Zamindars resist; the Fifth Report

Zamindars found clever ways to survive, especially through fictitious sales:

• part of the estate was transferred to women of the family, since the Company would not confiscate women's property;
• the zamindar deliberately withheld revenue so that the estate was auctioned;
• his agents then outbid everyone at the auction, and later refused to pay;
• the estate was resold again and again, until the price fell low enough for the zamindar to buy it back cheaply.

Between 1793 and 1801, four big zamindaris of Bengal, including Burdwan, made benami (anonymous) purchases worth ₹30 lakh. Of all auction sales, over 15 per cent were fictitious.

When outsiders did buy an estate, they often could not take possession: the old zamindar's lathyals (strongmen with lathis) drove them out, and the ryots (proja), loyal to their old zamindar, would not let them in. After 1800, prices recovered, and zamindars' position improved.

Much of our information comes from the Fifth Report (1813), 1,002 pages long, submitted to the British Parliament. It arose from debates in Britain, where critics attacked the East India Company's trade monopoly and its misrule in India.

But the report exaggerated the collapse of zamindars, to make its case. Zamindari records show that many zamindars held on to their estates until the 1930s. Read the report, then ask who wrote it, and why.