interview the rani in
her inner apartments about the list of alleged embezzlements she submitted.
Elliot and the rani were separated by a curtain, while a munshi (interpreter) read
the Persian accounts to the rani, who did not read Persian38 and was asked to
confirm that the charges were her own.
The accounts submitted by the rani stated that Braja had dispersed Rs. 9.36
lakhs from the zamindari household treasury to twelve Europeans, including
Warren Hastings, and their banians under the denomination of "durbar ex-
penses." John Graham and his successor at Burdwan, Charles Stuart, with their
banians were shown to have received Rs. 6.4 lakhs while the "Gentlemen of the
Council" in Calcutta received Rs. 1.5 lakhs.39 Since Braja's own accounts
confirmed many of the disbursements alleged by the rani, there is little reason
to doubt that Braja participated in sizeable embezzlements. In what proportions
Braja and Company servants with their banians benefited was a different matter
which could not be proved because receipts were not produced and few
Company employees were questioned.40 Stuart had already left India and
Graham was permitted to leave after the allegations were made but before the
Council's discussion of embezzlements began.
What might Braja have obtained in return for the payments he said he made
to Graham, Stuart, and other high-placed Company servants, apart from the
continuation of his own appointment as the chief Indian officer in the district?
Braja described some of the payments as "the custom of the country." Thus,
when John Graham arrived in Burdwan as Resident, Braja said he asked his
assistant to pay Graham Rs. 15,000 "as a compliment." This would have shown

36
Extract of Rev. Consult., 30 Dec. 1774, ibid., p. 734-35.
37
Extract of Minute by Clavering, Monson, and Francis, 11 Jan. 1775, ibid., p. 797.
38
Extract of Rev. Consult., 11 March 1775, ibid., pp. 751-52.
39
John Smith's Report of 10 Dec. 1776, Ninth Report on Justice, 1783, p. 382.
40
The total of the embezzlements charged to Braja exceeded Rs. 11 lakhs. The details appear in
Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, pp. 762-93.
 Burdwan family politics, 1770-1775 233

his good will towards and respect for Graham in a manner that was virtually
universal in Bengal in the early 1770s. Braja also alleged that British
officials demanded payments upon the raja's succession and in order to
prevent a reduction in the raja's stipend. 41 He may also have paid to obtain
adjustments of government's revenue demands and to secure ijaradar leases for
his dependents.
In any case, in 1775 Rani Bishnukumari triumphed. The anti-Hastings
majority on the Calcutta Council agreed to restore Raja Tejchandra to his mother
and to approve the rani's choice of her zamindari officers. The rani may have
secured her victory with presents. George Vansittart informed Hastings that the
rani had agreed to pay Rs. 2 lakhs to Francis, Clavering, and Monson and
another Rs. 65,000 to Joseph Fowke, Nandakumar, and Radhacharan Roy
(Nandakumar's son-in-law). 42 The majority also voted to honor the rani, the
raja, and their officers. The raja appeared before the Board of Revenue at Fort
William and received robes, jewels, and an elephant. The Secretary of the Board
went to the rani's Calcutta house and presented her and Tejchandra with khilats
and an elephant and gave lesser presents to her officers. This was a demonstra-
tion that Lala Koshalchandra and Rupnarayan Chaudhuri, as diwan and naib
diwan, respectively, were superseding Braja and taking charge of the raja's
education. 43 Warren Hastings opposed the majority's decision to conduct these
ceremonies, saying that he would not help the majority celebrate "a Triumph
over myself."44 The decision came four days after Nandakumar charged Hast-
ings before the Council with receiving a large bribe from Munni Begum, widow
of Nazim Mir Jafar. Hastings claimed that the rani of Burdwan and Rupnarayan
Chaudhuri were "instruments" in the majority's continuing efforts to discredit
him. 45 Rupnarayan soon after testified in favor of Nandakumar in the latter's
forgery trial. But that was not the only qualification that might have recom-
mended him to the anti-Hastings majority. Rupnarayan was the son of Rajaram
Chaudhuri of Baksa (now in Hughli district) who had been diwan of the
Burdwan raj earlier in the century. Rupnarayan also had held high office under
the raj and defeated a Maratha contingent in Mandalghat pargana.46 When the
wealthy Calcutta banians, Hazari Mai and Madan Datta, farmed Purnia in 1772,
Rupnarayan and another man acted as their agents. 47 He was an able, experi-
enced revenue manager. Nevertheless, it was clear that the majority and the

41
Smith's Report, p. 382.
42
Somendra Chandra Nandy, Life and Times ofCantoo Baboo (Krisna Kanta Nandy), The Banian
of Warren Hastings, vol. II (Calcutta, 1981), p. 38.
43
Extract of Rev. Consult., 17 March 1775, Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, p. 760.
44
COR Prog, of 14 March 1775, Bengal Rev. Consult., P/49/51.
45
Extract of Secret Consult., 13 March 1775, Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, p. 702.
46
A.K. Banerji, WBDG: Hooghly, p. 697.
47
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 75.
234 Burdwan

minority on the Governor General's Council were using Burdwan factions to

fight their feuds.
Rani Bishnukumari was in easier circumstances, now that officers of her own
selection managed the family's affairs and now that she controlled her son's
allowance from the Company. Her fortunes were improving in other ways.
Revenue farming was discredited. Sentiment among Company servants was
swinging towards a zamindari settlement on the expiration of the five-year
leases. With Philip Francis and the majority sympathetic to her family and to
zamindars in general, the rani and her managers must have known that they
were likely to recover the zamindari when the Burdwan leases were to expire
in April 1776. The rani gratefully wrote to Hastings and the Council that their
favor
to me and my family will ... be fully repaid to the Company in the Revenues ... the
antiquity of my house will always operate to the Company's advantage, by the influence
it will have in establishing that authority over the Ryotts necessary in the collections,
and in securing that obedience which will be cheerfully yielded to a family who has so
many years presided over them.48

48
Rani to GG, 11 March 1775, extract of Rev. Consult., 11 March 1775, Eleventh Report on*
Justice, 1783, p. 751.
13 The politics of Burdwan family debt
and marriages, 1775-1778

Rani Bishnukumari's triumph over Braja, Warren Hastings, and her other
enemies in 1775 must have warmed her heart. The quasi-public reunion with
her son in the Company's own capital and her installation as head of the family's
affairs had to be especially gratifying. By bringing the Burdwan presents to
Company servants to the attention of the Council majority, the Court of
Directors, and ultimately Parliament, she had reduced the likelihood that she
and other zamindars would be squeezed in the future. The prospects for her and
the zamindars seemed to be improving in other ways. Sentiment among both
the majority and the minority on the Governor General's Council was moving
away from short-term settlements with revenue farmers towards settlements of
long duration with zamindars. In April 1775, Warren Hastings and Richard
Barwell proposed that settlements should be made for one or two life-times.
The following January, Philip Francis advocated a permanent settlement.l Some
Company servants also favored a reduction in the revenue demand in depopu-
lated districts.
Nevertheless, formidable dangers for the rani lay ahead. Those dangers came
from Calcutta as well as from within the Burdwan zamindari. In 1776, the Court
of Directors refused "at present" to approve of life-time or perpetual leases,
except for the raja of Dinajpur who was to be given a life tenure as an
experiment.2 The remainder of Bengal's landholders received one-, two-, or
three-year settlements through the following decade. Company officials were
uncertain about the amounts at which to fix revenue settlements. As part of the
effort to gather more information, the Governor General and Council appointed
the Amini Commission to investigate revenue administration in the districts. 3
Until they accumulated more data, they continued to make short-term
settlements.

1
Ramsbotham, Studies, p. 75.
2
Extract of General Letter to Bengal, 24 Dec. 1776, Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, p. 896.
3
The Amini Commission was appointed in November 1776 and it submitted its report on 25
March 1778.

235
236 Burdwan
In the meantime, the rani and other zamindars experienced inconsistencies
in their dealings with the Company. Company officials were deeply divided
over whether to treat zamindars as employees of government or as persons
holding hereditary property rights in their zamindaris, whether to take positive
action to protect the zamindars' raiyats and renters from coercion and rack-rent-
ing or to let market forces take their course, and whether zamindars should come
under British law or remain under customary practice. Zamindars in the districts
probably did not understand the bitter divisions among British officials as a
consequence of disagreement over principles, although officials argued about
principles, but rather as personal power struggles, characterized by acquisitive-
ness and vindictiveness towards the Indian allies of their British opponents. In
the unlikely event that there was a zamindar in Bengal who had not witnessed
the acceptance of bribes for the right to farm land, he or she would have learned
about the corruption among Company servants from the acrimonious accus-
ations aired before the new Council majority beginning in 1774. The age of
Warren Hastings was a rough, competitive one in which fortunes were made
and lost quickly and in which personal favoritism and money seemed to count
more than principles, hereditary status, or individual merit.
The frequent rotation of Company officers, the reliance on majority votes to
determine policy, and the sudden reversals in policy must have puzzled Indians
in the mofussil who were accustomed to a more absolute and steady authority
concentrated in a single individual who often inherited his position. Sayyid
Ghulam Husain Khan, the author of the Siyar al-Mutakhkherin, decried the lack
of hierarchy in Company rule and his sentiments may have been widely shared.
He wrote in the 1780s that "since the conquest ... this country seems to have
had no master at all." Company affairs were governed by committee whose
members were "perpetually at variance with each other, and perpetually in
suspense about their own staying, and their being succeeded by another."
Because each Company servant was a transient, he "little cares about what ruins
shall remain after him."4 And because Company servants were generally
ignorant of Indian customs and languages, they relied on their Indian servants
to conduct their business. Those servants were often "of the lowest clan, and of
the vilest kind." Those servants treated Indians "of ancient or illustrious families
in an unworthy manner." The only way a high-status individual could "appear
in the master's presence" was to "dishonor himself by making a present." If he
did not give a present, "he is suffered to languish in the yard with the crowd"
or "in the anti-chamber, ranged against the wall like" a statue.5 Sayyid Ghulam
Husain Khan believed that in Mughal times, "high or low" people with

4
Khan, Seir, vol. Ill, pp. 185-86.
5
Ibid., pp. 190-91.
 Burdwan family politics, 1775-1778 237

grievances had easy access to princes but the British, by contrast, kept them-
selves aloof and "constantly express an aversion to the society of Indians, and
a disdain against conversing with them."6
If the absence of clear lines of authority, easy access to officials, and a steady
policy were perplexing, Indians may have found the personal behavior of the
men who ran the Company just as alien. Richard Barwell and Philip Francis
were notorious gamblers, and Francis once informed a friend that he had won
"about twenty thousand pounds at whist in a single day," and then he lost almost
all his winnings.7 Barwell and John Clavering fought a duel in 1775, as did
Francis and Warren Hastings in 1780.8 After Francis was discovered on a ladder
leading to Noel Catherine Grand's bedroom, George Francis Grand prosecuted
Francis successfully for "criminal conversation" with his wife.9 It may be
assumed that the zamindari vakils who lived in Calcutta passed information
back to their employers in the districts about the squabbles, high living, and
corrupt dealings of the Councillors. Zamindars and their amla may have viewed
Company policy with a wary cynicism.
Just how volatile and unpredictable the political environment had become
was revealed in March 1775 when Nandakumar, emboldened by the anti-Hast-
ings majority, accused Hastings of taking a bribe from Munni Begum, the
widow of Mir Jafar. The prosecution of Nandakumar for forgery of a bond
appeared to many people as Hastings' personal revenge against his accuser.
Nandakumar was tried and convicted in June and was hung in August 1775.
Despite the fact that Nandakumar was a Brahmin (Hindu law held that it was a
sin to take the life of a Brahmin) and that forgery had not been considered a
capital offense in Bengal, the anti-Hastings majority refused to intervene on
behalf of Nandakumar. Nor did the new Supreme Court move, although it was
claiming jurisdiction over, and hearing cases against, European officers of
government who were accused by Indians of oppressive acts. Hastings' enemies
later argued that "the execution had struck such terror into the hearts of all men,
that no one dared henceforward to cross his path."10 Nandakumar's execution
must have been sobering for Rani Bishnukumari and her officers, especially
when they considered that their allies on the Governor General's Council had
a majority of only one.
The position of the rani within Burdwan was also problematical. For most of
the decade and a half prior to 1775, major parts of the zamindari had been
managed by Calcutta revenue farmers. Had the deference of notables and raiyats

6
Ibid., p. 154.
7
Busteed, Echoes from Old Calcutta, p. 150.
8
Ibid., pp. I l l and 155.
9
Ibid., p. 259.
10
Dodwell (ed.), Cambridge History of India, vol. V, p. 239.
238 Burdwan

to the Burdwan raj weakened in this interregnum? Would her amla be able to
reestablish her authority and meet the revenue demand when the five-year leases
expired in 1776? Would the zamindari amla obey her? Would Lala Koshal-
chandra, an up-country Khatri and long-time servant of the family without much
force of character, and Rupnarayan Chaudhuri, able but in poor health, prove
efficient managers? Major zamindari servants had helped Braja, during his
diwanship, divert funds from the family treasury, despite the rani's efforts to
stop it. And could the rani hold her family together? Had Tejchandra's affection
been alienated while he was kept from her during impressionable years? Would
the raj family's creditors succeed in wresting valuable land from the Burdwan
zamindari as British debt law was increasingly enforced? Between 1775 and
1778, Rani Bishnukumari was battered by controversies over family debts, her
son's marriage arrangements, her sexual behavior, and her choice of officers to
manage her affairs.
After the rani's 1775 victory, the first major challenge to the Burdwan
family's unity was posed by a struggle for control of the Amboa Dewry Mahals,
the large section of the zamindari left to the family when the rest of Burdwan
was farmed to ijaradars in 1771. Since 1771, it had been used as security for the
family's borrowing. Creditors were threatening to take this valuable holding
from the family through judicial process. Rani Bishnukumari wanted the
Company to transfer it to her, in Tejchandra's name, from her mother-in-law in
order to protect it from the creditors. This complicated affair involved not only
a family feud but also powerful interests among Company servants. Before the
struggle for the Dewry Mahals was over, the Company intervened to preserve
one of the raj family's most valuable assets. The public interests of the Company
and the private interests of its British employees converged and led the Com-
pany to protect the raj family from its own divisions.
The case of the Dewry Mahals is also noteworthy because it brought the
institutions of a joint family and the revenue needs of government into conflict
with the British legal institution of mortgages. Company officials, for private
and public reasons, were unwilling in this instance to remain passive while a
major family lost its property through the judicial process of foreclosure. Under
nawabi government, often private debts of a major zamindar went unpaid or
had been discharged by a temporary transfer of land or by a temporary assign-
ment of land revenue receipts to the creditor. Under the Company's new courts,
mortgage-holders were increasingly able to obtain permanent title to land as
compensation for non-payment of mortgage bonds.
For many decades, the Dewry Mahals (also known at Taraf Manteswar11)
had been treated by government and the Burdwan raj family as a separate

1
' Manteswar is a name of Shiva. Probably the name refers to the worship of Shiva that the profits
of the estate were expected to support.
 Burdwan family politics, 1775-1778 239

maintenance for the senior surviving rani, her relatives, and her devotional
activities. The boro (big; senior) rani, as she was called, held the estate on a
special, fixed-rent (mukarari) tenure at the time of Burdwan's cession to the
Company. The Company continued to recognize the estate's privileged status
after 1760 and to exempt it from revenue farming, as it did similar maintenance
lands in Bishnupur, Nadia, and Dinajpur.12 Thus, when the Burdwan zamindari
was leased out to farmers in the 1760s and again 1771, the Dewry Mahals were
allowed to remain under the family's management, at the former revenue
assessment. The widowed ranis at Kalna who successively held the Dewry
Mahals regarded them as their property while the zamindar at Burdwan claimed
on occasion that they held the rent-collecting rights at his pleasure. Company
officials supported different positions at various times.
The boro rani who held the 780 villages of the Dewry Mahals in 1775 was
the grandmother of Raja Tejchandra, the mother of Raja Tilakchandra (d. 1770),
and the widow of Mitrasen, Raja Kirtichandra's (d. 1740) younger brother. In
1775, she was over seventy, in poor health, and in "declining understanding."
She lived at Amboa (Ambika-Kalna) on the Bhagirathi river, 32 miles east of
Burdwan town, and was known to Company servants as "the Amboa rani." She
attended Tejchandra's first weddings in 1776 but otherwise rarely or never
visited Burdwan. She bathed in the Ganges (i.e., the Bhagirathi), worshiped
Shiva, built temples, contributed to religious activities at Benaras, Brindaban,
and Puri,13 and, according to a member of the Burdwan Council, "has numbers
of unnecessary servants and priests, together with a vast concourse of vagrant
Hindoo Facqueers, upon whom she bestows large sums of money: but whether
her servants pay these sums or not, it is hard to say." The major debts she owed
to her European and Indian creditors were allegedly due to famine losses, temple
building, and the mismanagement of her servants who were said to lease her
land at under-rents, embezzle from her treasury, and charge her Rs. 20 for each
Rs. 15 they dispursed.14 The boro rani and her servants allegedly rented and
resumed her lands in a highly arbitrary fashion, using neither periodical leases
nor an "outcry" or auction system for granting leases.15
Had the Dewry Mahals been well managed, they would have given the
Amboa rani a sizeable net income. The fact that the estate was scattered through
the Burdwan zamindari from the modern Asansol region in the west and to
Mandalghat pargana in modern Howrah district to the south, may have made it
more difficult to manage than a compact estate. Nevertheless, the permanence

12
Minute of Mathew Dawson, Burdwan PCOR, Prog, of 20 Nov. 1775, vol. 11.
13
Rani of Amboa's letter, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 13 Nov. 1775, vol. 11.
14
Alexander Duncanson to Edward Stephenson, 17 Sept. 1775, extract of Burdwan PCOR Prog,
of 18 Sept. 1775, Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, p. 814.
15
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 25 Sept. 1775, vol. 10.
240 Burdwan

of the government's revenue demand and the modesty of the rani's personal
wants should have ensured a large surplus. A member of the Burdwan Council
guessed that the potential annual profits were Rs. 3 lakhs,16 a sum greater than
Raja Tejchandra's stipend from the Company.
The Burdwan rajas had known that this estate was under-rated and that is why
their solicitude for the old rani's welfare was sometimes mixed with covetous-
ness. The estate produced a profit that might be employed to discharge the debts
of the rest of the zamindari. Perhaps the rajas presumed that what they had given
they could take back. On at least two occasions, Raja Tilakchandra had secretly
persuaded the Amboa rani's officers to help him with transfers of wealth.17 The
boro rani discovered the arrangements and ended them. The failure of the choto
(little; junior) rani, Bishnukumari, to pay back Rs. 1,10,000 secretly transferred
was believed to be the source of "the Quarrels which have ever since" continued
between Amboa and Burdwan, between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.18
The old rani did not know whom to trust. Apparently she had no close
relatives with her at Amboa. In 1774-75, she needed a new diwan, her former
diwan having died. On the recommendation of Rani Bishnukumari, she ap-
pointed Brindaban but she soon dismissed him, claiming that he was "forced
on her by the Burdwan Ranee,"19 and that he was leasing land at under-value.20
In 1774, a court decision for debt against the Amboa rani raised the prospect
that the Burdwan raj family might lose the Dewry Mahals to its creditors. In
that year, the Diwani Adalat (civil court) granted a decree for Rs. 15,000 against
the Amboa rani to a north Indian banker of Burdwan named Motichandra.21 The
decree was the first of what might become a flood for the rani's debts exceeded
Rs. 3 lakhs. So in 1775, Rani Bishnukumari petitioned the Company in her son's
name to recognize Tejchandra, in place of her mother-in-law, as the legal owner
of the Dewry Mahals. The petition claimed that the Dewry Mahals were part of
Tejchandra's zamindari, not a separate estate, and that he had been receiving
Rs. 50,000 or so from Amboa since his father's death.22 Rani Bishnukumari
obviously had concluded it was in her interest to have the Dewry Mahals placed
under better management so that the debts could be cleared and the government
revenue be paid promptly. The estate was in arrears of revenue in the summer
of 1775.

16
Ibid.
17
John Rosewell's Minute, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 20 Nov. 1775, vol. 11.
18
Alexander Higginson's Minute, ibid.
19
Edward Stephenson's Minute, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 13 Sept. 1775, vol. 10.
20
Rani of Amboa's letter, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 13 Nov. 1775, vol. 11.
21
He may have been the son of Hazari Mai, the wealthy banker. Hazari Mai had a son named
Motichandra and he also had a banking house at Burdwan.
22
Extract of Bengal Rev. Consult., 27 Oct. 1775, Eleventh Report on Justice, 1783, p. 824, and
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 21 Aug. 1775, vol. 9.
 Burdwan family politics, 1775-1778 241

Fortunately for Rani Bishnukumari, influential Company servants were also

eager to keep the Dewry Mahals within the family. Over half the debts owed
by the Amboa rani were to current or former members of the Burdwan Council.
If Indian creditors had pursued their debts in the law courts and forced the
dismemberment of the estate, the rani might not have been able to pay off her
British creditors. Moreover, most Company servants were reluctant to use the
courts to recover zamindari debts. To have done so would have drawn attention
to the origin of the debts which in some cases may have been incurred to secure
a favor.23 Even when the debts were the result of loans rather than bribes, they
violated the ban on loans to zamindars laid down by Lord Clive.24 Company
servants knew that the government in Calcutta did not want indebted zamindars
to lose their property, especially if it was likely to interfere with revenue
collection.25
The Company servants who were owed money by the Amboa rani had found
a means of keeping the rani in possession of her estate while continuing to
receive payments, without resorting to the courts. The agency of this happy
solution was the Khatri banker, Raja Hazari Mai. Hazari Mai had close connec-
tions with both the Burdwan raj family and Warren Hastings. He had been a
business partner of Hastings in 1769-70.26 When Hastings created the General
Bank in April 1773 to remit recollections from the districts, he had appointed
Hazari and Raja Dyalchandra as the managers.27 One of Hazari's agents, Mohan
Prasad, had filed the forgery charges for which Nandakumar was convicted in
1775.28 Rajas Hazari Mai and Dyalchandra took over the Amboa debts of
Rs.3,33,400 in July 1775,29 probably at the request of Company servants. The
old rani died in December 1777, and in 1779 the Company gave a sanad for the
Dewry Mahals to Rani Bishnukumari who was now the senior rani.30 But the
estate remained encumbered by debts. Only the indulgence of Hazari Mai and
the fear of inquiries into the origin of the loans to former civil servants prevented
foreclosure on the outstanding bonds.

23
A statement submitted under the old rani's seal alleged that the debts originated from unauthor-
ized payments to John Graham, Charles Stuart, and their banians. Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 21
Aug. 1775, vol. 9.
24
Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, p. 196.
25
Henry Lushington was censured for his suit to recover a debt from Raja Krishnachandra of
Nadia. Letter to Court, 10 Nov. 1773, Ft Wm-IHC, vol. VII, 1773-1776, p. 237.
26
Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, p. 44.
27
Dyalchandra was the adopted son, and Hazari was the brother-in-law and executor,
of Omichand, the powerful merchant whom Robert Clive tricked following the battle of
Plassey.
28
Sinha, Economic History, vol. I, pp. 26, 155, 245, and 278.
29
Petition from Hazari Mai and Dyalchandra, Extract of Burdwan PCOR, 31 July 1775, Eleventh
Report on Justice, 1783, pp. 801-02.
30
Extract of letter from GG, 10 Jan. 1780, Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, p. 901.
242 Burdwan

Rani Bishnukumari enjoyed no such good fortune in the embarrassing

controversy over Tejchandra's fourth marriage in 1776. This developed into a
major scandal and brought into question the rani's ability to manage the
zamindari and preserve the family's honor and reputation. Arranging the
marriages of their children was a serious responsibility for major zamindars, for
marriages were a form of political alliance. As non-Bengalis, the Burdwan raj
family faced a different set of problems than Bengali zamindars in finding
spouses for their children. Bengali zamindars formed marriage alliances with
families who already held an economic base within Bengal. The zamindar of
Burdwan, on the other hand, usually imported youthful Khatri spouses from
outside Bengal. This often meant finding both employment and land in Burdwan
district for members of the spouses' immediate family. The nature of the
employment and land to be provided by the raj family was an important part of
the negotiations that preceded each marriage arrangement. Over time, Khatris
related to the raj family came to hold rent-collecting rights in various parts of
the district although many maintained residences in Burdwan town. The Judge
at Burdwan commented in 1777 that "the servants & dependents of the Raja &
his family" were so numerous and had "been under-Renters of small Partitions
of all the Purgunnahs" in Burdwan that the superior farmers "would find it
difficult" to lease their land without engaging them as kutkinadars.31 A few
Burdwan raj relatives acted as superior farmers also. Bakhtar Singh, brother of
Rani Bishnukumari, was a major farmer between the mid-1760s and 1776,
during which time he claimed to have paid almost Rs. 22 lakhs in revenue. 32
Burdwan raj relatives seemed to have been renters most frequently in the
western parganas of Shergarh and Senpahari and in the southern pargana
of Chandrakona. The dispersal of relatives and dependents throughout the
zamindari may have helped the Burdwan zamindari to check on and thus control
the major farmers. Most Burdwan raj marriages added Khatris to the number of
potentially useful dependents in the zarrtindari.
Rani Bishnukumari's oldest and youngest children were daughters. Tataku-
mari Devi and Chitrakumari Devi were married without controversy to Lala
Anandchandra Seth and Lala Dyachandra Seth, sons of one Hingam Lai, who
belonged to one of the four highest Khatri gotras. As boys, they were close
companions of their brother-in-law, Raja Tejchandra. As men, they became
revenue farmers under the Burdwan raj.
Rani Bishnukumari also arranged marriages for Raja Tejchandra in 1776,
when he was eleven years old. Tejchandra's father, Tilakchandra, is known to

31
William Marriott, Supt., Burdwan diwani adalat, to Burdwan PCOR, 17 June 1777, Burdwan
PCOR Prog, of 19 June 1777, vol. 20.
32
Petition from Bakhtar Singh, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 17 Sept. 1776, vol. 16.
 Burdwan family politics, 1775-1778 243

have married twice; Tejchandra eventually married eight times. Tejchandra's

first marriages were to three girls at one time. The rani wanted these
marriages to be celebrated in a grand fashion and she requested Company
approval to follow "the immemorial custom" of levying the equivalent of
one months's rent from each raiyat to defray the costs. She said that "all
Ranks of people expend as much as their circumstances will bear" on
marriages and that she wanted Tejchandra's wedding to exceed "in elegance
and splendour" those of previous Burdwan rajas. She explained what was
involved:
By this means the Fame of your [the Company's] generosity and favor to my son may
be publickly known and the honour and customs of our Family may be kept up. At a
marriage of this kind it is the indispensable Custom to send invitations accompanied by
presents to the Rajahs, Zemindars, and Kaitrees, &ca of Bengal, & the people of Rank
both far and near for all of whom entertainment & presents must be prepared. Provision
must be also made for others who will come uninvited, and a large sum will be required
likewise for decorating the house &ca. As the Burdwan Family by the Blessing of god
bears an honourable name in the books of fame, people will assemble on this occasion
from all quarters, and if the means are afforded me of conducting it agreeable to the
ancient customs of the family it will reflect credit and honour on me, whilst if not, shame
and disgrace.33

The government refused to permit a special marriage abwab until it received

permission from the Court of Directors in London. The rani proceeded anyway,
in the spring of 1776, shortly before management of the collections were
returned to the raj family. It is possible that the zamindari collected the abwab
without government permission because in many parts of Bengal raiyats con-
tinued to pay marriage cesses, without apparent resentment, decades after the
Company banned their collection. In any case, at the age of eleven, Tejchandra
was married to his first three wives. Two of the brides belonged to Khatri
families in the Punjab with the jati of Mehera; the third was from Burdwan and
was presumably a domiciled Khatri.34
Tejchandra's fourth marriage, three days after the first, was the controversial
one. At roughly the same time that Rani Bishnukumari arranged the first three
weddings, she also made an agreement for yet another wedding. Her failure to
inform the fourth family about the other three engagements was a tactical
blunder with calamitous consequences. Over a year before the joint celebration
of the first three weddings, the rani had written to Lala Bahadur Singh of Patna
who was a Khatri, a taluqdar, and a connection or dependent of the raja of
Ramgarh, now in southeastern Bihar. The rani proposed a marriage between

33
Petition from rani of Burdwan, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 26 Oct. 1775, vol. 10.
34
Mukhopadhyay, Bardhamaner, p. 125.
244 Burdwan
Tejchandra and Bahadur Singh's niece, whom he had adopted.35 Following
protracted negotiations, Bahadur Singh agreed to come to Burdwan after the
rani promised to appoint him diwan of the raj household. He set out from Patna
with 1,000 followers and relations and after five days reached the Bengal
frontier where he was met by representatives of the rani. There he presented
"the marriage ready money, pairs of shawls, horses, kelaats" to the Brahmins
and others who had helped negotiate the marriage. The party then continued on
to Burdwan town.
In Burdwan, Bahadur Singh was shocked to learn that three other girls had
also been engaged to marry Tejchandra. The rani tried to pacify Bahadur with
soothing messages, saying it would disgrace the other three Khatri families to
break those engagements which were public knowledge and by promising
Bahadur Singh that his niece would be the chief rani. She also offered to marry
her niece to Bahadur Singh's son and pay for that marriage.
Bahadur Singh had, in effect, burned his bridges behind him with all the
expenses he had incurred. He claimed to have spent Rs. 70,000 "of my own
Property & Loans from the Merchants." His chief hope for restoring his fortune
and caring for his dependents was to proceed with the wedding. Therefore, his
niece, renamed Tej Kumari, was married to Raja Tejchandra three days after
the raja's first weddings. But this was not the end of Bahadur Singh's saga. Soon
after his niece's wedding, Bahadur Singh heard of "lascivious" behavior by
Rani Bishnukumari which he considered "repugnant to modesty & disgraceful
to her Rank," as well as injurious to his own honor. He remonstrated to the rani.
This angered the rani. She withdrew his "separate provision" and the promise
to marry her niece to Bahadur Singh's son, and she sent Bahadur Singh
Rs. 4,000 to cover his journey back to Bihar.
At this point, Bahadur Singh's situation was desperate. He said that he had
forfeited his caste, that he had been deserted by some of his relatives who
returned to Bihar, and that he had received messages from other members of
his caste "renouncing any future Alliance with my family on acct. of the
Infamous Character of the Ranny." His debts to his creditors in Burdwan and
Calcutta were considerable. He claimed "many of my Relations & Friends have
died thro want & their horses perished thro scarcity of Grain." He said he was
anxious about the safety of his daughter's and Tejchandra's lives. He appealed
to the Burdwan Council for help. Specifically, he asked the Council to dismiss
Ramkant Roy, the khansamani diwan who administered to the rani's "lascivious
wants," appoint a proper person to supervise the education of the raja whom

35
The details of the negotiations, marriage, and subsequent developments are taken from Bahadur
Singh's account to the Burdwan Council of Revenue. Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 26 March 1776,
vol. 13.
 Burdwan family politics, 1775-1778 245

Bahadur Singh viewed like "my own Child," remove his niece from the rani's
company, and provide Bahadur Singh with "a small Portion" so that he could
pay his debts and withdraw to Bihar.36
While Company officials at Burdwan and Calcutta considered Bahadur
Singh's complaints, the Company's five-year leases to the revenue farmers
expired. In May 1776, the Company restored zamindari management to the raj
family. The rani was given a two-year settlement, in Tejchandra's name.
Government regulations forbade zamindari officers from granting lands to
themselves and their dependents at an under-rent. Yet the Burdwan Council
observed that the rani's managers of the revenue and the household diwan were
doing exactly that.37 Lala Koshalchandra and Rupnarayan Chaudhuri took
farms worth Rs. 3,74,003 and Ramkant Roy and other dependents of the rani
took farms with a rental of Rs. 16,50,473. Thus, the three men holding charge
of the family's affairs had taken land paying much of the government's net
revenue demand, and they had made a mofussil settlement that exceeded the
government's demand by a mere Rs. 7,000. Warren Hastings and the Calcutta
Council ordered that the farms rented by Koshalchandra, Rupnarayan, Ram-
kant, and their dependents be re-let, observing that the original, under-valued
leases would probably lead to "an immediate Failure in the public Revenue"
and an eventual forfeiture of part of the zamindari.38
Accordingly, Koshalchandra made a new mofussil settlement for the lands
in question. Ramkant was summoned to Calcutta so that he could be questioned
and instructed to confine his attention to household affairs, to abstain from
interference in revenue affairs. When he failed to obey the summons, he was
confined by the government until Rani Bishnukumari promised to order her
household servants, including Ramkant, to follow government instructions
about non-interference in revenue matters.39
Ramkant, the household diwan, had now incurred the displeasure of Com-
pany servants on two grounds. He was accused of being a partner of the rani in
scandalous sexual behavior and he was assumed to have manipulated the
mofussil settlement to the Company's and the raja's detriment. Before the
Calcutta Council reached a final decision on what to do about Ramkant and the
rani's treatment of Bahadur Singh, Colonel George Monson died.40 This meant
that Barwell and Hastings, with his casting vote, once again were the effective
majority on the Council. In March 1777, Hastings and Barwell decided to
remove Ramkant from his office in order to protect the Company' s and the raja' s

36
Ibid.
37
Burdwan PCOR to GG, 13 July 1776, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 13 July 1776, vol. 15.
38
GG to Burdwan PCOR, 19 July 1776, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 22 July 1776, vol. 15.
39
Burdwan PCOR to GG, 30 Aug. 1776, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 30 Aug. 1776, vol 16.
40
On 25 September 1776. Clavering died on 30 August 1777.
246 Burdwan

financial interests, to remove a source of the stain on the raj family's reputation,
and, possibly, to get back at the rani for having accused Warren Hastings and
his friends of tolerating and benefiting from the embezzlements during Braja
Kishor Roy's diwanship. It is impossible to know what weight Warren Hastings
and Richard Barwell attached to each of these motives. However, Barwell wrote
in a private letter at this time about "information I received of the zemindar's
income being dissipated by the Ranee, to gratify the Household Diwan who had
been long her kept gallant, and of donations" of more than Rs. 2 lakhs for
replacing Braja and Prankishor Mitra in 1775 with Lala Koshalchandra and
Rupnarayan Chaudhuri, who were recommended by Nandakumar, "and to
make the Ranee the guardian to her son, and the disposer of the income of his
estate."41 John Clavering and Philip Francis not only voted against decisions
connected with Ramkant's dismissal, they also refused to sign most of the
Council's letters to Burdwan. 42
In addition to removing Ramkant, Hastings and Francis ordered the appoint-
ment of Bahadur Singh, the rani's accuser and the raja's new father-in-law, in
his place as diwan of household affairs. This appointment, certain to be resisted
by the rani, seemed to be calculated to allow Bahadur Singh to recover money
he had lost in coming to Burdwan for his niece's wedding and in the rani's
breaking of her promise of a generous "settlement." The rani and Ramkant did
resist. Ramkant went into hiding and refused government orders to proceed to
Calcutta. The rani disobeyed orders to deliver the household accounts and to
accept Bahadur Singh as the new khansamani diwan. 43 The rani wrote to the
Burdwan Council, pointing out that the Calcutta Council had explicitly vested
her with the authority to appoint her own officers. 44 Bahadur Singh, she said,
"is my most inveterate Enemy." If the Company forced the appointment of
Bahadur Singh on her and thereby "disgrace me, I am without Resource. I
understand that I have no further hope of Life" if the Company persists. She
said that she wanted to proceed to Calcutta to plead her case with the Governor
General and Council. 45 The Burdwan Council refused to let her go, and kept
her confined to the palace.
The rani's conflict with government now appeared on the verge of bloodshed.
The Burdwan Council reported that they suspected the rani had hidden both
Ramkant and the household accounts "in the inner Zenannah" (female apart-
ments) and that violence would be used to resist the installation of Bahadur

41
Richard Barwell letter to Mrs. Barwell, 31 March 1777, Bengal Past and Present, vol. 16(1918),
p. 101.
42
Extract of Rev. Letter from Bengal, 18 Nov. 1777, Report on Petitions, 1781, p. 155.
43
Burdwan PCOR to GG, 28 March 1777, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 28 March 1777, vol. 19.
44
Letter from rani, ibid.
45
Letter from rani, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 21 April 1777, vol. 19.
 Burdwan family politics, 1775-1778 247

Singh. Zamindari troops were guarding the gates of the family palace. However,
when Lieutenant Long and the Company's militia marched on the palace to take
their places, no resistance was offered.46 Alexander Higginson, Chief of the
Burdwan Council, then forced his way into the rani's private apartments and
ordered her to accept Bahadur Singh and turn over the household accounts. Four
days later, the rani gave in and invested Bahadur Singh as khansamani diwan.47
But she also ordered her vakils in Calcutta to file suit in the Supreme Court for
the invasion of her zenanna, the imposition of a diwan against her will, and her
confinement.
Bahadur Singh's diwanship was brief and frustrating. He complained that the
rani continued to hide the fugitive Ramkant in the zenanna, and to withhold the
genuine household accounts which would have revealed Ramkant's alleged
embezzlements and excessive expenditures. He also accused the household
servants of refusing to cooperate with him, providing false accounts, and
neglecting Tejchandra's education. He expressed concern about Tejchandra's
mental and physical health and requested that the young raja be turned over to
him for proper care. "The Rajah, from the Neglect of Evil Servants, has totally
given up reading & writing. Thus he is ruined, his mind [emptied?] and from
inattention to his Diet his manners are altered, he is become emaciated & near
his end."48 Interested, exaggerated pleading or not, this must have been a
disturbed period in Tejchandra's life. Tejchandra was twelve years old in 1777
and for over four years he had been kept apart from his mother, under the care
of his mother's enemies. His mother was the subjee^oPsCandalous gossip. If
Tejchandra had an uncle or another father-figure in his life during the struggles
over his guardianship, this does not appear in the records. His father had not
been survived by a brother. Bishnukumari's brother, Bakhtar Singh, was re-
ported in 1778 to live "unconnected with the Rajah" and not to "go to the Rajah' s
House."49 Whether Tejchandra's relations with his four young wives were
stabilizing or otherwise may only be guessed at but it seems improbable. What
is certain is that the seven years since his father's death had been tumultuous.
It would not be surprising if his education had been suspended and his physical
and emotional health had suffered.
In September 1778, the new Chief of the Burdwan Council also voiced
concern about the raja's health. William Marriott reported that "his eyes &
countenance carry the strongest marks of stupefication." One of the officers of
the Diwani Adalat had told him that he was taking bhang, a narcotic. Bakhtar

46
A. Higginson's statement, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 21 April 1777, ibid.
47
A. Higginson's minute, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 25 April 1777, ibid.
48
Letter from Bahadur Singh, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 2 June 1777, vol. 20.
49
Remarks by unnamed Company servant, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 10 Sept. 1778, vol. 26.
248 Burdwan

Singh had informed Marriott that he believed this report and that he thought the
raja was dejected over the death of Russoo, a female employee of his late
grandmother, the rani of Amboa. According to Bakhtar, Russoo had been the
rani's cash keeper, had been accused of stealing following the rani's death, had
been punished, and had died from her injuries. 50
Another member of the Council attacked Marriott's statement about drugs
and Russoo as mere hearsay, uncorroborated by witnesses or other evidence.
He observed that Tejchandra's appearance had changed because he had "grown
much taller." His silence in the presence of Europeans might be due merely to
his youth the nature of his education & the little intercourse he has ever had with
Europeans ... The Rajah is naturally of a delicate & puny constitution ... the Rajah has
never been accustomed to any exercise or bodily exertions, but has from his infancy been
reared in all the effeminacy of the Zenanah. To this inactivity and total disuse of his limbs
may be attributed a mode of walking

which might at first make it appear he was debilitated or under the influence of
drugs.51 Apparently, no witnesses were found to substantiate what Marriott had
heard and the issue of drugs was dropped.
Rani Bishnukumari's 1777 complaint to the Supreme Court against her
confinement, the violation of the zenanna, and the appointment of Bahadur
Singh bore fruit. The judges on the Supreme Court had begun to issue writs of
habeas corpus against Company employees who confined Indians without bail
for arrears of revenue. The Supreme Court, in other words, had decided that a
standard Mughal and Company executive practice was a "most arbitrary abuse
of power."52 It had begun to extend British conceptions of civil rights to Indians
although this had not been the intention of the Parliamentary Act that created
the Court.
Justice S.C. LeMaistre summoned Alexander Higginson, the Chief of the
Burdwan Council, and Lt. Long, commander of the sepoys who confined the
rani, to Calcutta to answer the rani's charges. He also ordered the arrest of
Bahadur Singh. In his summons, LeMaistre observed that the Regulating Act
of 1773 was intended "to protect the Natives of the Country from all
Oppressions committed through European Influence." Yet the Burdwan
Council had used soldiers to confine the rani and her son. The Council had
also imposed "a Man of the lowest State of the People" to conduct the
financial and other affairs of the family. 53 And Higginson had, by entering

50
W. Marriott's Minute, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 7 Sept. 1778, ibid.
51
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 10 Sept. 1778, ibid.
52
The words of Justice S.C. LeMaistre in the Sarupchand case (1777). B.N. Pandey, The
Introduction of English Law into India: The Career of Elijah Impey in Bengal, 1774-1783
(Bombay, 1967), p. 149.
53
It is not clear why LeMaistre thus described Bahadur Singh.
 Burdwan family politics, 1775-1778 249

the zenanna, "broke through that Respect and Decorum which, according to the
Customs and Usages of this Country, is due to every Person of her Sex, and
peculiarly so to a person of such exalted Rank" as the rani. The Council had
done all this without the authority of judicial process. The rani had not been
accused of any crime or arrears of revenue, "except, perhaps, for the current
Month." "The peaceable Enjoyment of a Person's own House" was one of the
"Civil Rights" LeMaistre intended to protect, whether it be a person of high or
low rank.54
The rani's success was a limited one. Although the government dismissed
Bahadur Singh and withdrew its sepoys from her palace, Warren Hastings
ordered the Burdwan Council to restore Braja Kishor Roy as guardian to Raja
Tejchandra, to manage all the raja's affairs, to supervise his education, and to
pay particular attention to his health. The government continued Lala Koshal-
chandra as the zamindari revenue diwan, although he was to act under "the
Control and Authority" of Braja.55
After Braja returned to Burdwan, the rani's "Managers & Mutsaddies"
ignored him and refused to work with him. The Burdwan Council kept up its
pressure on the rani. In view of Lala Koshalchandra's continued boycott of Braja
and of Burdwan's arrears of Rs. 1.6 lakhs from 1776-77, the Council dismissed
Koshalchandra and appointed Braja to act as zamindari revenue diwan, as well
as manager of the household. 56
Rani Bishnukumari, from Amboa, continued to throw obstacles in the way
of government orders. The Burdwan Council ordered Bakhtar Singh, the
Commander of the raj's household troops and the rani's brother, to muster all
the troops at Burdwan but he refused on the grounds that he was employed by
the rani and that she had given him no orders.57 She also blocked government
efforts to make an inventory of the moveable property of the senior rani of
Amboa, who died in December 1777. 58
By June 1778, it was clear that the rani's stubborn resistance and boycott of
Company-appointed managers were making the conduct of Burdwan affairs
impossible. Her repeated defiance of Company orders was undermining the
Company's authority and, possibly, its revenues. Braja, who had collected the
full revenue in the year of the famine, was in arrears for Rs. 1,55,626 at the end
of \111-1% revenue year. 59 Moreover, the Board of Directors had ordered the

54
Justice S.C. LeMaistre to A. Higginson, 23 June 1777, Report on Petitions, 1781, pp. 153-54.
55
Extract of Rev. Letter from Bengal, 18 Nov. 1777, ibid., p. 155. Also Burdwan PCOR Prog, of
14 July 1777, vol 20.
56
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 27 Sept. 1777, vol. 21.
57
Burdwan PCOR to GG, 10 Nov. 1777, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 10 Nov. 1777, vol. 22.
58
GG to Burdwan PCOR, 12 June 1778, PCOR Prog, of 17 June 1778, vol 25.
59
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 21 May 1778, vol. 25.
250 Burdwan

Calcutta Council to make settlements with the zamindars "on Terms sufficiently
moderate to enable them to maintain a Degree of Respect amongst their
Dependants." The Board wanted "to impress the Zamindars and Renters with a
full Confidence in the Justice of our Proceedings." 60 Accordingly, in June 1778,
the Calcutta Council backed down and entered a new, two-year revenue
settlement with Rani Bishnukumari, on the same terms as the 1776 settlement,
with the important difference that the rani could appoint her own managers of
both the revenue and the Burdwan household. The rani was also required to pay
off the arrears of Rs. 3,16,538 for 1776-77 and 1777-78. 61 She appointed
Kaliprasad Singh to replace Braja as zamindari diwan, and she and Raja
Tejchandra returned to Burdwan, once again in control.
Rani Bishnukumari's position in 1778 was decidedly weaker than in 1775
when the Calcutta Council supported her against Warren Hastings and Braja
Kishor Roy. Bahadur Singh's allegations that Ramkant Roy was the rani's lover
had to have been known widely among Burdwan's elites. The common expec-
tation that a widow should remain celibate was stronger than the view that the
families of rajas were not subject to the same conventions as the rest of
respectable society. The rani continued to rely on the advice and companionship
of Ramkant even though Company officers had dismissed him and regarded
him with contempt and distrust and even though he held no official position in
the Burdwan raj. Subsequent actions by the Calcutta Council indicated that
officials may have given the rani full control of zamindari affairs with the
expectation that she and Ramkant would provide them with reasons to remove
the rani once again. They did not have long to wait.

60
Extract of General Letter to Bengal, 5 Feb. 1777. Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, pp. 896-97.
61
GG to Burdwan PCOR, 12 June 1778, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 17 June 1778, vol. 25.
14 Testing the limits, 1778-1790

Throughout Bengal in 1777, the Company restored zamindars to the lands that
had been farmed out in the auctions of 1772. There was no enthusiasm for the
zamindars. Company officials regarded many zamindars as incompetent, un-
trustworthy, and/or impoverished. Zamindars were viewed as the best of several
flawed agencies of collection. Revenue farmers had proved unreliable because
they had no long-term interest in their farms and because they met with
resistance from subordinate rent collectors. Direct government collection from
the villages had also failed. Zamindars were restored because they were as-
sumed to have a long-term interest in the prosperity of their territories and
because they commanded access to credit and a respect that gave them the
potential for efficient collection. The main question in the late 1770s was not
who should make collections but rather what the revenue demand should be and
what reforms should be introduced into zamindaris often in arrears.
There was no consensus in the late 1770s and 1780s about the proper level
for revenue assessments. Parts of Bengal were still depopulated as a result of
the famine. It had been hoped that the Amini Commission would discover
whether people such as Philip Francis were correct in their view that Bengal
was over-assessed. Although the Commission reported in 1778 that large
amounts of land had been improperly alienated revenue-free and, if resumed,
would add to the revenue, the commission took no position on whether Bengal
was over- or under-assessed.1 Thus, only future experience would tell if the
zamindars were capable of paying an increased demand. And, to anticipate the
future, even with another decade's experience, Company officials were still
divided in their answers. James Grant, in his treatises of 1786 and 1788, argued
from his analysis of revenue records that Bengal was grossly under-assessed;
John Shore, with his more extensive experience in the districts and the Board
of Revenue, argued that Company officials were not yet well enough informed
about local conditions to determine the capacity of each zamindari. But he
thought the gross collections probably could not prudently be increased.2

1
The Amini Report in Ramsbotham, Studies, pp. 99-130.
2
The Grant-Shore controversy is analyzed in Ascoli, Early Revenue History, pp. 42-62.

251
252 Burdwan

Unquestionably, Shore was correct. Experience between the restoration of

zamindars in 1777 and the Decennial Settlement of 1790 proved that many
zamindars themselves did not have the village-by-village records or sufficient
control over their own zamindari officers to know what their territories were
capable of paying. The Company's effort to gather its own local knowledge
through the restoration of the mofussil qanungos (record keepers) in 1781
proved a failure. The large-scale sale of zamindari lands for arrears after the
Decennial Settlement of 1790 demonstrated beyond a doubt that many
zamindars were over-assessed in relation to their capacity to collect from their
villages. Whether that incapacity resulted from a scarcity of economic resources
or loose, indulgent, and corrupt managerial practices could only be answered
by close investigations of small units within each zamindari. The Company
made few local examinations.
From the restoration of the zamindars in 1777 to the Decennial Settlement of
1790, the Company usually settled the revenue with the zamindars for short
periods, not exceeding three years. After 1777, relations between the zamindars
and the Company quickly settled into a familiar and almost monotonous pattern,
with zamindars pleading inability to pay and the Company responding with
threats and sanctions. At first, zamindars found the Company willing to consider
their complaints. The new settlements were based on the medium rather than
the maximum of the three previous years' collections. When a zamindar fell
into arrears and persuaded the authorities in Calcutta that his or her zamindari
was over-assessed, the Company made modest adjustments in its demands. The
gross demand on Bengal and Bihar was lowered annually in 1777, 1778, and
1779. 3
However, by 1780 British patience was running out. Company officers not
only were skeptical of zamindari excuses, they were obliged to increase the
revenue to pay for the Company's wars in southern and western India. Histori-
ans have often singled out Lord Cornwallis, who arrived in Calcutta in 1786,
for initiating harsh treatment of zamindars. In fact, Company policy towards
zamindars stiffened appreciably in the early 1780s while John Shore presided
over the Committee of Revenue. The Committee, which formed the one-, two-,
and three-year settlements of 1781, distrusted zamindars and their excuses. It
based the 1781 settlements on the highest level of government collections in the
previous ten years. 4 As a result, in 1781 the Company abruptly raised the total
demand for Bengal and Bihar by almost Rs. 24 lakhs, or by 9.4 percent.5 The
Committee of Revenue rejected arguments from the amla of the larger

3
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, pp. 105-06.
4
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, para. 277.
5
Sinha, Economic History, vol. II, p. 105.
 Testing the limits, 1778-1790 253

zamindars against the new demands. In 1781-82 the Company either suspended
or continued the suspension of the four zamindars with the largest revenues,
who balked at the enhancements and who together accounted for a third of
Bengal's and Bihar's demand. The Company appointed temporary managers in
their place. Burdwan was already under a sazawal (temporary collector),
Nabakrishna, but he was reappointed in 1781 with an enhancement of Rs. 4
lakhs. Nadia was also put under a sazawal, with an increase of Rs. 1 lakh.
Rajshahi was settled with Nandalal Roy after Rani Bhawani refused an increase
of Rs. 2.5 lakhs. And Dinajpur, whose raja was five years old, was given to Debi
Sinha with an increase of Rs. 2 lakhs. In 1782, most zamindars were restored
but by the end of the revenue year, the total arrears were higher than they had
been since 1777. 6 In April 1783, the government, after failing to reach satisfac-
tory agreements with several zamindars, ordered khas settlements of Dinajpur,
Rajshahi, and Rangpur, and then in July it ordered that Nadia and Rajshahi be
farmed out.7
Burdwan was one of the first zamindaris to experience the new toughness. In
the late 1770s, Rani Bishnukumari and her diwans complained repeatedly of
over-assessment. In February 1779, the zamindari missed a kist (revenue
installment). The Company could not arrest a female zamindar so it confined
Diwan Kaliprasad Singh, briefly.8 In May, the rani's accumulated arrears for
the current and previous two years exceeded Rs. 6 lakhs and she was temporar-
ily removed from control of the zamindari. She impeded government's efforts
to collect the revenues through a temporary agent by refusing to turn over copies
of her mofussil settlement and her jama wasil baki accounts (lists of receipts
and arrears).9 In June 1779, the Company compromised and offered the rani a
new, lower settlement, based on the medium of collections for 1773-74 through
1775-76, on condition that she immediately pay up her arrears of Rs. 4,26,104
for the year just concluded. 10 This she refused. The government then ordered
the sale of part of her Dewry Mahals lands if she failed to discharge her 1778-79
arrears within twenty days. The sale order induced the rani to reach an agree-
ment in August 1779. She accepted a one-year settlement slightly lower than
the previous year's 11 and she agreed to pay her arrears.12
Were the rani and her officers bluffing when they pleaded their inability to
discharge the arrears of Rs. 6,40,584 for the previous three years? Were they

6
COR to GG, 19 Nov. 1781, Comparative View of the Settlements for 1780-81 and 1781-82,
Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, pp. 876-78.
7
Hunter, Bengal MS. Records, vol. I, pp. 67,70-71, and 73.
8
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 12 Feb. 1779, vol. 28.
9
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 31 May 1779, vol. 29.
10
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 21 June 1779, vol. 29.
11
Rs. 34,12,506 instead of Rs. 35,07,330, exclusive of allowances and zamindari charges.
12
Extract of GG letter, 10 Jan. 1780, Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, p. 901.
254 Burdwan
merely maneuvering to obtain a reduction in Burdwan's 1779-80 settlement?
This seems unlikely in view of the facts that in 1780 the rani's debts to private
creditors were large and that she was dispossessed of the zamindari in that year,
despite the lowered assessment. In April 1779, the rani offered two main excuses
for her arrears. She claimed that Rupnarayan Chaudhuri, Lala Koshalchandra,
and Braja Kishor Roy had not settled their accounts with her and still owed the
zamindari money from the time of their management. Second, she argued that
the effects of the 1770 famine were still being felt. As a result of the famine and
the money shortage it helped create, three-eights ("six annas") of the rents were
paid in grain instead of cash. "Now there is great plenty of grain but a scarcity
of money and what formerly could only be obtained for one Rupee, may now
be had for eight annas." Grain was so plentiful, "the Ryotts cannot dispose of
their crop" and the rani could not collect the full revenue. 13
In addition to seeking a reduced assessment, Rani Bishnukumari from 1778
struggled to reassert the zamindar's authority in revenue and judicial affairs.
The rani complained that the Burdwan Council was settling disputes about
rent-collection rights in particular villages without consulting her officers and
without using the raja's seals on official orders. "What can be a greater disgrace
or Humiliation than to suspend the signature of the Rajah?" she asked.14
She and her amla also protested the faujdari adalat's dispatch of 354 peons
to the villages after raiyats presented twenty-one petitions claiming kutki-
nadars were demanding proscribed mathuts (cesses) for temples and other
expenditures.15
Diwan Kaliprasad Singh justified the use of coercion in mofussil revenue
collection. "Without punishing the Ryotts of these Provinces it is impossible to
collect the revenues from them." Complaints and disagreements about rents
should be settled by the diwani adalat, not by the faujdari adalat, he argued. 16
The Burdwan Council implicitly accepted Kaliprasad's argument by repri-
manding the faujdar and the maulvi of the criminal court and ordering them to
prevent their peons from similar behavior in the future.17
When Rani Bishnukumari renegotiated her settlement during the hot weather
of 1779, she asked the Calcutta Council to return the zamindari daftars to her
charge and to be allowed to pay her revenue in Calcutta rather than in Burdwan.
She obviously hoped this would consolidate her authority in Burdwan and
prevent the Burdwan Council from interfering so often in zamindari revenue

13
Rani's letter, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 12 April 1779, vol. 29.
14
Rani's letter, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 21 Dec. 1778, vol. 27.
15
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 9 Jan. and 1 and 3 Feb. 1779, vol. 28.
16
Letter from Kaliprasad Singh, Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 1 Feb. 1779, vol. 28.
17
Burdwan PCOR Prog, of 3 Feb. 1779, vol. 28.
 Testing the limits, 1778-1790 255

collection. The Governor General agreed to her requests,18 perhaps in order to

remove all potential sources of complaint against the Company in the event she
fell into arrears again.
Nine years after the death of her husband, Rani Bishnukumari had gained the
formal authority she had battled for. She could appoint and dismiss her own
officers and she could petition the Calcutta authorities without going through
the Burdwan Council. But to obtain these concessions she had been required to
pay off the zamindari's arrears. This necessitated going deeply into debt. She
borrowed Rs. 9 lakhs from Nabakrishna, a wealthy favorite of Warren Hast-
ings.19 The rani and her amla managed Burdwan during 1779-80. However, she
failed to keep up her payments to Nabakrishna. In the summer of 1780,
Nabakrishna petitioned government for permission to take over management of
Burdwan so that he could collect the money the rani owed him. Warren Hastings
and his Council agreed and they appointed him sazawal or temporary collector
of Burdwan. The rani and her son were set aside on an allowance; Nabakrishna
collected the Burdwan revenues for two years and repaid himself the Rs. 9 lakhs
he had lent the rani through the commission on collections which the company
allowed him.20
Rani Bishnukumari tried to obstruct Nabakrishna's management in the first
year (1780-81). In January 1781, she persuaded the zamindari officers working
for Nabakrishna as well as a number of principal revenue farmers to leave
Burdwan and head for Kalna with her and Raja Tejchandra. This time the
Calcutta Council was in no mood to compromise or permit zamindars to defy
its wishes. The Company was hard pressed for money to finance its wars with
France, Mysore, and the Marathas. Moreover, the Council anticipated that
Bengal "may become the Seat of Troubles" as news of the Company's military
difficulties in the south and west spread.21 So the Company dispatched a party
of sepoys which intercepted the rani's entourage at Bansberia. The rani was
taken to Kalna and was forbidden to return to Burdwan. An armed guard was

18
Extract of GG letter, 10 Jan. 1780, Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, p. 901. In placing the Burdwan
zamindari under the Khalsa in 1779, Hastings foreshadowed the abolition of the Provincial
Councils of Revenue and the centralization of revenue administration that took place in 1781.
19
Nabakrishna, a Kayastha, had worked under Company officials in various public and private
capacities. He taught Persian to Warren Hastings, negotiated with nawabi officials as a "political
Banyan" under Governors Clive and Verelst, collected revenue for the Company, and lent
money to Company servants. His testimony against Nandakumar in the 1775 forgery trial was
crucial to the prosecution's, and Warren Hastings', case. P.J. Marshall, "Nobkissen versus
Hastings," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 27, pt. 2 (1964),
pp. 382-83.
20
Ibid., pp. 389-90.
21
Philip Francis, who had returned to England, testified to a Select Committee of the House of
Commons in July 1782 that if the Marathas invaded Bengal, the rajas of Burdwan, Birbhum,
Bishnupur, and Pachet "would be likely to join them." Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, p. 849.
256 Burdwan

placed around her home to prevent her departure. She was also deprived of all
authority in revenue matters and the raja's household accounts.22
This was not all. The Company again took Raja Tejchandra from his mother
and sent him back to Burdwan. The Calcutta authorities were using the rani's
misbehavior to correct a situation that some Company servants had been
concerned about for some years.23 They thought that Bishnukumari's obstruc-
tiveness and arrears were due to the pernicious influence of her manager and
alleged lover, Ramkant Roy.
The controversial Ramkant was a Kulin Brahmin from a village in modern
Hughli district. His father and grandfather had held appointments under the
Mughals. Rarhkant, who was a Vaishnava, had taken employment in Burdwan
as a pujari (temple priest) along side his Sakta maternal uncle in a temple
belonging to the raj family, for which he received a daily food allowance and
20 bighas of land. By 1774, he had become a favorite of Rani Bishnukumari.24
Perhaps she had sought him out as a guru, in the manner of many women in
Bengal who are beyond their child-bearing years.25 It is certain that by 1774
Ramkant had married at least two of his three wives because in that year (or in
1772) his famous son, the social reformer Rammohan Roy, was born to his
second wife.26 In 1774, Ramkant had been a principal architect of the rani's
strategy to recover control of her son and the household treasury from Braja
Kishor Roy. Although he was only the household diwan after the rani's
restoration in 1775, he had run the zamindari for a period without consulting
the zamindari diwan, Lala Koshalchandra, according to his opponents among
the Burdwan amla. Koshalchandra had complained to the Company about being
excluded. As a result, the Company had dismissed Ramkant as khansamani
diwan and imprisoned him briefly. After his release, he had rejoined the rani as
her chief advisor and manager of her affairs.27
When Nabakrishna was appointed sazawal of Burdwan in September 1780,
the government sent G.G. Ducarel, a senior civil servant, to Burdwan to effect
the transfer of the management to Nabakrishna. Ducarel sent back a report
highly critical of Ramkant Roy. He said that "it is a matter of Notoriety" that
Ramkant "has liberty of Access" to the rani "in a manner quite uncustomary
with Gentoo Women of Character, and in fact is generally supposed to govern

22
BOR resolution of 26 Jan. 1781, Supt. of Khalsa Records Prog, of 2 Feb. 1781, vol. 20.
23
[Richard Barwell] letter to Mrs. Barwell, 31 March 1777, "The Letters of Mr. Richard Barwell,"
Bengal Past and Present, vol. 16 (1918), p. 101.
24
Narrative of various Burdwan zamindari servants, May 1782, JP, Civil, Prog. 12 of 18 Nov.
1796, vol. 31.
25
Manisha Roy, Bengali Women (Chicago, 1975), pp. 1 3 8 ^ 5 .
26
Sophia Dobson Collet, The Life and Letters of Raja Rammohan Roy, ed. Dilip Kumar Biswas
and Prabhat Chandra Ganguli (3rd edn., Calcutta, 1962), pp. 2 - 3 and 11-12.
27
Narrative of various Burdwan zamindari servants, May 1782.
 Testing the limits, 1778-1790 257

the Rhanee entirely, and direct her Influence to his own purposes." Ducarel
suspected that Ramkant was dissipating Raja Tejchandra's property and that
Ramkant and the rani were keeping the raja "in a state of Tutelage & Ignorance,"
that the raja was "indulged with every trifling amusement which could take off
his attention from the Management of his own Affairs, and excluded from those
people who were capable of instructing him, or enlarging his Ideas." 28 It was
these considerations which led the Company to take Tejchandra away from Rani
Bishnukumari in January 1781. At that time, the Company accused the rani and
Ramkant of having embezzled over Rs. 11 lakhs that properly belonged to
Tejchandra. It also suspended the rani from her management of the Dewry
Mahals so that their profits could be used to reimburse the zamindari for the
alleged embezzlement. 29
In this second forced separation from her son, neither the Supreme Court nor
the Governor General's Council intervened on behalf of the rani. For four years
the rani was isolated at Kalna. In the first year, Tejchandra was assigned to the
care of Nabakrishna who was instructed to help G.G. Ducarel in an investigation
of the raja's household accounts. 30 Under examination, Ramkant acknowledged
that the rani had removed "a considerable amount in Jewels, Gold and Silver
Plate" from Burdwan to Kalna and that he, Ramkant, had removed Rs. 54,708
to his own house. In May 1782, the Company delivered Ramkant to Tejchandra
so that he could imprison him in his palace until he agreed to restitution. 31
Tejchandra obtained an agreement and then released Ramkant. However,
Ramkant did not fulfill his agreement and Tejchandra filed a suit against him
that was still pending in 1796. 32
This period of Rani Bishnukumari's life was her nadir. She was confined in
her house at Kalna on a small allowance, she was deprived of her landed estates,
she was suspected of scandalous behavior, and her son was accusing her
confidant of embezzling his money. She described this period in the following
words:
Being at Amboah the Harcarrach [guard] Mootyram and others so beset every side of
my House that it was impossible even for an Ant to escape; I had no notice of my son's
situation nor had he of mine. In this manner a space of four years elapsed and I was even
destitute of food or Clothing. After this my ungrateful servants joining themselves to
others fraudulently took the Maha Rajah with them to Calcutta and ... carried him to live
at Nobkissen's.

28
G.G. Ducarel, Supt., Khalsa Records, to GG, 26 Aug. 1780, Extract of Bengal Rev. Consults.,
12 Sept. 1780, Home Misc., vol. 207.
29
BOR resolution of 26 Jan. 1781.
30
BOR resolution of 26 Jan. 1781.
31
G.G. Ducarel, Burdwan Col., to GG, 25 June 1782, JP, Civil, Prog. 12of 18Nov. 1796,vol31.
32
Petition of Tejchandra, 24 Sept. 1796, ibid.
258 Burdwan

Bishnukumari further said that Tejchandra's sister had died "from the strictness
of the confinement" at Kalna.33
According to the rani's account, Tejchandra called on Warren Hastings while
living in Nabakrishna's Calcutta house and "represented that his life was nearly
at an end from the various distress he had undergone." Hastings ordered that
Tejchandra be returned to Burdwan. Back at Burdwan, said the rani, Tejchandra
was surrounded by "fifty Debauched people" who "initiated him in such evil
ways that he had no concern left for either House, life or Country."34
There seems to be no way of verifying the rani's charges about the raja's life
style. The rani wanted to be freed from her confinement and restored to the
management of the zamindari and to the company of her son. Presumably, she
therefore considered it to be in her interest to accuse Dyachandra, the husband
of Tejchandra's sister, and Tejchandra's other associates of corrupting his
morals. What is certain is that her influence in zamindari affairs was effectively
suspended in the early 1780s while Nabakrishna's was unfettered. Naba-
krishna's success in both paying off the zamindari debts and collecting the full
revenue demand in 1780-81, after his predecessors had failed, fully justified
"the Propriety of this Model of Settlement," according to John Shore, chairman
of the Committee of Revenue.35
But at the end of 1781 -82, Nabakrishna's Burdwan revenue was Rs. 2.1 lakhs
in arrears. The Committee of Revenue suspected that Nabakrishna had collected
more than he admitted. One member charged his management "had been
'excessively violent' and added that the 'inhabitants ... have in general been
taxed by him to an extraordinary degree and far beyond their engagements.'" 36
Nabakrishna was therefore dismissed and G.G. Ducarel, the Burdwan Commis-
sioner, was ordered to make the mofussil settlement of Burdwan. Ducarel found
that the non-cooperation of the zamindari officers made this virtually impossi-
ble37 so the Governor General's Council summoned Raja Tejchandra to Cal-
cutta, without his mother, and it persuaded the raja and his officers to accept the
settlement for 1782-83 at the same, enhanced level as Nabakrishna's for
1781-82 (Rs. 43,58,026, inclusive of allowances and collection charges.)38
From 1782 to 1786, officers approved by the Company managed the Burd-
wan zamindari for Tejchandra with almost no interference from his mother at
Kalna. Each year, the raja and his officers petitioned government about their

33
Rani's petition, BOR Prog, of 15 June 1787, quoted in BLI, pp. lxviii-ix.
34
Ibid.
35
COR to GG, 19 Nov. 1781, Sixth Report on Justice, 1782, pp. 873-74.
36
Marshall, "Nobkissen versus Hastings," pp. 390-91.
37
Hunter, Bengal MS. Records, vol. I, p. 46.
38
With the difference that Tejchandra was allowed to deduct an additional Rs. 40,000 for
collection charges but was given no commission. COR to GG, 19 Aug. 1782, COR Prog, of 19
Aug. 1782, vol. 17.
 Testing the limits, 1778-1790 259

inability to pay the full demand. For example, in 1782 floods burst through the
river banks and the raja made claims for losses against the British pulbandi
contractor.39 In the autumn of 1783, he twice left Burdwan in protest against
the inflexibility of government demands and was warned that if he did not
return, devote his attention to the collections, and exclude from all public
concerns "the discontented members of his family" who had persuaded him to
go to Bansberia "on pretence of performing some religious ceremonies," he
would be deprived of his zamindari.40 In April 1784, the raja was placed under
guard of peons until he paid his arrears. In June and July 1786, he pleaded his
revenues were so inadequate that he was unable to make the usual advances
to his raiyats and he pointed out that he had substantially reduced the expendi-
tures of his household. The Burdwan Collector, John Kinloch, thought that
Tejchandra was genuinely distressed and recommended that he be indulged.
The Board of Revenue refused and ordered the attachment of his property,
"beginning with his house and furniture." Kinloch surrounded the raja's palace
with sepoys and the arrears of Rs. 1,76,462 were paid up.41
As the raja was approaching "the years of discretion," the Company had to
decide whether to invest him with full charge of his zamindari. Kinloch had
reported that Tejchandra was paying more attention to the management of the
revenue collection and his household accounts and that he was more knowl-
edgeable about the capacities of individual raj employees. 42 Although Kinloch
also observed that "dangerous and intriguing persons have gained the young
Rajah's confidence and are leading him astray,"43 in November 1786, the
government gave Tejchandra sole charge of the zamindari.44
Tejchandra was assuming control of the zamindari fifteen years after the
death of his father. The loss of his father, the instability of his private relation-
ships including the separations from his mother, the rumors about his mother's
scandalous behavior, his multiple marriages, and the frequent shifts in the
personnel of the highest zamindari offices meant that he had lived through what
must have been an emotionally disturbing childhood and adolescence. Apart
from a weak physical constitution and an adversarial, distant relationship with
his mother, the consequences of these stormy years on Tejchandra are unclear.
What became evident in the following years, however, was that despite possible
emotional scars, he managed his zamindari with more success than any other

39
Hunter, Bengal MS. Records, vol. I, p. 58.
40
Ibid., pp. 74 and 79-80.
41
BOR Prog., 23 June 1786, vol. 1, and BOR Prog., 3 July 1786, vol. 2.
42
J. Kinloch to GG, 19 April 1786, BOR Prog. 3 of 17 Nov. 1786, vol. 6.
43
J. Kinloch to GG and COR, 25 May 1786, R.J. Hirst, "The Early Collectorate Records of
Burdwan, 1786-90," Bengal Past and Present, vol. 6 (1910), p. 229.
44
BOR Prog. 10 of 17 Nov. 1786, vol. 6.
260 Burdwan

major zamindar in Bengal. Far from having been incapacitated by his early
years, as an adult zamindar he was shrewd, resourceful, persistent, at times
belligerent. He had learned to use his officers and vakils to argue, plead, litigate,
and manipulate the land sales in a manner designed to protect his holdings.
Almost as importantly, he and his advisers recognized the limits of their power
and they knew enough to desist at the point at which further obstruction risked
loss of the zamindari. They repeatedly tested those limits.
When Tejchandra took full charge of his zamindari in 1786, opinion among
authorities in England was swinging in favor of zamindars once again. The
failure of efforts to raise the revenue demand on Bengal's zamindaris and the
appointment of sazawals to manage Burdwan, Rajshahi, and other large
zamindaris had aroused sympathy for zamindars. The East India Act of 1784
had required the Company "to inquire into the alleged grievances of the
landholders," which included claims that they were over-taxed and unfairly
dispossessed. 45 The Court of Directors in April 1786 sent its historic letter
proposing that the government fix the revenue demand permanently and make
that permanent settlement with the zamindars. In doing so, the Court seemed to
side with the zamindars against the government in Calcutta. It "censured" the
recent efforts to increase the revenue from the zamindars and to introduce
"farmers, sezawals, and aumeens, who having no permanent interest in the
lands, had drained the country of its resources."46
From the outset, Tejchandra was almost as prickly and combative as his
mother had been. He frequently fell into arrears and then disobeyed the
Collector's orders to pay up, deliver records, and attend the Collector's kachari.
He infuriated the officers assigned to Burdwan by challenging their judgment
and defying their authority. He repeatedly wrote to or visited Calcutta to
complain about their actions or about the government's revenue demand. Yet
until 1788, Tejchandra was fortunate in having John Kinloch as Collector
because Kinloch often supported Tejchandra's pleas for remissions on account
of natural disasters. On more than one occasion Kinloch was reprimanded for
failing to execute coercive processes which the Calcutta authorities had ordered
against Tejchandra. Kinloch was inclined to blame the raja's obstinacy on the
advice of Tejchandra's associates. 47
After Kinloch died in September 1788, his successor, Lawrence Mercer,
acted to remove what both he and Rani Bishnukumari considered malignant
influences. Mercer was concerned about Tejchandra's character, health, and
knowledge of zamindari affairs. He singled out Dyachandra, Tejchandra's

45
Fifth Report, 1812, vol. I, p. 14.
46
Ibid., pp. 19-20.
47
Hirst, "The Early Collectorate Records," pp. 229ff.
 Testing the limits, 1778-1790 261

brother-in-law, childhood companion, and major revenue farmer, as being

responsible for the raja's uncooperative behavior. Mercer reported that
Dyachandra was "generally considered as the principal adviser and Controller
of both his public and private actions." 48 Rani Bishnukumari confirmed this in
a letter to John Shore. She complained that Dyachandra and his brother,
Anandchandra (the raja's other brother-in-law) were ruining the raja with their
bad advice, and that the raiyats were distressed as a result. 49 After Tejchandra
refused Mercer's demand to dismiss Dyachandra, the government ordered
Dyachandra to leave the district. Since he was the renter of Bhursut, Arsa, and
other lands, he was given two months to settle his affairs and he was warned
that if he returned to the district, he would be confined in the Khalsa in
Calcutta.50 But the raja was no more cooperative during the months Dyachandra
lived outside Burdwan.
Raghunath Singh was another confidant, "immediate dependant," and some-
time employee whom the Collector hoped to remove from Tejchandra's com-
pany. Mercer described Raghunath as "so notoriously profligate" that the raja
had never "attempted to introduce him to me well knowing he would not be
received."51 Raghunath was the person who formally charged the Collector's
diwan, Lala Roy Singh, with accepting bribes. Once, Tejchandra instituted
charges that Raghunath had embezzled valuable items from the raja's wardrobe
while he held charge of that department and that Raghunath also owed him
Rs. 22,000. But when Raghunath was brought face to face with the raja to
answer the charges, Raghunath said he had in his possession letters from
Tejchandra that the Collector would "be glad to see." Apparently, Tejchandra
was so intimidated by this threat that he had Raghunath released without
collecting anything. Ganganarayan Mitra, the raja's karkun (chief clerk), whis-
pered to the Collector during the meeting that Raghunath should not be allowed
to go near the raja because Raghunath "had a Talisman/Tabeej with the Rajah's
name in his possession by which he could make the Rajah do whatever he
choose." 52
Mercer's motive in complaining about Tejchandra is obvious. But why did
Rani Bishnukumari complain to the government against her own son? She was
concerned about more than the welfare of the raiyats. She was worried about
Tejchandra's failure to produce a son. She hinted that his companions had led

48
L. Mercer, Burdwan Col., to G.H. Barlow, Sub-Sec, 9 Feb. 1789, BOR Prog. No. 40 of 25 Feb.
1789, vol. 61.
49
Rani of Burdwan to John Shore, received 12 Jan. 1789. BLR, p. 63.
50
L. Mercer to Dyachandra, 2 March 1786, BLJ, p. 6. Dyachandra was in Burdwan town in Merch
1791. Ibid., p. 32.
51
L. Mercer, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 13 Sept. 1790, BLI, p. 29.
52
L. Mercer, Burdwan Col., to Preparer of Reports, 4 March 1791, BLU p. 32.
262 Burdwan

him into behavior which prevented him from becoming a father. What was that
behavior? Had Tejchandra already contracted venereal disease, from which he
became seriously ill in 1793? 53 Or did his mother consider his sexual prefer-
ences improper or unnatural? The answer is not clear. She wrote to John Shore:
I have only one son, and my mind is wretched at witnessing his conduct... I have, in
order to increase his posterity, provided for four Marriages, the consequence as a mother
I think it improper to communicate. My mind is very uneasy and I therefore write these
improper matters to you as I know the English Gentlemen are always attentive to the
welfare of my family. I am induced to represent without disguise in general terms the
domestic affairs and hope that an order will be issued to me to discharge Dyah Chand,
Lallan Baboo [Anandchandra] and other evil men and that the Maha Rajah may
comprehend the affairs of his country, & transact them with my advice, so that the name
of his ancestors may not be forgotten and disgraced. You, Sir, will be pleased to shew
such countenance to my request, as shall preserve the reputation of the Maha Rajah's
parents.54

Rani Bishnukumari also wanted to regain management of the Dewry Mahals

which had been first taken from her to reimburse Tejchandra for money she and
Ramkant Roy had taken out of the raja's household accounts and then had been
assigned to pay her debts to her British creditors. 55 In September 1789, the rani
petitioned the Governor General ("Cherisher of the slave") for the return of the
Dewry Mahals, saying "my son ... is preparing to degrade me," 56 apparently
by holding back her Rs. 4,000 allowance which the Company had promised her
when it confined her in 1781. In 1791, she complained that her son was not
sending her allowance regularly and the government ordered the Collector to
pay her directly.57 The raja also held back half the maintenance allowance for
the two widows of Raja Chitrasen, his great uncle, leading them to complain
that "we are in great distress & near 200 of us widows are without support and
have only a meal at night." It seems that under revenue pressure from govern-
ment, Tejchandra was diverting the pensions of his elderly relatives. 58 Perhaps
he felt badly about this because in May 1791 he turned over management of the
Dewry Mahals to his mother as his tenant.59 She became his largest revenue
payer.
While the rani and Burdwan Collectors worried about Tejchandra's personal
development and tried to free him from what they considered malign influences,

53
W. Williams, Surgeon, to W.A. Bruce, Burdwan C o l , 17 May 1793. BOR Prog, of 20 May
1793, vol 154.
54
Rani of Burdwan to John Shore, received 12 Jan. 1789. BLR, p. 63.
55
Extract of Rev. Letter from Bengal, 27 Nov. 1782, Home Misc., vol. 207.
56
BOR Prog, of 17-28 Sept. 1789, vol. 77.
57
GG to BOR, 18 March 1791, BLR, p. 142.
58
BOR to C.A. Bruce, Burdwan Ag. Col., 23 Sept. 1791, with rani's petition enclosed, BLR, p. 185.
59
BOR to GG, 30 May 1791, BLR, p. 169.
 Testing the limits, 1778-1790 263

Tejchandra and his amla argued with government about revenue matters. These
seemed to upset Tejchandra more than its efforts to separate him from his
childhood companions and brothers-in-law. He and his amla protested vigor-
ously about the reduction in zamindari allowances, about the rigidity of the
revenue demand in years of natural disaster, and the beginning of the land sales
in 1789 to pay for arrears.
In 1787, the Company had imposed significant economies on the zamindari
by cutting its allowances for zamindari servants and zamindari troops. John
Kinloch halved the salaries of the principal zamindari officers and dismissed
fourteen of the seventeen vakils the raj had employed. In the process, he reduced
the salaries of zamindari amla from Rs. 68,720 to Rs. 28,720, bringing an
addition of Rs. 40,000 to the Company's net revenue. 60 He added another
Rs. 53,000 by reducing the zamindari troops by roughly half, to 1,000 men. As
a means of partially overcoming the raja's objections, command of the troops
was transferred from their British officer to Tejchandra. The troops were used
to guard the zamindari kacharis in each pargana and to escort treasure and
suppress disturbances.61 These and similar economies increased the company's
net annual revenue from Burdwan by Rs. 1,62,587 without adding to the gross
collections. 62
Even more galling to Tejchandra than these reductions in his sources of
patronage and display was the Company's unsympathetic response to requests
for revenue adjustments on account of crop damage. The Burdwan flood of 1787
was of exceptional severity. Heavy rains in late September caused the Damodar
and Ajay rivers to overflow and covered fields in many parganas of Burdwan
with two to three feet of water. In certain areas, cultivators sowed their rabi
(spring) crop three times without success. 63 Some people drowned, many cattle
died, and in Burdwan town, brick houses were badly damaged and "not a vestige
of a mud house" remained.64 The Collector asked for permission to tour in order
to estimate the extent of damages, and Tejchandra asked for revenue suspen-
sions; the Board of Revenue denied both requests. Legally, despite exceptions
in practice, natural disasters were not grounds for revenue remission. The raja's
revenue officers and farmers began to use "harsh means" to collect rents, the
first time they had used "such rigorous extremities" in Burdwan, according to
the Collector. The Board of Revenue responded by ordering Kinloch to protect
the peasants from oppression65 on the assumption that the raja and his renters

60
John Kinloch, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 10 May 1787. BOR Prog, of 18 May 1787, vol. 16.
61
Kinloch to BOR, 25 April 1787, BOR Prog, of 4 May 1787, vol. 15.
62
BOR to GG, 11 Sept. 1787, BOR Prog, of 11 Sept. 1787, vol. 24.
63
BU, p. lxx
64
Charles Bruce, Burdwan Ag. Col., to BOR, 9 Oct. 1787. BOR Prog, of 12 Oct. 1787, vol. 26.
65
Kinloch to BOR, 8 Feb. 1888, and BOR to Kinloch, 15 Feb. 1788, BOR Prog, of 15 Feb. 1788,
vol.31.
264 Burdwan

should suspend the demand on injured cultivators and pay the revenue demand
by drawing on their savings or by borrowing. By February, the raja was Rs. 8
lakhs in arrears.
Tejchandra had few options. He could borrow money and he could apply
coercive pressure on his farmers. He did press his farmers, imposing "daily
severities and repeated indignities" on some whom the Collector thought might
be "totally incapacitated" because in previous years they had paid regularly but
now they suffered the coercion without paying. And the raja himself was
coerced. The government suspended his moshaira (monthly allowance) and the
pay of his amla and paiks. It also attached his personal belongings, including
his clothes, "Patna Black and Gold Furniture," silver plate, thirty-five Chinese,
European, and "country" paintings, seven elephants, and twelve horses.66 The
attachments were presumably intended to humiliate him into paying his arrears
rather than to raise money to make good the revenue deficiency, for their value
was small compared to the arrears.
At this point, Tejchandra asked and received permission to go to Calcutta to
discuss his arrears with the Board of Revenue. The Collector released a
palanquin and clothes for the raja to use on his trip.67 Tejchandra remained in
Calcutta for almost three months and worked out a schedule of repayments to
be completed by November 1788.68 Perhaps the June report that grain prices in
the southern Burdwan parganas had risen by 500 percent convinced the Board
that the 1787 flood had inflicted severe damage and thus the raja indeed
deserved a limited indulgence.69
The 1788 stand-off between Tejchandra and the government was a classic
conflict of the pre-Decennial Settlement period. The government coerced the
zamindar who claimed that a natural disaster had damaged the crops; the
zamindar in turn coerced his farmers; his fanners coerced their sub-renters and
raiyats; the government urged the Collector to protect the raiyats, arguing at the
same time that the superior holders exaggerated the extent of their losses and
that in any case their agreements did not allow revenue suspensions for seasonal
calamities. In 1788, Tejchandra avoided having land sold to pay his arrears.
After 1788 he was not as fortunate. Beginning in 1789, for the first time, sales
of zamindari lands became the ordinary means of recovering arrears.
Relations between Tejchandra and government remained strained after his
return to Burdwan in July 1788. In the summer of 1788, bad weather damaged
the crops in southern and northern Burdwan for a second year in a row. In

66
Kinloch to BOR, 29 April 1788, BOR Prog, of May 1788, vol. 36.
67
Kinloch to BOR, 30 April 1788, ibid.
68
BOR to Thomas Brooke, Burdwan Ag. Col., 22 July 1788, BLR, pp. 18-19.
69
Hirst, "The Early Collectorate Records," p. 239.
 Testing the limits, 1778-1790 265

southern Burdwan, five parganas were flooded, without abnormal rainfall,

allegedly because of the raja's neglect of the river embankments, and damaged
the crops.70 Northern parganas suffered drought,71 and the raja again fell into
arrears. A large gang of dakaits in northern Burdwan attacked a Company party
escorting treasure from Birbhum to Calcutta and Tejchandra, theoretically
responsible for law and order, was forced to compensate the Company for the
stolen money.72 He was also fined Rs. 5,000 for repeatedly disobeying orders
to provide records of Burdwan's revenue-free land.73 He was scolded for
"disrespectful" conduct.74 By April 1789, Burdwan had accumulated substan-
tial arrears.
For the second year in a row, Burdwan reached a crisis point as Tejchandra
and the government tried to outmaneuver each other. This year, though, the
government refused all his pleas for indulgence. The drought and floods in the
summer of 1788 had been less destructive than the major flood of 1787. The
Collector observed that Tej's maintenance of "useless Sepoys, elephants &c"
and his building projects in various parts of Burdwan indicated that he was not
as distressed as he claimed. Among the building projects were the 109 Shiva
temples just west of Burdwan town that Rani Bishnukumari dedicated in 1788
to Radha and Krishna,75 perhaps to satisfy both Ramkant Roy's Vaishnavism
and her own Shaivism.76 The Collector also reported that the farmers in greatest
arrears were Tejchandra's close and wealthy dependents, including his Calcutta
vakil, Bindaban Babu, who farmed Mandalghat, and his brothers-in-law,
Dyachandra and Anandchandra.77 Therefore, the government took away Man-
dalghat and sold it at public auction. However, this giant pargana, with a jama
of Rs. 2.1 lakhs, fetched only Rs. 66,200. The raja was angry about the low
price. He went to Calcutta and complained that by shifting the date of the
auction, the government had prevented "respectable" people from bidding.78 In
fact, Mandalghat had deteriorated in value because of repeated floods, the
inadequacy of embankments, and migration of many inhabitants.
Because of the remaining heavy arrears, government announced its intention
to take the Burdwan zamindari out of Tejchandra's control for 1789-90 and

70
Letter from Resident at Radanagore, 21 March 1789, BLR, p. 73.
71
Charles A. Bruce, Burdwan Asst. Col., to J. Kinloch, 7 Aug. 1788, BLR, p. 30.
72
Joseph Sherburne, Birbhum Col., to Thomas Brooke, Burdwan Ag. Col., 15 Oct. 1788, BLR,
p. 24.
73
GG in C to BOR, 1 Oct. 1788, BLR, p. 23.
74
BOR to Brooke, Burdwan Ag. Col., 7 Oct. 1788, BLR, pp. 22-23.
75
This construction of Shaivite temples to propitiate Vaishnava deities was unusual but not unique.
Bhattacharyya, A Corpus of Dedicatory Inscriptions, p. 14.
76
Ramkant's second wife, Tarini Devi, the mother of Rammohan Roy, came from a Shakta family
but after her marriage became a Vaishnava.
77
L. Mercer to BOR, 31 May 1789, and enclosure, BLI, pp. 17-18.
78
Hirst, "The Early Collectorate Records," pp. 230-31.
266 Burdwan

lease it to farmers.79 This threat induced Tejchandra to settle reluctantly with

government in August 1789 at the same revenue as in previous years, minus
Mandalghat.80 In April and November 1790, government ordered the sale of
part of the Dewry Mahals to satisfy the long-standing debts owed to Hazari Mai
and the European creditors;81 the maharaja averted sales both times by making
partial payments.
When the Decennial Settlement of 1790 was imposed, Tejchandra was
twenty-five years old. The two extended periods of separation from his mother
and the series of crises in the zamindari's affairs had apparently given him
sufficient mental and emotional toughness to cope with the harsh policies of
John Shore and the Decennial Settlement. His own shrewdness, the presence of
capable advisers and cooperative mofussil gentry, the high productivity
of Burdwan's lands, and easy access to the markets of Calcutta equipped
Tejchandra to face the sweeping changes of the 1790s with at least a chance of
keeping his zamindari. Most major zamindars were in weaker positions.

79
J.H. Harrington, Sec., BOR, to L. Mercer, 1 July 1789, BLR, p. 75.
80
Hirst, "The Early Collectorate Records," p. 231.
81
J.H. Harrington to L. Mercer, 22 April 1790, BLR, p. 111; L. Mercer, Burdwan Col., to BOR,
18 Nov. 1790, BOR Prog, of 19-20 Nov. 1790, vol. 104.
15 Burdwan under the Decennial and
Permanent Settlements

Zamindars entered a new era in the spring of 1790 when the Company offered
them ten-year settlements. Those settlements were declared permanent in 1793.
The distinctive feature of the Decennial and Permanent Settlements was not that
they were made with the zamindars. Zamindars, of course, had been collectors
for most of the eighteenth century. Nor was the level of the demand remarkable
since it was but "marginally" higher than previously, although "stable or falling"
agricultural prices in the 1790s made the demand difficult to realize. 1 Instead,
the crucial innovations were the permanency and the mode of recovering
arrears. In the long run, the fixity of the land tax attracted investments into the
developmental dead-end of rent-collecting rights, rather than into forms of
enterprise that were likely to lead to higher productivity or balanced economic
growth. In the long run, the fixed tax declined as a proportion of the money
supply as inflation and the cultivation of new lands vastly expanded the rental
income available from the working peasants.
The other crucial innovation of the 1790 and 1793 settlements was that
zamindars' hereditary rights to collect the revenue were required to serve as
security for the government's revenue, in practice as well as in theory.2 Begin-
ning in 1790, failure to meet the government demand normally led to sale at
public auction of that portion of a zamindari estate sufficient to realize the
arrears. Other expedients for recovering arrears, such as temporary remissions,
khas management, management by a sazawal, and short-term leases to farmers,
no longer were used except in unusual circumstances.3
What made the new rules requiring automatic attachment and sale of land in
arrears so devastating to the zamindars was the combination of high seasonable
variation in agricultural production and prices and the low margins of profit
available to the raiyats and ultimately to the zamindars. High rental rates, to pay

1
Marshall, New Cambridge History of India, II.2, pp. 124 and 143.
2
Fifth Report, 1812, vol. I, p. 20.
3
Khas management was often used for brief periods between the time the government attached
land in arrears and the time the land was auctioned and given possession to the new owner.

267
268 Burdwan

the cost of intermediate collection and the government's demand, depressed the
raiyats' profits. John Shore estimated that the raiyats were compelled to pay
half their "gross produce" and that in many areas the assessment was so high
that raiyats managed to pay only by "secretly holding lands which pay no rent." 4
Raiyats and supra-village intermediaries had been resisting demands from
zamindars for generations. Now, with the government's demands rigid at the
top of the collection pyramid and a narrow profit margin for the majority of
raiyats at the bottom, zamindari survival in the near term would require
curtailing both the numbers and special privileges of the favored dependents
and head raiyats who stood between the zamindar and the bulk of the laboring
agriculturists. Few zamindars and their amla were culturally prepared or pow-
erful enough to tighten management procedures by abruptly abolishing tradi-
tional indulgences.
How much land was transferred as a result of sales for arrears? Sirajul Islam
wrote the fullest analysis of the sales after 1793. He found that in the ten years
following the Permanent Settlement, land paying roughly 65 percent of the
annual jama of Bengal was sold. His figures omit both the lands sold for arrears
in 1790-93 and the lands transferred by private sales. On the other hand, a
substantial portion of the purchases included in his figures were benami (false
name) purchases by the original owners who deliberately forfeited their lands
in the hope of repurchasing them free of encumbrances and arrears. Using the
statistics for known benami repurchases and estimates for other benami trans-
actions, Islam concluded that the real loss of land amounted to the equivalent
of perhaps 45 percent of the annual jama. Since large zamindaris forfeited
proportionally more than small ones, he further estimated that the ten largest
zamindaris were responsible for three-fourths of the sales.5 Of the six largest
zamindaris who together had paid half of Bengal's land revenue, only Burdwan
entered the nineteenth century with more than half its territory intact.
One effect of the Permanent Settlement, therefore, was to reduce the property
of the largest zamindars. This reversed the policy of the previous three decades.
Until 1790, the Company had maintained most of the largest estates in the same
families as had held them under the Mughals. No matter how many times the
Company had temporarily deprived the zamindars of their management in favor
of revenue farmers, sazawals, and British Collectors, the Company had implied
recognition of the zamindar's property by granting maintenance to suspended
zamindars and then had returned them to control of their holdings. In this
respect, the Permanent Settlement was a decisive break with previous policy.
For village-level renters, it made little difference if their rents were destined

4
John Shore, Minute of 18 June 1789, paras. 109 and 117.
5
Islam, Permanent Settlement, pp. 144-57.
 The Permanent Settlement 269
for the old zamindar or an auction-purchaser. Many auction-purchasers were
the zamindari amla and the intermediate tenure-holders to whom raiyats had
paid rents in the past. Under the unforgiving rules of the new system, old and
new zamindars alike were under pressure to collect promptly. Neither category
was in a position to indulge raiyats in difficulty as often as in the past. On the
contrary, the strictness of the new system forced some land managers to cancel
the preferential arrangements enjoyed by superior raiyats. Neither old nor new
zamindars returned much to the communities in which raiyats lived in the form
of irrigation works,6 roads, schools, or agricultural investments. Although a few
superior landholders encouraged cultivation of new crops such as indigo, the
bulk were ignorant of agricultural affairs and confined their interest to the
extraction of rents and the performance of life-cycle and religious rituals.
Agricultural technology remained basically unchanged.7
The mechanisms of revenue extraction began to change in significant ways
in the 1790s. The introduction of a vastly expanded judicial system, in the
mofussil as well as the district headquarters, thrust the government into the role
of arbitrating disputes over rents and coercing rent defaulters. Detailed analysis
of how the new judicial system affected intermediate landholders comes in the
next chapter. Here, it is necessary to note the start of a shift from private coercion
and infliction of bodily pain to state judicial processes accompanied by deten-
tion and distraint of property. Prior to 1793, most coercion of superior raiyats
had occurred without reference to or assistance from employees of the Com-
pany. The naibs (deputies) of the zamindar's major renters and their under-rent-
ers had sent peons to villages with arrears, sometimes with orders from
zamindari officers but often without, to harass or detain raiyats until they paid
what was demanded of them. The Collector, in his capacity as Judge and
Magistrate, had the legal authority to assist in this process, but he had been far
too busy to attend to the common cases of rental arrears and disputes. The
Burdwan Collector observed in 1790 that Tejchandra "acts both as Judge and
party in the Construction to be put on" the agreement between the zamindar and
his renters.8 Henry St. George Tucker told the 1832 Select Committee that "prior
to 1793,1 would say, there was scarcely a regular tribunal for the administration
of civil justice in the country." Collectors presided over civil courts but "every-
thing gave way or was subordinate to the duty of collecting revenue."9

6
In the 1790s, the Company provided zamindars with allowances for maintainingriverembank-
ments. It is doubtful that those allowances were fully expended for that purpose.
7
Kumar and Desai (eds.), Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. II, p. 86.
8
L. Mercer to BOR, 31 July 1790, BOR Prog, of 1-18 Oct. 1790, vol. 101.
9
Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India
Committee, 1831-32 (Revenue), British Parliamentary Papers: Colonies, East India, vol.9
(Shannon, 1970), p. 152.
270 Burdwan

W. W. Hunter exaggerated when he wrote that "the records place beyond doubt
that until 1793, civil justice was unknown in Bengal." But he may have been
correct in saying that civil justice had formed "the least part" of the Collectors'
responsibilities. He found that in Birbhum and Bishnupur, with over a million
people, an average of eighteen civil suits were instituted annually between 1787
and 1793.10
The 1793 regulations established a much more elaborate judicial system, with
judicial officers who were not responsible for revenue collection. The district
Judge and his British assistant heard suits of large value and received appeals
from the lower courts. Native Commissioners were stationed in the mofussil
with authority to try complaints of up to Rs.50. Bengalis were quick to utilize
the new courts for rental and other debts, both in the mofussil and the district
headquarters, despite the long delays and heavy costs of litigation. Whereas
before 1793, civil suits decided annually in a single district numbered in the
tens or hundreds,11 on 27 February 1795, the courts in Burdwan district had
pending over 30,000 suits, mostly for arrears of rents.12 From 1793 through
1801, the munsifs and other Native Commissioners of Bengal settled 328,064
cases, including those referred to arbitration, and they had an additional 131,929
cases pending on the first day of 1802. The British officers had decided another
31,050 cases.13
In introducing the new system of civil justice, Lord Cornwallis proclaimed
that the courts were to enhance the "security of property." "The people must
feel and be satisfied of this security, before industry will exert itself, or the
monied men embark their capitals in agriculture or commercial speculations."14
The new courts, like the Permanent Settlement itself, had a more complicated
effect than Cornwallis anticipated. The procedural delays and costs were often
more decisive than the justice of a complaint in determining whether litigants
retained or lost their rights to a share in the land's produce. A final court
decision, in the early years of their operation, typically took months, and if
appealed, years, while auction sales proceeded within weeks of arrears. The

10
Hunter, Annals, pp. 338-39.
11
It is unclear if the small number of decisions recorded included the "irregular" and "secret"
proceedings which consisted of" ex parte correspondence" between government officers used
to settle "disputes between landholders and their tenants and under-renters." Minute of GG Lord
Cornwallis, 11 Feb. 1793, Second Reportfromthe Select Committee on the Affairs of the East
India Company, 1810, British Parliamentary Papers: Colonies, East India, vol. 1 (Shannon,
1971),App;9Ap.350.
12
The 1793 regulations had abolished the fee, in the form of a percentage of the sum sued for; a
1795 regulation restored the fee in order to discourage litigation.
13
Fifth Report, 1812, vol. I, pp. 113-15.
14
GG to COR, 6 March 1793, British Parliamentary Papers: Colonies, East India, vol. 1, App. 9,
p. 338.
 The Permanent Settlement 271

zamindars consequently exercised a more urgent and comprehensive severity

on their intermediaries, and they in turn on theiragents and tenant-cultivators.
Prompt, full payment became the necessary objective through the whole land
management pyramid.
The coercive power of zamindars and their intermediate collectors was
restricted, although it is uncertain by how much, by the 1793 transfer of the
zamindars' formal police authority to the Company. Since Company Collectors,
in their capacities as district Magistrates, had previously been giving orders to
the thanadars (police officers), the change may have been more symbolic than
real. In Burdwan, 801 of the 3,079 thanadari force were dismissed in 1793. The
remaining thanadari village-level chaukidars and paiks continued to act on
behalf of both the Company thanadars and the zamindars. Apart from the
thanadari chaukidars and paiks, the raja of Burdwan had thousands of his own
paiks to help in collecting and escorting revenue. The Burdwan Collector
reported in 1794 that altogether Burdwan had 17,384 village paiks. 15 In Burd-
wan and elsewhere, the zamindars clearly retained much of their traditional
potential to force raiyats to pay arrears. That potential, though, must have been
a limited one when many raiyats fell behind in their rents because the average
village contained just over two chaukidars or paiks - too few by themselves to
arrest or seize the crops from a combination of raiyats.
The remainder of this chapter first describes how the rents of the Burdwan
zamindari were collected in the 1790s and then follows the history of the
zamindari through the period of heavy auction sales initiated by the Decennial
Settlement of 1790, to 1800 when a relative calm returned to Burdwan after six
decades of tumult - of invasions, conflict with the Company, and turmoil within
the raj family. Rani Bishnukumari's death in 1798 terminated the stormy rivalry
between mother and son. The government's 1799 decision to strengthen the
power of zamindars and their farmers to coerce rent payments from their raiyats
enabled zamindars to collect their revenue with greater promptness. Beginning
in 1799, auction sales of land in arrears began to decline in Burdwan and in
Bengal generally.
Between 1790 and 1800, it seemed at times that the Burdwan raj family
might lose most of its estate. In Burdwan district, land with a jama roughly
equal to the annual land revenue demand on the whole district was sold for
arrears at government auctions. Government took the whole zamindari out of
Tejchandra's hands and settled it with farmers in 1790-91; government confined
Tejchandra in 1793 and 1794; and Tejchandra withdrew from management of
the zamindari in early 1794 by selling it to his mother. The Collector took over
the management of the zamindari in 1794-95; and Rani Bishnukumari acted as

15
McNeile, Report on the Village Watch, pp. 82-90; Hunter, Statistical Account, vol. IV, p. 84.
272 Burdwan
zamindar from 1795 until her death in 1798, during which time most of the
zamindari was brought to sale.
The Burdwan raj family was more fortunate than the other large zamindari
families of Bengal, who lost proportionately more land than lesser zamindars.
Sirajul Islam has estimated "the ten great families" of Bengal lost 61 percent of
their holdings, after deducting for repurchases and benami transfers, between
1794 and 1819, with 95 percent of the transfers occurring between 1794 and
1803.16 By contrast, the Burdwan zamindari emerged in 1800 with a net jama
of Rs.26,41,514 or a loss of 19 percent from the 1791 jama and a loss of 34
percent from the 1788 jama of Rs. 40,15,109. Thus the Burdwan zamindari
suffered a substantial reduction as a result of the rigid collection procedures
introduced in the late 1780s and regularized in the Decennial Settlement of
1790. But compared to other zamindari families, the Burdwan raj family was
successful in repurchasing the bulk of its land. Persistent negotiation with
government, clever buying and selling at the public land auctions, timely
borrowing, utilization of the new legal system, retention of loyal farmers and
astute estate managers, and, through it all, an impressive tenacity brought
Tejchandra and Bishnukumari through a period which left the neighboring
zamindaris of Bishnupur, Birbhum, and Nadia in ruins.
The organization of zamindari rent collection in Burdwan remained essen-
tially unchanged until the early years of the nineteenth century. The estate was
remarkably uncentralized. The raja leased the zamindari to revenue farmers
alternately called ihtimamdars (holders of a trust or responsibility) and mustajirs
(farmers or renters). Many fanners rented whole parganas, the largest of which
contained over 300 villages. In 1793, the zamindari was divided into ninety-two
farms held on leases of three, five, eight, and nine years duration.17 Farmers
enjoyed virtual autonomy in settling the rents of their under-farmers (kutki-
nadars). The Collector believed that the raja had no officers stationed in his
farms to oversee the collections18 although thousands of village paiks and
patwaris (record keepers) were nominally under his authority. When the Col-
lector searched the zamindari kachari for records detailing village assessments,
he could not find them.19 When the government ordered Rani Bishnukumari to
supply a list of the village patwaris and gomashtas (village agents) in 1797, she
replied that she was unable to obey because Burdwan had always been "farmed
out" and that it was the farmers' responsibility to maintain such lists.20
Most of the raja's principal farmers were residents of Burdwan town and were

16
Islam, Permanent Settlement, pp. 148 and 157.
17
Raja's letter, enclosure to W. Brooke, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 28 Feb. 1793, BLI, pp. 37-38.
18
S. Davis, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 1 July 1793, BLI, p. 57.
19
Ray, Change, p. 94.
20
Rani's petition, enclosure to R. Ireland, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 31 May 1797, BLI, p. 283.
 The Permanent Settlement 273
considered to be his dependents. They included Tejchandra's relatives and amla.
Among the most important farmers were Lala Dyachandra and Lala Anand-
chandra, the raja's brothers-in-law; Nandakumar Roy, the raja's diwan and son
of the former div/an Braja Kishor Roy; and Buddanchandra Mitra, the raja's
vakil in Calcutta and a major adviser. These people had houses in Burdwan town
and managed their farms absentee, through naibs (assistants). It is apparent that
Tejchandra did not choose to initiate legal proceedings for arrears against many
of the farmers who were his personal associates and instead appealed to the
Company for leniency and applied to bankers for loans. In fact, Tejchandra
claimed that he did not require his farmers to execute a kabuliyat (counterpart
of a lease) "for the sake of their honor."21 Although he was "irregular and
improvident" in his relations with his mustajirs,22 Tejchandra's vakils did
proceed through the courts in cases involving both flagrant arrears and farmers
residing in Calcutta.23 Towards the end of the decade, when sales of his lands
peaked, Tejchandra became less indulgent and used the courts more frequently.
A few Calcutta people farmed lands in the Burdwan zamindari. One of
Tejchandra's largest farmers in the early years of the 1790 settlement was
Gangagobind Sinha, who had been diwan to the Calcutta Council of Revenue
under Warren Hastings and an important assistant to John Shore. Gangagob-
ind's manager did not reside in Burdwan and his agents had trouble collecting.24
As Gangagobind Sinha and a series of Calcutta people who tried to collect in
Chitua and Mandalghat parganas learned, Burdwan was a difficult area for
outsiders to manage. For example, when Nilmani Haldar of Calcutta bought at
auction 114 villages, Dwarkanath Singh disputed the inclusion of a village
named Gopalnagar in the lot. Dwarkanath's men forcibly resisted the efforts of
the Collector's agents to give possession of the village to Nilmani. And when
Nilmani tried to hold his mofussil puniya, Dwarkanath prevented it by dismiss-
ing the Brahmins and by "beating the Tomtom," presumably to inform the
villagers that the puniya was canceled.25 The failure of some or all of the
Calcutta farmers to attend the raja's puniya, at which farmers in effect acknow-
ledged the raja's superiority and received his parwana (order) to hold the
mofussil puniya and begin the collections, may be a reason why the raja was
harsher with them than with local farmers.26
In addition to the large number of farmers resident in Burdwan town and a

21
BOR to L. Mercer, 25 April 1791, BLR, p. 166.
22
W. Brooke to BOR, 19 Aug. 1792, BOR Prog, of 15-31 Aug. 1792, vol. 142.
23
BLI, pp. 69, 71, 93, and 99.
24
W. Brooke to BOR, 27 May 1792, BOR Prog. 1-15 June 1792, vol. 136.
25
R. Ireland to BOR, 11 Aug. 1797, BLI, pp. 293-94.
26
Baranasi Ghosh, who farmed pargana Balia, was one Calcutta farmer who did not attend the
puniya and was prosecuted for arrears. S. Davis to BOR, 17 Aug. 1793, BLI, p. 69.
274 Burdwan

scattering of Calcutta farmers, the Burdwan raj engaged mofussil gentry as

mustajirs. Two of the most powerful, and roughest, of the mofussil farmers were
Dwarkanath Singh and Raghunath Singh, both of whom were at one time friends
of Tejchandra who later were jailed on his complaints of debts.
Dwarkanath Singh was the son of a Khatri trader from the Punjab who often
visited Bengal and then married a girl from Singur, in modern Hughli district.
Dwarkanath came to Singur to live with his maternal uncle, and Raja Tilak-
chandra, often partial to fellow Khatris, engaged him as a minor ijaradar.27 He
also farmed sizeable ijaras under Tejchandra and was confined in 1790 and 1791
for his arrears of Rs. 52,000.28 Dwarkanath entered the indigo business, chal-
lenging his neighbor, Ross Jennings, who claimed his own indigo factory was
"allowed to be the first in the world." Jennings complained that Dwarkanath
committed "outrages" against his factory and indigo raiyats beginning in 1789
and bribed the seven vakils who represented the raiyats in court. In 1793,
Jennings said that Dwarkanath was building his own indigo factory within "my
Plantation ... and is seducing People from my service." He added that Dwar-
kanath exceeded all others in "the virulence of Refractory natives inimical to
all Europeans."29
By his death in 1810, Dwarkanath had built a large fortune through indigo,
trade, money-lending, and land purchases. The jama of his patnis (lands with
permanent leases) and other estates was Rs. 3.6 lakhs and he left almost Rs.7
lakhs in other assets.30 As parts of the Burdwan zamindari were sold for arrears,
former dependents of Tejchandra were establishing themselves as independent
zamindars.
Raghunath Singh, a mofussil farmer of unknown caste, similarly broke away
from his close association with Tejchandra. At one time the officer in charge of
Tejchandra's wardrobe, he farmed or purchased Bagri, Chandrakona, Chitua,
and other southern parts of the Burdwan zamindari, often under fictitious names.
He was said to have held lands with a jama of Rs. 7 lakhs in the 1790s.31
Frequently he bought lands, withheld his revenue, and then repurchased the land
under an alias.32 When the Company arrested him in 1799 for his fraudulent
manipulation of the auction process, it took seventy or eighty Company sepoys
to overwhelm the twenty-five guards who protected his rambling mud house,
surrounded by a ditch, near Ghatal in pargana Chitua.33

27
Pramanath Barma, Dwarkanath Babu (Calcutta, 1294 BS), pp. 1-2 and 8-12.
28
BLI, pp. 555-57.
29
Letter from Ross Jennings, 4 March 1793, BOR Prog, of 1-28 March 1793, vol. 151.
30
Dwarkanath's will and related legal proceedings, BOR Prog. 4 - 5 of 17 Aug. 1811, vol. 495.
31
Examination of Kishormohan Mitra, BOR Prog. 18 of 10 Aug. 1819, vol. 599.
32
Y. Burges, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 12 and 18 June 1799, BLI, pp. 362-64 and 367.
33
BLI, pp. 395 and 403.
 The Permanent Settlement 275

Thus most of the Burdwan zamindari in the 1790s was held by semi-autono-
mous revenue farmers who attended the raja's puniya at the start of each revenue
year, paid their rents rather irregularly, but were allowed to manage their village
collections with minimal interference by the zamindar.
A similar informality and looseness characterized the mustajirs' relations
with their under-farmers. Some mustajirs collected part of their rents directly
from villages through a tahsildar (collector) but most of the villages were
sub-leased to kutkinadars. In 1790, the Collector reported that the fanners were
in the habit of dismissing kutkinadars "at pleasure."34 Kutkinadars in arrears
were difficult to coerce. In 1792, the Company passed a regulation which
enabled zamindars and mustajirs to distrain and cause to be sold the property
of under-renters in arrears.35 Hereafter, distraint of property rather than deten-
tion was the normal judicial procedure for recovering arrears from kutkinadars.
But kutkinadars were generally elusive persons with little property and they
often evaded legal processes. It is likely that mustajirs continued to use informal
coercion against uncooperative kutkinadars. At the lower levels of the rent-col-
lecting hierarchy, kutkinadars and head raiyats rarely retained vakils at the new
courts and relied on customary force when needed.
In collecting from their villages, kutkinadars obtained the help of head raiyats
by allowing them to hold their village lands at an under-rent. When the Burdwan
Collector sent a sazawal to measure lands in Mandalghat which had been
forfeited to government for arrears, he had the same experience as Collectors
in other parts of Bengal. The sazawal measured one raiyat's land and found that
he held 37 bighas although his pattas recorded only 20 bighas. "The conse-
quence was that all the [superior] Raiyats became discontented and threatened
to abscond if the measurement was not discontinued." Unless the whole village
was under-assessed, the lesser raiyats were over-assessed in order to make up
the deficiency in the privileged raiyats' rents. 36 The non-privileged raiyats were
so short of cash that they were unable to pay the first two or three kists of the
revenue year while the summer crops were ripening. They were in fact com-
pelled to mortgage their crops to money-lenders in order to tide themselves over
to harvest time in late summer.37 In years when drought or floods damaged their
crops, some kutkinadars and mustajirs suspended their demands on their under-
renters. When they did, government was more willing to postpone its demand
on the zamindar.38 How often this happened is uncertain but at least in the early

34
L. Mercer to BOR, 22 May 1790, BLI, p. 23.
35
BLR, pp. 231 and 239.
36
W. Brooke to BOR, 30 June 1792, BOR Prog, of 2-7 July 1792, vol. 138.
37
S. Davis to BOR, 17 Sept. 1793, BLI, pp. 74-75.
38
BOR to W. Brooke, 19 March 1792, BLR, p. 216.
276 Burdwan

years of the new system, the intermediaries, the zamindar, and the government
were sometimes responsive to seasonal misfortunes.39
Now we turn to a chronological treatment of Raja Tejchandra's experience
under the settlement of 1790. Tejchandra refused the Decennial Settlement
when it was first offered him in the spring of 1790. He insisted that the Burdwan
revenue demand was too high. Lawrence Mercer, the Collector, denied this.
Mercer conceded that Tejchandra was heavily in debt and that he was having
difficulty collecting from his chief farmers. However, Mercer attributed the
debts to the raja's poor management. Mercer's judgments of Tejchandra were
harsh and they must have been colored by the raja's repeated refusal to obey
his orders and the raja's trips to Calcutta to challenge the Collector's decisions
as well as by the raja's charges that the Collector's diwan and long-time
assistant, Lala Roy Singh, had accepted a bribe.40 Mercer wrote that the raja
was indolent, "vicious," and "mercenary," and that "he entrusts the entire
management of Business to dependents, who, if possible, are more venal than
himself."41 Specifically, Mercer charged that the Burdwan zamindari lacked
systematic accounting and receipt-granting procedures so that the raja, his head
farmers, and their under-farmers (kutkinadars) relied on a coercive and oppressive
method of collecting from raiyats. This method consisted "of placing an unlimited
number of Mohussils [peons] over the Ryots" when the superior rent collectors fell
into arrears. Mercer estimated that at least 3 or 4 lakhs of rupees were spent each
year in Burdwan for mohussils, a charge so large that by itself it prevented many
"Farmers, under Renters and Ryots from making good their Balances."42
Tejchandra argued with government through most of the rainy season of
1790, refusing to enter the Decennial Settlement on the terms offered. Members
of the Board of Revenue expressed doubts about Burdwan's ability to pay the
assessment, doubts that were fed by the number of the raja's farmers who had
been imprisoned for arrears.43 Nevertheless, in September the Governor Gen-
eral in Council decided to make the settlement with revenue farmers instead of
with Tejchandra. The Collector initially had a difficult time finding farmers
because Tejchandra spread rumors that he would receive charge of the district
after all and thereby discouraged others from making offers.44 By November
1790, the Collector had issued ten-year leases for most of Burdwan.
The government's settlement with farmers proved to be a general failure, as
its net collections declined by Rs. 4.8 lakhs in 1790-91. Many farmers fell into

39
The government also authorized Collectors to lend money to landholders to build and renovate
tanks and canals to guard against the failure of the rains. GG to BOR, 13 Jan. 1792, BLR, p. 211.
40
L. Mercer to BOR, 13 Sept. 1790, BLI, pp. 29-30.
41
L. Mercer to BOR, 30 Nov. 1790, BOR Prog, of 1-13 Dec. 1790, vol. 105.
42
L. Mercer to BOR, 31 July 1790, BOR Prog, of 1-18 Oct. 1790, vol. 101.
43
Minutes by members of BOR, BOR Prog, of 2 Oct. 1790, vol. 101.
44
L. Mercer to BOR, 23 Sept. 1790, BOR Prog, of 17-29 Sept. 1790, vol. 100.
 The Permanent Settlement 277

deep arrears during 1790-91, necessitating government coercive processes

(imprisonment) against certain farmers and their securities. 45 The farmers of
four large parganas were jailed for arrears in May 1791 and were still in
confinement in January 1796.46 Large farms were taken by the raja's officers
and relatives so that in effect the raja appeared to remain in control of much of
the zamindari. Farms with a jama of over 7 lakhs were held by the raja's mother
and the widows of Raja Chitrasen, despite the regulation that forbade females
from this role.47 The widows fell into arrears and their proxies were impris-
oned.48 Mercer suspected that the raja was secretly collecting in the lands held
under khas management.49 He commented ruefully in April that in recent
months, the raja had "shown more ingenuity than could have been expected
from a man of his Parts."50 In June, Tejchandra, who still owed arrears from
previous years, purchased almost half of the Bishnupur zamindari at public
auction in Calcutta. He paid Rs. 33,800 for land with a jama of roughly 2 lakhs.
His ability to bid at all convinced the Board of Revenue that Tejchandra was in
less financial trouble than he claimed.51
Tejchandra established an important fact following his refusal to engage for
Burdwan in 1790. This was that he and his dependents were so well entrenched
in Burdwan district that government would lose money, at least in the short run,
if it settled the district without the raja. Government lacked the records to
apportion the jama within individual parganas and many of the major farmers
who might have produced the records remained loyal to the raja. Government
had gained little by selling Mandalghat to recover arrears from the raja. The
records delivered by the raja's officers to the new purchaser proved to be
misleading and fraudulent, and purchasers soon forfeited their investment and
found themselves imprisoned.52 The next owner suffered a similar fate.53
Yet the point was a limited one. Tejchandra failed to convince government
that his zamindari was over-assessed and deserved a revenue reduction. Gov-
ernment might lose current revenue by remaining firm and bringing to sale parts
of the Burdwan zamindari. In the long run, Tejchandra might lose his estate.
In subsequent years, Tejchandra used his influence to scare off bidders and
to repurchase some forfeited lots through the agency of his dependents. For

45
W.A. Brooke, Burdwan Col. to BOR, 15 Jan. 1793, BLI, pp. 33-34.
46
Robert Ireland, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 30 Jan. 1796, BLI, pp. 232-33.
47
BOR to GG in C, 30 May 1791, BLR, p. 169.
48
Hirst, "The Early Collectorate Records", p. 239.
49
BOR to L. Mercer, 30 May 1791, BLR, p. 168. Upon investigation it seemed that the payments
were made to the raja voluntarily. BOR to L. Mercer, 25 July 1791, BLR, p. 173.
50
L. Mercer to BOR, 22 April 1791, BOR Prog, of 25 April 1791, vol. 110.
51
BOR to L. Mercer, 18 July \19\,BLR, p. 161.
52
W.A. Brooke, Burdwan Col., BOR, 28 Feb. 1793, BLI, pp. 36-37.
53
BOR to Brooke, 4 Jan. 1792, BLR, p. 207.
278 Burdwan
example, in 1791 parganas Arsa and Azmatshahi were brought to auction to
recover the raja's arrears. Roughly 100 persons attended the auction but "not a
single Rupee was bid."54 However, Chitua (south of Ghatal in modern Midnapur
district) was put up for sale in the same year. It was bought by a resident of
Calcutta for Rs. 510 although its jama was Rs. 97,422.55 This meant that
Tejchandra lost a large pargana without appreciably reducing his arrears.
Allowing lands to come to auction was a risky game. It eventually persuaded
government to strengthen the zamindars' coercive powers but it did not lead to
lower assessments in Burdwan or most other zamindaris. It also cost the
Burdwan Raj about one third of its estate between 1789 and 1800.
In June 1791, the Governor General and his Council again decided to offer
Tejchandra a long-term settlement of Burdwan, minus Mandalghat, Chitua, and
those farms not in arrears whose holders wished to retain them until their leases
expired in 1800. To sweeten the offer, Lord Cornwallis allowed him three years,
beginning in 1792-93, to pay off his arrears of Rs.3 lakhs. Tejchandra went to
Calcutta to discuss this with the Board of Revenue. When he held out for better
terms, Lord Cornwallis' Council lost patience and ordered Tejchandra to be
escorted out of Calcutta under a guard of peons. At this point, Tejchandra
realized he had exhausted his room for maneuver. His vakil expressed "great
sorrow" for the raja's "guilty and disrespectful Behavior." Tejchandra returned
to Calcutta and signed the nine-year settlement.56
The zamindari which was settled with Tejchandra was smaller than the one
he took charge of before the Decennial Settlement. He had lost Chitua and the
decayed pargana of Mandalghat. He had not regained farms, with a jama of
Rs. 3 lakhs, from Ramkant Roy (his mother's confidant) and others who chose
not to be reincorporated into the zamindari.57 On the other hand, he had bought
land in Bishnupur with a jama of almost 2 lakhs, thereby reducing his net loss
to about 10 percent in terms of revenue owed to government.58 He had reason
to be pleased for he might have forfeited much more.
On 27 October 1791, Bishnukumari, Tejchandra, and one of his wives had
real cause to rejoice. His fifth wife, Nankikumari, gave birth to his only son,
Pratapchandra.59 This lessened a fear of Bishnukumari and government officers,

54
G.C. Meyer, Preparer of Reports, to BOR, 29 April \79\, BLR, p. 154.
55
Meyer to BOR, 24 May 1791, BLR, p. 163.
56
BOR Prog, of 27 June 1791, vol. 114; Islam, Permanent Settlement, p. 27.
57
BU, pp. 422-25 and 489.
58
BOR Prog, of 3 Aug. 1791, vol. 117. In addition to Mandalghat, Chitua, and farms retained by
Decennial Settlement farmers, the Burdwan zamindari's net jama was reduced by the separation
of independent taluqs (Rs.74,938) and the resumption or abolition of taxes and duties (Rs.
73,443).
59
Charles A. Bruce, Burdwan Ag. Col., to BOR, 29 Oct. 1791. BOR Prog, of 2-18 Nov. 1791,
vol. 123.
 The Permanent Settlement 279

dating back to Warren Hastings in the 1770s, that the Burdwan raj might
experience "a failure of inheritance."60
Whatever pleasure Pratapchandra's birth gave Tejchandra must have been
offset by the precarious state of the zamindari and his own health. In 1791,1792,
and 1793, he fell behind in his revenue payments repeatedly. In 1791, he blamed
floods for his arrears. In September 1791, the rivers rose a foot higher than in
living memory, according to the embankment engineer.61 This time government
permitted an investigation but it showed the damage to the crops and the raja's
rent collections was less than he had claimed and government charged him for
the cost of the investigation "to deter him, as well as other landholders, from
preferring such groundless claims in future."62 In 1792, the raja narrowly
avoided major additional sales and imprisonment for arrears by mortgaging land
to Raja Nabakrishna to raise money for his revenue. In 1793, the raja was
imprisoned for arrears and then, when he fell dangerously ill with venereal
disease, he was shifted into close confinement in his own house. 63 In June and
July 1793, his arrears were so heavy that government ordered the sale of one
fifth of the zamindari. All his chief amla went to Calcutta to try to prevent the
sales.64 Again the raja paid up, apparently by further borrowing.65 In January
1794, government confined the raja again. It also attached the zamindari and
appointed an amin to collect rent from the raja's farmers.
The raja was now in real difficulty. He claimed that he had borrowed
Rs.6,75,000 from Nimu Mallik and other Calcutta merchants in the previous
year.66 Debts were overdue and some of his creditors were preparing to seek
recovery before the Supreme Court.67 He himself was confined while some
farmers were withholding rents, protected by delays in the judicial process.
Tejchandra's strategy for escaping from these mounting problems was to sell
most of the zamindari to his mother. In February 1794, government approved
the sale, released Tejchandra from confinement, and recognized Rani Bish-
nukumari as the zamindar of Burdwan. Tejchandra claimed his motive was to
gain the Rs.8 lakhs purchase price so he could pay his Calcutta creditors and

60
Monckton Jones, Hastings in Bengal, p. 159.
61
James Parlby, Lt. of Engineers, to Charles Bruce, Burdwan Ag. Col., 26 Sept. 1791. BOR Prog,
of 3-17 Oct. 1791, vol. 121.
62
GG in C to BOR, 23 Dec. 1791, BLR, p. 209.
63
A Company surgeon reported he "attentively examined his disorder which I found to be venerial
and from Misconduct and Neglect had acquired a great degree of Virulence ... and otherwise
affected his General health." W. Williams, Surgeon, to W.A. Brooke, Burdwan Ag. Col., 23
April 1793, BOR Prog, of 26 April 1793, vol. 153.
64
S. Davis, Burdwan Col. to BOR, 21 June and 17 July 1793, BLI, pp. 54-55 and 61.
65
S. Davis to BOR, 2 Aug. 1793, BLI, p. 67.
66
Letter from Tejchandra, enclosure to S. Davis to BOR, 13 Jan. 1794, BLI, p. 95.
67
Letter from Tejchandra, BOR Prog, of 18-29 Oct. 1793, vol. 166.
280 Burdwan

thus save his family's estate.68 Samuel Davis, the Collector, was skeptical. He
thought the raja hoped to escape confinement, "embezzle" from the collections,
repurchase under-rated lands brought to auction, and secretly continue manag-
ing the zamindari.69
Why did the hapless Rani Bishnukumari agree to buy the Burdwan zamindari
in such unfavorable circumstances? She was aged, had never proven herself
knowledgeable of zamindari management, and had not even lived at Burdwan
for many years. Most of the major farmers were loyal to Tejchandra and not to
her and Ramkant Roy. Moreover, the rani would face the same problem in
collecting from the ninety-two farms, covering 4,800 square miles, that had
frustrated Tejchandra. This problem was that many farmers had given multi-
year, collusive, and preferential leases to their under-farmers. Tejchandra must
have known, when he transferred the zamindari to his mother, that under-valued
leases and her lack of recent experience in managing the Burdwan zamindari
would lead to heavy arrears.
Her motives, like Tejchandra's were obscure. The most plausible explanation
is that she agreed in order to recover ownership of the Dewry Mahals. Te-
jchandra had offered to separate the Dewry Mahals from the zamindari and
transfer them to her as a gift. The mahals contained "the best lands from almost
every Pergunnah in the District."70 She had long coveted them, claiming they
belonged to her, as the senior rani, and not to the zamindari. Presumably,
Ramkant Roy and her other advisers also encouraged her to accept Tejchandra's
offer so they might profit from managing the zamindari.
Within a month of the government's approval of the transfer of the zamindari
to Bishnukumari, she was Rs.6 lakhs in arrears and she had "withdrawn from
business and retired" from Burdwan to her house at Amboa (Kalna). Davis and
the Board of Revenue suspected that Tejchandra had himself collected several
lakhs from the Paus (December-January) kist.71
The government ordered the sale of the Dewry Mahals to make good the
arrears. The permanent loss of these 789 villages would have been a financial
disaster to the Burdwan raj family. They contained lands held since Mughal
times on mukarari (fixed jama) grants. A Burdwan Collector had advised
against selling them in 1790 on the grounds that they were such a profitable
cushion that their loss might prevent Tejchandra from meeting his obligations
on the remainder of the estate.72 They also included the family's Amboa

68
Letter from Tejchandra, BOR Prog, of 18-29 Oct. 1793, vol. 166.
69
S. Davis to BOR, 27 Feb. 1794, Fifth Report, 1812, vol. II, App. 6. pp. 552-54.
70
L. Mercer to BOR, 16 April 1790, BOR Prog, of 19-30 April 1790, vol. 90.
71
S. Davis to BOR, 27 Feb. 1794, BL1, p. 106; BOR to GG, 20 May 1794, BOR Prog, of 20-30
May 1794, vol. 178.
72
L. Mercer to BOR, 16 April 1790, BOR Prog, of 19-30 April 1790, vol. 90.
 The Permanent Settlement 281
residences and temples although that area was exempted when the Dewry
Mahals were eventually brought to auction in late 1794. Before putting the
mahals up for sale, the government asked the Collector to examine the mofussil
records in order to determine if the jama, as it suspected, was under-rated. The
Collector summoned 300 patwaris in the Dewry Mahals to appear at Burdwan
and Amboa with their accounts. Only twenty-five obeyed. The Collector
thought that Tejchandra, then at Amboa, was colluding with his mother and that
he was responsible for the patwaris' non-cooperation.73 Therefore in June 1794,
the Company ordered Tejchandra out of the district and attached the whole
zamindari. He went to Chandanagar and petitioned government to have the sale
to his mother annulled. He said that she had not paid him any of the purchase
price and that he had made the sale on the bad advice of Buddan Mitra, one of
his chief amla, whom he had since discovered "possesses the very worst of
Hearts" and was cooperating with the rani's manager, Ramkant Roy, against
Tejchandra's interests.74
The raja also filed a suit in the Diwani Adalat to have his sale of the zamindari
annulled on the grounds that Rani Bishnukumari had failed to pay the purchase
price. Although the suit did not restore the estate to Tejchandra, initiating it
proved advantageous. Because the pending litigation indicated uncertainty
about ownership, Joseph Baretto, an indigo planter, and the merchants from
whom the rani was trying to borrow money, refused to lend and this led her to
seek a compromise with her son.75 As a result, when the Collector took over the
management of the Burdwan zamindari in the summer of 1794, both Tejchandra
and Bishnukumari acquiesced.
Samuel Davis' management in 1794-95 succeeded financially, giving strong
support to the contention of the Board of Revenue and previous Collectors that
Burdwan was not over-assessed, only poorly managed. Not only did Davis
collect almost the entire jama promptly, he arrested and imprisoned only six
persons for arrears.76 If he used other forms of coercion, apart from ordering
Tejchandra to leave the district for two months,77 it did not show in his
correspondence. Although Burdwan district land with a jama of over Rs.6 lakhs
was sold during Davis' year of management, almost all of it was for arrears
accumulated in the previous year. In the year following his management,
remarkably, no Burdwan lands were sold for arrears.78
Government did respond favorably to Tejchandra's complaints about his

73
S. Davis to BOR, 13 May 1794, BLI, pp. 117-18.
74
Tejchandra's petition, received 5 July 1794, JP, Civil, Prog. 10 of 11 July 1794, vol. 7.
75
S. Davis to BOR, 14 Aug. 1794, BLI, pp. 137-^0.
76
S. Davis to John Lumsden, Burdwan Judge and Mag., 14 May 1795, BLI, p. 203.
77
S. Davis to BOR, 14 Aug. 1794, BLI, pp. 1 3 7 ^ 0 .
78
Islam, Permanent Settlement, App. B. Also, BLI, p. 463.
282 Burdwan
inability to coerce prompt payments from his farmers. At Samuel Davis' urging,
it passed a new Regulation (XXXV) in March 1795 which enabled zamindars
to distrain the property of a defaulting tenant without a Judge's order.79 Step by
step, government was providing zamindars with expanded powers of coercion
so that zamindars might collect their rents with the same promptness with which
government required zamindars to pay. When Davis reported that 30,000 suits
were pending in the Burdwan courts, he observed that it would take eight or
more years to clear the cases already filed. In the Bishnupur parganas of
Burdwan district, the kutkinadars were withholding their rents in the knowledge
that it would take years before decisions would be reached in the suits against
them.80 The problem was not as serious among the kutkinadars within the older
parts of the Burdwan zamindari, where traditional deference still operated.
Why was the Collector of Burdwan, even before the new regulation, able to
collect rents from the Burdwan mustajirs while the zamindar had failed? Davis
found that in recent years, in their efforts to persuade the government that
Burdwan was over-assessed, the zamindari amla had reduced the zamindar's
demand on individual farmers, at least in the records, and had made verbal
agreements to receive secret payments in order to create the impression that the
zamindari's assets were inadequate to the government's demand. The Collector
thought that this was probably the reason why the estate's recorded income had
declined by Rs. 1.2 lakhs in the three years prior to the sale to the rani and why
the rani fell into heavy arrears.81 During his management, Davis canceled
fraudulent leases, resettled farms whose leases had expired, and thus raised the
collections from the mofussil.82
Rani Bishnukumari at first complained about Davis' management. But by the
middle of the 1794-95 revenue year, far from being displeased with Davis, she
was petitioning government to allow Davis to manage her estate again in
1795-96.83 Bishnukumari appreciated Davis' success in bringing the mofussil
settlement back up to a profitable level. The Burdwan raj was growing accus-
tomed to European services. Through most of the 1790s, it contracted the repairs
of river embankments with Europeans.
Government turned down the rani's request to allow Davis to manage
Burdwan for another year and it reinstated her as zamindar in May 1795.84 Rani
Bishnukumari and her manager, Ramkant Roy, administered the Burdwan
zamindari for the last time from May 1795 until November 1798. Her final years

79
Islam, Permanent Settlement, pp. 54-55. Also, JP, Civil, Prog, of 27 March 1795, vol. 11.
80
S. Davis to BOR, 27 Feb. 1795, BU, pp. 183-84.
81
S. Davis to BOR, 14 Aug. 1794, BU, pp. 137-40.
82
Ibid., Also, Islam, Permanent Settlement, p. 29.
83
GG in C to BOR, 19 Dec. 1794, BLR, pp. 338-39.
84
BU, p. 203.
 The Permanent Settlement 283
were beset with family and financial problems. She and Tejchandra resumed
their competition for dominance. Tejchandra possessed his own sizeable
zamindari which was entirely separate from the Burdwan zamindari. It con-
sisted of lands he had purchased in Bishnupur and a prized estate known as
Kasipur, with a jama of Rs.3.5 lakhs, between Burdwan town and the Bhagirathi
river. It contained mahattaran (land given free of revenue to respectable
non-Brahmins) which had originally belonged to Diwan Manikchandra but had
been resumed by Raja Tilakchandra. It provided a sister and five wives of
Tejchandra with Rs. 18-19,000 per year.85 Tejchandra also obtained most of the
Dewry Mahals in 1795 when they were sold to recover Bishnukumari's arrears.
There is nothing to indicate that she was pleased her son gained possession of
the Dewry Mahals. Rather, relations between mother and son degenerated as
they petitioned and filed law suits against each other. Bishnukumari charged
that Tejchandra's employees were altering her tenants' leases, thereby lowering
her rental income; that they removed the roof of her kachari;86 and that one of
her major farmers, Buddan Mitra, who was Tejchandra's adviser, withheld
Rs.71,847 in order to force the sale of the rani's lands.87 Tejchandra's countered
with charges that the rani's servants prevented his tenants from cutting their
crops in his purchased Dewry Mahals and created "great disturbance" to prevent
him from taking possession.88 The raja and his mother also disputed "very
strenuously" the ownership of the Sarbamangala temple in Burdwan town.89
The Collector, Robert Ireland, believed that Tejchandra was conspiring with the
rani's farmers in order to bring her lands to sale and when her arrears approached
Rs. 7 lakhs he asked the Board of Revenue to expel the raja from the district.90
The Board refused, observing the rani could file suits against the farmers with
arrears.91 The rani was almost always in substantial arrears during the last three
years of her life. She was forced to borrow from private creditors and to file
many suits against her farmers.92 In 1797, she lost land with a jama of Rs.6.3
lakhs but she repurchased benami almost all of it through Ramkant Roy's
relatives and dependents.93
Another method used by the rani to obtain money for her arrears was to
separate revenue-paying land from her estate and rent the land for a small sum

85
BLI, pp. 125 and 134-35.
86
R. Ireland, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 18 Jan. 1796, BLI, p. 229.
87
R. Ireland to BOR, 20 April 1796, BLI, p. 278.
88
BOR to R. Ireland, 5 Feb. 1796, BLR, pp. 507-8, and Ireland to Thomas Pattle, Burdwan Judge
and Mag., 20 May 1796, BLI, p. 246.
89
Thomas Pattle to R. Ireland, 19 April 1796, BLR, p. 472.
90
R. Ireland to BOR, 17 Feb. 1797, BLI, p. 269.
91
BOR to R. Ireland, 24 Jan. and 21 Feb. 1797, BLR, pp. 584 and 588.
92
R. Ireland to BOR, 17 April and 6 May 1796, BLI, pp. 240 and 243.
93
Ray, Change, p. 101.
284 Burdwan
as if it were waste land for development, in return for a lump sum payment. She
did this with Raghunath Singh, Tejchandra's former associate. She was in
arrears of Rs. 1.72 lakhs. She detached from the zamindari eighty-seven villages
near Chandrakona with a jama of Rs. 60,000 and leased them as undeveloped
lands to Raghunath Singh at a jama of Rs. 15,062. As compensation for this
under-rated land, Raghunath paid her Rs. 1.71 lakhs with which she paid off her
arrears.94 Such an expedient provided ready cash but reduced the regular
mofussil assets of the zamindari.
The painful, protracted struggle between mother and son ended when Bish-
nukumari died at Amboa on 8 November 1798.95 Her zamindari was inherited
by Tejchandra. In the months following Bishnukumari's death, an unprece-
dented amount of land in Burdwan district was brought to sale. Despite a good
harvest in late 1798,96 lands with a jama of over Rs. 20 lakhs, including large
parts of the Burdwan zamindari, were sold for arrears.97 The explanation for the
heavy arrears seems to have been that Tejchandra deliberately fell behind in his
payments in order to rid himself of some of the farmers, including Ramkant Roy
and his dependents, who held multi-year leases granted by Bishnukumari. The
leases on auctioned land were canceled and then zamindars often repurchased
the lands benami, unencumbered by the old leases to farmers and under-renters.
In 1799 and 1800, Tejchandra repurchased much of the land brought to sale.
Tejchandra's sixth wife, Rani Kamalakumari, emerged as the nominal owner
of land with a jama of almost Rs. 10 lakhs.98 The Collector suspected that at
one auction at which land was purchased by the rani, the raja's influence
prevented any other bidders from competing.99 Despite the record level of sales,
the Burdwan zamindari suffered little damage.
From 1800, the Burdwan raj entered a more stable phase. Tejchandra was
free of the quarrels with his mother and her adviser, Ramkant Roy. He presided
over a zamindari with a jama of Rs. 26.4 lakhs, a third smaller and perhaps more
manageable than the one he took over in 1786 when he came of age. His
zamindari consisted of both the estate left by his mother and the estates he had
purchased, with a jama of Rs. 5.4 lakhs, during the time his mother was
zamindar.100 It also included Bhursut and thirty other farms, which had been let

94
Rani's petition, 6 March 1797, Jud. Prog., Civil, Prog. 14 of 14 Sept. 1798, vol 46.
95
Burdwan district seems to have been struck by a virulent fever in 1798-99. Burdwan's Judge
(James Spottiswoode), the Collector (Robert Ireland), and the Superintendent of Pulbandi
Repairs (James Thompson) died and the other Judge (Charles Bruce at Hughli) resigned due to
ill health, all between October 1798 and May 1799.
96
BLR, p. 802; BLI, p. 352.
97
Islam, Permanent Settlement, App. B.
98
Y. Burges, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 12 May 1800, BLI, p. 424.
99
Y. Burges to BOR, 25 May 1799, BLI, p. 359.
100
His Kasipur estate had a jama of Rs. 3,52,389 and his Barahazari estate in Bishnupur paid a
jama of Rs. 1,91,272.
 The Permanent Settlement 285
to farmers in 1790 for ten years, with a jama of Rs.2.8 lakhs, and which the
Company returned to him in 1800 when the leases expired.101
After the volume of sales in Burdwan had peaked at over Rs.20 lakhs in
1798-99, auction sales fell off markedly and did not exceed Rs. 2.13 lakhs
(jama) once in the next twenty years. From 1794-95 to 1798-99, lands with a
jama of Rs. 40.97 lakhs had been auctioned; in the next five years the total was
Rs. 4.11 lakhs. In Bengal as a whole, the pattern was similar. The year 1798-99
set the record with sales of Rs. 36.85 lakhs (equal to 19.37 percent of the jama
of Bengal) and then declined in six of the next seven years.102
Why did government sales fall so dramatically after 1798-99 in Burdwan and
elsewhere? Numerous factors were involved. The first nine years following the
Decennial Settlement of 1790 was a shake-out period in which large, inefficient,
and over-assessed landholders lost land. By the end of the century, surviving
landholders were adapting to the new regularity and were utilizing the expanded
judicial system to secure their rents. The price of rice increased at the turn of
the century, putting more money in the hands of superior raiyats, tenure-holders,
and proprietors. Another crucial factor seems to have been the passage of a new
judicial regulation in 1799.
In 1799, the Company was pressed for money to pay for its expedition against
Tipu Sultan of Mysore. In Bengal, its land revenue situation was deteriorating.
In five consecutive years, the jama of land advertised for sale for arrears had
grown while the auction prices received, from which arrears were recovered,
were declining.103 Two things were evident. Landholders were manipulating
the sales by deliberately falling into arrears and then buying their land back
benami in an effort to escape paying their arrears. Benami sales had become
endemic and perhaps nowhere more than in Burdwan district where sales far
exceeded the Bengal average.104 Secondly, many proprietors seemed to be
having genuine difficulty in collecting rent from their farmers who in turn were
facing trouble from their under-farmers and raiyats.
The government's solution to this twin problem was the infamous Regulation
VII of 1799, known as the Haftam (seventh) Regulation. It made benami
transfers of land subject to forfeit to government. And, more importantly, it
provided proprietors and farmers with summary powers to sell the property of
tenants who were in arrears in their rent. Regulation XXXV of 1795 had armed
them with summary powers of distraining their tenants' property but it required

101
Y. Burges to BOR, 12 May 1800, BLI, p. 424.
102
Islam, Permanent Settlement, App. B.
103
Ibid., App. B and 3.
104
Ibid., App. B, shows that between 1794 and 1819, while land with a jama equal to 68.2 percent
of Bengal's annual jama was publicly sold for arrears in Bengal as a whole, the percentage sold
in Burdwan was 104.49 percent.
286 Burdwan
a time-consuming judicial process to bring distrained property to sale. Regula-
tion VII of 1799 removed that obstacle. It also stripped raiyats of part of the
judicial protection against unfair demands for rent and left them with the need
to file a judicial suit to recover property unfairly and summarily distrained and
sold. Regulation VII of 1799 tipped the balance of power in agrarian relations
towards superior landholders and enabled both them and the government to
collect the revenue with greater promptness.105
Regulation VII made a mockery of Lord Cornwallis' 1793 justification of the
Permanent Settlement. He had argued that the permanent limitation of the
state's demand, together with the rule of law, would "establish security of person
and property." "A spirit of industry has been implanted in man, that in seeking
his own good he may contribute to the public prosperity. The Husbandman and
Manufacturer will toil incessantly if they are permitted to reap the profit of their
labor; they will render a country rich and powerful, if the Government under
which they live will only afford them protection."106 Regulation VII of 1799
afforded zamindars and farmers with protection while it rendered many hus-
bandmen - the people who "incessantly" provided the labor - defenseless. It
was a significant victory for the zamindars as the rapid decline in auction sales
indicated.

105
Islam, Permanent Settlement, pp. 6 1 - 6 4 ; Ray, Change, p. 87; and Sinha, Economic History,
vol. II, p. 171.
106
Minute by GG, 11 Feb. 1793, British Parliamentary Papers: Colonies, East India, vol. 1, App.
9A,p. 341.
16 Patnis and the elusive quest for
independence and security

Before the Decennial and Permanent Settlements, the overwhelming major-

ity of the inhabitants of the modern districts of Bankura, Birbhum, Burdwan,
Howrah, and Hughli had lived under one of three kortas or masters: the rajas
of Birbhum, Bishnupur, or Burdwan. Subordination to a major zamindar was
part of the natural order. These three zamindars and their amla had domi-
nated their territories, although with decreasing autonomy since 1757, and
had distributed rent-collecting rights among their principal subjects. They
had performed useful functions for the local gentry and the rest of the
subordinate population. They stood between the state and their subjects and
pleaded with the state when seasonal calamities prevented renters from
meeting the state's demands. In years of poor harvests, the zamindars
reduced their collections and borrowed from bankers or even spent their
moshaira to pay the district's revenue. The zamindars commanded the local
militia which escorted treasure, guarded the kacharis, broke up local com-
binations against rent demands, and drove off the chuar incursions from the
western hills. They appointed the village chaukidars and paiks who aided in
rent collection and village law enforcement. They supervised courts in
which disputes over property and violation of behavioral norms were adju-
dicated. They gave rent-free land to Brahmins who performed the necessary
rituals, upheld the rules of civilized behavior, and taught reading and
accounting. They employed local persons to manage the collections and
work in the zamindari offices. The beneficiaries of zamindari favoritism and
patronage included corrupt, oppressive, and violent people but at least they
were usually members of the communities in which they worked and
therefore were subject to corrective community pressures. Arguably, most
residents of the western zamindaris were likely to have preferred zamindari
institutions to appointees from Murshidabad or Calcutta.
The reforms introduced by the Company had gradually pared away elements
of zamindari sovereignty. Company administrators intruded frequently in
the management of the revenue collections, impeded the alienation of land
to zamindari favorites, and dismissed large contingents of zamindari militia.
The Shore-Cornwallis reforms brought district police under Company control,
287
288 Burdwan
created a Company mofussil judicial system, and abolished zamindari duties on
trade and the professions. The Company employed convicts to build roads,
supervised the repair of river embankments, and encouraged the cultivation of
cash crops such as indigo, potatoes, and sugar.1 As Company administration
reached further into the mofussil, the governing role of the zamindars shrank.
Zamindars had less patronage to dispense, less protection to offer, less power
for local people to fear, admire, or solicit. Even in the one area for which
zamindars retained primary responsibility - revenue collection - zamindari
discretionary power was declining. The inflexibility of the revenue demand and
the new judicial regulations left zamindars with less discretion about how much
rent to charge, about what forms of duress to apply. The territories once
monopolized by the zamindars were much more widely distributed. Where one
zamindar had presided in the 1780s, dozens or hundreds stood following the
partitions and auction sales of the 1790s. By 1806, the rajas of Birbhum and
Bishnupur were virtually landless and the raja of Burdwan had lost about one
third of his zamindari. Company policy sought to broaden landholding on the
assumption that small landlords would develop their holdings more efficiently
than large ones. In western Bengal, auctions were the main vehicle of dispersion.
In the east, the Company permitted taluqdars to separate from zamindari estates.
In Dacca district, for example, 14,500 taluqs (dependencies) separated from 394
zamindaris; in Jessore, 3,444 taluqs separated from 122 zamindaris.2 Creation
of new, smaller zamindaris was the order of the day. And the Collector's office
and the Judge's and munsif's courts, rather than the zamindar's kachari, were
increasingly the places to seek redress of grievances.
While the institutional opportunities for zamindari beneficence and patron-
age were curtailed, the urge to occupy the kingly role was undiminished. The
role was culturally familiar and historically sanctioned. To be master in one's
estate, to build temples and feast Brahmins and other guests, and to distribute
intermediate rent-collecting rights to loyal gentry - these still exercised a
powerful appeal. The auction sales of the 1790s had shaken out the most
over-assessed, inefficient, and over-indulgent zamindars. The 1799 legislation
had enabled zamindars with sufficient ruthlessness to summarily arrest or
distrain the possessions of raiyats in arrears.
Demographic and economic trends also favored those in a position to live off
rent collection. Several indices indicated the improving economic prospects of
well-positioned people to make money from rents at the start of the nineteenth
century. Most importantly, agricultural rents were rising. The Burdwan Judge
estimated in 1814 that the Burdwan raiyats' rental rates were "more than

1
See BLR, pp. 224, 311, 594-95, and 794.
2
Islam, Permanent Settlement, p. 39.
 Patnis and the quest for independence 289

double" what they had been a decade earlier.3 The Hughli Judge thought in 1828
that Hughli district rents had tripled since 1793.4 Officials in other parts of
Bengal reported similar increases. The growth in rents was a function of the
augmented legal powers given to rent collectors, population growth, and per-
haps the decline in demand for Bengal's textile production which forced artisans
into agriculture. Sir William Jones had estimated the population of Bengal,
Bihar, and Orissa at about 22 million in 1787; Collectors and Judges returned
estimates of 27 million in 1802; William Adam estimated it at 36 million in
1835; and the first systematic census showed it to be 67 million in 1872.5 The
growing competition between cultivators and the security of rental incomes
were reflected in the prices people were willing to pay for land forfeited to
government for arrears. The average price of land paid at public auctions in
Bengal rose almost 500 percent between 1798-99 and 1809-10.6 An added
incentive to own land was the possibility of trading export crops gathered
through produce rents and money-lending activities. The value of goods deliv-
ered from the interior to Calcutta "mainly for export" abroad grew by 247
percent between 1795 and 1812-13 and then more than doubled again by 1828.7
The signs of new wealth were common in the giant Burdwan district, which
at the start of the century had a population of about 3 million.8 Cultivation had
been extended by an estimated one eighth since 1790 and perhaps only one
eighth of the arable land remained untilled.9 New villages were being formed.
Brick structures "both for religious and domestic purposes" were "daily increas-
ing." Merchants were among the most affluent residents of the district and,
along with "service" people, were the principal purchasers at government
auction sales.10
The eastern parts of the Burdwan zamindari, located in eastern Burdwan
district and the modern districts of Hughli and Howrah, were well positioned
to profit from the reviving trade by virtue of their proximity to the Bhagirathi
or Hughli river and the Calcutta market. Before Hughli district was split off
from Burdwan in 1820, most of Burdwan district's exports of rice, tobacco,

3
N.J. Halhed, Burdwan Judge and Mag., Report on Burdwan district, 31 May 1814, JP, Civil,
Prog. 18 of 12 Aug. 1817, vol. 261.
4
D.C. Smyth, Hughli Judge, to Jud. Dept., 23 Feb. 1828, TR Prog. 4 of 29 Jan. 1833, vol. 880.
5
CD. Field, Landholding and the Relation of Landlord and Tenant in Various Countries (2nd
edn., Calcutta, 1885), p. 557.
6
That is, the price of land in relation to government demand. Islam, Permanent Settlement, app. 3.
7
Amales Tripathi, Trade and Finance in the Bengal Presidency, 1793-1833 (Calcutta, 1979),
p. 209.
8
E. Thompson, Burdwan Judge and Mag., to Jud. Dept., 9 March 1802, Fifth Report, 1812, vol.
II, p. 627, and Thomas Brooke, Hughli Judge and Mag., to Jud. Dept., 3 May 1802, JP, Civil,
Prog. 52 of 8 July 1802, vol. 72.
9
J.Sherburne, Burdwan Col., to Jud. Dept., 20 Oct. 1801, JP, Civil, Prog. 83 of 8 July 1802, vol. 74.
10
E. Thompson, Burdwan Judge and Mag., to Jud. Dept., 9 March 1802, pp. 624-25 and 627.
290 Burdwan

sugar, indigo, and cotton goods from the eastern parganas were shipped through
the ports of Hughli, Kalna, and Katwa. Kalna in 1802 was described as "always
crowded with boats; and is the great Mart not only for Burdwan, but for all of
the Western Provinces."11 Kalna had long been of special importance to the
Burdwan raj family, being the residence of widowed ranis and the site of
principal family temples. In the early 1800s, Tejchandra was considering
making it his main residence too and was engaged in private and public building
projects there, including the 109 Shiva linga (phallic symbol) temples com-
pleted in 1809. In 1813, following an outbreak of dakaitis near Kalna, the raja
and other prominent people agreed to subscribe to a fund to hire chaukidars to
protect the inhabitants.12 In the same year, he approached the government with
a proposal to raise and widen the road-bed and construct thirty-six bridges and
eighty-two drains on the 37 mile Burdwan-Kalna road, with the government
providing convict labor and the raja paying the remaining costs of Rs. 16,000.13
In 1819, however, the road remained almost impassable during the rainy season
although it was carrying perhaps Rs. 60 lakhs of goods each year on bullocks
and carts. Raja Pratapchandra, Tejchandra's son, wanted to convert the Banka
river, which originated near Burdwan town, flowed eastwards, and entered the
Hughli river near Kalna, into a navigable waterway. The raja thought that this
would stimulate the commerce in his new bazar at Radhaganj, in Burdwan town.
He was contributing to the building of a seven-arch bridge over the Banka. The
Collector recommended that the government should assist the raja with the
Banka navigation project which he said, "exhibits an instance of public spirit
on the part of the Rajah rarely to be met with in the zamindar of these
provinces."14
While the Burdwan raj family and the mofussil gentry promoted commercial
development of the eastern parganas, the central and western areas of Burdwan
lagged behind. Profitable export of products from the central and western parts
of Burdwan district required improvement of the roads. By 1802, convict labor
had improved the roads leading from Burdwan town to the three major ports of
Hughli, Kalna, and Katwa.15 In 1802, government completed a major bridge,
costing Rs. 20,000, over the Banka river at Burdwan town and in its first month
over 3,000 bullocks crossed it. But until the decayed bridges were restored

1l
Thomas Robertson, Capt. of Engineers, to William Parker, Burdwan Col., 10 March 1802, BOR
Prog. 15 of 23 April 1802, vol. 355.
12
W.B. Bayley, Burdwan Mag., to Ch. Sec, Govt., 18 Nov. 1813, JP, Crim., Prog. 15 of 27 Nov.
1813, vol. 325.
13
W.B. Bayley, Burdwan Mag., to Register, SDA, 22 June 1813, JP, Crim., Prog. 2 of 3 July 1813,
vol.318.
14
J.E. Elliot, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 26 July 1819, BOR Prog. 7 of 10 Aug. 1819, vol. 599.
15
E. Thompson, Burdwan Judge and Mag., to Jud. Dept., 9 March 1802, Fifth Report, 1812, vol.
II, p. 628.
 Patnis and the quest for independence 291

between Burdwan and the Hughli river, wheeled transport could not use the
improved roads during much of the year, making it uneconomical to export a
cash crop such as sugar from the distant interior.16
Burdwan zamindari income remained mostly dependent on agricultural rents,
even as the raj family diversified its economic interests by investing in govern-
ment securities, collecting groundrents in its Burdwan bazar and its newly
purchased China bazar in Calcutta,17 and surreptitiously selling wine.18 Collect-
ing agricultural rents posed formidable managerial and legal problems during
the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The Burdwan raja stood at the
apex of the rent-collection hierarchy that reached down into over 8,000 villages.
Until 1800, the raja continued to hold informal auctions for the sale of farming
contracts, typically for three, four, or five years. The Burdwan Collector thought
his profits on his rents were no more than 5 percent which he believed to be
much less than in those parts of the Burdwan zamindari sold to auction
purchasers, who had introduced "a more active system of management."19
The Burdwan raja entered into written agreements with the mustajirs, the sadr
farmers. They in turn auctioned or rented their land to sub-farmers. But at this
level and below, the agreements were vague and the record keeping was loose
and unreliable. A written engagement with "the cultivator, or heads of a village,
is scarcely known, except the general one, mutually to receive and pay,
agreeably to past and preceding years." The zamindari was so vast and the raja's
management techniques so casual that the raja kept no records of what the
farmers' dependents had agreed to pay. This enabled the farmers who did not
expect to have their contracts renewed to falsify their accounts and documents
at the end of their leases. These farmers attempted to increase their profits before
their leases expired by accepting payments from principal raiyats and their
sub-farmers in return for granting fake and unsanctioned rent-free or hum (low)
jama leases and for falsifying village rental records and individual receipts and
pattas. "Every farmer," reported the Judge and Magistrate in Burdwan in 1802,
made "himself a rent-free land-holder during the period of his farm; but the
fraud is not easily detected, where there is no record either in the zemindarry or
in the offices of government, where it can be ascertained" which grants were
legal and which not.20 The Collector estimated that a quarter of the agricultural
produce in the district came from rent-free land.21 Many of the exemptions from
rent were illegal, not having been granted by the state or the zamindar.

16
Thomas Robertson to William Parker, 10 March 1802.
17
Ray, Change, p. 99; Islam, Permanent Settlement, p. 219.
18
J.E. Elliot, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 30 March 1820, BOR Prog. 9 of 7 April 1820, vol. 608.
19
J. Sherburne, Burdwan Col., to Jud. Dept., 29 Oct. 1801, JP, Civil, Prog. 83 of 8 July 1802, vol.
74.
20
E. Thompson, Burdwan Judge and Mag., to Jud. Dept., 9 March 1802, p. 620.
21
J. Sherburne to Jud. Dept., 29 Oct. 1801.
292 Burdwan
The succeeding farmer entered into an agreement with the zamindar to collect
a fixed amount but without having in his possession a reliable record of what
individual villagers owed. The Burdwan zamindar knew that the rent rolls of
each farm were false and "never attempts to call for them, at the expiration of
the lease."22 The new farmer tried to uncover his predecessor's frauds and
rebuild the village's assets to their rated value by measurement of individual
holdings, summary arrests and distraints, regular law suits, coercion by his
peons, threats, and conciliatory bargains with the jotdars or principal raiyats. If
he failed, he would abscond to avoid arrest by the courts on the complaint of
the landlord.
There are no statistics which show how common this pattern was. Zamindars
had a motive to exaggerate the perfidy of their intermediaries. If they could
convince government that the farmers were responsible for their arrears, gov-
ernment might legislate more coercive power for the proprietors, as it did in
1799. But arrears in large zamindaris and the testimony of government officers
demonstrated that the problem was substantial. In 1802, the two most common
types of suits in Burdwan district courts were over allegedly fraudulent aliena-
tions of rental land made since the Decennial Settlement and arrears of rent
claimed by the farmers.23 The summary powers of arrest and distraint in
Regulation VII of 1799 were effective against raiyats but often not against
intermediate tenure-holders. Raiyats had crops that could be cut or seized and
their labor tied them to their villages so that when a landholder instituted
summary procedures, the munsifs could easily locate the raiyat, his crops, and
his livestock. Intermediaries, on the other hand, generally had few cattle or
crops, their collections were in easily hidden cash and not in kind, their personal
possessions were rarely of significant value, and they absconded when arrest
procedures were applied for.24 In 1819, it was reported that in the Burdwan
court's jurisdiction, two out of one hundred arrest warrants secured by the raja
were "the most that are ever" executed.25
In 1800 or 1801, Raja Tejchandra and his amla discovered what they saw as
a potential solution to the problem of farmers who created beneficial interests
in their taluqs at the expiry of their leases. The solution was the introduction of
a new perpetual tenure called the patni taluq. Tejchandra adopted the patni
tenure throughout his zamindari. It soon spread from the Burdwan zamindari to
other parts of Bengal and became a common feature of tenurial relations
throughout western Bengal. It was controversial among Company servants who

22
E. Thompson to Jud. Dept., 9 March 1802, p. 620.
23
Ibid., pp. 620-21.
24
Extract of J.H. Emst, Boosnah Com., to BOR, 13 June 1798, BOR Prog. 76 of 2 July 1799,
vol. 286.
25
H.T. Prinsep, "Memorandum for a Regulation in regard to Putnee Talookdars & ca.," 12 July
1819, JP, Civil, Prog. 37 of 8 Oct. 1819, vol. 271.
 Patnis and the quest for independence 293

blamed it for the growth of rack-renting. The patni system indicated that the
Permanent Settlement had failed to produce improving landlords and instead
had promoted parasitical landlordism or a growth-retarding form of rental
capitalism.
The patni lease reserved to the zamindar a stipulated and unalterable rent but
gave the patnidar full and permanent rights to the remaining profits, with the
power to sell, mortgage, and pass the patni (also pattani) on through inheri-
tance.26 The origin of the term patni is uncertain and it did not appear in early
Bengali dictionaries. Among the possible origins is patta or lease. S.B. Chaud-
huri, after reviewing the possibilities, opted for a derivation from the Sanskrit
pat (to fall) or as "something which falls or is derived from another." Thus, he
believed a patni taluq developed from the parent zamindari.27 This theory is at
least consistent with its meaning.
The obvious difference between patni and ordinary tenures was that the
patnidar's title and rent obligation were both permanent, as long as the full rent
was paid. A second difference was that the patnidar was required to state in his
initial kabuliyat or agreement that if he was in arrears at the close of the year,
the taluq would revert to Tejchandra. The patnidar agreed to "make no com-
plaint concerning the Jumma either in consequence of the diminution or want
of assets, by reasons of the bursting of embankments, wet, drought, or other
losses."28 Tejchandra was imposing the same harsh conditions on his renters
that government had imposed on the zamindars. Another crucial difference
between patnis and ordinary leases was that Tejchandra charged a fine or
premium for granting the lease which may be viewed as "the capitalized value
of many years' increased rents" which he might have collected if he had not
granted a perpetual lease.29
With the exception of the alienation of future rent increases, the patni leases
offered Tejchandra major benefits. The leases' permanence would in theory
remove the incentive for his renters to alienate rental land30 and encourage them
to resume invalid rent-free or under-rated tenures and to encourage cultivators
to settle permanently in his taluq. More importantly, patnidars would pay their
rents in timely fashion or forfeit their whole taluq31 and purchase price. In other

26
The authoritative account of the origin and working of the patni system is the memorandum by
H.T. Prinsep, Superintendent and Remembrancer of Legal Affairs, 12 July 1819, ibid.
27
S.B. Chaudhuri, "Pattani (Putnee) Tenures," Calcutta Review, vol. 62 (1876), pp. 349-50.
28
Quoted from kabuliyat addressed by a patnidar to a zamindar. Draft of patni regulation prepared
by the Judges of the SDA, JP, Civil, Prog. 28 of 8 Oct. 1819, vol. 271.
29
Atul Chandra Guha, A Brief Sketch of the Land Systems of Bengal andBehar (Calcutta, 1915),
p. 49.
30
Raja Pratapchandra was explicit that this was a major motive for introducing the patni system.
Petition of Pratapchandra, JP, Civil, Prog. 7 of 16 Sept. 1817, vol. 263.
3]
In contrast to auctions for arrears to government, in which only land in proportion to the arrears
was sold.
294 Burdwan
words, Tejchandra was applying the same logic used by the Company when it
made its settlement permanent. The resulting prompt payments would free
Tejchandra from anxiety, arrears, and litigation that traditionally marked the
transition between one temporary farmer and the next. The promise of perma-
nence would make it easier to attract more reliable taluqdars - a problem which
had dogged Tejchandra in the past. And the premiums he collected would give
him a reserve with which to pay future arrears and invest in new estates or
other ventures. The premiums he obtained averaged about a quarter of each
taluq's annual rental.32 Thus, in theory the patni system appeared to be an
inspired solution to the problem of temporary farmers who diminished the
mofussil assets of their taluqs by falsifying their agreements with subordi-
nate renters before surrendering possession. What remained to be seen was
whether the new patnidars could collect enough to cover the premiums they
had paid to Tejchandra, without resort to similar sale of perpetual sub-lease to
sub-renters.
Also uncertain was whether Company courts would uphold the legality of
the Burdwan raj's innovation. The most glaring obstacle was the regulation
(XIV of 1793) that forbade landholders from granting leases that exceeded ten
years. The patni system was in direct violation of that regulation. Tejchandra
and his amla wisely did not seek government legal advice or permission before
initiating patnis. They acted unilaterally and then watched an uncertain and
divided judiciary cope with the results. Initially, Company revenue authorities
did not challenge the patni lease. On the contrary, in 1810 the government began
to require the zamindar to apply to it for permission to sell a patni that was in
arrears. In 1812, the government passed a new regulation legalizing perpetual
leases.33
Thus, beginning in 1801 or so, Tejchandra began auctioning off his zamindari
in perpetual leases, surrendering all his property rights in his rental lands, apart
from the rent reserved. For the first six years, the auctions were conducted in
the zamindari kachari; after the kachari was closed, they were held in the rajbari
(the raja's house or palace).34 Tejchandra and then later his son, Pratapchandra,
usually presided over the proceedings, requiring security from or rejecting
people considered to be of doubtful reliability. Initially, Tejchandra sold 740
patni taluqs. By 1812, "scarcely ten villages of the Rajah's property" had not
been let in patni.35

32
A draft of a regulation defining the rights of certain dependent taluqdars, denominated pattani,
prepared by J.H. Harrington, John Fendale, and W.E. Rees, SDA, JP, Civil, Prog. 28 of 8 Oct.
1819, vol. 271.
33
Islam, Permanent Settlement, p. 70.
34
Raja Pratapchandra to H.T. Prinsep, enclosure to H.T. Prinsep's memorandum of 12 July 1819.
35
C. Trower, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 5 Aug. 1812, BOR Prog, of 11 Aug. 1812, vol. 507.
 Patnis and the quest for independence 295

In the early 1790s, the Burdwan zamindari had been divided into a mere
ninety-two farms. So the 740 original patnidars who paid their rents to the raja
represented a significant broadening of the numbers of people who held directly
under the zamindar. The patnis varied greatly in size but the average patni
contained about a dozen villages. Three factors may have led the raja and his
amla to break down the zamindari into small units. First, they seem to have
known that the demand for patnis was high and that the larger the number, the
greater the premiums they stood to realize. Second, the failure of rents in one
small taluq was less likely to hurt the zamindari's payments to government than
in a large taluq. Finally, the need to resume unauthorized rent-free, under-rated,
and unassessed lands required close, painstaking supervision. Effective local
management involved reconstruction of an authentic record of rental obliga-
tions, by examining rent receipts where they existed, by consulting the chief
raiyats and former naibs and gomashtas, and sometimes by sending a naib to
measure each raiyat's holdings. Often, perhaps usually, the raiyats contested
the demands and measurements of the new intermediaries.
The wider distribution of superior tenancies suggests a leveling of gentry
power in the mofussil. Undoubtedly, there was some leveling, although some
of the eastern patnidars under the Burdwan raj were men of substantial wealth
who were zamindars in their own right as well as holding patnis under the
Burdwan raj. These included Dwarkanath Singh of Singur, the Banerjis of
Telinpara, and the Mukherjis of Uttarpara, all in modern Hughli district.
Unfortunately, no list of patnidars seems to have survived. Most had high caste
names and they included employees and former farmers under the Burdwan raj,
as well as ex-government employees, mofussil gentry, and members of the legal
profession. Many patnidars and their subordinates who purchased perpetual
rent-collecting rights may have managed the same villages as kutkinadars and
naibs under the old farming system. There is no evidence to suggest that the
patni system ushered in a social revolution in the mofussil although in the first
two decades patnis often changed hands in contrast to Tejchandra's original
expectation.
With each patni sold, Tejchandra tried to obtain a rental well above what he
annually paid to the Company's government. This may be seen in the Bishnupur
estates, in what was then called the Jungle Mahals district. In 1806, with his
treasury flush from the sale of Burdwan and Hughli patnis, Tejchandra bought
pargana Bishnupur, the last unsold section of the Bishnupur zamindari, giving
him ownership of over nine-tenths of this ancient estate to the south and west
of the traditional Burdwan zamindari. The Burdwan raj was taking advantage
of the distress of its neighbors as it bought lands formerly owned by the rajas
of Birbhum and Nadia as well. As Ratna Ray wrote, Burdwan's purchase of
Bishnupur "provided a striking case of the circulation of landed rights within
an older class of magnates, and the supplanting of one traditional landed
296 Burdwan

magnate by .another." The auction sales by no means benefited "new men"

alone.36
Tejchandra paid government a purchase price of Rs. 15,000 for pargana
Bishnupur which had an assessed jama of Rs. 1,28,201. He then divided his
purchase into lots and auctioned them, some to temporary farmers and the rest
to patnidars.37 Most of the men who purchased the lots were strangers to the area
and continued to live absentee. They paid Tejchandra premiums of Rs. 80,000
and contracted to pay him over Rs. 2.5 lakhs annually in rents so that his income
would have been almost double what he owed government if he had been able
to collect it.
What Tejchandra had not anticipated was that his patnidars would sell
perpetual or patni-type leases in turn. In the pattern followed throughout the
Burdwan zamindari, the Bishnupur patnidars subinfeudated and gave perma-
nent leases to darpatnidars, and they in turn often leased to sepatnidars. At each
stage, the superior took a premium in return for the lease. In some cases, the
patnidar was raising the capital necessary to pay the raja's premium by charging
a purchase price to his subordinate darpatnidar. Often, the patnidar was specu-
lating that by buying ownership rights from the raja, he could increase his profits
by resettling the land at higher rents with darpatnidars. But if darpatnidars
contracted to pay both premiums and higher rents, they expected to recover their
costs by enhancing the demand on the raiyats. The effect was a general
ratchet-like increase of village rents. The Magistrate of Bankura estimated that
whereas government had collected Rs. 1,84,000 from the raiyats in 1805-06, the
Burdwan raja, his patnidars, and their darpatnidars aspired to collect almost
Rs. 4,00,000 in 1806-07.38
Collection of the full zamindari rents depended on the resumption of lands
held rent-free under Raja Chaitanya Singh, the former zamindar of Bishnupur,
by his family, militia, and religious specialists. Tejchandra attempted to resume
those lands, claiming that they were not legally rent-free under Company
regulations. At first, Tejchandra used force to try to seize them.39 This led to
"widespread disturbances," including incursions of chuars from the jungles
under the leadership of indigent members of the Bishnupur raj family who
looted towns in 1807 and 1808. Although at Tejchandra's request, the govern-
ment banished Madhab Singh, the leader of the Bishnupur family's resistance,
to Hughli in 1808, the government was basically unsympathetic to Tejchandra's
unilateral efforts to resume lands and raise the Bishnupur rents.40 It ordered

36
Ray, Change, pp. 121-22.
37
A. Anderson, Burdwan Asst. Col. at Bankura, to BOR, 12 Nov. 1813, BOR Prog. 17 of 23 Nov.
1813, vol. 523.
38
William Blunt, Bankura Mag., to BOR, 17 Aug. 1810, BOR Prog, of 28 Aug. 1810, vol. 481.
39
Ibid.
40
Ray, Change, pp. 125-26.
 Patnis and the quest for independence 297

Tejchandra to stop using force and to apply to the courts for help in recovering
illegally alienated land. The raja of Burdwan and his patnidars did contest
members of the Bishnupur raj family in court. In some suits, the Bishnupur
family complained that their lands had been seized illegally; in some cases, the
Burdwan zamindar and his patnidars claimed that the Bishnupur raj held
rent-free lands illegally. When decisions went against the Burdwan raja and the
patnidars, they appealed. The Bishnupur family was so destitute that it did not
have the resources to pursue these legal battles and it gradually lost its remaining
land. The Burdwan Collector reported in 1820 about the "distressing sight" of
the ruined "piles of extensive buildings" and of "the Rajah [Jai Singh] and his
family reduced to live in mud cottages on the spot where their palace formerly
stood."41
As the Bishnupur raj family's resistance faded, Tejchandra struggled to
collect from his patnidars.42 By 1810, all his patnidars in Bishnupur were in
arrears and he was having so much difficulty that he pleaded with government
to buy the estate back from him. The Board of Revenue was interested in the
raja's offer but would not agree to his condition that he be refunded his purchase
price with interest.43 In March 1813, Tejchandra privately sold his Bishnupur
estate to Ramesbak Mallik, one of his lawyers in Calcutta. The Assistant
Collector in Bishnupur believed that the sale and transfer were "fraudulent and
fictitious" and that Tejchandra's purpose in staging a sale was to give the
Burdwan raj a pretext to cancel the patnis and to re-sell them on better terms. 44
The Judges in the Jungle Mahals, in contrast to those in the Burdwan courts'
jurisdiction, consistently held that when a patni was sold for arrears, the leases
of the subordinate taluqs were rendered null and void. This meant that the
patni could be re-sold without the encumbrances of darpatnidar leases. From
Tejchandra's perspective, this offered the opportunity of obtaining a higher
premium, especially if the previous lease-holders had succeeded in resuming
rent-free land and in raising rents.
The Bishnupur pattern of subinfeudation also occurred in the rest of the
Burdwan zamindari. When Tejchandra introduced patnis in 1800 or 1801, he
had not anticipated the development of a secondary market for permanent
leases. But entrepreneurial members of the mofussil elite eagerly grasped the
opportunity to gain permanent title to their taluqs. In imitation of the raja, they
sold subordinate rent-collecting rights to darpatnidars, and they to sepatnidars
so that three or more intermediaries stood between the dominant raiyats and the

41
J.E. Elliot, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 26 Aug. 1820, Prog, of 12 Sept. 1820, BOR, vol. 613.
42
Petition of Tejchandra, BOR Prog. 22 of 30 Dec. 1808, vol. 460.
43
BOR to C. Trower, Burdwan Col., 20 July 1810, BOR Prog. 38 of 20 July 1810, vol. 480.
44
A. Anderson, Burdwan Asst. Col. at Bankura, to BOR, 12 Nov. 1813, BOR Prog. 17 of 23 Nov.
1813, vol. 523.
298 Burdwan
zamindar. Each permanent tenure-holder pocketed the purchase price and raised
the rent demand on his subordinates in order to obtain both a profit and
reimbursement for his costs of purchase and collection. In effect, each was
speculating that he could raise the rents of those below. Many failed to collect
their contracted rents and found themselves dispossessed and in some cases
imprisoned.
If the sub-tenancy was small enough and if the sub-tenant was resident in his
taluq, then he could enhance his profits by managing his taluq personally,
without the expense of hiring naibs to manage for him. The Collector of
Midnapur reported in 1802, before the introduction of the patni system, that the
profits on taluqs averaged 10-12 percent of the jama, that in addition there was
an average deduction of 8 percent on the sadr jama for surinjami or collection
costs, and thus if a taluqdar personally managed his property, he might obtain
a profit of 20-25 percent. But two-thirds or more of the auction purchasers were
absentee.45 Probably the potential savings on surinjami costs inspired many
small darpatnidars and sepatnidars to speculate in permanent tenures.
In Bishnupur and some other parts of the Burdwan zamindari, the turnover
of patnidars, darpatnidars, etc., was rapid and repeated as each struggled to
recover his purchase costs, as well as show a profit. The Magistrate at Burdwan
observed in 1809 that some of the "very minute portions" into which estates
were subdivided were transferred several times within a single year.46 The
Magistrate at Bankura also complained about the constant changes and said that
patni estates were so divided that there were "almost as many Talookdars
as there are Villages in these Pergunnahs".47 In 1819, Raja Pratapchandra,
Tejchandra's successor, seemed to echo British officials when he lamented the
extreme subinfeudation that had occurred: "Now when five people expect to
derive distinct profits from the same Mahaul ... how distressed and miserable
the situation of the Ryyot must be, many of the Mehauls have in consequence
become deserted and waste" and the raja's rent collections declined. When the
raja sued for the arrest of patnidars under Regulation VII of 1799, the patnidars
disappeared.48
The patni system was not giving Tejchandra the stability he craved. Until
1808-09, the government permitted Tejchandra to resettle forfeited patnis
without a court order but in that year a Judge ruled that a zamindar could
not re-sell patnis without first proving arrears in court and obtaining a court

45
T.H. Ernst, Midnapur Col., to Jud.Dept., 12Feb. 1802, JP, Civil, Prog. 102 of July 1802, vol. 75.
46
W.B. Bayley, Burdwan Ag. Mag., to Jud. Dept., 8 Dec. 1809, JP, Crim., Prog. 1 of 15 Dec.
1809, vol. 219.
47
W. Blunt, Jungle Mahals Mag., to Jud. Dept., 28 Aug. 1809, JP, Crim., Prog. 60 of 8 Sept. 1809,
vol.210.
48
Petition of Pratapchandra, 30 March 1819, JP, Civil, Prog. 30 of 8 Oct. 1819, vol. 271.
 Patnis and the quest for independence 299

order for resale. This delayed the sales well into the following year,
complicated the process of finding new patnidars, and made it difficult for
Tejchandra to pay his revenue promptly. 49
In April 1813, Tejchandra retired from active management of his estate,
complaining of feeling old and of "constant ill health." Years of enmity
with his mother and struggles with the Company, as well as venereal
disease, had taken their toll. He transferred ownership of that part of the
zamindari he had not given previously to Rani Kamalakumari, his seventh
wife, to Pratapchandra, his twenty-two-year-old and only son. Raja
Pratapchandra, according to the Burdwan Collector, was "an intelligent
active young man and has been in the habit of managing a great part of his
father's business for the last two or three years." 50 Pratapchandra managed
both his own and stepmother's property. Pratap did not introduce signifi-
cant innovations into the Burdwan raj administration. But his period of
management witnessed a new government effort to iron out anomalies in
the patni system and to limit the power of the zamindars and patnidars to
dispossess their renters.
Beginning in 1815, the patni system began to drift into crisis. The raja of
Burdwan was re-selling several hundred patnis every year;51 the courts were
clogged with suits;52 British Judges, without clear guidance from the Sadr
Diwani Adalat in Calcutta, ruled inconsistently; darpatnidars and sepatni-
dars violently resisted when new owners tried to take possession of and
impose new settlements on their purchased taluqs; the rents demanded from
raiyats were raised repeatedly; raiyats were often arrested; affrays were
common. A frequent observation in official comments on the patni system
was that cultivators were the ultimate sufferers from the efforts of the rural
gentry to secure a permanent share of the rents. The Magistrate in Burdwan
wrote in 1815 that "a great proportion of Ryotts" had been reduced to a
"wretched state ... entirely owing to the Putnee system ... which has occa-
sioned a Constant transfer of Talooks" and the use of "every species of fraud
and violence" against the raiyats. 53 In the same year, the Governor General,
Lord Moira, specifically mentioned Burdwan when he wrote that "the class
of village proprietors appeared to be in a train of annihilation" because of
the extortions by zamindars, taluqdars and other members "of the higher

49
H.T. Prinsep memorandum of 12 July 1819.
50
C. Trower, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 22 April 1813, BOR Prog. 19 of 27 April 1813, vol. 516.
51
J.E. Elliot, Burdwan Ag. Col., to BOR, 16 Jan. 1818, BOR Prog. 5 of 20 Jan. 1818, vol. 574.
52
Burdwan courts decided 18,039 civil suits, mostly concerning rents, from February 1815 to June
1818. H.T. Prinsep's report on execution of civil judgments, 30 Sept. 1820, JP, Civil, Prog. 10
of 23 April 1821, vol. 284.
53
W.M. Fleming, Burdwan Mag., to Calcutta Court of Circuit, 15 May 1815, JP, Crim., Prog. 13
of 28 June 1815, vol. 349.
300 Burdwan
class." Like the Magistrate of Burdwan, he called for action to protect the
raiyats.54
Many years passed before the government took specific action to define and
protect the rights of raiyats. Security of government revenue took precedence
over concern for the welfare of the cultivating classes. Tenancy legislation was
considered likely to jeopardize the state's income. Therefore, the East India
Company contented itself with minor measures, such as the appointment of
qanungos in 1820 to collect information on the rights of tenants. In the mean-
time, it tinkered with the patni system in the hope that reform at the intermediate
level would reduce the compulsion to screw up the rents at the village level.
The key issue was the status of subordinate leases because when a forfeited
patni came up for sale it was difficult to find bidders if prospective bidders
believed the patni was encumbered by uneconomical subordinate leases, as it
often was. If a patnidar found his patni's income was lower than he anticipated
due to uneconomic permanent leases, the major means he had available to raise
the rents was to withhold his rents owed to the zamindar, allow his patni to be
confiscated, and then re-purchase the patni benami at the zamindar's auction
sale in order that he could make a new settlement with his intermediaries. But
this means of voiding subordinate leases would only work if the courts ruled
that sub-leases fell when the superior patni lease was voided due to arrears. And
when the darpatnidars and sepatnidars believed that their leases would be voided
and they would be displaced without compensation for their original purchase
price and investments in improving their estate's assets, they often began to
withhold their rents from the day the zamindar sued their superior patnidar.
Therefore, the crucial issue in the patni system was whether subordinate leases
voided or not when the patni was sold for arrears.55
The district courts did not follow a uniform policy over the question of
voiding subordinate leases when a patni lease was canceled and resold on
account of arrears. From the outset, as we have seen, the court at Bankura, with
jurisdiction over Bishnupur, sided with the raja of Burdwan and his patnidars
and allowed them to cancel subordinate, permanent leases. But the courts at
Hughli (until 1815) and Burdwan (until 1816 or 1817) had taken the opposite
position. The Judges of these latter courts had sided with the darpatnidars. The
Judges believed that the raja of Burdwan and his patnidars were conspiring to
have the patnidar default so that the raja could bring the patni to sale again for

54
G G ' s Rev. Minute of 21 Sept. 1815, Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Select Committee
on the Affairs of the East India Company, 1831-32 (Revenue), British Parliamentary Papers:
Colonies, East India, vol 9, App. 11.
55
This and the following discussion of the legal complexities of the patni system is based on H.T.
Prinsep's memorandum of 12 July 1819 and its appendices which include letters and testimony
of various Bengali zamindars, patnidars, darpatnidars, and professionals, as well as notes on
and abstracts of legal cases.
 Patnis and the quest for independence 301

a new premium and so that the patnidars could raise their rents. The raja and his
patnidars then shared the profits of these collusive arrangements. The profits
derived from canceling the sub-tenures were significant in this period of rising
rents and willingness to pay premiums for permanent sub-leases.
< Between 1815 and 1817, district Judges in Hughli and Burdwan reversed
their predecessors' positions and ruled that when a patni was sold for arrears,
the patnidar's contracts with darpatnidars voided, regardless of whether the
darpatnidar was in arrears or not. The Judges were influenced by the
knowledge that many darpatni contracts were under-valued and that conse-
quently new patnidars and the raja were having serious difficulty in collect-
ing enough to meet their own financial obligations. The Judges' reversal of
more than ten years of precedents promised to upset the legal system and
agrarian relations as they had operated in recent years. Darpatnidars filed
appeals against the decisions of both Judges. The Court of Circuit reversed
a decision of the Burdwan Judge, William Bayley, who had given permission
to a new patnidar, Haidar Baksh, to cancel a darpatni lease granted by his
predecessor. From that reversal and from the shrill comments of various
judicial authorities on the practical and legal issues involved, it was evident
that Company employees were exasperated by the confusion in law, the
frequent re-sales of patnis, and the consequent tension and violence in
relations between intermediaries and raiyats. The first Judge of the Calcutta
Court of Appeals asserted that the raja of Burdwan had created the patni
system so that "he might plunder the undertenants of his Estate with impu-
nity" and without interference by government. He observed that the raja had
often brought patnis to sale, realizing a new purchase price each time. "What
is there to prevent his selling the greater part of his Estate anew every month,
and gulling hundreds of Individuals?" It had not been the government's
intention "to abandon the undertenants and Ryots" to the "unfeeling author-
ity" of the superior landholders.56
The conflicting judicial opinions seriously disrupted Burdwan zamindari
collections as it became clear that the legal issue would not be finally settled
until the government passed new regulations or the Sadr Diwani Adalat ruled
on the appeals from the lower courts. Raja Pratapchandra complained in
September 1817 that when his patnidars heard of the Court of Circuit' s decision,
they "have to a man withheld their rents." The result was that the raja's mofussil
arrears were almost Rs. 9 lakhs for the current year and Rs. 5 lakhs for the
previous year. Pratapchandra claimed that he had been forced to borrow Rs. 13
lakhs to pay his revenue and that he now faced "total failure." If government

56
Minuteof J. Wintle, Calcutta Court of Appeals, 2 June 1817, JP, Civil, Prog. 7 of 16 Sept. 1817,
vol. 263.
302 Burdwan
did not help, "I must sink with my family into sudden ruin.1'57 To reinforce his
claim of urgent distress, he requested that government permit him to give up
the Hughli part of his zamindari.58 That the raja filed suits for Rs. 9.2 lakhs of
arrears from patnidars was evidence that he was not exaggerating his diffi-
culty.59 In 1818-19, when the raja's cash reserves and credit were apparently
exhausted, land with a jama of Rs. 9 lakhs was advertised for sale in Burdwan
district.60 In June 1819, he had obtained warrants for the arrest of 160 defaulting
patnidars but had succeeded in arresting only one.61 However, the patnidars did
not want the Burdwan raja to lose his lands because they stood to lose their
investments. Therefore, the patnidars as a body petitioned government to stay
the sale of the raja's lands. The government agreed to their request.62 The
Burdwan zamindari, paying 15 percent of Bengal's revenue, was in deadlock.
The patni system was paralyzed by official indecision and the ambiguities in
the law.
To clear up the confusion over, and draft a new regulation for, the patni
system, the government deputed H. T. Prinsep, the Superintendent and Remem-
brancer of Legal Affairs, to the Burdwan zamindari. Prinsep spent part of May
and June 1819 in Hughli and Burdwan examining documents and interviewing
various parties. In July, he submitted a report63 containing a draft law which
was enacted on 3 September as Regulation VIII of 1819.64 Regulation VIII
finally brought order to the patni system and peace among the elites of the
Burdwan zamindari.
Regulation VIII of 1819 gave explicit legislative recognition to the patni
system for the first time. The major feature of Regulation VIII was to declare
that when a patni was sold for arrears to a zamindar, the darpatnis and other
dependent, permanent leases would become void. This had the effect of making
the forfeited patnis unencumbered and thus a more valuable and desirable
purchase for prospective bidders. From the perspective of the raja of Burdwan,

57
Petition of Pratapchandra to SDA, JP, Civil, Prog. 7 of 16 Sept. 1817, vol 263.
58
C.Lushington,HughliAg.Col.,toBOR, 18June 1817,BORProg.3of24June 1817,vol.567.
59
Statement of the balances of patni taluqs of estates of the raja of Burdwan, enclosure 12 to H.T.
Prinsep's memorandum of 12 July 1819.
60
Islam, Permanent Settlement, App. B.
61
H.T. Prinsep's memorandum of 12 July 1819 and enclosure 9.
62
Islam, Permanent Settlement, p. 73.
63
H.T. Prinsep's memorandum of 12 July 1819.
64
According to stories now current in Bengal, one of the Burdwan raj amla drafted Regulation
VIII although government records do not substantiate them. One version says "Gourang
Munshi, a kinsman of the famous Vishwanath Munshi, who played so prominent a part in the
decennial settlement of the Raj, entered the Maharaja's service, and having prepared a draft of
regulation, took Kumar Pratap Chand with him to Calcutta, spent immense money in giving
balls, &c. to the members of the Government, and through Pratap Chand's influence and
countenance, had his draft made law in the Council." S.B. Chaudhuri, "Pattani (Putnee)
Tenures," p. 353.
 Patnis and the quest for independence 303

it meant that he was likely to be able to recover his full arrears from the sale of
forfeited patnis. To assist further the raja of Burdwan and other rent receivers,
the sales of forfeited patni-type taluqs would be conducted twice a year so that
rent receivers did not have to wait until the following revenue year to recover
all their arrears. These changes made rent collection in the patni system
decidedly easier.
Government authorities also wanted to protect intermediate rent collectors
who had fulfilled the terms of their contracts. In order to afford darpatnidars
and other rent payers a measure of protection when patni-type leases were
voided in a sale for arrears, they were entitled to sue for the value of their tenure
from the proceeds of the sale if they could prove they were not in arrears to the
defaulting superior holder. This gave the darpatnidars, sepatnidars, etc., a
motive to continue to pay in their rents when their superiors fell into arrears,
instead of all withholding their rents as they often had done in the past.65
From the perspective of the raja of Burdwan, an objectionable innovation
was the "new mode of sale." Regulation VIII deprived zamindars of the right
to conduct the sales of patnis in arrears. Hereafter, such sales were to be public
and to be conducted by the Collector. Patnidars had sought this change because
some, at least, believed the raja's sales had not been fair or open. The peshkar
of the Hughli court reported that all re-sales of patni taluqs had been "for the
exact amount of the balance but there is a further price paid under hand that
. does not appear in the papers."66 The Judge at Hughli stated that the raja of
Burdwan "seems never" to have held auctions for defaulted patnis but instead
to have "disposed of them by private bargain."67 Thus there seemed good reason
to doubt the raja's claim that his sales had always been open and fair. In the
future, Regulation VIII restricted what the raja could recover from patni re-sales
to the arrears due.
Raja Pratapchandra objected vigorously to the proposed loss of his customary
right to conduct the sales of forfeited patnis. What the raja did not acknowledge
was that he had broken faith with defaulting patnidars, the men whose character
he claimed to have judged, by refusing to credit them with surpluses above their
arrears that he collected as premiums when re-selling their forfeited estates.
Money value had replaced the ethic of mutual loyalty once patronage gave way
to auctions. Pratapchandra's protest was unavailing and after 1819 the govern-
ment conducted the auctions for forfeited patnis.

65
H.T. Prinsep's memorandum of 12 July 1819.
66
Examination of Gora Chand Mulick, enclosure 4 to ibid.
67
This same Judge had in fact unilaterally ordered public sales of forfeited patnis in Hughli well
before Regulation VIII of 1819 was passed and he had been returning the surplus proceeds of
the sale to the defaulting patnidars. W. Forrester, Hughli Ag. Judge, to Register, SDA, JP, Civil,
Prog. 7 of 16 Sept. 1817, vol. 263.
304 Burdwan
The vigor of Pratapchandra's protest over losing the right to preside over the
auction of his patnis was understandable because making the bandobast or
settlement and choosing his subordinate renters had been at the heart of the
traditional zamindar's discretionary power. The raja now had almost no hand
in the management of his estate and significantly less patronage to distribute.
He did not even have the legal power to summon a defaulting patnidar into his
presence. The Burdwan rajas continued into the twentieth century to hold the
annual puniya ceremony in which their patnidars paid a symbolic rupee for the
privilege of holding land but the puniya was now a ceremonial form without
legal meaning. The raja of Burdwan had become effectively an annuitant. As a
Judge of the Calcutta Court of Appeals said in 1817, "the Novel Circumstance
is exhibited of one of the largest Zemindarries in the country, paying rent to
Government, without having a right to the actual property of one Begah
scarcely, in the soil, but merely a title to the Rents." 68 Apart from the legal
establishment, most of the Burdwan raj sheristas or offices were shut down or
reduced and the raja's powers of patronage shrank to a fraction of their former
size.
Except for the loss of his ability to conduct patni auctions, Raja Pratapchandra
had little to complain of. The raja and most patnidars, as well as government
officials, seemed satisfied with the financial working of Regulation VIII of
1819. In 1826, the Collectors of both Burdwan and Hughli (Hughli was
separated from Burdwan in 1820 as a separate collectorate) reported that
Regulation VIII had ended the insecurity experienced by zamindars and patni-
dars in collecting their rents. The Burdwan Collector thought this new security
had encouraged "the investment of Capital in lands formerly uncultivated" and
had thus created a demand for agricultural labor "which must have in great
measure ameliorated the condition of the labouring Class." He also saw no need
for new legislation to protect cultivating tenants.69
What Regulation VIII of 1819 made more secure was the realization of rents
by the zamindars and their intermediaries. The intermediaries themselves
continued to change often as a market in permanent rights to rents continued to
operate.70 Not only were patnis, darpatnis, etc., often transferred through private
sales and auctions for arrears, they were frequently shared in joint tenancy or
divided into fractional shares.71 The raja of Burdwan had originally granted 740
patni taluqs with an average of roughly a dozen villages each; by 1819, the

68
Minute of J. Wintle, Calcutta Court of Appeals, 2 June 1817.
69
J. Armstrong, Burdwan Ag. Col., to BOR, 28 Jan. 1826; R. Udny, Hughli Ag. Col., to BOR, 17
Feb. 1826; and BOR to GG, 20 June 1826, BOR Prog. 46 and 47 of 20 June 1826, vol. 739.
70
W.H. Belli, Hughli, Col., to Jud., Dept., 24 Jan. 1828, and H. Millett, Burdwan Judge, to Jud.
Dept., 27 Aug. 1832, TR Prog. 13 and 20 of 29 Jan. 1833, vol. 880.
71
Minute by J.E. Elliot, BOR, 22 May 1827, BOR Prog. 20 of 22 May 1827, vol. 761.
 Patnis and the quest for independence 305

Burdwan zamindari had 1,495 patnis with an average of about six villages
each;72 by 1873, the number of patnis had roughly doubled again.73 The
numbers of darpatnidars and sepatnidars also continued to grow and were more
numerous than patnidars. Some intermediaries who had given land to subordi-
nates on perpetual leases continued to manage the collections from the raiyats
on part of their land. But in general a substantial proportion of the mofussil
gentry received a fixed annual income without having any responsibility for the
messy task of collecting from the raiyats, whose rents rose as their own number
and the number of annuitants above them multiplied. Few of those intermedi-
aries contributed anything to agricultural production except the credit which
their rack-rented tenants were forced to request.
The proximate cause of the patni system was the Burdwan raja's desire to
secure his rents by applying to his taluqdars the same permanence of obligation
and automatic forfeiture for arrears as the Company had imposed on the
zamindars. The ultimate source of the introduction of perpetual leases and their
extension down the rent-collecting ladder seems to have been something else.
The perpetuity of the leases seemed to promise an escape from the contention
and litigation which the Cornwallis system promoted and which were at
fundamental odds with the paternalism and discretionary powers of benevo-
lence and coercion of the zamindari order of an idealized earlier age. The receipt
of an annual and uncontested income, while the educated recipient pursued his
professional occupation or lived in idleness, had a familiar analogue in the bazi
zamin or revenue-free land grant. The patni lease was not revenue-free but it
offered a trouble-free income from one generation to the next. The goal was
common in Bengali and other civilizations. The patni system, then, was an
adaptive effort to achieve what was culturally familiar in a new legal order
which promoted the maximization of private interest through binding and
perpetual contracts. Finally, the patni system represented an effort by Bengali
elites to obtain financial security in a colonial society whose economy was
increasingly agricultural, whose population was rising, and whose government
reserved the highest offices to foreigners. The patni system was the culmination
of a process underway among the supra-village elites for many decades,
reaching back to the creation of large zamindaris with bureaucratic forms of
rental management and the spread of rent farming. Patrimonial, long-term, often
hereditary relationships governed by a combination of custom and discretion
had given way to contractual and frequently temporary relationships regulated
by formal law and the agents of a foreign judiciary.

72
A draft of a regulation prepared by J.H. Harrington, John Fendale, and W.E. Rees.
73
Burdwan district had 2,446 patnis in 1873; Hughli district had 681 patnis; and the Burdwan
raja's estates in Bankara district had 341 patnis. Hunter, Statistical Account, vol. Ill, p. 348,
and vol. IV, pp. 82 and 257.
17 Conclusion

From the sixteenth through most of the eighteenth centuries, local Hindu
kingship cushioned rural Bengal's multi-cellular society from the penetration
of the state and the market. Raja-zamindars reigned over societies that united
Brahmins, landholding gentry, and ranked peasantry into configurations ap-
proximating the mental templates created by normative Hindu expectations of
how society should function. Within zamindaris, partially autonomous rajas
preserved ritual cycles, the entitlements of dependents with superior bio-moral
status, and the unequal distribution of rental and tax obligations.
The imperial, foreign Mughals and British relied on the authority of local
kingship in their efforts to expand territorial control, monetization, and account-
ancy. In permitting themselves to serve the revenue appropriation and commer-
cial purposes of these visitors to Bengal, the zamindars entered a transformative
partnership from which there was no satisfying escape. As the state pushed
further into what had once been semi-independent sovereignties, the role and
size of the service gentry, financiers, and merchants expanded. Patronage and
political favor drew enterprising people out of parochial societies into new
patterns of cooperation and rivalry over larger and larger distances. By the early
eighteenth century, older ethnic and functional boundaries were losing their
clarity. The Mughal government was conferring mansabdari rank on the larger
zamindars of Bengal, warrior-bureaucrats were trading, western Indian bankers
were instrumental in collecting the land revenue, and Bengali merchants were
contracting to bring local merchandise to European trading factories.
As the Mughal government in Bengal in the early eighteenth century gained
effective autonomy from Delhi, it forged a new, uneasy alliance with large
zamindars who displaced the peripatetic mansabdars as the primary agency of
district supervision. The enlistment of zamindars as major partners of the state
lessened "the discontinuity between the social base and the political superstruc-
ture" that had been "a characteristic of Indian polity."1 This gave a temporary

1
Eric Stokes, The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in
Colonial India (Cambridge, 1978), p. 20.

306
 Conclusion 307

respite to local, hereditary, Hindu kingship from the long-term trend towards
centralization. Through most of the century, fewer than a dozen rajas were
responsible for over half the state's revenue demand. Their survival in a shifting
political environment, during the contest between competing Mughal, Maratha,
and European imperialisms, was remarkable testimony to their hold over local
societies and their value to outside powers in quest of Bengal's revenue and
trade. The position of the large zamindars, however, was riddled with contra-
diction and tension. After 1756, the zamindars' desire for autonomy and
preservation of their Hindu patrimonial authority was pitted against an insistent
nawabi and British drive for higher collections and fuller local control. In the
final decades of the century, the inflexible revenue demand and the new
state-controlled courts and police reduced the ability of local rajas to indulge
their dependents, exercise reciprocity, or focus on the ritual elements of king-
ship. Local kingship was forced to serve the extractive goals of the colonial
state.
Nevertheless, up to the Permanent Settlement of 1793, the zamindari system
retained numerous feudal-type social forms that derived from models of Hindu
kingship and that resembled European feudalism. The parallels with feudalism
were notable, if incomplete. First, political authority within Bengal was frag-
mented, delegated, and then sub-delegated so that even petty chiefs replicated
the forms and rituals of Hindu kingship. Rajas and their intermediaries punished
wrong-doing, settled disputes, and allocated shares of revenue obligations to
the villages according to local conventions, with minimal state intervention.
Murshidabad or Calcutta probably intruded into the consciousness of most
villagers only a few times a year. Even the raja of a large zamindari was a remote
figure for all but the grihastha (respectable householder) and dominant peasants.
The state had not taken control over what it claimed at times to be its own: the
right to regulate relations between the zamindar and his peasants. And the
zamindar was likely to interfere with village hierarchies only when there was a
failure of the rent. Even in these cases, the zamindar usually left the matter to
his intermediary.
The second parallel with feudalism was the personalized relations between
the links in the landed hierarchy, especially in zamindari ceremonies. Popular
ideology did not distinguish clearly between the raja as the state's tax collector
and the raja as local partner of the deity and Brahmins and as upholder of
dharma. People expected to honor their social superiors as they honored their
deities. The terms of a villager's tenure were established or renewed in face-to-
face meetings with his superior rent receiver and were governed by a mixture
of custom and the superior's discretion far more often than by state regulations
or formal contract. As farming out of the rents for a fixed period spread in the
eighteenth century, the relation between a raja and his intermediaries was more
often defined by a written agreement, but this contractual relationship was
308 Burdwan
personalized by the ceremonial puniyas in which the intermediaries attended
the zamindar in his kachari. This ceremony, repeated at Murshidabad until 1772
and in the villages long afterwards, implied a "gesture of personal submission."2
And the bonds that were renewed or created were reinforced by the ex-
change of ceremonial gifts. Thus what today is seen as a public duty - the
payment of government taxes - was expressed as a private or personal obliga-
tion to one's master. "Shares" to the rights of kingship were sold, credit was
extended, "proto-capitalism" spread, but without "an equivalent development
of mentalities."3
Third, the peasantry, as in feudal society, was highly differentiated. In a
village, a small group of dominant peasants, whether or not they personally
handled the plough, usually rented to tenants and employed hired labor and
loaned money to their clients. The middle peasants typically tilled with their
own family labor and owned their own animals. The lesser peasants worked for
others as tenants or laborers, were generally in debt, and were occasionally
pressed into compulsory labor service. The steep social stratification of village
societies was legitimized by the ideology of caste which assigned sharply
different degrees of bio-moral worth to different jatis. The ritual ranking of
peasant jatis corresponded in general to economic position and reinforced and
legitimized the marked inequalities.
The zamindar's sovereignty reached into the village in a number of ways
which were not unlike a European feudal lord's. The zamindar granted fief-like
property with "an obligation of service"4 to village servants, most especially to
chaukidars or village watchmen. In widely scattered villages he built or en-
dowed temples. The zamindar or his intermediaries appointed local gentry or
superior peasants to act as village headmen and stewards or bailiffs who
collected rent and executed zamindari orders. Among the orders transmitted
was the demand for payments on the occasion of important events in the family
of the raja or the villager. When the raja succeeded to the gadi (throne), built a
new rajbari, married, went on a pilgrimage, or arranged the marriage of his child,
he imposed special fees on his subjects. Similarly, the raja took small fees on
the occasion of a villager's marriage, property transfer, or litigation. So even in
a decentralized zamindari, the raja confirmed his presence in each village family
each time a major event occurred in the family or the raja's household. Long
after the Company banned the fees, zamindars continued to collect them and to
insist, with some-plausibility, that they were paid voluntarily.
Like European feudal lords, zamindars in the eighteenth century liberally
conferred allodial rights, resembling freehold property, on Brahmins, relatives,

2
Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, tr. L.A. Manyon (London, 1961), p. 163.
3
Bayly, "The Origins of Swadeshi," p. 286.
4
Bloch, Feudal Society, p. 167.
 Conclusion 309

and favorites. Tax- and rent-free, these lakhiraj grants were usually hereditable
and transferable. By the late eighteenth century, perhaps a fifth of Bengal's
cultivated land was alienated with or without service obligation. Frank Perlin
has suggested that privately owned, tax-free property "lies at the centre of
concepts and institutions comprising an ideology of corporate and egalitarian
individualism."5 The motive in making these grants was to attach elites to the
raja and to strengthen corporatism and hierarchy; the long-run effect, ironically,
was to make families economically independent of the raja and to stimulate the
growth of individualism that accompanied the spread of absolute property
rights. One indication of the increasing individualism and freedom from heredi-
tary masters was the circulation of service gentry between Mughal and Com-
pany employment, between trade, land management, and government
employment, and between one raja's estate and another.
In other, more important ways, the Bengali zamindari system was not feudal.
Both the development of the state and of monetization of the economy far
exceeded that of pre-1300 Europe. The nawabi and Company governments were
bureaucracies with professional judicial, revenue, and military branches. They
extracted as taxes a much larger proportion of the gross produce than European
feudal states had or than contemporary China did.6 A large majority of villages
paid their rents in money. Villages near rivers produced rice, sugar, edible oils,
cotton, and woven silk and cotton goods for a large-scale inter-regional and
international trade that operated independently of the zamindari system. These
villages thus not only contributed revenue to their zamindars and the state
beyond, they also received back profits for the labor of their cultivators, food
processors, spinners, and weavers. Underpinning the extensive transfer of
goods, rents, and taxes was an elaborate network of credit. Although landholders
lent money, the major bankers were socially and economically independent of
the zamindars and were often non-Bengalis. A zamindari was by no means a
fully self-contained economic entity. Bankers, traders, and state judicial and
police institutions penetrated the boundaries of the rajadoms.
In fact, the eighteenth-century zamindars of Bengal, with the exception of
certain frontier rajas, owed their position to state appointments as agents of
revenue extraction, and not to the need of local societies for protection in an
anarchic age or to a weak king in search of feudal levies. The Bengali zamindar
was a partner of the state in drawing revenue from the villages and this exploitive
role imposed strains on the raja's ability to fulfill the cultural ideal of the
beneficent protector. He was a fiscal creation, however much he cultivated the

5
Frank Perlin, "Concepts of Order and Comparison," Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 12, nos.
2 and 3 (Jan.-April 1985), p. 132.
6
Kumar and Desai (eds.), Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. II, p. 17.
310 Burdwan

symbolism of the historic righteous raja and however much his subjects looked
to him to uphold dharmic order through regulation of caste behavior and
promotion of ritual. If the Bengali zamindar had held a large demesne or home
farm, his sovereignty might have more closely resembled feudalism on at least
that part of his territory. But zamindars usually did not have large home farms,
rarely showed interest in or knowledge of agriculture, and instead acted as
rentiers in their economic relations with their subjects.
Most observers stress the independence and the small, family scale of
eighteenth-century agricultural production units and the relative absence of
serfdom or hereditary servility.7 The dominant peasantry, the jotdars, it might
be argued, were economically autonomous and belonged more to their territory
or village than to a superior person. In a large zamindari, the jotdars' immediate
superiors were the intermediaries, and intermediaries were more often than not
temporary contractors. The rotation of ijaradars, kutkinadars, etc., interrupted
the chain of dependency and weakened the lines of personal loyalty. The jotdars
were not noted for their servility. On the contrary, they often balked at the
imposition of countless abwabs and at efforts to measure their land, although
some were coopted by intermediaries into assisting with rent collection. The
servile villagers were not the jotdars but instead the untouchables, who were
perhaps "no better than semi-serfs."8 And they were subservient to their affluent
village neighbors rather than to the zamindar and his intermediaries. It is likely
that untouchables were a large percentage of the villagers who migrated
frequently.
Therefore, the eighteenth-century zamindari system had evolved under rela-
tively powerful states that aimed at maximizing their revenue through the
agency of zamindars. More often than not, the major zamindari estates were
created by bureaucratic employees of the imperial state. The zamindari system
encompassed feudal features, including fiefs, allods, banalite-type payments,
personal dependency, fragmented and private legal and political authority, and
a subordinate, stratified peasantry. What was generally missing in relations
between superiors and their dependents was vassalage and serfdom, and often
with these, formal definition, permanence, and fealty. The eighteenth-century
zamindari, from the middle peasant on up, was based on land rents rather than
service and thus was not basically feudal.
By the late 1790s, the East India Company had significantly reduced the

7
For example, see Irfan Habib, "Classifying Pre-Colonial India," Journal of Peasant Studies,
vol. 12, nos. 2 and 3 (Jan.-July 1985), p. 47; Burton Stein, "Politics, Peasants and the
Deconstruction of Feudalism in Medieval India," ibid., p. 84; and Ram Sharan Sharma, Indian
Feudalism: c. 300-1200 (Calcutta, 1965), pp. 223-24.
8
Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol.
I.e. 1200-c. 1750 (Cambridge, 1982), p. 54.
 Conclusion 311
political sovereignty of the zamindars while putting in place the judicial
machinery that would eventually augment the security of their property in their
estates. The Company dismantled much of the zamindar's personal authority
by making the administration of justice theoretically a state monopoly and by
asserting control over the rural police. The creation of Company law courts in
the outlying areas of the zamindaris expanded the state's power to regulate
relations between zamindars, intermediaries, and jotdars and curtailed the
zamindars' power and patronage. The Cornwallis regulations also recognized
the territorial holdings of zamindars and their intermediaries as personal prop-
erty to serve as security for both the government's revenue demand and private
debts. By doing so, the Company was making more absolute an individual's
right of property in his share of the agricultural surplus.
The immediate effect of converting land into security for payment of the
revenue demand was, of course, destabilizing. Unaccustomed to paying their
full revenue promptly in years of poor harvests and lacking sufficient coercive
powers to realize their rents, between 1793 and 1819 zamindars forfeited land
paying an estimated 45 percent of the government's revenue demand.9 The
number of zamindars or persons paying revenue directly to government grew
dramatically. This broadening of land ownership opened up the zamindari ranks
to many hundreds of high caste entrepreneurs, government servants, and former
employees and intermediaries of the rajas. Yet many of these new zamindars
had in one sense or another long lived off agricultural rents. The auction sales
under the Permanent Settlement redistributed property titles within a narrow
spectrum of society rather than induced a social revolution.
The inability of zamindars to collect their rents promptly under the new,
unforgiving regulations and the consequent catastrophic loss of zamindari
holdings led the government to arm landholders with draconian powers of
coercion in the form of the right to detain and distrain the property of
defaulting tenants. These new regulations effectively checked the
zamindars' loss of land and left peasants with fewer protections against
rack-renting. The raja of Burdwan also developed a novel means of protect-
ing his income. He imitated the Company's practice of bringing to auction
the holdings of persons in arrears and of offering the auction purchasers a
permanent lease (patni) at a fixed rental. This practice spread widely through
western and central Bengal and persuaded the government to give it legal
recognition in 1819. The pathi regulation of 1819 enabled zamindars to
transfer the responsibility for rent collection to patnidars and to rely on
government courts to coerce payments from defaulters. The government had
not only shifted the object of coercion outside the human body to property,

9
The percentage has been adjusted for benami repurchases. Islam, Permanent Settlement, p. 157.
312 Burdwan

it had also converted the state into the principal agent of coercion above the
village.
By allowing superior rent receivers to distrain the property of jotdars in
arrears and by committing the courts and police to the side of rent extraction,
the government significantly if temporarily weakened the position of jotdars.
The jotdars' superiors could no longer afford the traditional levels of indulgence
during poor harvests. The peons acting under court orders requested by
zamindars and their intermediaries forced jotdars to pay, surrender property, or
engage in prolonged, debilitating legal proceedings. The new patnidars had paid
premiums for their leases and therefore had investments to recoup. Many
patnidars found that successful rental management required strict accounting,
systematic measurement of their villages, and aggressive collection. Jotdars in
turn pressed their sub-tenants. Village-level rents probably doubled in the first
two decades of the nineteenth century, rising faster than agricultural prices, as
patnis became a speculative investment and as patnidars subinfeudated by
creating permanent leases for their subordinate gentry sub-rentiers.
Demands for the inflexible government assessments, for the judicially en-
forced rents, and for the recovery of premiums paid for the patni-style leases
rippled down through the rural hierarchy, causing stress for individuals at all
levels. Once opulent rajas' families retreated into crumbling palaces, sullenness,
and religious mysticism. Patnidars who had dreamed of setting up inde-
pendently as petty rajas on the rents once paid to their former zamindars found
their hopes shattered by jotdar combativeness, administrative inexperience,
flood damage, or a failure of ruthless nerve. Many patnidars attended auctions
a second time, on this occasion to watch hopelessly as their holdings passed to
new owners. Yet probably few former zamindars and patnidars experienced real
destitution. Few were without loyal family retainers to preserve them from
manual labor; few were without some revenue-free land from which to collect
their rents. Jotdars and other peasants, also, had their experience as cultivators
to sell. Even the landless, degraded castes on the margins of village society had
labor to offer. Thousands, though, turned to dakaiti, for which hundreds paid
with sentences of death or transportion for life.10
Economic security lay ahead for many of those numerous landholders who
survived the shake-out period between 1790 and 1820. With a judicial system
that stood squarely behind people of property, efficient managers profited from
the rise in population, rents, and agricultural prices. The stability of the govern-
ment's land revenue demand in an age of inflation was crucial here. However,
over the long term that stability may have helped stunt Bengal's economic
development. It may have drawn capital and entrepreneurial energies into rental
capitalism, into a mode of investment that contributed little to the diversification

10
McLane, "Bengali Bandits," pp. 26-^7.
 Conclusion 313
of economic activity and that pyramided one rent collector on top of another,
all living off the labor of a many layered peasantry. Bengal's peasants supported
an extraordinarily top-heavy class of high caste rent-receivers and were left with
few incentives for innovation. The Company's embalming of the zamindari
hierarchy, with its dependence on rental income, dampened the search for
technological innovations and perpetuated a "social ideology which enveloped
the totality of manual work, ... contaminating hired and even independent
labour with the stigma of debasement."11 Private property was more secure and
individualistic and the market for rent collecting rights was more capitalistic.
But rental capitalism had been superimposed on a labor system largely insulated
from market incentives and entrepreneurial possibility by layers of intermediate
annuitants, many of whom were unemployed or underemployed as well as poor.
All in all, the early nineteenth-century economy of Bengal appeared to be no
more buoyant than a century earlier, despite its growing exports. Europeans
brought neither manufactured goods, capital, nor agricultural innovations to
India in significant degree. Rather, they used tax and monopoly revenues to
purchase the Company's "investment" and pay for the costly military estab-
lishment. In the process, they solidified the impediments to peasant and com-
mercial enterprise while channeling elite aspirations into the dead-end of rent
maximization.12 As Peter Marshall concluded about the first six decades of
colonial rule, "both in its manufacturing and its agriculture, eastern India, often
to the exasperation of its conquerors, remained a land of very small producers
whose way of life had changed very little."13

The Burdwan raj, as we have seen, emerged from the period of heavy auction
sales with its estate largely intact. The Burdwan zamindari's rent collections
stabilized after the patni system was legalized in 1819. Regulation VIII of 1819
constituted a grand compromise between government and the zamindars. In
effect, the government agreed to execute the zamindars' coercive work for them,
leaving the zamindars as annuitants. In the Burdwan zamindari, the government
and the professional staff of managers and lawyers cooperated to ensure that
both the Company and the raj family obtained their respective shares of the
peasants' production. With over 4,000 square miles, the zamindari remained
the largest and most profitable in Bengal. It continued to pay government over

11
This is Perry Anderson's comment on "the structural constraint of slavery on technology" in
the classical world in Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism (London, 1974), p. 27.
12
Kumar and Desai (eds.), Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. II, pp. 15-20, 86, 144ff,
165-67,287,320, and 814-15 Also Marshall, New Cambridge History of India, II.2, pp. 113-
15, 135, and 162-63.
13
Marshall, New Cambridge History of India, II.2, p. 172.
314 Burdwan

Rs. 30 lakhs while its own rental collection exceeded Rs. 40 lakhs. Net rental
profits were reduced to Rs. 6-7 lakhs by management and legal costs,14 leaving
the zamindari with an ample income to pay for the raj family's living expenses,
the construction of temples, roads, and palaces, and charitable gifts to such
institutions as schools in Burdwan and Midnapur and a fever hospital in
Calcutta.15 The zamindari occasionally purchased new estates, including Cal-
cutta property, and invested in government bonds. With unparalleled resources,
the raj was able to attract expert legal, financial, and managerial talent to its
service. "The service of a powerful Rajah," wrote a British Magistrate, "is
considered by the people of this country in as honorable a light as the service
of the Government."16 Occasionally, Burdwan rajas hired Europeans as
zamindari managers. But the nineteenth-century managers who contributed
most to the stability of the Burdwan raj were Punjabis: Pran Kapur in the first
half of the century and Lala Ban Behari Kapur in the second half. Each not only
gave strong administrative leadership and cooperated with the colonial govern-
ment, each also arranged for the raj family to adopt one of his relatives to
succeed as maharaja following a failure of biological succession.
Rent collection in the Burdwan zamindari became highly efficient after the
patni act of 1819. Since almost all of the rent-paying land was leased out to
patnidars, rent collecting involved meticulous accounting of the patnidars'
obligations and payments, followed by legal action to recover arrears. The
zamindari's legal department was the heart of the Burdwan raj's operations
through the nineteenth century. Mukhtars (legal agents) were stationed through-
out each of the seventeen estates that made up the zamindari and when a patnidar
fell behind in his rents, the mukhtars routinely filed suits. Then, in contrast to
the pre-1819 system, the government brought forfeited patnis to sale. In the
early decades of the nineteenth century, patnis were forfeited, divided, subin-
feudated, and reauctioned frequently. At the start of the century, Burdwan had
fewer than 1,000 patnis; by 1885 there were 2,571 patnis.17 By the end of the
century, the Burdwan rents were paid with a high degree of regularity. From
1885 to 1902, the Burdwan raj filed an average of 1,661.7 suits annually for
amounts that represented a mere 1.44 percent of the rents due. 18
Members of the raj family participated in the estate's management as age and
inclination allowed but they were essentially irrelevant to the detailed work of

14
Akinobu Kawai, 'Landlords' and Imperial Rule: Change in Bengal Agrarian Society, c.1885-
1940 (Tokyo, 1986), pp. 92 and 101.
15
Brajendranath Bandopadhyay, SambadPatra Shekaler Katha (2 vols., Calcutta, 1933), vol. II,
pp. 59 and 238.
16
E.A. Samuells, Hughli Mag., to T.C. Smith, Supt. of Police, 20 Sept. 1838, JP, Crim., Prog. 44
of23Oct 1838, vol. 654.
17
Kawai, 'Landlords', p. 92.
18
Computed from ibid., p. 103.
 Conclusion 315
revenue extraction. Their more important function was to embody those residual
symbolic functions of Hindu kingship that villagers expected of rajas. The
Burdwan rajas celebrated religious festivals and their own life-cycle ceremonies
with appropriate lavishness. They tended their numerous religious endowments
in Burdwan, Kalna, and Darjeeling, where they built palatial residences, and at
Brindaban, Benaras, and Puri also. They maintained "32 principal temples and
shrines, besides a very large number of minor ones scattered in different parts
of the estate." They also built and improved ghats (steps descending) for ritual
bathing on the banks of tanks and the Bhagirathi river.19 The numerous reve-
nue-free debottar lands, devoted in theory to the worship of the gods, produced
9.2 percent of the raj's income, and the wages of the debottar department were
16 percent of the estate's expenditure on non-domestic wages in the mid-
18808.20
The British interest was in ensuring that the revenues flowed steadily to
government. Probably few officials had illusions that British rule was popular
or had deep roots in rural consciousness. They depended on the culturally
familiar authority of the zamindars, their reluctant partners in financial extrac-
tion. Officials were determined to preserve the useful authority of the
zamindars, to save them from themselves when necessary. When debts, family
feuds, or the minority of a zamindar threatened to disrupt the collections or
continuity of ownership, from the 1790s the Court of Wards stood ready to
assume control of an estate's management. The Court of Wards ran the Burdwan
zamindari in 1838-40 during Raja Mahtabchandra's minority and again in
1885-1902, between Mahtab's death and Bij ay Chandra's coming of age.21 The
government wanted to keep intact this profitable estate that paid over 15 percent
of the province's land revenue. Each time the Company temporarily took over
the estate's management from "a disqualified proprietor," it checked the raj
family's expenditures and then returned the estate with major debts discharged.
Not only did the government manage the estate occasionally and persuade
the family to accept European tutors and estate managers now and again, it also
extended its paternalism to protect the family's reputation from the actions of
its more wayward members and to enforce Hindu behavioral norms. In the
eighteenth century, the Company had acted to curb the behavior of Rani
Bishnukumari and Raja Tejchandra. It acted similarly in a celebrated 1838 case
involving Rani Basantakumari, Tej's twenty-four-year-old widow. Basanta
wanted to travel to Calcutta from Burdwan to pursue her legal cases for the
recovery of property valued at Rs. 12 lakhs, including three Calcutta bazars,

19
Ibid., p. 37.
20
Ibid., pp. 92 and 99.
21
Mahtab died in 1879. His widow adopted her half-brother in 1887 and renamed him Bijay-
chandra Mahtab. Ibid., p. 33.
316 Burdwan
which Tej had registered in her name. Blocked by Pran Kapur (her father and
the zamindari manager) and Rani Kamalakumari (her aunt), Basanta escaped
at night over a roof in the company of her vakil, Dakhinaranjan Mukherji.
According to rumours, the rani was romantically involved with Dakhinaranjan22
and her escape was treated as an elopement by Company authorities. Dakhi-
naranjan was arrested, fined Rs. 200 for abduction, and barred from representing
the rani.23 The rani was forcibly returned to her father and aunt, Rani Kamalaku-
mari, who confined her to a "miserable hovel"24 and prohibited her from seeing
visitors except in the company of Kamala's female servants. A Session Judge
permitted Kamala to appoint seventeen armed guards "to take care of the Caste
and honour" of Basanta.25
Successions were also a problem for the Burdwan raj family, as they were
for other zamindars in Bengal. The luxurious environment in which zamindari
children were raised was rarely good preparation for assumption of control over
vast estates with complicated fiscal machinery. The efforts of tutors to teach
discipline and useful literary skills were all too often undermined by zamindari
heirs' exposure to indulgent parents and sycophantic servants and by the
anticipation of immense inherited authority and privilege. Members of
zamindari families frequently failed to provide a model for Hindu ideals of
abstemiousness, self-denial, and mental discipline. This was certainly true of
some members of the Burdwan raj family. Rajas Tejchandra and Pratapchandra
passed through periods of dissoluteness. Few people would have compared the
widowed ranis, Bishnukumari and Basantakumari, to Sita. The controversies
and family feuds that swirled around the Burdwan rajas and ranis must have
made the rajbari an unsettled place to raise children and probably tended to
corrode ambition and self-control.
Yet the Burdwan raj had few children to raise. The family suffered from what
twentieth-century Bengalis have referred to as a peculiar "curse," a repeated
difficulty in producing male heirs despite multiple wives. Raja Chitrasen
(1740-44) left no son and was succeeded by his first cousin, Tilakchandra. Raja
Tilakchandra (1744-70) finally had a son, Tejchandra, near the end of his life.
Raja Tejchandra (1770-1832) eventually married eight wives but only his fifth
wife, Nanki, gave birth to a son who survived.26 That son, Pratapchandra, had

22
Before Dakhinaranjan fell in love with Rani Basanta, his wife, the daughter of Harchandra
Tagore of the senior branch of the Tagore family, had been stricken with a mental disorder.
23
T. Wyatt, E. Burdwan Session Judge, to J.F. Hawkins, Register, Nizamat Adalat, n.d., JP, Civil,
Prog. 45 of 16 Jan. 1840, vol. 373.
24
G.N. Cheek, Burdwan Asst. Surgeon, to H.E. Metcalf, Burdwan Mag., 1 Aug. 1839, JP, Civil,
Prog. 24 of 16 Jan. 1840, vol. 373.
25
Rani Kamalakumari to Deputy Gov. of Bengal, 20 April 1839, JP, Crim., Prog. 62 of 30 April
1839, vol. 622.
26
Tej's sixth wife, Ujjalkumari, gave birth to three still-born children.
 Conclusion 317
no children and apparently died before his father. To ensure an orderly succes-
sion, Raja Tejchandra adopted his seventh wife's nephew. The adopted son was
renamed Mahtabchandra and served as zamindar of Burdwan from 1840 to
1879. He also died without a male heir and his successor, Bijaychandra, was
adopted posthumously. In a century and a half, the Burdwan rajas had had two
legitimate male children who reached adulthood: Tej and Pratap. 27
The politics of zamindari adoption were a serious matter because so much
power was concentrated in the person of a raja and because it was likely that
the family of an adopted minor heir would displace the influence of relatives of
the deceased raja. The adoption of an heir inevitably elevated the heir's close
relatives to new levels of authority. Therefore, while a raja was childless, the
raja's chief relatives and officers waited anxiously for the birth of a son or for
the raja's or his widow's decision on an adoption.
When Pratapchandra's death was announced in 1821, Raja Tejchandra was
again heirless. Tej came out of retirement and resumed his role as zamindar. By
this time, Tej's Khatri diwan, Pran Kapur, and Pran's sister, Rani Kamala-
kumari, who was Tej's seventh and eldest living wife, were firmly in control of
the estate's affairs. Pran and Kamala had first come to Burdwan from Lahore
with their father, a poor Punjabi who allegedly was on a pilgrimage to Puri. Tej
had first seen the beautiful Kamala as a young girl while she was playing in a
lane in Burdwan. As rajas sometimes did upon spying a female of unusual
beauty, he inquired about who she was. Eventually Tej married her. By 1819,
Tej elevated Kamala's brother, Pran, as the chief manager of the zamindari.
Pran helped persuade the Company to legalizelrre patni system.28
Pran Kapur gave the Burdwan zamindari the focused ambition and energy
that hereditary rajas often failed to provide. A British attorney of the Calcutta
High Court claimed in 1838 that the Magistrate of Burdwan had told him that
he believed Pran paid monthly stipends to "all the principal native officials in
the various Courts there" and had them under his influence.29 In 1826, Pran
persuaded the ailing Tej to adopt his son. One source later said that during Tej's
1826 illness, Pran posted armed guards at every door and passage around
Tej's apartment, prohibited all British and Indians from seeing him, and used

27
An employee of the Burdwan raj, the keeper of the Kalna samadhi-bari (tomb-house) where
the bones and ruling emblems of the Burdwan rajas are kept, stated that, according to a version
of the Mahabharata written for the Burdwan raj, Tej was born supernaturally. By this story,
Tej had been Arjuna in a prior life. Krishna wanted Arjuna to rule over a kingdom so he placed
Arjuna/Tej as an infant under a bush in the Burdwan zamindari. Dependents of heirless Raja
Tilakchandra discovered honey dripping from a bee-hive into the mouth of the baby Tej,
recognized this as a divine intervention, and brought him to the palace where he was raised as
Tilak's son. Interview with Khokaram, at Kalna, 9 Nov. 1965.
28
Sanjibchandra Chatterji, Jal Pratapchand (Calcutta, 1883), p. 7.
29
Note by William Nelson Hedger, 19 May 1838, JP, Crim., Prog. 35 of 29 May 1838, vol. 649.
318 Burdwan
"promises and threats" to effect the adoption.30 Company officials probably
were relieved by the adoption of a son of such an astute man: they feared
confusion if the estate fell to Tej's female relatives.31 In 1827, Pran also induced
Tej to take his twelve-year-old daughter, Basanta, as his eighth wife. This
virtually assured Pran's continued dominance because now Tej's two surviving
ranis were Pran's sister and daughter, respectively, while his son stood to inherit
the zamindari in the event that Basanta failed to produce a son. When Tej died
in 1832, Pran's control seemed total.
In 1834, though, a sannyasi claiming to be Raja Pratapchandra arrived in
Bengal, saying that he had not died and that he had returned to claim the estate
of his dead father, Tejchandra. This curious development led over the next
several years to considerable excitement and to one of the most celebrated
episodes in the history of the zamindars of Bengal. The story is significant
because of the willingness of so many people to believe that the man whom the
British referred to as "the pretender" was the real Pratap, 32 because of the
anti-colonial feelings the man aroused, and because of the decisive role the
Company's government played in preventing the raj family's tumultuous poli-
tics from disrupting the estate's affairs. The story of the Jal (fake) Pratap is a
fitting epilogue to a study of the Burdwan zamindari in the eighteenth century.
With the deaths of Pratapchandra and Tejchandra, the natural descendants of
the founder Abu Rai ceased to control the Burdwan raj, soon after the raj had
lost control of its villages.
Pratap had been born in 1792 to Rani Nanki, Tej's fifth wife, who died when
he was six months old. As a young man, he was athletic, learning to swim, ride,
and wrestle. He gained a certain fame or notoriety by reportedly beating a British
Magistrate in a physical confrontation after the latter's dog obstructed his
carriage.33 Pratap had a reputation for being headstrong. He unsuccessfully
resisted the ascendancy of Diwan Pran Kapur and Pran's sister, Rani Ka-
malakumari, in the raj's affairs. Pratap insisted that Tej write a will that
would declare Pratap the lone heir to the zamindari in order to exclude Pran
and his own stepmother.34 He spent time in Calcutta where he associated with
non-official Englishmen and Hindu reformers. He was said to have befriended
Dwarkanath Tagore and to have joined him and Rammohan Roy (the son of his

30
W.M. Elliott, Bankura Mag., to E.M. Gordon, Com. of Circuit, Chinsura, 6 Feb. 1836, JP, Crim.,
Prog. 28 of 16 Feb. 1836, vol. 620.
31
J.E. Elliot, Burdwan Col., to BOR, 6 Jan. 1821, BOR Prog. 2 of 12 Jan. 1821, vol. 617.
32
The appearance of "pretenders" was far from rare in India. For example, in 1610, a man appeared
claiming to be Amir Khusrau and in 1662-64, in Gujarat, Kolis supported a man calling himself
Dara Shikoh. Pearson, "Shivaji and the Decline of the Mughal Empire," pp. 226 and 234.
33
Chatterji, Jal Pratapchand, p. 15.
34
Mukhopadhyay, Bardhamaner, p. 128.
 Conclusion 319
grandmother's lover) in a predecessor (perhaps the Atmiya Sabha) to the
Brahmo Samaj.35 He also developed an alcohol habit. When Tejchandra became
worried about his son's dissolute ways, he arranged for Pratap to meet a
respected guru whom he thought might straighten out his life. Shortly before
his illness in 1820, Pratap seemed to undergo a personality change. He disap-
peared, was found in Rajmahal after a long search, and was returned to
Burdwan. There he fell severely ill, was taken to Kalna, and according to many
witnesses, died on 3 January 1821. Within hours, thousands of people gathered
on the river bank and watched by torch light as a purohit presided over the
cremation. Several days later, a rumor began to circulate that Pratap had not
really died but had left the Burdwan zamindari.36
Pratap's two childless widows filed suits against Tejchandra in five different
courts to obtain property they claimed belonged to them. However, with Pratap
gone and Tej aged, Pran and his sister, Rani Kamalakumari, now enjoyed almost
unfettered control of the zamindari. In 1826, Tej adopted Pran's son, renamed
Mahtabchandra, to be his heir in the event that neither of his two surviving ranis
bore him a son.
When the ascetic claiming to be Pratap arrived in Bengal in late 1834, almost
fourteen years after his reported death, to claim the Burdwan zamindari as his
rightful inheritance, he said he had faked his illness and death. His explanation
was that "having previously led a very dissolute life and committed offences
denounced by the Hindoo Shastras," he had been persuaded by the family
pandits "to expiate" his sins by making a fourteen year pilgrimage. He said that
he had swum from the river bank and escaped to northern India, where he lived
as a faqir, mostly in Lahore and Kashmir.37 The chief violation of the Shastras
to which he referred is commonly said to be having sexual relations with his
stepmother.38
If people in the Burdwan zamindari believed this ascetic's story, was it likely
that many prominent people, people whose testimony might have carried weight
in the courts, would come forward to support his claims? Probably not. An
orderly succession had occurred. The blood-line of Abu Rai, Kirtichandra,
and Tejchandra had been replaced by Pran Kapur's. Tej's heir, the adopted

35
E.H. Samuells, Hughli Mag., to T.C. Smith, Supt. of Police, 20 Sept. 1838, JP, Crim., Prog. 44
of 23 Oct. 1838, vol. 654.
36
Mukhopadhyay, Bardhamaner, pp. 129-32.
37
Pratapchandra's memorial to Lord Auckland, Gov. of Bengal, 25 April 1836, JP, Crim., Prog.
29 of 17 May 1836, vol. 623.
38
It should be noted that Jal Pratap might have had a dual motive for trying to discredit Kamala.
Charges of grave sexual misconduct might simultaneously explain his faked death and disap-
pearance and turn opinion against her and Pran Kapur. In court, he referred to his own "grave
sin" and claimed that Kamala twice attempted to poison him. Chatterji, Jal Pratapchand,
pp. 9 3 - 9 4 .
320 Burdwan
Mahtabchandra, was not popular39 but he had been accepted by virtually
everybody, including the Company's government. Pran had such power that he
could, at the very least, make life uncomfortable for raj dependents who testified
on behalf of the unlikely story or identity of the ascetic. The original Pratap had
not been a steady or sober individual; this man was constantly or often inebri-
ated.40 Moreover, when the issue of his identity came to trial in 1838, he could
name only two persons who were party to his pretended illness and escape.
The ascetic entered Bengal in 1834 in the company of another "peculiarly
Holy" faqir. The two men began to move about quietly in search of supporters,
staying for the most part outside of the Burdwan district, where Pran Kapur's
power was well established and where Jal Pratap might have been in danger of
assassination. Potential supporters existed among families whose lands or
offices had been resumed by or forfeited to government and Pran and his amla.
Possibly others responded to Jal Pratap's ascetic guise. Jal Pratap wrote letters
to many petty rajas, mostly in Manbhum and Bankura districts to the west and
south of Burdwan. Among those who responded favorably were the poverty-
stricken rajas of Pachet and Bishnupur. The Magistrate of Bankura reported that
Pratap had promised to restore pargana Bishnupur to the Bishnupur raj family
whose zamindari had been swallowed up by Burdwan in the auction sales, to
cancel arrears owed by other landowners, and to confer other benefits. He
further said that Pratap had indicated'Ranjit Singh's army might come from the
Punjab to restore him to the Burdwan gadi and that Pratap would raise a lakh
of men "to fight the English." The Magistrate believed that "the lower classes
in these parts have been most thoroughly deceived by this man by reason of the
countenance he has received from the respectable (so-called) families" of
Bankura and Manbhum districts and "would to a man have risen" if he were not
confined.41
On January 13, 1836, the Magistrate of Bankura found his opportunity to
arrest Jal Pratap. After he and 4-500 armed men marched through the Bankura
town bazar with drawn swords, the Magistrate and 100 sepoys arrested Jal
Pratap and 158 persons in a night-time raid on his camp and seized ninety-four
swords, a musket, a pistol, and several matchlocks.42 In August, a Company
court convicted Jal Pratap of "the crime of assembling a tumultuous body
of armed men and setting at defiance the Constituted Authorities." He was

39
T.C. Smith, Supt. of Police, to F.J. Halliday, S e c , Govt. of India, 11 May 1838, JP, Crim., Prog.
35 of 15 May 1838, vol. 649.
40
I.B. Ogilvy, Burdwan Mag., to T.C. Smith, Supt. of Police, 26 April 1838, JP, Crim., Prog. 30
of 8 May 1838, vol. 649; also, T.C. Smith to F.J. Halliday, 12 June 1838, JP, Crim., Prog. 16
of 12 June 1838, vol. 650.
41
W.M. Elliott to E.M. Gordon, 6 Feb. 1836.
42
W.M. Elliott, Bankura Mag., to E.M. Gordon, Com. of Circuit, Chinsura, 14 Jan. 1836, JP,
Crim., Prog. 93 of 2 Feb. 1836, vol. 620.
 Conclusion 321

sentenced to six months in prision and was required to post two security bonds
of Rs. 20,000 each for his good behavior for the year following his prison term. 43
Only after the expiry of that eighteen-month period did he resume his efforts to
arouse popular support for his claims, in the face of Pran Kapur's and the
government's hostility.
In early April 1838, the man styling himself Raja Pratap started up the
Bhagirathi river from Calcutta in a flotilla of forty-eight boats, with some 500
followers. His object apparently was to move slowly towards Kalna where he
would land, attract popular support, and then proceed to Burdwan town if he
could be guaranteed protection against attack by Pran Kapur's men. He reached
Kalna in mid-April and remained offshore, except for one march through the
town, until 2 May in obedience to the Magistrate's orders forbidding him to
land with those several hundred followers who were armed with swords and
lathis. Crowds of up to 8,000 gathered, either in support or out of curiosity. The
ascetic's presence created "great excitement" and local authorities, who had
learned of his letter to various landholders, anticipated bloodshed. 44 Finally, on
2 May, the Magistrate of Burdwan and the police moved to arrest the ascetic,
opened fire, killed one man and wounded three others, and arrested the soi-
disant raja and 322 followers. The Superintendent of Police's justification was
that Jal Pratap's actions "in the presence of thousands of people who believe in
his identity and in the face of the Followers of the Rajah of Burdwan who were
residing in" Kalna were intended "to induce a breach of the Peace." 45
The ascetic was tried and convicted for "fraudulent personation" in the winter
of 1838-39. The bulk of the witnesses who testified that he was not Pratap were
relatives and employees of Pran Kapur. But the most damaging witness was the
entrepreneur-zamindar Dwarkanath Tagore. Dwarkanath had not only been a
friend of the original Pratap, he had also been an enemy of Pran's. So great had
been Dwarkanath's hostility to Pran that when the ascetic first appeared claim-
ing to be Pratap, many people supposed he was being sponsored by Dwarkanath
in order to ruin Pran.46 Somehow Dwarkanath was persuaded to reverse his early
opinion and to testify against Pratap. Dwarkanath's motives may have been tied
to his extensive business interests. As one of Bengal's largest zamindars and
entrepreneurs, he depended heavily on the good will of government officials.
Dwarkanath may also have realized it would be unwise to further antagonize
Pran Babu. Between the entry of Jal Pratap into Bengal in 1834 and his first
trial in 1836, Dwarkanath decided he wanted to lease a valuable piece of
property from the Burdwan raj: the Raniganj coal mine, "the oldest, largest, and

43
T.C. Smith to FJ. Halliday, 12 June 1838.
44
I.B. Ogilvy to T.C. Smith, 26 April 1838.
45
T.C. Smith to FJ. Halliday, 12 June 1838.
46
E.A. Samuells to T.C. Smith, 20 Sept. 1838.
322 Burdwan

richest" in India. Dwarkanath bought it in July 1836, in "the most important

single transaction of Dwarkanath's business career."47 When Raja Mahtab-
chandra softened the terms of the lease renewal for Raniganj and two other
villages in 1842, it may have been in gratitude for Dwarkanath's role in refuting
Jal Pratap's claims and thus helping Mahtab retain his title. 48 At the end of
Pratap's 1838-39 trial, his inability to find creditable witnesses to his identity
was fatal to his hopes, as were the witnesses who testified that they had seen
Pratap's body burned in 1821.
This bizarre episode was finished. The ascetic had exhausted his possibilities
even though on the eve of his trial, according to the Magistrate of Hughli, "there
are still a large body of persons who remain firmly persuaded that the prisoner
is the Raja of Burdwan and who will continue in that belief so long as he remains
in this country."49 Is it possible that Pratap, confounded by Pran Kapur, confused
by alcohol and a sexual encounter with his stepmother, and guided by religious
advisers, actually did stage his own death and then returned, only to find that
most of the people who knew him were afraid or unwilling to identify him? It
may be that that is what happened. By this time, though, it mattered little who
occupied the gadi. The zamindari bureaucracy, supported by the British judicial
system, would gather the revenue while the raja would carry out his familiar
role as enabler of ritual, embodying the beneficent but generally powerless and
sometimes dissolute faces of authority. The Jal Pratap episode suggested that
there was no shortage of people who welcomed the notion that "the English
reign is over"50 but there were few people of influence whose sentiments were
so unambivalent that they would risk much to end Company rule.

47
Blair B. Kling, Partner in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the Age of Enterprise in Eastern
India (Berkeley, CA, 1976), pp. 9 4 - 9 5 .
48
Ibid., pp. 108-09.
49
E.A. Samuells to T.C. Smith, 20 Sept. 183.8.
50
W.M. Elliott to E.M. Gordon, 6 Feb. 1836.
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 Index

Abu Rai, 125, 130, 133-34, 136, 146, 318-19 Badi-ul-Zaman, Raja, 154-55
AbulFazl, 16,33, 128 Bagri,81, 148^9,159,274
abwabs, 21, 39,47, 50, 57-68, 110, 172, 209, Bahadur Shah I, 42
228, 243 Bahadur Singh, 243^4, 245-49
Adam, William, 289 Bahadur Zaman Khan, Raja, 227
Adisura, 102-03, 145 Bahram Sekka, 99, 129, 142
Afghans, 25, 28, 34, 39,43-44, 125-27, Baidhanath, Raja, 226
141^3, 145, 165-66 Baikunthapur, 131, 151
Ahmad Abdali, 181 Bakhtar Singh, 227,242, 247-49
Ahmad Khan, Sayyid, 40 Balgarhi, 11,149-50,159
Akbar, 11,34, 106, 187 Ban Behari Kapur, 314
Alam, Muzaffar, 5 Banerjis of Telinpara, 295
Ali,M.Athar, 130, 138 Banes war Vidyalankar, 98, 158, 166-67
AliGauhar, 181-84, 186 banians, 92, 189, 191, 212-22, 232, 241n, 255
Alivardi, 11, 19,39,43,72-73, 111, 113, 141, bankers, 6, 37, 50-51, 66, 175, 178, 190,
161-63, 165^7-7 240-41,273,297,306,309
Ambika-Kalna, see Kalna Bankura town, 320
Amboa Dewry Mahals, see Dewry Mahals Barwell, Richard, 82, 235, 237, 245-46
Amini Commission, 52-53, 83, 107, 116n, Basantakumari, Rani, 315-16, 318
204,235,251 Bayley, William, 301
Amirchandra, 190,229, 231 Bayly, C.A., 5-6, 7n, 119, 172, 185
Amragarh, 157,159 Becher, Richard, 195, 201, 214
Anandchandra Seth, 242, 261-62, 265, 273 Benaras, 315
Arsa, 155-56 Bengal, 29-30, 33
Asad-ul-Zaman, Raja, 179, 184, 226-27 Bernier, Francois, 29-30
Asaf Jah, 162 Bhagavad Gita, 101
Aurangzib, 7, 11, 32-36, 59, 132, 137, 139, Bhagavata Purana, 101
142, 157, 188 Bhagirathiriver,98, 126, 145-47, 153-55,
authority: attached to an individual, 16-17, 163,174,289,315
49,236; confused, 237-38; deference to, Bharadvija, 87
16-23, 197-99; despotic, 9-10; Bharatchandra Ray, 79-80, 150, 166, 169, 174
discretionary, 45^7, 59, 67-69, 115-20, Bhaskar Pandit, 73, 162-63, 165,168
273, 306-07; hierarchical, 15-23,48-52; Bhattanarayan, 145
need to reaffirm, 47,49,65, 71; Bhawani, Rani, 253
patriarchal, 107-10; resistance to, 23-24, Bhawani Charan Mitra, 212,214, 216-17,
65, 83, 199; sale of 5, 173, 272-75, 219-20,225-26
291-305; of zamindars, 12ff, 212-15, Bhursut, 150, 159,284
223-24, 234, 268, 287-88, 306-13 Bihar, 31, 73,93, 180-84, 243^5, 252
Awadh,5, 133, 149, 179, 181 Bijaychandra, Raja, 315, 317
Azim-ud-din, 31-32,42, 129, 142-43, 146 Bindaban Babu, 265
Birbhum,41,99, 105, 126, 156, 158, 179,
Baber, Edward, 224-25 184-85, 201, 205-07, 214, 226-27, 288
BabuRai, 136 Bishnukumari, Rani, 19, 81, 105, 146, 206,

336
 Index 337
216, 219, 222-23, 227-35, 238^4, Calkins, Philip, 5, 35n, 38
248-50, 253-61, 265, 271-72, 278-84, Chaitanya, 19,22,99, 128,152
315-16 Chaitanya Singh, Raja, 215-16, 296
Bishnupur, 19, 33, 101, 127, 140-41, 145, Chakdighi,51
148-49, 155,207, 212-16, 277, 288, Chandrakona, 139-40,148^9, 155,159,218,
295-96, 298, 320 274
Bolts, William, 112 charity, 61,63,154, 196-99, 219, 287-88, 314
Boughton Rous, C.W., 82,197 Chaudhuri, K.N., 170
Bowrey, Thomas, 29, 112-13, 135 Chaudhuri, S.B., 293
BrahmoSamaj, 319 China, 309
Braja Kishor Roy, 219-20, 229-32, 235, 246, Chirulia, 158
249-50, 254, 256, 273 Chitrasen, Raja, 139, 153, 155-60, 167-68,
bribery, 50-51, 190, 211, 224, 229, 233,236, 172,316
261,274,276 Chittagong, 184-85, 208
Brihaspati, 85 Chitua, 140, 273-74, 278
Brindaban, 315 Clavell, Walter, 111
Burdwan town, 99, 125, 128-29, 136, 141-42, Clavering, John, 211, 231, 233, 237, 246
162-63, 242,263, 265, 272-73, 290, 321 Clive, Robert, 175-76, 178-80, 190, 215, 241n
Burdwan zamindari, xiv-v, 25, 33, 37, 117, coercion, 35,40,46, 59,69-95, 167, 277-79,
135-36, 139-40,144,150-51, 173; 313; Bharatchandra's depiction of,
adoptions in, 316-18; beneficence of, 79-80; bodily, ch. 4 passim, 311-12;
137-38,150-53,158-60, 314-15; and British attitudes towards, 69-71, 81-82,
Bharatchandra, 79-80,150,169; and 90-95; by detention, 69-72, 80-85; by
Bishnupur, 140-41, 148^9, 155, Europeans, 75-77; and ordeals, 86-87;
277-78, 282-83,295-301; ceded to by peons, 53, 69, 83-84,91-92,94, 254,
Company, 183-85; coercion by, 248, 259, 269; by seizure of property, 20, 24,
254, 257, 263-64, 271, 316; courts in, 69-72,85-86,94-95, 269, 311-12; by
81-82,98, 219; debts of, 206, 212, zamindars, 13-14,60, 78-85, 160, 254,
238^11, 254-59, 262-66, 276, 279,283; 269-71,278,288
employees of, 64, 117-18,182-89, Conn, Bernard S., 4
191-92, 228-34, 238, 245-50, 253-65; Colebrooke, H.T., 56,59,188
expansion of, 41, 125,136-40, 144-60; commercialization, 3-8, 50,96, 119, 208-11,
factions in, 227-34, 315-22; famine in, 303,312-13
203, 206-07; Jal Pratapchandra, 318-22; communalism, 22, 174-75
land sales in, 272-85, 291ff; and Cornwallis, Lord, 252, 270, 278,286, 311
Maratha invasions, 161-76; marriages, Cossijura, 93
239,242-49, 316; origin of, 125, CourtofWards,226,315
130-38; patni system in, 292-365;
patronage in, 98-99, 152,191-92,263, Dacca, 19,30,75, 182,202
303-04; and Permanent Settlement, dakaiti, 23-24,75-76,192, 197,199, 265,
271-85; and Ramkant Roy, 244-^7, 250, 290,312
256-59,265, 278, 280-84; rent Dakhinaranjan Mukherji, 316
collection in, 254, 263-64,272-85, Damodar river, 125-27,147
291ff, 314; resists Company rule, Damodar Singh, Raja, 19, 215
181—86; revenue farming in, 208, dandaniti, 78
216-23, 272-85; and revolt of Shova Darpanarayan Roy, 144
Singh, 138-43, 145-46; temples in, Davis, Marvin, 18,64n
151-53,158-59, 174, 193, 239, 256, Davis, Samuel, 280-82
265,281, 283, 290, 315; trade in, 289-91 Debi Sinha, Raja, 84-85, 253
Decennial Settlement of 1790, 252, 266-67,
Calcutta, 19,40,76,112, 143, 156, 176-79 271-72,276,285,287,292
257-58,260,264, 266, 273-74, 276-79, Dewry Mahals, 228, 239-41, 253, 257-58,
291,315,318 262,266, 280, 283
Calcutta High Court, 317 dharma, 18, 21-22,45,61-62,64,78-80,
Calcutta Landholders' Society, 120 100-04, 121, 287-88, 306-07, 310
Calcutta Sanskrit College, 86 Dharma Mangalkavyas, 87
338 Index

Dharma Thakur, 87-89 Gopal Singh, Raja, 215

dharma-shastras, 11, 62, 137, 319 Gopbhum, 155-57
Dimock, Edward, 15, 166 Graham, John, 222, 228, 231-32
Dinajpur, 37-38, 41, 136, 143^*4, 226, 235, Grant, James, 39, 57-58, 107, 115, 117, 120,
253 137, 159,168,195,200,251
Dow, Alexander, 200 Greenough, Paul, 197-98, 200
Ducarel, G.G., 82, 201, 256-57 Gupta, Pratul Chandra, 166
Durga,61,81,166 Gurjin Khan, 73
Durgadas, Raja, 145
Dwarkanath Singh, 273-74, 295 habeas corpus, 92, 248
Dwarkanath Tagore, 318, 321-22 Habib, Man, 28, 30, 34
Dyachandra Seth, 242, 258, 260-62, 265, 273 HaidarBaksh,301
Dyalchandra, Raja, 241 Haji Ahmad, 39,42, 161, 166
Harrington, J.H., 94
Elliot, Alexander, 232 Hastings, Warren, 66, 70, 76, 180, 182, 192,
English East India Company, xiii, xiv, 4, 200, 202, 206, 209-12, 214, 217, 226,
7-10, 12, 25, 75-77, 86, 112-13, 229, 232, 234-35, 237, 241, 245-46,
175-76, 255, 313; expansion of, 1-6; as 249,255, 258, 273
kingmaker, 172-73; seizes Calcutta, Hay, William, 82, 189
76-77; trade of, 29,77, 140, 143, Hazari Mai, 133, 178, 190, 217, 233, 241, 266
170-71, 173, 181, 194-95,203,289 Hedges, William, 75
ethnicity, 11, 13-14, 19, 23, 33-34, 37-38, Higginson, Alexander, 247-48
44,83-84, 109, 128, 164-66 Hill,S.C, 175
Holwell, J.Z., 76, 81, 163, 168, 180, 183
famine, 30-31, 66; affects social structure, Hughli town, 75-77, 129, 140-43, 176
203-07; mortality during, 194-203, Hunter, W.W., 51, 104, 195, 199-200,
206-07; of 1770,12, 193-208, 211-12, 203-04, 270
251, 254; violence during, 194, 197-99
Fatehchand, 50 Ibrahim Khan, 35
faujdar, 32-33, 74 Inden, Ronald, 15
feudalism, 68, 307-10 Indian National Congress, xiii, 7, 8, 10, 12
Firminger, W.K., 196 Ireland, Robert, 283
floods, 40, 125-26, 221-22, 259,263-65,279 Islam, 11, 22n, 35, 58, 74,96,99, 129-30, 163
Fort William, 112, 114, 173, 177-78 Islam Khan, 128
Foucault, Michel, 69-70, 86n Islam Sirajul, 268, 272
Francis, Philip, 204, 211, 215, 226, 229, 231,
233-36,246,251,255 Jagat Seth, 6, 37,40,42^3, 50, 73, 167, 176,
Frykenberg, R., lOn 190
Jagatram Rai, 142, 146, 231
Gajan, 88 jagirdars, 32-33
Gangagobind Sinha, 52, 273 Jahanabad, 127
Ganganarayan Mitra, 261 Jahangir, 129, 145
Gangaram, 163, 166 Jai Singh, 297
Ghanaram Chakravarti, 98 jati (caste), 14, 20-21, 34, 57,62, 100, 308;
Ghanashyam Rai, 137 Aguri, 54, 157-58, Bagdi, 57, 84, 88,
Ghasiti Begam, 40 145; Baidya, 22n, 164; Bauri, 57, 88,
Ghulam Husain Khan Tabatabai, Sayyid, 17, 156; Brahmin, 14, 22n, 51-52, 57, 85,
41-42, 76, 120, 141, 167-68,236 87, 89, 101-04, 108, 131, 137, 145, 149,
Ghulam Hussain Salim, 163, 170 152, 166-67, 197, 237,273,287, 307;
Ghulam Mustafa Khan, 43, 163, 165, 167 Dhobi, 62; Dom, 88; Goala, 156; Gopa,
gifts, 14, 61-65, 210, 228-29, 232-33, 244;.to 156-57; Hari, 88; Jat, 34, 143; Kaibarta,
Brahmins, 101-04; of land, 97-108, 54, 164; Kayastha, 22n, 38, 157, 164;
115-21, 159, 287; motivations for, Khatri, 25, 38, 131-33, 157-58, 165,
96-115, 120-21; see also khilats 168, 177, 241^4, 274; Mali, 63; Rajput,
Gokhal Majumdar, 182, 186, 190 34, 130, 139-40, 148, 164-65; Sadgop,
Gokhalchandra Ghosal, 191, 217-20 54,157
 Index 339
Johnstone, John, 188-93 Kuch Bihar, 41
Jones, William, 289
jotdars, 45, 55-57, 59, 158, 204-07, 292, Lahore, 317, 319
310-12 land: collection of revenue from, 45-68;
Jungle Mahals district, 295 deserted, 12,66, 107, 201-07, 289;
justice: British, 69, 71, 86,90-95, 177, 221, exempted from revenue, 12-15,97,
237, 254, 269-75, 281-82, 285-86, 288, 101-07, 115-21, 129-30, 186, 191-93,
292-94, 298-305, 311-14; Hindu, 251, 291-93, 296-97, 305; mortgages
78-79, 85-87, 237; Islamic, 70, 74, 90; on, 238-41; ownership of, 8-10, 209-11,
Mughal, 72, 79; zamindari, 62, 81-85, 287-88, 309; sales of, 8-9, 187-91,
213,254,269 208-22, 252-53, 263-86, 288-89,
291-305,311,314
Kali, 89-90, 158 Law, Evan, 82
Kaliprasad Singh, 250, 253-54 Law, Jean, 54, 73
Kalna, 153, 158, 219, 239, 255, 257-58, 280, LeMaistre, S.C., 248-49
290,315,319,321
Kalyan, 132 Mackenzie, Holt, 10
Kamalakanta-Dasa, 99 MadanDatta, 217, 233
Kamalakumari, Rani, 284, 299, 316-19 Mahabharata, 78-80, 100, 152, 317n
Kaniz Fatima, Rani, 226-27 Mahtabchandra, Raja, 154, 315, 317, 319-20,
Karim, Abdul, 36n 322
KaramAli, 151,168 Malcolm, John, 17
Katwa, 126, 163 Man Singh, Raja, 128-29, 145
Katyayana, 85 Manasa, 87-89
Kautilya, 49 Mandalghat, 155, 159, 217, 265-66, 273,
Ketaka-Dasa, 87 277-78
Khan Jahan Bahadur Khan, 31 mandals, 14, 51,55, 204-05, 227
Kheali Ram, 93 Mandaran, 127, 129
Khemchond Shaw, 113 Mangalkat, 129
khilats, 13, 15,40,42,48-49, 107-10, 115, Manikchandra, 133, 149, 156, 163, 168-70,
119, 159, 180, 185, 228, 230,233, 244 172, 178-79,283
Khurram, 129 mansabdars, 10-11, 15-16, 32-36, 128-33,
kingship: and coercion, 78-87, 96, 101; 142-44, 165,306
divine, 16, 154; and gifts, ch. 5 passim, Manu Dharmashastra, 46,78, 85-86, 99, 101
159, 208; Hindu, 14-17,45^6, 61-62, Manucci, 11, 134
78-79,96-97,99-105, 137-38, 151-53, Marathas, 5, 7, 34, 73, 130, 143; invasions by,
306-07, 309-10, 315; Mughal, 96-99; 11, 26, 37, 39,41,43-44, 113, 155,
patrimonial character of, 10-20,96, 161-76, 181, 183-84
287-88,ritualsof, 13-16,42^3,48-52, Marriott, William, 247^8
60-61, 69, 107-12, 149, 228; shared, Marshall, John, 112
4-5,45, 160; undermined by Company, Marshall, Peter, 115, 172n, 211,313
209, 268, 307 Marwari, 37
Kinloch, John, 259, 260, 263-64 Master, Streynsham, 75, 112
Kiratchandra, Raja, 172 Mauss, Marcel, 97
Kirtichandra Rai, Raja, 81, 139-40, 146-55, Mercer, Lawrence, 260-61, 276-77
158-59, 162 Midnapur, 183-85,208,214
Koran, 129 MirHabib, 163
Koshalchandra, 231, 233, 238, 245-46, 249, Mir Jafar, 73, 77, 173, 179-84, 215, 233
254,256 MirJumla, 129
Krishna, 22, 153, 158, 166, 174 MirQasim,58,71,73,77, 114, 173, 182-84,
Krishnachandra, Raja, 81, 89, 98, 111, 158, 186,188, 194
166, 169, 175,214-15 Miran, 73
Krishna-Dasa Kaviraja, 22 Mitrasen Rai, 239
Krishnakanta Nandi, 217 Moira, Lord, 299
Krishnaram Rai, 137-38, 140-41, 146 Monckton Jones, M.E., 207
Kshatriya, 131, 145, 149, 158 Monson, George, 211, 231, 233, 245
340 Index

Mughals, xiii-iv, 3-4, 6-8, 10, 31-33,44, 76; 9,46,53-57,61, 204-07, 268-69, 275;
administer Bengal, 27; compared with lose protection, 285-86, 288, 312;
British, 12-13; conquer Bengal, 25; Mughal concern for, 33; over-assessment
decline of, 1-7, 35-36,42, 139-43; and of, 261, 267-68, 271, 288-89, 298-301,
Khatris, 130-33; see also mansabdars; 311; passivity of, 142-43,197-99;
nazims resistance by, 34,56, 67, 84-85, 227,
Muhammad Aminpur, 33 254, 275, 299-300; stratification of,
Muhammad Reza Khan, 199 54-57, 61, 269, 308, 313; taxed, 39,
Muhammad Shah, 140, 148 46-47, 53-68, 234; see also jotdars;
Muhammad Zaman Khan, Raja, 227 mandals
Mukherjis of Uttarpara, 295 Perlin, Frank, 309
Mukundaram, 15, 157 Permanent Settlement, 24-25, 58,67, 260,
Munni Begum, 233, 237 267-88, 293, 307
Murshid Quli Khan, 7, 19, 23, 27, 33-13, Persian, 34, 130, 154, 158-59,168, 170
47-50, 54,58, 71-72, 74, 107, 135-36, Peterson, J.C.K., 156
139, 143-47, 149, 154, 159, 168 Plassey, 161 n, 173, 178-79, 185
Murshidabad, 13, 15, 19,42,48-51,74, 169, population, 12, 20n, 25, 29, 66, 170, 194,
182,196, 210, 308 200-03,206-07,251,289
PranKapur, 314, 316-22
Nabakrishna, Raja, 211, 253, 255-58, 279 Prannath, Raja, 144
Nadia, 37-38, 143-45, 170, 180, 213-15, 253 Pratapaditya, Raja, 145,176
Nandakumar, 180, 233, 237, 246 Pratapchandra, Raja, 278-90, 294, 298-99,
Nandakumar Roy, 273 301-04,316-22
Nankikumari, Rani, 278, 316, 318 Prinsep, H.T., 302
Nawazish Muhammad Khan, 40 puniya, 13,48-52, 107-10, 115, 119, 230,
nazims: coercion by, 35-36, 39—41,71-76; 273, 275, 304, 308
conspiracy against, 20,43, 161,172, Punjab, 5, 25, 131-33
175-79, 184; govern Bengal, 7, 14-15; Puri,128,137,145, 174, 315, 317
military power of, 65, 76-77; personal
fortunes of, 31-32, 39-W); revenue qanungos, 32-33, 38n, 39,43, 107, 144, 300
collection by, 47-58; revolts against, 19, Qasimbazar, 76, 113, 143, 167
173-79
Nicholas, Ralph W., 22n Radhanath, 226
Nilmani Haldar, 273 Raghuji Bhonsla, 43, 161-62, 165-66
Raghunandan (Nadia), 156
O'Connell, J.T., 22 Raghunandan (Nator), 144
Oldham,W.B., 157 Raghunandana Bhattacarya, 86
Omichand, 133, 177-79, 190,241n Raghunath Ray, 98, 140
Orissa, 36, 127-28, 130, 141, 162, 166, 168. Raghunath Singh, 261, 274, 284
174 Raghunath Singh II, Raja, 141, 155
Orme, Robert, 17,30, 178 Raghuram, Raja, 145, 155
Ostor, Akos, 100 Rahim Khan, 34-35, 129, 139, 141^3, 146
RaiDurlabh, 179
Pachet, 33, 145, 156, 320 Raipur, 148, 159
Palsaert, Francisco, 135 Raj, Ballav, 40
Parliament, 93, 115, 188, 229, 235,248 Rajballabh, 73
Pathans, 131,218 Rajshahi, 37-38,41, 136, 143-44, 147, 214,
Patna, 31,244 225, 253
patni tenancies, 51, 274, 292-305, 312; and Ramakrishna, 226
parasitical landlordism, 292-93, 305 Ramesbak Mallik, 297
patronage, by zamindars, 27,47, 98-99, Ramjiban, Raja (Nadia), 145, 155
117-19, 125, 152, 159,303-04 Ramjiban, Raja (Nator), 111,144
Pearson, M.N., 109n Ramkant Roy, 190, 244-47, 250, 256-59,
peasants: British concern for, 209-11, 265,278, 280-84
263-64, 268, 299-301; coercion of, ch. 4 Rammohan Roy, 155, 256, 318
passim', dependency of, 310; dominant, Ramnarayan, 73, 179
 Index 341
Ramnath, Raja, 144 Shova Singh, 34-35, 129, 138^2, 145-46,
Ramprasad Sen, 90, 166 148,155, 159, 162
Rangpur, 41, 84-85, 93, 253 Shudras, 102-03, 157
Ranjit Singh, Raja, 320 Shuja-ud-daula, 181
Rastam Jang, 162, 168 Shuja-ud-din, 37, 39-40,41-42,71-72,
Ray, Ratna, 205, 295 110-11,146,154-55
Raychaudhuri, Tapan, 17In Sikhism, 131
Raynal,Abbe\ 198 Sikhs, 7, 34, 132, 133,143, 177
Regulation XIV of 1793, 294 Simlapal, 159
Regulation XVII of 1793,94 Sinha,N.K., 171n,200,203
Regulation III of 1794,94 Siraj-ud-daula, 19, 23,43, 58, 73, 76, 114,
Regulation XXXV of 1795, 282, 285 162, 169-70, 173, 175, 177-79, 185, 194
Regulation VII of 1799, 285-86, 288, 292, 298 Sita,316
Regulation VIII of 1819, 302-04, 311,313 Sitaram, 168, 176
Rennell, James, 82,91, 200, 224 slavery, 31,56, 90, 198
revenue: coercion used to collect, 69ff; Sobharam Basak, 217
decline of, 194-95, farming of 6-7, Stewart, Charles, 140
35-37, 66-67, 92-93, 110, 182-90, 197, Strachey, Henry, 17
202, 207-23, 251, 272, 291-307; growth Stuart, Charles, 82, 216, 222, 231-32
of, 20, 35-39, 57-58, 143, 172-73, Sumner,W.B., 186, 191
185-90, 193, 252-53, 307; reduction in, Supreme Court, 92-93, 237, 248, 279
252; settlement of 28-29, 35, 132,
185-93, chs. 11, 14, and 15 passim; Tarakeswar, 149-50
variability of, 46-47, 67-68 Tejchandra, Raja, 104-05, 206, 217-20, 223,
Reza Khan, Sayyid, 72 227-33, 238-50, 255-84, 29O-300,
Risala-i-Ziraat 52, 54-55 315-19
Risley, Herbert, 158 textile industry, 6, 20, 29, 31, 75, 108, 119,
Roy Singh, 261, 276 147,176-77,202-03,289
Rupnarayan Chaudhuri, 231, 233, 238, Thompson, E.P., 198
245-46, 254 Tilakchandra, Raja, 60, 168, 172, 176-84,
187, 189-93, 206, 216,218n, 223,
Salim Allah, 72 227-28, 239-40, 242,274, 316
SangamRai, 128, 130-32, 158 Tippera, 41
Sanskrit, 98, 154 Tipu Sultan of Mysore, 285
Sanskritization, 89 Todar Mai, 28, 57, 128, 131
Santiparva, 46, 78-80, 99-100
Saraswati, Rani, 19, 226 Vaishnavism, 21-22, 128, 131, 151-53, 158,
Sarfaraz Khan, 19, 39,42^3, 161-62, 168 166,265
Sarkar, Jadunath, 38, 59 Vaishya, 131
sati, 155,224 Vansittart, George, 233
Satnami, 143 Vansittart, Henry, 45, 181, 203, 207, 224
Scrafton, Luke, 76, 178 Verelst, Harry, 82, 189-93, 195, 200, 214,
Senpahari, 158 217-18
ShahAlamll, 181, 193 villages: community in, 54-57, 63-64,
ShahShuja,31, 129, 137 205-06; folk religion in, 87-90; politics
Shaista Khan, 31, 104, 106, 112 in, 19-24; puja pervasive in, 101;
Shaivism, 265 servants of, 10, 24, 116-18, 308
Shakti, 22 Vishnu, 79
Shastras, see dharma-shastras Vishnu Das, 149
Shergarh, 155-56, 159
Shi'a, 34, 37, 143 Ward, William, 87, 175
Shiva, 22, 88, 149-51, 153, 158, 166, 174, Watts, Hugh, 182-83
238n, 290 Wink, Andre, 5-6, 36n
Shivachandra, 215
Shore,John, 9, 39, 55, 64, 116-17, 207, 225, Yajnavalkya, 45
251-52, 258, 261-62, 266, 268, 273 YusufAli, 11, 162, 165, 168
342 Index

Zain-ud-din, 162, 166 60-61,98ff, 207,212; education of,

zamindaris: accounting in, 54-59, 272, 277, 223-24, 230, 257, 316; female, 223-50,
291-92; and coercion, 78-87, 292; and intermediaries under, 51-57, 64-65,
compared with feudalism, 307-10, 93, 269ff, 291ff; and mansabdars, 10-12,
definition of, 8; factions in, 19, 26, 32-38, 138; and nazims, 27-44; as
224-34, 287-88, 306-13; growth of, partners of the state, 10-13, 32ff, 36--44,
34-38, 139-60; military role of, 32, 136, 306-07, 309-15; political behavior
43^4, 168-69, 181-86, 287; and of, 20, ch. 2 passim; and puniya, 48-52;
Murshid Quli Khan, 143-51; and replaced by revenue farmers, 207-23;
revenue collection, 45-63; subdivision restoration of, 93, 222, 235, 268, 245-50,
of, 20, 23-24, 288, 292-305 251-52,260
zamindars, 7; and beneficence, 12-15, 54, Ziaullah, 42
 Cambridge South Asian Studies

These monographs are published by the Syndics of Cambridge University Press,

in association with the Cambridge University Centre for South Asian Studies.
The following books have been published in this series:

1 S. Gopal: British Policy in India, 1858-1905

2 J.A.B. Palmer: The Mutiny Outbreak at Meerut in 1857
3 A. Das Gupta: Malabar in Asian Trade, 1740-1800
4 G. Obeyesekere: Land Tenure in Village Ceylon: A Sociological and
Historical Study
5 H.L. Erdman: The Swatantra Party and Indian Conservatism
6 S.N. Mukherjee: Sir William Jones: A Study in Eighteenth-Century British
Attitudes to India
7 Abdul Majed Khan: The Transition in Bengal, 1756-1775: A Study ofSaiyid
Muhammad Reza Khan
8 Radhe Shyam Rungta: The Rise of Business Corporations in India, 1851-
1900
9 Pamela Nightingale: Trade and Empire in Western India, 1784-1806
10 Amiya Kumar Bagchi: Private Investment in India, 1900-1939
11 Judith M. Brown: Gandhi's Rise to Power: Indian Politics, 1915-1922
12 Marry C. Carras: The Dynamics of Indian Political Factions: A Study of
District Councils in the State of Maharashtra
13 P. Hardy: The Muslims of British India
14 Gordon Johnson: Provincial Politics and Indian Nationalism: Bombay and
the Indian National Congress, 1880 to 1915
15 Marguerite S. Robinson '.Political Structure in a Changing Sinhalese
Village
16 Francis Robinson: Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the
United Provinces' Muslims, 1860-1923
17 Christopher John Baker: The Politics of South India, 1920-1937
18 David Washbrook: The Emergence of Provincial Politics: The Madras
Presidency, 1870-1920
19 Deepak Nayyar: India's Exports and Export Policies in the 1960s
 Cambridge South Asian Studies

20 Mark Holmstrom: South Indian Factory Workers: Their Life and Their
World
21 S. Ambirajan: Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India
22 M.M. Islam: Bengal Agriculture 1920-1946: A Quantitative Study
23 Eric Stokes: The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and
Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India
24 Michael Roberts: Caste Conflict and Elite Formation: The Rise ofKarava
Elite in Sri Lanka, 1500-1931
25 J.F.J. Toye: Public Expenditure and Indian Development Policy, 1960-70
26 Rashid Amjad: Private Industrial Investment in Pakistan, 1960-70
27 Arjun Appadurai: Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South
Indian Case
28 C.A. Bayly: Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the
Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870
29 Ian Stone: Canal Irrigation in British India: Perspectives on Technological
Change in a Peasant Economy
30 Rosalind O'Hanlon: Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule
and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India
31 Ayesha Jalal: The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, The Muslim League and the
Demand for Pakistan
32 N.R.F. Charlesworth: Peasant and Imperial Rule: Agriculture and Agrarian
Society in the Bombay Presidency, 1850-1935
33 Claude Markovits: Indian Business and Nationalist Politics 1931-39: The
Indigenous Capitalist Class and the Rise of the Congress Party
34 Mick Moore: The State and Peasant Politics in Sri Lanka
35 Gregory C. Kozlowski: Muslim Endowments and Society in British India
36 Sugata Bose: Agrarian Bengal: Economy, Society and Politics, 1919-1947
37 Atul Kohli: The State and Poverty in India: The Politics of Reform
38 Franklin A. Presler: Religion Under Bureaucracy: Policy and Administra-
tion for Hindu Temples in South India
39 Nicholas B. Dirks: The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian King-
dom
40 Robert Wade: Village Republics: Economic Conditions for Collective Ac-
tion in South India
41 Laurence W. Preston: The Devs of Cincvad: A Lineage and State in
Maharashtra
42 Farzana Shaikh: Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Repre-
sentation in Colonial India 1860-1947
43 Susan Bayly: Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South
Indian Society
44 Gyan Prakash: Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labor Servitude in Colo-
nial India
 Cambridge South Asian Studies

45 Sanjay Subrahmanyam: The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern

India 1500-1650
46 Ayesha Jalal: The State of Martial Rule: The Origins of Pakistan s Political
Economy of Defence
47 Bruce Graham: Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and
Development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh
48 Dilesh Jayanntha: Electoral Allegiance in Sri Lanka
49 Stephen P. Blake: Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India
1639-1739
50 Sarah F.D. Ansari: Sufi Saints and State Power: The Pirs ofSind, 1843-1947
51 Rajnarayan Chandavarkar: The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India:
Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900-1940
52 Tapati Guha-Thakurta: The Making ofa New 'Indian9 Art: Artists, Aesthetics
and Nationalism in Bengal c. 1850-1920
53 John R. McLane: Land and Local Kingship in Eighteenth-Century Bengal