The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.98

v4.c20.98

The anarchy and desolation which marked Bengal during the dissolution of the Pathān sultanate in the sixteenth century were ended by the Mughul conquest of the province. But during Akbar’s reign imperial rule in Bengal was more like an armed occupation than a settled administration, because the power of the old independent Hindu chiefs and Afghān princelings still remained unbroken. It was Islām Khān, a most ambitious, active and high-spirited noble, who, during his viceroyalty of the province from 1608 to 1613, by a series of hard-fought campaigns crushed all the independent chiefs of Bengal, destroyed the last remnant of Afghān power (in Mymensingh, Sylhet and Orissa), and imposed full Mughul peace and direct imperial administration upon all parts of Bengal. Thereafter, Bengal enjoyed profound internal quiet for 130 years; her wealth, population and industry advanced by rapid strides. The Arakanese and Feringi pirates of Chittagong were put down in 1666; the trade of the English and the Dutch grew by leaps and bounds and their factories stimulated production and wealth in the country.