ABSTRACT
From about 1770 through 1793, when permanent settlement was nally implemented, a series of fundamental questions regarding the Indian system of land revenue were laid before the Supreme Council but they could not be answered with any degree of condence. e reason that they could not be denitively addressed was that basic eld data, regarding land ownership, productivity, land use and customary land tax rates were unavailable, protected by obstructive zamindars and the kanungos, who used these data for their personal benet and as tools of coercion and control. As one writer suggested, the records of both the zamindars and kanungos were: ‘. . . closed with cautious jealousy, against foreign inspection’.1
