Munshibari family of Comilla

Munshibari Estate
Munshibari Estate
	Indo-Saracenic
Country	British Empire (now Bangladesh)
Construction started	1780

The Munshibari (Bengali: মুন্সীবাড়ী) estate established in the 18th century was held by a landed, Semitic dynasty of Munshis (Urdu:مُنشی; Hindi: मुंशी; Persian:منشی) in Bengal (present day Chandpur District, Chittagong Division in Bangladesh).

The family, which is of

Rulers of Bengal, on behalf of whom they collected land revenues in the area. In the 19th century, the family traded jute with the British East India Company. They built mosques, schools and other structures around the estate which still stand today in their homestead of Taltoli

.

History

18th-19th centuries

Munshibari Jama Masjid

.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, merchants and clerics from around the world came to India. Various groups such as the

East India Company

was awarded the diwani or overlordship of Bengal by the empire in 1764, it found itself short of trained administrators, especially those familiar with local custom and law. As a result, landholders were unsupervised or they reported to corrupt and indolent officials. The result was that revenues were extracted without regard for future income or local welfare.

Following the devastating

tax farmers. It is in this time, that a lot of foreign merchants and traders, well versed in reading, writing and account-keeping were employed by the British to collect revenue and maintain order. The title Munshi therefore denotes the family's role in teaching native languages such as Urdu, Hindi, Persian and Bengali or as secretaries to the Europeans

. There were possible intermarriages with the British during this period.

19th-20th centuries

In the mid-19 century, the family traded produces from the lands around the estate, Jute was one of the primary commodities, sold in Narayanganj. Jute has been grown in the Indian subcontinent for centuries. It was produced for domestic consumption in the villages of East Bengal. However, jute fibre sample to the United Kingdom strictly for experimentation related to mechanical processing. The breakthrough came in 1833, when jute fibre was spun mechanically in Dundee, Scotland. This was the harbinger of the world jute era. A jute industry soon mushroomed all over Western Europe with Dundee as its main centre. The first Indian Jute mill was constructed in 1855 at Rishra. By the early 20th century the Calcutta Jute industry surpassed the European Jute industry. The family employed and intermixed with local muslim Beparis. Bangladesh became the largest exporter of raw jute in the world.

Estate

Ruins of the Munshibari Residence

Philanthropy

Jumu'ah congregation. Note the Turkish Emblems

around the mosques interior

The

Dhuhr

; صلاة الظهر) congregation prayers took place.

Typical classroom for local schoolboys at Taltoli Public Primary School

The family also established the first school called Taltoli Public Primary School for the Muslim population living on the estate. It was named after Bilayet-un-Nissa, the wife of Ab'dul Hamid Munshi, a member of the family, who made a school for her because she wanted to attend lessons outside of the residence. In the 1850s muslim women were not allowed to regularly visit outside of the private quarters of the residences.

The family employed regional teachers, as first starting with lessons in Urdu, Persian and Arabic delivered by Islamic teachers from the family mosque. After the war of 1971, the Government of Bangladesh took over the school and declared it a public institution under the curriculum of the Ministry of Education.

Sources

Munshibari Estate: Quiet and isolated Archived 2014-10-26 at the Wayback Machine at Daily Sun
This article incorporates text in the public domain from the National Archives of Bangladesh.