From 1765 up to the takeover by the Crown, the Company was using a quarter to a third of net revenue collections to purchase export goods from the peasants. This was an abnormal use of taxes and the peasants themselves did not know they were getting diddled. If the same Company agent who collected the producer’s tax had at the same time bought his goods out of that tax, then the producer himself would have said: dal mein kuch to kala hai (something fishy is going on here). But the Company agent who bought produce out of the tax money was a different person and did so at a different time from the Company agent who collected the tax. So, the producers did not connect the two.