Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 24. Chapters: Bardhaman Raj, Nandigram violence, History of Bankura district, Jnaneswari Express train derailment, Nanoor massacre, 2010 Deganga riots, Partition of Midnapore, Amar Shonar Bangla, Sainthia train collision, Alipore bomb case, Purulia arms drop case, Marichjhanpi, 1982 Bijon Setu killings, Lalgarh, Koch Rajbongshi Royal Family, Muluk murder case, Sainbari incident, Mallabhum, Tarafdar, Tughral Tughan Khan, Buxa Fort, Chhoto Angaria massacre, 2006 West Bengal train disaster, Dum Dum Arsenal. Excerpt: The Bardhaman Raj (also known as Burdwan Raj) was a zamindari estate that flourished from about 1657 to 1955, first under the Mughals and then under the British in the province of Bengal in India. At the peak of its prosperity in the eighteenth century, the estate extended to around 5,000 square miles (13,000 km) of territory and, according to the ', even up to the early twentieth century paid an annual revenue to the government in excess of 3,300,000 rupees. The estate was established and owned continuously by the Kapoor family, which had its origins in the Punjab. Its earliest known ancestor, Sangam Rai, is said to have migrated to Bengal and settled at Bardhaman in the sixteenth century. Bardhaman was never an independent territory since the chiefs of the family held it basically as the revenue collectors or zamindars of the Mughal governors of Bengal. Later, in British times after Lord Cornwallis's Permanent Settlement of 1793, the zamindars changed their status from revenue collectors to owners of the land they collected revenue from. Although its owners were both rich and powerful, with the chiefs of the family holding the title of Maharaja, the Bardhaman estate was not defined as a "Princely State," with freedom to decide its future course of action at the time of Indian independence in 1947. (Cooch Behar was the ...