Which of the following statements are correct about the ‘Fifth Report’?
A. It was submitted to the British Parliament in 1813.
B. It was a report on the administration and activities of the English East India Company in India.
C. It led to intense parliamentary debates on the nature of the English East India Company rule in India.
D. The report was prepared by Governor General Warren Hastings.
E. The report does not provide any insight into the land-revenue settlement under colonial rule.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → A, B, C only
A. It was submitted to the British Parliament in 1813. Correct. The Fifth Report was submitted to the British Parliament in 1813.
B. It was a report on the administration and activities of the English East India Company in India. Correct. It was the fifth of a series of reports on the administration and activities of the East India Company in India; it ran into 1002 pages.
C. It led to intense parliamentary debates on the nature of the English East India Company rule in India. Correct. The report became the basis of intense parliamentary debates on the nature of the Company’s rule in India.
D. The report was prepared by Governor General Warren Hastings. Incorrect. The Fifth Report was produced by a Select Committee, one of the committees the British Parliament appointed to enquire into the affairs of the Company, not by a Governor General.
E. The report does not provide any insight into the land-revenue settlement under colonial rule. Incorrect. Over 800 of its pages reproduced petitions of zamindars and ryots, reports of collectors, statistical tables on revenue returns and notes on the revenue administration. For over a century and a half it has shaped our conception of what happened in rural Bengal, though its evidence has to be read carefully.
NCERT (2026-27): “1.6 The Fifth Report … Many of the changes we are discussing were documented in detail in a report that was submitted to the British Parliament in 1813. It was the fifth of a series of reports on the administration and activities of the East India Company in India. Often referred to as the Fifth Report, it ran into 1002 pages, of which over 800 pages were appendices that reproduced petitions of zamindars and ryots, reports of collectors from different districts, statistical tables on revenue returns, and notes on the revenue and judicial administration of Bengal and Madras (present-day Tamil Nadu) written by officials.… 1.6 The Fifth Report … The Fifth Report was one such report produced by a Select Committee. It became the basis of intense parliamentary debates on the nature of the East India Company’s rule in India. 1.6 The Fifth Report … For over a century and a half, the Fifth Report has shaped our conception of what happened in rural Bengal in the late eighteenth century. The evidence contained in the Fifth Report is invaluable. But official reports like this have to be read carefully. We need to know who wrote the reports and why they were written. In fact, recent researches show that the arguments and evidence offered by the Fifth Report cannot be accepted uncritically.…” |