India, British India, 1795-1808 AD., Bengal Presidency, in the name of Shah Alam II, Calcutta mint, 3 Pai, KM 52.

India, British India, Bengal Presidency, in the name of Shah Alam II (1759-1788 and 1789-1806), Calcutta mint, dated regnal year 37 (= 1808 AD.), struck ca. 1795-1808 AD.,
3 Pai (29 mm / 8,71 g), copper,
Obv.: "Alam shah badshah sanat jalus 37" , in Arabic script.
Rev.: "yak pai sikka" , (denomination, 3 pai) in Nagari, Arabic and Bengali script.
KM 52 .

http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,14866.0/topicseen.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shah_Alam_II : Shah Alam II (1728–1806), also known as Ali Gauhar, was a Mughal emperor of India. He inherited the throne from his father, Alamgir II as Shah Alam II (1761–1805). After the Battle of Delhi,on 14 September 1803 British troops entered Delhi and Shah Alam, a blind old man, seated under a tattered canopy, came under British protection. The Mughal emperor no longer had the military power to enforce his will, but he commanded respect as a dignified member of the House of Timur in the length and breadth of the country. The nawabs and subahdars still sought formal sanction of the emperor on their accession and valued the titles he bestowed upon them. They struck coins and read the Khutba (Friday sermons) in his name. The British, not yet strong enough to claim sovereignty on their own, kept Shah Alam as a puppet until his death in 1806.

Peter ("Figleaf") about a similar - but smaller and lighter - coin on juli 23, 2008 on www.muntenbodemvondsten.nl: "Dit is KM 56, pice op naam van Shah Alam geslagen te Calcutta. De tekst op de vz is Alam shah badshah sanat julus 37 - Shah Alam keizer geslagen in het 37e regeringsjaar. Dat zou overeenkomen met 1808. In werkelijkheid zijn deze munten met bevroren jaartal geslagen van 1795 tot 1817. Gezien het gewicht van jouw exemplaar denk ik aan de periode 1809-1817. Latere munten werden in een kraag geslagen, eerdere waren zwaarder. Het zijn Engelse koloniale munten, ter plaatse geslagen in opdracht van de "East India Company". De verwijzing naar Shah Alam II (1759-1788 en 1789-1806) slaat dus nergens op. Op de kz staat yak pai sikka - een pice in Nagari, Arabisch en Bengali schrift."

The Bengal Presidency initially comprised the regions of east and west Bengal. A colonial region of British India, the Presidency comprised undivided Bengal (present day Bangladesh), the states of West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Orissa, and Tripura. In later times, during its peak height, the Presidency gradually annexed the princely states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and portions of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, including the provinces of North West Frontier and Punjab in Pakistan and Burma (present day Myanmar). Penang and Singapore were also regarded as a part of the Presidency administratively, until they were merged into the Crown Colony of the Straits Settlements in 1867. Calcutta was declared a Presidency Town of the East India Company in 1699. However, the outsets of the Bengal Presidency proper can be dated back to the treaties of 1765 between the British East India Company and the Mughal Emperor and Nawab of Oudh. The treaties had placed Bengal, Meghalaya, Bihar and Orissa under the administration of the Company.
The Bengal Presidency, in contradiction to those of the Madras Presidency and Bombay Presidency, ultimately incorporated all the British territories north of the Central Provinces (Madhya Pradesh), from the mouths of Ganga River and Brahmaputra River to the Himalayas and Punjab.
However, Bengal Presidency did not exist long. The reason behind it can be attributed to the Partition of Bengal, 1905. Lord Curzon had employed extreme cunning and shrewd measures to accomplish his task, which later came to criticised as the `Divide and Rule` policy. After incredible protests from the part of the commoner, voicing that it was a decision by the rulers to exhibit nepotism and separate the Hindu and Muslim communities, Curzon`s decision was reversed. Bengal was reunited in 1912. Later however, Bengal Presidency was further subdivided into Orissa and Bihar. The ultimate divide, completely ruined the Presidency and its administrative strength, remaining only as a titular name. The history of Bengal presidency thus unfolds the administrative tactics of the British empire.