Company, in the mid-eighteenth century, the border of Cooch Behar was marked the northernmost limit of British Territory. Cooch Behar survived as a princely state till the end of the colonial rule, this was due to the indirect ruling of the British expedition in 1772, when it invaded and conquered the territory: the Maharaja and his administration were thence retained under the control of a British political agent. Capital amassed from Bengal by the East India Company was invested in various industries such as textile manufacturing in Great Britain during the initial stages of the Industrial Revolution. Company policies in Bengal also led to the deindustrialization of the Bengali textile industry during Company rule. The famine disaster made British officials look for viable methods of tapping into the colony's resources. In 1790, the British introduced "permanent settlement" and made it law three years later. It was a framework for taxation on land. The system was the core of the colonial form of government. It was an agreement between the British and the zamindars who were effectively given landholdings in exchange for timely payment of taxes. The aim of the permanent settlement was that the zamindars would eventually invest in the development of agriculture and improve the economy of Bengal. The aim did not materialise because the zamindars did not have state backing for agrarian growth and because of newfound ways of generating wealth. A common method was fleecing the peasants. The increasingly rich zamindars moved away from agrarian and taxation activities. They appointed intermediaries. A multilayered form of landholdings developed, which benefited from the land's revenue. This structure was most pronounced in the southern areas of modern Bangladesh. The permanent settlement scheme deprived peasants of any proprietary rights over the land. While Muslims had comprised most of the landlord class during Mughal rule, Hindus became prominent during the colonial rule. While Muslim landlords and Hindu occupants did exist, eastern Bengal witnessed an amalgamation of religion with class, with Hindu landlords presiding over mainly Muslim peasants. Hindu landlords were also prominent in western Bengal, but most peasants there were Hindus. This factor would become politically important by the end of the colonial rule. Another change during British rule was the system of cash cropping. During colonial rule cash cropping was organised and produced for international markets. It was significant because of the links it created between the Bengali countryside's economy with