The Permanent Settlement had come into operation in 1793.
The East India Company had fixed the revenue that each zamindar had to pay.
The estates of those who failed to pay were to be auctioned to recover the revenue.
At the time of rent collection, an officer of the zamindar, usually the amlah, came around to the village. But rent collection was a perennial problem.
Sometimes bad harvests and low prices made payment of dues difficult for the ryots.
At other times ryots deliberately delayed payment.
Rich ryots and village headmen – jotedars and mandals – were only too happy to see the zamindar in trouble.
The zamindar could therefore not easily assert his power over them.
Zamindars could prosecute defaulters, but the judicial process was long drawn. In Burdwan alone, there were over 30,000 pending suits for arrears of rent payment in 1798.