Gokul Chandra Ghoshal [1] was a native official of the East India Company who became a prominent and influential landlord by abusing his position and founded the Bhukailash Estate. [2] [3] [4] He and Devi Singh, Diwan of Rangpur, were part of a number of rent collectors of the East India Company who became notorious for their corruption. [5] Ghoshal had become wealthy and powerful through using his link to the East India Company. [6]
From 1761 to 1764, Ghoshal was the diwan of Chittagong under the East India Company. [2] He also worked as a salt merchant. [7] He was able to build a significant fortune by abusing the power of his office. [2] He served as the banian (agent) to the Governor of Chittagong (future Governor of Bengal), Harry Verelst. [8] [9] [10] His brother was Maharaja Krishna Chandra Ghoshal. [11] He briefly served as the diwan of 24 Parganas. [12]
Ghoshal was later given the task to revise the land settlement for revenue collection of the Sandwip Island. [2] He dispossessed a number of local zamindars and seized their land for himself. [2] He also secured significant land for his nephew, Joynarain Ghoshal. [2] He had all reclaimed land, known as Noabad Estate, would belong to his nephew, Joynarain Ghoshal, and that he had a written permission for it from Harry Verelst. [8] He also claimed that zamindars and talukdars operating Noabad Estates in Chittagong would need permission from Joynarain. [8] This was immediately challenged by the affected zamindars and talukdars and violence followed. [8] The Chittagong Council declared the written permission a forgery and as such the order illegal in 1797. [8] The land claimed until the cancellation would remain part of the estate of Joynarain. [8]
Ghoshal used a similar forgery order to try to take a portion of a zamidari estate in Rajshahi. [13] He also faced accusations of obstruction from Luis Da Costa, a Portuguese mediator settled in Bengal. [14] He had built a mansion in Kidderpore of Kolkata. [15] He also ran into conflicts with Chowdhury Abu Torab Khan, a zamindar of Sandwip, over revenue collection. [16] This would eventually led a rebellion in Sandwhip against the company and their agents. [17]
When the zamindar of Selimabad in Bakerganj (presently Barisal Division) asked for the administration's help in protecting his land from invasion by an adventurer, Ghoshal was sent. [2] He protected the estate but in payment took half of it. [2] [18] His descendant, Kali Sankar Ghoshal, became a raja through the purchase of bonds of the East India Company and would build a place in Jhalokati District on the land acquired by Ghosal from the zamindar of Selimabad. [19]
East India Company rule in India was the rule of the British East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced between 1757 and 1773. The East India Company ruled India until the company was dissolved in 1858, when, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Government of India Act 1858, the India Office of the British government assumed the task of directly administering India in the new British Raj.
A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semi-autonomous feudal ruler of a zamindari. The term itself came into use during the reign of Mughals, and later the British began using it as a native synonym for "estate". The term means landowner in Persian. They were typically hereditary and held the right to collect tax on behalf of imperial courts or for military purposes.
The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal, later the Bengal Province, was the largest of all three presidencies of British India during Company rule and later a province of India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and Southeast Asia. Bengal proper covered the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. Calcutta, the city which grew around Fort William, was the capital of the Bengal Presidency. For many years, the governor of Bengal was concurrently the governor-general of India and Calcutta was the capital of India until 1911.
The Permanent Settlement, also known as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal, was an agreement between the East India Company and landlords of Bengal to fix revenues to be raised from land that had far-reaching consequences for both agricultural methods and productivity in the entire British Empire and the political realities of the Indian countryside. It was concluded in 1793 by the Company administration headed by Charles, Earl Cornwallis. It formed one part of a larger body of legislation, known as the Cornwallis Code. The Cornwallis Code of 1793 divided the East India Company's service personnel into three branches: revenue, judicial, and commercial. Revenues were collected by zamindars, native Indians who were treated as landowners. This division created an Indian landed class that supported British authority.
Dewan designated a powerful government official, minister, or ruler. A dewan was the head of a state institution of the same name. Diwans belonged to the elite families in the history of Mughal and post-Mughal India and held high posts within the government.
Sandwip is an island located along the southeastern coast of Bangladesh in the Chittagong District. Along with the island of Urir Char, it is part of the Sandwip Upazila.
The Nawab of Bengal was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the de facto independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa which constitute the modern-day sovereign country of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. The Bengal Subah reached its peak during the reign of Nawab Shuja-ud-Din Muhammad Khan. They are often referred to as the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The Nawabs were based in Murshidabad which was centrally located within Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha. Their chief, a former prime minister, became the first Nawab. The Nawabs continued to issue coins in the name of the Mughal Emperor, but for all practical purposes, the Nawabs governed as independent monarchs. Bengal continued to contribute the largest share of funds to the imperial treasury in Delhi. The Nawabs, backed by bankers such as the Jagat Seth, became the financial backbone of the Mughal court.
Taluqdars or Talukdar, were aristocrats who formed the ruling class during the Delhi Sultanate, Bengal Sultanate, Mughal Empire and British Raj. They were owners of a vast amount of lands, consistently hereditary, and had revenue and judicial powers.
The Singranatore family is the consanguineous name given to a noble family in Rajshahi of landed aristocracy in erstwhile East Bengal and West Bengal that were prominent in the nineteenth century till the fall of the monarchy in India by Royal Assent in 1947 and subsequently abolished by the newly formed democratic Government of East Pakistan in 1950 by the State Acquisition Act.
Murshid Quli Khan, also known as Mohammad Hadi and born as Surya Narayan Mishra, was the first Nawab of Bengal, serving from 1717 to 1727.
Harry Verelst was a colonial administrator with the British East India Company who served as the governor of Bengal from 1767 to 1769.
The Zamindars of Bengal were zamindars of the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent. They governed an ancient system of land ownership.
The Bengal Subah, also referred to as Mughal Bengal, was the largest subdivision of Mughal India encompassing much of the Bengal region, which includes modern-day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and some parts of the present-day Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha between the 16th and 18th centuries. The state was established following the dissolution of the Bengal Sultanate, a major trading nation in the world, when the region was absorbed into the Mughal Empire. Bengal was the wealthiest region in the Indian subcontinent.
Zamindars of Natore were influential aristocratic Bengali Zamindars, who owned large estates in what is today Natore District in Bangladesh .
Chittagong, the second largest city and main port of Bangladesh, was home to a thriving trading post of the Portuguese Empire in the East in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Portuguese first arrived in Chittagong around 1528 and left in 1666 after the Mughal conquest. It was the first European colonial enclave in the historic region of Bengal.
The 1781 revolt in Bihar was an uprising by certain Zamindars and chieftains against the British East India Company in the Indian state of Bihar. The majority of the rebel zamindars were from South Bihar and were likely pushed to revolt due to the recurring droughts. They are stressed by the Britishers EAST INDIA COMPANY.
The Greater Noakhali region predominantly includes the districts of Noakhali, Feni and Lakshmipur in Bangladesh, though it has historically also included Bhola, Sandwip and some southern parts of Tripura in India and southern Comilla. The history of the Noakhali region begins with the existence of civilisation in the villages of Shilua and Bhulua. Bhulua became a focal point during the Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms of Pundra, Harikela and Samatata leading it to become the initial name of the region as a whole. The medieval Kingdom of Bhulua enjoyed autonomy under the Twipra Kingdom and Bengal Sultanate before being conquered by the Mughal Empire. At the beginning of the 17th century, Portuguese pirates led by Sebastian Gonzales took control of the ara but were later defeated by Governor Shaista Khan. Affected by floodwaters, the capital of the region was swiftly moved to a new place known as Noakhali, from which the region presently takes its name. By 1756, the British East India Company had dominated and started to establish several factories in the region. The headquarters was once again moved in 1951, to Maijdee, as a result of Noakhali town vanishing due to fluvial erosion.
Revenue Sale Law, 1793 was a British era law concerning collection of revenue from Bengal and as part of the Permanent Settlement agreement. The law changed allowed the auction of the land of Zamindars who could not pay taxes.
Krishna Kanta Nandi, also known as Kanta Babu, was a banian/commercial agent to Warren Hastings and Sir Francis Sykes, 1st Baronet; and made a fortune working for the East India Company and trading silk. He is the founder of the Cossimbazar Raj based in Cossimbazar.
Chowdhury Abu Torab Khan, better known simply as Abu Torab, was an 18th-century Bengali Zamindar from Sandwip, an island in present-day Bangladesh. His hegemony later extended to islands of Hatiya and Bamni. He is best known as the leader of Bengal's first rebellion against the British East India Company. He had strong support from the local peasantry, and is regarded as a hero in the history of Bengal.