The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c4.s7.15

c4.s7.15

But in most areas which the British had conquered (either on behalf of the Nabob of Arcot, or on behalf of the Nizam of Hyderabad, or administered in the name of the various Rajas of Tanjore), most such dispossession was pre-1800. The process started soon after 1750, when the British domination of South India began gathering momentum in the early 1780s and the revenues of the areas claimed by the British to be under the nominal rulership of the Nabob of Arcot were formally assigned over to the British. One major method used to ensure dispossession was to slash down what were termed the ‘District charges’, i.e., the amounts traditionally utilised within the districts, but which, for purposes of accounting, were shown in the records of the Nabob. The slashing down in certain districts like Trichnopoly was up to 93% of the ‘District charges’ allowed until then: a mere 19,143 Star Pagodas now allowed in place of the earlier 2,82,148 Star Pagodas.