Company rule in India was the rule of the British East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab of Bengal Siraj ud-Daulah was defeated and replaced with Mir Jafar, who had the support of the East India Company; or in 1765, when the Company was granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar; or in 1773, when the Company abolished local rule (Nizamat) in Bengal and established a capital in Calcutta, appointed its first Governor-General of Fort William, Warren Hastings, and became directly involved in governance. The East India Company significantly expanded its influence throughout the Indian subcontinent after the Anglo-Mysore Wars, Anglo-Maratha Wars, and Anglo-Sikh Wars. Lord William Bentinck became the first Governor General of India in 1834 under the Government of India Act 1833. The Company India ruled until 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, Marathas and later the British had begun 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.
All India Kisan Sabha, is the peasant or farmers' wing of the Communist Party of India, an important peasant movement formed by Sahajanand Saraswati in 1936.
The Great Bengal famine of 1770 struck Bengal and Bihar between 1769 and 1770 and affected some 30 million people. It occurred during a period of dual governance in Bengal. This existed after the East India Company had been granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal by the Mughal emperor in Delhi, but before it had wrested the nizamat, or control of civil administration, which continued to lie with the Mughal governor, the Nawab of Bengal Nazm ud Daula (1765-72).
The Champaran Satyagraha of 1917 was the first satyagraha movement led by Mahatma Gandhi in British India and is considered a historically important rebellion in the Indian independence movement. It was a farmer's uprising that took place in Champaran district of Bihar in the Indian subcontinent, during the [British colonial period]. The farmers were protesting against having to grow indigo with barely any payment for it.
The ryotwari system was a land revenue system in British India introduced by Thomas Munro, which allowed the government to deal directly with the cultivator ('ryot') for revenue collection and gave the peasant freedom to cede or acquire new land for cultivation.
Ryot was a general economic term used throughout India for peasant cultivators but with variations in different provinces. While zamindars were landlords, raiyats were tenants and cultivators, and served as hired labour.
The Darbhanga Raj, also known as Raj Darbhanga and the Khandwala dynasty, was a Maithil Brahmin dynasty and the rulers of territories, not all contiguous, that were part of the Mithila region, now divided between India and Nepal.
Nil Darpan is a Bengali-language play written by Dinabandhu Mitra in 1858–1859. The play was essential to Nil Vidroha, better known as the Indigo Revolt of February–March 1859 in Bengal, when farmers refused to sow indigo in their fields to protest against exploitative working conditions during the period of Company rule. It was also essential to the development of theatre in Bengal and influenced Girish Chandra Ghosh, who in 1872 would establish the National Theatre in Calcutta (Kolkata), where the first play ever commercially staged was Nildarpan.
The Indigo revolt was a peasant movement and subsequent uprising of indigo farmers against the indigo planters, that arose in Bengal in 1859, and continued for over a year. The village headmen (Mandals) and substantial ryots were the most active and numerous groups who led the peasants. Sometimes disgruntled former employees of European planters - 'gomashta' or 'diwan' of the Indigo factories, took the lead to mobilise the peasants against the Indigo planters.
A peasant movement is a social movement involved with the agricultural policy, which claims peasants rights.
Bhumihar, also locally called Bhuinhar and Babhan, is a Hindu caste mainly found in Bihar, the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, and Nepal.
The Economy of India under Company rule describes the economy of those regions that fell under Company rule in India during the years 1757 to 1858. The British East India Company began ruling parts of the Indian subcontinent beginning with the Battle of Plassey, which led to the conquest of Bengal Subah and the founding of the Bengal Presidency, before the Company expanded across most of the subcontinent up until the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
The Zamindars of Bengal were zamindars of the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent. They governed an ancient system of land ownership.
Muḥsin ad-Dīn Aḥmad (1819–1862), better known by his nickname Dudu Miyān, was a leader of the Faraizi Movement in Bengal. He played an active role in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
The Zamindars of Bihar were the autonomous and semi-autonomous rulers and administrators of the subah of Bihar during Mughal rule and later during British rule. They formed the landed aristocracy that lasted until Indian independence in 1947. The zamindars of Bihar were numerous and could be divided into small, medium and large depending on how much land they controlled. Within Bihar, the zamindars had both economic and military power. Each zamindari would have their own standing army which was typically composed of their own clansmen.
Hugh Martin-Leake was a British economic botanist who worked in India, primarily on the improvement of indigo and opium cultivation. He served as an economic botanist and as a director of agriculture in the United Provinces.
Bernard Coventry was a British agronomist who served as the founding director of the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute in Pusa, Bengal Presidency, India from 1904.
The Tinkathia System or Teen Kathia System, was an economic policy enforced by the East India Company in India. It was practiced largely in Eastern India and in states such as Bihar. The Tinkathia System was challenged by the Champaran Satyagraha led by Mahatma Gandhi, this in turn became a watershed moment in the Indian independence movement and it was based on that peasants had to grow indigo on the 3 parts of the land out of 20 parts.
The Mughal Empire's economic prowess and sophisticated infrastructure played a pivotal role in shaping the Indian subcontinent's history. While Mughal Empire is conventionally said to have been founded in 1526 by Babur, the Mughal imperial structure, however, is sometimes dated to 1600, to the rule of Babur's grandson, Akbar. The economy in the South Asia during the Mughal Empire era performed just as it did in medieval times, though now it would face the stress of extensive regional tensions. Mughal India's economy has been described as a form of proto-industrialization, an inspiration for 18th-century putting-out system of Western Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution. It was described as large and prosperous. India producing about 28% of the world's industrial output up until the 18th century with significant exports in textiles, shipbuilding, and steel, driving a strong export-driven economy. While at the start of 17th century, the economic expansion within Mughal territories become the largest and surpassed Qing dynasty and Europe. The share of world's economy grew from 22.7% in 1600, which at the end of 16th century, has surpassed China to become the world's largest GDP. Bengal Subah, the empire's wealthiest province alone, the province statistically has contributed to 12% of Gross domestic product and a major hub for industries, contributing significantly to global trade and European imports, particularly in textiles and shipbuilding.
