Book contents
- Empires of Complaints
- Empires of Complaints
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Map
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration and Names
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction
- 1 Petitioning, Taxation, and Law in Eighteenth-Century Bengal
- 2 Recasting Mughal Law
- 3 Zamindari Succession Disputes and Persianate Hindu Law
- 4 ‘At the Durbar’ in Calcutta
- 5 A Jagirdar’s Lament
- 6 Conclusion
- Select Bibliography
- Index
1 - Petitioning, Taxation, and Law in Eighteenth-Century Bengal
The Context for Empire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 September 2022
- Empires of Complaints
- Empires of Complaints
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Map
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration and Names
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction
- 1 Petitioning, Taxation, and Law in Eighteenth-Century Bengal
- 2 Recasting Mughal Law
- 3 Zamindari Succession Disputes and Persianate Hindu Law
- 4 ‘At the Durbar’ in Calcutta
- 5 A Jagirdar’s Lament
- 6 Conclusion
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter explores the late Mughal context for colonial-state-formation, focusing on Persianate practices of claimsmaking and dispute resolution in nawabi Bengal. It examines Persian accounts of Mughal and nawabi governance circulating in the orbit of the East India Company government in late eighteenth century Bengal, as well as British views of Mughal institutions, highlighting the role of late Mughal tax officials administering justice to petitioning subjects in disputes about land and taxation. It shows how the central revenue office of the Bengal nawabs, the khalisa sharifa, became a key site for the Company's colonization and transformation of Mughal, Persianate practices of legal ordering.
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- Empires of ComplaintsMughal Law and the Making of British India, 1765–1793, pp. 31 - 70Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022