More than two centuries ago, British officials on Bengal wrote unusually blunt assessments of the people and society they encountered under East India Company rule. Their descriptions included allegations of dishonesty, distrust, fraud, false testimony and corruption.
Some of those words are uncomfortable today. But historical records should neither be softened nor exaggerated. The purpose of this article is simply to examine what these officials actually wrote, when they wrote it and whom they were describing.
John Shore’s Description in the 1780s
One of the earliest striking assessments came from John Shore, an East India Company administrator who later became Governor-General of Bengal and Lord Teignmouth.
Remarks attributed to Shore from around 1783 or 1784 were later reproduced by Charles Grant and discussed in the British Parliament. Shore described the “natives” as “timid and servile” and wrote that individuals had little sense of honour. He also accused them of readily using falsehood when it offered an advantage.
The remarks were significant enough to reappear during a House of Commons debate on India in 1813. Sir John Macpherson, another former Governor-General, was also quoted as saying that he feared Shore’s description of the low state of the “popular virtues of the Bengalese” was not imaginary.
Shore was not Governor-General when he originally made these observations. He assumed that office in 1793. The remarks came from his earlier experience as a Company administrator in Bengal.
Charles Grant’s Much Harsher Assessment
Charles Grant went much further. His Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain was written chiefly in 1792, circulated to the East India Company leadership and later printed for Parliament.
Grant wrote one particularly striking sentence: “In Bengal, a man of real veracity and integrity is a great phenomenon.”
He described what he considered widespread distrust in social and commercial dealings and wrote about lying, cheating, pilfering, deception, forgery and disputes over property. In his view, falsehood for personal advantage had become so common that it did not always carry the social disgrace he expected.
Grant was not describing every inhabitant of Bengal in every passage. A substantial part of his work dealt specifically with what he called the “Hindoo Subjects of Great Britain,” while Muslims were discussed separately elsewhere.
That distinction is important. A statement Grant made specifically about Hindus should not simply be rewritten today as a statement about all Bengalis.
Readers can examine Grant’s work directly in the digitised editions preserved online: Charles Grant, Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain.
Lord Wellesley Asked the District Judges
The issue was later examined through a broader official inquiry. In 1801, the government of Governor-General Lord Wellesley circulated interrogatories to judges and other officials working across Company-controlled territories.
The questions dealt with judicial administration, crime, policing, revenue and social conditions. Officials in different districts submitted their own answers, which were later included in the British Parliamentary Papers.
This material is important because it did not depend on Charles Grant alone. Judges and magistrates working in different places were recording their own observations.
The parliamentary material includes reports connected with places such as Jessore, Burdwan, Sylhet, Backergunge, Tipperah, Murshidabad and other districts.
One documented example comes from Burdwan. Its judge and magistrate wrote in 1802: “Of the moral character of the inhabitants, I cannot report favourably.”
Other responses discussed false testimony, robbery, perjury, police conduct, fear of giving evidence and corruption within local administration. The reports did not always describe every district in the same way, which is itself important. British officials did not present Bengal as one completely uniform society.
The parliamentary records can be consulted in the digitised East India Company Parliamentary Papers.
Captain Lewin’s View of Bengalis and the Hill Peoples
Several decades later, Captain Thomas Herbert Lewin, one of the best-known early British administrators of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, expressed a strikingly different attitude toward Bengalis and the Indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Lewin often wrote sympathetically about hill communities. In The Hill Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers Therein, he described the hill people in warm terms and wrote of them as fellow human beings with whom he felt considerable affinity. But when speaking about Bengalis, he stated bluntly: “with the Bengallee I have never been in accord.”
This difference also formed part of the background to Lewin’s difficult relationship with Chakma ruler Kalindi Rani. Lewin complained that she was influenced by what he called an “unscrupulous clique of Bengallee omlah,” referring to Bengali officials and advisers around her.
Kalindi Rani did work with Bengali advisers, lawyers and officials and used the colonial legal system to defend her authority. Lewin, meanwhile, wanted to reduce what he regarded as harmful Bengali influence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Their conflict cannot be explained by that issue alone. They also disagreed over political authority, taxation, administration and the limits of British intervention. Nevertheless, Lewin’s own writings show that his negative view of Bengalis formed part of the background to their dispute.
Readers interested in that conflict can read my separate article, Kalindi Rani Chakma and Lewin: The Hidden History of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Bengal Was Not Modern Bangladesh
One point must be kept clear when reading these documents. The Bengal of the East India Company period was not the same political or geographical entity as modern Bangladesh.
Some places mentioned in the records, including Dacca, Chittagong, Sylhet, Jessore and Backergunge, are now in Bangladesh. Others, including Burdwan, Hooghly and Murshidabad, are in present-day India.
The terminology also changed from writer to writer. British officials used words such as “Bengalese,” “native,” “Hindoo,” “Mahomedan” and the inhabitants of individual districts.
Those terms should not automatically be replaced with “Bangladeshis” or even “all Bengalis.” Doing so would change the meaning of the original records.
What Do These Documents Actually Establish?
These records establish what British officials wrote and what they believed they had observed. They do not constitute a modern scientific survey of millions of people.
That distinction does not make the documents meaningless. Shore really did make severe observations. Grant really did write extensively about dishonesty and distrust. Wellesley’s government really did question district officials, and judges really did submit reports discussing crime, administration and what they considered moral character.
Lewin, several decades later, also recorded a sharp contrast between his view of Bengalis and his view of many Indigenous hill peoples.
The historical record therefore deserves to be read rather than reduced to a slogan. If Shore wrote something, it should be identified as Shore’s view. If Grant was discussing Hindus, that should be stated. If a district judge was writing about Burdwan, his words should not automatically be applied to Dacca or Chittagong. And if a quotation circulating online cannot be traced to the original document, it should not be presented as verified history.
More than two centuries later, these records remain accessible. There is no need to make their language harsher, softer or more convenient for modern arguments.
The most useful question is also the simplest: What did these British officials actually write?
The original records allow readers to see the answer and make up their own minds.