Chandni Bazar

Chandni Bazar a special market place during pre-British period. Chandni was a permanent planned market established in big towns and administrative centres for the convenience of the upper class consumers. In contents and purposes, the Chandni Bazars are comparable to modern posh market places and plazas. For political and aristocratic reasons the medieval ruling classes maintained a distance from the generality in all respects, even in shopping and business transactions. The Chandni Bazars thus catered to the needs of the social high-ups and rich people.

In all the settlement accounts of the Mughal administration the term chandni occurs as an elite market place whence the government collected revenue at a higher rate than the normal bazaars. The revenue demand on the Chandni bazars was called chandina. The chandina tenure was obtained from the authorities on payment of nazars. Chandina was an important source of revenue for the government.

The chandni shops and the attached homesteads were separately assessed for the purpose of revenue demand. The shops paid higher rate of rent than the residences though both were normally located in the same compound. dhaka, murshidabad and hugli cities had many Chandni bazars until the end of the 18th century. The city kotwal was responsible for the security of the Chandni Bazar. [Sirajul Islam]