Sicca rupee
Topic: Colonial Economy: Land Revenue, Drain, Deindustrialisation · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"
Meaning
The sicca rupee was a silver rupee that the East India Company minted in Bengal. Sicca comes from sikka, meaning a stamped coin. It was the standard money in the Company's Bengal accounts. Land revenue and auction prices in early colonial records were often written in sicca rupees. It matters for reading official sources from the time of the Permanent Settlement correctly.
Example
The Fifth Report (1813) gave figures for zamindari estates auctioned in Bengal in the late 1790s. It listed both the revenue demand and the sale prices in sicca rupees. In 1835 the Company brought in a single, uniform rupee, and the separate sicca rupee went out of use.
Don't confuse with
- Jama: the jama was the revenue demand fixed on an estate or village. The sicca rupee was the coin in which that demand was counted.