Explain two strategies devised by the zamindars of Bengal to survive the pressures of high revenue demand and auction of their lands.

Following strategies were devised by the zamindars of Bengal to survive the pressures of high revenue demand and auction of their lands:

(i) They first of all transferred some of his zamindaris to his mother, since the Company had decreed that the property of women would not be taken over. When a part of the estate was auctioned, the zamindar’s men bought the property, outbidding other purchasers. Subsequently they refused to pay up purchase money, so that the estate had to be resold of the total sales at the auctions over 15 per cent were fictitious.

(ii) There were other ways in which zamindars circumvented displacement. When people from outside the zamindari bought an estate at an auction, they could not always take possession. At time their agents would be attacked by lathyals of the former zamindar. Sometimes even the ryots resisted the entry of outsiders.