This book provides an analysis of the socio-economic changes brought about by colonial rule in a frontier area of Bengal, Jalpaiguri. Changes introduced through the intervention of the colonial state from the mid-nineteenth century in restructuring the economic and social organisation of the area through a 'new' land revenue system and through the opening up of large parts of the district for tea plantation are examined, as are their effects on structures and systems which predated the formal introduction of colonial rule. Challenging long established debates over change and continuity in Bengal focused around the powers of dominant groups over a settled peasantry, this book broadens the perspective from which the 18th century is viewed, promoting a deeper understanding of the change-over from the pre-colonial to the colonial era. The aim of this study is not simply to show that colonial revenue policy in the mid-ninteenth century could dramatically transform this frontier region, but to use Jalpaiguri as a case study to question some of the commonly accepted paradigms of Bengal's historiography.
The main issues which the book re-examines and re-interprets are regional agrarian sub-typologies, control mechanisms in the agrarian and plantation sectors, class and caste movements and the links between these and the nationalist movement.