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. Researchers have carefully examined the archives of various Bengal zamindars and the local records of the districts to write about the history of colonial rule in rural Bengal.
The lines that followed this passage, giving what these researchers found about the Fifth Report, have been left out. Which finding did they state?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → It exaggerated the decline in the power of the old landed families.
Option (1) It understated the share of benami purchases in the auction sales. — Incorrect. Benami purchases were one of the methods zamindars used to keep their estates. The researchers' finding was about the report overstating zamindari decline, with no point on benami sales.
Option (2) It understated the burden of the revenue demand placed on the zamindars. — Incorrect. The researchers did not fault the report on the revenue burden. Their finding was that it overstated how far zamindars were falling.
Option (3) It overstated the loyalty of the ryots towards their own zamindars. — Incorrect. The loyalty of ryots to their own zamindar belongs to the account of how zamindars resisted displacement. The researchers' finding was about the report overstating zamindari decline.
Option (4) It exaggerated the decline in the power of the old landed families. — Correct. The researchers found that the report, intent on criticising the Company, exaggerated the collapse of traditional zamindari power and overestimated how much land zamindars were losing.
NCERT (2026-27): “1.6 The Fifth Report … |