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Colonial Encounter with Traditional Social Elite Class in Bengal : Emergence of New Social Classes on the Ruins of the Mughal Empire

  • 중앙사론
  • 2018, (47), pp.237-269
  • Publisher : Institute for Historical Studies at Chung-Ang University
  • Research Area : Humanities > History
  • Received : May 16, 2018
  • Accepted : June 22, 2018
  • Published : June 30, 2018

Narayan Hriday 1

1한국외국어대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Historically, Bengal has gone through the successive rule of Hindu, Buddhist and Mughal rulers. Islamic culture and Persian language were introduced in Bengal through the Turkish conquests in the early thirteenth century. And, by the late sixteenth century when Mughals invaded Bengal, the Islam culture has become a part of local culture. But the Turkish and Mughal conquest of Bengal was completely different than the colonization of Bengal by East India Company in the late eighteenth century. The British under East India Company conceived and implemented different land revenue settlements as a colonial tool of exploitation in colonized Bengal. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze and to interpret the extents, and far-reaching consequences of the land revenue settlements, linguistic and educational policies adopted by the British administration during its rule over Bengal. Especially, the paper looks into the impact of these policies on the prevailing traditional Hindu and Muslim elite classes and socio-economic structure, and the changes or transformations brought in the social, political and educational spheres.

Citation status

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.