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From the stages of the Mughal Imperial rule, courtiers became substantial landlords holding various hereditary offices with military duties as the Jagirdars and Mansabdars. The Rulers of Bengal, such as the Nawaabs in Murshidabad created the landed nobility of Zemindars, who under the British colonial and imperial rule were made hereditary, thus creating a landed aristocracy that influenced all spheres of life in Bengal till the independence of India and beyond. Bengal was split multiple times and the two parts came to be under different sovereignties- India on the western province and Pakistan on the eastern, shortly before being officially abolished by the Zamindari Abolition Act, 1953, West Bengal and the East Bengal (East Pakistan) State Acquisition and Tenancy Act of 1950, respectively. The formerly ruling families then labored to permanently engulf the newly democratic political arena by creating dynasties that ruled generations after generation rising to the ranks of Presidents, Prime Ministers, governors, ministers, ambassadors, generals and other prominent members of society and continue to exert influence on the lives of the nations which they ruled through generations.
About the author
The authors are historians from Calcutta in the Indian State of West Bengal and Rangpur, North Bengal in Bangladesh. Past publications include agrarian reform reports, land owner and sharecropper relationships and the influence of Princely States on British policy making in 19th century India.
