2015.99329.social Banditry in Bengal 1757 1793 Text

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Govt. of Went Bengal
SOCIAL BANDITRY IN BENGAL
A STUDY IN PRIMARY RESISTANCE
17571793
RANJIT SEN
RATNA PR AK ASH AN
CALCUTTA27
First Published April, 1988
Price : Rs. 89-00 ( Rupees eighty nine only )
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THE PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK HAS BEEN FINANCIALLY

SUPPORTED BY THE INDIAN COUNCIL OF HISTORICAL
RESEARCH. THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FACTS STATED
OR, OPINIONS EXPRESSED. IS ENTIRELY THAT OF THE
AUTHOR AND NOT OF THE COUNCIL.
Published by
Sri Kshitish Chandra De
On Behalf Of
Ratna Prakashan
14/1, Peary Mohan Roy Road
Calcutta-700 027
India
Printed by
Birendra Mohan Basak
Sarada Press
10, Dr. Kartick Bose Street
Calcutta*700 009
Prof. Barun De,
My Teacher
CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE vii
ABBREVIATION xi
CHAPTER I : THE BANDIT 1
CHAPTER II BANDITS AND ZAMINDARS

: 22
CHAPTER III MOTIVES OF BANDITRY
: 42
CHAPTER IV THE BRITISH DRIVE FOR
:
REVENUE AND THE BREAKDOWN

OF THE MUGHAL SECURITY
SYSTEM 71
CHAPTER V : ANATOMY OF ANARCHY 118

PREFACE
The bandit is a colossal figure any where and in any
age. He defies interpretations because he stands for chaos.
He eludes assessments because he lives beyond routine. He
baffles judgement because he functions outside the margin
of social ethics. But yet he is as much a part of the settled
life as he is the denizen of an underworld and a world of
outlawry. He is thus after all a riddle wrapped with
mystery. To talk of him is to talk with fear and sympathy,
pity and shame, fascination and repulsion. It is with this

unity of opposites in my feelings that many years ago I
began my study on the bandits. Understanding them to be

a people colossally present in Bengals history and literature
over the last two centuries I accepted them as my subject
of study. I desired to know them in a distinct geographical

area and in a definite time period. Since Bengal in the
eighteenth century has always been my area of study I could
not help looking at banditry as a Bengal phenomenon within
the eighteenth century framework. If a social phenomenon
cuts across the limits of time and spreads beyond the
boundaries of geographical areas, it becomes a difficult
subject for study. Banditry as a problem of social research

has always been that. Knowing the problem to be essentially
complex I sought to ransack every leaf of some of the major
historical documents on the subject available at the Calcutta
archives. My relentless search did not stop before it became
clear to me as to who is who and what is what in the study
of history I have presently made.

The present work happens to be a part of a project which
I started twenty years ago under the title The Growth of the
British Power in Bengal and its impact on the Bengali society :
1698-1793. The study was a four-fold one. Part one of it
is available in my book Metamorphosis of the Bengal Polity

C 3
1700-1793. It discusses the growth of the British power in

Bengal in the eighteenth century and the internal transforma-
tions of the country it had caused. Part two of the study
deals with Bengals response to the growth of the British

power in Bengal and it is avilable in my book New Elite and
New collaboration. As the British empire grew in Bengal it
developed its own social legions who collaborated with

their imperial masters on every side of the vast social
terrain. The pattern of collaboration available in Bengal

about this time has been studied in this book. The third
part of the study deals with Bengals reactions which were

opposite of collaboration. It was an assertion of Bengals
own self and its outburst in violence within a general milieu

of fragmented life and closing animation. Banditry in Bengal
was this a desperate assertion of one part of Bengals
society that lefused to live on mortgage like the collaborators,
the new elite that grew here under the patronage of the
British. The present study. Social Banditry in Bengal etc.
accepts this as the main theme of research. The fourth part
of the study discusses the economic changes in Bengal caused
by the East India Company's policy of revenue maximization.
This is important for any understanding of the problem
why banditry became rampant in Bengal in the eighteenth
century when the English East India Company took over the
administration of the country. This part of my research
is available in my book Ecomomics of Revenue maximi-
zation in Bengal 1757-1793.
Within this framework of a bigger understanding of

Bengals history in the eighteenth century the present
work has taken its shape. The entire work is based on
first hand research and in the final analysis it may be
treated as a manual on a pre-modem protest movemet in a
colonial world. My aim in this book Is to find out who
took to banditry in Bengal at the advent of the British power
,
C ]
in the country and what the nature of mens participation

in banditry was. Towards fulfilling this aim I have tried to
negative the argument that the Bengal bandits were the
makers of their own destiny, a kind of imperialist paradigm
that has conveniently taken shelter in the historiography
of social banditry in India. Negativity is certainly not the
constitutive principle of my research. I have excavated

certain facts which speak for themselves and which proves
in the long run that perspectives of history can be built up
with a strong commonsense understanding of events without
making conscious efforts to build up models cushioned by
untrue and half-true interpretations and biases, this way or
that way. A historian is not a juggler or a sly manipulator
of ideas. He is a simple seeker of truth that relates to
mans journey from here to eternity.
This is the standpoint from which I have written this
book. I have tried to state the simple facts which I have

discovered from my reading of certain official records relating
to Bengal in the eighteenth century. In the formative years
of the British imperialism in Bengal attempts were made
to extract the last dreg of social surplus from the soil . The
result was catastrophic. A vast agrarian multitude, zamindars
amlas ryots, pykes, barkandazes, etc. who lived in a society
of mutual interdependence were suddenly squeezed tight
against the margin of subsistence. The morbid contraction

of economic solvency bred in the mind of the people a
psychology of deprivation. Out of this emerged the urge
on the part of the people to challenge the self-assured,
tribute-hungry and profit-crazy rule of the Englishmen in

Bengal and shake the pillars of complascence wherever that
was possible. Banditry in Bengal in the eighteenth century
was precisely this. It satisfied double passions class hatred
and hatred against foreigners. Economically banditry repre-
sented an urge to cut short the unilateral British extraction
of wealth from the interior and thereby secure compensation
for the society that had been deprived of its accustomed
sources of living. Socially it represented an urge to regroup
its identity debased by an alien rule. Politically it showed
an urge to adjust the Bengal society with the ruling top'
in an antithetical balance of terror. Three points of banditry

in Bengal were significantthe participation of men of all
shades of life in it, the vast area over which it was rampant
and the duration of the event as a persistent factor through
decades heedless of the successes of British imperialism on
many other fronts. Banditry was certainly the most substan-
tial expression of violence in the country in the second half
of the eighteenth century. It showed mass coalescence
at one level and popular self-assertion on the other. At one
end it was an anger of a mass for their blurred identity and
on the other it was their passion released in search for a
transparent one. But at no end banditry appeared to be only
a sign of lawlessness as the British administrators of the
time in Calcutta believed it to be. Banditry was significant
in Bengal because it offered livlihood to the paupers, security
to the commoners and compensations to the rich who other-

wise suffered under the terrible fiscal squeeze of the state.
This knowledge has been assembled in the book. If this ia
accepted will there be any one who will agree with the
imperialist British exposition of the bandits as a race of
outlaws, living from father to son in a state of warfare against

society ?
Good Friday
1 April, 1988
Rabindra Bharati University Raojit Sen
Emerald Bower Campus
56A, B. T. Road
Calcutta-700050
ABBREVIATION
I
BOR Board of Revenue

CC Committee of Circuit
CCR Controlling Council of Revenue

Dist. District
Reeds. Records
GG Governor General
Prodgs Proceedings
Rev. Revenue
U
BPP Bengal Past and Present
CPC Calendar of Persian Correspondence
[ referred
to in terms of letter number
and volume number ]
Fifth Report Historical Introduction to the Bengal
Portion of the Fifth Report
HB History of Bengal, vol. II ed. by Sir

Jadunath Sarkar and published by the
Dacca University
LCBR Letter Copy Books of the Resident at the
Durbar at Murshidabad
[referred to in terms of the volume
number]
Mid. Dist. Reeds. Midnapore District Records
number]
MR Midnapore Letters Received 1777-1800

[West Bengal District Records New
Series edited by J. C. Sengupta and
Sanat Kumar Bose].
;
[ xi* 3
MRR Miscellaneous Revenue Records

[referred to in terms of the catalogue
number available in the catalogue of
records of the West Bengal State
Archives, Calcutta, for example Misce-
llaneous Revenue Records Number 95 ]
Mid. Sal Pap Midnapur Salt Papers
[referred to in terms of the date of
letters received and issued
Jud. (Crim) Prodgs Judicial Criminal Proceedings
[referred to in terms of the date of
the proceedings]
Prodgs. BOR Proceedings of the Board of Revenue
[referred to in terms of the date of the
proceedings]
Prodgs CC Proceedigs of the Committee of Circuit
[ referred to in terms of the place of

sitting of the Committee and the date
of proceedings]
Prodgs. CCR Proceedings of the Controlling Council
of Revenue at Murshidabad
proceedings]
Rev. Jud. Prodgs Revenue Judicial Proceedings
proceedings]
Reflections Reflections on the Government etc, Indos-
tan etc. by Scrafton
Rung. Dist. Reeds. Rungpore District Records
number]

Seir Seir-ul-Mutakharin
Selections Selections from Unpublished Records, ed.
by James Long
proceedings]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I humbly acknowledge my gratitride to Indian council of
Historical Research, New Delhi, which had sanctioned a
substantial part of the finance that was necessary for the
publication of this book. My gratitude is also due to my

friend smt. Reeta Banerjee, lecturer in History, Loreto
College, Darjeeling who prepared the entire index available
at the end of this book. I am also indebted to my friends
Sri Amalendu Mitra and Smt. Kalpana Sengupta without

whose cooperation this book would not have come out in
print. Sri Kshitish Chandra De of Ratna Prakashan has not

only published this book but also helped me a lot to get
the book through the press finally.
In working out this book I received great inspiration
from my wife, Snigdha who shares with me the pains of

the prosaic moments of research and the ecstacy of an hour
of fulfilment. My last word of gratitude must certainly be
left for her.
R. S.
I
CHAPTER
THE BANDIT
The official literature of the British Empire in its forma-
tive years is replete with the story of bandits. Designated
under various official nomenclatures, they formed vast and
elusive communities whose rise was concomitant with the rise
of the British Empire itself. Moreland writing the socio-

economic history of the Mughals does not get much scope to
write about bandits .
1
But .William Kaye while discussing
the administrative history of the British Empire in its forma-
tive years finds occasion to write a full chapter 2 on the
bandits. This shows the emergence on a big scale of these
people just about the time when the British Empire in India
was taking shape. Hastings and Cornwallis were pretty
concerned with the phenomenal growth of the bandits in
Bengal. With the turn of the nineteenth century Lord Minto
wrote of the horrid ascendancy they had obtained over the
inhabitants.* Two decades later William Bentinck had to
mobilize the full force of the State in order to crush bandits.
A few more years were needed before the imperial British
sentiment on the bandits which was hitherto scattered in
minutes and memoranda was codified . 4
Thus from Hastings to Bentinck bandits had provided the

imperialist administration with a settled theme for discussion
and a settled target for attack. Both in the lower and the
upper Ganga basin the bandits had kept the British occupied
1. Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar : An Economic Study, Alma

Ram & Sons, Delhi, 1972.
2. See William Kaye, The Administration of the East India Company.

3. Lord Mintos letter to Lady Minto, 1809 quoted by Edward
Thompson and G. R. Garratt. Rise and fulfilment of British Rule In

India Central Book Depot, Allahabad, 1962. pp 247-48.
,
4. The British sentiment on Bandits is available in Confessions of a Thug

by Col. Meadows Taylor and Rambles and Recollections by W. H.
Sleeman.
2 SOCIAL BANDITRY IN BENGAL
for more than half a century. By the end of the eighteenth

century the first imperialist wars were over. With the turn
of the nineteenth century the major Indian States had capitu-
lated to a system of subsidiary alliance. By 1818 the Indian
resistance had been beaten to the soil. But the elusive
Indian bandit loomed large on the scene heedless of the

triumphant march of the imperial juggernaut.
The present chapter will concern itself with the bandits
of Bengal only. The period is the second half of the
eighteenth and the first few years of the nineteenth century,
i.e. the period during which the British Empire was steadily
consolidating in the eastern part of India. Our study will
suggest three reflections : 1 . The official British attitude to
bandits and the line adopted by subsequent non-Indian his-
torians. 2. Area of operation of bandits. 3. Nature and

composition of bandits.
I. Official British attitude to bandits :
The official British attitude towards bandits was first
enunciated in 1772. That year the Committee of Circuit

reported from Qasimbazar :
The Decoits of Bengali are not like the Robbers in

England, Individuals driven to such desperate
courses by They are Robbers by
sudden want.
profession and evenby birth. They are formed into
regular Communities and their families subsist by the
Spoils which they bring home to them. They are
all alike Wretches who
have placed themselves in
a state of declared war with Government, and are
therefore wholly excluded from every benefit of
its laws. 5
5. Prodgs. of GC at Cossimbasar, 15th August, 1772 (p. 123), The

statement is also available in Forrest, Selection from the State
Papers of the Governor-General of India : Warren Hastings, Vol. II,
p. 289. The date of the report is given there as 28th June, 1772. In
any case in the prodgs, volume of the CO at Oossimhazar it is entered
under date of ISth Aug., 1772.
THE BANDIT 3
Thus a bandits profession does not issue from any condi-

tion of distress. It was perhaps the same point which Capt.
W.M. Ramsay, one of Col. Sleemans assistants, wanted to
drive home very poignantly when he jotted down his conver-
sations with a Hindustani bandit of upper India :
Whilst talking over their excursions which were to

me really very interesting, their eyes gleamed with
pleasure, and beating their hands on their foreheads
and breasts, and muttering some ejaculations, they
bewailed the hardness of their lot, which now
ensured their never being able again to participate
in such a joyous occupation . 6
Thus banditry appeared to the English to be a communal
practice and a joyous occupation in which people are born
and bred generation after generation. Warren Hastings
categorically called the bandits a race of outlaws, living
from father to son in a state of warfare against society 7
Thus the bandits of Bengal were, in the eyes of the British
administrators, people who became social outlaws not by
chance or any accident but by heridatary calling, whose
bonds were of a regular community like those of peasants in
a village community and whose heritage and perfection had
6. For further information on Hindusthani bandits see Taylor and

Sleeman, Op.Cit.
7. Compare this statement with the following one left by William
Hawkins he was in India from 1608 to 1611 and for his account in
\
India see W. Fosters Early Travels in India ] : the country is so

full of outlaws and thieves that almost a man cannot stir out of doors
throughout all his [ Jahangirs ] dominions without great forces
quoted from Foster, Op.Cit., pp. 157-58 by S M. Edwardes and

H.L,0. Garrett, Mughal Rule in India, Delhi, 1976, pp. 188-89, In
place of outlaws and thieves Peter Mundy found rebels and
thieves*around Patna (Edwardes and Garrett, Op. Cit. p. 187). f
Hawkins outlaws and thieves, Mundy's rebels and thieves,

Hastings race of outlaws, all denote the existence of a society of
law-breaking men vis-a.vis a society of law-abiding persons. The
concept'Of robbery as a hereditary calling and that too of a race was
the creation of E.I. Companys administration in the 18th Century.
1
made them an integral institution of the country. It is
interesting that none of the English administrators referred

to those inexorable social forces with which sociologists often
associate the phenomenon of banditry. Bandits, whether in
Bengal or in Chambal, the English thought, formed an

exclusive community, a point which has come down to
historians even of the present day and in that it has defied all
objective assessment of the bandits of the country.

The evolution of the outlook of the historians towards
these unfortunate people has strictly followed the official
line. As far back as 1853 Kaye wrote of them :
It was seen then that Dakoitee was the normal con-

dition of whole tribes born and bred to the profes-
sion, that there were robber-castes in India just as
there were soldier-castes or writer-castes, and that

men went out to prey upon the property of their
fellows and, if need be, on their lives with
strict religious observance of sacrament and sacrifice,
strong in the belief that they were only fulfilling

their destiny, and doing good service to the deity
whom they adored. 8
Kaye was followed by Hunter who described the bandits
as numerous and prosperous clans who practised robbery as
a hereditary calling.* To make his brief convincing he
n
quotes from official evidence 1 and views eighteenth century
in that light. Firminger confirmed to this official view. 1
All subsequent non-Indian historians have considered dacoits
to be religious thugs , the last of these historians being Angus
8. Kaye, The Administration of the Blast India Company.

9. W. W. Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal (Published by Indian Studies
Past anu Present) Calcutta, 1965, p. 44.
10. Hunter quotes from the reports of the Thuggee and Dacoitee
Commissions.
11, Firminger |
Introduction to the Fifth Report, Indian Studies : Past
and Present, Calcutta Reprint of 1962, pp, 226-227 ] quoted exten-
sively from official literature which speaks of the bandits as
8
THE BANDIT 5
Maddison .
12 There were two historians who warned us
against a possible soft corner for the dacoits :
Dacoits are people who need not excite our pity . 18

From the beginning the British administrators thought
that dacoity was essentially a problem of law and order.
Lawless banditti was the common expression used indiscri-
minately to mean the Chaurs, the Sannyasis, the peasants

and the disbanded native army alike. Reports from the
district converged at Calcutta where the administration sat
down to discuss the general lawlessness of the country which
they branded as the residuary legacy of oriental anarchy.
Once it was admitted that Indian bandits were professed
and notorious robbers the idea of showing pity or leniency
to them which Islamic law upheld appeared to be meaning-
less. The Holy Quran, which was the law-book of the
Muslim rulers, forbade the death sentence unless there was
murder accompanied with theft 1 a
. Hastings went beyond
the precints of Islamic law 184 and decreed that dacoits should
abandoned outlaws, atrocious criminals, robbers by profession,

robbers by ancestral calling" and "enemies of society. Acceptance
of these views about bandits is clear from his statement made at
page 61 : "Nothing can be more eloquent or convincing than the fact
that the gang robbers, of whom the English had a terrible experience,
were marauders, not by individual choice or necessity, but by
ancestral calling.
12. By dacoits, Angus Maddison, in a passing remark meant religious

thugs Clast Structure and Economic Growth : India and 1ahistan
Mughult, London, 1971, p. 39.
since the
13. Edward Thomason and O.T. Oarratt, Rise and fulfilment of British
Rule in India p. 247.
13a. Thompson and Garratt, Op.Cit., p. 127.
13b. The English discovered Mohammedan law was founded
that the
on the most and an abhorrence of bloodsed. This
lenient principle
often obliges the Sovereign to interpose to prevent the guilty from
escaping with impunity and to strike at the root of such disorders
as the law will not reach. I quoted by Thompson d> Garratt,
qP. Oit. p. 127 ]. That is why Hastings was indifferent to strict
legality- Ibid.
8 6
be hanged in their villages, their families were to be the slaves

of the State and their village was to be fined. 14 Cornwallis
ordered the district magistrates to report to his Council
means by which the people would be made to pay for
thanadari system of the country. 1 The system of police
organised by Cornwallis did not meet its end. Hence in
1808 a decisive step was taken namely the appointment of a

Superintendent of Police 10 for the divisions of Calcutta,
Dacca and Murshidabad. This office was constituted for
the purpose of concentrating information obtainable from
different parts of the country, with a view to more extensive
and concerted operations for securing the peace, and especial-
ly for the discovery and seizure of gangs of dacoits. 17
The Superintendent himself held the office of Magistrate of
24 Parganas and was given superior concomitant criminal
jurisdiction with several District and City Magistrates. The
office of the Superintendent proved so effective that in 1810
the system was extended to the Divisions of Patna, Benaras,
and Bareilly. It is singnificant that similar measures were
taken in other parts of India. The police system of
Cornwallis had failed in apprehending bandits and criminals.
As early as 1801 Lord Wellesley instituted enquiries into the
causes of the governmental failure to maintain peace and

order in Bengal. 1 To avoid repetition of thp Bengal experience
14. Thompson & Garratt, Op. Cit.> p. 127. Also see Keitb, A Constitu-
tional History of India ,
15 The detail of this is available in the Revenue [Judicial) Proceedings

and the Board of Revenue Proceedings preserved in the West Bengal
State Archives in Calcutta. In subsequent chapters we shall have
occasions to refer to these proceedings.
16. The Superintendent of Police was equivalent to an Inspector General
of our time.
17. History of Police Organisation in India and Indian village Police :
Being Select Chapters of the Reports of the Indian Police Commission
fct 1902-03 ( Henceforth referred to as Indian Police Commission
Reports : ) : published by the University of Calcutta, 1913, p. 12.
18. Indian Police Commission Reports , p. 10.
THE BANDIT 7
a Committee of Police was appointed in Madras in 1806 by

Lord William Bentinck. In 1813 the Court of Directors took
upon themselves the question of law and order. That year
they appointed a special committee of their own body to
institute an enquiry into the administration of justice and
police in the Companys territories in India. In 1814 they
issued orders on the subject. 1 9 a
The darogas of the thanas
were for long held in suspicion. It was widely believed in
the administrative circles that the darogas maintained liaison

with the banditti so that their suppression had become impo-
ssible. The Court of Directors condemned the establisnment
of darogas and their subordinates and ordered a general return
to the old system of village police. The Madras Regulation
XI of 1816 gave effect to the recommendation of the
Directors. In Bombay also the Directors views were given
effect to and the Regulation XII of 1827 established a system
of police* founded chiefly on the ancient usages of the
country, 1
It is thus clear that the general English attitude towards
the bandits resulted from their primary experience which was
transmitted to the Court of Directors and to other Presi-
dencies so that it mingled with other experiences and gave

rise to, in the nineteenth century, what may be called a
British- Indian attitude towards the problem of banditry in
India. Two points are significant here. First, the idea that the
Indian bandits belonged to distinctive communities who took

to robbery not from any distress but as a hereditary calling
in which they were distingushed from their counterparts
in other parts of the globe arose long before Col. Sleeman

suppessed the Thuggees and long before the psychological
behaviour of the bandits and the inner secrets of their pro-

fession were revealed in the writings of those Englishmen who
1 8a. Ibid.
19. Indian Police Commission Reports , p. Jl.

hunted down the hindusthani bandits on the soils of upper

India. Secondly, in order to suppress the bandits, the English
administrators, after the failure of the Bengal Police system of
Cornwallis, returned to the ancient police system of the

country executed by village watchmen, mostly hereditary,
under the direction of the heads of the villages, tahsUdarn of

districts and the Collector and Magistrate of the province,
the tahsildars being employed without distinction either in
police or revenue duties, as the occasion required.

This return to the old system of police appears very
interesting. In Bengal the English introduced innovations
in the land revenue administration. After the initial bunglings
they returned to the fundamentals of the ancient zamindari
system of revenue administration formally recognised by
historians under the name of Permanent Settlement of 1793.
Similarly when the new police system in Bengal failed they
returned to the old system of the country. Given this the

question arises : If the English ideas about the revenue
administration and the police system of the country as
evolved in the seventies and the eighties of the eighteenth
century proved to be decidedly wrong, can it be said with
certainty that the assessment which the English administration
made of the Indian bandits so early as 1772 was correct ?
Were not the administrators aware of the inner nature of
this gigantic phenomenon known in official literature as
Dekoity ? Aware certainly they were, and this is proved
by ample evidence to be found in colonial reccords and of
which two will be quoted here. As early as 1771, Mr.
Boughton Rous, the Supervisor of Rajshahi, wrote to the
Controlling Council of Revenue :
I receive advices from the pergunnahs of the frequent

firing of the villages by people, whose distresses drive
them to such acts of despair and villainy. Number
of ryots, who have heretofore borne the fairest
THE BANDIT 9
characters amongst the neighbours pursue this
last desperate recource, to procure themselves a

subsistence 20
In a letter dated 19 April, 1774, Hastings observed :
The resumption of the Chakeraun Zemmen or lands

allotted to the thaunadars and Pykes for their service
in guarding the villages and larger districts againts
robbers. Many of the people thus deprived of their
livlihood have themselves turned dekoits. 21
Throughout our period of study there was a subtle
awareness on the English side of the vast misery into which

the society had been led by the policy of squeeze administered
by the East India Company. In many a minute Hastings
referred to the oppression committed under the sanction of
the English name. As early as 1778 Francis held out in
strongest terms against the administration of Warren Hastings
which, he believed, had levelled down the classes of Indian
society to one uniform state of decline % by confounding
and degrading all Orders of Men [ it
] has forced the
highest
to act upon the principles of the lowest. 22

The Indian sentiment against the English was bitter and
even Ghulam Hussain, the author of Seir Mutakharin, who
admired the English on many points, castigated them on
the score of their ruthlesss tyranny. 2 *
If it is true that there was a social and administrative
awareness that something had gone wrong with the advent of
the British Empire in Bengal, then why was it that a very
apparent fact was misinterpreted in the official records ?
20. Bough ion Rous, the supervisor of Rajshahi to the Controlling Council
of Revenue at Murshidabad, 19 April, 1771. Prodgs. of COB at
Mttrshidabad, Vol. V, p. 63.

21. Firminger, Fifth Report, p. 246. Also see W. R. Gourlay, A Contri-
bution towards a History of the Police in Bengal, Calcutta, 1916, p. 22.
22. Ranajit Guha, A Rule of Property For Bengal, pp. 109-110.
23. Seir Mutakharin, Vol. II, p. 101.
To get at the answer to this question we have to analyse two

more points, the area of operation of the bandits [i. e. how
extensive their society was] and the nature and composition of
the bandits [ i. e. how deep they were rooted in the society ].
II. The area of operation

From the time of Warren Hastings down to the time of
William Bentinck banditry had been rampant in Bengal.
There was no single district which did not witness the rise of
armed men wandering in a spirit of defiance in the society.
A few examples are given here although they can be

multiplied by evidence from the contemporary official
records. A report from Purnea in 1771 referred to people

who are very numerous (and) have long lived in open Defiance
of the Law. 24 The dacoits of Jessore were bold enough to
attack even Englishmen and the Companys sepoys. 25
In Hugli dacoits traversed the country in great numbers
bidding defiance to the guards in the different villages'. 26
As early as 1764, Mr. Rose, an Englishman, was mundered by
the bandits near Bakarganj. 27 A set of lawless bandits,
wrote the Calcutta Council in 1773, known under the
name of Sunnasses or Faquirs have long infested these
countries. 28 Speaking of the general condition of the time
Gleig wrote :
24. Ducarel, the Supervisor, from Purnea to CCR at Mursbidabad,

1 1March, 1771 Prodgs. of CCR [ Vol. IV ] 25 March, 1771.
,
25. J. C. Sinha, Economic Annals of Bengal , p. 98.
26. N. K. Sinha, Economic History of Bengal Vol. II. p. 62. ,
27. Long, Selections, Nos. 723, 762, 767, 775,

* Banditti* was
28. Quoted by Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal p. 77. an
,
expression very commonly available in English records. In a record

of 1767 the Kols of Midnapur area was called *a tribe of plundering
banditti'
Vansittart to Verelst, 13 Dec, 1767, Mid. Diet. Reeds.,
Vol. I, p. 200 The Kols were known by different names one of which
was Bhoomij Chooar The Kol Insurrection of Chota-Nagpur by
Dr. Jagdish Chandra Jha, p. 23. In Edward Baber's letter to
Calcutta Council, 6 Feb, 1773, we get this expression : their
[ zamindars' ] Tennants [ tenants 1 are a Banditti*Mid. Diet .

Reeds., Vol. IV, p. 106.
THE BANDIT II
There was no such thing as justice or law or
adequate protection to person or property anywhere

9
in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa except in Calcutta.**
But Calcutta was not spared. Busteed writes t
In the times of Hastings and Francis, and for a long

time after, dacoity, and high way robbery close to the
seat of Government were crimes exceedingly
prevalent. 30
This, for instance, was the state of things within a mile of the
Supreme Court, as described in the Calcutta papers of 1788 %
The native inhabitants on the roads leading to the

Boitakhana tree are in such general alarm of dacoits
that from eight or nine o clock at night they begin to
fire off matchlock guns till daybreak at intervals....
The dacoits parade openly on the different roads

about Calcutta in parties of twenty, thirty or forty
at so early an hour as eight p m.* 1
Thus not only in border districts but also in the metropolis

of Calcutta bandits had held English law and order at ransom.
For three or four decades these people consolidated their
sway in Bengal. In 1 809 Lord Minto wrote of them :
They had established a terrorism as perfect as that

which was the foundation of the French republican
power, and in truth the sirdars, or captains of the
band, were esteemed and even called the hakim or
ruling power, while the real Government did not
possess either authority or influence enough to obtain
from the people the smallest aid towards their own
protection. 3 2
29. Gleig, Memoirs of Warren Bastings, Vol. I.
30. Busteed, Echoes From Old Calcutta, 4th edition, pp. 164-165.
31. Ibid.
32. Lord Minto to Lady Minto, 1809, quoted by Thompson and Garratt,
Op. Cit., p. 248.
12 SOCIAL BANDIT BY IN BENGAL
or
By these measures such a vigorous efficient govern-

ment was created by the banditti in these districts,
that they could send a single messenger through the

villages with regular lists of requisitions from the
different houses and families some to furnish grain,
some forage, some horses, some two sons to join

the gangs, some labourers to carry the plunder, or to
bear torches, or to act as scouts > some were to send
a wife or daughter to attend the gangs. 8 *
This shows that the bandits had established an organised terror

in the country. This terror was a broad social violence in
which by and large the entire society was involved. The very
fact that the bandits could establish a rule of their own under
which their leaders came to be regarded as hakims by the
populace at large highlights the phenomenon of a general
social approval without which a bandit Raj, so to say, could
not be established. Their rule was a subterranean terror
dispersed all over Bengal which counterbalanced' the reign of
terror set up by the East India Company in the country. The
Sannyasis had built up an axis from Rangpur to Midnapur
whereas the Chuars had defied the British Raj in the western
part of the country. If Hunter speaks of the existence of
the bandits in Birbhum, Westland speaks of their existence in
Jessore ; and if Firminger speaks of their existence in
Midnapur and Rangpur, Beveridge reports their existence in

Bakharganj. What is significant is that each of these areas
has been described by the respective historians as an isolated
pocket of disturbance. As nowhere it is found that the
bandits clustering around a hereditary profession formed
a community outside the society, one gets sceptical whether
there was really a civil war between the law-abiding subjects
33 . Ibid.
THE BANDIT 13
of the East India Company and the hereditary outlaws subsist-

ing on violence.
Ill* Nature and Composition of Bandits*

Bandits were composed of heterogeneous elements.
Racially they varied from the aboriginal tribe of Chaura to
the respectable warrior tribe of Rajputs. They also came
from diverse occupations. Pykes, barkandize*, cultivators,
moneylenders, village headmen, sirdars, vagrants, religious

mendicants and bohemians, petty talukdars and middle-grade
zamindars all swelled into the rank of bandits. Of all these
people the chuars were the one who at the outset proved very
formidable. They were both cultivators and warriors %
All the riots Chuars on this side of the hills are

come in and ready to settle their rents . 34
I ordered them to pay what was customary they

told me they were fighting men & no riots that they
had never Paid any rents but were always ready to
fight when called on .... 86
Besides the Ghuars there were the Rajputs who were the
fighting men of the zamind irs s

A Number of men, dependants of the Zaminder
called Rautpok [
Rajputs ]---now plunder the
villages..., 3 or, there are also a number of Raja-
poots who reside in the same purgunnah in the village
called Biesgaung who follow the same plan....they do

not pay the Revenue and Rob both this Province and
37
Pacheet .
In the records we get frequent references of Pykes and
barkandases as bandits :
34. J. Forbes to Edward Baber ( undated ), Mid. Diet. Reeds., Vol. Ill,
p. 92.
35. J. Forbes to Samuel Lewis, 30 May, 1773, Mid. Diet. Reeds,, Vol. Ill,
p. 112.
36. Dawson from Bishnupur to Samuel Lewis, Resident at Midnapur,
Mid, Diet. Reeds ,
Vol. II, p. 120.
37. Ibid .
Of the most pernicious tendency-**which calls loudly
for redress, it is the number of Pykes here enter-
tained, they serve without pay, and support them-

selves entirely on what they can procure from the
unhappy Sufferers over whom they are placed/ 38
The bandits were mostly ordinary people. A report
from Rangpur said :
....I believe the dacoits to be people who live as
ryots in different parts of the country. 39
A report from Dinajpur said that plunder was committed

by fuckeers, Dacoits and other lawless People. 40 It is
significant that faqirs are distinguished from dacoits
and dacoits from other lawless people. Faqirs were normally

decent people who lived on the lucrative trade of money-
lending. 41 In 1776 the Fûjdar of Rangpur reported that
cultivators by day turned dacoits by night. Of the village
watchmen turning into bandits we have the following
evidence :
As a rule he [
the watchman ] belonged to some
thieving gang and his engagement as watchman was
in fact an arrangement by which the villagers secured
a partial immunity from attack by buying over one of
the enemy/' 4 2
It is clear that bandits came from all walks of life. A
heterogeneous mass with diverse social origin dispersed as
much territorially as professionally cannot form an exclusive
38. John Grose to Richard Becher, Rangpur 24 April 1770 Letter Copy
Book of the Resident at the Durbar Vol. I, p. 1. ,
39. Richard Goodlad to Council of Rev., 7 June, 1779, Rungpore Dist.

Reeds. , Vol. I, p. 84.
40. Wm. Marriot to Controlling Council of Rev. at Murshidabad,
1 March, 1772, Prodgs of . CCR at Murshidabad (
Vol. X ), 5 March,
Mil.
41. N. Majumdar, Justice and Police in Bengdly p. 79.
42. D. J. McNeile, Report on the Village Watch of the Lower Province*
of Bengal , Calcutta, 1866,, p. 4.

THE BANDIT 15
community outside the general society. In the second half of

the eighteenth century Bengal did not have a surplus popula-
tion. The generation that existed during the time of Alivardi
Khan and survived Plassey and Buxar perished in the famine
of 1770. The generation that sprang up in the aftermath of the
famine matured only with the nineteenth century i.e. the
the period when Lord Minto was reporting the establishment
of a so-called Bandit Raj in Bengal. During the next fifty
years the tale of the Bengal bandit merged with the general
story of the Indian bandit operating in Madras, Bombay and
in some parts of northern India so that we find the British
administration during the long era of Munro, Elphinstone and

Bentinck preoccupied with many things including the problem
of banditry all over India.
If banditry was rooted in society what led the Englsh to
misinterpret this broad social phenomenon ? The first
generations of British administrators knew that banditry was

not a casual incident in Bengal It had its pull in every rank
of the society, in every shade of profession so that it
became a vast social profession with which correspondence

was maintained by paupers and substantial men alike.
Even the servants of the Company and the Nawab were
involved :
In many places, Faujdars, amils, and the Company's

troops exploited the helplessness of the people and
set no limit to their cruelties and exactions. 48
At the district level the administration showed an appro-

priate awareness of the nature of bandits and the direction of
their activities. But the central administration in Calcutta
gave necessary twists to what ever informaton was received

from the districts* so that a subtle contradiction is visible in
all official records of the time between the government in

Calcutta and its wings spread out in districts. From Jessore
43. N. Majumder, Op. Cit. 9 pp. 78-79.

:
16 SOCIAL BANDITBY IN BENGAL
the bandits set up rule over hundred miles where the British
arms failed to make any impression. Wilmot reported from

there : Was it only practised by a few, it might be effected,
but this is indiscriminately the Crime of the whole, so that
instead of eradicating the nuisances for which they [Companys
troops] were set they considerably multiply them. 44 In
Birbhum the bandits gathered so much strength that Mr.
Keating, the Collector, organised a militia to take action
with the regulars against them. But he failed. The
Governor-General in Council then ordered the Collectors of
the adjoing districts to combine all their forces. Thus all
questions of jurisdiction were sunk. A battle was fought

which Keating described as a smart skirmish. Yet the
bandits could not be suppressed. 4 5
In another place Hunter
writes
In May 1785, the Collector of Murhidabad, at the

extremity of whose jurisdiction Beerbhoom lay,
formally declared the civil authorities destitute of
any force capable of making head against such an

armed multitude, and petitioned for troops to act
against bands of plunderers four hundred strong.
A month later, the banditti had grown to near a

thousand people, and were preparing for an organized
invasion of the low lands. Next year we find
the freebooters firmly established in Beerbhoom ;
strong positions occupied by their permanent camps ;
the hereditary prince unable to sit for an hour on

his state cushion, much less to appear in the field, the
public revenue intercepted on its way to the treasury,
and the commercial operations of the Company

within the district at a stand. 4 6 4
[ Italics Ours ]
44. Letter from the Supervisor of Jessore, 28 Aug., 1770, Letter Copy
Book of the Resident at the Durbar , Vol. II, p. 7,
45. Hunter, Annals, p. 4 7 .

45a. Hunter Annals, p. 15.
*
THE BANDIT 17
Thus Hunter admits on the basis of contemporary authori-

ties that the banditty was planning an organised invasion of
the lands [ Italics Ours j. The basis of this organization was

likened by Lord Minto to the perfect terror that led to the
foundation of the French Republican Power [ Italics Ours ].
This was the time when the famine of 1783-84 was just over
and when the peasant uprising of Rangpur and Dinajpur of
1783 4 ** had just come to an unsuccessful end. In such a
time as this an armed multitude not a simple armed
minority was threatening the Companys administration in
lower Bengal. *
Banditty
was a common term used by the
English to mean all men who took to violence. The sannyasis
and faqir* were also called Banditti/ in English record. 45 '
Their coming into lower Bengal was thus described in the

official records of 1772 :
In the years subsequent to the famine, their ranks

were swollen by a crowd of starving peasants, who
had neither seed nor implements to recommence culti-
vation with, and the cold weather of 1772 brought
them down upon the harvest fields of lower Bengal,
burning, plundering, ravaging in bodies of fifty to
thousand men . BJ
Fifty to thousand people in 1772, four hundred to thousand

people in 1785 this was more or less the unvarying size of
the so called plunderers who descended upon lower Bengal in
the aftermath of the two famines, one in 1770 and other in
1783-84. Reinforced by peasants these people were certainly
not outlaws who could declare a war against the law-abiding
subjects of government. The civil government of the
not the one that could feel helpless
Company was certainly
revolt has been treated by
45b. The Rangpur and Dinajpur peasant
Bengal, 1783, 1972.
Narahari Kaviraj in A Peasant Uprising in
Chandra, The Sannyasi Rebellion, p. 32.
45c. A. N.
45d. Quoted by Hunter, Annali, p. 77.
2
e
vis-a-vis the outlaws. Given the helplessness of the govern-

ment as is apparent from contemporary records quoted by
Hunter, we may ask who were upon lower
they that decended
Bengal ? The question has been thus answered by a modern
historian :
It is, therefore, a forgone conclusion even according

to British version, that some of the so-called naked
Sannyasis and Fakirs who were supposed to have
plundered the country were not Sannyasis and Fakirs
at all, but the angry common people who, without
food, without clothing, without implements of
cultivation, without even a family had no other
alternative but to revolt against both Muslim autho-
rity and the British collectors and grab whatever
they could to sustain themselves. Therefore, they
were not bandits but rebels against existing authority
both Muslim and the British." 4 5
Such rebels bandits of British records also
appeared in northern and eastern Bengal and there they
proved to be almost ineradicable. 4 */
Here are some examples :
In Dacca and Malda English goods were plundered. In

Malda Charles Grant, the Commercial Resident, discovered
on investigation that the Companys factory was ransacked by
zaminder's men 4 5g. To suppress the bandits of Rajshahi and
Dinajpur troops stationed at Dacca proved inadequate. Hence
troops were mobilized from Chittagong. In Mymensing
bandits undertook two or three days journey to distant
places to plunder rich men. When the Chowdhuriea failed
45e. A. N. Chandra, Op. Cil., p. 32.
45f. In Mogul times, in Warren Hastings time, in Lord Curzon's time,
in our own time, decoity robbery with violence had been rife in
Bengal, especially in East Bengal, where natural conditions made
italmost ineradicable Thompson &
Garratt, Op. Cit., p. 247.
45g. Anslie Thomas Embree, Charles Grant and the British Rule in India,
New York, 1962, p, 92.
THE BANDIT 19
'to suppress them, English arms were mobilized. But no tangi-

ble result was achieved. Even in Burdwan widespread
banditry was reported and there were occasional attempts
on the English. Everywhere in the district there was a
great concern about increasing banditry with a mixed sense
of despair and resignation. The central administration in
Calcutta could feel this under current of despair. Hence

there was a desperate attempt to prove that the bandits were
abandoned societies so that there could be some rejuvenation
of the morale of the Companys servants. It would be too
much to say that the entire society was up in arms against
the English. Nor is it historical to say that the phenomenon
of banditry was always directed against the English as such.
But it is true that banditry in our period had a definite anti-
British tinge. The English arm that had coerced Nawabs and
Wazir.% Rajas and Chiefs and as a matter of fact the Emperor,
decidedly failed to bring the phenomenon of banditry under
control. At least they realized that the whole of the society
did not stand in tune with the elite that was living on mort-
gage. When Lord Minto wrote that he could not help
feeling shame, when I became fully apprised of the dreadful
disorders which afflicted countries under the very eye of
Government, he was just speaking of the milieu under which
the English in Bengal were working. The wealth of one
Gokul Ghosal or Nabakrishna could not cover the grounds
of millions of rural destitutes. Such destitutes were not
-unknown in the days of the Great Mughals. But the Mughals
knew how to keep them restricted within their own confines.
While appropriating the social surplus they could forgo a

part of it which was to be consumed by middle-grade para-
sites whose stay in the society was accommodated by a broad
system of rank-hierarchy. The destitutes of one rank were
contained by a thick wall of a little more substantial and
superior rank so that social tensions were broadly rank-
tensions. The Mughals admirably handled rank-tension by

bringing into force the instrument of rent-free land-grant

which made employment highly elastic in a backward
agrarian economy of the time. The English struck at thi
because middle-grade interception of the profit of land did'

not fit in well with the English aim that absorbed in its fold'
the last dregs of the available social surplus. Ever since the
first Supervisor was sent to the districts the British administra-
tion had concerned itself with three things, resumption of
rent free tenures, retrenchment of the zamindari amlas and
Nizamnt servants and finally the contraction of the army of
the Nawah, the Rajas and the zamindars 4 B *
On top of thiS'
they cut down the stipend of the Nazim and the perquisites
of the zamindars thereby directly cantracting their capacity
to provide employment. The resumption of rent-free tenure
destroyed the safety-valve of the system of rank-exploitation;

and confused the rank-hierarchy as such. A zamindar, a
fuqir, a sirdar, a brahman, a peasant were brought into one
axis and the old unity of a self-sufficient village now supplied;
the necessary bonds for coalescence. In many cases the-
bandits rallied under the banner of zamindars assisted by
retrenched amlas. This fact that peasants and pykes, sirdars
and barkaniazes laboured under the guidance of the zamindars
and his men offered substance to the voice of the critics or
the administration who had maintained for long that the rural
gentry had been unnecessarily maligned and that they still'
retained much competence to give social leadership. To gag

this criticism the administration had persistently argued that
banditry in Bengal was a hereditary profession and that the

bandits belonged to abandoned societies. But the campaign*
of administration could not rally the people. A thick waif
of substantial men had in the past contained this discontent.
But in our period substantial men in the rural world were-
45h, For details see, Ranjit Sen, Economics of Revenue Maximization

1757-1793 : Bengal A Case Study.
:
THE BANDIT 21
absent. The settlement of 1793 brought to the surface a host

of middling zamindart . In 1802 the Calcutta Court of
Circuit reported
The crime of dacoity has, I believe, increased

greatly since the British administration of Justice and
I know not that it has yet diminished. 47
A broad social approval sustained it, as a judge remarked :
But it is very well known that in many of the

districts the banditti spring from the bosom of the
community*"How can it be explained that the self-
same people who supply spirit for the assault should
be so miserably deficient in resolution for the

defence. 48
This was a paradox which the British administration

could not resolve. Banditry in one form or other continued.
In 1852 Lord Dalhousie complained that gang-robberies
were increasing and the existence of bandits as late as the
eighteen eighties was testified by Sir Bhupendranath Bose.
The prevalence of dacoity was one of the main argumeuts
used in favour of the Partition of Bengal, and the revival of
political dacoities during recent years shows how strong is
'the tradition.4 * Yet Indian historians have little treated

this important subject of our history. A vast and unsettled
humanity have for two hundred years lived in the dark
corridors of history neglected by historians, only redeemed
and romanticised by the imagination and eleuthero-mania of
'the Bengali novelist, Bankimchandra.
46. Tne first decade of the Permanent Settlement saw the fall of all the
big zamindaris in Bengal, except the zamindart of Burdwan. See

Sirajul Islam, The Permanent Settlement In Bengal, A Study of It
Operations : 1790 1819, Dacca, 1979.
-47. Quoted by N. K. Sinha, Economic Bietory of Bengal, Vol., II, p. 64.
48. Fifth Report, II, p. 672, quoted by N. K. Sinha, Op. Cit., p. 200.
"9. Thompson ft Gatratt, Op. Cit., p. 196.

CHAPTERII
BANDITS AND ZAMINDARS
I. Was Banditry a Way of Life ?
Hastings did not understand or wilfully misunderstood the -
social dynamics of the dacoits of Bengal when he described'-
them as a race of outlaws, living from farther to son in a

state of warfare against society. In the previous chapter it'
was seen that in the formative years of British imperialism

in Bengal dacoity became rampant because there was mass-
participation in this business as a means of living. When
Bankimchandra speaks of zamindars taking to banditry he
highlighted a situation where an apparently unapproved
means becomes quite an acceptable form of living to one of
the most influential sections of the community . 1 Cultivators
turning robbers was an equally common phenomenon of the
time . 2 Between zamindars and royts, the two polar points-
1. Bankim Cnandra in his Chandrasekhar (Ch. 1, Sec. 1) writes Pratap :
was a zamindar and he was a dacoit too. About the period we are
talking of, many zamindars were dacoits. He invoked the assistance
of robbers in order to protect his own property or to tame his over-
mighty foes. He never did it for robbing others wealth or for
tyrannizing others. [
Translated from the original by the present
author)
2. A few examples of peasants turning dacoits are given below : Rous
to Controlling Council of Revenue
Murshidabad, 19th April,.
at
1717 : Number of ryots who have heretofore borne the fairest

characters amongst the neighbours pursue this last desperate recource

to procure themselves a subsistance Progs, of Controlling Council

of Revenue at Murshidabad ,
Vol. V. p. 63. J, Forbei to Edward
Baber (
undated ) : "All the riots Chuars on this side of the hills are
come in and ready to settle their rents Midnapore Dist Records y
Vol. II. p. 130.
Richard Goodlad to Council of Revenue, 7 June, 1779 : "I believe the
dacoits to be people who live as ryots in different parts of the
country..." Rangpur Dist. Records , Vol. I, p. 84.
In 1776 Mir Zainul Abidin, Faujdar of Rangpur, reported that

by day turned dacoits by night Progs of the Controlling?
cultivators .
BANDITS AND ZAMINDARS 2S
of the society, there were innumerable middle-grade people

with diverse calling who accepted robbery as an admissible
appendage to their regular means of living, Thus bandiry in
Bengal was not a way of life as supposed by English
historians. It offered livelihood to the papupers, security to
the commoners and compensation to the rich who otherwise
suffered under the terrible fiscal squeeze of the State.
Economic emaciation of the society created a milieu in which

a fighting chuar , 3
a Rajput* warrior, a wandering sannyaH,
afaqir moneylender, 5 and humble persons like boatmen 6 .
Council of Revenue at Murahidabad ,

Vol. V, p. 63 : from C. W.
Boughton Rous, 19 April, 1771.
Their bands were swollen by a crowd of sturdy peasants" N. K.
Sinha, Economic History of Bengal Vol. ,
II, p. 64.
3. For details about the Chuara see Firminger ed. volumes on Midnapore
Dist . Records ;
Price, J. C Chuar Rebellion in the Jungle Mahals
reproduced in the Census Report, ed. A K. Mitra, Midnapur, 1951 ;
Civil Rebellion in the Frontier Bengal by Binod S. Das, Calcutta,

1773.
4. The Rajputs were the highest tribe of Hindu soldiers. During this
period z amindars appoinied Rajputs as their retainers. The Com-

panys administration disbanded these Rajputs. Thereupon they
took to banditry.
5. For further reading on the sannyasis and the fagirs see Jamini Mohan
Ghosh, Sannyasi and Fakir raiders of Bengal A. N. Chandra, The ;
Sannyasi Rebellion Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal

;
Brojendra ;
Nath Bandyapadhyaya, Dawn of New India , p. 22, L. S. S. OMalley,

History of Bengal ;
Bihar do O risaa under British rule. It is often
argued that the sannyasis and the faqirs came from outside Bengal.
If this is true, the reception they enjoyed in the Bengali society at
large is unique.
6. Boatmen ( manjhis & dandies ) during our period often turned
robbers. In 1764 Mr. Rose, an English gentleman was going from the
Sundarbans with a huge treasure. He was murdered by the boat
people near Backergunge. Sitaram the zamindar of the place

provided shelter to the murderers. was found After investigations it
that the Mangies and Dandies were common robbers, and that the
Zamindar of Backergunge plainly appears by his behaviour after the
murder was committed to have been privy to the intensions of
murderers** For details See Long Selections Nos. 723, , 767, 775. 84S
and C. P. (7 Vol. I, Nos. 2464 6*. 2478.

maahdldhia 1 , and barkandazea 8 all degraded themselves to a

point where their professional, racial or caste distinction*
could not retard their union in a common search for
livelihood. In this situation there was no difference between

a mashalchi and a barkandaze when both of them ultimately
took to robbery as a source of living. In any case we get a
picture of degradation at one stage and coalescence at the

other. It is this latter aspect which is the subject of the
present chapter. Against the backdrop of economic erosion
we have a kind of social coalescence erupting violently in
search of a social means of living. Dacoity was really this.
7. Mashalchi means a person who carries maahal or light. On 10

December, 1802 the Supreme Court sentenced Byjoo Mussalchy to
death for committing robbery ( H. S. Bhatia, Origin & Development
of Legal & Political System in India Vol. II, p. 64 ).
,
8. Barkandazes taking to robbery was a common phenomenon. But

what is important is that retreiched barkandazes went to distant
places in search of jobs and committed robbery there. In 1791 a
group of barkandazea went to Coochbihar with the hope of getting
service in A^sam which was then in a state of civil war. They
assembled near the village Jogigopah. Lt. Purcel who commanded
the party of sepoys stationed there, went to them accompanied by
Bir Narain, the auzawal of Rangamati and ordered them to disperse
when these people immediately cut him and his Sezawal to pieces,
with their Swords' Revenue (
Judicial )
Prodgs.* Vol, 9, dated 8
July, 1791 : Letter from the Commissioner of Coochbihar 18 June,
1791.
In M>mensing same year a group of barkandazes laid waste
in the
the pargana of Shearpour. They were always reinforced by the

'Carribarry Zamindar. The Magistrate of Mymensing to the
Governor-General in Council, 4 May 1791 and 20 May, 1791, Rev.
( Jud. ) Prodgs (V 0 1. VIII). 13 May, 1791.
.
The magistrate appealed for reinforcements and expressed his desire

to expel all the Buxarries [
Barkandazes \
generally from those
Pergunnahs which border upon the Hills*'. The G* G. & his council
sanctioned reinforcements but turned down the second measure on
the ground that such a measure would involve the innocent with the
guilty [
ibid }. This shows that it was difficult to separate bandits
from the society at large so much so that no attempt towards their
expulsion was possible.
1
BANDITS AND Z AM INDABS 25
If this social collaboration was not there, banditry could

not have been interchangeable with professions in the field
or service in the army.
II. Leadership In Social Coalescence
In this background the one question we shall try to resolve
is : who gave the leadership in this social coalescence ?

Largely it was the zamindars and mostly those of them who
could not reconcile themselves to the Company's rule in
in Bengal. Some example are given below to make this point
clear.
As early as 1760 a report from Burdwan said, that the

zamindar intends to and that he has collected together
fight
10 or 15 thousand peons and robbers and take them into pay

and joined the Beerbhoom Rajah.* Peons 10 were armed
retinues of zamindars and nawabs and very often they took
to banditry. Thus it was a common practice with the peons
of Calcutta to go to Hugli and oppress people there. 1
The Burdwan Raja's hostility to the English was well
known. In 1759 the Rajas forces, seven or eight thousand
in number, tried to obstruct Mr. Hugh Watts who was in
Burdwan on the Companys errand. They engaged heavily
9. Rev. J. Long, Selections Nos. 504 & 507.

10. In the official literature of the time, both Mughal and English, we
come means peons and
across the term 'Oram Serenjammee' which
pykes Stationed in every village in the province to assist the fam er
in the collections and to watch the villages and the crops on the
ground, who are also responsible for all thefts within the village
they belonged to" Long. Op. Cit., No. 954.
VI. The faujdar of Hugli complained to the Governor that the peons
belonging to the Katcheri at Calcutta often went to Hugli and
( CPC Vol.
disturbed the inhabitants there. I No. 2157) Peons
went to Hugli on many an official errand. Thus in 1762 peons were
sent to Hugli and Chandernagar to entertain some bricklayers
[
ibid.. No. 1621 ]. Again in 1764 peons were sent as escorts of
some English gomactae there ibid. No. 2230 ].

(
12. Firminger, Fifth Report, p. 142.

with Lieutenant Browns detachment which was there to

support Watts. Since April, 1758, the English had been in
possession of lankhwahs or assignments of revenue in
Burdwan and Nadia. 12 The Raja of Burdwan did not like
this. In 1759 his forces tried to intercept revenue that was
being taken by the English to the Kutchery , 19 . Commen-
ting on the incident Watts wrote : I have intelligence
that the enemy were increased to 5000 strong, and preme-
ditated an open rupture, by seizing upon the treasure * 1
[ Italics ours ].
In 1761 the Rajas of Burdwan, Birbhum and the fanjda r

of Midnapur combined their forces and moved against the
English. They were joined by the faqira ,
1!t
In 1764 the
Governor informed the Nawab that one Mr. Rose, an English
gentleman, was travelling on a boat with some money and
goods. The boat people murdered him near Backergunge,
and carried away the money and goods, and took shelter
in the the zamindary of Seetaram. In order to enquire into
this affair I sent an Englishman to the said zamindar, but
he would not regard him. He requested the Nawab to write
an order to the Naib of Dacca to make the Zamindar refund
and to inflict such punishment on him as may prevent all such
proceedings in future. 16 A report of 1770 said that the
zamindora of Rangpur harboured dacoits there. 17 In 1771
13. Hugh Watts to Governor Holwell, 1759, quoted by Firminger, Fijth

Report pp. 142-143.
,
14. Ibid.
15. Long, Op . Cit. t No. 558.
16. Long, Op Cit Nos. 723, 725, 843.
, ,
17. John Grose to Becher, 20 April 1770, Rungpore District Records , e<L
by Firminger, Vol. 1, p. IV. One Hussain Reza Khan made encroach-
ments on the Government Lands under pretending of belonging to
his Jaghur ( Jagir ) at Lalvary Same to same ibid. The above
Lolbarry is, I am informed, a nuisance to the country, being a
respectable [ receptacle ? ]
for thieves../' Same to same, 23 June*
1770.
8
BANDITS AND ZAMINDABS 27
an English fleet of boats was carrying 16,000 maunds salt

near Dacca. They were intercepted and plundered midway.
It was later found that Joynarain Chouduri, Zamindar of
Selimabad, a man of substance did this in order to enrich
himself. 18
From Azmerygung, Mr. Richardson, the Companys

contractor for Chunam wrote to Thackery, the Supervisor in
Sylhet, on 20 April 1773 complaining of the frequent

interuptions that the chunam boats, in going and returning, met
with from the zamindars of different pergunnahs..... 1 On
one occasion Mr. Richardson sent his men to prevent such
situations but the zamindars beat his servants near Callejurie
in Dacca district. 30 Long before this in 1771 the
Controling Council of Revenue at Murshidabad wrote to the
Supervisor of Dinajpur that the zamindars obstruct the
Manufacturers in the Business of their Looms, deprive the
Gomashths [ of the Company ] of that Authority with which
they have always been invested over the immdiate Dependants
of their Factory, harrass those Dependents by exacting
arbitrary Demands over and above their lawful Rents and
by exercising in an oppressive manner their judicial
Authority over them; in cases of complaint. 21 One year

the two thanadars of a place called Dundeewa formed a
coalition with the Raja of that place, put great obstacles to
English works of chunam, stopped their boats, eighty in
number, which brought chunam and extracted money from
them. 22
IS. Prodgs of CC at Dacca
. Vol. IV, pp. 151-52 dated 24 Nov. 1772,
( )
from the attorneys of Claud Russel and also from C. C. to the:
Collector of Dacca.
9
19. Quoted by F. B. Bradley-Birt, Sylhet Thackeray, London, 1911,

p. 147.
20. Ibid
21. Controlling Council of Revenue at Murshidabad to the Supervisor of
Dinajpur, 7 March, 1771, Prodgs, of CCR at Murshidabad Vol. IV ), (
7 March, 1771.
22. James Oallaway to William Makepeace Thackeray, the Supervisor of
Svlhet, dated Sylhet, 26 June, 1772, Prodgs. of CO at Dacca, 10 OcA,
1772, [ p. 34 1.
In 1 772 it was reported that the zamindar of Baikanthapur

behaved so improperly, giving countenance to the Dakoits
who have greatly infested the district & treating with
disobedience & contempt the Authority of the regular
Government as to have unquestionably forfeited all calim to

23 In 1774 Hastings
the Compans Lenity and protection.
wrote I do not recollect to have heard the slightest
intimation of them (
dacoits )
from the zamindars, farmers or
other officers of revenue ;
which may appear extraordinary,
but that I am afraid, that the zamindars themselves too
frequently afford them protection. 24 In 1779 the
Companys government appointed a sazawal , Kishan Kinkar

Das, to investigate into the affairs of the zamindari of
Baikanthapur. He could not proceed there because the
zamindar set dacoits to kill him. 25 About the year 1788 faqir
raiders were moving in Jangipur in Murshidabad. An English
detachment was sent to crush them. The zamindars of Jangipur

and adjoining areas were asked to help the detachment. But
they refused. On this John Fendell, acting Collector of
Murshidabad, wrote : As unhappily upon these occasions, as
well as on most others the irregularity of the call for their (of
zamindars aid furnishes them with a plea to decline
)
giving it. 26 In the middle of 1783 a sensational robbery

took place in the English factory at Malda. Charles Grant
1772. In view of the

23. Prodgs of the CC at Rungpore, 23 December,
.
event that the zamindar harboured dacoits, the C. C. recommended

his dispossession. N. K. Sinha writes: His { Any zamindar*s)
lands were not sold for failure of rent and could only be forfeited
from
against the Govern-
two causes protection
of thieves and rebellion
ment.* Economic Bistory of Bengal ,

Vol, II, p. 4.
24. Prodgs of the 00. in Council , 19 April, 1774.

.
25. Richard Goodlad to the Council of Revenue, 24 July, 1774, Rangpore

Diet. Records Vol. I, e d. by Firminger, p. 99.
,
26. George Hatch to John Fendall, Acting Collector of Murshidabad,

30 Sept. 1788, Dinagepore Dist Records, ed. by Firminger p. 147.
Mr, Hatch wrote that these marauders ( the faqirs) meet with an
asylum from the zamindars". Ibid.
, 9
BANDITS AND ZAMINDARS 29
who was then the commercial Agent of the Comany there

pursued the matter and found that the whole thing was
organized by the zamindar of the place 37 In Jessore things .
were very serious for the Company. The zamindars,

worte the Supervisor of Jessore to the Resident at the
Durbar, have leagued, against me and furnish the Sardar
thieves with exact intelligence of all my motions, so
that whilst they are counselling me to attempt the seizure
of a fellow, thro' them he received the most punctual
information which not only defeats the capture but also
exposes the sepoys to his machinations . 28
III. Zamindars Were The Rallying Points

These instances show that the zemindars were the
invariable rallying points of the dacoits in rural Bengal.
Given that dacoity in this period was a broad social movement
it is clear that Zamindars were still capable of giving much
social leadership in Bengal, a point which was amply driven
home by Philip Francis 3 in all his criticism of Hastings
27. Tne incident has been narrated in Thomas Embree, Charles Grant and
British Rule in India Calumbia University Press, New York 1962, p.
92. Embree write* "The zamindars, (Charles) Grant was convinced,
:
not only failed to take any action against the gangs of bandits which
made life and property in the Malda area insecure, but in many
cases actually sheltered them and shared their plunder. A raid on
his factory at Jagganathpur in 1785 by a large number of bandits had
provided Grant with what seemed to him decisive proof of the
complicity of the zamindars with the robbers. Grant sent out his
own men what the Dinajpur Collector accusingly referred to as an
illegal private
army and captured fifty of the robbers. The raid.
Grant discovered, when he questioned the bandits, had been carried
out under the direction of a relative of the zamindar and the plunder
from the factory had been taken to the zamindars house** ibid.
Also Charles Grant to George Hatch, 20 ( month 1786, Dinagpore )
Disu Records , p. 14.

28. Letter Copy-Book of the Resident at the Darbat at Murshidabad , Vol.
II, p 7, R. Wilmot to Richard Becher, 29 August, 1 770.
29 . Ranajit Guha. A Rule of Property For Bengal , Mouton & Co.,

1963 , Ch. V. section 2. ", ..the landed aristocracy of Bengal had
still great potentialities of social leadership in them'' p. 109 .
2
administration. Zamindars rallied under them ryots >
faqirs 30 ,
sannyasis , peons, lelingas 9 sl pykes$ barJcandaze* 9
manjhis and men from all walks of life. They effected
conjunction with people from outside like the Marathas of the
3
west , the Bhutias of the north 33 and the Maghs of the
south 34 . There was a broad system of inter-district liaison
which the robbers could not have built unless they were
supported by the zamindars or more properly by the society
at large 840 , Thus the robbers of Calcutta operated mostly in
30. In 1779 xht jaqir leader,

Majnu Shah appealed to Rani Bhabani of
Natore lor help against the persecution by the English A. N.
Chandra, Op. <'U p. 18. ,
31. TeUntjas or tUingas were soldiers recruited from the Moplahs and
other Muslims, and Hindus from Mangalore and Tellicherri, Tamils

and Telegus R. C. Majumdar, Sepoy Mutiny Calcutta, 1963, p, 30. ,
Hitherto, most of the fighting the Company had done in Bengal and
Northern India had been primarily with sepoys brought from Madras
and even Bombay hence their name Tilangas* from the first Telegu
speaking troops brought by Clive in 1 756-5 7*'Abdul Majed Khan,
The Transition In liengal 17 56-1715 : A Study Of Muhammad Reza
Khan , p. 123. In 1760 Mir Jafar Khan, the Nawab informed the
English that three hundred telingas had run away to Birbhum and
joined the Raja's service there. About this time the Rajas of Burdwao
and Birbhum and th zfaujdar of Midnapur had leagued against the

Engiish Long Op. (lit., No. 497.
32. In 1760 the Nawab Mir Qasim, informed the English that the
,
Marathas with 2000 or 3000 horses had joined the Birbhum Raja and
the Burdwan znmmdar was acting in conjunction with them Long,
Op. (Jit No. 536,
33. Smaller zamindars of Kuchbihar and Rangpur joined the Bhutias
(Bhutanese). Prodgs. of CO at Rangpore 21 December, 1772.
34. Long, Op. (lit ., Nos. 24 & 276.
34a, In Murshidabad when the Faqir leader Pharagul Saw [ Shah ] was
ill, one Keinoo Dewan an inhabitant of the village of Gheedusah
t
in pargana Canehun Musseeda took care of him and gave him shelter.
As the English army came to arrest Pharagul, he helped him to escape

into the jungle [ G. Hatch to Fendall, Acting Magistrate,
Murshidabad, 20th Oct., 1788, Linage Dist Reods ., Vol. I, p. 161 ]. .
This incident on the eve of the Decennial Settlement stands

in contradistinction to Kantu Babus giving shelter to Hastings in
Qasimbazar during Sirajuddaullahs invasion of the place in 1756.
Hugli and Midnapur 36 while those of Hugli went to Burdwan

and Birbhum 36 . In should be noted that all plunders in
Burdwan were committed mostly by three sets of people, by
those who moved from Calcutta, by those who came from
Birbhum and by those who went from Hugli. It was widely
suspected that the faujdar of Hugli and the Baja of Birbhum
were involved. Similarly, from the Sunderbans and Jessore
35. This does not mean that robbers did not operate in Calcutta. Calcutta
was much harassed by robbers. We learn from the letter of the
Court of Directors dated 3rd March, 1758 (para 172) that Calcutta
was vulnerable on the riverside so that the Court recommended the
appointment of an European guard with an Ensign to patrol
constantly from ten at night to five in the morning. In 1760 the
faujdar of Midnapur complained to the Governor that the entire
road from Midnapur to Calcutta was beset with highwaymen and he
dared not go out lest he should be killed by them. This statement
of the faujdar the ruler of a military
, district, is significant (C P C. 9
1,No. 635). Thus the entire area between Calcutta and Midnapur
was under the control of bandits. Similarly neither the Company
nor the Nizamat had full control over the tract between Hugli and
Calcutta. Peons and chobdars freely moved between the two
cities without any concern for the respective authorities (C.P.C., I,
Nos. 1932, 2157). The kotwal# had no control over thieves and
robbers and the Companys administration suspected otherwise.
Thus the Kotwal of Chandernagore was called back by the Governor
and sent to the faujdar of Hugli with the instruction to the latter that
he (the Kotwal) may be severely reprimanded {C.P.C., 1, No. 2159).
From Jessore Babu Ram, the naib of the zamindar of Jessore,
complained that peons and sepoys of Calcutta Katcheri created 1
violence there (C.P.C., 11, No. 1111). It was these men who took to
robbery. The Raja of Burdwan complained that the troops of Major
White often took to robbery {C.P.C. 1, No. 701), Telingas commi-
t
tting robbery was a common phenomenon. The faujdar of Midnapur

would not suppress robbers because these men gave him a defence
against the English. The faujdar of Hugli would silently bear the
violence caused by the peons of Calcutta because he himself sent
men to Burdwan (Long, Op. Cit. No. 683). Zamindars of Jessore
t
were themselves in league with the robbers. Given this system of

patronage, robbers built zonal arrangements. Otherwise what
meaning was there in robbers moving from the Sunderbans to
Lakhipur or Bakherganj (Long, Op. Cit. t No. 775) or from Hugli to
Burdwan (Long, Op. Cit No. 663) r
36. Vide 35.
,
moved to Bakherganj. From Rajmahal and Malda

dacoits
they moved to Rangpur, Dinajpur and Purnea.* 7 From
Lakhipur they went to Dacca.* 8 Everywhere their movement
was organized by the zamindars. By doing this the zamindars
got two obvious behefits. First, those who sponsored the
robbers enriched themselves with the spoils of plunder. Consi-
dering the terrible fiscal squeeze of the State under which they
reeled, this seemed to be quite an obvious tendency among
the impoverished gentry. Secondly, those zamindars in whose
jurisdiction the robbery was committed could claim exemption
from payment of the stipulated revenue. 30 Thus it was the
standing complaint of the Raja of Burdwan that his subjects
were oppressed by people coming from outside so much
so that they had no money to meet the demand of the
State. 40 The Magistrate of Mymensing wrote to the
Governor-General in Council on 5 September 1790? The
principal Zamindars of this Collectorship having in a body
complained of the losses and inconvenience which they daily
sustain from the numerous bands of dacoits who infest the
District, and earnestly requested I would solicit the
interposition of your Lordship to suppress their depredation*
I beg leave to recommend, as a necessary measure to effect
this purpose, an establishment of four large Boats of a

Construction similar to those used by Dacoits themselves... 41
37. This was another z me, the northern zone so to say, as distinct from
the Hugli-Midnapure-Jessor e-Calcutta zone of the Bengal robbers.
38. Robbers converged on Dacca from Mymensing, Sylhet, Chittagong
and Lakhipur (Noakhali). These districts formed the eastern zone
of robbers.
39. Banditry was an important factor causing a loss of revenue to the
Company. The story of fiscal interception by bandits is yet to be
studied
40. During the early years of the Companys Rule in Bengal the problem
of banditry was mixed up with the problem of general loot and
plunder perpetrated by.peons, sepoys etc.
41 . Rev.( Jud ,)
Prodge Vol.ll, Part I, The Magistrate of Mymensing to
C.G. in Council, 5th Sept. 1790
The same record states that the dacoits were harboured by

"many Petty Zamindars who participate in their booty.
The record continues : A large Body of upward of two
hundred who have long had. their pursuits in the Creeks &
Rivers leading from the Barrampooter (Brahmaputra) to the
Hills are represented as Particularly troublesome : They are
composed of Vagrants from all parts of the Dacca Province &
carry their Predatory excursions even to the Robbing &
laying whole villages under Contribution. In fact the entire
region between Lakhipur and Mymensing including Dacca
in eastern Bengal was infested with robbers who were
organized by petty talukdars and zamindars. Their immediate
gain was a share in the robbers booty and their remote aim
was to secure an exemption from payment of revenue. The
record mentioned above and also the proceedings of the
Governor-General in Council dated 23 July, 1790 clearly
state that the dacoits of Lakhipur received the protection of
the zamindari. Again from the proceedings of 8 September
1790 we come to learn that Muhammed Murad, a talukdar of
that region committed depredations. Similarly one Ram Saran
Nag, a talukdar of Bullwa [Bhulua] in Dacca, took to brigan-
dage. These talukdars and zamindars organized the brigands of
the whole region. About 1790 in Mymensing the depredations
of Imamdee and his son Raja Mandal caused terror to the
Company. The centre of their activities was a place called
Bazoo or Bazi. They set up a system of plunder over a vast
area. They were all harboured and protected by Zulkunder
Khan, the zaminder of Bazoo. On one occasion they
travelled on sixteen and seventeen boats for two da) s
against the stream to plunder the house of a rich man at

Rajearpara in the pargana of Soohair. They were helped by
the Naib Collector, by the Zamindars Chowdries and the
Berkandosses and slaves of the Zamindar. 4 * They were the
42. Rev. (Jud.\ Prodgs., Vol. 1, Part 1 : Miller from Sylhet to C. H.
Burlow, Sub-Secretary, Rev. Dept,, Fort William 8 August, 1790.
3
terror of the Eastern Provinces for these last two years

beaded by the Naib Collector, by the Zamindars Chowdries
etc.
4 * Mr. Henry Scott, Resident at Lakhipnr, wrote on
12 June, 1790 : I have always been inclined to think that

the Zamindars are the abettors and Protectors of these
depredations. 44 He added These robberies in general have
been committed by people not resident or under the
authority of the Zamindars of the District where the persons
are plundered.
In 1799 there was an outstanding case of robbery in
pargana Beercool in Midnapore. On 3 December of that year
about one hundred men the dependants of Raja BuIIub Bhooya

Zamindar of the nine anna division of Pargunnah Beercool,
under the immediate direction of his brother Radha Bullub
Baboo, a most ferocious, necessitous and lawless young man
and in conjunction with a party from a neighbouring Maratha
Pergunnah called Jamkoondah beset the salt cutchery at
Beercool and having secured the Mohrir and Chokeydars

plundered it of everything valuable and then set it on fire.
The public money alleged to have been carried of is Rs.
1800.**
Thus the shelter of zamindars and inter-district liaison
among the robbers were the two important features of
banditry in Bengal. That implied two things. First, the
Dacoits of one district could move into the other because
their brethren did not operate there leaving the field unoccupied
for the in-migrating robbers. Secondly, the zamindars
tolerated the fact of their district being plundered by those
of others. Thus while the Rajas of Burdwan and Birbhum and
43. Ibid.
44. Rev. {Jud.) Prodgs., Vol. 11, Part 1, 8 Sept., 1790.

45. Mr. Chapman to the Secretary to the Salt Department, Fort William,
7 December, 1790 and 17 December, 1790, Midnapore Salt Papers,
pp, 118-119.
B AUDITS AMD ZAMINDARS 35
'the favjdar of Midnapur leagued among themselves, 46 they

would never mind when one of them plundered the territory
of the other. 4 * Again, the faujdar of Midnapur tolerated

the bandits of his district because with the help of such men
he couid thwart the pressure of the Company operating from
Calcutta. 47 It should be noted that most of the armed
-retainers of the zamindars about this time took to banditry.
-One reason, as mentioned earlier, was that they were so
heavily squeezed by the Companys administration that they
had no money to pay them. One of the most important
politico-economic questions of the time was the arrear in the
pay of the zamindari troops. 48 By way of compensation
-the zamindars would permit those men to live on rampant
plunder, not in their own districts but in the districts of others.
'Why 7 First, because the zamindars wanted to escape direct

censure from the Companys government and secondly they
had to reserve their territories as areas where they and their
own amlas could levy contributions. In 1789 the Board of

'.Revenue while deliberating on the condition of Birbhum
made the following observation : The District itself is in
great want of Regulation and Order. It is at present in

great confusion. Robberies and Murders happen frequently.
This is partly owing to its jungly situation, but arisen in my
46 . The Rajas of Burdwan, Birbhum and Bishnupur and the faujdar of
Midnapur formed a coalition against: the Englishand the puppet
Nawabi rule in Bengal . Probably they were joired by Nandakumar.
They wanted to rally under the roaming prince Ali Gauhar who
later became Emperor Shah Alam II. See Seir-ul-Mutalcherin, II,
p, 346 K. K. Datta, Shah Alam lid? The East India Company
; .
p. 11 ;
Long. Op. Cit. $ Nos. 496, 497, 501, 503, 504, 506, 507, 512,
516, 519, 533, 534, 537, 539, 553, 558.

*4 6a. Long, Op t Cit.> No. 490.
47. C.P. C 1, No. No. 635.
*
*48. Another principal cause of the frequent revolutions in this country
is, their strange error in the government of their armies. ...Their
whole force is divided into great commands, and the pay is issued
from the treasary to the respective generals ; hence the soldiers
^
36 SOCIAL BANDETBY IN BENGAL
[ the Collector of Birbhum, Mr.' Roley'a ] opinion more from

want of Exertion and proper Attention on the part of thcr
Zaminder*aa of all the Different Denominations of Officer*

and Servants employed under Him who are without any
sort of Control and act and levy contributions from the*
Country as they think proper/ 49 Occasionally the weaker

section of these amlas leagued with the bandits. Sometimes
the zemindar*, the talukdars , the chavdhuries of ^different
parganaa combined to plunder other zamindurs. Thus in*
1771 the zdminder of Shaiteh sent an a rzee to the government

stating that Ram Shankar Bakshi the naib of Chandradwip,.
Shyamram Chakravarti, the gomaata of Ram Durlab Talukdar
Sitaram Datta, the gomava of Kishanram Chaudhuri of the
pargma ofRatandi in Kalikapur and Amam-ul-Din Chaudhuri
of Nazirpur brought a large force of barkandaze and 5 to 6
thousand coolies and plundered the crops of his district. 5 *
This is a case of mitt-paxgana coalition in banditry. In any
regard only the men from wiiom they receive their pay, and are
entirely at his Emperor's or SubahS
devotion, except indeed the
bodyguard, which he pays himself, and he only endeavours to keep a
kind of balance of power among these great officers he does not :
study to attach the whole to him, but only a majority, the rest he
awes with his power, and makes them fight from fear ; and what is
more extraordinary he keeps his troops greatly in arrear, from a

mistaken notion, that they will be "true to him, from the fear of
losing their pay ;
the consequence is that if the invader offers fair,
he wins over the general officers to him, and a revolution is at

once effected ; or else they refuse to take the field, till their arrears
are piid and perhaps the treasury is too low to satisfy them and
; ;
by this delay, the enemy have time to gather strength Scrafion,

M
"Reflections on the Government etc ., of Indostan c tc. 1763, reprinted
under the title A History of Bengal before and after the Plassey 1739-
1158). Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay. 1975, pp. 29-30.
49. The collector of Birbhum to the Board of Revenue, 7 March,

1786, Prodgs . of Board of Revenue , 7 June, 1786.
50. Prodg*. ofCCR t Vol. IV, 21 February, 1771. In
1786 two Sarkara y
one Jamadar one sepoy and two chaprasaies, declaring that they
,
were the servants of Mr. Robert Holme, the Collector of- Hugli,
forcibly occupied a Customs House of the Government in Hugh*
.
BANDITS AND ZAMXNDABS 37
case such coalitions did always exist in Bengal either at the

pargana or at the district level. The leadership of such
coalition came from the zamindars while the spearhead in
almost all actions were the disbanded forces of the zamindars

or those on the regular rolls of the zamindar's army who
suffered from their pay being in arrears. In cases where the
disgruntled soldiers did not commit robbery directly they
helped robbers by their own withdrawal. A dacoit leader
named Jeebna became very powerful in the parganas of
Sherghar and Senpahari in Burdwan about 1788. That year
forty of the Raja's pykee were sent out with twenty of the
factory sepoys to apprehend Jeebna. At the first engagement
the pykes withdrew and for want of pay returned to
Burdwan, and if it had not been for the subsequent
assistance sent by Mr. Leslie, Magistrate of Ramgur,
it is
probable the whole of our Sepoys would have been cut off
and Jeebna never taken. 1 Such incidents were not rate.
The Company had a fairly clear idea about the alliance of

faujdare, zamindars, pykes and the robbers. That is why
they gradually developed the system of recruiting sepoys in
the military service of the Company through tahsildars. In

the second half of the eighteenth century these tahsildars
Were appointed by Company to take control
the of the
zamindars or their zamindaris. Many of the Calcutta banians
were during this period appointed tahsildars in many

**mindkris of Bengal
The Ohuats and the Samyasis give us the most unique
picture of inter-district alliance of bandits. It should be
[
Charles Coates. Collector of Govt. Customs to Robert Hohne,
Hugli, 16Juoe, 1786, Prodga. BOR 28 June, 1786 ]. Thus union of
people of different grades and ranks was very common in the second
half of the eighteenth century.

31, Letter of Thomas Brooke, Acting Collector of Burdwan, 30 Septem*
her, 1788. The early Oolleetorate Records of Burdwan, ITS 6- 1790,
BPP Vol. VI, No. 13. Oct.Dec, 1910 p. 235.
38 SOCIAL BANDITS? IN BSNOAL
noted that Chuars, who are invariably called robbers in most'

of the official records of the Company, were truly ryots.
This has been shown in the previous chapter. In a letter
to Verelst dated 20 December, 1769 Vansttart wrote : A.

great number of Chuars (aborigines who are similar to the
Mulunghees) inhabiting the bills in our Western Jungles-
having in conjunction with considerable bodies from the
adjacent districts, invaded the pergunnas of Burraboom and*
Gatseela. 82 Again Vanisittart wrote to James Alexander,
Collector-General 24 January, 1769 : They (
zamindars of
Midnapur) suffered their country to go almost entire ruin,
and the neighbouring Pergunnahs were much infested with
the robberies of their Chuhars. 5 * Their Chuars meaning;
zamindars men is a significant expression here. They
practised robbery in the neighbouring districts and not in
their own. In a letter dated 30 May, 1773 J.Forbes wrote to-
Samuel Lewis : The Riots of Heldeapoca 54 bear no pro-

portion to the Chuars who pay little or nothing and oblige-
the others to enter into any measure they please. The Chuars-
are under three Sedars ( sardars ) Caallapeter [ Kalapatra ?
Mohansing & Lukin Degwar. I ordered them to pay what

was customary : they told me they were fighting men ft no
riots, that they had never paid any rents but were always
ready to fight when called on. I then desired them to bring,
me 1000 Chuars to reduce the Dump ( ..... ) they could not
think of doing that as they were the same Caste viz. Bumige
[Bhumijy** This is clearly a case of non-co-operation with
the Companys government. The Chuars would not fight:

against their own zamindars and that was one reason why the
English found it so dfficult to subdue the zamindars of
52. Midnapur Diet. Records, ed. by Pirminger, Vol. II, p. 130
53. Ibid
54. It may be Holdiapukur which occurs frequently in Midnapur
Records of the time.
55. Vide 51.
a s
BANDITS AND ZAMINDARS 39
Midnapur. The banditry of the Chuara must be viewed in
the background of the resistance offered to the English by

the favjdar of Midnapur, the Raja of Kasijore and the
zamindara of Jangal Mahal . From recent researches we learn
that in Midnapur the pylces of Dompara headed by Mangovin,
the zamindar of Silda, committed depredations. Such
depredations have been viewed in the background of the
general resistance of the frontier zamindara vis-a-vis the
Company .
64 In this at least we get an untold political
aspect of the phenomenon of banditry in Bengal.
VI. No Revolt
From the above it will be wrong to conclude that banditry

in Bengal was essentially directed against the English.
Certainly the zamindar and their followers who took to
banditry were moved in most cases by an anti- British
sentiment and they attacked the officers of the Company,

private English men, the English factories, the treasures of
the Company and as a matter of fact anything connected
with the English. But that is not the whole of it. Banditry
in Bengal was an organised system, an organised social
and political terror which served two purposes. First,
it nutralised to some extent the political terror of the

Company. Secondly it cut short the Companys plunder of the
countrys interior resources. This is broadly speaking the
politics and economics of banditry in Bengal. Peasants,
becoming bandits, went outside the common routine of
labour while zamindar turning robbers went out of the imme-
diate range of political control. Such peasants could hunt
down the hidden treasure of the society which had already
been intercepted at different levels and concentrated in
different comers of the society. Zamindara who liberated
56. Binod S. Dai Civil Rebellion In the Frontier Bengal ( 17 $0-1 SOS ) :
Calcutta, 1973, pp. 62-63.

themselves from rthe immediate political control of the

Government could find a new vocation in leading these rural
toughs and utilising them towards their awn ends of
political autonomy 'and economic solvency. The combined
effect- of this is the emergence of a social 'Violence which is
neither a revolt nor a revolution. Rural , Bengal in the

eighteenth century was too passive to throw up any revolt on
a large soeial scale and a revolution was out of question
in the context of the time. The hang-over of a rank-ridden
society which grew up during the preceding two centuries
was too heavy to permit one particular class to take the
initiative of revolt. What we have therefore in the face of
a common emaciation and general breakdown is a common
union of all shades of people under the leadership of the only
dynamic element of the society, the zamindars. The political
tyranny of the early English rule, resented so much by Mir
Qasim and Mir Jafar and regretted by Indian and English
historians of the time alike, fostered this spirit of union.
The
actual bonds of coalescence were derived from the elements
of rural attachment of old village society.
Bandits in Bengal in the second half of the eighteenth
century were political resenters and social terrorists. They
were not underworld creatures prone to habitual crime.
Peasants were not backwoodsmen and zamindars were nbt
barons. They jointly set up a terror that counterbalanced
the misrule of the Company. They were also expropriators
in so far as they hunted down the wealth of the society
accumulated in the hands ot rich merchants and the
English. Banditry in Bengal thus satisfied a double passion
hatred against the aliens and class hatred. Out of this grew
the legend of Bhabani Pathak and Devi Chaudhurani.
Bandits Were hot invididually outlaws but collectively they
built up Outlaw formations battling against the entire pow^r
of the state. In any case they were never antisocial and
nevej did they operate outside the margins of the Society,
At least under a union of zemindars and peasants banditry

became a method of Social assertion vis-a-vis alien
impingement. Viewed from this standpoint banditry was

broadly anti-foreign and narrowly anti-English. In the
disorganized milieu of Bengal in the eighteenth century bandi-
try was the only organised and persistent mobilisation of the
spirit of social protest and political resentment available

all over the country and engulfing the whole of the nation.
This is the utmost point to which we can stretch the pheno-
menon of banditry along the line of national resistance
without directly incorporating it in the story of our freedom

movement at large.
CHAPTERID
MOTIVES OF BANDITRY
I. Opposition to British Role
Curious enough, results of a continuous observation*

and enquiry coincide in this fact : That all bandits are pro-
pertyless and they are unemployed . 1 In other words they
are rootless. This rootlessness makes bandits most slippery
as a target. The Sannyasis, the Faqirs, the Chuar8, the
retrenched pykes and barkandazes of the zamindar, faujdare
and the Natoab formed a rootless mass of paupers who
adjusted with the ruling top in an antithetical balance of
terror. From the impoverishing zamindars to the vast mass
of waning ryots there was a flexible society which could be
used both as a base of action and a rear area for defence.
This point is often missed and we grow with the most erro-
neous idea driven home by the apologists of imperialism
that banditry in Bengal in the second half of the eighteenth
century was a symptom of lawlessness which raised its heads

on the breakdown of the Mughal empire in this part of the
country. It is against this background that the police and'
judicial reforms of Hastings and Cornwallis are praised as
efforts towards relieving the country from anarchy. The
standpoint of lawlessness is a vulgar approach to the real
Indian situation prevalent at this time. After the battle of
Plassey the Indian society looked at the British rule from any
point between non-acceptance on the one hand and opposi-
tion and resistance on the other. The British pride of
conquest at the top was always contained within reports of
non- acceptance and resistance from the fields. As early as
1. An economic interpretation of the increase of bandits in China" by

J.Usang Ly, in Journal of Race Development 8, 1917-18, p. 370 quoted
by E. J. Hobsbawm, Bandits, p. 83

MOTIVES OF BANDITRY 45
1767 when the notorious Ghatseela zamindar was reduced

John Fergusson wrote to Graham :
Our Midnapore zamindars all say that they would

not take a present of the country, so that there is
only one other alternative*of levelling the fort and

burning and destroying his contry in terror to our
other new subjects. 2
Five years later when Thackeray went to Sylhet he

found that the British prospect there was made bleak by
the opposition of the most powerful zamindar and thanadar
there. 8 The union of the faujdar of Midnapur and the
Rajas Burdwan and Birbhum against the English in 1759-60,4
the league between the zamindars and the bandits in Jessore
5
against the English agent there, the opposition of the
faujdar of Rangamati 6 and the revolt of the zamindar of
7
Sandwip and the ryots of Rangpur during the time of Devi
Sing 8 may be taken as real pointers to the Indian attitude
2. John Furgusson to Graham, 22 March, 1767, Midnapur District

Records , Vol. I, p. 125.
3. The zamindar was Md. Reza who in league with the thanadar of
Pandua put great obstacles to the British trade of Chunam. Thackeray
to the committee of Circuit at Dacca, 25 Fept., 1772, Prodgs. of CC at
Dacca (Vol. IV), 10 Oct., 1772.
4. Long, Selections^ Nos. 506, 507, 534, 537 ; (7.P.C., I, Nos. 397, 521,
596, 577, 604, 391, 431, Seir-uUMutakherin (Vol. II, p. 346 ) savs that
the Raja of Bi&hnupur agreed to assist the roaming Prince Alt Gauhar
(future Emperor Shah Alam II) who was in Bihar about this time
rallying the above-mentioned zamindars was widely believed that
. It
Maharaja Nanda Kumar had a stake in this move.
5. The Zamindars have leagued against me and furnish the Sardar
thieves with exact intelligence of all my motions... Wilmot,
Supervisor of Jessore to Richard Becher, Resident at the Durbar,
29 Aug., 1770, Letter Copy-Book of the Resident at the Durbar at
Murshidabad Vol, If, p. 7. Srikanta Roy, zamindar of Yusufpur,
,
effected a junction with Chiefs of Robbers* like Aboa Prodgs. of

CCR at Murshihabod 23 January, 1772, Arzee of Poraun Kissen Sing.
,
6. The faujdar was dislodged and the diwan was given the appointment

of a faujdar C.P.C., I, No. 1697.
7. The whole story appears in the Board of Revenue Prodgs, Vol. 10.
8. Ior Rangpur uprising see Narahari Kaviraj, A Peasant Uprising in
Bengali 1783, and Ntkhilnath Ray, Murshidabad Kahini, 1978
reprint, Calcutta, chapter on Devi Sing.
0
to sl iw fult in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Banditry grew with the general discontent within the Society
and not as an off-shoot of the breakdown of law and order
in the country.
II. Was Banditry A Sign of Lawlessness or Rebellion ?
The proposition that banditry was a sign of lawlessness

breaks on the rock of reason. In settled areas like Calcutta
and Murshidabad which were garrison towns banditry was
,
not absent. 8 As early as 1758 plans were being laid put

to organize a militia in Calcutta 1
and to increase the night
guards there. 11 Eight years later Md. Reza Khan was
accused of being inactive at Murshidabad in the matter of
suppressing bandits. 18 Report from almost every district
converged to Calcutta that the number of bandits at times
swelled at places to a few thousands. 1 *
The picture of
famine or flood could not be easily brought in to explain
9. See Busteed, Echoes from Old Calcutta.

10. In 1757 a group of private Europeans appealed to the Companvs
authorities in Calcutta soliciting permission toform a militia which
would be called Patriot Band* in contradistinction to the regular
Companies of all Battalions Long, Selections, No. 256.
1 1. Long, Selections, No. 306. The town Kotwal was removed and in his
place a Major was to take charge of 500 Europeans and 500 sepovs in
the garrison and was to supervise the town police. This led to the
retrenchment of quite a goodfnumber of pyhes and buxies in the town.
In their letter of 3 March, 1 758 the Court of Directors instructed the
,
Calcutta authorities to take particular care. on the river side and all
entrances to the town.
12. C.P.C ., I,No. 2776. When Md. Reza Khan came to Calcutta in 1766
Verelst had a long talk with him concerning banditry. Reza Khan
promised to take proper measures against them as soon as he returned
3
to Murshidabad. This time the activities of bandits exceeded all
bounds. Verelst directed Reza Khan to address himself to this
business with all alacrity.
13. In 1773 about seven to eight thousand sannyasis were operating' in

Midnapur Steward Fecy to Edward Bajber, 4 Fib., 1773/ Midnapur
Diet. Records , Vol. Ill, p. 55.

motjvbb o* banditby 45
this rise in the number pf bandits. 14 Jhe numerical .vastness

of bandits bears out a demographic, angle from which one
can encounter the cry of lawlessness. A few thousand
aanniyasi# taking to banditry 1
a zamindar with about the
Same number of followers looting the the gtaifrfields, 16 a
combined group of amlas and bandits undertaking a two or
three days journey by boat to 1
commit robbery/ 7 retrenched
barkandazes harrowing the countrysides, V 8 manjhis or
boatmen killing Englishmen whenever they got opportunity 19
suggest asocial violence the type of which cannot goby
thename of banditry. Bandits do not exist by thousands.
Where they do exist they cease to be bandits. If there is an
example that 30Q men fell upon a merchant's house at mid-
4 0
day and robbed him of his wealth 2
are we to say that those
14. )uring ih~ worst time of famine except one or two stray cases here
and* there no plundering, murder or firing of villages took place...
N.G. Chaudhuri, Cartier , Governor of Bengal alcutta, 1970, p. 78. ,
Banditry increased towards the end of 1770 when the famipe was
almost over. The Government was discredited for the increase of
banditry in 1766 (C.P.C., I, No. 2776) and not in 1770.
T
15. Vide 13. A$ late as 1 90 reports came fiom, Mymensirig that a
Sannyasi Sardar there was operating with 150 adherents. His base
was at a village called Row ally in the Pargana of Caugmarry
Magistrate at Mymensing to G. G. in Council, Rev . ( Jud .) Prodgs.
8 October, 1790.
16. In 1771 the zamindar of Shaisteh complained to the Controlling
Council at Murshidabad that the naibs and gomanas of some
zamindar8 and taluqdars mustered a large force of barkandazes and
five to sx thousand coolies and plundered the crops of his territory
Arjee of the zamindar of Shaisteh, Prodgs . CCR (Vol. IV), 21 Ftb.,
1771.
17. Miller to Burlow, Sub-Secretary, Revenue Deptt., Fort Willian, dated
Sylhet,:# Aug. 1790, Rev. (Jud.) Prodgs Vol. , I.
18. The retrenched barkandazes went to Assam in se irch of job. En route

to Assam *hey devasted the countryside. The invasion of barkandazes
from Bengal is an important event in the history of Assam in the
eighteenth century.
19. tong. Selections , 843.
20. The Colleector of Btrbhum to Fort William Council, 30 Sept., 1797,
Rev. {Jud) Prodgs Vol. I
wo did it were bandits ? Yet in official records they were

called dacoits and this is the impression which is carried
over generation after generation. Is not mass robbery an
aspect of multiple social mobilization which was normal in
the context of eighteenth century Bengal ? Banditry i*
sustained by its own motive, the motive of loot for individual

sustenance or the sustenance of a group. But where banditry
becomes a means of social sustenance practised in common by
a multitude involving the rural folk of a village or a part of
a pargana, the idea of loot ceases to be an anti-social end and
reflects a pattern of class behaviour in a changing economic
condition where appropriation of wealth is not balanced
by proper redistribution. True, a Majnu in Dinajpur or
Jebna in Burdwan, the recognized dacoit-leaders of British
records, were not the tools of a conscious society which
could redress this economic malady but at the same
time they were not backwoodsmen who fettered the rural
destitutes and formed a world outside the society of law-

abidings subjects. These men mustered substantial followers
and rallied round zemindars, small and big, like Jagannath

Dhal of Ghatseela, Darpadev of Baikanthapur, or the Rajas
of Birbum, Bishnupur and Burdwan, some of whom were
given in official records the derogatory title of Robber-
Chief. Lawlessness was the dignified official expression
behind which the administration could comfortably hide its
hopelessness against a surging community which was often at

arms whenever it had chance to be so. In India examples
were not lacking where the presence of armed bands implied
a kind of social rebllion rather than law-breaking. 91 To
21. The great Land-haura estate of the Gujars was broken up in

1813. Eleven > ears later, when times were hard,
in the countryside
*the bolder Saharanpur sooner than starve, banded
spirits' in
themselves together under a brigand chief named Kailua*, a
local Gujar and engaged in banditry on either side of the Ganges,
robbing banias (the trading and tnoneylending caste), travellers
MOTIVES OF BANDITBY 47
"what extent such rebellion aime4 at overthrowing foreign

yoke it is difficult to say. 2 2 But certainly it aimed at sweeping
-away the machinery oppression. Banditry by itself is not
a revolutionary movement. But if revolutionary situation
-does exist in a country banditry becomes a point of its

-expression. 2 * In India bendits were given official appoint-
ments although they lived in marginal outlawry. 34 Armed
and inhabitants of Dehra Dun. The motives of the dacoits\

observes the Gazetteer, were perhaps not so much mere plunder
as the desire of the return to the old lawless way of living,
unencumbered by the regulations of superior authority. In short,
the presence of armed bands implied rebellion rather than mere law-

breaking H. J. Hobsbawm, Op. Cit ., p. 100. Hobsbawm quotes
from District Gazetteers of the United Provinces Allahabad, 1911 ,
Vol. I, p. 185.
22, Bandits elsewhere in India often entertained such missions. Kailua

(Vide 21) allied himself with an important taluqdar aud styled himself
as Raja Kalyan Sing demanding tributes from surrounding areas.
His declared mission was to overthrow the foreign yoke ibid.
23- This happened in China and Mexico :
How could China be saved j The young Mao's answer was, Imitate
the heroes of Liang Shan o', i.c. the free bandit-guerrillas of the
Water Margin novel. What is more, he systematically recruited them
., ..In 1929 the bulk of Maos Red Army seems to have been composed
of such declassed elements (to use his own classification soldiers,
bandits, robbers, beggars and prostitures). Who was likely to run
the risk of joining an outlaw formation in those days except outlaws 7
These people flight most courageously, Mao

had observed a few
years earlier. When led in a just manner, they can become a
revolutionary force
The great Pancho Villa was recruited by Maderos man in the
Mexican Revolution, and became a formidable general of the
revolutionary armies. Perhaps of all professional bandits in the
western world, he was the one with the most distinguished revolu-
tionary career Hobsbawm, Op.Cit. t pp. 106 & 105.
24. Gajraj, a chief of the Badhak dacoits operating around Gowallior
in the 1 830s became so formidable that the Durbar appointed him to
keep the ghats or ferries over Chambal-Hobsbawn, Op. Cit. p. 90. t
Percival Spear speaks of the Gosains under Himmat Bahadur who

served Mahadji Sindia, and the Dadupanthis in the service of Jaipur
The Oxford History of India Third Edition, p. 576. In the like way
,
the Snnnywn* and Faqirs were employed by the Rajas of Burdwan

and Birbhum. In Bengal village watchmen were also employed from
among dacoits.
4ft SOCIAL BANDITRY IN BENGAL
band! with local knowledge are placated by official circlet
not because they are toughs and hence uncontrollable but

because they are successful in creating the most effective
system! of social liaison on the one hand and resistance

on the other. Bandits ofjessore living in league with the
2amindara vis-a-vis the English Supervisor and those in
Burdwan manning the forces of the Raja are examples of
these two complementary dimensions of bandits.
ID. The Logic of Zamlndar-Bandlt Coalition

In any case social and economical distress is the perennial
spring of bandits. This was all the more true for Bengal
in the second half of the eighteenth century. Ironically
this point remains unappreciated in official records. Not
that the core of the administration was unaware of it, but
that emphasis was laid elsewhere. On 19 April, 1772
Hastings wrote about the resumption of the Chakeraun
Zemmen or lands allotted to the Tannadars and Pykes for
their service in guarding the villages and larger districts
against robbers. What about the retrenchment of the

amlai and the resumption of their perquisites 7 It was
these amlas who gave the militant ryots and retrenched pykes
and harkandazes the much required leadership and integrated
them into a political system. Then there remained the
distressed zamindars, the indispensible points around whom
armed bands could coalesce. Destitution admits no logic and
the logic of force was pressed to the point where it became
difficult for the administration to tackle it The violence
thus caused by pauperization was organized for short-term
ends as efforts to solve immediate problems against narrow
perspectives and within localized limits.
IV. The Perspective of Zamlndar>Bandit Coalition
The zamindars of Jessore who leagued with bandits and
the zamindars of Burdwan, Birbhum or Baikanthapur who

,
knowing that bandits were but the fighting men of the

countryside had either harboured them irregularly or recruited
them in their regular army did not unite their efforts in a
programme of long-term action. The baronial coalition
which is so common in western political studies was absent
in Bengal. In the absence of that we have this typical
bandit-zamindar coalition which was effective only as an
instrument of terror which perpetually lacked the internal
motivation towards creating superstructural and infrastructural
changes. Towards the end of feudalism in Europe in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when banditry became

rampant in Europe it was the knights who entirely took upon
themselves the risk of brigandage .- 5 The Indian model
which we have in Bengal in the second half of the eighteenth
century differed entirely from this for here there was an
increasing tendency on the part of zamindars to hire the
service of the rustic and rugged fighters so that what we get
at this time is the ascendancy in the society of paid violence.
Violence in the society took concretely creative shape only
when zamindara took leave of the fighting men of the lower
25. "The result (of the general crisis which befell Europe in the beginning
of the fourteenth century) was a decline in seigneurial revenues, which
in its turn unleasheed an upprecedented wave of warfare as knights
everywhere tried to recoup their fortunes with plunder. In Germany
and Italy, this quest for booty in a time of dearth produced the
phenomenon of unorganized and anarchic banditry by individual
lords..* Perry Anderson, Passages From Antiquity to Feudalism
London, 1974, P. 200. In Bengal we do not see individual zamindara
takiig of their won to bandity. Retrenched pykea and barkandagea,
chuar ryots, faqirs and sanniyasis, lower amlas , manjhis and dandia
\
(boatmen) etc. were the people who took to banditry. Zamindara

and their immediate amlas, naibs and ckoudhuris offered them shelter
and support and sometimes straight leadership in adventures. On
the one hand zamindara worked under mandates from the state
to hunt down robbers under pain of dispossession and on the other
they utilized the fighttng men in their adventurous appropriation of
economic gains.
4
orders as in certain stages of the peasant uprising in Rangpur

during the time of Devi Sing. But the point however remains
that the leadership to bandits was mostly offered by zamindara
and their amlas who thereby integrated a vast mass of float-
ing fighters with the outer fringe of rural politics and let them
to fight always for economic ends, immediate and ultimate.
This was a paradox into which the rural fighters were forced
to enter as soon as they accepted the leadership of zamindars.
By leading bandits zamindars proved their justifiability as
social leaders but not their economic viability as masters of

revenue-paying units. Booty was the profit of an individual
or of a few and not a gain of a class. The petitions which
the zamindars made to the East India Company were innume-
rable and betrays on the economic front a pattern of sub-
mission which was not compatible with the growth of social
aggressiveness on the part of leadership.
The submission-point in the above analysis may be

explained in some details. Darpa Dev, the zamindar of
Baikanthapur, was notorious for harbouring robbers. In
March, 1778 he made the following petition to the East India
Company !
I have not been able to pay the amount of this years
bundabust, as the ryots have run away and the lands

are left uncultivated. The rivers last rains broke
down the banks and overflowed the country by which
means the harvest was spoilt. That together with
the disturbances occasioned by the people, I before
petitioned you about, has made the ryots all quit my
country. I have done everything in my power to
complete the amount of my bundabust, but the ryots
having run away, have rendered me unable to fulfil
it. I used formerly to collect Government charges

from boats passing, but this year I am forbid. The
ryots that are now remaining in my pergunnah have
not sufficient to keep themselves and cannot therefore

pay any revenue. I have to this time paid up my
kists punctually by borrowing money from merchants.
There is now due from the pergunnah Rs. 2,363-8
for the reason before mentioned I cannot collect it
from the country ;

neither have I the means of paying
this balance. I therefore petition that I may be

allowed this deduction and I will endeavour to get
the ryots again and cultivate the lands. I shall
ever be thankful for this mark of favour.- 6

This petition, a standard model of its kind, 37 is a real
document of capitulation on the economic front. Individual
capitulation was preferred to joint resistance. Thus unable
to secure allies on the terrain of its own class, zamindars
looked beyond and saw in the lower masses the available staff
26. Rangpur Dist. Records Vol. I, p. 34.

,
.27. The following is the arzee of Rani Bhawani of Natorc which may be
compared with the above petition :
The Zamindarry of the Pergunnahs of Raje Shahy, Bhettoreah,
and Nuldi &ca by the irregular and oppressive proceedings of
the Adadars, has been brought into an absolute State of Decay ;
many of the Ryots have deserted, and the Government's Revenue

has been much damaged. Accordingly many of them have been
down at Calcutta where their Complaints may hav[ e 1 reached
the Ears of you Gentlemen. I am therefore hopeful that after
understanding and obtaining a proper insight into the Mofassul
Papers You will settle the Bundibust [ settlement ] of all the
districts m my Zamindarry on one collective and Uniform Plan,
and vest the Management of it in me, that by inspiring and
affording Encouragement to the Ryots, I may bring my Zamin-
darry into a State of Cultivation and exert myself in the Paymenjt]
of the Revenue. By this Means the Complaints of the Ryots
in the Mofussul will not only be obviated but there will be a
prospect of the Revenues being realized. On the other hand the
farming out the Districts to other People, will increase their
present Calamities and impoverished State, the Realization of

Revenue will hereafter be an Impossibility, and the Complaints of
the Ryots will daily be more and more*, Prodgs . of CC at
<Jo9simbazart 28 July, 1772 (p. 88 )
52 BOCIAIi BANDITRY IN BENGAL
with which they could form the bulwark against the encroach-
ment of the state. That may be one reason why the state-
had never viewed favourably zamindars' association with these-

people. The Mughals dispossessed a zamindar if he harboured;
robbers 28 and the practice was continued under the adminis-
ration of the Company .
29 Inspite of this zamindars rallied
these men whenever there was a sign of the state descending:

upon them. The behaviour of Damodar Sing, the cousin of
Raja Chaitan Sing of Bishnupur, is an example of this. When
he failed to register the support of the Company in favour
of his pretension to ihe Rajaship of Bishnupur, he retired to-

Burdwan, mustered a great force and plundered a great part
of Bishnupur. He ousted Chaitan Sing, captured the fort
and proclaimed himself the Raja. On a later occasion when
Captain Nollekens detachment was sent against him he fled'
to the jungle. Thereupon an amil with two qanungo came

from the durbar to collect revenue. Nollekens left the
country in charge of Ensign Bennett. Damooder, declares
Chaitan in his petition to the Company, thereupon returned
with a great number of Chuars, forced Bennett to evacuate,
put the Amil & Qanungoes to death & set fire to the town of'
28. Rebellion was another reason of dispossession N.K. Sinhat, Op. Cit.,
II, p. 4.
29. In 1772 the Committee of Circuit recommended the dispossession of'

the zamindar of Baikanthapur on account of his giving shelter t
robbers ( Prodgs . of CO at Rungpore, 23 Dec., 1 772 1. In 1766 Mahomed
Ally, zamindar of Noorullahpoor in Dacca was dismissed because
his men killed an Englishman near Buckergung (President of the Select
Commute: and the Resident at the Durbar to the S lect Committee
30 June, 1769, Letter Copy Book of the Resident at the Durbar, I,
p. XV). The zamindars of the 9th and 1 3th Divisions of Ootershaw-

poor and Noahbad were recognized as ring leaders in the Fray or
the 15th. Jeyte {Jyaistha), 1196 B.S. They were captured and put
under trial. As a result their lands were directed to be held Khass.-"
Magistrate at Dacca to GO in Council, 24 Sept., 1790, Rev (Jud)
Prodgs. (Vol. II, Part II) of 8 Oct., 179f*. In 1760 the E. L Company
was thinking in terms of dispossessing the Raja of B urdwanC. P.G-
I, No. 585.
1 :
Sishnupur & neighbouring villages. 80 Who rallied under

>tbe banner of Damodar ? Were they bandits ? In 1760 the
Government had the intelligence that the Raja of Burdwan
had entered into his service 15,000 peons, pikes and
robbers. 3 The Birbhum Raja was entering telingas into his
service. 83 The Chuars, faqirs , aaa
peons, telingas and pykes
were the people available in western Bengal around Burdwan,
'Birbhum and Bishnupur from whom the disaffected Rajas
-could draw their strength. There were also
coolies * whom
the zamindars could hire to loot the crops of the field. What
was known as banditry in British records was the pursuit of
'these men. They were not the surplus people of any
particular area but people who were uprooted from their
original profession. To any prospective employer these men
could supply their labour. Zamindars registered their service
in the event of vast retrenchment of their armed retinues by
the Company. When Srikanta Ray, zamindar ofYusafpur,
plundered pargana Houghlaw, Prankrishna, zamindar of that
place, complained to the Company that the former had
effected a junction with Chiefs of Robbers like Aboa 83 and
the Controlling Council at Murshidabad instantly instructed
'William Rooke, Supervisor of Jessore, to the following effect
30. The petition of Raja Chaitan Sing, Prodgs. of CCR at Murshidabad

(Vol. IV), 28 Feb., 1771.
31* Long, Selections No. S04.
,
.32* Ibid., No. 497. Nawab jaffer Ali Khan wrote to the Governor:
Three hundred Telingas are run away and entered into the Beerboom
Rajahs service, but to prevent which in future you have ordered a
look out to be kept at Fultah, Calcutta, Chmsurah and Cassimbazar,
so that not a man can escape to Beerboom.
32a. Faqirs and sannyasis were traders, soldiers and moneylenders (The
Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. Eight, Number
Two, June; 1971, pp. 213''Notes' and * Comment on the Faqirs and
*
Sannyasis by D.H.A. Koiff & Steward N. Gordon) and their service
was indispensible to zamindars (Long, Op. Cit., No. 558).

33* Arjee of Poraun Kissen Sing, Zamindar of Houghlow, Prodgs. of COR
at Murshidabad, 23 Jan., 1772.
Porauns Kishen [Pankrishnas] Representation

regarding the Dacoits merits your most serios Consi-
deration and we desire you will take speedy and
effectual Measures for Checking their Outrages 84
Srikanta, a leading zamindar of Jessore, was mustering.

Dacoits just in the same way the Raja of Brdwan was
rallying robbers and in both cases the real episode was-
nothing beyond that of the Raja of Birbhum registering the
support of the fagirs or a pretender of the Bishnupur Raj
aligning himself with the Chuan .
s5 Such an alignment
was indispensible in the context of the time. For centuries
zamindars hnd grown as the lords of the rural world around
whom ideas could cluster and men could coalesce. Under
the Mughals they had autonomy to grow and even desperate
Nawabs like Murshid Quli and Mir Qasim did not violate this
autonomy provided they submitted to the fiscal coercion
of the top. But that coercion had its own limits. On the
economic front the state never envisaged the appropriation!
of the last dreg of social surplus 36 and zamindars had;
34. Ibid.
35. It should be noted that Chuan Sannyasis and Faqirs were not
j, the only
men who took Buidwan, Birbhum and Murshidabad
to banditry in
areas. There were also the Hadis Bagdis Doms and men of many
, ,
such low castes. These people were hired as coolies by zamindars.

36. For details of the extraction of social surplus sec Ranjit Sen,
Economics of Revenue Maximization 1757 1793 Bengal A Case
,
: ,
Study. Zamindars and their people were exposed not only to the
fiscal squeeze of the state but also to other processes of economic
ruin. When, for example, Damoder Sing was the Raja of Bishnupur
in 1761 he complained that he was harassed by an alliance of
robbers, ami as and small zamindars :
My deplorable situation is too great for me to relate. Aynder

jyt f Indrajit ] Perghy before plundered my house of every thing,
and took my country into his own hands, and I had not the
least respect paid me there. I therefore dismissed him, and he
carried me by force with him to Burdwan for his wages, and the
zamindar of the jungles with the robbers and also Mohun Lali
and Runjeet Surrop Narain, zamindar of Jaham went together
and plundered Bissenpoor and surrounded the fort*.
Long, Selections , No. 540.
0 >
MOTIVES OP BANDITRY 55
authority of interceptions in the form of various perquisites

and abwabs. These were never resumed by the state . 87
Moreover they had vast revenue-free lands ( kazi zamin) and

waste lands (patit zamin). The former yielded them profit
and the latter was utilized as a means to settle people around
and augment thereby their social prestige and political power.

The logic of a zamindars submission on the economic front
lies in this. On the social and political side the zamindars
autonomy as the dispenser of justice, as the bestower of
favour, as the employer .of pykes, barkandazes and various
* 7
grades of amlas, as the master of land and relief 376 and
finally as the ultimate protector of the rustic folk i. e. in a
word as the prime mover of the village society was never
interfered with. Out of this the znmindar developed a
duality of his station. He submitted to the state economically
as the master of a revenue-paying unit 3 but was upheld
7
37. During our period of study the Companys administration resumed

innumerable perquisites of zamindars of which important were
zamindari ghats or taxes on boats passing through a zamindari
haldari or taxes on marriage, nazars and salamies or customary
tributes and bazijumma or miscellaneous fines.
37a. About the nature of landed property in Bengal Md. Reza Khan wrote
in Feb. 1 7 75 l
The zamindars and Talookdars are masters of their own lands.

The Prince may punish them but cannot dispossess them. Their
rights are hereditary. Princes have no immediate property in
lands. They even purchased ground to erect mosques and
buryal places.
Quoted in Abdul Majed Khan, ,Tht Transition in Bengal etc
Cambridge, 1969, p. 15.

37b. The most useful form of relief was the g ant of taqavi loans.
37c. The zamindars and Talookdars received rents from inhabited places
monthly and for corngrounds at the time of harvest. They made
their own payments 6/16 at the end of the first half year and 10/16
at that of the latter. But a monthly examination was made by the
officers of government, respecting the state of farms, probable
prospects of collecting rents or reasonable grounds for raising them.
As a result of this in AlivardPs time balances were formerly very
uncommon ; whenever they arose, inquiry was made into their causes.
in return by the state in point of social assertion 18 and

political leadership. 3 * It was this tradition of assertion
and leadership which drew masses around zaminiars and
made the latter the natural leaders of the rural society.
Zamindars association with peasants, soldiers, mendicants
and journeymen must be studied in the context of this.
V. Social Banditry
There are precisely two points of view from which the

zamindar-b&n&ii alliance may be studied. One is the general
breakdown of the countrys economy in the wake of which a
distressed community took to brigandage as a means of
subsistence. This is social banditry for here the motive of
plunder was directed to the social aim of living. 89 The
minority of armed bands who operated in this trade could
flourish only because they had a vast social base. Warlike
tribes, peaceful ryots, reckless soldiers, roving traders, all
swelled the ranks of bandits. They had liaison with landlords

and the local bureaucracy. This was a union that aimed at
combatting social emaciation. Resumption, retrenchment
and revenue-maximization were the three facets of a policy
of squeeze unknown in course of the past centuries.
If tney appeared reasonable the rent was lowered and the deficiocy
was remitted. If not, it was charged to and recovered from
zamindara. Abdul Majed Khan, Op, Cit., p. 14. This note Of
Reza Khan shows why economic submission was inescapable on the
part of zamindara ,
38. The zamindar'a authority as the head of the caste cutcherry or caste
adalat, as the person who can levy taxes on marriage and finally as
on i who distributes vritti to brahmans and innumerable functions
like this made up the social authority of zamindara.
39, The involvement of the Raja of Nadia in the conspiracy against SiraJ
and the alliance of the Rajas of Burdwan, Birbbum and Bishnupur
with Prince All Gduhar in 1759*60 suggest zamindara* potentials as
political leaders of the country,
39a. Subhas Bhattacharya in an article in Marxist Miscellany No. 10 has
explained the concept of social banditry.
MOTIVES OB BANDITRY 57
^Reactions to such a policy would be a natural phenomenon

but the form of reaction differed from place to place.
Banditry presented one form of such reaction which was

amazingly uniform. Here bandits were raiders who combined
raiding with other callings of life. In this they differed
from people like the Bedouins, for raiding was not the
totality of their normal way of life. Their leaders, zamindars

small and big, were not the gentlemeD-robbers of the west,
particularly the robber knights of late medieval Germany.
Leaders were certainly emaciating zamindars and their
followers, innumerable rural toughs, were equally impoverish-

ing. These toughs were not the same as the underworld
professionals of the west, or the free-booters who were none
other than the common robbers . 4 n
The unity of various
social orders in professing violence as occasional a pursuit
for snatching a living is unique in history. Individual
rebellion and class revolt are rare phenomena in Bengals
history at this time. In the event of coercion peasants would
flee their land and this was the most common event during
our period of study. Within the context of peasant econo-
my such a flight took away much of the dynamics of
rebellion. Peasants would often come down to Calcutta and
Murshidabad to lodge complaints against the oppressions of
.farmers and other men in the interior. This was a form of
protest and no rebellion in the proper sense of the term.
Flood and drought, the two recurring curses of nature, had
kept the rural society warring perpetually against the supra-
human forces of life. Resistance to human tyranny had to
be contemplated in association with this general and ceaseless
-war with nature. In the context of this individual assertion
or class rebellion was well-night difficult. The social unity
in banditry must be analysed in the perspective of this.

This, however, does not suggest that there was no class
-40. E. J. Hobsbawm, Banditt, p. 18.

revolt, at this time. The revolt of the zamindar of Sandwip

and the peasants of Rangpur were two unique instances of
such revolt. Often the Chuar rebellion is cited as an
example of class revolt. But that revolt is more unders-
tandable in the context of reactions available in a disintegra-
ting system of kinship in a tribal society than in the context
of class reactions. The picture becomes amply clear when
the so called Chuar rebellion is contrasted with the revolt,
of the peasants of Rangpur.
Social banditry in the second half of the eighteenth'
century served double passions, a class hatred and a hatred

for foreigners. When a mass of three hundred men swooped
down upon a rich mans house we get an example of class
antagonism. When telingas run away from the service of
Company to that of a Raja, or, when zamindars and faqirs
combine to fight against the English and peasants and

zamindar, < jointly invade Englishmen and their establish-
ments we get a clear demonstration of hatred against
foreigners. The Englishmen of this time were aware of this.
A report of 1787 said g
The natives of this country (however in fear in
general of Europeans) certainly take a pride in
affronting them, whenever, they dare do it, and I am

so situated as to be much exposed to this kind
of behaviour, having no means of punishing them,,
but through the means of revenue. 41
The Englishmen could punish individual offenders42 but not
41. Robert Girling, Resident at Rangpur to George Hatch, 4 Oct., 1787,

Ditiage. Dist. Heeds. Vol.
, 1, p. 75.
42. That Turrut Sing, the Amildar of Gungypore, being convicted of
killing Mr. Gray's Gomastah, has received sentence to be hanged at
the place where the violence was committed, and that Shiraj All, the-
Fouzdar, for endeavouring to screen him, and other bad behaviour
towards our Gomastahs, will be dismissed from his Government of
Pumea.
Long, Selectmens No. 62 6.
an entire society. When a civilian was experiencing affront
in an alien society a soldier was lamenting non-cooperation

on the part of the same people. 48 Many years before this
the whole community of the Englishmen in Bengal was
censored by the Nizamat as a Society of men of low
Character.* 4 There are innumerable other examples by
which we can show that the society looked at the community
of Englishmen in Bengal with a sense of revulsion. Revulsion
led to resistance and resistance to the espousal of violence.
VI. National Resistance ?
It is here that we get the second viewpoint from which

the bandits of Bengal in the second half of the eighteenth
century may be judged. Did banditry at this stage involve
the nascent and crude beginnings of what we call national
resistance ? Bandits were raiders and no interpretation can
cancel this fact of history. But such raiders were not
necessarily and not always professional freebooters. They
might occasionally rob subjects of law-abiding -society but
they did more. They lived in the same society, united with its
subjects and presented a united front against a bigger invader,

the state. If they lived only as a society of law-breaking men
their existence would have been temporary. The British empire
was capable enough to efface ordinary bandits however
powerful they were. The Pindaris who at one time numbered
more than 60,000 was crushed within a short period of four
43, I must acquaint you ihat it is impossible for the Company ever to
keep possession of this Pergunna without the ryots of Jallasore and
Patna positively ordered to attend the detachment with provisions*
Capfc. Fenwick to Major Macpherson, 1781 (William Charles
Macpherson ed., Soldiering in India , 17G4-17S7 : Extracts from
Journals and Letters left by Lt,Ooh Allan Macpherson and Lt. Colonel
John Macpherson of the East India Company's Service , Edinburgh
and London, 1928
44, Long, Op* Git., No. 701.
1 , 3
60 SOCIAL BANDITHY IN BENGAL
months. 40 But the bandits of Bengal could not be crushed

and during the whole of our period of study they reigned
supreme. The Companys administration was helpless
even if it knew where the strongholds of bandits were
located. A report from Dinajpur in 1772 said : The jagir
of Maharaja Rajballabh was a nest of Dekoits which are
a pest to the Country hardly to be rooted out by severe
Examples. Some of the Purnea zamindaries & some of the
Dinagepore Pergunnahs are also full of them. 4 * In Hugli
village Ogoorda harboured robbers. 47 The concentration of
robbers were quite heavy in Chatna in Midnapurr. 48 A
similar concentration was to be found in Badjee, an insulated
spot between Sylhet and Mymensing. 4 * Lakhipur had gained
a notoriety for having been infested with bandits. 00 In
Jessore the region around Selimabad was infested with
robbers 5 For many years Baikanthapur was an assylum for
bandits. In Mymensing the zamindari of Carribarry was a

den of dacoits. 6 For a long time the Western Jungles 520 in
45. M. P. Roy, Origin ,

Growth and Suppression of the Pandaria , New
Delhi, 1973, p 312. Such a complete example of the extinction

of the corporate existence of so large a body within so short a
period is hardly to be found in history Malcolm is thus quoted by
Roy, Ibid
46. H. Cottrell to Archibald Staples, Assistant at Dinajpur, 4 Nov., 1771
[ Firminger admits that the date may not be correct J, Prodgs . OCR
at Murahidabud 8 Feb., 1772. ,
47. Long, S election# No. 663. %
48. MR, Letter dated 15 June, 1780, p, 49.

49. Miller to Burlow, Sub. Secretary, Revenue Deptt., Fort William,
8 Aug., 1790, Rev. Jud .) Prodga Vol. L
( ,
50. At Lakhipur the English had a factory*

51. R. Rocke, Magistrate at Jessore to the Registrar to the Nizamat
Adalal at Fort William, Rev, (Jud.) Prodga 1 April, 1791*
52. The Magistrate Mymensing to the
at GO in Council, 20 May, 1791,
Rev. (Jud.) Prodgs 13 May. 1791.
.
*3^'-
52a. The Western Junguls an extent of County of about 80 miles in

is
On
the east it is bounded by Midnapore on
length Sc 60 in Breadth.
ths West by Singboomon the North by Pachet Sc the South by
)
MOTIVES OF BAMDITBY 61
Midnapur was the habitation of dinars and as early as 1769

their plunder had become a settled theme of public discussion. 5 '
By 1790 it was clear that Nilam or Babupur near Lakhipur
[ Lakshmipur ] was the stronghold of robbers.* 4 The
frontier between Birbhum and Bishnupur where the mountain
Mohu bung* there is very

tie land cultivated m th-s whole extent
& very disproportionate pa of it capable of Cultivation [
the soil
is very Rocky the Country is Mountainous & overspreajd] with
thick Woods which renders it in many places utterly impossible it
has always been annexed to the Province of Midnapore but from its
situation it was never regarded in the Nabobs Government & the

zamindars Sometimes paid their Rents or rather Tributes & some-
times not it was not till the Residency] of Mr. Graham that this
country was brought into any regular Subjection he reduced the

zamindars to Obe[diJence & stipulated with them for an annual
Revenue of 22000 msteid of 1200[0 ?] R>. which they usêd to pay. This
territory is divided ii.to two Tannahs one called Tann[ah] Bulrampore
and the other Tanna Janpore the Formierj is subdivided into nine
Purgannas and the latter into eight & each of these is governed by
a zamindar who is dignified amongst his Ryots with the Title Rajah
These Zamindars are mere free Booters who plunder their
Neighbours & one another and their Tennants are a Banditti whom
they Chiefly emplo |y) in the*e outrages These depredations keep
the zamindars and their Tennants continually in Arms for after the
Harvest is gathered in there is scarcely one of them who does not
call his Ryotts to his standard either to defend his own Property or
attach his Neighbours the effect of this I may say feudal Anarchy
are that Revenue is very precarious the Zamindars are refractory
& the inhabitants rude
& ungovernable" Edward Baber to Calcutta
Council, 6 Feb., 1773, Midnapur Dist.Recds Vol IV, p. 106
53, A great number of Chuars inhabiting the hills in our Western
Jungles having, in Conjuncti n with Considerable bodies from the
adjacent districts, invaded the Pergunnas of Burraboom and Gat&eela*
Vaosittar/ to Verclst, 20 Dec., 1769, Midnapur Dist Reeds Vol. ,
II, p. 130.
54. The concentration of dacoits around Lakhipur was significant for
Lakhipur got protection from both Dacca and Chittagong /'Long,

Selections No. 632).
t
Besides military protection Companys business
there was also directly under the care of Dacca and C hittagorg.
O carried away the banks
*The vi deuce of the current [having flood
at Luckypore so that the river washes the foot of the factory, we
have put an entire stop to the Companys business and removed it,
half to Dacca and half to Chittagong Selections, No. 709.
62 SOCIAL BANDIT BY IN BENGAL
system slopes down upon the Gangetic Valley was the happy
abode of dacoits. 55 Two jungles were repeatedly mentioned
in official records as places where dacoits built their own
nests. These were the Western Jungles in Midnapur and
Pachet jungles. 56 May more of such instances can be cited
from official records. The point that emerges out of thie-ie
that by 1790 the Companys administration had completely
mapped out the strongholds of bandits who operated in
Bengal. Yet it could not wipe out these men altogether. It
is a wonder that when expeditions were organized against

Jaintia, when the defence of Kuchbihar was undertaken vis-a-
vis the Bhutanese and when troops were sent from Bengal to
distant countries like Banaras, Rohilkhand or Bombay, the
greatest terror within the country remained unsubdued. It
will be a mistake to think that the Government did not address

itself properly to the problem of banditry in Bengal. The
problem was seriously taken up from time to time at different
levels of the Government, from the Supreme Council at Fort

William down to the Collector and Resident in the district.
When a vast treasure was looted in Rajshahi on 1 April, 1786,
the Governor General and Council, the Committee of

Revenue, later the Board of Revenue, 57 the Magistrate at
Natore, all came to be concerned with the matter. 68 Verelst,
Vansittart, Hastings, Cornwallis and even Md. Reza Khan 6

took up the problem of banditry in their administrative
55. Hunter, W. W Annals of Rural Bengal (Indian Studies : Past &

Present), Calcutta, 1965, p. 15.
56. These two were the one and same jungle but in official records it was
mentioned under two heads,
57. In 1786 the Board of Revenue superseded the Committee of Revenue.
58. Com t of Rev. Prodgs . 6 April, 1786 and BOR . Prodgs Vol. 2.
59. The following is a parawana under the seal of Md. Reza Khan : Be
it known to the Choudries and Zamindara of the Pergunnahs of
Malda, & Betteah Qopaulpore & ca places contiguous to the Factory
of Angrezabad, that if any thief steals Clothes from the Houses of
the Weavers, they are to detect & produce him together the Cloth

capacity. But all of them looked at the issue as a law and

order problem and the point was invariable missed that it was
a social issue for people of different orders had combined in
one effort of resistance to tyranny. When the desperate

robbery of Baharbund treasure took place in Rajshahi in 1786,
the Sardar dacoit confessed that in his group there were men
who were originally sellers of tobacco and chilly and who as
robbers were protected from the apprehension of the state by

a local qazi.* 0 This involvement of a gazi with dacoits in
Rajshai cannot be understood unless we refer to a record of
1770. We learn from this record that under the instructions
of the Controlling Council of Reveune at Murshidabad
the Supervisor at Natore had dismissed all qazis from
service. 61 This was a welcome measure to the Company
for it had benefitted its administration in terms of revenue :
I have not a doubt of being able immediately to

retrench such unnecessary Expenses of the
Governments officers, as will afford an ample Fund
for defraying my own & my assistants allowance, &
all requisite charges of a public nature. 62
The retrenchment of the qazis was urged by the necessity

to create a public fund for public expenditures. With the
same end in view the Companys administration in 1772
stolen.They must restore the Cloth to the Weaver ; and the Thief
must be dispatched to the Presence that may suffer the Punishment
due to his crime. If they cannot produce the Thief they must
account without fail for otherwise they shall be brought to Condign
Punishment Let this Order be considered as express and
indispensable. Prodgs. CCR at Murshidabad (Vol. IV), 7 March,
1771.
60. Zabaunbundie of Dukool, BOR Prodgs.
61. The Supervisor at Natore to the OCR at Murshidabad (date of the
letter torn), Rev. Deptt. : Latters Copy-Book of the Supervisor of
Rajshahi at Natore (one Vol. only, 3 Dec., 1769 to 15 Sept., 1772).

62. The Supervisor at Natore to Kelsall at Dacca, 18 May, 1770 : Letters
Copy Book of the Supervisor of Rajshahi etc.
struck off the perquisites of the qizia and muftiea. The former
receive from the principal Inhabitants [ at the time of
marriage ] 2 Rupees, from the 2nd class 1 Rupee 8 annas and
from the lowest Class 1 Rupee.* 6 The fees of the Muftiea-
are received from the musicians, and other people who
officiate the Festival..... 84 In their proceedings of 16 August,
1772 the committee of Circuit adopted the following
resolution :
The same Reasons which have induced us to abolish

the Haldarree, operate with equal Force against the
Fees of the Cazzees and Muftees which have always
proved a heavy grievance to the poor, & an impedi-
ment to marriage we have therefore determined a
total Abolition of these and of the less Dues hitherto
allowed to these Officers, and to put them on the
Footing of monthly Servants with fixed salaries. 65
As a result of all these the qazis as an institution lost

their meaning. Their income shrank and their liberty was
lost. But their attachment with the ordinary people of the
countryside remained and they screened them vis-a-vis the
state whenever that was possible. In a report of 1771 the
Supervisor of Dacca wrote that the northern part of Dacca
where it touched Rajshahi was infested with aannyaais. *
The factors which pulled these men from distant parts of the
country to Rajshahi and Dacca were the same which invited'
dacoits from Bogura to Rajshahi in 1786. 7
What temptation
allured these men to move towards Rajshahi ? Was it an
absence of thanadara and the general police arrangements in>
61. Prodgg CO at Cossimbazar, 28 June, 1772 (p. 122)

64. Ibid.
65. Prodga CC at Coteimbuzar, 15 Aug., 1772 (p. 122)
66. The Supervisor at Dacca to Mursbidabad Council of Rev., 5 Feb.,

1771, Prodgs COR (Vol. I), 1 April, 1771.
67. Those w o robbed the Baharbund treasure in 1786 had in their group*
some men who came from Bogura Vide 58,
the country as contended by the English administration ini
Calcutta? 6 **
The answer will certainly be in the negative.
As late as 1793 instructions flowed from the supreme autho-
rity in Calcutta, the . Governor General and Council, to all
Collectors and Magistrates in the districts to curb down the

number of thanas and the people who manned them. 69 Only
21 thanas 70 were permitted to exist and police over such a
vast district as Nadia 71 and the magistrate there himself
admitted that the number of thana * were inadequate vis-a-vis
the vastness of the district to keep robbers in check. 72 The
Magistrate was very shy to recommend the appointment of a
few additional barkandazes to guard the important city of
Krishnanagar. 78 This was just at the time when robbers
increased in the river areas of the district. 74 Reports also
came from Tamluk about the reduction of ihanas there. If
reduction of thanas was responsible for the increase of dacoits,

the administration would not have gone for that. It knew
that the malady was elsewhere. The treasure which Kantu
Babu and Lokenath Nundy sent from Baharbund in
1786 was looted in Rajshahi inspite of the existence of

a thana there and the non-function of the thanadar appeared
68. The abolition of the Faujdarry jurisdiction and the Tannadarries

dependent on it. This institution provided for the security of the
public peace, and served as the official means of conveying regular
intelligence of every disorder or casualty which happened in any of
the provinces. By its removal the confidence of the dacoits is
increased, nor has any other means been substituted for giviog
intelligence to the Government of such events as relate to the peace
of the country From Hastings' letter of 19 April, 1774, Firminger,
Op.Cit ., p. 246
69. Jud. ( Grim Prodgs ( Vol 7) 3 May, 1793.
.) . .
70. The Magistrate at Nadia to The Governor General in Council, Jud

Grim .) Prodgs 3 May, 1793.
(i
,
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid.
5
: 4 :
as a riddle both to the Magistrate at Natore and the

administration in Calcutta. Those who 7 looted that treasure
were not a few dacoits but a mass of two hundred 7 * vis-a-vis
which the entire force of a thana, if it were put to
action would have been helpless. The robbery took
place in the night and the force of the thana was set into
operation the following morning. The Magistrate at Natore
himself testified to an attempt at robbery of the Company's
treasure in broad daylight inspite of the Magistrate pre-
sence at the station of the robbery. 7 * Public information
of this sort of robbery was abundant 77 and this had
stunned the central administration at Calcutta. They had
no advice as to how such robberies could be stopped.
Hastings escaped censure by ascribing the blame upon the
Muslim system of justice, 78 an excuse which Cornwalis
74a. The Magistrate to Governor General In Council Jud. (

Crim)
Prodge. 3 May, 1793,
75. Vide. 58.
76. Prodgs. BOR, 18 July, 1786 & Prodgs COR. 6 April, 1786.
77. Strangely enough Hastings denied that he bad any public information
about the operations of bandits in Bengal. On 19 April, 1774 he
wrote
I know not whether the knowledge of those evils [banditry] has
been officially communicated to members of the Board, To me
it has only come through the channels of private information"
Firminger, Op.Cit., p. 246 note.
78. In his letter of 19 April, 1774 Hastings wrote
I am sorry to enumerate among the encrease of robbers the
regularity and precision which have been introduced into our
new Courts of Justice. The dread which the common people
entertain of the dacoits, and the difficulty which even such an
impression must attend the conviction of an offender of this kind
however notorious, before a Mahomedan Court, which requires
two positive evidences (witnesses) in every capital case, affords
them an assurance of impunity in the prosecution of their
crimes, since they generally carry on their designs in the night or
under disguise. Amongst those who have been convicted of
of robbery, I do not recollect an instance in the proceedings
upon their trial, in which their guilt has been proved by evidence,
bat by their confession only ; and this has occurred in so many
instances, that I am not without a suspicion that it has been
obtained by improper means,'Firminger, Op, Cit., pp. 246-247
conld notmake use of. The letter which the Commissioner

of Coochbihar wrote to the Governor General in Council in
1793 may be taken as as document of the Companys
helplessness vis-a-vis the social terror which had cut across
4he Companys terror at this time. The Commissioner
accused the central administration of its failure to avenge
itself of the murder of Lt.Purcel. 7
The administration had
really no excuse to cover its failure,
80
It should be noted that by 1793 the administration

of the Company had come to acquire a full knowledge
about the different gangs of robbers and their leaders
-described in the records as Sardara or *
Principals who
operated in districts like Mursbidabad, Burdwan, Rajshahi,
Birbhum, Pachet etc. 81 But of all these aardara only one was
apprehended by the state. The Companys administration knew
4he village, pargana and the district of every individual leader
and yet they could not be apprehended. Such a record of
79. Jud Crim ) Prodgs. 3 May, 1793.

(
SO. The plunder of the Salt Cutchery at Beercool in 1799 also suggests
the helplessness of the Companys administration vis-a-vis the so
called robbers of the-interior. The Mokrers and Chowkidars of the
Company were helpless when one hundred men fell on them at the
midnight of 3 December, 1799. These invaders were well organised.
Reports from Midnapur said that about the time the robbery was
committed two dacoit boats full of armed men from Jamkoomdah
{this area Jwas under the Marathasj] had been observed cruising
between my ( the English Agents ] bangalo at Beercool and the mouth
of the Hidgellee creek. Thus while one party of 100 men were
plundering the Cuteherry another party of armed men were
maintaining a watch around to ward off the possibility of retaliation
from outside Mr. Chapman to the Secretary to the Salt Department,
Port William, 17 December, 1799, Midnapore Salt Paper*, p. 118,
also same to same, 7 December, 1799, Ibid.
* 1 . {Crim) Prodg*., 10 May, 1793: List of Sardars or Principal

Leaders of Q*g of Dekoits and Depredators now infesting and
phuHVin the Districts of Beerbhum, Radashie [ Rajshahi ],
g
Moflrsh ifohed and Burdwan available along with the Enclosure
from the Registrar to Nizamat Adalat, dated 29 April, 1793.
failure was rare in British history. Extensive rewards wer^-

offered for every leader 83 and yet dacoity could not b?
controlled. Such rewards were occassionally paying but not
aways. The society that resisted the temptation of reward
was entirely different from the one with which the English
were familiar in Calcutta, a society of collaborators com-
posed of banians, munshis, diwans y and the like. The Churas
Bagdia and Hand is 8 s were low people with whom the English
had no communication. These men with others like manjhis
and dandies [ boatmen ],
go sains [ sannyasis ], telingas, pykes,
barkandazes, faqirs took to banditry under the protection,

of zamindars, naibs, chaudhuris, qazis and the like. The
absence of communication between the Companys adminis-
tration and the humble countryfolk was laid bare in.
Governors report to Md. Reza Khan as early as 1764 :
There is no person at Backergunge fit for me to

write to, there being no one there except two or
three low men for building boats and making.
Chunam. 84
Backergunge was certainly one of the areas under the-
Companys administration in Bengal where dacoity was most
rampant. It was here in 1764 that capt. Rose was murdered'
by a group of manjhis and dandies 86 Thesemen were given>
shelter by the zamindar of Sitaram. 8 From the beginning,
the manjhis and dandies were operating under a system of
force. This bad alienated a vast mass of people whose-
association with the river transport in this riverine Bengal
had given them over years a kind of infrastructural importance

which the English did not understand well. The absence of
b2. Ibid.
83. Ibid.
$4. Long, Selections, No, 709.

85. Long, Selection e, Nos. 762, 775,
86. Long, Selections No. 775.
,
MOTIVES OP BANDITRY 69
communication between the boat-builders of Backergunge

and the people of the Company in 1764 may be linked up
with the murder of an English Captain in the same year by
the boatmen of the same place and we get a perspective in
which the problem of banditry may be read as a tale of
-social resistance vis-a-vis the English interpretation of it as
an event of law-breaking by a group of minority. When
Lt. Purcel was murdeed the question of law and order did
not arise. It was an open defiance of the authority of the
English. Jogigopa where Lt. Purcel was murdered was a
strategic place and it was absolutely under the control of
the annyasia. These sannyasis were decisively anti-British.
When the Kuchbihar Raj was in the throes of an internecine
war in 1787 these sannyasia threw their support in favour of
the party in the Court which was fighting against the British
protege there. The Companys agent in Kuchbihar tried to
bribe away the aannyasia but failed. They melted only under
a fierce military crack-down. The leader of these aannyaaia
was one Ganeshgeer whose activities coincided with those of
Bhawani Pathak, Devi Chaudhurani and Majnu Sha.* 7
Thus it is clear from what has been said above that the
world of bandits in eighteenth century Bengal was certainly
not an underworld and their fraternity was not an anti-
society. At least their aim was not restricted in their efforts

to profit from the lawlessness of a disorganized milieu.
They were not operating in isolated pockets and the
aamindor-amia-peasant-soldier combination was too stable

4o be called sporadic. The involvement of the manjhia,
dandies , Badis, Bagdis, Chuars, Jaqire, sannyaais, pykes,
barkandazea , telingae, Rajpule and so on in a system of violence

and self-assertion was too deep-rooted to be brushed aside
87 . For the involvement of the sannyaais in the affairs of the Kuchbihar

Raj, see Naga Sannyasi Ganeshgeer and the Kuchbihar Disturbance
of 178 7 A.D. by N B. Roy in Sir Jadunath Sarkar Commemoration
Volume //published by the Deptt. of Hist., Punjab University, 1958.
as a passing blast of anarchy likely to show its head in a

period when one system of rule was giving way to another.
The murder of Englishmen, the raid into Companys factories
and loot of Companys treasures were too organized in point
of mobilization to be labelled as signs of chaos in a breaking
society. The system of links and liaison, the arrangement
of protection and shelter and the pattern of recruitment and
rally, union and action, assertion and defiance which the
bandits built up among themselves in alliance with the
zamindare, their amlas and the general society at large,
bespeak a social awareness about a mission of life misjudged
by Hastings and his contemporaries and misunderstood by
subsequent historians. Over years this awareneness deepened
and ultimately created a mililieu in which it was possible-
to convert a spirit of short-term defiance into long-term^

national resistance.
CHAPTERIV
THE BRITISH DRIVE FOR REVENUE AND
THE BREAKDOWN OF THE MUGHAL
2
SECURITY SYSTEM
I* Md. Reza Khans Observations
Banditry was a settled theme of discussion for the Company
ever since it assumed the right of diwani in 1765. As early as
1766 Md. Reza Khan was urged by the Government to be
concerned with the phenomenon of banditry. 1 Five years
later Reza Khan in his turn reminded the company that one
of the functions of the Government of the country was the
calling of robbers & ca out of the moffussul meaning by it
the rooting out of robbers from the countryside and the

protecting of Talokdars from the oppression of individuals.*
One year later the Naib-Diwan under the request of the
Company further clarified his position :
The intention of sending Guards into the Talooks
in the Mofussul is only to give Protection to the
Proprietors from having their Rights encroached upon
or usurped by Seditious people Residing without
their Border, and to defend the Ryots and Inhabitants
from the Oppressions of Comers and Goers. 4
1. O.P.C., I. No. 2776

2. On 3 Dec., 1770, Md. Reza Khan who was both Naib-Diwan and
Naib-Nazim gave a statement about the jurisdiction of the Diwani
and the Nizamat. Keeping the country free of robbers, he said,
belonged to the functions of the Nizamat. See Abdul Majed Khan,
The Traneition in Bengal etc., p. 266.
3. Ibid.
4. Prodgs. COB April, 1771. Here Md. Reza Khan gave
(Vol. I), 1
another exposition about the functions of the Nizamat and the
Diwani.
This was how in olden days peace was maintained in the
country side. The Seditious people Residing without their

Border and the Comers and goers were men who coalesced
during the early years of the British rule as bandits to des-
tabilize the functioning of the new regime. The sannuasia
and faqirs in our period of study were such itenerant
men 3
about whose seditiousness the English had no doubt.
But they were not called bandits in Mughal literature
and Md. Reza Khan, the last great spokesman of the
Mughal order, was cautious enough to distingusih these
men from robbers. This subtle distinction was lost during
the British period. The rural infrastructure under the Mughals
contained effective agencies which could keep the floating
substance of the population from forming any coalition either
against the society, or, against the state.
Such agencies were
sunk by the Companys administration because their existence
5. The tannyasis belogned to what Gordon calls in th e.Indian Economic

and Sodal History Review (Vol. VI, 1969, No. 4) all habitually-
travelling groups. On this D.H.A. Kolff comments [ Sannyasi
Trader ^Soldier 8 in the Indian Economic and Social History Review
,
Vol. VIII, No. 2, June, 1971 ] :
'Now, in this category one meets many men with common

characteristics .whether they are professional pilgrims, long
distance traders, mercenary soldiers, or, for that matter, Thugs*.
With them caste loyalties fade before the growing indent fication
with a group that show's Sectarian features. Recruiting methods
are universalistic rather than particularistic. Having left
(temporarily or for good) settled society, these groups are in need
of, and acquire, the special protection of the gods, particularly,
of Shiva and others associated with him.
Kolff thus considered the sannyasie as abandoned societies away from
the settled lifea view very close to that of Hastings. William
Marriot writing to theCCR at Murshidabad from Dinajpur (dated 1
March, I772).speaks of (he;people being continually plundered by
Fuckeers, Dacoits, and other lawless People who traverse the Country*
{
Prodgs of CCR at Murshidabad (Vol. IX), 5 March, 1772 ] Reza
.
Khan speaks of the seditiQusness of comers and goers* during the ,
time of the Mughals. , The English administrators speak of the law-

lessness of the people who traverse the Country.
:
REVENUE AND MUGHAL SECURITY SYSTEM 73
meant interception of revenue at the intermediate levels and

reduction of the profit of the state that could be derived from
the territorial revenue of the country. Maximization of revenue,
the articulated aim of the Companys rule in Bengal, envisaged
the appropriation of the last dreg of the social surplus. The
.Mughals, who lived in the majesty of their seclusion, bartered
away much of their revenue and delegated much of their
authority to innumerable local agencies in rural Bengal which

filled the vacuum between the palace and the field and built
up a system of graduated rank exploitation through which

the might of the Mughals manifested itself. The Companys
administration introduced a policy of squeeze in a system of
coercion. The autonomy of the local agencies and affluence
of intermediate interceptors were both appropriated to build
up the prerogative and wealth of a mercantile Company which
*was now invested with the power of the state.
II. The Mughal Technique of Controlling

Social Violence
The system of granting rent-free and revenue-free lands

was for the Mughals an instrument with which they admirably
handled the spirit of social violence. The relic of the Mughal
police system which lasted as late as .1791 in Tamluk and
Midnapur was described by the Magistrate of Tamluk in a
letter to the Revenue Department of 7 April, 1791. He
.said
"The Police of these Districts [ Mahisadal and

Tamluk ] is managed by what are called in Pergunnah
Mysaudal Fouzdarry Poykes and in Tamluk Digwars.
In Mahisadal there were 59 pykea and 8 sardara. They
1
'secure their allowances by an alotment of land. In Tamluk
there were 2 sardara, 2 naib-aardara and 154 digwars. In
6. Magistrate at Tamlulc to G. H. Burlow, Secretary to the Rev. Deptt.,

7 April, 1791, Rsv. (Jvd) Prodgs. 8 April, 1791.
:
Mahisadal 8 aardaaa held 201 bighaa 12 kaihos 6 ehhataks

of land. These lands yielded a revenue of Rs. 157 per month
i.e. 1 Re 10 anna* per each sardar per month in an average.
156 pykea held 1693 bighaa 2 kathaaW ehhataks of land'
yielding a value of 1381 Rs. 7 annas per months i.e. per head'
about 11 annas per month in the average. In Tamluk
2 sardar8, 2 naibe and 124 digwars held 768 bighas of land
the value of which as included in the jumma was Rs. 1536
i.e. 1 Re per man per month in the average. The Magistrate
further said :
The Poykes and Degwars were formerly appointed!

by the zamindars when they had the immediate
management of the Districts who granted them
Sunnuds upon their giving a Cabooleat to preserve the
Peace and take all the care in their power to prevent
Robberies & ca they were not subject to the Payment
of any Salamee to Government, neither to the
zaminders--.
Thus zamindars had the liberty to distribute rent-free lands

among their own retainers who spreading into the interior as
the arms of the zamindars engaged themselves in policing the-
land. A record of 1767 shows that under the Burdwan zamin-
dar 48,958 bighaa 7 bathos of land were distributed
i among his
thanadari, leotwali and other police officers. 7 These lands
7. Long, Selections, No. 9S4. These lands were called thannajaut lands
and were held as follows
(a) The Thannadars dispersed throughout
the provioce to protect the roads,
holding... ... ... ... 44,845-14-0
(b) The Outtoalee of Burdwan Town ... 2,689- 5-0-
(c) A set of people stationed on the Kings
road for the conveniency of travellers
by particular order from Court. ... 1,423- 8-0
in all, Beegas 48,958. 7*0
[ Long Selections, No. 954. ]

SEVENTHS AND MUGHAL SECUBITY SYBTEM 75
in the Mughal records were known as the chnkran lands.

Besides this the zamindir disbursed a monthly charge of
Rs. 2,080-15-15 as diet to the Thanadars*. 8 The functions
of the thanadars has been thus explained in the record t
The duty of a Thanadar is to protect the roads

from robbers, and they are responsible for all losses
by theft or robbery. They are dispersed throughout

the Province, and to them are issued all orders from
the head cutcherry that relate to the district of their
respective tannas. They have the superintendence of
their district and are the executive officers of the
cutcherry. They are in short the safeguard of the
province, and without them the ryot has no idea of
safety of his person or security of his property.
This is how the British official literature described the
involvement of the thanadars in the village society where

they were supreme in the autonomy of their power which
was necessary for the routine discharge of their police
functions. The zamindars collected revenue and intercepting
one-tenth of the total collection handed over the rest to
the state. Once that was done the state allowed the
zamindars absolute autonomy provided they maintained
their subordinate positions to the state as overlord and
undertook on behalf of the state to maintain the internal
peace and security of the country. They were also allowed
to enjoy innumerable perquisites under the name of abwab
8. Long, Selections, No. 954.

5>, There were two kinds of abwabs prevalent in Bengal, one kind of
abwab was imposed by the state known as subahdori abwabs and
the other kind was imposed by the zamindars known as zamindari
abwabs. A host of additional imposts, nazrana, ealamy. sayer, ghat,
chalanta, haldori, mathut, etc. made up the zamindari abwab. For
subahdori abwab see B.B., II, pp. 433-34, Rai M.N. Gupta Bahadur,
Land System of Bengal, p. 78, Abdul Karim, Murshid Quli Khan and
Bis Times, p. 78. Shore in the Appendix to his Minute of 18th
June, 1789 gives a statement of subahdori abwabs imposed between
1722and 1756.
1
together with revenue-free lands. 10 Thus the zamindars

within the structure of their submission to the state were
allowed autonomy and affluence. They in their turn allowed
the same to their innumerable employees who likewise
enjoyed rent-free lands and perquisites going by the name
of rassoom, vritti , salamy and so on. There was thus a graded
unfolding of authority and property consistent with the
general hierarchy of the Mughal state. In the village society
a qazi, a mufliy a qanunqo, a favjdar, a thanadar and all such
men had their stake in these twin rights to authority and
property which were recognised and went undisputed for
many years. 1
In the backdrop of this concept of property
and authority the rank-hierarchy of the Mughals unfolded
itself. N. K. Sinha discovered the Mughal rank hierarchy
in the police system of Burdwan thus :
In the zamindari of Burdwan, immediately under

the zamindar was Buxy [ Bakshi ] who according to
muchulka or engagement had to produce either the
goods or the thieves within a certain time or to
compensate the sufferer for his loss. Under the Buxy
there were in every district zamindari faujdars or
thanadars who were Chakaran (
lands being allotted
10. Eversince the time of Murshid Quli Khan the zamindars had been
enjoying revenue-free lands under the name nankar jalkar bankar
p 9
etc., [ H.B ,
II, Apart from this they enjoyed revenue-
p. 412].
free lands under the name devottar , Brahmottar , Shivottar Mahattaran ,
etc. That apart there were Ayma and madadmash lands. See Rai
M. N, Gupta Bahadur, Op. Cit. pp. 98-100,
11, The point to be noted here is that the profits of rent-free and revenue-
free lands as well as those of perquisites were retained within the
village society and did not very much move along the ladder of the
rank hierarchy upward towards the ruler just in the way as tribute
moved. The result was that within the village society there were
pockets where wealth could be formed behind the notice of the state
or with the explicit or tacit approval of the state. The British policy
of rooting out middle grade interception in the form of state take-over
of the police and judicial functions of the zamindars destroyed these
pockets of wealth in the interior of the country.
for their maintanance ) servants of the zamindar under

the Buxy. Travellers were furnished with safe
convoys through suspected places. Merchants were

also protected in the conveyance of their goods*. 12
The zamindar*s authority of coercion was delegated to his
subordinates provided they admitted their own subordination

to the zamindar and maintained his trust by keeping law and
order in the country thus providing the zamindar, their lord,
his bargaining counter to the state, the supreme overlord. It
was a question of an integrated right to autonomy, authority
and economic interception rolling down from the top and
adjusting in a balance against another integrated system of
trust, submission and actual performance climbing up from
below along the rank ladder. Such a system of give-and take
between the ruling top at the capital and his ruling agents in
the interior spared the Mughal s of much of their anxieties and
cares of day-to-day administration. The Mughals had a broad
system of sanctions within which all middle grade rights of
interceptions took their shape. Every rank in this structure
of power was rooted in the property of land which they very

often held rent-free. This on the one hand curbed their
mobiltty and kept them localized and on the other balanced

their aspirations and attainment within the narrow compass
of their possessions and performance. Every member of a
given rank had a rustic complascence that neutralized
individual assertion and the spirit of rank violence was
contained by the spirit of rank complascence of a superior
rank. This was possible only because every rank had a
definite spring of action, definite source of initiative and a
definite source of sanction behind. The Mughals were
certainly tribute-hungry but in the process of hunting
tributes they had created innumerable rights and under-
12. N.K. Sinha, Economic BUtory of Bengal, Vol. II, p. 15. This is
the view of the Governor General in Council.
rights, under-tenures and subordinate tenures thus forming in

the proeess vast strata of lesser powers but greater under-
takers whose functional importance warranted their stations
in the entire bodypolitic as middlegrade interceptors of the
social surplus. They squeezed wealth from the interior but
their persistence in maintaining reut-free and revenue-free
tenures along with adjunct rights of perquisites allowed
pockets where wealth could form to provide the state its
economic basis of rack-rent. 1
III. The Company Operates form Distrust

The Companys administration from the beginning
displayed a general distrust for the rural bureaucracy. As
early as 1770 Becher who was actively connected with the
12a. The importance of subordinate tenures in land was demonstrated in

two subsequent occasions. In the immediate aftermath of the
Permanent Settlement when the big zamindari families in Bengal [ the
Rajtfiahi Raj, the Dinajpur Raj the Birbhum Raj & the Bishnupur
.
Raj ] fell into pieces the Burdwan Raj escaped unhurt [ two other
zamindaries which escaped the fall were the Tripura St Lashkarpur
families ]
only by taking resort to the patni system. Sirajul Islam
writes [
The Permanent Settlement in Bengal etc. p. 143 ] By :
creating patni tenures the Burdwan raja shifted his responsibilities on

to the patnidara with whom he had concluded another permanent
settlement*. Apart from this during the Pabna disturbances in 1873
the same thing happened. There the landholders met the challenge
of the rising peasants by creating large number of under-tenures in
the form of perpetual leases. Kalyan Kumar Sengupta writes ( Pabna
Disturbances and the Politics of Bent 1878-1885, 1974, p. 87) t Apart
:
from harassing the tenants in the civil courts, the landlords also
attempted to contain their challenge by granting, since 1874, large
number of perpetual leases*'. Patnidors, Dar-Patnidars, Jotedars,
Dar-Jotedars were among the manifold subordinate interests which
existed in the land system of Pabna.Sengupta writes. Perpetual
leaseshad been granted in Pabna before 1873 but their numbers...
suddenly shot up since 1874 The development of the system also
showed that a large number of landlords, recognizing the strength of
the agrarian league preferred to share agricultural profits with the
under-tenure holders instead of dealing directly with a turbulent
tenantry 9* (Sengupta, Op. Cit p. 88).
-decision-making level of the Companys administration laid
ont the principle that the English gentlemen should...be

spring of very action. 1 * British Supervisors holding the
Mughal title of Amin were sent to the districts to superintend

the revenue, police and judicial administration of the interior.
The Supervisor of Nadia immediately on assumption of his
office raised an uproar on the infamous character of the

Baja of Nadia. 14 From Rangpur the Supervisor began to
-complain against the sbuses of the pykes of the Raja number-
ihg about 50,000 and advocated disbanding the whole
tribe. 1 ' From Rajshahi the Supervisor reported the dis-
missal of the qazia , the very important officers of the mofusail
-courts. 16 From Sylhet the Supervisor recommended the
dismantling of the thanadari establishment and contraction of
the charges on that account .
17 On the basis of the report from
the Supervisor of Chittagong the Committee of Circuit at
Dacca was deliberating as to why such Inconsiderable
zamindars should be each allowd a separate Establishment of
a Sudder Cutcherry. 18 The Governments objection
towards allowing smaller zamindars to maintain eadar
cutcherry was that such cutcherries employed a greater number
of servants & incur, a Greater Expense than can possibly be
requisite for so small a Collection. 18 From Birbhum the
Supervisor bitterly complained against the corrupt Manage*
13. Bechers letter of 30 March, 1770 quoted by Abdul Majed Khan,

Op.O%t p, 234.
14. LCBR (2 Vols. in one), p. 1 IS.
15. LCBR, p. 1.
16. The Supervisor at Natore to the Controlling Council of Revenue
(date tom in the original record) in 1770 available in Rev. Deptu :
Letter Copy Book of the 8uperv*eor of Rajehahi at Natore, 3 Dec. 1769

to 15 Sept., 1772 (one vol. only).
17. W. M. Thackeray to the Comm, of Circuit at Dacca, 25 Sept., 1772,
Prodge. of CO at Dacca (Vol. IV), 10 Oct., 1772.
18. Prodge. of CO at Dacca, 18 Nov., 1772.
'
.19. Ibid.
1
went of the An [mils] and Black Collectors 20 From Jessore

the- Supervisor complained against the zamindars and in 1772
the authorities implored to take speedy and effectual
Measures for Checking their [zamindars] outrages. 3 Thus
during the first decade since the grant of the Diwani the
English administrators at Calcutta, Murshidabad and Dacca
were flooded with reports from the interior as to how the
Mughal system of administration in the districts had fallen
into disuse. This was the first phase of the British
administration in Bengal and the plea was being whipped up

that the Mughal system of administration had lost its raison
detre and was not tenable with the principle of a good
government. The dispossession of zamindars in the 24-
Parganas had already showed that the scrapping of the Mughal
System was already in British contemplation. 3 * The
introduction of the Supervisors in the interior was a move
aimed at liquidating the pretences and evasions of Aumils,
zamindars and Collectors. 22 In general the Companys
administratioa was having bitter ideas about the old official
aristocracy of Bengal. Cartier wrote of the villainies of

this wicked set. To tolerate them would be to lend them
the sanction of the government, he added. 28 Verelst wrote
from Chittagong as early as 1761, the year when he first
arrived there : The villainous intention of those people
20. The Supervisor of Birbhum to Controlling Council of Revenue at

Murshidabad, 22 Feb., 1771. Prodgs, of CCR, 28 Feb,, 1771.
21. Controlling Council of Rev. to the Supervisor of Jessore, 23 Jan.,
1772. Prodgs. of COR (Vol. IX), 23 Jan 1772.
21a. <*The dispossession of the zamindars of the 24-Parganas marked the
breach in the Mughal Zamindari system
first .N. K. Sinha,
Economic History of Bengal, Vol. II, p. 110. For further discussion
on the point see The Zamindars of the Twenty Pour Pargunnahs by
, c. W. Gunner in BPP, Vol. XXXIII, Serial Nos. 65-66, Jan-June,
1927, pp. 85-91.
22. A. M. Khan, Op. Cit., p. 239.
23. Cartier to Reza Khan, 16 June, 1770, O.P.C., III, No, 257.
REVENUE AND MUGHAL SEOUBITY SYSTEM 81
that had the management of the revenue here before, in

endeavouring to secrete from us and make us intricate as
possible whatever they could, has delayed thus long 94

In 1775 the Collector of Chittagong requisitioned a European
Civil Assistant a Oentoo or Moor would frustrate the
intention, he said. 2 * As late as 1786, Kinloch, the Collector
of Burdwan, who was ill-reputed among the Companys

administrators as one who favoured a native Raja informed
the Board of Revenue :
dangerous and intriguing persons have gained the

young Rajahs confidence and are leading him
astray. 26
These are a few specimens collected at random from the
British official literature which show how the British mind
was clouded with regard to the people of interior Bengal
during the first phase of the British ascendancy in this country.
The people who were designated as a wicked set in the
British records were the multitude who manned the administra-
tion of the Mughals at any level between the palace and the
field. In Calcutta for many years the English administrators
had become familiar with self-seeking men, the banians,
dalals and big merchants men of the feather of Kantu Babu,
Nabakrishna, Kashinath Babu, Ganga Govind and so on who
were comrades of the self-seeking men of the Company. In
the interior the English would meet self-concealing men who
would conceal their wealth and information, knowledge and
experience in a bid to survive against the irresistable coercion
of a very aggressive state. The Mughals in all their
administration did not repose any trust on the zatnindars and
24. H. J. S. Cotton, Memorandum on the Revenue History of Chittagong ,

p.5.
25. Ibid. Note.
26. Kinloch to the Governor General, 25 May 1786 available in The
Marly Collectorate Records of Burdwant 1768-1790 by R. J. Hirst in
BPP, Vol. VI, No. 13, Oct.-Dec., 1910, p. 229.
6
82 SOCIAL BANDITJJY IN BENGAL
their men. Yet there was no attempt on the part of the

Mughals to extirpate the interior lords as parasitic
interceptors of the social surplus. 17 This was because the

zamindars and the rural amla* had acquired over centuries a
kind of indispensibility in the revenue system as permanently
stationed men of the interior, the invariable rallying points
of the village society, who could be utilized either as the
spokesmen of a coalescing resistance from below or as
instruments of coercion descending from the top. Zamindars
and their amlas were truly the mid-points where the demand
of the state met the response of the people in an antithetical
balance. Throughout the course of the eighteenth century
the tribute-hunting Bengal Nawabs had always tried to
galvanize the zamindars so that their zamindaris could grow
as organized revenue-paying units of the state. 28 If necessary
they would introduce amils 29 to stimulate revenue-collection,

or in extreme cases of emergency, to hunt down hidden
treasures of the interior. At times the zamindars were
mercilessly beaten down as during the time of Murshid Quli
Khan, 20 * but seldom there was any occasion when the
27. The Mughal Government never dispossessed the Zamindars of the

management of their lands. If a balance was incurred personal
severity was first used towards him. If this was ineffectual an officer
was sent by the Government to attach his land and form a valuation
aod collect the balance if there were assets. If there was not enough
produce the zamindar obtained an abatement N. K. Sinha,
Economic Bistory of Bengal, Vol. II, p. 4.
28. For details of how Murshid Quli Khan at the behest of the Alamgir
organized Bengal as a revenue-paying area see BB, pp. 413, N. K.
Sinha, Economic Bistory etc. Vol. II, p. 3, Abdul Karim, Op. Cit
pp. 74-93.
29. Amils were introduced under desperate condition of finance by
Murshid Quali Khan (Abdul Karim, Op. OU, p. 76) and Mir Qasim.
The latter appointed Ramnath Bhaduri as the anvil of Dinujpur for
unearthing the revenue potentialities of the area.
29a, Under Murshid Quli Khan zamindars were brutally tortured and
occassionally stripped of their religion (see Sali mullahs description
quoted by Sarkac, BB, pp. 410411),
:
authority of the zemindars as lords of the interior were

negated. Throughout the course of the second half of the
eighteenth century the zamindars were progressively disarmed
of their powers. They were stripped of their judicial and
police functions. 3 4 Their amices were retrenched and their
perquisites were resumed. 30 The zamindars lost their
source of revenue with which they maintained their police
organizations. 31 From the time when the zamindars of
the 24-Parganas were dispossessed till such time as the
coming of the Permanent Settlement the zamindars of Bengal
had been in a state of tension always apprehending that the
-state would encroach upon their autonomy and revenue.
In this situation zamindars would be either self-concealing
or aggressive, concealing their property in self-defence or
defending their autonomy and power in a spirit of resistance.
A letter of instruction sent by a zamindar to his gomasta in

1771 may be noted here as a case in point
Rampersuad mohurer know that as Mr. Staples will
speedily proceed to the mofussul he will thoroughly

investigate the accounts of the Jumma and Collections,
you must therefore frame the accounts of your
District properly. There must be no appearance of
anything under the Heads of Des Khurcha, Muthoot,
Shadee Kurcha, and Bettee Birtee, you must take
care that the Chittas and receipts given to the Ryotts
correspond with the monthly stipulations at the
Sudder and that the Ryotts
1
only make mention of
four kinds of Rents. Mr. Staples will set out on
29b. For details see N. Majumdar, Justice and Police in Bengal .

30. This point has been briefly discussed later in this chapter. For
details see Ranjil Sen's book Economics of Revenue Maximization :
1757-1793 Bengal A Case-Study.
:
31, The from a special duty called sayer duties provided the fund
yield
with which zamindars maintained their police organization. This
was resumed by the Company,
Tuesday the 10th paghua [FaZ^n*]understanding:

this, you will act accordingly. What need I say to
you? Be cautious in your bisiness, and carefully
forewarn all the Ryotts and Ehtemamdars of your
District.
The postscript of this letter was written in the Rajas

. own hand :
From what is written you will learn that these-

shcemes are more and more importan t] : He will

now certainly go and We are to accompany him.
He will Compare the monthly Chittas and Receipts
of the farmers and Ihtemamdars. If any Difference
appears you will be hanged. Be particularly careful
of the papers and writings, and give information to

all the Zilladars around you that they may all
agree. 82
-
zamindars, ihlimamdars, zilladars , gomastas and other
amlas and also the ryots i.e. men of different ranks combined,
to conceal information from the Companys administration.
Zamindars and their men were visibly guarding themselves-

from extraordinary British efforts to penetrate into their
riches. In 1773 the Calcutta Council warned Samuel Lewis-
that the Local Examinations by Native Aumins are so open,
to Fraud & Exaggerations and advised him to obtain,
exacter accounts by private Enquiries 88 Years before
that Furgusson writing from Midnapur spoke very much
about the despotic rule of the zamindars and their predilec-
tion to get involved in conspiracies, connivances and 1
-
clandestine activities. 84 In Midnapur his mission, he said,

was the desire of promoting the plan of civilizing and
familiarizing the country people to our government, also
~22. Prodgs. CCR, 1 April. 1771.

33. Calcutta Council to Samuel Lewis, IS Nov., 1773., Midnapur Dirt..
Reeds., Vol. Ill, p. 172
34. Furgusson to Vansittart, 26 Jan., 1768, Midnapur Dirt. Reeds , p. 37.
lessening the despotic sway of the zamindars by informing and

instructing the ryots that in cases of oppression there was
'.redress . 86 The British aim from the beginning was to
rationalize the Indian milieu by extirpating middle grade
interception and by resuming to the state as far as possible
the judicial and police functions so long appropriated by the

zamindars. The English took the zamindars to be instruments
-of tyranny, a point which even the Mughals did not deny.
<But the Mughals unlike the British did not miss the point
that the zamindars and their amlas were inextricably involved
in the village society as a collector of revenue, dispenser of
justice, granter of favours, lord of the police, sanctioning
authority of loan 36 and remissions, builder of dams and
embankments, maker of charitable institutions like schools
and temples and finally the master of the rural force in a
word a person who reconciled the rule of force with the force
of rule. A Mughal village, rustic in its passivity, insular
with its self-sufficient economy, dull in the changelessness

of its routine of life and rule, provided an idyllic base on
which such an idol of the zamindar as the indispensible
rallying point could be raised. A Krishnachandra of Nadia
or Rani Bhabani of Natore would be big examples of the
kind of leadership available in Mughal Bengal but they
-certainly typified the pattern of behaviour which was to be
emulated by innumerable lesser lords who undertook the
35. Ibid.
.36. Zamindars distributed taqavi loans to peasants. Without zamindars'
investment in taqavi and poolbundy or embankments cultivation would
have been difficult. A part of the capital that went out of the village
in the form of tribute to the state, however small that be, thus
returned to the village. Zamindars were the agents who pumped
back this money to the village economy and prevented it from
becoming absolutely dry of capital. Thus a zamindar reconciled two
-contradictory positions in him -extractor of wealth and donor of
-capital.
:
care of Bengals interior. The achievement of these zttmmdar

has been thus recognized by a recent research
But for much of the eighteenth century stable-
conditions in the province owed much more to the-
Bengal zamindars than to the central government,,
be it Mughal or British/ 87
Or
In general the rule of the zamindars seems to have
been relatively favourable to the economic life of
Bengal. Except in frontier districts and in Bihar,
Bengal zamindars do not seem to have used their

power to enlarge their domains by making war on-
their neighbours. Nor do they appear to have

followed the example of landholders in other parts of
later Mughal India, who, according to recent studies,
either levied taxation on the cultivators at rates-
which provoked flight and rebellion or themselves-

incited revolts. Evidence of widespread depopola-
tion or rural revolt has not yet been produced for
eighteen-century Bengal. The zamindars also appear
to have been able to ensure that goods and persons^

could travel along the river system and the roads of
Bengal in comparative security. In 1753 an English-
man wrote that merchants could send bullion from
one part of Bengal to another 'under care frequently
of one, two or three persons only . 88
Such were the Bengal zamindars in the eighteenth century.

They were bedevilled by the Companys administration amt
damaged beyond repair. In 1758 the Companys* administra-
tion was thinking in terms of threatening the Baja of Nadia
with the loss of his caste and such corporal punishments a*
37. P. J, Marshall Boat India fortunes : The British in Bengal in the

Eighteenth Century, Oxford, 1976, p. 30.
3S. P. J. Marshall, Op. Git., p. 31.
are in practice among those people .* 8 The Company was

also thinking in terms of merching army into the territory of
the Raja of Burdwan so that "when once he is thoroughly

intimidated he will be very regular in his payments*. 40
Intimidation which was an extraordinary measure under the
Mughals became a common instrument of coercion under the
British. Mir Qasim who was said to have fleeced zamindars
beyond their capacities 41 also showed greatest accommodation
for them 42 In contradistinction to this, disrespect and
absence of accommodation were writ large in all British
movement towards the zamindars. Disrespect was not absent

in public behaviour under the Mughals, 42 * but its effect
became catastrophic when the might of an aggressive state
was brought to bear upon the zamindars and all their men in
a desperate effort to nulify the entire middle order of the
rural society. Clive had initiated the process when he cut
down the stipend of the Nawab in utter disrespect 4 *
of his honour and standing 44 . A large force of the
39. Long, Selections, No. 358. Also see Firminger, Fifth Report, p. 124.
40. Ibid.
41. See Firminger, Fifth Report, pp. 125-126, Firminger quotes Francis
to show that Mir Qasims administration was a system of regular
pillage.
42. On one occasion Mir Qasim wrote to the English : It is my

intention to send for the old zamindar and give him a surpan, and
make him happy by reinstating him in the zamindarry (Long,
Selections, No. 508). The sanad granted by Mir Qasim for the
cession of Burdwan to the Company categorically said : They shall
continue the zamindars and tenants in their place... (Long, Op. Oil.,
No. 481).
42a. About the zamindars Mir Qasim himself wrote to the Company in
December, 1760: ...they [zamindars] are all decoit, and only

wait an opportunity to surpriseyou Long, Selections, No. 516.
43. In 1766 Clive raised the issue of cutting down the stipend of the
Nawab with Reza Khan, not with the Namab, it might be noted,
whom Clive ignored (Abdul Majed Khan, Op, Cit., p. 121).
44. Nine days before the grant of Diwani Clive wrote. I do not see the
least necessity for the young Nabobs keeping so many seapoys and
s
8g SOCIAL BANDITRY IN BENGAL
Nawab 46 as well as those of the Rajas were retrenched.

Among the sepoys, pykes and barkandazes who were thus
retrenched there were Bihar is , Bhojpuris, Rajputs, Jots,
Rohillas and Patham who during the twenty-five years
from Alivardi to Mir Qasim had flocked into the courts
of the Nawabs and the Rajas for service 46 . These men

now formed a vast mass of floating paupers whose hatred
for the Company's administration had viciated the peace
of the interior. Speaking very broadly every zamindar had
three distinct types of amlas under them. One set of
amlas looked after the household and sadar kutcheries of the
zamindar . They were so to say the amlas stationed at the
head quarters. The second kind of amlas were those who

manned the revenue administration and the customs depart-
ments, being stationed at innumerable chowkies of different
varieties in the field, by the side of the road and river as well
as at hats , bazars and gunges and so on The third set of
amlas were the thanadari amlas 9 the vast police and para-
military forces of the zamindar who subsisted mostly as
chakran servants of the interior lords. Apart from them
there were mutasaddis of the Diwani and Nizamat departments
like the qazis 9 qanungns, fa ujdars and so on. All these men
came to be affected under the English.
if a part of them be reduced a part of his allowances may be taken

off... (Forrest, Clive , II, 282). In 1790 the monthly disbursement
in the Nizamat amounted to Rs. 1,27, 492-15-5-0. It was resolved to
reduce it to Rs. 14,449-1-7-0 thus saving Rs. 1,13,043-13-18-0
(C.P'C., IX, No. 601, p. 144). The Company thus curbed the
Nizamafa capacity to spend as it had done immediately after the
grant of the Diwani.
45. In 1766 Reza Khan under the instruction of Clive agreed to cut
down the public funds of the Nizamat by 12 lakhs, a sum which
Clive thought was spent on useless horses, elephants, buffalos,
camels etc,* (Abdul Majed Khan, Op. Cit. 9 p. 121] Clive and
others thought that the Nawabs troops had been the most typical

form of oriental army a useless military rabble ( Ibid j.
46. Abdul Majed Khan, Op, Cit ., pp. 121-122,
0
REVENUE AND MUGHAL SECURITY 8YSTEM 89
IV. Effects of British Distrust
A few examples from English records will make our

point clear. In 1766 the Companys administration 'struck
off & annexed to the Revenue all allowances of the
in Midnapur. 4
7
qanunqoa and their amlas But rural admi-
nistration was impossible without them and Graham wrote :
*I am now however made sensible by Experience that the

Business cannot well be conducted without them... 48 In
1770 the Supervisor of Birbhum cut down the number of
persons in the Rajas service from 12,853 to 8,832 and
resumed 61, 434 bighas of revenue- free iand in the process.**
In Dinajpur about the same time the pay of the amils
servants was reduced from Rs. 3289 a month to Rs. 1000

only. Ont of 7,560 men in the Rajas service 3,940 were
retrenched and 64,473 bighas of revenue-free land was
resumed. 6 Side by side with this the Government ordered
the closing down of all chowkies 61 which were instituted to
collect customs dues. The purpose behind this was to ensure

freedom of commerce but in doing that the Companys
administration had thrown a vast number of people out of
'employment. While retrenching out-station amlas of
zamindars the Company also drew up plans to reform the
household arrangements of different big zamindaris. In
Dinajpur the Company decided to discharge such of his
the Rajas] Amlas, as are of no use to him...* 2 . Who was to
47. Graham to Select Committee, Prodgs. Sel. Com. 14 Oct., 1766.

48. Ibid.
49. Birbhum Report, Prodgs. OCR, 31 Dec,, 1770.
50. of 16 Oct., 1770, Prodgs. COR, 23 Nov , 1770,
Vansittarts letter
51. Council at Fort William to Controlling Council of Rev. at
Murshidabad, 18 Dec., 1771, Prodgs. OCR Vol. IX, 4 Jan., 1772 ;
Prodgs. OO at Krishnagar, 10 June, 1772, see the deliberation on the

letter of the Collector of Nadia of the same dale Mid. Dist. Roods.,
Vol. Ill, p. 91.
32. Runppore Dist. Roods., Vol. II, p. 155.

decide whether the amlas were of any necessity to the-

zamindars ? In 1787 the Board of Revenue reduced the
annual charge of the Rajas servants from Rs. 17,881 annas 9*
to Rs. 14,976. 82a They also stopped allowances for the'
Burcondosses [burkandazes] on the groimd that the zamindar

enjoys a sufficient fund in his Chakeraun lands for this
expense." 82 b
In 1761 when Johnstone in Burdwan reduced
the Najdean force of the Raja 9 3 it was considered
unnecessary and hence a part of it was reduced. The Court
of Directors went a step further and demanded the reduction'
of the entire force. 54 The central administrators of the
Company like Clive considered the troops of the Nawab
superfluous while the local English administrators who were-
sent to manage the administration of zamindaris considered
the troops of the zamindars as unnecessary. Retrenchment
of amlas and reduction of their allowances were parts of one
policy which wanted to disarm the native power and reduce
middlegrade interception of revenue. In 1766 Verelst in
Burdwan reduced the pay of some of the Raja's troops from;
Rs. 22000 to Rs. 15,000 and sought the permission of the
authorities to disband them altogether. 65 The same year all
allowances of the faujdar, qanungo, tahsildar and all their

subordinate amlas of Midnapore were resumed by the state-
and annexed to the revenue of the district. 88 Resumption'
of the perquisites of the amlas was unknown in the past. Its-
first effect was surprise ; from surprise there was indignation i
52a. BOS to George Hatch, Collector of Dinajpur, 16 Aug., 1787. Dinaj..

Diet . Reed*., Vol. I, p. 47.
52b. Ibid.
53* McNeils, Report on the Village Watch p. 82. ,
54* Letter from the Court dated 24 Dec., 1765, Fort William India Bouse-
Correspondence , Vol. IV*
55. Select Com. Prodge., 28 Oct., 1766*
56. Verelst to Select Com,, 1 Feb. t 1766, Prodge. of Sel. Comm of Feb.*
1766.
s
and indignation eventually gave way to the spirit of

resistance.
V. The Thanadari System
On the English part there was the greatest bungling on

the thanadars of the interior. The hostility which the
English showed towards them had neutralized one of the
most important country institutions that had so long
maintained peace and stability in the interior,
As early as 1767 the thanadar of Balarampur in Midnapur

was discharged because he leagued with the zamindars and
obstructed the Salt Parwana of the Company there. The
hostility of zamindars towards the Companys administration
and their league with faujdars, thanadars, amils, gomastas and
subordinate amlas in a bid to obstruct English trade, postal
service, revenue administration and any other English
activity in the interior are very common in the history of
Bengal during the period. About the dismissal of the
thanadar of Balarampur in 1767 the report of the district
administrator was this : I found that the generalty of the

zamindars did not pay the due regard to the Salt parwana
sent them, and that some were lead [led] into this by the
Connivance of ye Bulrampore Tannidar [thanadarlp, ...he
[the thanadar] had encouraged and made a perquisite of the
trade during his whole residence here [Bulrampore], for which
I immediately dismissed him.* 88 * Five years after this the
thanadar of Pandua in Sylhet was dismissed on the

recommendation of Thackeray, the Supervisor there. The
charge against him was that he joined hands with the zamindar
of that place and put great obstacles to the Companys
procurement of chunum [lime]. 684 Besides the thanadar'
56a. Fergusson to Vansittart, 1 July, 1767, Mid. Diet, Rscdt., Vol. I,

p. 159.
56b. Thgckerey to CC, 25 Sept, 1772, Prodgs. of CC. 10 Oct,, 1772.
c
union with the zamindar, there was another reason why he

was dismissed. The thanadars charges in Sylhet for one year
from September, 177 1 was very high and this did not agree
with the Companys policy of economization of the cost of
administration. The Committee of Circuit wrote to the
Supervisor on 10 Oct. 1772 in which they simply concurred
in the views of the Supervisor : The charges incurrd at
Sylhet appear to run extravagantly high. ..From a Retrench-
ment of those we entertain Expectation of a very handsome
increase .... 6 8
The central administration of the Company
certainly did not want to abolish the post of the tkanadar
permanently. But there, they believed, the conduct of the
tkanadar warranted his dismissal. But the dismissal of a
thanadar was not within the jurisdiction of the Compny
because a thanadar was a servant of the Nizamat and hence
prior approval of the Nizamat was to be sought. But during
the period under review the Company was all powerful in
the country and hence the Companys army had no difficulty
in arresting the thanadar. The only grace the Company

showed to the thanadar was to send him to Murshidabad for
6 6<f
a trial by the Nizamat .
As early as 1767 the central administration in Calcutta

wanted to scrape the entire thanadari establishment in
Burdwan. But caution was sounded by the local
administration s
Their [
thanadari corps] present number, after the
reduction of 441 that I have made, is 3,252. To
reduce those and replace them with a battalion of
sepoys, as proposed by the Select Committee, would
not only be subjecting the Company to make good
all thefts and robberies, but the whole country to
56c. Prodgt OC, 10 Oct., 1772.

56d. The Calcutta Council to the CO at Dacca, 27 Oct., 1772 Prodgt.
of CO at Dacca 3 Nov., 1772.

to tbe exactions and oppressions which it is well

known sepoys, distributed singly over the province
and left their own masters, ever make a practis[c]e
of* 7 :
A very important group of people who maintained watch

in the village in Burdwan and elsewhere was called gram
serenjammee people. They formed the establishment of the
kotwals and particularly maintained the night watch of the
village. The Court of Directors wanted that all police force
in Burdwan should be disbanded and the district should be
protected by a battalion of Companys sepoys. 58 The
Select Committee in Calcutta wanted that this should be
implemented. The desire to this end was whipped up by
Johnstones early success in Burdwan in reducing a part of
the Nagdean force of the Raja. In 1767 a part of the thanadari
servants holding a vast amount of revenue-free chakran lands
called thanajaux or thanajote lands 69 were reduced, but as
stated above, they could not be wholly wiped out. When
the question of reducing the gram serenjammee servants came
57. Long, Selections ,

No. 954. We learn from the Seleet Committee
Proceedings dated 28 Oct., 1766 that the Thana Servants or 'Guards
in different forts and passes were removed. This probably meant
1
removal of the thana servants in the obscure areas of the district.

58. The Court in their letter dated 24 Dec , 1765 wrote :
We desire to know why the order for the reduction of the

troops of ths Raja of Burdwan ] was not complied with, and
\
we see no reason whv this expense that of the public force ]

[
was not entirely struck off and the province defended by our
own troops.*
The military establishment of the English in Burdwan was
increased to two battalions of sepoys in order to carry out the
reduction of the thana servants, to enter upon the reduction of
the unnecessary troops of the Raja of Burdwan who should be
granted a guard of two companies of sepoys, in lieu thereof, to
maintain his dignity. Select Com Prodgs , 28 Oct., 1766. Also
.
see Calendar of Records of the Select Committee at Fort William

in Bengal^ Calcutta, 1915, p. 69.
59. Vide 7.
94 SOCIAL BANDITRY IK BENGAL
up the local English administration in Burdwan refused to

oblige the central administration t
This class [gram aerenjammee land-holders as against

thanajote land-holders] remains entire as it did, I
could not venture on reducing any part without the
the whole country being up in arms, and the farmers
being furnished with pleas for deficiencies in their
rents or backwardness in paying them. The large
number of servants in this class evince in a great
degree the necessity of the institution, and it is
therefore almost unnecessary to expatiate on the

nature of their services, however to give you a clear
idea of it I will endeavour at an explanation. The
servants then are nothing else than cutwals and pykes
dispersed in every village in the province, of which
there are above 8,500, besides detached parts that
are reckoned inferior ones These people are night
watches and are responsible for all thefts in the
village where they are stationed. They look after
the crop upon the ground as well as after it is cut
and laid up, until divided between the farmer and
ryot. They it is that summon the ryots to pay their
rents to the farmers' gomastahs, they enforce the
payment by their authority, and they escort the
treasure to the head cutcherry. Upon a computation
made from pergunnahs taken indifferently in the
different parts of the province, a sketch of which is
enclosed, the average proportion to each village is
not 3 persons holding in all 18^ beegaa. 40
'Oram aerenjammee holders and holders of thanajote formed

one rank of people in the village society in Bengal. They
were the people on the immediate top of the ryota. Some of
60. Ibid.
REVENUE AND MUGHAL SEOUBITY SYSTEM 93
them were ryots themselves. The interaction between the

ryots and men of the village watch was so great that one class
could not be dislodged without the other class being affected.

This was all the more so because the police servants in the
village owned cultivable lands and on many occasions they
themselves took up the work of actual cultivation. In
Midnapur the pykea who held pykan lands were mostly
cultivators. With arms at their command they distinguished
themselves from the vast multitude of ordinary ryots whom
they kept under their control an achievement without which
they would forfeit their title to chakran lands. The Mughal
system of land-grant served three important purposes ; first,
it brought land under cultivation in a situation when

population was scarce 61 ; secondly, it relieved the
administration from anxieties of paying the employees of the
state in cash which was difficult in view of the scarcity of
bullion which kept money in circulation very low * 2 ; finally,
it kept a big quantum of population of a district rooted in
the soil so that they became immobile ensuring that a part of

the cultivating population or those who supervised cultiva-
tion would not run away causing irreparable damage first to
the production of the country and then to the revenue of the
state. In a situation when an ordinary ryot unable to bear
61. There were several factors which acted as constraints on the growth
of populationfamine, flood, storm, diseases, warfare, taxes on
marriage and cost of marriage etc.. Haldart was a tax which was to
be paid on account of marriage. That apart Muftis and Qazis who
presided over the ceremony of marriage had to be paid their fees.
Sometimes donations to the priests also ran high. A person going
in for marriage had to satisfy a host of people so that very often he
had no money to venture a marriage.
62. The annual tribute which the Bengal Nawabs used to send to Delhi
took the shape of an annual drain of bullion from Bengal. As a
result bullion in the country was often scarce and hence money could
not be minted. The total money in circulation was perpetually small
in Bengal, see B.B., II, p. 417.
'
the squeeze administered from the top was prone to desert

his field, it was the duty of the members of the rural police
to keep him under a cordon. Thus the men of the village
watch developed a functional linkage with the primary
producers of the soil with whom they had already had a
deeper equation of identity as residents of the same village or
the same pargana deriving sustenance from a common source
namely land. When the Court of Directors, the Companys
superior authority in London, or the Select Committee, the
Companys central body of local representatives in Calcutta
wished to extirpate the middlegrade agencies in the interior
which intercepted revenue in the name of offering certain
functions to the state, their subordinate officers stationed in
the interior sounded caution to them. A few years later
young and more desperate men were sent into the districts
and it was they who began to tamper with the thanadars andt
their men in the interior to the great disliking of the central
administration in Calcutta. We may note here the following
report which Thackeray sent from Sylhet in 1772 s
My next Consideration shall be the Reduction of ye

heavy & unnecessary Charges of the Sylhet Province,
which have swelled enormously to no purpose...I do
not doubt but the greatest part of the Tannadar
Charges may be struck off 68
The thanadari charges in Sylhet were certainly very high, 64
63. W. M. Thackeray to Comm, of Circuit, 25 Sept., 1772 ; Prodgs. CO

at Dacca (Vol. IV), 10 Oct., 1772.
64. The thanadars charges in Sylhet from 13 Sept., 1771 to 13 Sept ,
1772
has been given in the Prodgs. of CO Dacca, 10 Oct., 1772, as
at
Rs 12,550.14.15 2. In 1778 79 the chirges incurred for two thanas

at Lahore and BoDgongin Sylhet were Rs. 829.9-6 pm. or Rs.
9942-15.13 per [annum MRR
95 ]. This means that a tkana in
Sylhet in 1778 incurred an expenditure of above 400 Rs. in the
average whereas in Midnapur the average expense for a thana was
Rs. 35 only. In Rangpur It was Rs, 30 only ( See Note 78 ).
REVENUE AND MUGHAL SECUBITY SYSTEM 97
but finance was certainly not the only factor which shaped the
mind of the young Supervisor. Thackeray recommended the
dismissal of the Thanadar of Pandua in Sylhet because he
joined hands with the zimindar and put great obstacles to the
Companys procurement of chunam .** In any case the
authorities of the Company upheld the dismissal of the
thanadar but did not approve of the move suggested by
Thackeray for retrenching the thanadari charges there. The
Committee Circuit wrote back to the Supervisor :
Your Remark on the Tannadar Charges appears to

be very just. ...we cannot however authorize any
sudden or total Change in the present System, as
Sylhet is a frontier District, & we have it not in our
power to supply you with any Number of seapoys to
enforce the Measure, were we to adopt it. 66
In Burdwan while the authorities of the Company wanted to

disband the thanadari forces, in Sylhet they wanted to retain
the same and in both the districts their opinion ran counter
to that advised by the local English administrators. We have
a third instance in Dinajpur. In 1772 William Marriot from
Dinajpur sent the following note to the Controlling Council

of Revenue at Murshidabad :
On this account [banditry] I beg leave to submit

to your Consideration whether after the Method
which has been happily adopted at Burdwan, it might
not be adviseable [advisable] at the ensuing
Settlement to establish a Tannah in each Pergunnah,
the Tannadar of which should be responsible for all
Robberies Committed in his District. The good

Effects of such an Establishment would, I am
Convinced become general, and the Expense attending
65. Prodgs. of OC at Dacca, 10 Oct., 1772.

66. CO at Dacca to the Collector of S>lhet, 10 Oct., 1772, Ibid.
7]
is not great The Chakerawn Zemin which was

resumed at the last Settlement, being sufficient to
carry this Design into Execution. ,. 8 7
To this the Controlling Council of Revenue at Murshidabad

replied thus :
...We cannot so immediately consent to the

Proposition of establishing Tannahs in each
Pergunnah. The Tannahdars of such Establishment
could be no further responsible for Robberies, at
least no further capable of making Reparation for
them than the Allowances they should receive from
Government might enable them ; and the happy
effects which have been experienced from this kind of
Establishment in Burdwan we believe to have accrued
more from the occasional sequestration of a ready
Money Fund allowed to the Tannadars in the light of

Batta, and the Application of it to make good
Losses, than from any Vigilance in the Tannahdarry
Chokies in the Execution of their Duty, or
Responsibility in the Tannadars themselves : As
therefore it appears that Restitution of Losses upon
this Plan must ultimately fall upon Government,
we cannot give our Consent to it, and we moreover
think that such a local Distribution of the Land
Servants still retained in Dinagepor might be made
as to answer all the purposes that could be expected
from the Tannahdarry Chokies. 68
Yet just one year before this the Government categorically

instructed the Supervisor of Dinajpur that the thanadars
should be made to protect the Companys assamecs as
67. Wm, Marriot to CCR at Murshidabad, dated Dinajpur, 1 March,

1772, Prodgs . CCR at Murshidabad, 5 March, 1772,
68. CCR to Wm. Marriot, 5 March, Ibid.
well as the ryots against Night Robbers & Dekoits. 68<
If thanadars were indispensible for keeping the peace of the

country, there was no reason why the Supervisors proposi-
tion about establishing ihanas in every district should not be
honoured. But the Companys first concern was revenue
which called for an extreme economy in all matters of
administration. Therefore the Companys Government was
decidedly against establishing new thanas because that
would consume much of the Government revenue. From the
beginning the Government was trying to bring about a
reduction of the expenses incurred for the police administra-
tion of the country. Burdwan offers the greatest example of
this. The Raja there was responsible for the peace of the
district. Under him the thanadars were 'paid by grants of
land. But the Raja collected from them annual tax to the
tune of Rs 5000. This tax eventually fell on the ryots and
caused great hardship to them. At the instance of the
Company this tax was abolished in 1790. Again the Raja
was allowed to deduct from the annual revenue payable by
him the sum of Rs. 1,03,360 for the payment of his Nagdi
establishment. In June, 1787 the Company reduced the
the allowance to Rs 50,000, which was considered sufficient
for the maintenance of a force of pykes, watchmen etc.
throughout the district. 84 Thus between 1787 and 1790 the

Government took measures to save its revenue in Burdwan
and the process severely hit the Rajas purse so that his
capacity to spend for the defence of his district was
drastically contracted. Similarly in 1793 when a police
68a. The Controlling Council of Revenue at Murshidabad to the Super-

visor of Dinajpur, 7 March, 1771, Prodgs. OCR ( Vol. IV ), &
7 March, 1771.
458 b. R. J. Hirst, Op. Oft., p. 235. Between 1781 and 1784 during the
Collcetorship of Goodlad the native officers of the faujdar and
thanadar of Rangpur were disbanded E. G. Glazier, A Report on
the District of Rungpore, p. 45.
. a
tax8 was being collected from the merchants and moodiea 69

of Tamluk the Magistrate of the same place under
0
instructions 7 from the Governor General in Council had to-
reduce two thanas. 11 But he appealed to the grace of the

authorities to stay their policy of economy ;
...the Wages of the Darogah, the Burkondosses

ought not to be reduced, their allowances as they
now stand being liberal will I hope be the means
of preventing them making any improper exactions-
from the people who may come under their
7 a
jurisdictions.
7 3
In Nadia there were 27 thana in 1772. In 1793 there were
only 21 lhanaa 74 to look after the peace of the district. The
Acting Magistrate of Nadia wrote to the Revenue Depart-
ment that agreeable to the order of the Governor General he
reduced the number of Tannahs very considerably
tho the monthly Expense still exceeds the amount
authorised in his orders of the 7th. December last to
be raised from the Police Establishments in the Sum
of Rupees 367. Yet when the extent of the District
68c. In Tamluk Rs. 787 were collected annually from four Towns-
Gunges or Bazars Sahib Gunge, Narrainpore, Manick Gunge and
Gewacolly. This tax brought to the credit under the bead police
was collected by a man appointed on a salary of Rs. 5 per month
William Dent, Agent at Tamluk to the Rev. Deptt., 23 April, 1793,
Jttd ( Criminal Prodgs. 3 May, 1793.
)
69. Ibid.
70. The instructions were dated 5 April 1793. The Magistrate carried
out the instructructjons on 11 April. Ibid.
71. Afrer the reduction of two thanas , the Magistrate had under his
control five more thanas on a total monthly expense of Sicca Rs. 415
or Rs. 4, 980 per annum Ibid .
72. Ibid.
73. Prodgs. of CC at Krishnagw and Kasimbazar Vols. I, II, III (
Comdined ), p. 1 1
74 The Acting Magistrate of Nadia to the Rev. Deptt,, 24 April, 1793*

Jud ( Crim Prodgs. 3 May, 1793.
)
8 a
is considered I hope his Lordship will not deem the

number of jurisdictions too many, especially as
several Pergunnahs have lately been annexed to this
District, and I have thought it necessary to keep up

the five last mentioned Tannahs in the List as they
are situate on the Banks of the River Hooghly, where
Robberies are more frequent than in the interior
parts of the District. 7 5
From what has been said above it is clear that the original
British plan to supersede the thanadari forces by British
sepoys did not come true till the time of the enunciation of
the Permanent Settlement. 7 60 The Companys administration
retained the thanadari establishments, but reduced the number
of them and also their size. Thus in Murshidabad to the
west of Qasimbazar river an area of 49 coss [crosK] i.e.
about 98 miles were looked after by only five thanas . 7
Each thana consisted of one daroga 9 one jamadar 9 ten

bark&ndazes and one muharirS 1
This was the structure of
an interior thana in 1793. 7 It is interesting that when
75. Ibid.
75a. As Jate as 1778-79 the total expenses for the thanadais and pykts in
Burdwan was Rs. 1,991-4-5 p.m. or Rs. 23,895-3 p. annum. Apait
from this Rs. 450 p.m. or Rs. 5,400 p. annum were spent as allowances
to Barkandazes MRR . 95.
76. These thana* were at Furrokabad, Pertaub Gunge, Pulsah, Nulhutty
and Doongawn. The first thana had jurisdiction over a part of
R jcunpore pargana and four moujas y the second thana looked after
chakla Dounapore, the third one after pargana
Rajeshye, the fourth
one ofter pargana Dhawah and the fifth one after four pargana in
full, four pargana* in part, two mouja*
in part and thirty-two mouja*
in full. Jud Crim Prodgs 10 May, 1793.
( )
77. Ibid.
78. In 1772 a thana in Nadia contained 2 jamadar*,
3 Horse Troopers,
44 Rajpoots^ 5 pykts and 1 Buxey The total monthly expense
.
was
Rs. 41-10-13-2. vide 73. In 1781 there were four thanas in Midnapur
which were as follows :
Thana Jellasorc Thanadar 1 Rs
: t Pc 30 '
m
1 Mohrer )
banditry had become rampant in Bengal the Companys*

administration did not think it necessary to maintain,
sufficient number of thanas in the interior nor were the thana*
manned with adequate number of persons who could

maintain effective watch over their area. Immediately after
the grant of Diwani the Companys administration wanted
that Md. Rezi Khan as Naib Nazim would make himself
concerned with the problem of banditry. The implication
was that the cost of battling against banditry would be
charged against the account of the Nizam.nl, the department
of the 1Nawnl>, and no part of the territorial revenue would be
spent for the purpose. The Nizamai, already distressed with 1
the contraction of its income administered by the Company

was called upon to grapple with a problem that demanded;
additional expense on its part When the Company gradually
took over the police administration of the country it followed
a policy of extreme economy in the matter. At least the
Companys administration was well convinced that an army
of darogas, jamadars, pylces and barkanduze * was nob
competent enough to tackle the problem of banditry.
Examples were not rare that banditry took place within the;
Thana Jan pore : 1 Thanadar 1
2 Mohrera 1
Rs. 47 p.m.
Jemadar
1 Podar \
Thana Balarampur : i Thanadar -i
2 MohrerS \
Rs. 47 p.m.
j
2 Jemadars i
Thana of Pargana : 1 Thanadar *
Ghatseela 1 Mohrer . Rs. 32 p.m.

J
l Jemadar 1
Thana of Pargana : 1 Thanadar 1

Rs. 25 p.m.
Bebrichhour 1 Mohrer *
[
monthly expense of Rs. 35 Annas 3 in the~
5 thanae incurred a
average. This was less than the expenditure of a thana it*
Nadia in 1772 ]
[
MR. p. 88 ]
From the Proigs. of CC at Rangpur, 21 Dec., 1772, we learn that tbe-

monthly expense under the head 'Tannadars' tha nadirs ] was- [
Rs. 30 only.
REVENUE AND MUGHAL SFCURITY SYSTEM 103
vicinity of a thana 7 0
in which important men had definite
complicity. Attempts were made to hold zamindars

responsible for every act of dacoity 90 but such attempts
were ineffectual because zamindars were stripped off their
power and resources and were made ciphers. There were
also attempts to transfer the responsibility of maintaining
internal peace on the farmers 31 but that too was unproduc-
tive. The rank arrangement of the Mughals were altogether
lost. Profits of ranks were stifled at their source. At places
there were uncertainties as to who would take control of
the thanas . 82 Under the Mughals a Bakshi ,
a Daroga ,
a
Jamadar , Digwar and innumerable pykes and
a GhaUraJ , a
barkandazes were arranged in a definite hierarchy which was
headed mostly by zamindars and occasionally by faujdars in
areas which were held as khas. The interest of all these men
were rooted in land out of which they derived their subsistence.
They were thus the most substantial part of the stationary
79. One reason why the thana* failed to tackle the problem of banditry
was that robbers used to come in large gangs. The Baharbund
treasure that was looted in 1786 was chased by about two hundred
men some acting as spies, some as informers, some as vanguards and
f
the rest as members of the action squad. Four years after this the
Compands treasure was once again looted in the same district,
Rajshahi, and that too in the vicinity of a thana ( C.P.C., Vol. IX,
No, 1494 ).
80 . This was an old Mughal custom and the British insistence on it led to
great estrangement between the Company's administration on the one
hand and the zamindars on the other
81. This point has been briefly discussed towards the end of ihis chapter.
82 . Md. Raza Khan wanted that ihe thanas as part of the Nizamat should
be under the control of the faujdar of a district. In 1776 he placed
the thanadari of the district of Hugli under Mahdi Nisar Khan, the
faujdar ( C.P.C., No. V, No. 174 ). Likewise he wanted that ihe two
thanas which maintained watch over the jungle tracts of Bubhum
should be placed under the control of the faujdar. These t*o tracts
were under the control of Cpt. Brown. Reza Khan's advice was
turned down and the existing arrangement was maintained. The
jungle people may misinterpret the cause of the transfer of authority-*"
this was the ground on which Reza Khan's advice was negatived
( C.P.C., Vol. V, No. 170 ).
104 BOCIAL BANDITRY IN BENGAL
population of a village. From a very distance the Nawab

might screw zamindars and zamindars screwed his own men
so that administration ran well and security was maintained.
In keeping with the police administration there were
appropriate judicial organizations which at the village and
district levels tried criminal offences and made justice
available to the common people at a minimum cost. 83 Under
the Companys administration these institutions were steadily
superseded. The result was that men of ambition lost the
fields where they could apply themselves These men had
suffered from a stupendous sense of deprivation. Out of this
they developed a psychology of war with the Company.

Banditry was a form of this war of the people against an
alien rule.
VI. British Administrative Economy and Shrinkage of

Employment
We have already seen how the people of the interior

were affected by the Companys policy of retrenchment and
resumption. Now we shall see how they were affected by
the British policy of administrative economy which seriously
curtailed employment opportunities in the country. A good
many people of the interior were originally employed in the
different establishments of the Chiefs and Collectors of the
Company. They were called amlas in the official British
records. A report of 1786 shows a proposed reduction of

Companys expenses incurred for the amlas . The following
table shows the size of reduction.
Si. One such court was Bakshi Dastur. Verelsts view on this court has
been thus quoted by Firminger (
Fifth Report t p. 1 56 ) : This
Court superintends the conduct of all forces, guards, and other
persons employed for the protection of the province in general, the
prevention of the thefts and disturbances of the peace of the
inhabitants, and all orders respecting such persons are issued from
this office, at the sametime it provides for their pay and obedience".
Name of the Expenses for the Expenses for the

District present establish- proposed establish-
ments of the ments of the amlas
amlas
Purnea 405 400

Nadia 1357 400
24- Parganas 792 400
Town of Calcutta 406 400
Rajshahi 439 400
Hugli 453 400
Murshidabad 685 400
Dacca 689 400
Midnapur 439 400
Rangpur 450 400
Sylhet 523 400
6438 4400
[ Expenses for the proposed establishments at Burdwan,

Birbhum, Bishnupur, Dinajpur, Ghoraghat, Laskarpur, Jessore,
Mymensing, Buzurgumedpur and Bhulua were Rs. 400 per
month for each one of them ]
[SOURCE l Statement of the Establishments of the Present
Chiefs and Collectors , with proposed Encrease & Decrease
therein : Prodgs. BOR, 12 June, 1789].
Thus the Company saved Rs. 2038 per month, or Rs.
24,456 every year by retrenching the native amlas from the
Companys establishments. It should be noted that the
year of the proposed reduction of the amlas in the English
establishments were also the year when the Baharbund
treasure was looted. The treasure of the same place was
looted only four years after this. 84 One years reduction in
native employment was certainly not that powerful a factor
as to lead to such a public violence. Despair in public mind
was accumulating for many years past. If we take a note of
the employment statistics in 1772 and compare the expense
#4. C.P.C., Vol. IX, No. 1494.

on that head with that of 1786 we get a picture as to why

the people were getting hostile to the Companys rule. In
1771-1772 in Dacca there were two broad departments
namely Huzuri Department and the Nizarnat Department.
The Buzuri Department consisted of six departments (a) :
Diwani Gutchery ,
(b) Tahsil Cutchery , (c) Adalat Cvtchery (d
MuHophy Cutchery (e) Supervisors Department (f) General
appointments plus officers officiating at Murshidabad. 86
These departments belonged to the headquarters of the
administration of the Dacca division. The number of men
appointed in these departments were as follows 86 :
Diwani Cutcherry 38
Tahsil Culchery 10
Adalat Cutchery 6
Mustophy Clutcherg 10
Supervisor's Department 6 [ numbers not clearly
specified 87 ]
Officers officiating at
Murshidabad Do 88
8 [ ]
General Appoints 41
119
85 . Seebundte Account of the Chucklah of Jcliangiernagar As Established

In The Year 1771, Prodgs of CC at Dacca ( Vol. IV ), date of the
.
Prodgs. not given, but it must be between 10 Oct. and 13 Oct., 1772.
86 . The number of parsons in every establishment has been added up to
reach the total which has been given in the individual figure noted
above.
87. The structure of the Supervisors department was as follows :
Mr. James Harris Supravisor ... 150 [

Rs. per month ]
Ditto for his Servants ... 150 [

Do ]
A Monthly Writer ... 100 [

Do ]
Supervisors Dewan ... 100 [ Do ]
Ditto Sup Serishtadar

Sircars & ca. ... 200 f
Do )
Thus Rs. 550 were spent for Indian Servants. It may be presumed
that the terms servants, sircars etc. used in the record indicate more
than one servant and hence a minimum figure of six has been used ia
the table given above in the text.
The Officers officiating at Murshidabad were as follows :
Roy Sundersing 500-x-x

Atmaram & ca Vacquils 80-x-x
s 2
These offices were not included in the establishment of

the Chief and Collector of Dacca in 1786. 80 These offices
were disbanded or reduced to such a small size that they were

not mentioned on the statement of the establishments of the
Chief and Collectors in 1786. Instead only Rs. 400 were
allotted for the native amla * where as Rs. 5644 were spent
per month for the Diwani Cutchery in 1772. 90 Such contrac-
tion in public spending must have produced great repercussion
in the society. First it affected the old aristocracy very

much. For example Raja Himmat Sing, Diwav of the Diwani
Cutchery in 1772 used to get a salary of Rs. 4000 per
month. 91 As the Companys administration progressed such
posts were gradually abolished. There were innumerable
subordinate diwans in the cities as well as in the interior.
Under these diwan* there were naib diwan s, peshkar

shcristadarsy mohris , darogas , bakshi 9
khazanchi* and so on.
The Naib Diwan of the Diwani Cutchery in Dacca in 1772

used to get a monthly salary of Rs. 500, the Peshkar Rs. 120,
the Naib Rs 200, the Sheristadar Rs. 200.
9
Not only such
men had status but also they had resources to appoint men
either in their private household or in their public service so
that when they were rooted out of employment and when their
income was curtailed they lost their potentiality to offer
Jugul Rishwin & ca 45-x-x

Ramnarrain Mohrer 17-x-x
Ram Sunkar Ditto 10-x-x
Morad ut Dowlah ... 400-x-x
Mohmud Ismael Ally Cawn ... 500-x-x
The use of the terms Vacquils* suggests the existence of more than
one Vakil in the payroll. Hence a minimum number of eight has
been used in the table given above in the text.
89. Statement of Establishments of the Present Chiefs and Collectors , with
proposed Encrease or Decrease Prodgs, BOR 12 June, 1786.
.
90. Vide 85
91. Vide 85
92. Vide 85
employment to people around them. Under the Mughals

every man of status had the capacity to offer employment.
The Mughal rank hierarchy was built up in such a way as to
permit every rank to employ a host of men in service around

it. It is not true that these men were always superfluous.
The Mughal administration of revenue, justice and police

was a very complicated system and required at every
men 93 The masters
step the service of very specialized .
always depended on their subordinates for knowledge and

information as the subordinates always depended on their
masters for their employment. It was a system of inter-
dependence of ranks. Every zamindari for example had a

94 Men of every rank
multi-tier system of administration .
were indispensible for the running of the administration.
This indispensibility offered the most serious bond of
attachment to men of various ranks so that in a total system

of union one rank acted as a check upon another and the
spirit of overgrowth and self-assertion of one rank was
contained by the aspiration and assertion of the other. The
result of all these was that social assertion in the form of
banditry was absent in Mughal Bengal although there might

be stray cases of ordinary dacoity or some highway robberies.
93. It is worth quoting here the views of Kaye [

The Administration of
the East India Company : A history of Indian Progress , p. 162 ]
on
the land tenure and land revenue system of India : The land
revenue of India is a very large subject. A man
of more than ordinary
intelligence may confess without discredit that after thirty years of
study he but imperfectly comprehends it, in all its bearings and
relations. I know very few men who have attained to anything

beyond this imperfect comprehension. It is a subject on which
volumes might be written, only to leave it as obscure as before.
'94. Jhe zamindar of pargana Roushanabad of Comilla district, for

example, was removed from the actual ryots by six degrees of rent
collecting tiers*
Sirajul Islam, The Permanent Settlement in Bengal :
A Study of its Operation 17901819, Dacca, 1979, p, 12.

s s
VII. The Mughal Rank-System
The Mughal system of holding zamindar* responsible for

every act of dacoity within their territories show how efficiently
they handled the rank system in the interior administration
of the country. A zamindar ,
a kotwal 95 , a bakshi , a jamadar,
a daroga 9 a muhuri a peon , , a joyfce, a barkandaze , a lathial f
a harkaro all formed different tiers of police administration
in a village of Bengal. From the zamindar another hierarchy
descended downwards in revenue administration along the
ladder of a diwan , a naib diwan, a sh,ristadar 9 a khazanchi, a
peshkar, a tahvildar a muhiri , a munshi 9 a pat wan 9
, a maw dal
and so on Most of these officers, either in the police
department or in the revenue department enjoyed a gift of
rent-free land from the zamindar . These officers also helped
the zamindar to discharge his judicial functions, particularly
his functions as the head of the caste cutchcry of the village.
The community of craftsmen and cultivators were always

hemmed by another community of zamindar .s officers. This
explains why the Companys administrators looked, to the
zamindar for the supply of coolie*, animals of burden,
manjhi * or boatmen, dak harkaro or messengers and even
such things as materials of building construction like bricks,
timber, chunam or lime and so on, if they were in need of

these. All men in the village society with strength and
competence, with knowledge and information and with
organization and resources were either under the direct
control of the zamindar or were susceptible' to the influence

of one or some men situated at any rung of the hierarchy.
The administration of the Nawab ,
therefore, conveniently
made the zamindar custodian of peace after having allowed
him exemption from interference if he paid revenue in time.
95. A kotwal was generally an officer of the Nizamat and hence outside
the control of the zamindar. But there were cases where zamindars-
(
such as in Burdwan )
appointed officers under the name of kotwal .
7
no SOCIAL BANDITBY JN BENGAL
The Companys administration which crippled the

zamindars in so many ways tried to impose its own
principles rigorously. In 1770 Coochung, a small zamindari
of Midnapur was offered to the Naib Zamindar of
Bamanhatty who executed a bond to the effect that he shall
be answerable for all Disturbances or Thefts from his
Quarters upon any of Our Midnapore Districts (viz. of

Gatseela) & ca. 98 He executed this bond under pain of
being turned out not only from Coochung but also from his
own zamindari Bamanhatty. 8 Prior to that in 1767
Fergusson who was conducting a military expedition in
Midnapur demanded a compensation from Sundarnarayan,
the zamindar of Phulkusm, 98 for a robbery at Anandpur
which was within the territory of the zamindar. Fergusson*,
it is said, was directed not to lose so good an opportunity of

effecting the recovery from the Zamindar of Phulkusuma. 99
Side by side with this attempts were made to involve
farmers in the local security system. The Amilnama 100
which was granted to the farmers of Nadia in 1772 contained
in its fifth and sixth clauses the following instructions :
You are to give Immediate Information of hidfden]

wealth & of Effect es[c]heatable to Government
from a Defect of Heirs as well as of all Murders
Thefts and Robberies which may be committed.
You are to be constantly watchful and circumspect
with Respect to the Chokies and Limits of each
96. J. Peiarce to Lt. Goodyar, 13 April, 1770, Mid. Dist. Reeds. Vol. IV,
p. 1.
97. Ibid.
98. Phulkusum occassionally gets reference in English records as
Phoolkisna i.e. Phulkrishna.
99. Narendranath Das, A History of Midnapore, Vol. I, p. 11,
100. Amilnama is a written order or commission given to the amils,
farmers and other collectors of revenue.
, 1
REVENUE AND MUGHAL BECUBITY SYSTEM 1 1
Division and Sub-Division and make a timely report

of everything that may occur. 101
The Kabuliat 10 * which was granted to the farmers in 1777

contained these instructions in more categorical terms .
I am to be so careful of the guard and protection

of the highways within my limits, that travellers and
passengers may pass and repass (torn) & safety, I am
not to harbour any thieves or robbers and if any
persons* property be either robbed or stolen, I am to
produce the persons of the thieves and robbers with
the property which I am to cause to be returned to
the owner and those delinquents to be delivered up
to the Government. 103
These were the terms of contract on which lands were

parcelled out to farmers. In the case of the zamindars whose
tenures were hereditary the obligation of hunting down
robbers was a custom which depended in its turn on another
set ofcustoms namely the enjoyment of certain privileges and
exemptions granted by the state. In the second half of the
eighteenth century when zamindars were increasingly made to
surrender these privileges insistence on their obligations and
duties in regard to the policing of the country appeared
to be unnecessary and unjustifiable to them. But the
Government was adament on this point. In 1780 the Raja
of Burdwan was made to pay half the amount of a remittance
of Rs. 30,000 which was being carried from Birbhum

treasury to Calcutta. 104 This treasure was seized by dacoits
in thana Manirampur. The Raja's police failed to recover
101. Prodgs of . CC at Krishnagar and Kasimbazar ( Combined Vols. I, II

& III ), 10 June, 1772, pp. 16-18.
102. Under the early British administration Kabultat and Amilnama
were used as interchangeable names of the same document.
103. MR, p. 18.
104. R. J. Hirst, The Early Collectorate Records of Burdwan 1768-1790
in BPP , VoJ. VI, Oct. -Dec-, 1910, No. 13, p. 235.
,
any part of the sum that was looted. The Rajah complained
that he had received no intimation of the despatch of the
treasure, so that he could not realize the amount due, as he
would ordinarily have done, by the levy of a fine on the
pergunnah responsible. 08 Two years before this two
1
parganai of Burdwan, Senpahari and Sherghar, became the

nest of dacoits who under the leadership of a sardar dacoit,
Jeebna, harassed the English very much. While the factory
sepoys of the Company were mobilized the Raja'.; pykes did
not offer them adequate assistance. This had created some
bitterness between the Company and the Raja . As a matter
of fact the Company had about this time no troops in
Burdwan. Kinloch, the Collector who was well disposed to

the Raja, maintained a force of one hundred sepoys for the
protection of the Government treasure. 106 The cost of this
establishment was Rs. 619 per month. 107 After Kinlochs

death in September, 1788, the Government ordered that the
monthly expenditure for these sepoys should be paid by the
Raj from
i his allowance for pykes. This plan was originally
suggested by the new collector Brooke and the Government
accepted it. On this Hirst comments :
This simple solution of the difficulty recommended

itself to the Board, but not to the Rajah, who found
that be was expected to pay the force, in addition to
his own establishment, for the two months which had

elapsed since Kinloch's death. His protests, however,
were in vain, and he was made to reduce his.
establishment of Pyket to the extent necessary to pay

the Company's force. 108
The situation in Burdwan in 1788 was, therefore, very simple.
105. Ibid.
106. Hirst, Op. Cit p. 235.
107. Ibid.
108. Hirst, Op. Cit., pp. 235*236.
*
The Company maintained a force of a hundred of sepoys for

the protection of Companys revenue at the cost of the Baja
Yet in 1790 when the Companys treasury was moving from
Birbhum to Calcutta and was looted in Burdwan, the Baja
had to pay compensation for that. All these happened at a
time when the fortunes of the Burdwan Raj had sunk very
low. In June 1789 pargana Mandalghat was sold out. This
was the first act of Dismemberment of his [the Rajas']
estate. 109 In May next year two more parganas Azmatshahi ,
and Mozuffershahi, were advertised for sale. 110 In May

1789 the Baja wrote to the Government that flood and
drought had so devastated his country that he had been
compelled to deprive himself of the common necessaries of
life and raise money on his clothes and household
furniture. 111 All these had little effect upon the Govern-
ment. The contraction of a zamindari estate in terms of
territory, force, retinue, employment and also revenue
had created a situation in which it was vain to expect
that the internal peace of the zamindari would remain as
before. The Government persisted in its belief that the
Baja of Burdwan was under evil advisers and in March,
1789 the Government ordered that Dyal Chand, one cf
the most important advisers of the Baja should quit
the district and should not return without the explicit
permission of the Governor General. 112 The internal

stablity of one of the most leading zamindaris in Bengal was
109. Hirst, Op. Cit p. 230.

110. Hirst, Op. Cit. 9 p. 231.
111. Ibid.
112. Ibid. About the same time Janaki Ram, the brother of the Rani
of Dinajpur and the manager of the estate was expelled from the
zamindari and confined in Calcutta where he died in 1790. For
details about the Dinajpur Raj see E.V. Westmac ott. The Territorial
,
Aristocracies of Bengal The Dinajpur Raj in The Calcutta Review ,

:
Vol, 55, 1872. p. 218.
8
shattered altogether. In this situation the invariable tendency

of a zamindar would be to rally his own men. Such a rally of
people who were severely hit by the Companys rule was one
of the infinite forms of social mobilizations which could be
available in Bengal in the second half of the eighteenth
century.
Men who thus rallied were not outcastes, denizens of

underworld united by the common misfortune of outlawry,
but simply men who were declared unwanted and undesirable
by the Companys administration. Banditry is certainly not
a welcome phenomenon in history. But in a situation where

zamindars as a class could not unite in a general effort to
resist an alien rule or build up their own empires and where

an organized popular upsurge in the form of a revolt or
rebellion was not common in the bodypolitic, banditry
appeared to be the most common and easily available form

of self-assertion of a sizeable segment ol society whose roots
of life were shaken by an alien rule a rule which appeared to
be more ruthless than the previous regime in its appropriation
of the last dreg of the social surplus. In the second half of

the eighteenth century the old world of Mughal Bengal was
certainly contracting under the pressure of the newly emerging
British state. The new state had rudely shaken the pillars
of complascence on which the Mughals had founded their
majesty. Such complascence was certainly born of exploita-

tion leading to some kind of self-content and satiation on the
part of a vast middle order which perpetually projected itself
between the primary toilers on the one hand and the state on
the other. The Companys administration took it to be a
parasitic middle, not allied to the state, yet subsisting
perpetually on the fruits of labour of men of a vastly
scattered! inoffensive and downtrodden bottom. The point
which the Company missed was that such a middle was very
much allied to the passive bottom of the society as an
1 s
'invariable rule of life available within the context of rustic

attachment of self-contained and insular village societies
whose immunity from the effects of the rise and fall of
dynastic empires has been so much talked and discussed.
If this middle had exploited the lower base it had equally
exploited the superior lord, the state, by forcing it to grant
rights of exemption from interference, rights of interception
of revenue and rights of authority within the narrow compass
of a village society. The village society of Mughal Bengal
was an integrated unit at once battered and benefited by the
preservation and application of these prerogatives of authority,
liberty and resources. If a zamindar was coercive as the
collector of revenue, he was also the greatest bulwark of the
peasants vis-a vis the state. If a diwan or a naib, a thanadar
or a daroga brought the performance of the zamindar might
at the doorstep of the peasants, they were equally the men
who rescued peasants from the tyranny of the zamindar.
When the Company dispossessed zamindars in the 24-Parganas
in 1757 or the amlas and other chakran servants of innumerable
zamindars spread all over the province, its main aim was
revenue 1 * and not the general welfare of the people.
Protest against and resistance to such a circumscribed aim of
the Companys rule took the form of banditry in Bengal.
The rustic toughness of the peasants, the scheming intellect
of the amlas, the martial proficiencies of the pykes and
barkandazes and the leadership of zamindars all mingled in a
common effort to assert in a spirit of violence the right to
live within the milieu of closing animation. Cases were
-certainly not rare where bandits were animated by a general

lure of booty, but overriding every thing there was the motive
of resisting the encroachment of the state the might of which
113. The revenue is beyond all question.. .object of Government, that

on which, all the rest depend and to which every other should be
made subservientProdgt. of CC at Kasimbazar, 28 July, 1772.
bad equally affected the overmighty and the down-trodden.

The root of the Baharbund treasure sent by Loknath Nundy,
a favourite of the Company, in 1786 and 1790, the plunder
of the Birbhum treasure in Burdwan, the loot of the
Companys factory at Malda, the loot of the Companys
goods at Dacca, the murder of Englishmen at Buckergunge
and Jogigopa, the anti-Company activities of the thanadar of
Sylhet and of the big amlas at Burdwan and Dinajpur, the
running away of the Companys telingas to the service of the
zamindars, the association of the sannyasis and fakir* with the
anti-British move of the zamindars (as in Kuchbihar , the
zamindara league against the English, the refusal of the
zamindars pykes to cooperate with the Company in its effort
to apprehend a dacoit, the shelter offered by a qazi to

dacoits who plundered the treasure of the Company, the
setting of dacoits by a zamindar against Companys men who
were sent to investigate into the condition of the zamindari
the union of peasants, chuars, sannyasis, nails , chaudhuris in,
desperate bids of banditry in the interior, the involvement of

sannyati* in an attempt to maintain a ruling house of a
Bengal zamindari against the encroachment of the state -all
these were events of anti British movement in the interior of
Bengal and should not be treated as isolated cases of outlaws
and underworld denizens making inroads into the heart of
settled societies and creating serious problems of law and
order for the Government At one level or other banditry
was certainly violent self-assertion of a society that had been

awakened to its sense of living by the rude touch of an alien
rule. Such violent self-assertion necessarily beget tension
and activity ;
and tensions of rulers on the activities of the
ruled as revealed in contemporary official British literature
have destroyed the real perspective in which banditry should

be judged. But when facts are rescued from bias they speak
their own story in which the traditionally inoffensive world
of agrarian Bengal is suddenly animated into a spirit or
BE VENUE AND MUGHAL SECURITY SYSTEM 117
self-assertion and galvanized into actions of self-defence in a

condition where the aggressiveness of the state was
irresistibly cutting across the fundamental tenets of old
agrarian life Assertion or upsurge on the part of a
community is certainly not uncommon in history. Banditry
is its historical example in the annals of Bengal in the closing
decades of the eighteenth century.
V
CHAPTER
ANATOMY OF ANARCHY
I.Coalescence Violence Anarchy
The organized social violence which manifested itself in
Bengal in the second half of the eighteenth century was unique

in three respects : First, it involved all sections of the
community, united people of all ranks and rallied a vast
multitude of people from a ryot to an amla and from a tribal
man like dinar to a roaming mendicant like a eannyasi under
the leadership of the zamindars ; secondly, it involved the
whole of Bengal, from Midnapur in the west to Chittagong
in the east and from the Sundarbans in the South to
Kuchbihar and Rangpur in the north, thirdly, it remained
unsubdued throughout the course of the second half of the
eighteenth century inspite of the best effort of the Companys
administration to control it. Thus the participation of a
multitude of people over a wide area in a general movement
of self-assertion during a long period of time was what
bewildered the English and baffled all their efforts to supress
the movement. Given that this movement was intended to
satisfy double passions, occasionally class-hatred but
perpetually hatred against foreigners, and that the movement
was urged by a kind of an organization and unity of the
people squeezed tight by a policy of appropriation, it can.
be argued that the kind of social violence with which we

become familiar in our study of the eighteenth century
was not that anarchial as it has been made to appear in
contemporary British records. Anarchy is not uncommon

in the annals of the transitional periods of history, here and
elsewhere. Nor was anarchy absent during the period under
review when the Mughal rule in Bengal was yielding place to

that of the English. But anarchy was not the totality of a
milieu where aspirations and coalescence, unity and effort
ANATOMY OF ANARCHY 119
mingled in a general resistance to tyranny and in a general

bid to preserve life in a world of closing animation.
Coalescence of opposite orders in the society like the
migratory sannyasis and settled populations, the lesser
zaminda r 8 and their ryots was not altogether absent under the
Mughals. But social coalescence was never considered to be
a menace to the state. If social coalescence bred tensions a
couple of villages or couple of parganas came to be affected.
On the whole commotions remained localized. Zamindara
who had arms and resources were allowed to dissipate in
border disputes and other local conflicts. The state had very
cautiously confined their militancy within such functions as
policing the country and hunting down robbers. Formidable
revolt of zamindars like that of Sitaram Ray of Jessore and
Udaynarayan of Rajshahi during the time of Murshid Quli
Khan was a rare phenomenon in the history of Mughal
Bengal in the eighteenth century. The centre of administra-
tion at Murshidabad had seldom any occasion to be concerned
with local agitations because at a very primary level they
were admirably handled by the zamindars or at a slightly
higher levelby a faujdar. Under the Mughals there were
oppressions and exploitations, but seldom there was;
lawlessness and anarchy erupting from below.
II. Anarchy Reviewed

Given this, the cry of anarchy which the British thought
had beset Bengals body politic needs rethinking. Below we
quote a few excerpts from the contemporary British official
records and see what was the substance of the British plea of
anarchy of the time. As early as February 1773 that is six
months after the Committee of Circuit had issued its opinion

about the bandits which gained currency all over Edward
Baber wrote thus to the Calcutta Council about the zamindars
of the Jungle Mahal 1 of Midnapur :
1, The description of the jungle Mahal is availble in a contemporary

record : Edward Baber to Calcutta Council, 6 Feb., 1773, Mid.
Diet. Reeds., Vol IV, p. 106. Also see Memoranda of Midnapur by
M. V. Bayley, Calcutta, 1902, p. 2.
These Zamindars are mere free Booters who plunder

their Neighbours & one another and their Tennants
are a Banditti Whom they Chiefly emplo[ y ] in

these outrages
2 These depredations keep the
Zamindars and their Tennants continually in Arms

for after the Harvest is gathered in there is scarcely
one of them who does not call his Ryotts to his

standard either to defend his own Property or attack
his neighbours the effects of this I may say feudal
Anarchy are that the Revenue is very precarious the
Zamindars are refractory & the Inhabitants rude &
ungovernable.
This was the immediate aftermath of the great famine of 1770.
Zamindars involvement in mutual warfare and depredations
in each other's territory had caused a damage to the revenue.
This was what had shocked the Companys administration.
In Midnapur the Company was already thinking in terms of
taking measures which would stimulate revenue. In its
General Letter dated 24 December, 1765 the Company

observed :
The making our Servants dependant on the Rajah

for their allowances is in itself a dishonour to and
quite inconsistent with the nature of our service, nor

can we look on it in any other light than depriving
the Company of a great sum from their revenues, for
if the Rajah had not paid this vast sum to our
servants, he might and ought to have paid so much
addition for the annual revenue for his province. We,
therefore, order that such of the Companys servants
who have been employed in that Station since the
Province was made over to the Company, shall pay
into our Treasury whatever they have received from
the Rajah... 8
2. Ibid.
3, Mid . Diet. Reeds., VoJ. II, p. 27

ANATOMY OF ANABCHY 121
III. Anarchy viewed from Re venue- Angle

Loss of revenue and not law and order and not even the
sufferings
4 of the people appeared to be the perspective from
which the Company's administration looked at the question
of anarchy of the time. The Companys concern for revenue
had provided it with what may be called a revenue-angle of
anarchy. This was but natural in the context of what happened
in Midnapur at that time. A Residency was maintained
in Midnapur about this time with an extraordinarily high
'expense :
The Chief .... Rs. 3,000 per month

Second .... Rs. 1,500 per month
Third .... Rs. 1,300 per month
The Military Officer Rs. 500 per month
This expense, annually above Rs. 75,000, was charged on the

revenue of the Raja of Midnapur. Midnapur had never been
a good revenue-paying area of the Company. In 1772 the
Raja of Cossijura was in arrears of more than 60,000 Rupees 6 .
The condition of the zamindar of Midnapur was also very

miserable :
The rent of the Midnapore zaraindary was not then

collected in coin but in kind, that is, the ryots used
to pay their rents to the zamindar by giving him a
part of the produce of their fields. The paiks who
held the paikan lands did not pay even their fixed
quit rents. Owing to these circumstances, it was
difficult for the Rani [ of Midnapur ] to collect from
the ryots even the amount of revenue payable to
Government. Considering all these facts the Govern-
4. Mid. Diet. Heeds., Vol. II, p. 27

5. Ibid.
6. Edward Baber to William Aldersey, 7 July, 1772, Mid. Dist. Reeds..
Vol. II, p. 59.
ment reduced the revenue formerly assessed upon the

estate, from Rs. 1,11,797-8-8 to Rs. 85,000 7 .
From the beginning the Company's administration was

very sensitive to the problem of revenue in Midnapur. As
early as 1766 Verelst instructed Graham in Midnapur to be
perserving in the scrutiny of the zamindars private accounts
in order to obtain a complete and just valuation of the lands
in the Midnapore and Jallasore provinces, for which purpose
you should begin a circuit to the different pergunnahs, as the
being yourself on the spot will more immediately effect their
intentions. When Mir Qasim undertook a drive for wealth
four or five years ago the Mughal state went into a very
rigorous attempt to squeeze money from the zamindars. Even
then there was no attempt to go into a scrutiny of the private
accounts of the zamindars. His main intention was to squeeze
the big zamindars and with that purpose he sent Ramnath
Bhaduri to Dinajpur. Petty zamindars were not harassed to
the extent as the Company now contemplates to do. At
least the thrust of the state stopped at the threshold of the
private wealth of the petty zamindars. Given revenue to be
the primary point of consideration, the Companys adminis-
trators felt distressed that the squabbles among zamindars
themselves and the rallying of ryots under their banner for
fighting destroyed the revenue potentiality of the district.
This loss of revenue potentiality was what the English thought
to be the substance of Oriental anarchy. Hence in the
English official records for the period immediately following
the grant of Diwani we get very frequent references to
zamindars
raids into each others territories. In 1767
Furgusson makes categorical reference to the raids of the
Raja of Bishnupur into neighbouring provinces. He

also speaks about the invasion of Cudjung by the
7. Rajah Mohendra Lall Khan, The History of the Midnapore Raj,

Calcutta, 1889, pp. 5-6.
zamindar 8
He wrote their
of Ghatseela . further 9 :
zamindars of the western part of Midnapur ] country at

present wears a poor appearance, and from mutual robberies
committed on one another and from the oppression of the
former Collector, Todel Mull [ Todar Mai? ], many are really
in no condition to pay a considerable revenue . In another
letter to Vansittart Fergusson wrote that the zamindar of

Ameynagar frequently complained to him of the raids into
his territory which were organized from Bishnupur . 0 Mutual

robberies among zamindar and the loss of revenue were thus
two integrated themes of British records of the period. In
another letter addressed to Graham the same year it has been
said : Unless a force remains in their neighbourhood to awe
them zamindars ] that collecting the revenue from them
[
will be a hard task . Application of force was thus con-
1
templated to settle revenue. The Mughals did not bother

very much about revenue of a frontier area like the western
part of Midnapur. They allowed these zamindars to maintain
their warlike habits because in the Mughal understanding
these zamindars were the greatest bulwark against foreign
invaders like the Marathas :
The district at the time of its cession contained many

strongholds in possession of the zamindars, which
10.
were, and are to this day, dignified with the name of
Gurhs ( Forts ). Their existence is explained by
the fact that Midnapore and Hidgillee, were, from
the weakness of the Mohamedan Government, always
open to the incursions of their jungle and Maratta
neighbours, and that a place of strength was at all
8. Graham, 17 March, 1767 Mid. Dint. Reeds Vol. 1.

Verelst to .
9. Fergusson to Graham, 14 Feb,, 1767, Mid. Diet. Reeds., Vol. I.

9a. Fergusson to Vansittart, 19 July, 1767, Mid. Diet. Reeds., Vol. I,
p. 167.
A letter to Graham [ author not known ], 6 March, 1767 Mid. Diet.
Reeds., Vol. II, p. 109.
) 4
8
times necessary to the principal landholders--*for the

security of person and property. 11
During the time of the British takeover of Midnapur the
real strength of the refractory zamindars in Midnapur lay in
their forts ' 1

and in their warlike subjects. Reports from
Midnapur made this point clear
none of those zamindars by our best intelligence
have less than 2,000 people in their pergunas whose

trade is war. 1
There was clear instruction to reduce the forts of these
zamindars :
The reduction of the Zamindars to the westward

you will undertake as soon as possible, and their
forts except such as you may think necessary for
(
the protection of the Country )

must be entirely
demolished. 1
These were early British attempts to root out what they
called anarchy in Bengal.
IV. Two Aspects of Anarcny
Two complementary aspects of anarchy were very much

stressed in the British records : a union between zamindars
and ryots in a general avocation of plunder and a ceaseless
warfare between a zamindar and a zamindar each trying to
11. H. V. Bayley, Memoranda of Midnapore , p. 3.
Bayley Op. Cit gives the description of the fort of Mainachoura

12. (
both
thus "It is surrounded by two ditches, one wet and one dry,
:
with allegators, within its inner

formerly very deep and broad filled ;
ditch was another defence of closely planted bamboos, so intertwisted

unapproachable
with each other as to be impervious to an arrow and
invaders main force.
by the cavalry, which formed the Marhatta
and contains many houses. The
The ground thus enclosed is wide,
of the jungles, was not then, as
zamindar of Myna, like his brethren
subject and used to shut himself up in his Fort
now, a peaceful ;
revenue.*
whenever called upon to settle for his lands, or to pay their
Mid. Dist. Reeds,, Vol. I, p. 109.
13. A letter to Graham, 6 March, 1767,
Verelst to Graham, 17 March, 1766, Mid. Dist. Reeds ., Vol. I.
|4.
6
enrich himself with the booty of plunder. But this was

certainly not a general phenomenon of the time. Fergusson
in course of his journey through Midnapur observed two
types of zamindars. One kind of zamindars were always in
a well grounded apprehension that his own people would

desert him. There was another kind of zamindars whose
riots [
ryots] are solely attached to the zamindar. 1 The result
was that even within the territories of refractory zamindars

there were lands where cultivation was not disrupted.
Fergusson himself wrote : The Raipore purgana is by
much [ far ? ] the best cultivated that I have yet seen in the
jungles. 16 Yet the Raipore zamindar was a refractory
one : The Zamindars of Roypore and Foolkusma
[Fulkusuma] have taken advantage of their situation to avoid
making their submission. 17 About the Zamindars of
Raipore, Fulkisma, and a brother of the latter, wrote
Fergussion, I am told that these three could yield annually
to the Company no ness than 3,000 allah sicca rupees. 18
This revenue the Company could not afford to lose.
The non submission of zamindars reads other story behind
it namely an urge to resist the foreign rule. The zamindar of
Ghatseela posted troops in all the avenues and inlets to his
purgana in order to prevent the coming of the Phiringis 19 ,
The zamindar of Ghatseela which was the Principal Pergunna
15. Ferguson lo Vansittart, 26 Jan., 1768, Mid. Dint. Heeds. ,

Vol. 1,
p. 27.
16. Fergusson to Graham, 22 Feb., 1767, Mid, Dial. Heeds., Vol. I.
17. Graham Mid. Diet. Heeds Vol. I.

to Fergusson, 18 Feb., 1767, ,
18. Fergusson to Graham, 16 Feb, 1767, Mid. Din. Heeds. Vol. I; y
the zemindars of Raipore, Fulkisma, and a brother of latter, who
are in possession of a principal pait Tanna [Thana

of.. .this
Balarampur] but call themselves Bangala WaJas Fergusson to

Graham, 16 Feb., 1767. Mid. Dist. Reeds., Vol. I.
The zamindars who resisted the English, refused submission to them

and battled among themselves for the profit of plunder were all old
zamindars who had substantial roots in their own lands.
19. Graham to Fergusson, 9 Feb., 1767, Mid. Dist. Reeds Vol. I. .
belonging to our western Jungle had made a league with

other zamindars to assert their independence during the rainy
season. 20 As late as 1780 Assaram [Chowdhuri], zemindar
of pargana Lawpoor annexed a great part of the boundary
of the Jageer [of ShawbunderJ to his own Pergunnah. The
English sent a mutsuddee to the zemindar who paid no
attention to his representations, but said secretly that he
would never give it up without contending by force... 21
This Assaram used to supply 3 maunds of rice to the bazar daily
and the military establishment at Jellaspre used to procure
its supply from him. Assaram stopped it and the English
establishment suffered. 22 This is resistance and retaliation to
the British system of coercion at a very primary level . The
Ghatseela Rajas non- submission was retaliated by army
mobilization while in the case of Assaram by confinement
of his person for one year or by a fine to be imposed on
him. 28 Internecine warfare among zamindars was not the
only aspect of anarchy to which the English mind was so
sensitive during the period under review. Resentment and
non-submission to the Companys rule were equally
punishable as a part of offence which the English found to be
so rampant among the zamindars of Midnapur. We find in
the records that Assaram Chowdhuri not only declined to

vacate the lands he had captured, but also refused to accept
20. Vansittart to Becher, 1 June, 1768, Mid. Dist. Reeds., Vol. II.
21. Enclosure o he letter of John Dynely Esqr., dated Calcutta, 13 Oct.,

1783, MR { J. C. Sengupta ), p. 134.
22. Lt. A. Adams to Cosby Burrowes, the Collector, 21 Feb., 1792, MR.,
p. 468.
23. Board of Rev. Coseby Burrowes, Collector of Midnapur, 25 May,

to
1792 : We you will dispose of the lands of Assaram Chowdry
desire
as May be necessary to discharge the Balance which may be due from

him at the time fixed for the sale. As a further Punishment for the
contumacy of this person, we desire you will either put him into
confinement for the period of one month as directed by the 1 1 th
Article of the Regulations of the 8th June 1787, or impose a fine on
him not exceeding Rs. 200" MR, p. 493.
B
the taluqdari of Rambudderpore as a gift from the English. 34
Sometimes assistance of the Marathas was invoked in resisting
the penetration of the Company. Thus one Jugal Charan

who had pretension to the zamindari of Midnapur allied
himself with Marathas and organized resistance to the
English residents in Midnapur. 2
As early as 1765 the Company's administration had

arrived at the knowledge that the zamindars of Midnapur
were not upstarts : There is no part of the lands occupied
by Farmers, the whole is possessed by hereditary zemindars,
who derive their Right from original Sunnuds granted to
their ancestors. 26 Such zamindars were deeply rooted in
their own territories. The English saw opposite behaviours

in them. Either they were in league against the English or
they committed depredations in their neighbours territory.
If they had the support of their ryots they were formidable.
If they alienated their ryots their estates presented a picture
of absolute desolation. But none of these situations was
welcome to the English because the territories of these
zamindars under none of the above conditions, could be
thought of as growing into a stable revenue-paying unit
of the Company. In the early years of the British
administration in India any situation that affected revenue

was considered to be an alias of anarchy. If the English
were happy with a kind of an annual tribute from these
zamindars they would not have bothered about anarchy. At
24. Mid. Diat . Reeds., Vol. Ill, p. 139. One reason why Assaram
Chowdhuri refused to take Rambudderpore [
or Rambuddasore
by another record ]
taluq was that it was in a very destitute condition.
Samuel Lewis wrote to the Council of Rev., 24 June,
1773 Mid. (
Dist . Reeds., Vol. IV, 137]: the Taalook of Rambuddasore is

p.
ruined so much that no body there is willing to take it and pay

the Mulgazary."
25. Vansittart to Becher, 19 July, 1768, Mid. Dist . Reeds., Vol. I, p. 89,
26. John Graham to the Select Committee, 24 Dec., 1765, Mid. Dist.
Reeds,, Vol. I.
least this was what the Mughals did with regard to these
zamindar8 :
In the early years of the Muslim occupation of

Bengal, the rulers left the frontier Rajas such as
those of Bishnupur, Pachet, Tripura and Kuch
Bihar, undisturbed in the possession of their estates,
on their promise to be loyal and to pay tribute to

the state.* 7
Or,
In our period [during the reign of AurangzibJ the
territories of the Rajas of Bishnupur, Birbhum, Pachet
and Tripura, being protected by dense forests,
mountains and hills, lay beyond the direct control

of the Mughal power. As frontier chiefs they were
of such importance in keeping the borders, that the
Mughal nawabs treated them rather as allies than
as subjects. 28
V. Resentment Against Thorough Subjection
The British policy of thorough subjection of these

zamindars was what they resented very much. Even when
the English set up their own men it was found that in a
course of a few years the latter turned against their masters.
The case of the Ghatseela Raja is an illustration in point.
In 1767 one Kunudali [Kanu Dhali] was given the zamindari

of Ghatseela . It was the prevalent practice of that region
that when a person received a zamindari his name was changed.

Thus Kunudali became Jugernutdol [Jagannath Dhal or Dhali]
on the occasion of his becoming a zamindar . This man had
certainly obliged the English in accepting the zamindari of
Ghatseela, because on the reduction of the original zamindar
of the place no man of that area was willing to receive this
gift of zamindari from the English :
27. Anjali Chatterjee, Bengal in the Reign of Aurangzib 1658-1707, p. 250.

28. Anjali Chatterjee, Op, Cit. t p. 253.
i
Our Midnapore Zamindars all say that they would

not take a present of the country, so that there is
only one other alternative, ...of levelling the fort and

burning and destroying his country in terrorism to
other new subjects 2 9
The annual revenue of Kunudali, now Jagannath Dhal, was

fixed at Rs. 5,500. The heads who were present at the
time of settlement refused to agree because it exceeded their
tuxeem jumma. 80 In any case the English were very
happy withtheir new zamindar and gave him a horse, sword,

dammas [drums] and several other things that are usualwhen
he was given the zamindari . 31 Attempts were also made to
conciliate the ryots by offering presents to an old Brahman
who had some influence over them 32 The old zamindar of
Ghatseela was sent to Midnapur as a captive. 33 His property
was seized. The Company expected to get 5000 Rupees by

selling the personal effects of the zamindar . He had four
horses and three mares, Out of these one horse was given
to the new zamindar. * 3
This was the new zamindar whom the Company lodged

in the Ghatseela zamindar in 1767. Just after seven years,
in 1774, the Companys administration in Midnapur sent very

bitter reports about Jagannath Dhal I have since had such
:
numerous reiterated Complaints from the Jemidar of this
District of the insolence and Barbarity of that Rajas [of

340
the Raja of Ghatseela] people almost daily exhibited.
Fergusson to Graham, 22 March, 1767, Mid. Dist . Reeds.

V ol. 1,
p. 125.
Reeds., Vol.
Fergusson to Vansittart, 9 April, 1767, Mid. Dist.
I,
30.
p. 133.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid .
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
1774, Mid. Dist. Reeds., Vol. III.
34a. Sidney to Samuel Lewis, 10 April,
9
:
Before a month had passed more bitter reports about

Jagannath Dhal came from Ghatseela : Unless Jagernot
Doll is subdued. ..the Honble Company can never receive
an anna from this side of the Sourbanrika [Subarnarekha]
River.* Thus the English attempts to set up new
zamindars in Midnapur proved to be a fiasco.
VI. Rebellion
Jagannath Dhals rebellion synchronized with the

rebellion of another important zamindar of Midnapur, namely
the Raja of Moynachaura. There was a kind of cold war
going on between the Raja and the Company from 1767.
The Raja pleaded his inability to pay the revenue. The
Company disbelieved him. In 1767 the Raja wrote to
Vansittart
...this year there has been no reasonable rains, the

time for cultivation has been in a manner lost.
Some rains, however, thro out of season having now

come there nemains a month for going on with the
cultivation. I am, therefore, travelling from village
to village, and from hut to hut taking inconceivable
pains for the Comfort and encouragement of the

ryots, nevertheless there is no prospect of the
pergunna being fully cultivated but only a little here
and there. I am, therefore, greatly distressed. I
have neither time for eating nor sleeping. I have
not a days, not a moments leisure, and I was not
now present to oversee the cultivation and repairs to
the bunds (dams), a whole year would in a manner
be lost. 6
35. Sidney Smith to Samuel Lewis, 6 May, 1774, Mid. Dial. Reed*.,
Vol. III.
36. The Raja of Moynachaura to Vansittart, 18 July, 1767, Mid. Diet.
Reeds., VoL I.
ANATOMY OP ANARCHY 131
About this letter of the Raja Vansittart left the following
note :
At the time the Raja wrote this letter he remained

quite [quiet ?] in his Fort. He neither set out towards
midnapore 87 nor moved one step to encourage the

ryots in their cultivation. The season for repairing
the bunds was entirely past, and the paddy was

almost everywhere sown in the pergunna, so that it
is almost one continued falsehood, from beginning to

the end 38
In reply to the above letter of the Raja Vansittart sent a

strong note to him on 20 July, 1767 and with it sent a force
to arrest him. The Raja was certainly in a tight corner. On

23 July, 1767 he wrote back to Vansittart :
From my former address you are acquainted with my

distressed condition, that being heartily disposed to
pay the Companys revenue, I not only applied to that
purpose all the collections from the..., but sold my
household effects, and furniture, and b [borrowed ? ]
considerable sums of money. You also assis [ted]...

and showed me greater favour than I know how
[tom] Notwithstanding this I had no means of
[paying] the balance which was due-'-Halbunjun 19
could not be collected this year. In this my
distressed situation, you have despatched a tahselder
and seapoys and peons. To save my honour, therefore,
I have set out for Calcutta, with the remainder. 4 "
37. Vansittart ordered the Raja to see him at

Midnapur Vansittart to
the Raja, 12 July, 1761, Mid, Diet. Reeds., Vol. I, The Raja evaded
this order.
38. Midnapur Dist, Reeds., Vol I.

39. Balbunjun was an 'advanced' collection from the ryots out of the
rents of the nest year,
40. The Raja of Moynachaura to Vansittart, 23 July, 1767, Mid. Diet.
Reeds., Vol. I.
About the Raja's going to Calcutta to procure money

Vansittart made tbe following comment : The Moynachoura
Raja having twice disobeyed my orders for repairing to
Midnapur...I sent a party of sepoys to bring him by force.

Upon this he has travelled off to Calcutta in order as he says-
to procure money for fulfilling his tushkees, but as I imagine
to renew his old plan of rendering himself independent of
Midnapore. 41 Prior to all these the Raja had desparately
tried to procure money in Midnapur but was not very

successful. The Raja deposition in this regard was thus :
I exert myself to the utmost to pay the Companys

revenue. Besides all the collections from the
Pergunna, I have borrowed money from the Company,
from the Fougedar, from Captain Du Gloss, and'
from other merchants, and yet I have not been able

to pay it. I have therefore been obliged to pawn,
my lands to Mr. Lamberts Banyan, Kussunchurn
Takir. [Thakur ?] 42
The Raja did not inform Lambert of the particulars of

the agreement which was made between the Raja and 1
Mr. Lamberts banian. Hence Lambert wrote to Vansittart :
I might make enquiry of him [the Raja] in the presence

of the Gomasta, and learn if the scheme was admissible
or not-" 43 Vansittarts reply was very sharp : it is
a scheme which cannot take place. 44 Such distrust for the
zamindars produced its logical sequel :
...if the Raja minds to relinquish the management

of his Zemindary, the Company will probably
choose to take it into their own [hands] instead of
41. Vansittart to Verelst, 3 Aug , 1767, Mid. Dirt. Reeds., Vol I.
2. The Raja of Moynachoura to Juggutram Dutt, 8 July, 1767, Mid,

Dist. Reeds., Vol. I, p. 170.
43. Lambeit to Vansittart, undated, Mid. Diet. Reeds., Vol. I, p. 170.
44. Vansittart to Lambert, 13 July, 1767, Mid. Diet. Reeds., Vol. I.
ANATOMY OP ANARCHY 133
allowing it to be transferred to any others
possession] 4 6
-Once a zamindar relinquished his zamindari under compulsion,

the Company knew, there would be none on whom the
charge could be reinvested. This had been their experience
in Ghatseela. Hence they had no other alternative but to
think in terms of taking the management of zamindaris in
their own hand. Besides they had objections to the transfer
of zamindari rights or the rights of farming to any banian of
English officials. In a letter to the Court on 31 January,
1766, the authorities in Calcutta showed their extreme
resentment to the ascendancy which the banians were getting
on the servants of the Company. Now the involvement of
a private banian with a zamindar was not viewed with favour
by the Company. Their suspicion was that all these were
tricks by which revenue was concealed from the Companys
notice. The Raja of Moynachoura did not revolt against the
Company but his non-payment of revenue was considered to
be a form of rebellion which the Company was not ready to

endure :
We have experienced of this mans [mans] rebellion

and insolent Behaviour and of this bad disposition
and character to have resolved that he shall be
wholly dispossessed of his Zemindary & further for
the sake of publik [public] Example that the inheri-

tance be entirely alienated from his family and
disposed of for the highest Nuzzeranee. 46
The idea of dispossessing zamindar & was not new with the
Company. The zamindara of the 24 -Parganoa were dispossessed
as early as 1757. Even in Midnapur smaller zamindara were
dispossessed : To these Zemindars, wrote Vansittart to
45. Ibid.
46. Mid . Di8t> Becds, t Vol, III, p. 78.
the Collector General in 1768, therefore I have granted

Jagheers for their support, and removed them from the
management of the District. 47 The Company also
dispossessed the original zamindar of Ghatseela. In one

record it was claimed that the English had not only
dispossessed the zamindar who went into a hiding but also
disengaged his ryots from him :
Since my having taken possession of the Fort [of

Ghatseela], I have employed all my time in detaching
the country people from the rebellious Zemindar,
and in getting intelligence where he had absconded
himself, in which I was so successful that he [was] not
only deserted by the greater part of his people, but
that I also got exact intelligence where he was... 48
This was a very successful move to destroy the zamindar-

ryot coalition which had constituted one of the basic elements
of anarchy in Bengal In the logic of things such a coalition
represented the ties of a backward and narrow agrarian life
where a petty zamindar and his band of ryots lived enmeshed'
with the bonds of an interdepending existence. The British
aim was to destroy those bonds. Without this no successful

efforts towards consolidation could be envisaged.
47. Vansittart to James Alexander, the Collector-General, 24 Jan., 1768,

Mid . Dist. Reeds, $ Vol. I.
48. Fergusson from the Ghatseela fort to Vansittart, 29 March, 1767*

Mid DisU
. Reeds. , Vol. I.
I
APPENDIX
Some important cases of Loot of Public reveuue,
murder of Englishmen and raid of English factories.
1759 The forces of the Raja of Burdwan tried to intercept
revenue as it was brought by the English to the

kutchery Firminger, Fifth Report, pp. 142-43 [Since
April, 1758 the English had been in possession
of the assignments of revenue in Burdwan and
Nadia]
1763 Fakirs captured the English factory at Rampur
Boalia in the Rajshahi district and took Mr.
Bennett who was in charge there as a prisoner. He
was later killed in the massacre of Patna in October,
1763 A N. Chandra, The Sannyasi Rebellion,
p. 34.
1763 The Fakirs in Backergunge surrounded Mr. Kelly,

my [Hastings] agent and put him in danger of
life Hastings report quoted in Dacca Diet.
GaZetter , pp. 40-42-
1763 A band of Fakirs raided and captured the English

factory at Dacca Rai Sahib J. M. Ghosh, Sannyasi
and Fakir Raiders of Bengal, p 37.
1764 Mr. Rose, an English gentleman, was going from
the Sunderbans with a huge treasure. He was
murdered by his Boatmen at Backergunge Long,
Selections, Nos. 723 767, 775, 843.
1767 Plunder of British factory at Khulna by a people
one of whom was named Ghulam Muhammad
ShiqdarC.P.C., Vol. II, No. 189.
1772 The zamindar of Bamachand in Sylhet threatened to

pull down the Companys godown for lime F. B.
Bradley-Birt,
Sylhet* Thackeray, London, 1911,
p. 144.

1772-73 Zamindars of Sylhet [or Dacca] interrupted the

chunarn boats of the Company and beat companys
servants near Callejuria in the Dacca district F.
B. Bradley-Birt, i
Sylhet Thackeray, London, 1911,
p. 147.
1773 Public revenue was looted at Dinajpur Prodgs. of

the Rev. Board consisting of the Whole Council, 26
May, 1773.
1783 Jagannathpur factory at Malda was raided and
goods plundered with the help of a local zamindar
Ainslie Thomas Embree, Charles Grant and the
British rule in Indio, New York, 1962, p. 92.
1786 In Birbhum the public revenue (was) intercepted
on its way to the treasury Hunter, Annals, p. 15.
1786 Two sarkars, one Jamador, one Sepoy and two

Chaprassies forcibly occupied the English customs
house in Hugh Charles Coates, Collector of
Govt. Customs to Robert Holme, Collector of
Hugli, dated Hugli 16 June 1787, Prodgs. BOB,
28 June, 1786.
1786 The treasure which Kantu Babu and Lokenath
Nundi sent from Baharbund was looted in Rajshahi
Committee of Revenue Prodgs., 6 April, 1786, and
also the Prodgs. BO 1
I , Vol. 2.
1790 Birbhum Treasury looted in thana manirampur in

Burdwan R. J. Hirst, The Early Collectorate
Records of Burdwan 1768-1790, in BPP, Vol. VI,

No. 13, 1910, p. 235.
1
1791 Rs 1100 looted at Shearpur by some Binaries The

Magistrate of Mymensing to G.G. in Council, 20
May, 1791, Rev. ( Jud ) Prodgs, 13 May, 1791.
1791 Lt. Purcel was murdered by some barkandazes at
Jogigopa in Coochbihar Rev. (Jud) Prodgs, 8 July,
1791.
I
APPENDIX 137
1791 In January, 1791 a robbery was committed at the

public Cutchery of Hauvilley Khulfutabad and
a treasure of Rs. 97 plus Rs. 316 was looted. It is
also interesting to note that out of 75 cases of

confinement at the Faujdari jail at Murshidabad
between July and October, 1790, 74 were cases of
robbery and theft and one was of murder Rev.
(Jud) Prodgs, 1 April, 1791.
1799 About one hundred men who were the subjects of

Bullub Bhooya, zamindar of the nine anna division
of Pargana Beercool looted the Companys salt
cutchery of that place. They were led by the

zamindars brother, Radha Bullub Baboo, a most
ferocious, necessitous and lawless youngman. In
plundering the cutchery Radha Bullub invoked the
assistance of the Marathas of the neighbouring
pargana of Jamkomdah. They carried away Rs.
1800 and burnt the cutchery Mr. Chapman to the
Secretary to the Salt Department, Fort William,
7 December and 17 December, 1799, Midnapore
Salt Papers, pp. 118-119.

APPENDIX II
Spotlight on some important aspects of British
response to the problem of banditry in Bengal,
1785 1795 .
1785 All collectors were allowed Rs. 125 for entertain-

ing Jummadar and 25 Burgandases for the protec-
tion of their Treasury.
1786 The Collector of Burdwan transmits to Calcutta

a sum of Rs. 1,74,486 under a party of sepoys led
by Jaun Sing Jemyder [,Jamadar ]
1786 An English force under Lt. Brenan had to be
mobilized in Dinajpur to chastise the dacoit leader
Majnu Shah. To support Brenan a detachment
was sent from Buxeygunge. Dinage. Dist. Reeds.
Vol. I, p. 18
1787 Lt. Brenans detachment from Silberris and Lt.
Hills detachment from Dinajpur area well mobilized

to fight against the Sannyasis of Kuchbihar who
were about 6 to 7 thousand strong Naga Sannyasi
Ganeshgeer and the Kuchbihar Disturbance of 1787
A.D. by N. B. Roy in Sir Jadunath Sarkar
Commemoration Volume II (Punjab University).
1787 The Collector of Birbhum appointed Burgondauzes

as Guards and Escorts of Treasure. Of
Barkandazes he wrote : This establishment is
of a very old date. They were most of them

formerly employed near the hills to prevent the
Inroads and depredations of the Hill people
Collector of Birbhum to Fort William Council,
30 Sept., 1787, Rev. ( Jud Prodgs., Vol. )
I.
1788 In Dinajpur a tax called Dekoity Khurcha was

imposed upon the people. It was a contribution
APPENDIX II 139-
to reimburse the robbery at Jaggernautpore

Factory. Dinage. Diet. Reeds. Vol. I, p. 130.
1790 The zamindars of the 9th and 15th Divisions of

Octershawpoor [Uttar Shahapur] and Noahbad in
Dacca Division were accused as ringleaders in the

Fray of the 15th Jeyte 1196. They were captured
and put under trial. As a result their lands were
directed to be held khass till the result of the
enquiry was known and that the lands continue
to be under attachment on till the Period of the
zamindars confinement expires. The zamindars
were sentenced to four years confinement at the
end of which they were to offer a Mochulka to
get their discharge. Together with this Manick
Biswas, also a zamindar, was subject to receive
59 stripes along with one years confinement.
[Rev. ( Jud ) Prodgs ., 8 Oct., 1790]
Flogging, it should be noted was a very important

way of punishing the zamindars. Rev. (
Jud ) prodgs.
are replete with instances where judges sentenced
zamindars to *
stripes.
1790 The Magistrate of Rajshahi spent Rs. 244-7 in one

month (August, 1790) for arranging reinforcement
of the police and Rs. 378 for two months' cruise
on the rivers.
[Rev. (Jud) Prodgs., 8 Oct , 1790]

1790 The Magistrate of Mymensing recommended the
construction of four large boats Similar to those
used by the Decoits themselves armed by seepoys
These boats were to cruize constantly on the
Brahmaputra. The cost of manning these boats,
the Magistrate said, would be not more than Rs. 70-
per month.
[Rev. ( Jud ) Prodgs., 8 Sept., 1790]
1790 On 20 Oct., 1790 the Government issued orders

calling all Magistrates to give information about
the Police Establishment of the districts. On 18
April, 1791 it was decided to send all the
information to the Nizumat Adalat.
ltev. ( Jud ) Prodgs. 8 April, 1791.
1790 A tax was to be imposed on the people in order to

defray the Expenses of the Police within the
zamindari of Nadia. This would be a separate
collection amounting to Rs. 20,000. The
Government was first undecided whether the
Receipt and Expenditure of this fund shall be
continued to the zamindar, or whether it shall be
received and paid by the Collector on the part of
Government. Later on the Board of Revenue
resolved that the Collection for the Expense of
the Police specified in the letter from the Collector
of Nuddea, be continued to be made by the
zamindar, as at present, but in order to enable the
Collector in his capacity of Magistrate more
efficiently to control the conduct of the Police
officers of the zamindar and to see that the
Collection in question is applied to the purpose
for which it is made, that the Regulations passed
on the 14th January 1789 for the Tannahdarry
Establishment of Burdwan be extended to the
Collectorship of Nuddea.
[ It tv. (Jud.) Prodgs ., 8 Oct., 1790]
1791 The Magistrate at Jessore recommends the

establishment of Tannas or stations for the
preservation of the police. The zamindars are
declared responsible for the preservation of the
peace of their Districts, but in particular instances,
as in the places I am now Speaking of, it is totally
APPENDIX II 141
impracticable, for if an offence is committed in
one of these small Districts the perpetrators may be

out of the limits of it in a quarter of an hour.
R Rocke, Magistrate at Jessore to the Registrar
to the Nizamat Adalat at Fort William, Rev. (
Jud .)
Prodgs ., 1 April, 1791.
1791 The Magistrate of the 24 -Parganas in reply to the
Governments letter dated 20 Oct, 1790 wrote on

20 April, 1791 that the only way of financing the
police organisation was through the imposition of
a Tax Immediately on the Articles of Consump-
tion, as it appears to me less likely to be abused
from the number of people paying it, being more
circumscribed. The amount to be collected more
generally known, and consequently less Room for
the exercise of any arbitrary impositions of the

officers employed, although I am sure that it will
ultimately be made use of as a plea for enhancing

the Price of the Articles of Consumption in a ten
fild [ten-fold] proportion to the amount levied,
notwithstanding the utmost vigilance & attention

to the subject.
Revenue (Jud) Prodg ., 29 April, 1791]
[.
1791 The Magistrate at Rangpur in his letter to the G. G.

in Council dated 22 April, 1791 says that though
the people have agreed to defray the cost for
guarding hats, there were some hats which are so

small and so distant from each other, that the
people who frequent them cannot afford to pay for
the Expense of a police Establishment.
[i?ew. (Jud.) Prodgs., 29 April, 1791]
1791 The Court of Circuit in its letter to the Calcutta
Council dated 26 March, 1791 advised the creation
of a Fdujdart jail in Tamluk. The Government
:
sanctioned the setting up of a Pucka Jail in
Tamluk on 18 April, 1791.

[Rev. ( Jud .) Prods., 18 April, 1791]
1791 The Magistrate of Mymensing appealed to the G. G.

in Council to augment the Guard I had stationed
in the Mofussil with a reinforcement of a Jemmader

and Thirtymen.
[Rev. (Jud.) Prodgs 13 May. 1791]
The G. G. in Council approved of the reinforce-
ments of guards.
1791 There were 80 barkandazes and one Jammautdar

connected with the Faujdari Adalal at Buckergunge,
The pay of every barkandaze was Rs. 5 p.m. and
that of the Jammautdar was Rs. 6 p.m.
[Rev. (Jud.) Prodgs., 7 January, 1791]
1791 2052 Coolies were appointed for the repairing of

the Faujdari jail of Rangpur.
[Rev. (Jud.) Prodgs ., 18 April, 1791]
1791 The Commissioner of Buckergange had the

following establishment
8 small guard boats, each at Rs 25 Rs. 200

6 Jemmadars for do. each at Rs 8 48
80 Barkandazes in lieu of one and a
half Company of sepoys with-
drawn from here, each at Rs 5 400
Rs. 648
[Rev. (Jud). Prodgs , 8 July, 1791]
1791 On 30 June. 1791 the Magistrate at Dacca

recommended to the G.G. in Council the establish-
ment of a station of guards equipped with Guard
boats. For the preservation of the peace of the
district 8 guard boats were used 4 armed men for

APPENDIX II 143
each boat, total 32 men. Each men was to have

a salary of Rs. 4 per month so that the total
expenditure on salary was Rs. 128 pm. 2 Darogahas
were appointed each at Rs. 15, i.e. Rs. 30 for two.

Each boat contained 14 Dandies each at 2
Rupees 8 Annas Rs. 280 per month for 1 12
i.e.
Dandies. Each boat was hired at Rs. 7 i.e. Rs. 56

p.m. for 8 boats This establishment was for ten
months commencing from 15 July, 1791. The
G.G. in Council approved of this on 8 July, 1791
Prodgs, of the G.G. in Council, 8 July, 1791 & Rev.
(Jud.) Prodgs., 8 July, 1791.
1793 At Buckergunge the following establishment was main-

tained.
8 small guard boats hired,

Rs. 25 per mensem Rs. 200
8 Jemadars 6 Rs. per mensem Rs. 48
80 Barkandazes , 5 Rs. per mensem Rs. 400
Rs. 648
Jud. (Crim.) Prodgs., 10 May, 1793.
1793 The cost of apprehending one dacoit Boodun was

Rs. 200. This amount was paid to one Govindah who
apprehended the dacoit. Rs. 80 was paid to the
same man for apprehending eight more dacoits of
whom one was a boatman (Kirty Manj ee) and
at least
two were muslims (Moraud and Gole Mahomed)
Jud (Crim) Prodgs., 10 May, 1793.
1793 The monthly expense of every thana was fixed at
Rs. 50
Jud. (Crim) Prodgs., 3 May, 1793.
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APPENDIXIII
The of C. A. Brace, Commissioner at Coocfa Behar
letter
to Governor General [Cornwallis], Cooch Behar, 26 April, 1793.
[Jud (Crim) Prodgs., 3 May, 1793]
*My Lord,
No particular Notice appears to have been taken of the
outrage committed two years ago by the Sunasses [Sannyasi*]
at this place, when Mr. Purcell and others were killed, as far
as the Foujdary proceedings could go the business was attend-
ed to, but I do not believe that any cognizance was taken
in a political light which the reports in circulation abroad
required should remain no longer unheeded. It has been
propagated by the ill disposed of the present dissurbances
in assam Dring and B3znee, that Government take no notice
of the murder of Europeans and other persons, unless they
are high in Public Stations, and quote Lieut Purcells Murder
in support of the position they lay down.
The very existence of a Doctrine so pernicious in its
tendendcy especially at a Frontier Station and in itself
tantamount to a libet on the English Government, made one

desirous to counteract it, and I was resolved to submit to
your Lordship the expediency of obtaining satisfaction from
the foreign powers for the scandalous assertion, had I found
no other mode of atonement practicable.
The mode T take the liberty to recommend is a fine

in the Temple of Doodnaut a place of Hindoos worship,
resorted to by the Sannasies [o'a/myiww], situated within
provinces supported by Rent free lands and other
Donations bestowed on it. It was within the walls of this
sanctuary that the sacriligious crime of murder was committed

by its on an unarmed Gentleman whose conciliatory
Votaries
disposition urged him on to check in the most moderate
10
manner the rising commotions which threatened disorders at

Jagygopah, and with him were killed the Companys Sezawal,
two of the Companys Sepoys, and others, in a most barbar-
ous manner. It is some time since the crime was done, and I
am the first person who has been here since, in a public
capacity to notice the effect it had on the minds of the people.
There is no doubt of its having been considered in a very
unfavourable light to the English, and as I was on the spot
I did not hesitate to make a very public business of it that
the neighbouring Foreign nations might be assured that no
such acts would pass with impunity. I ordered the large
Tree under which Mr. Purcell was killed to be very publicly
cut down, the earth to be dug up and scattered, and have
imposed a fine of five hundred rupees, which I request your
Lordships permission to collect.
Resolution of the Board of Revenue
....the Board [ of Revenue ] would be extremely glad to

have it in their power to bring to punishment the persons
who actually killed Lt. Purcell, but that they cannot approve
of the fine which he proposes to levy upon the Temple, as it
might operate as a punishment upon persons who were not

in any respect concerned in the perpetration of the crime.
They therefore desire that unless he shall happen to discover
the persons who actually committed the Murder and appre-
hend them, he will desist from taking any further public
Notice of the event in question.
APPENDIXIV
A. The Letter of Peter Speke Collector of Rajshahi to
Board of Revenue, 30 April, 1786.
[
Prodga. BOR, 1 8 July, 1786 ]
From this letter we learn that a robbery took place in
Rajshahi. The Baharbund treasure was intercepted by dacoits.
A parwana was sent to the Rani of Rajshahi to compensate

the zamindar of Baharband the loss of this treasury. The
Collector writes to the Board : The Rannees Answer agrees
with Mr. Beebys Account respecting the obstinate Refusal of
the people in Charge of the Treasure to deposit it in the Mhal
Khane
altho strongly urged by the Zamindarry Officers at
Nohutta Whether an instantaneous Pursuit of so large and
daring a Body of Dacoits was practicable by any force under the
Mofussil Naibs, or whether they could force to assemble one suffi-
cient to withstand thair Attacks, you are the best judges. A servant
of Mine who was coming from Silberris where the Robbery was
recent, heard it talked off on his way. He told me it was the
general opinion that the Dacoits were chiefly from Bogra , and he
mentioned another circumstances that they were said to have
women & Doolies with them, and to have carried the Treasure
twenty coss the Night the Robbery was committed. An instance
-of the daring Attacks the Decoits are capable of, happened
in my own knowledge in the year 1772. Part of the
Rangpore Treasure on its way to Moorshedabad under a
Guard of a Havildar and twelve Sepoys, and many
Burgundosses and Peons of Juggut Seats Kootee, was
attacked in an open Plain in Broad Day light, and only saved
because the Guard were and fought for their lives. The
Havildar and five of the sepoys were much wounded
and two sepoys killed. Cantoo Baboos people were then in
the service of Mr. Purling the Collector, and will doubtless
recollect the Circumstances [Italics ours].
B. Perwannnh to the zamindar of Rajeshahy, respecting:

Robbery of the Babarbond Treasure.
[Prodgs. BOR , 18 July, 1786]
Lokenant Nundee Zamindar of Pergh. Baharbund,.

presented a petition to the Committee, alleging that he sent
15,150 Rupees in charge of Munsoram Havildar and Burgun-

dosses to the Hazoor, which arrived safe at Nawhattah in.
Chacklah Betoreah in the Zamindary of Ranah

Rani } [
Bowannee, on the 20th. Phaugun, in the Night of which day

the Treasure was plundered by thieves who killed some of
the guards and wounded others. As it is the orders from the
Hazoor, and the Custom of the Country, that if a Robbery
is committed in the zamindary of any zamindar, he shall
either produce the thieves or make good, the loss. I have
received an order from the Committee to enquire how the
zamindar gave Chokiedars at that place. If you have any
excuse you must write it, otherwise you must produce the
thieves or pay the money. I therefore write you to furnish,
me with the Particulars of this robbery as soon as possible
that I may inform the Committee thereof.
C. The Zamindars [ the Ranis ] Answer to the above
Parwannab.
[
prodgs. BOR, 18 July, 1786 ]
I have received your Letter respecting the Robbery of

Baharbund Treasure, and the Orders of the Hazoor in con-
sequence thereof. I had received information of the Robbery
before, from the Mofussil and also a letter from Mr. Robert
Beeby. 1 wrote to the Naib and Tannahdars of Nawattah,.
to inform Me of the particulars. In answer they wrote me
that when the Treasure arrived, the guard placed it on the
outside of the Cutcherry, on which the Tannahdar advised
the Havildar to bring the treasure into the Cutcherry, but the
Havildar took no notice of what he said. My Chokiedars^
were there according to custom, but the thieves were so
APPENDIX IV 149
numerous, that they could not resist them. Afterwards they

made every possible search by Beat of Tom Tom & Ca but could
receive no Information of the Thieves, the Tannahdars Naib &
ca are still under the Orders of Mr. Beeby, they have sent to
me, which I now send to you by Vakeel, and I will hereafter
inform you if any of the particulars that may come to my
knowledge [Italics ours].
D. Zabaunbuodie of Dookul, Sirdar Dacoit in Relation

to the Robbery in Rajshabi in 1786.
[ Prodgs. BOB , 18 July, 1786 ]
On the 16 Phangun, Bissoo Coach and Sanah Harry

came to my house, and told me that Nitoi and Sanat Ullah
Dacoits, Inhabitants of Subnia wanted Me, and directed me
to bring my Arms. I accordingly went thither with my sword
and shield. The Sirdars told me that it was resolved to cross
the great River at Akrillgunge, and to wait at Pookereah
Village, until some Treasure came that way which they might
plunder. Fifty men (Dacoits) were assembled, all armed
with Swords, spears & Bows and Arrows for this expedition.
.A Dacoit named Allum, an Inhabitant of Lushkerpore, was set
as a spy to Bowanie Gunge. On the 17th Phaugun we crossed

the River at the Ferry at Gudaulcotty in two Parties and arrived
at Akrie Gunge in the Evening and staid stayed ] all Night
[
near that Place. In the Morning of the 18th, Allum Decoit
sent us a Message to prepare Ourselves as much Treasure was
coming from Baharbund. We accordingly crossed a Branch
of the River in two Parties in fishing boats which we seized,
.and went to the village of Kimtollah and sent Intelligence of
our Arrival to Allum, and then proceeded to the Village of

Sahoah. On the 20th Allum sent us word that the Treasure
was arrived at Nawattah. ,Jn the Evening we arrived near
Nawhattah. At two Oclock in the Momning we sent
jSannah Ullah and Biswah Sirdar to spy how the Guard was
kept, they returned and repotted that sepoys were on Guard

near the Butiar conah, that the sepoys challenged who comes
there [these words were underlined in the records R.S.], that
they answered they were Ryotts of the village, they said that
was the proper time. On this we prepared ourselves and
1
went thither in three Parties, Jumaul Decoit killed the sepoy

on guard with his Spear, I killed a Man with two strokes of
my Tulwar, seven people were killed by different Men, and
others wounded, I wounded one on the knee with my sword,
we entered the House and 16 of us carried away, the Treasure
which was in Bags. We carried the money to the House of
of Nawaik Sirdar, who ordered us to take some Rupees for
our daily charges, and said that the remainder should be
divided in five or six days. we all went to our own
On this
Houses. On the west side of Akrie Gunge live Allum Sirdar

and his son and Mutroo Decoits, some of the Decoits live at
Bagwangolah, under some Babel Trees, their Names I do not
know in public they sell Tobacco and Chillies. Bissooah
Decoit told me that these Decoits were always protected
in the House of Birkeetulla [ Barkatulla ] Cauzie of Zumnie,
that when four Peons from Jutyoyram [ Jatayuram ] came to
seize the Thieves, the Sirdar Decoit of Lumnie and others
were protected and concealed in the Cowzies House. Let
the people present be Witness of my Deposition.
E. Relating to The Robbery at Nowhatta, Rajshahi on 1

April, 1786 the Committee of Revenue received the following
letter from the Council at Fort William [f.e. G. G. in Council}
[ Prodgs. COB , 6 April, 1786 ]
We desire you will call on the Ranny of Rajeshahy inr
whose Zammdarry the Robbery has happened, to inform you.

whether any and what assistance or protection was afforded
by her Officers to the persons who were m charge of the Trea-
sure at the time they were plundered, an [ d ] acquaint her
that agreeable to ancient usage and the possitive [ positive
}
APPENDIX IV 151
regulations of Government, she will be obliged to make good

the loss sustained, if it be proved that it happened for want of
proper Security and protection from her officers. [ Calcutta
Council to Committee of Revenue, Fort William, 30 March,

1786 ]. Enclosed to this letter was the letter of the Magistrate
at Natore to the Calcutta Council. From this we learn the
following facts The robbery took place at Nowhutta

: (1)
in the Dist. of Betoreah. (2) The Treasure was despatched

by Kantubabu and was moving towards Murshidabad. It was
the Revenue of Baharbund. (3) It was under the escort of
5 sepoys, 9 Barkandazes, and 18 Peons who stopped on their

way in the evening of the 1st Instant at Nowhutta. Instead
of depositing their Treasure as is generally the Custom for
Travellors in the Mhalkaunah of the Cutcherry, they consi-

dered it sufficiently safe in their own trust, and under their
own immediate guard in the Serai or Waiting place where
they had alighted.does not however appear that any steps

It
were taken by the Naib or Tannahdar for their Security or

that they were furnished with any Patroles or Chowkeydars,
but only Dolee or Tom Tom who ran off on the instant
of the alarm, in this situation the greater part of the
the Treasure were at rest, either in

People escorting
the Seroii or before the Door of it, with 1 Sepoy Centinel

and 2 Burcundosses Barkandazes ] on the
[ sentinal ] [
Watch, when on a sudden about 200 Decoits armed with

Tulwaars Spears & ca rushing on together, cut down the
Guard, and killing 7 and wounding 16 persons they made
of
Rupees
with the whole of the Treasure, amounting to 15,500
of Nohutta must
in 16 different Bags alarmed as the People
[illegible]
have been on the occasion, had an immediate pursuit
of so numerous a Body
it is impossible but some traces
having
might soon have been discovered, but the Tannadar
search of the
only the next day dispatched 3 Pykes in
offenders, they had an opportunity of dispending
and getting
dear off with the Treasure. No public Intelligence of this

accident was brought to me for several days, but instantly on

the [ illegible 3 private intimation, 1 dispatched people to
Nohutta to enquire into the Circumstances and to make every
search for the offenders round the adjacent parts of the Country.
I also sent others to Bowanny [Bhowanigung] Gunge where
the Treasure had stopped the preceeding
[ preceding ] Evening
with similar instructions, and as several days have lapsed
without my being able to discover the least Vestige of the
Decoits, I have considered publishing an offer of a reward
might influence some one of so numerous a party, to give
information against his Associates and for this purpose I
caused it to being proclaimed, that a reward of Five Hundred
Rupees would be given to any person discovering the
principals of the Gang and on the recovering of the Treasure,
and which myself Honble
I flatter Sir, is a step that will
meet with your approval.
As the Foujdarry Regulations declare all zamindars to be
answerable not only for the preservation of the peace of the
Country, but that they shall be made to refund the Amount of
all losses sustained in the several Districts, I take the liberty
of submitting to you what further measures it may be
expedient to adopt in an instance where the Zamindars neglect
is so evident in securing the peace of the District, and where
after so glaring a breach of its being
committed, no Exertions
were made by the People of the pergunnah for the Recovery
of so considerable an Amount of the public Treasure R.
[
Beeby, Magistrate at Natore to Com. of Rev., Natore, 20
March, 1786 ].
F. The Petition from Lokenont Nnndee

[ son of Kants
Babo 3 Zemindar of Pergunnah Baharbund.
[ Prodgs COB , 6 April, 1786 ]
The sum of Fifteen thousand five hundred and one

rupees, the Revenue of my Zamindary Pergunnah Baharbund
&ca being on the road from the Mofussil under the charge of
APPENDIX IV 153
Munsa Ram Havildar Burcondosses [Barkandazee] and others

on the Wednesday the 20th of Phangun [ Phalgun ] arrived at
Nouhutta in Bettorea the Zamindarry of Maha Ranny
Bhowanny, In the Night time some Robbers attacked the
Guard, killed several and wounded many and carried off the
Treasure. I made application on this account to the Gentle-

men of the Committee of Revenue, but they informed me that
the collections were their Department, and that Redress in
these instances belonged to the Governor General and
Council. The Robbery having been committed on the
Revenue of Government and it being a standing Order as well
as usage, that If the public Revenue be at any time plundered,
the Zamindar in whose zamindarry such Robbery shall be
perpetrated, shall, [being] accompanied by the servants of
Govern- ment, produce the Robbers with the property plun-
dered and bring them to the Huzzoor, and in default of taking
and delivering over the Robbers, shall be answerable for the
property stolen. I request therefore of your Honble Board
that you will strictly and possitively direct Amla of Maha
Ranny Bhowanny to seize the Robbers in question, and pay
the Revenue plundered into the public Treasury. I also
entreat that the Gentlemen of the Committee of Revenue may

be directed to suspend their Demands on me for the Month of
Maugh till this matter has been enquired into, and for the
security of my future Revenue to instruct the Superin
.[ tendent ] of the Collectors of Rungpore &ca on

the Appli-
cation [ illegible ] Naib, to appoint a certain member of

Sepoys and others to protect the Amount of each Instalment.
The safe Transportation of the Revenue will otherwise be
very difficult.
V
154
Plun-
and
infesting
now
Bnrdwan...
Depredators
aod
aod
Moorshidabad
Decoits
],
of
APPENDIX
Rajshahi
Gangs
of
[
Radashie
Leaders
Principal
Beerbhum
or
of
Sardars
Districts
of
List the
dering
V 1
APPENDIX 155
il
.55
8 88 1-4 11 pH
888 888 w-< v4 1-4 ggggSS
CN 1 '
Q 60
5660 60
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Proposed
Reported
Beerbhoom
Delinquents
the
stated
of
Residence
gong
Usual
Owl
Marcks
Sardar Harey
the Dage
of
Golkah
Name
V
157
APPENDIX
Moorshidabad
Proposed
reward...
of
Reported
strength
Burdwan
Delinquents
the
of Stated
Bendenees
Usual
Neanparah
of
Marcks
[Marks] A
Sardar
Byragy
the Principals
Doss
of
or
Doolib
Name
V
159
APPENDIX
conviction
gang
each
village
ra
Xr
,Vic
a
r>
**
Sardar
the
of
Name
on
1793
Proposed conviction
<n o h
J3
reward
o April)
Keating
22nd
of

gang,
Reported
C.
strength each
Beerbhoom
]
a a
% 8 Dacoit$.
J>jq
Village o a 5
<2 * of
Delinquents
ca apprension
the
& a
h g
r
>.
ui
of 3 3 & 2,442
2,365
Perghs J> 4*
2 <z>
the
of
Residences

a
>1 2? e IH

a t 1 > <2
Total records
aa H uo ,a2
a a .9
Usual
q o
Pa
Village
u
fl h 2 a the
2 g tr I p a o
W wo ^ 4 2 Js
Accomplices
of
of I
8 8
?]
*1
* of
approved
3 *2
a
Marcks
[Marks
reference
u u u 0 *o a
g {*8 Number
<s -3 Council
2 3s |
Ja
I in
Sardar
a -
00
js g 1 a a Eastimated
G.G.
IS
the
Principals
ills I < [
of
*3
1 -S *3
or *2 ,2 <2 jo
o *3 a,S
Name
O H <&
APPENDIX VI 161
Magistrate
the
by
Released
Do
and
Ditto Ditto Ditto

Tried
23rd
28th
VI Prisoners
Do Do
Jeasore
the
APPENDIX
to
Ditto Ditto
Ditto
subsistence
15th
14th
of
Particular
Ditto Ditto
Ditto
Account
Anundearam
Mussooah
Totaram
11
4 1
162 SOCIAL BANDITRY BENGAL
3o -H ^-4 V-4 *
H *-h X n A A rn
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Date
qqqqqQQ <S Qp
55
3
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fl
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m 00 On ** * **

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*
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o o 2 o O O O O O >
s .5 8 8 a J
Crime
PQPpPPPPptfHQ* Ditto
Prisoners
of
Camoo
Name
APPENDIX VI 163
of
Jail
Nizamat
the
to
Committed
to
previous
Persons
to
Diet
of
particulars
Account
o m o
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7 'TTT

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h cs m v! so h oo 6 h ci <o ^
appendix VI 165
65]
1
page
from
[Continued
APPENDIXVn
Proposed Police Jurisdiction for the District of Nnddea
[Jud. ( Grim . ) Prodgs., 3 May, 1793]
No. of Names of the Monthly

Tannahs Tannahs 'Where situated establishment
Rs. a.
1 . Hardee in Pergunnah 83
Rejepore
2. Mehurpore Ditto 83
3. Coat Chundpore Shawjall 83
4. Agerdeep & P[I] assey Bailgung 99
5. Summuntgur Satsyka 83
6. Nowparrah Bog wan 83
7. Kishenagar &
Hanscolly Kishenagur 115
8. Doobit Gunge Muttiaree 83
9. Baagdah Hulda 83
10. Sirinagur Sirinagur 83
11. Woolasey Moolgur 83
12. Prawnpore Booron 83
13. Burronhaut Myhatty 83
14. Buddumgotchee Anwurpore 83
15. Jogolee Ucra 83
16. Santipore Santipore 83
17. Sooksagur Pajanore 83
18. Houghly Mahomed Amenpore 83
19. Bydebatty Ditto 83
20. Sulka Ditto 83
21. Colbarriah Colorah & ca 83
Total Pr. Month Rs. 991
The O.G. in Council approved of the jurisdiction and

authorised the excess in the monthly expenses amounting to
Rs. 397.
1 !
(indis-tinet)
the
for
1
b 9 n 10
entertained
1
be
H at
73
X.
to w
Ai
B 2
a ^ *
o * Mahomed
n JO =3 ô Summy
1793
Establishment 5 * 09
tS
S
2 r
5 * a.
May,
10
of
JI J
e
w
o
<3
2. *5
o
j U r/T .2
do.
3 S 10
Statement 1 TS | &. *
Prodgs,
8 *8 ? 1 o o
U g
a m <n
and
(Crim)
i 1
a a (
9 Cu 8 a Diunapore
Jud o *S
* |

| a
8 .2 Iasi
* 1 1
Jurisdictions
a tJ
fc a i 1 1 5wQ
IS Chucklah
III -a
os
S
r? JO S' o rS *
0 Q
Police JS
P*
rS
-M -a a
S? g
Z .9
!o
b 8
J m 5
-o U
the B O
B
of iS
" o Gunge
o JS
List *S
OB
Oil he
SCI a
! J>
to
Jj
Pertaub
III 111 2.
1
OO O O
T3 *0 *U
u
o
2
P< m
i.
s, a
| 1 1*1 S2
| o Bhudderpoor
j*j3
O w w ft!
j 1
^z S
Bushwah
o o
o o o O 43o
d TD TJ 3
T) M*d izh do
APPENDIXVIII 169
Mhorers
dosses
Bur-
knn-
daur
Jama-
of
Name Darogah
Establish-
ment
the
of
extent
jurisdiction
Square
Computed
the
each
of o
a
comprised
Pergunoah
Jurisdiction
the
of Pergunnahs
] the
168 Names
or in
fromPage
the
and
of
Continuted jurisdiction
Number imes
[ N
Mhorrers
un
dozzes
Burk
dauer
Jema-
the
Establishment
of
Name
of
Computed
Extent
Ramchundbatty
3 the
oir
169
of
Pergunnah
Page
Names
from
the
and
Continued
of
Number
[ Names
7 7 8 9
INDEX
A Dinajpur 14, 17, 32
Adams, Lt. A 126 Ducarel 10

Alexander, James-38 E
B Elphinstone 15
Baber, Edward 119, 121
F
Bakargunj 10, 12, 26, 32 Fakirs 10, 14, 18, 42, 53, 54, 58
Bankim Chandra 22
Fendell, John 28
Barrampooter ( Brahmaputra ) 33
Fergusson, John 44, 84, 91. 110,
Bayley, H. V. 124
122, 123, 125
Bennett, Ensign 52
Forbes, J. 13
Beveridge 12
Francis, Philip 9, II, 29, 87
Bhabani Pathak 4o, 49
Bhattacharya, Subhas 56 G
Birbhum 16, 26, 31, 43, 48, 112 Ganga Govind 81
Bose, Bhupendranarayan 21 Ghosal, Gokul 19
Brooke, Thomas 37 Girling, Robert 58
Brown, Lt. 26 Glazier, E. G. 99

Burdwan 19 Gleig 10, 11
Burlow, C. H 33, 45, 73 Goodlad, Richard 14, 22, 28, 99

Burro wes, Coseby 126 Graham-43, 89, 122, 123, 124, 125,
Busteed 11, 14 127

Buxar 15 Grant, Charles 28
Grose, John 14
c Guha, Ranajit 9, 29,
Cartier 80
Chandra, A. N. 17 H
Cbatterjee, Anjali 128 Hirst, R. J.-99, 111,112, 113
Chittagong 18 Hobsbawm, E. J. 42, 57
Chuars 12, 13, 37, 38, 42, 52, 54, Hugh 10, 25, 31
58, 61 Hunter 10
Clive 87, 88 Hussain, Ghulam
Committee of Police
Controlling Council of Revenue J
Jessore 10, 80
Cotrell, H 60 12, 31, 60,
Cotton, H. J. S. 81
K
Court of Directors
Kantu Babu 81
D Kasinath Babu 81
Dacca- 18 Kaviraj, Narahari 43
Das, Narendranath 1 10 Keating, Mr. 16
Dalhousie, Lord21 Khan, Alivarli 15, 55
Dawson 13 Khan, Abdul Majed-55, 56,71,80,
Devi Chaudhurani40, 69 87, 88
7 7 9
Khan, Md, Reza44, 45, 62,68,71 Ray, Nikhilnath 43

72, 80, 87, 88, 102, 103 Richardson 27
Krishnachandra 85 Rocke, R 60
Rook, Wm. 53
L Rose 10, 26, 68
Long. Rev. J.-10, 25, 26, 30, 35, 43,
Rous, Broughton 8, 33
44, 45, 53, 59, 60, 68 f 74, 75, 87
Roy, M. P. 60
M s
Madras Regulation XI & XII Sannyasis, Sunnasees 10, l2 t 18,
Malda 18
37, 42, 53
Majumdar, N 14, 15
Scott, Henry 34
Marriot, Wm, 14, 97, 98
Seir Mutakharin
Marshall, P. J. 86
Sen, Ranjit 20, 54, 83
McNeile, D. J 14
Sing, Poraun Kissen 43
Midnapur 12, 39
26, 31, 35,
Sinha, J. C .10
Miller 33, 45, 60
Sinha, N. K. 10, 21, 76. 77, 80, 82
Mir Jafar- 40
Sundarbans 31
Mir Qasim-40, 54, 87, 122
Munro 15 T
Murad, Md.-33 Thackeray, W. M.27, 79,91,96.
Murshid Quli 54, 76, 82 97
Mymensing 18, 33, 60 Thuggees
Todar Mal-123
N
Nabakrishna 19 U
Nallekens, Capt 52 Usang Ly, J.42
P V
Peiarce, J. 110 Vansittart 38, 62, 84, 87, 89, 91,
Permanent, Settlement 8, 83 123, 126, 127
Plassey 15, 42 Verelst 38, 56, 80, 122, 123, 124
Purnea 10, 32
w
R Watts, Hugh26
Rajshahi 8, 9, 18 Westland 12
Rani Bhabani 85 Wilmot 15

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THE PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK HAS BEEN FINANCIALLY

CHAPTER I : THE BANDIT 1

CHAPTER II BANDITS AND ZAMINDARS

REVENUE AND THE BREAKDOWN

CHAPTER V : ANATOMY OF ANARCHY 118

pity and shame, fascination and repulsion. It is with this

began my study on the bandits. Understanding them to be

over the last two centuries I accepted them as my subject

of study. I desired to know them in a distinct geographical

subject for study. Banditry as a problem of social research

of history I have presently made.

1698-1793. The study was a four-fold one. Part one of it

is available in my book Metamorphosis of the Bengal Polity

1700-1793. It discusses the growth of the British power in

deals with Bengals response to the growth of the British

developed its own social legions who collaborated with

terrain. The pattern of collaboration available in Bengal

part of the study deals with Bengals reactions which were

own self and its outburst in violence within a general milieu

Within this framework of a bigger understanding of

in the country and what the nature of mens participation

constitutive principle of my research. I have excavated

mans journey from here to eternity.

This is the standpoint from which I have written this

book. I have tried to state the simple facts which I have

against the margin of subsistence. The morbid contraction

tribute-hungry and profit-crazy rule of the Englishmen in

in an antithetical balance of terror. Three points of banditry

to the commoners and compensations to the rich who other-

outlaws, living from father to son in a state of warfare against

BOR Board of Revenue

CCR Controlling Council of Revenue

HB History of Bengal, vol. II ed. by Sir

MR Midnapore Letters Received 1777-1800

MRR Miscellaneous Revenue Records

[ referred to in terms of the place of

Historical Research, New Delhi, which had sanctioned a

substantial part of the finance that was necessary for the

publication of this book. My gratitude is also due to my

Sri Amalendu Mitra and Smt. Kalpana Sengupta without

print. Sri Kshitish Chandra De of Ratna Prakashan has not

In working out this book I received great inspiration

from my wife, Snigdha who shares with me the pains of

left for her.

of the British Empire itself. Moreland writing the socio-

sentiment on the bandits which was hitherto scattered in

minutes and memoranda was codified . 4

Thus from Hastings to Bentinck bandits had provided the

1. Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar : An Economic Study, Alma

2. See William Kaye, The Administration of the East India Company.

Thompson and G. R. Garratt. Rise and fulfilment of British Rule In

4. The British sentiment on Bandits is available in Confessions of a Thug

for more than half a century. By the end of the eighteenth

Indian bandit loomed large on the scene heedless of the

suggest three reflections : 1 . The official British attitude to

bandits and the line adopted by subsequent non-Indian his-

torians. 2. Area of operation of bandits. 3. Nature and

I. Official British attitude to bandits :

The official British attitude towards bandits was first

enunciated in 1772. That year the Committee of Circuit