Bengal pillage

विस्तारः (द्रष्टुं नोद्यम्)

Even in 1770s, bandits and crime ran rife in Bengal subah. Zamindars actively colluded with them.

These are the same pindaries that ravaged territory when Raghuji Bhonsle marched in.

The system of police as we have described it was broken down before the English came into power in the districts of Bengal. Nothing can be more eloquent or more convincing than the fact that the gang-robbers, of whom the English had a terrible experience, were marauders, not by individual choice or necessity, but by ancestral calling.

“The dacoits of Bengal are not, like the robbers in England, individuals driven to such desperate courses by sudden want: they are robbers by profession and even by birth.”

So wrote the Committee of Circuit on June 28th, 1772.2 The lesser zamindars not only concealed crime, because they would be held responsible if the facts were made known, but in the feeble condition of the Mughal Government, they purchased their own safety by collusion with the criminals.