Dual government of Bengal

History glossary

Also called: Dual system · Topic: Europeans in India and the Rise of Company Rule · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The Dual government of Bengal (1765–1772) split Bengal's government between two powers. The East India Company held the diwani, which meant the right to collect land revenue. The Nawab kept the nizamat, which meant police, justice and general administration, but only on paper, because the Company controlled the Nawab's officers. Historians call this power without responsibility:

  • The Company took Bengal's wealth.
  • The Nawab took the blame for bad government.
  • Nobody looked after the people. The Bengal famine of 1770 showed how badly this failed.

Explanation

Background: from Plassey to the diwani

  • The Company becomes a power. At the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757, Robert Clive defeated Siraj-ud-daulah. The Nawab's commander Mir Jafar betrayed him, and Mir Jafar was then made Nawab [1].

  • After Plassey the Company was no longer only a trading body. It became a military and political power [1].

  • Puppet Nawabs. Mir Jafar and the Nawabs after him depended on Company support. They paid for it with money and land.

  • Battle of Buxar (1764). The Company defeated three powers fighting together:
  • Mir Qasim, a former Nawab of Bengal
  • Shuja-ud-daula, the Nawab of Awadh

  • Shah Alam II, the Mughal emperor

  • Treaty of Allahabad (1765). Shah Alam II gave the Company the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Clive set up the dual system to run this new arrangement.

Main features: how power was divided

  • Diwani went to the Company.
  • This meant the right to collect land revenue and to decide civil (money and property) cases.

  • The Company kept the revenue. In return it paid a fixed sum to the emperor and an allowance to the Nawab.

  • Nizamat stayed with the Nawab, on paper only.

  • Nizamat covered police, criminal justice and law and order.

  • The Company had already taken charge of defence. The Nawab could not choose his own deputy without the Company's approval.

  • Indian deputies did the actual work.

  • The Company had no trained staff of its own, so it did not collect revenue itself. It used Indian officers called Naib Diwans (deputy revenue officers).

  • Muhammad Reza Khan worked in Bengal and Raja Shitab Rai in Bihar. Both held the nizamat posts as well, so one Company-approved man controlled both halves.

  • Why Clive chose this method:

  • It hid the Company's real power behind the Nawab's name.
  • It avoided open trouble with other European companies and with Indian powers.
  • The Company did not have to pay for running the government. This is the same "control without cost" idea seen later in the subsidiary alliance [3].

How it worked in practice and how it ended

  • Revenue went up, but care for the people went down.
  • Revenue collectors squeezed the peasants hard, because the Company wanted the most money it could get.

  • The Nawab had no money and no real power, so he could not protect anyone.

  • Company servants grew rich through private trade. They misused trade passes called dastaks (duty-free trade permits), and Indian merchants lost out.

  • Bengal famine of 1770. A drought turned into a disaster because tax collection did not slow down. By common textbook estimates, about one-third of Bengal's population died.
  • Warren Hastings ends the system (1772).
  • The Company announced it would "stand forth as Diwan", which means it would collect revenue directly through its own officers.
  • Muhammad Reza Khan and Shitab Rai were removed from office.
  • The treasury moved from Murshidabad to Calcutta.

Results

  • The Company had now openly become the ruler of Bengal, not just its tax collector.
  • The failures of the dual system led Parliament in Britain to pass the Regulating Act of 1773. This was its first step towards controlling the Company.
  • Bengal's land revenue now paid for the Company's armies and trade, and funded wars across India.

Time, place and evidence

  • Period: 1765 to 1772, between the Treaty of Allahabad and the reforms of Warren Hastings.
  • Region: the Bengal subah (province), which included Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The capital was Murshidabad [2].
  • Key people:
  • Robert Clive, who set up the system
  • Shah Alam II, the Mughal emperor who granted the diwani
  • The Nawabs of Bengal, who had the title but no real power
  • Muhammad Reza Khan and Raja Shitab Rai, the Naib Diwans

  • Warren Hastings, who ended the system in 1772

  • How we know:

  • The text of the Treaty of Allahabad (1765) and the Mughal grant of the diwani
  • The East India Company's own official records and correspondence
  • Debates in the British Parliament that led to the Regulating Act of 1773

Don't confuse with

  • Dyarchy (Government of India Act, 1919): that was a split of provincial subjects. "Transferred" subjects went to elected Indian ministers, and "reserved" subjects stayed with British officials. The Dual government of 1765–72 was a split between the Company and the Nawab.
  • Subsidiary alliance: Lord Wellesley's system (1798–1805). A ruler kept British troops at his own cost and had a British Resident in his court [3]. The Dual government was earlier, and it rested on a revenue grant (diwani), not on a treaty about troops.
  • Battle of Plassey (1757): this made the Company the power behind the Nawab [1]. The Company got the legal right to collect revenue only after Buxar (1764) and the Treaty of Allahabad (1765).
  • Permanent Settlement (1793): Cornwallis fixed the land revenue with the zamindars for all time. That was a later revenue system, set up after the Company had already become the open, direct ruler.

Prelims Hooks

  • Dual government in Bengal lasted 1765–1772. It was introduced by Robert Clive and ended by Warren Hastings.
  • The Company got the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa from Shah Alam II by the Treaty of Allahabad (1765), after the Battle of Buxar (1764).
  • Diwani meant revenue collection and civil justice. Nizamat meant police and criminal justice. The Nawab held the nizamat only in name.
  • The Naib Diwans were Muhammad Reza Khan (Bengal) and Raja Shitab Rai (Bihar).
  • The Bengal famine of 1770 happened during the Dual government.
  • Chronology trap: Plassey (1757) → Buxar (1764) → Treaty of Allahabad (1765) → Bengal famine (1770) → end of Dual government (1772) → Regulating Act (1773).

Mains Points

  • Power without responsibility. The Company collected the revenue, while the Nawab carried the blame for government.
  • Nobody was answerable to the peasant.
  • The famine of 1770 shows the human cost.

  • Useful in answers on how colonial rule drained Bengal's economy.

  • Hidden rule, then open rule. Bengal moved in steps:

  • After Plassey, the Company was the power behind the Nawab [1].
  • After the 1765 diwani, it ruled through the Nawab's name.
  • After 1772, it ruled directly.

  • The same trick of governing through a native ruler came back later in the subsidiary alliance [3]. This is a good example of continuity in Company methods.

  • The trigger for state control of the Company. The scandals of the dual system pushed Parliament to act:

  • Officials grew rich, the Company went into debt, and the famine struck.
  • Parliament responded with the Regulating Act of 1773.
  • This began the long process by which the British Crown took over Indian rule from a trading company.

Related concepts

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Sources

  1. 1Battle of Plassey — Background, Impact, Legacy, Map, & Factsbritannica.com · tier 3
  2. 2Siraj-ud-Daulah — Mughal Empire, Bengal, Nawab, Robert Clive, & Battle of Plasseybritannica.com · tier 3
  3. 3India — The ascent to paramountcybritannica.com · tier 3