Theoretical efforts to understand the nature of Bengal’s agrarian transition appear to divide into two radically differing methodological discourses. In one, the point of departure is a counter-factual one revolving around a supra-historical understanding of capitalist transformation as a self-explanatory and hence unique process. The other, by contrast, departs from the issue of historical specificity the central aspect of which in Bengal’s case was the experience of British colonial rule. By drawing such a contrast, we are able to enjoin two prominent contemporary debates on the agrarian transition, namely, the debate on the mode of production in Indian agriculture and that on the creation of bourgeois property rights in Bengal. Traversing a complex methodological territory, it is argued that an adequate understanding of Bengal’s agrarian transition has of necessity to incorporate the state as an integral focus within the analysis of property relations