Chapter 6 - British Legacies

Summary

European rule brought the people of Bengal economic upheaval, a social shake-up and a cultural kick in the teeth. The British were unlike the Mughals – they wanted more than just to extract Bengal’s riches. It was their ambition to transform Bengal’s economy to make it yield them much more income. To this end they subjected the population of Bengal to an endless series of social, administrative and economic experiments. Among these were ‘permanent settlement’, a system of land rights and taxation that enabled the British to distance their administration from the vagaries of nature, climate and social upheaval in the Bengal delta. They had a rural gentry collect the colonial taxes on their behalf. Other institutions of rule and commodity production for far-flung markets further shaped local society. An important legacy was the transformation of religious identities – notably Hindu and Muslim – into political ones, creating the ‘communal’ politics that are still prominent in Bangladesh.