Prelims 2020 · Q21
HardWith reference to the history of India, consider the following pairs:
- 1.Aurang — In-charge of treasury of the State
- 2.Banian — Indian agent of the East India Company
- 3.Mirasidar — Designated revenue payer to the State
Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (b) 2 and 3 only
An aurang was a place where goods, especially cloth, were made and stored — the Company's weaving depot — not a treasury official. A banian was an Indian broker or agent serving European merchants and the Company, and a mirasidar was the hereditary landholder whom the British recognised as the revenue payer in the Madras region.
- ✗ 1. Aurang (Persian) meant a place where goods were manufactured or stored; in the Company's trading days it was used for its cloth-procurement depots.
- ✓ 2. In Calcutta, 'banian' was the term for Indian brokers attached to European business houses, who handled trade and money matters for the Company and its servants.
- ✓ 3. A mirasidar held hereditary (miras) rights in land; under British settlements in Tanjore and elsewhere in the south, each was given a patta and made responsible for the revenue.
Remember · Aurang = warehouse/manufacturing depot; banian = Indian broker-agent of Europeans; gomastha = Company's paid agent over weavers; mirasidar = hereditary landholder, revenue payer (South India).
Sources
- Hobson-Jobson (Yule and Burnell), Digital South Asia Library: 'Aurung' ↗ · reference work “'a place where goods are manufactured, a depôt for such goods.' During the Company's trading days this term was applied to their factories for the purchase, on advances, of native piece-goods”
- Business History Review 94(4), 2020 (Cambridge University Press): Banians in the Nineteenth-Century Bengal Economy, abstract ↗ · reference work “Banians acted as intermediaries for European merchants in Bengal. They were highly influential in the eighteenth century but their importance waned thereafter.”
- Hobson-Jobson (Yule and Burnell), Digital South Asia Library: 'Banyan' ↗ · reference work “In Calcutta also it is (or perhaps rather was) specifically applied to the native brokers attached to houses of business”
- Hobson-Jobson (Yule and Burnell), Digital South Asia Library: 'Meerass, Meerassidar' ↗ · reference work “'Inheritance,' 'hereditary,' 'a holder of hereditary property.' Hind. from Arab. mīrās̤, mīrās̤ī, mīrās̤dār; and these from waris̤ , 'to inherit.' 1806. — "Every meerassdar in Tanjore has been furnished with a separate pottah (q.v.) for the land held by him."”
Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2020, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·