Land Revenue Administration in Bengal Under Early British Rule

The present work is a critical and comprehensive survey of the land revenue administration in the early phase of British ‘colonial’ rule. Since the East India Company’s accession to the Diwani of Bengal in 1765, the Company’s main aim was to collect as much land revenue as possible from the province. But the alien rulers had no experience of their own. In order to achieve the purpose a series of experiments were made by the early colonizers in the revenue administration of the province of Bengal. In effect, various changes took place in the region. In this wider general background, the author has made an in-depth study of the growth of the British administrative set-up linked to the land revenue system of Birbhum, a Bengal district. The repercussions on agrarian society owing to various changes in the field have also been adequately examined. Besides, the different forms of land-holding and the zamindari administration have been described in detail. This adequate and exclusive study of the subject proper has not come out before.