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Bengal Presidency Information

The Bengal Presidency (Bengali: বেঙ্গল প্রেসিডেন্সি) originally comprising east and west Bengal, was a colonial region of the British Empire, that comprised areas, which is present day Bangladesh and States of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa and Tripura in India. However, In 1874 Assam, including Sylhet, was severed from Bengal to form a Chief-Commissionership and the Lushai Hills were added to it in 1898 (The Assam Province in 1912 and was reconstituted into a Chief Commissioners' province). Later at its height, gradually added, were the annexed princely states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab in India, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh and portions of Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra in present day India, including the provinces of North West Frontier and Punjab in Pakistan, and Burma (present day Myanmar). Penang and Singapore were also considered to be administratively a part of the Presidency until they were incorporated into the Crown Colony of the Straits Settlements in 1867. Calcutta was declared a Presidency Town of the East India Company in 1699, but the beginnings of the Bengal Presidency proper can be dated from the treaties of 1765 between the East India Company and the Mughal Emperor and Nawab of Oudh which placed Bengal, Meghalaya, Bihar and Orissa under the administration of the Company. The Presidency of Bengal, in contradistinction to those of Madras and Bombay, eventually included all the British territories North of the Central Provinces (Madhya Pradesh), from the mouths of the Ganges and Brahmaputra to the Himalayas and the Punjab. In 1831 the North-Western Provinces were created, which were subsequently included with Oudh in the United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh); Just before the First World War the whole of Northern India was divided into the four lieutenant-governorships of the Punjab, the United Provinces, Bengal, and Eastern Bengal and Assam, and the North-West Frontier Province under a Commissioner.

Contents

Origin of the name and reasons for its use

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The name "Bengal" is derived from Sanskrit "Vanga", and, strictly speaking, applies to the country stretching southwards from Bhagalpur to the sea. The ancient Bangla formed one of the five outlying kingdoms of Aryan India, and was practically coterminous with the delta of Bengal. It derived its name, according to the etymology of the Pundits, from a prince of the Mahabharata, to whose portion it fell on the partition of the country among the Lunar race of Delhi. But a city called Bangala, near Dhaka, which, although now washed away, is supposed to have existed in the Muslim period, appears to have given the name to the European world. The word Bangala was first used by the Muslim rulers; and under their rule, like the Bangla pre-Muslim times, it applied specifically to the Gangetic delta, although the later conquests to the east of the Brahmaputra were eventually included within it. In their distribution of the country for fiscal purposes, it formed the central province of a governorship, with Bihar on the north-west, and Orissa on the south-west, jointly ruled by one deputy of the Delhi emperor. Under the English the name has at different periods borne very different significations. Francis Fernandez applies it to the country from the extreme east of Chittagong to Point Palmyras in Orissa, with a coast line which Purchas estimates at 600 m., running inland for the same distance and watered by the Ganges. This territory would include the Muslim province of Bengal, with parts of Bihar and Orissa. The loose idea thus derived from old voyagers became stereotyped in the archives of the East India Company. All its north-eastern factories, from Balasore, on the Orissa coast, to Patna, in the heart of Bihar, belonged to the Bengal Establishment, and as British conquests crept higher up the rivers, the term came to be applied to the whole of Northern India.

Early history

The East India Company formed its earliest settlements in Bengal in the first half of the 17th century. These settlements were of a purely commercial character. In 1620 one of the Company’s factors was based in Patna; in 1624–1636 the Company established itself, by the favour of the emperor, on the ruins of the ancient Portuguese settlement of Pippli, in the north of Orissa; in 1640–1642 an English surgeon, Gabriel Boughton, obtained establishments at Balasore, also in Orissa, and at Hughli, some miles above Calcutta, where the Portuguese already had a settlement. The difficulties which the Company’s early agents encountered more than once almost induced them to abandon the trade, and in 1677–1678 they threatened to withdraw from Bengal altogether. In 1685, the Bengal factors, seeking greater security for their trade purchased from the grandson of Aurangzeb, in 1696, the villages which have since grown up into Calcutta, the metropolis of India, namely Kalikata, Sutanuti and Govindpur. They were given exemption from trade duties and exactions in part of Bengal in 1717 by the Emperor Farrukhsiyar. During the next forty years the British had a long and hazardous struggle alike with the Mughal governors of the province and the Maratha armies which invaded it. In 1756 this struggle culminated in the fall of Calcutta to Nawab Siraj Ud Daulah followed by Clive’s battle of Plassey and recapture of the city. The Battle of Buxar established British military supremacy in Bengal, and procured the treaties of 1765, by which the provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa passed under British administration. The other important institution which emerged in this period was the Bengal Army.

Administrative reform and the Permanent Settlement

See also: Cornwallis in India

Under Warren Hastings (British Governorships 1772-1785) the consolidation of British imperial rule over Bengal, and the conversion of mere trade into an entire military occupied territory under a military backed civil government got solidified. To another member of the civil service, John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, was due the formation of a regular system of legislation. Acting through Lord Cornwallis, then Governor-General, he ascertained and defined the rights of the landholders in the soil. These landholders under the previous system had started, for the most part, as collectors of the revenues, and gradually acquired certain prescriptive rights as quasi-proprietors of the estates entrusted to them by the government. In 1793 Lord Cornwallis declared their rights perpetual, and made over the land of Bengal to the previous quasi-proprietors or zamindars, on condition of the payment of a fixed land tax. This piece of legislation is known as the Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue. It was designed to "introduce" ideas of property rights to India, and stimulate a market in land. The former aim misunderstood the nature of landholding in India, and the latter was an abject failure. The Cornwallis code, while defining the rights of the proprietors, failed to give adequate recognition to the rights of the under-tenants and the cultivators. This remained a serious problem for the duration of British Rule, as throughout the Bengal Presidency ryots (peasants) found themselves oppressed by rack-renting landlords, who knew that every rupee they could squeeze from their tenants over and above the fixed revenue demand from the Government represented pure profit. Furthermore the Permanent Settlement took no account of inflation, meaning that the value of the revenue to Government declined year by year, whilst the heavy burden on the peasantry grew no less. This was compounded in the early 19th century by compulsory schemes for the cultivation of Opium and Indigo, the former by the state, and the latter by British planters (most especially in the district of Tirhut in Bihar). Peasants were forced to grow a certain area of these crops, which were then purchased at below market rates for export. This added greatly to rural poverty.

So unsuccessful was the Permanent Settlement that it was not introduced in the North-Western Provinces (taken from the Marathas during the campaigns of Lord Lake and Arthur Wellesley) after 1831, in Punjab after its conquest in 1849, or in Oudh which was annexed in 1856. These regions were nominally part of the Bengal Presidency, but remained administratively distinct. Officially Punjab, Agra and Allahabad had Lieutenant-Governors subject to the authority of the Governor of Bengal in Calcutta, but in practice they were more or less independent. The only all-Presidency institutions which remained were the Bengal Army and the Civil Service. The Bengal Army was finally amalgamated into the new Indian Army in 1904-5, after a lengthy struggle over its reform between Lord Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief, and Lord Curzon, the Viceroy.

The 1905 Partition of Bengal

Main article: Partition of Bengal (1905)

The partition of the large province of Bengal, which was decided upon by Lord Curzon, was carried into execution in October 1905. The Chittagong, Dhaka and Rajshahi divisions, the Malda District and the States of Hill Tripura, Sylhet and Comilla were transferred from Bengal to a new province, Eastern Bengal and Assam; the five Hindi-speaking states of Chota Nagpur, namely Chang Bhakar, Korea, Sirguja, Udaipur and Jashpur, were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces; and Sambalpur and the five Oriya states of Bamra, Rairakhol, Sonepur, Patna and Kalahandi were transferred from the Central Provinces to Bengal. The province of West Bengal then consisted of the thirty-three districts of Burdwan, Birbhum, Bankura, Midnapur, Hughli, Howrah, Twenty-four Parganas, Calcutta, Nadia, Murshidabad, Jessore, Khulna, Patna, Gaya, Shahabad, Saran, Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Monghyr, Bhagalpur, Purnea, Santhal Parganas, Cuttack, Balasore, Angul and Kandhmal, Puri, Sambalpur, Singhbhum, Hazaribagh, Ranchi, Palamau, Manbhum,, and the princely states of Sikkim and the tributary states of Orissa and Chota Nagpur.

This decision proved highly controversial, as it resulted in a largely Hindu West Bengal and a largely Muslim East. Serious popular agitation followed this step, partly on the grounds that this was part of a cynical policy of divide and rule, and partly that the Bengali population, the centre of whose interests and prosperity was Calcutta, would now be divided under two governments, instead of being concentrated and numerically dominant under the one, while the bulk would be in the new division. In 1906–1909 the unrest developed to a considerable extent, requiring special attention from the Indian and Home governments, and this led to the decision being reversed in 1912. The same year saw the separation from Bengal of Bihar and Orissa, later itself subdivided into the Province of Bihar and the Province of Orissa, the former with its capital at Patna, the latter administered from Cuttack. This change proved a popular and lasting one.

With this final partition, the Bengal Presidency ceased to exist in all but name, and even this disappeared after the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of 1919 reconstituted Indian Provincial Government.

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.

See also

· · British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations

Legend Current territory · Former territory * now a Commonwealth Realm · now a member of the Commonwealth of Nations

Europe

18th century 1708–1757 Minorca since 1713 Gibraltar 1763–1782 Minorca 1798–1802 Minorca

19th century 1800–1964 Malta 1807–1890 Heligoland 1809–1864 Ionian Islands

20th century 1921-1937 Irish Free State
North America

17th century 1583–1907 Newfoundland 1607–1776 Virginia since 1619 Bermuda 1620–1691 Plymouth Colony 1629–1691 Massachusetts Bay Colony 1632–1776 Maryland 1636–1776 Connecticut 1636–1776 Rhode Island 1637–1662 New Haven Colony 1663–1712 Carolina 1664–1776 New York 1665–1674 and 1702-1776 New Jersey 1670–1870 Rupert's Land 1674–1702 East Jersey 1674–1702 West Jersey 1680–1776 New Hampshire 1681–1776 Pennsylvania 1686–1689 Dominion of New England 1691–1776 Massachusetts

18th century 1701–1776 Delaware 1712–1776 North Carolina 1712–1776 South Carolina 1713–1867 Nova Scotia 1733–1776 Georgia 1763–1873 Prince Edward Island 1763–1791 Quebec 1763–1783 East Florida 1763–1783 West Florida 1784–1867 New Brunswick 1791–1841 Lower Canada 1791–1841 Upper Canada

19th century 1818–1846 Columbia District / Oregon Country1 1841–1867 Province of Canada 1849–1866 Vancouver Island 1853–1863 Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands 1858–1866 British Columbia 1859–1870 North-Western Territory 1862–1863 Stikine Territory 1866–1871 Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1867–1931 *Dominion of Canada2 20th century 1907–1949 Dominion of Newfoundland3

1Occupied jointly with the United States 2In 1931, Canada and other British dominions obtained self-government through the Statute of Westminster. see Canada's name. 3Gave up self-rule in 1934, but remained a de jure Dominion until it joined Canada in 1949.
Latin America and the Caribbean

17th century 1605–1979 *Saint Lucia 1623–1883 Saint Kitts (*Saint Kitts & Nevis) 1624–1966 *Barbados 1625–1650 Saint Croix 1627–1979 *St. Vincent and the Grenadines 1628–1883 Nevis (*Saint Kitts & Nevis) 1629–1641 St. Andrew and Providence Islands4 since 1632 Montserrat 1632–1860 Antigua (*Antigua & Barbuda) 1643–1860 Bay Islands since 1650 Anguilla 1651–1667 Willoughbyland (Suriname) 1655–1850 Mosquito Coast (protectorate) 1655–1962 *Jamaica since 1666 British Virgin Islands since 1670 Cayman Islands 1670–1973 *Bahamas 1670–1688 St. Andrew and Providence Islands4 1671–1816 Leeward Islands

18th century 1762–1974 *Grenada 1763–1978 Dominica since 1799 Turks and Caicos Islands

19th century 1831–1966 British Guiana (Guyana) 1833–1960 Windward Islands 1833–1960 Leeward Islands 1860–1981 *Antigua and Barbuda 1871–1964 British Honduras (*Belize) 1882–1983 *St. Kitts and Nevis 1889–1962 Trinidad and Tobago 20th century 1958–1962 West Indies Federation

4Now the San Andrés y Providencia Department of Colombia
Africa

18th century 1792–1961 Sierra Leone 1795–1803 Cape Colony

19th century 1806–1910 Cape Colony 1810–1968 Mauritius 1816–1965 Gambia 1856–1910 Natal 1868–1966 Basutoland (Lesotho) 1874–1957 Gold Coast (Ghana) 1882–1922 Egypt 1884–1966 Bechuanaland (Botswana) 1884–1960 British Somaliland 1887–1897 Zululand 1888–1894 Matabeleland 1890–1965 Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) 5 1890–1962 Uganda 1890–1963 Zanzibar (Tanzania) 1891–1964 Nyasaland (Malawi) 1891–1907 British Central Africa Protectorate 1893–1968 Swaziland 1895–1920 East Africa Protectorate 1899–1956 Anglo-Egyptian Sudan

20th century 1900–1914 Northern Nigeria 1900–1914 Southern Nigeria 1900–1910 Orange River Colony 1900–1910 Transvaal Colony 1906–1954 Nigeria Colony 1910–1931 South Africa 1911–1964 Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) 1914–1954 Nigeria Colony and Protectorate 1915–1931 South West Africa (Namibia) 1919–1960 Cameroons (Cameroon) 6 1920–1963 Kenya 1922–1961 Tanganyika (Tanzania) 6 1954–1960 Nigeria 1979–1980 Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) 5

5Southern Rhodesia issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 (as Rhodesia) and returned to British control in 1979. 6League of Nations mandate
Asia

17th Century 1685-1824 Bencoolen (Sumatra)

18th century 1702–1705 Côn Đảo 1757–1947 Bengal (West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh) 1762–1764 Philippines 1795–1948 Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 1796–1965 Maldives

19th century 1819–1826 British Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore) 1826–1946 Straits Settlements 1839–1967 Colony of Aden 1839–1842 Afghanistan 1841–1997 Hong Kong 1841–1941 Kingdom of Sarawak (Malaysia) 1858–1947 British India (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Burma) 1879–1919 Afghanistan 1882–1963 British North Borneo (Malaysia) 1885–1946 Unfederated Malay States 1888–1984 Sultanate of Brunei 1888–1946 Sultanate of Sulu 1891–1971 Muscat and Oman protectorate 1892–1971 Trucial States protectorate 1895–1946 Federated Malay States 1898–1930 Weihai Garrison 1878–1960 Cyprus

20th century 1918–1961 Kuwait protectorate 1920–1932 Iraq6 1921–1946 Transjordan6 1923–1948 Palestine6 1945–1946 South Vietnam 1946–1948 Malayan Union 1946–1963 Sarawak (Malaysia) 1948–1957 Federation of Malaya (Malaysia) since 1960 Akrotiri and Dhekelia (before as part of Cyprus) since 1965 British Indian Ocean Territory

6League of Nations mandate
Oceania

18th century 1788–1901 New South Wales

19th century 1803–1901 Van Diemen's Land/Tasmania 1807–1863 Auckland Islands7 1824–1980 New Hebrides (Vanuatu) 1824–1901 Queensland 1829–1901 Swan River Colony/Western Australia 1836–1901 South Australia since 1838 Pitcairn Islands 1841–1907 Colony of New Zealand 1851–1901 Victoria 1874–1970 Fiji8 1877–1976 British Western Pacific Territories 1884–1949 Territory of Papua 1888–1965 Cook Islands7 1889–1948 Union Islands (Tokelau)7 1892–1979 Gilbert and Ellice Islands9 1893–1978 British Solomon Islands10

20th century 1900–1970 Tonga (protected state) 1900–1974 Niue7 1901–1942 *Commonwealth of Australia 1907–1953 *Dominion of New Zealand 1919–1942 Nauru 1945–1968 Nauru 1919–1949 Territory of New Guinea 1949–1975 Territory of Papua and New Guinea11

7Now part of the *Realm of New Zealand 8Suspended member 9Now Kiribati and *Tuvalu 10Now the *Solomon Islands 11Now *Papua New Guinea
Antarctica and South Atlantic

17th century since 1659 St. Helena12

19th century since 1815 Ascension Island12 since 1816 Tristan da Cunha12 since 1833 Falkland Islands13

20th century since 1908 British Antarctic Territory14 since 1908 South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands13, 14

12Since 2009 part of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha; Ascension Island (1922—) and Tristan da Cunha (1938—) were previously dependencies of St Helena 13Occupied by Argentina during the Falklands War of April–June 1982 14Both claimed in 1908; territories formed in 1962 (British Antarctic Territory) and 1985 (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands)

Categories: States and territories established in 1765 | States and territories disestablished in 1919 | History of Kolkata | History of Bengal | Historical Indian regions | Presidencies of British India | History of Bangladesh

 

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