| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The economy of eighteenth-century Bengal was closely tied to the political, with the indigenous state, the Nizamat, maintaining a stake in the success of commercial circuits. The Nizamat played a positive role in keeping the structure operative through its patronage and regulating activities. Besides its direct involvement in trade, the article examines the indirect facilitating and co-ordinating role it played, the elaboration of a distinct court culture and the policies it pursued which had a bearing on the health of the economy. The conditions necessary for the functioning of marketing networks-protection of property and enforcement of contract-were maintained. It was a mutually beneficial system with the state with its seat in Murshidabad, the landed élite of the region, and the commercial sector symbiotically tied together.
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