ABSTRACT
Before the beginning of British rule Bengal was already well known for its fertile land and world-famous weaving industry which had attracted traders not only from the Mughal dominions but also from areas as far away as West Asia and Europe. Bengal’s capital, Murshidabad, played a vital role as the financial center of Mughal India. However the victory of the English East India Company in the Battle of Plassey and the subsequent acquisition in 1765 of the right to collect the revenues (Diwani) of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa brought major economic and political changes to Bengal. Earlier scholars have argued that this economic transformation in late eighteenth-century Bengal, which is sometimes called ‘the Plassey revolution’ led to the economic subordination of Bengal. 1
