Historical Memory Journey
Banglapedia
Bengal-focused reference on the diwani system, the 1765 agreements, and how revenue authority passed to the East India Company.
understand · research
Timeline View
1764
In 1764, the Battle of Buxar gave the East India Company a decisive military advantage over the combined forces of Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daula, and Shah Alam II. While Plassey opened the gate in Bengal, Buxar consolidated Company coercive power at a wider regional scale. The outcome set the stage for the 1765 diwani arrangement and deeper colonial revenue extraction.
1765
In 1765, the East India Company secured the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. That settlement turned post-Plassey influence into formal fiscal power. Revenue extraction, administrative leverage, and political authority began to flow through the Company, even as Mughal and nawabi institutions remained in place.
1770
The famine of 1770 devastated Bengal, producing catastrophic mortality across agrarian and urban communities. Crop failure, grain-market distortions, and rigid revenue collection under East India Company authority combined to turn environmental stress into a social collapse. The crisis became an early warning of how colonial political economy could magnify human vulnerability.