Negotiated Physical Spaces and the Economic Landscapes in Early Colonial Bengal (C.1757-C.1857)

Abstract

Bernier has vividly described the wealth of Bengal about a century before British conquest. According to him, Bengal mass-produced rice in such profusion that it not only supplied its neighbors but many remote places. Bengal’s excess rice was transported by sea to Masulipatam and the ports on the Coast of Coromandel, Maldives, and Ceylon. Its sugar was exported to Golkonda, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Of commodities of value, silk and cotton cloth exported as far as Lahore and Kabul but also for all the neighboring kingdoms and Europe.2Verelst ascribed the prosperity of Bengal before Plassey to the “cheapness and quality and the huge traffic of the products manufactured. Besides the huge investments of the many European nations, the Bengal raw silk, cloth, etc., to a vast amount was dispersed to the West and North inland as far as Gujarat, Lahore, and even Ispahan.” 3 This research article tries to address how Bengal which was once very developed in trade and commerce was total ruined.economic degeneration of Bengal began since the days of Alivardi (if not earlier, from MurshidQuli’s time) to hold that the oppression of the company’s servants and gomastas were alone responsible for the decline of Bengal manufacturers and industries and that this began closely after Plassey, is to see from only one side of a coin.