KOLKATA: Pritam Sengupta, who runs a small bookshop-cum-café on Sardar Shankar Road in Kolkata’s Lake Road area, has a welcoming smile on his face as he hands out free cups of tea and coffee to customers along with sweetmeats.
He is following a tradition steeped in time, the origin of which nobody is sure of, but virtually every shopkeeper in West Bengal and Bangladesh follows.
This year, 'Poila Baisakh' (the first day of Baisakh month) or 'Notun Hal Khatar Din' (new accounts book day) has fallen on Friday, April 15, according to the 'Bangabda' or Bengali calendar, a day when traders start their new accounting year with fanfare, decking up their shops and rolling out freebies, usually sweetmeats, to customers.
"Throughout the year, my customers shell out money to buy the books and tea which we sell. Today we give them back.. it's a custom, and also a nice way of saying thank you," said Sengupta, whose specialist shop sells Bengali books and English titles on Kolkata and Bengal.
No one is sure when the tradition started but what is recorded is that Emperor Akbar's finance minister Todar Mal started the practice of collecting annual revenue on the first day of Baisakh which usually falls on April 14 or 15. This year is 1429 according to the Bengali calendar, which suggests that the calendar started in 593-4.
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While some contend that the Bangabda calendar was devised during the reign of King Sasanka (606-637), who ruled over Gaud, which comprised much of eastern India, others claim that the calendar was devised on the orders of Akbar who opted for this calendar as it helped him collect taxes better.
India's former revenue secretary and historian Nitish Sengupta, in his book 'Land of Two Rivers', says the "earliest reference to Bangabda occurs in two Shiva temples in Bankura district (in the villages of Dihargram and Sonatapan). Both these temples are around a thousand years old."
Usually, money from winter crops came in around Baisakh and farmers paid revenues to landlords and dues to traders and money lenders. As the Bengal province which extended from Bihar to Assam followed this practice and was the largest revenue earner for the Mughals, it made sense for Todar Mal to use this date to start his revenue collection drive.
Indian tax authorities say that the English, who started their empire-building at Fort St. George in Chennai, found that both South India as well as Bengal, the first province they took control from the Mughals, followed a system in which the new year, as well as accounting year, started in April.
"It was easy and made sense for the British to not disturb this. Taxes can only be recovered from subjects or citizens when they have money. After the harvest was done, all three classes whom the revenue authorities taxed in those days – farmers, landlords and traders – were flush with money," said Sumit Dutt Majumder.
For traders and manufacturers, the Diwali to Holi season was and is considered the peak season in most parts of India, bringing them their maximum sales, making tax payments easier in March-end.
India is not the only country to follow this trend of having a separate financial year from a calendar year.
In Canada, the government's financial year is April 1 to March 31; though for individual taxpayers, the fiscal year is the calendar year, January 1 to December 31. While in United Kingdom, the personal tax year starts on April 6. Iran and Afghanistan, two of India's neighbours, have a fiscal year that starts on March 21.