British Occupation Of Bengal

The battle of Plassey in 1757 marked the beginning of British political power in India, when the English East India Company defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal. The previous British-French conflict in South India had been merely a dress rehearsal. Lessons learned there were put to good use in Bengal. Bengal was India's most fertile and prosperous province. It had well-developed industries and commerce. The East India Company and its servants had lucrative trading interests in the province, as previously mentioned. 

 

•    In 1717, the Company was granted valuable privileges by the Mughal Emperor under a royal Farman, which allowed the Company to export and import goods without paying taxes in Bengal, as well as the right to issue passes or dastaks for the movement of such goods. 

 

•    The Company's servants were also allowed to trade, but this Farman did not cover them. They had to pay the same taxes as the Indian traders.

 

•    This Farman was a constant source of contention between the Company and the Bengali Nawabs. For one thing, it resulted in a revenue loss for the Bengal government. Second, the Company's servants used the power to issue dastaks for the Company's goods to evade taxes on their private trade.

 

•    From Murshid Quli Khan to Alivardi Khan, all of Bengal's Nawabs objected to the English interpretation of the Farman of 1717. They had forced the Company to pay lump sums to their treasury and had strictly forbidden the use of dastaks. The Company had been forced to accept the Nawabs' authority in the matter, but its servants had used every opportunity to circumvent and defy it.

 

•    When the young and irritable Siraj-ud-Daulah succeeded his grandfather, Alivardi Khan, in 1756, things came to a head. He demanded that the English trade on the same terms as they did during the reign of Murshid Quli Khan. 

 

•    The English, buoyed by their victory over the French in South India, refused to comply. They had also realised that Indian states were politically and militarily weak. Instead of paying the Nawab taxes on their goods, they imposed high tariffs on Indian goods entering Calcutta, which they controlled. All of this naturally irritated and enraged the young Nawab, who suspected the Company of being hostile to him and favouring his rivals for the Bengal throne.

 

•    The Company reached a breaking point when, without the Nawab's permission, it began fortifying Calcutta in preparation for the impending battle with the French, who were stationed at Chandernagore at the time. This action was correctly interpreted by Siraj as an attack on his sovereignty. 

 

•    How could an independent ruler allow a private merchant company to construct forts or wage private wars on his land? He also feared that if he allowed the English and the French to fight on Bengali soil, he would suffer the same fate as the Carnatic Nawabs. 

 

•    To put it another way, Siraj was willing to keep the Europeans as merchants but not as masters. He ordered the English and French to demolish their fortifications in Calcutta and Chandernagore and to stop fighting. While the French Company complied with his command, the English Company refused, as its ambition had been piqued and its confidence bolstered by its victories in the Carnatic. 

 

•    It was now determined to stay in Bengal, despite the Nawab's wishes, and trade there on its own terms. It had quietly accepted restrictions on its trade and power imposed in Britain by the British Government; its right to trade with the East had been revoked by the Parliament in 1693 when its Charter was revoked; it had paid massive bribes to the King, the Parliament, and the politicians of Britain (in one year, it paid al bribes to the King, the Parliament, and the politicians of Britain). 

 

•    Regardless of the Bengal Nawab's orders, the English Company demanded the absolute right to trade freely in Bengal. This constituted a direct challenge to the Nawab's authority. This is a position that no ruler could possibly accept. 

 

•    Siraj-ud-Daulah had the foresight to see the English designs' long-term consequences. He made the decision to force them to follow the laws of the land.

 

•    Siraj ud-Daulah seized the English factory at Kasimbazar, marched on to Calcutta, and occupied Fort William on June 20, 1756, with great vigour but insufficient preparation. 

 

•    He then returned to Calcutta to celebrate his easy victory by allowing the English to flee with their ships; this was a mistake because he had underestimated his opponent's strength.

 

•    The English officials sought refuge near the sea at Fulta, where they were safe due to their naval superiority. They waited for help from Madras while putting together a web of intrigue and treachery with the Nawab's court's leading men. Mir Jafar, the Mir Bakshi, Manick Chand, the Officer-in-Charge of Calcutta, Amichand, a wealthy merchant, Jagat Seth, Bengal's largest banker, and Khadim Khan, who commanded a large number of the Nawab's troops, were among the most powerful. 

 

•    Admiral Watson and Colonel Clive led a strong naval and military force from Madras. Beginning in 1757, Clive reconquered Calcutta and forced the Nawab to agree to all of the English demands. The English, on the other hand, were unsatisfied and set their sights even higher.

 

•    They had decided to replace Siraj-ud-Daula with a more accommodating tool. They presented the young Nawab with an impossible set of demands after joining a conspiracy orchestrated by the young Nawab's enemies to install Mu Jafar on the throne of Bengal. 

 

•    Both sides realised that they would have to fight it out to the bitter end. On June 23, 1757, they fought on the field of Plassey, 20 miles from Murshidabad. Plassey's fateful battle was only a battle in name. The English lost 29 men in total, whereas the Nawab lost nearly 500. The Nawab's army, led by traitors Mir Jafar and Rai Durlabh, did not participate in the fighting. 

 

•    Only a small contingent of Nawab's soldiers, led by Mir Madan and Mohan Lai, fought valiantly and effectively. The Nawab was forced to flee, and Mir Jafar's son Miran captured and executed him.

 

•    The English anointed Mir Jafar as Bengal's Nawab and set out to collect the reward. In Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, the Company was granted undisputed free trade rights.

 

•    It also got the zamindari of the 24 Parganas, which is close to Calcutta. Mir Jafar compensated the Company and the city's traders with a sum of Rs 17,700,000 for the attack on Calcutta.

 

•    In addition, large sums of money will be paid to the Company's high officials as "gifts" or bribes. Watts received over one million rupees, while Clive received over two million rupees. The Company and its servants had collected more than 30 million rupees from the puppet Nawab, according to Clive. 

 

•    Furthermore, it was understood that no taxes on private trade would be imposed on British merchants and officials.

 

•    The Battle of Plassey was a watershed moment in British history, paving the way for the British to take control of Bengal and, eventually, all of India. It boosted British prestige and elevated them to a major contender for the Indian Empire in one fell swoop.

 

•    Bengal's abundant revenue allowed them to build a formidable army. The control of Bengal was crucial in the Anglo-French conflict. 

 

•    Finally, Plassey's victory allowed the Company and its servants to amass vast sums of money at the expense of Bengal's helpless people. As British historians Edward Thompson and G.T. Garrett put it, "engineering a revolution has been revealed as the world's most lucrative game." The English mind was filled with a gold lust that had not been seen since the hysteria that gripped the Spaniards of Cortes and Pizarro's time.

 

•    Bengal, in particular, would not see peace until it had been bled white. Despite the fact that Mir Jafar owed the Company his job, he soon regretted the deal he had made. The demands of the Company's officials for presents and bribes quickly depleted his bank account, with Clive taking the lead in the matter. 

 

•    As Colonel Malleson put it, the Company's sole goal was to use Mir Jafar as a golden sack into which they could dip their hands whenever they pleased. The company was gripped by uncontrollable greed. The Company's Directors, believing that the Kamdhenu had been discovered and that Bengal's wealth was limitless, ordered that Bengal pay the expenses of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies and purchase all of the Company's exports from India out of its revenue. 

 

•    The Company was no longer to simply trade with India; it was to use its control over the Nawab of Bengal to drain the wealth of Bengal.

 

•    Mir Jafar soon discovered that meeting the full demands of the Company and its officials was impossible, and they began to criticise the Nawab for failing to meet their expectations. As a result, in October 1760, they forced him to abdicate in favour of his son-in-law, Mir Qasim, who rewarded his benefactors by granting the Company the zamindari of the districts of Burdwan, Midnapore, and Chittagong, as well as lavishing gifts totaling 29 lakhs of rupees on high English officials.

 

•    Mir Qasim, on the other hand, defied English expectations and quickly established himself as a threat to their position and plans in Bengal. He was a capable, efficient, and powerful ruler who was determined to break free from foreign rule.

 

•    He believed that now that he had adequately compensated the Company and its servants for putting him on the throne, they should leave him alone to govern Bengal. 

 

•    He realised that in order to maintain his independence, he needed a fully stocked treasury and a well-equipped army. As a result, he attempted to prevent public disorder, increase his income by eliminating corruption in tax administration, and raise a modern, disciplined army along European lines.

 

•    All of this did not sit well with the English. They despised the Nawab's attempts to rein in the Company's servants' abuse of the farman of 1717, who demanded that their goods, whether destined for export or internal use, be duty-free. This harmed Indian merchants because they had to pay taxes that foreigners were exempt from. 

 

•    Furthermore, the Company's servants sold the dastaks, or free passes, illegally to friendly Indian merchants, allowing them to avoid internal customs duties. Due to unfair competition, these abuses ruined honest Indian traders and deprived the Nawab of a vital source of revenue. 

 

•    Furthermore, the Company and its servants became enamoured with "their new-found power" and "the dazzling prospects of wealth," and began to oppress and mistreat the Nawab's officials, as well as the poor people of Bengal, in their pursuit of riches. 

 

•    They forced Indian officials and zamindars to give those gifts and bribes, and they forced Indian artisans, peasants, and merchants to sell their goods for a low price and buy expensively from them. Refusers were frequently flogged or imprisoned. These years have been dubbed "the period of open and unashamed plunder" by a recent British historian, Spear. In fact, the prosperity for which Bengal was known was gradually eroding.

 

•    Mir Qasim realised that if the abuses continued, he would never be able to build a strong Bengal or free himself from the Company's grip. As a result, he took the bold step of abolishing all internal trade duties, granting his subjects a concession that the English had taken by force. 

 

•    The alien merchants, on the other hand, were no longer willing to accept equality with the Indians. They demanded that duties on Indian traders be reinstituted. The fight was about to start all over again.

 

•    The truth was that there couldn't possibly be two masters in Bengal. While Mir Qasim believed he was a self-governing ruler, the English demanded that he act as a tool in their hands, because after all, they had put him in power. 

 

•    In 1763, Mir Qasim was defeated in a series of battles and fled to Avadh, where he formed an alliance with the Nawab of Avadh, Shuja-ud-Daulah, and the fugitive Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam II. 

 

•    On October 22, 1764, the three allies met the Company's army at Buxar and were soundly defeated. This was one of the most important battles in Indian history because it demonstrated the English army's superiority over the combined army of two major Indian powers. 

 

•    It cemented the British rule over Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, and placed Avadh under their control.

 

•    Clive, who had returned to Bengal as Governor in 1765, saw an opportunity to seize power in Bengal and gradually transfer government authority from the Nawab to the Company. 

 

•    The British restored Mir Jafar as Nawab in 1763 and amassed vast sums for the Company and its high officials. On Mir Jafar's death, they installed his second cousin Nizam-ud-Daulah on the throne and forced him to sign a new treaty on February 20, 1765 as a reward. 

 

•    The Nawab was required by this treaty to disband the majority of his army and administer Bengal through a Deputy Subahdar nominated by the Company and who could not be dismissed without the Company's approval. 

 

•    As a result, the Company gained complete control over Bengal's administration (or nizamat). Members of the Company's Bengal Council extracted nearly 15 lakhs of rupees from the new Nawab once more. 

 

•    The Company obtained the Diwani, or right to collect revenue, of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa from Shah Alam II, who was still the Mughal Empire's titular ruler. As a result, it was granted legal control over Bengal, as well as the revenues of this most prosperous of Indian provinces. In exchange, the Company provided him with a subsidy of 26 million rupees and the districts of Kara and Allahabad.

 

•    Shuja-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Avadh, was ordered to pay the Company a war indemnity of five million rupees. Furthermore, the two signed an agreement in which the Company promised to defend the Nawab against an outside attack if he paid for the troops dispatched to his aid. 

 

•    The Nawab became a Company dependent as a result of this alliance. The Nawab welcomed the alliance because he believed the Company, which was primarily a trading organisation, was a transitory power, while the Marathas and Afghans were his true adversaries. 

 

•    For both Avadh and the rest of the country, this proved to be a costly mistake. The British, on the other hand, had wisely decided to consolidate their Bengal acquisition while using Avadh as a buffer or barrier state between their possessions and the Marathas.