Discover Bengal · Unfolded
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Total results: 168
Colonial capture and resistance
1763
High
Colonial Rule and Resistance
In 1763, Nawab Mir Qasim entered open conflict with the East India Company after disputes over trade privileges, revenue, and authority. The fighting pushed Bengal politics toward the 1764 Battle of Buxar and the Company's later revenue ascendancy.
1764
High
Colonial Rule and Resistance
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
Major
Colonial Rule and Resistance
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
High
Colonial Rule and Resistance
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.
State, society, and political change
1781
High
Historical Transitions
Rangpur Dhing Uprising was a significant turning point in the political and social trajectory of Bengal/Bangladesh.
Colonial capture and resistance
1793
Major
Colonial Rule and Resistance
In 1793, the East India Company introduced the Permanent Settlement in Bengal. Revenue demand was fixed permanently, and zamindars and talukdars were recognized as hereditary proprietors under colonial law. The measure aimed to stabilize revenue and bind local landed elites to Company rule, but it also deepened agrarian inequality and weakened the customary position of cultivators.