History · Ch 9 — Colonialism and the Countryside — Exploring Official Archives
The Fifth Report
The Fifth Report
The Fifth Report is a document that has shaped how historians understand rural Bengal in the late eighteenth century. It was submitted to the British Parliament in 1813 and was the fifth in a series of reports on the East India Company’s administration in India. The report ran to 1,002 pages, of which over 800 were appendices. These appendices reproduced petitions from zamindars and ryots, reports from district collectors, statistical tables on revenue returns, and official notes on the revenue and judicial administration of Bengal and Madras (present-day Tamil Nadu).
From the time the Company established its rule in Bengal in the mid-1760s, its activities were closely watched and debated in England. Several groups in Britain opposed the East India Company’s monopoly over trade with India and China. They wanted the Royal Charter that gave the Company this monopoly to be revoked. Private traders wanted a share in the India trade, and British industrialists were keen to open the Indian market for British manufactures. Political groups argued that the conquest of Bengal was benefiting only the Company, not the British nation as a whole. Information about Company misrule and maladministration was hotly debated, and incidents of greed and corruption among Company officials were widely publicised in the press.
The British Parliament passed a series of Acts in the late eighteenth century to regulate and control Company rule in India. It forced the Company to produce regular reports on the administration of India and appointed committees to enquire into the Company’s affairs. The Fifth Report was one such report produced by a Select Committee. It became the basis of intense parliamentary debates on the nature of the East India Company’s rule in India.
The Fifth Report has been used for over a century and a half to shape our conception of what happened in rural Bengal in the late eighteenth century. The evidence it contains is invaluable, but official reports like this must be read carefully. We need to know who wrote the reports and why they were written.
Recent research shows that the arguments and evidence offered by the Fifth Report cannot be accepted uncritically. Researchers have carefully examined the archives of various Bengal zamindars and local district records to write about the history of colonial rule in rural Bengal. They indicate that, intent on criticising the maladministration of the Company, the Fifth Report exaggerated the collapse of traditional zamindari power and overestimated the scale on which zamindars were losing their land. As we have seen, even when zamindaris were auctioned, zamindars were not always displaced, given the ingenious methods they used to retain their zamindaris.
From the Fifth Report
Referring to the condition of zamindars and the auction of lands, the Fifth Report stated:
- Revenue was not realised with punctuality, and lands to a considerable extent were periodically exposed to sale by auction.
- In the native year 1203, corresponding with 1796-97, the land advertised for sale comprehended a jumma or assessment of sicca rupees 28,70,061. The extent of land actually sold bore a jumma or assessment of 14,18,756, and the amount of purchase money was sicca rupees 17,90,416.
- In 1204, corresponding with 1797-98, the land advertised was for sicca rupees 26,66,191. The quantity sold was for sicca rupees 22,74,076, and the purchase money was sicca rupees 21,47,580. …
Source 2 — From the Fifth Report. Referring to the condition of zamindars and the auction of lands, the Fifth Report (submitted to the British Parliament in 1813) stated:
The revenue was not realised with punctuality, and lands to a considerable extent were periodically exposed to sale by auction. In the native year 1203, corresponding with 1796-97, the land advertised for sale comprehended a jumma or assessment of sicca rupees 28,70,061 … In 1204, corresponding with 1797-98, the land advertised was for sicca rupees 26,66,191, the quantity sold was for sicca rupees 22,74,076 … Among the defaulters were some of the oldest families of the country. Such were the rajahs of Nuddea, Rajeshaye, Bishenpore … the dismemberment of whose estates at the end of each succeeding year threatened them with poverty and ruin. …
Figure 9.6 is a portrait of Maharaja Mehtab Chand (1820–79), the ruler of the Burdwan estate in Bengal. The image shows him seated, likely in formal attire, as a representative of one of the wealthiest and most powerful zamindari families under British rule. The caption tells us that the estate prospered under his leadership, and that he actively assisted the British during the Santhal rebellion (1855–56) and the Revolt of 1857.
This portrait is placed in the chapter right after the discussion of the Fifth Report (1813), which documented the decline of many old zamindari families through auction and revenue default. The contrast is deliberate: while the Fifth Report emphasised the ruin of traditional zamindars like the rajas of Nuddea, Rajeshaye, and Bishenpore, Mehtab Chand’s portrait shows a zamindar who not only survived but thrived under colonial rule. The Burdwan estate had been secured under the Permanent Settlement (1793) when Tejchand was raja, and Mehtab Chand later cemented that position by collaborating with the British in suppressing rebellions. …
Figure 9.7 is a photograph of the Andul Raj Palace in ruins. The palace is shown in a state of decay — walls are crumbling, vegetation has overgrown parts of the structure, and the grandeur it once had is now only hinted at by the scale of the building. This is not a diagram or a map; it is a single photographic image.
The caption tells us two things. First, the ruins are a "visible sign of the end of an era" — the era of the aristocratic zamindars who dominated rural Bengal under the Permanent Settlement. By the time this photograph was taken, many of those old zamindari families had lost their estates, their wealth, and their social standing. The palace, once a symbol of power and luxury, now stands empty and broken.
Second, the caption mentions that Satyajit Ray's film Jalshaghar (The Music Room) was shot here. That film is about a decadent zamindar who clings to his past glory while his fortune drains away. The choice of this ruined palace as a filming location is deliberate: the physical decay of the building mirrors the decline of the zamindar's world.
The figure appears in the section on the Fifth Report (1813), which documented the collapse of traditional zamindari power. But the textbook itself warns that the Fifth Report may have exaggerated that collapse. So the photograph serves as a visual anchor for a complex historical debate: yes, many zamindars did lose their estates and their palaces fell into ruin, but the process was not as total or as sudden as the Report claimed. Some zamindars, like the Raja of Burdwan (shown in Fig. 9.6), managed to survive and even prosper by cooperating with the British. …