<P> The Economy of India under Company rule describes the economy of those regions (contemporaneously British India) that fell under Company rule in India during the years 1757 to 1858 . The British East India Company began ruling parts of the Indian subcontinent beginning with the Battle of Plassey, which led to the conquest of Bengal Subah and the founding of the Bengal Presidency, before the Company expanded across most of the subcontinent up until the Indian Rebellion of 1857 . </P> <P> A number of historians point to the colonization of India as a major factor in both India's deindustrialization and Britain's Industrial Revolution . The capital amassed from Bengal following its 1757 conquest helped to invest in British industries such as textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution as well as increase British wealth, while contributing to deindustrialization and famines in Bengal; following the British conquest, a devastating famine broke out in Bengal in the early 1770s, killing a third of the Bengali population and 5 percent of the overall Indian population . British colonization forced open the large Indian market to British goods, which could be sold in India without any tariffs or duties, compared to local Indian producers who were heavily taxed, while in Britain protectionist policies such as bans and high tariffs were implemented to restrict Indian textiles from being sold there, whereas raw cotton was imported from India without tariffs to British factories which manufactured textiles from Indian cotton and sold them back to the Indian market . British economic policies gave them a monopoly over India's large market and cotton resources . India served as both a significant supplier of raw goods to British manufacturers and a large captive market for British manufactured goods . </P> <P> Indian textiles had maintained a competitive advantage over British textiles up until the 19th century, when Britain eventually overtook India as the world's largest cotton textile manufacturer . In 1811, Bengal was still a major exporter of cotton cloth to the Americas and the Indian Ocean . However, Bengali exports declined over the course of the early 19th century, as British imports to Bengal increased, from 25% in 1811 to 93% in 1840 . India, which was previously the world's largest economy under the Mughal Empire in 1700, had by 1820 fallen to become the second largest economy, behind Qing China . </P> <P> In the remnant of the Mughal revenue system existing in pre-1765 Bengal, zamindars, or "land holders," collected revenue on behalf of the Mughal emperor, whose representative, or diwan supervised their activities . In this system, the assortment of rights associated with land were not possessed by a "land owner," but rather shared by the several parties with stake in the land, including the peasant cultivator, the zamindar, and the state . The zamindar served as an intermediary who procured economic rent from the cultivator, and after withholding a percentage for his own expenses, made available the rest, as revenue to the state . Under the Mughal system, the land itself belonged to the state and not to the zamindar, who could transfer only his right to collect rent . On being awarded the diwani or overlordship of Bengal following the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the East India Company found itself short of trained administrators, especially those familiar with local custom and law; tax collection was consequently farmed out . This uncertain foray into land taxation by the Company, may have gravely worsened the impact of a famine that struck Bengal in 1769--70 in which between seven and ten million people--or between a quarter and third of the presidency's population--may have died . However, the company provided little relief either through reduced taxation or by relief efforts, and the economic and cultural impact of the famine was felt decades later, even becoming, a century later, the subject of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's novel Anandamath . </P>

What commodity formed the economic backbone of bengal in the eighteenth century