- Colonial Rule was first established in Bengal.
Permanent settlement:
- Since the conquest of Bengal, British had been facing many problems.
- Rural economy in Bengal was in crisis.
- Officials thought to encourage investments in agriculture and this could be done by securing rights of property and permanently fixing the rates of revenue demand.
- The permanent settlement had come into operation in 1793.
- British officials made permanent settlement with the rajas and taluqdars of Bengal, who were classified as Zamindars.
- Zamindars had several villages under them.
- The villages within one zamindari form one revenue estate.
- The company fixed the total demand over the entire estate whose revenue the zamindar contracted to pay. Failing which his estate could be auctioned.
- Charles Cornwallis was the Governor general of Bengal when the permanent settlement was introduced there.
- Zamindars collects rent from ryots and pay the demand to the company.
- To regulate and control zamindars they were brought under the supervision of a collector appointed by the company.
- Rich peasants were known as jotedars.
- Jotedars had acquired vast areas of land, they controlled local trade as well as money lending.
- Jotedars were located in the village and exercised direct control.
- They influenced ryots to resist increase of rent by Zamindars.
- In some places they were called hooladars, Gantidars or mandals.
- Many political groups in England felt that the conquest of Bengal was benefitting only East India Company but not the British nation as a whole.
- British parliament forced the company to produce regular reports on the administration of India.5th report was the fifth of a series of such reports.
- 5th report included petitions of zamindars and ryot, reports of collectorate, notes on the revenue and judicial administration of Bengal and Madras.
- He was surgeon to the Governor General of India, Lord Wellesley.
- He organised a Zoo in calcutta that became the kolkatta Alipore Zoo.
- On the request of the Governement of Bengal, he undertook detailed surveys of the area under the jurisdiction of the British East India.
Paharias were folk around the rajmahal hills subsisting on forest produce and practising shifting cultivation.
The santhals:
- They had begun to come into bengal around the 1780s.
- British officials invited them to settle in the Jangal mahals.
- The santhals were given land and persuaded to settle in the foothills of Rajmahal.
- By 1832 a large area of land was demarcated as Damin I koh.
- Santhals were settled down and cultivated a range of commercial crops for the market and dealing with traders and moneylenders.
- Money lenders (dikhus) were charging high interest rates.
- Zamindars were trying to exercise superior authority.
- Santhals revolted against Dikhus, Zamindars and british in the year 1855.
- It was introduced in the Bombay Deccan.
- the average income from different types of soil was estimated. the revenue paying capacity of the ryots was assessed and a proportion of it fixed as the share of the state.
- This revenue system was first introduced in the year 1820's.
- In 1857 the cotton supply association was founded in Britain.
- In 1859 the manchester cotton company was formed.
- Before 1860s, 3/4th of raw cotton was imported from America.
- American civil war broke out in 1861, this led to panic in Britain cotton circles.
- Company officials encouraged cotton cultivation in India.
- In 1859 the British passed a limitation law that stated that the loan bonds signed between money lenders and ryots would have validity for only 3 years.
- By 1865 the cotton production in America revived and Indian cotton exports steadily declined.