DEWAN or DIWAN, an Oriental term for finance minister. The word is derived from the Arabian divan, and is commonly used in India to denote a minister of the Mogul Government, or in modern days the prime minister of a native State. It was in the former sense that the grant to the East India Company of the dewanny of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa in 1765 first laid the legal foundation of the British Empire in India.