question_answer

                                    How did the East India Company began trade in Bengal? What demands were put by them to the rulers?                                                          

Answer:

Beginning of trade in Bengal by East India Company:

(i) The first English factory was set up on the banks of the river Hugli in 1651. This was the base, from which the company traders, known at that time as ?factors?, operated.

(ii) The factory had a warehouse where goods for export were stored, and it had offices where company officials used to sit. As trade expanded, the company persuaded merchants and traders to come and settle near the factory.

(iii) By 1696, it began building a fort around the settlement.

Demands put up by East India Company:

(i) Two years later, EIC bribed Mughal officials to give the Company, zamindari rights over three villages.

(ii) One of these was Kolkata, which later grew into the city of Calcutta or Kolkata (as it is known today).

(iii) It also persuaded the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to issue a farman, granting the Company the right to trade duty free. (Any two demands)