British Expansion in India: Bengal

India on the Eve of British Conquest

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• The first half of the eighteenth century saw the decline of the mighty Mughals, a decline that gained momentum after the death of Aurangzeb owing to wars of succession and a series of weak rulers.
• Though Muhammad Shah ruled for a long spell of 29 years (1719–48), a revival of imperial fortunes did not take place, as he was an incompetent ruler; his reign witnessed the establishment of the independent states of Hyderabad, Bengal, Awadh, and Punjab.
• Several local chiefs began asserting their independence, and the Marathas began their bid to inherit the imperial mantle. Yet the symbolic authority of the Mughal emperor continued, as he was still regarded as a source of political legitimacy — the new states did not directly challenge his authority and constantly sought his sanction to legitimise their rule.
  • In many areas of governance, these states continued the Mughal institutions and administrative system.
• The emergence of these states in the eighteenth century, therefore, represented a transformation rather than a collapse of the polity — it signified a decentralisation of power, not a power vacuum or political chaos.
• These new states were of various kinds, with diverse histories:
  • Some were founded by Mughal provincial governors (successor states) — e.g., Bengal, Hyderabad, and Awadh — in the sense that they never formally severed their links with the centre but virtually exercised autonomy in the local execution of power.
  • Some were set up by rebels against the Mughal state, known as the rebel states — the Marathas, the Sikhs, the Jats, and the Afghan kingdoms of Farrukhabad and Rohilkhand.
  • A few states asserting independence had previously functioned as autonomous but dependent polities, known as independent kingdoms — the Rajput kingdoms, Mysore, and Travancore.

Bengal

• The province (subah) of Bengal gradually became independent of Mughal control after Murshid Quli Khan became governor in 1717, receiving the unprecedented privilege of holding the two offices of nazim (executive) and diwan (revenue) simultaneously.
  • This did away with the division of power that had traditionally been maintained through the Mughal period to keep both imperial officers under control via a system of checks and balances.
  • This helped Murshid Quli — already known for his efficient revenue administration — consolidate his position further. He did not formally defy Mughal authority and regularly remitted revenue to the imperial treasury; indeed, Bengal’s revenue was often the only regular income for the beleaguered Mughal emperors during periods of financial stringency.
  • But behind this veneer of formal allegiance, Murshid Quli enjoyed considerable autonomy within his domain and initiated almost a dynastic rule — he was, in fact, the last governor of Bengal appointed by the Mughal emperor.
• The foundation of Murshid Quli’s power was his highly successful revenue administration, which kept Bengal a constant revenue-surplus area even amid political chaos elsewhere in the empire; revenue collection rose by 20 per cent between 1700 and 1722.
  • A detailed survey was conducted, and he compelled zamindars to pay in full and on time, encouraging the growth of a few powerful zamindaris at the expense of smaller, inefficiently managed ones, while punishing refractory zamindars by converting their estates into khalisa (royal land).
  • By the time of his death in 1727, the fifteen largest zamindaris accounted for about half the province’s revenue.
  • Alongside the rise of zamindars as a powerful new elite, this period also saw the growing importance of merchants and bankers.

Trade

• Bengal always had a lucrative trade, and the political stability and rising agricultural productivity of Murshid Quli’s period gave this further impetus.
  • In the 17th century, silk and cotton textiles, sugar, oil, and clarified butter from Bengal moved overland to Persia and Afghanistan via north and west Indian distributing centres, and by sea through the port of Hughli to Southeast Asian, Persian Gulf, and Red Sea ports.
  • During the political turmoil of the 18th century, overland trade partially declined, but oceanic trade thrived, buoyed by rising investment from the Dutch, French, and English companies; during the first half of the century, Europe became the major destination for Bengal goods, significantly impacting the region’s textile industry.
  • Bengal always enjoyed a favourable balance of trade, with surplus bullion brought in by the European companies to buy Bengal goods, smoothly absorbed into the cash economy and revenue-remittance structure.
• On the Indian side, this trade was dominated by a variety of merchants — Hindus, Muslims, and Armenians — some of whom were magnates, such as the Hindu merchant Umi Chand or the Armenian tycoon Khoja Wajid, who controlled a fleet of ships.
  • These merchants enjoyed cordial relations with the state and bureaucracy, as the Mughal state traditionally never tried to squeeze merchants.
  • The constant pressure on zamindars to pay revenue on time, and its regular remittance to the imperial treasury at Delhi, brought powerful financiers and bankers into great demand; they provided securities at every stage of transactions and enjoyed unprecedented patronage of the governor, forming the main supportive pillar of his power.
  • The most significant instance of such collaboration was the rise of the banking house of Jagat Seth, who became treasurer of the provincial government in 1730, with strategic control over the mint.
• Thus, this period saw the emergence of new forces in Bengal politics — the zamindars, merchants, and bankers — and the government of Bengal began to resemble government by cooperation of dominant local forces rather than rule imposed from outside.
  • However, this rise in the power of merchants, bankers, and zamindars also meant a relative diminution of the authority of the nazim.
  • This became evident in a coup in 1739–40, in which Sarfaraz Khan, the new nazim, was ousted by his army commander Alivardi Khan, with the help of the Jagat Seth banking family and a few powerful zamindars — Sarfaraz fell not merely because he was an inefficient administrator, but because he had alienated the house of Jagat Seth and lost the support of powerful officials.

Alivardi Khan and the Path to Plassey

• Alivardi Khan became the new nazim and later obtained imperial sanction for his government; it was his reign that marked a virtual break with the Mughals — major appointments were now made without reference to the emperor, and the regular flow of revenue to Delhi eventually stopped.
  • Although there was never any formal defiance of Mughal authority, an autonomous administration, free of imperial control, had effectively emerged in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa.
• Alivardi’s attitude towards the Europeans in Bengal was strict: during his wars with the Marathas, he permitted the Europeans to strengthen their fortifications, and allowed the British to build the Maratha Ditch in Calcutta, while also collecting large sums of money from them to fund his war.
  • The Maratha Ditch was a three-mile-long moat excavated by the British around Calcutta in 1742 as protection against possible Maratha attacks.
• Alivardi died in 1756, nominating his 23-year-old grandson Siraj-ud-daula as successor. His succession, however, was challenged by two other contenders — Shaukat Jung (Faujdar of Purnea) and Ghaseti Begum (Alivardi’s daughter) — resulting in intense court factionalism, as the overmighty zamindars and commercial elite felt threatened by an ambitious, assertive young nawab.
  • This destabilised Bengal’s administration, an opportunity the English East India Company seized to gain a foothold in Bengal politics through what is popularly known as the Plassey conspiracy of 1757, which ended Siraj-ud-daula’s rule.

The Conflict Between the English and the Nawabs of Bengal: Siraj and the English

• It all began in Bengal, which by the early 18th century had become central to the Company’s trade structure, overtaking the west coast — particularly Bombay, Surat, and Malabar — as Bengal goods came to comprise nearly 60 per cent of English imports from Asia.
• In 1690, Aurangzeb’s farman had granted the Company the right to duty-free trade in Bengal in return for an annual payment of Rs 3,000.
  • The foundation of Calcutta in 1690 and its fortification in 1696 were followed, two years later, by the grant of zamindari rights in three villages — Kolikata, Suranuri, and Gobindapur.
  • The situation became unstable again after Aurangzeb’s death, but was formalised anew by a farman from Emperor Farrukhsiyar in 1717, which granted the Company the right:
    • to carry on duty-free trade;
    • to rent thirty-eight villages around Calcutta; and
    • to use the royal mint.
• This farman, however, became a fresh source of conflict between the Company and Murshid Quli Khan, Bengal’s new autonomous ruler, who refused to extend its duty-free provision to cover the private trade of Company officials.
  • Company officials, in response, took to rampant misuse of dastaks (trade permits), and the nawab resented the resulting loss of revenue.
  • Murshid Quli also denied the Company permission to buy the thirty-eight villages and refused it minting privileges.
  • Thus, conflict between the Bengal nawab and the English Company had been developing steadily since 1717.
• The outbreak of the Austrian Succession War in Europe in 1740 brought hostilities between the English and French companies to India; in Bengal, however, the new nawab Alivardi Khan kept both under control and forbade them from open hostilities.
  • French victories in south India made the English apprehensive in Bengal, as they had little trust in the nawab’s ability to protect them from a French onslaught; moreover, English private trade suffered heavily in the 1750s owing to French competition in collusion with Asian merchants.
  • In 1755, the English therefore began renovating Calcutta’s fortifications without the nawab’s permission, and, in defiance of his authority, began offering protection to fugitives from his court.
• The conflict took on critical dimensions when Siraj-ud-daula became nawab in 1756 and threatened lucrative English private trade by stopping the misuse of dastaks altogether.
  • Siraj’s personality was said to combine a ferocious temper with a feeble understanding; he was particularly suspicious of the large profits made by European companies in India.
  • The British, for their part, wanted to occupy the rich and prosperous region of Bengal by subjugating the power of both the Nawab and the rival European powers.
  • The more immediate flashpoints were the grant of asylum to Krishna Ballabh (charged with fraud by the nawab) and the new fortifications at Calcutta — both directly challenging the nawab’s authority and central to the question of sovereignty.
• Fort William had been established to protect the East India Company’s trade at Calcutta, the principal town of the Bengal Presidency; with the prospect of conflict with French forces, the British had begun strengthening the fort’s defences.
  • Siraj-ud-daula, unhappy with the Company’s interference in his province’s internal affairs and perceiving a threat to its independence, ordered them to halt such activities undertaken without permission.
  • When the Company ignored these warnings, Siraj demonstrated his strength by seizing the factory at Kasimbazar. Governor Drake believed he could avenge this setback by force and ignored the nawab’s overtures for a diplomatic reconciliation.
  • This was followed by Siraj’s attack on Calcutta and its capture on 20 June (1756).
    • The garrison’s commander organised an escape, leaving behind 146 soldiers under the command of Holwell, a senior Company bureaucrat who had earlier served as a military surgeon.

The Black Hole of Calcutta

• The Black Hole of Calcutta was a small dungeon in the old Fort William where the Nawab’s troops held British prisoners of war after the fort’s capture on 20 June 1756.
  • Holwell, one of the prisoners, claimed that following the fort’s fall, British and Anglo-Indian soldiers and civilians were held overnight in conditions so cramped that 123 of the 146 held died of suffocation, heat exhaustion, and crushing — though the precise number of deaths, and the accuracy of Holwell’s claims, has remained the subject of controversy.
  • As a result of Holwell’s account, Robert Clive was sent in October to retaliate.
• Controversies surrounding the account:
  • Because so many non-combatants were present in the fort when it fell, the exact number who died cannot be stated with precision, and some historians have questioned Holwell’s reliability as a witness.
  • A floor area of 267 square feet could not plausibly have contained 146 European adults.
  • There is an absence of independent confirmation — no other source mentions the incident, which seems unlikely to have vanished entirely without a trace, given its scale.
  • Only forty-three men of the garrison were listed as missing from Fort William after the incident, suggesting the maximum possible death toll was forty-three — though this too is contested, since, by Holwell’s own account, not all prisoners would have been listed as garrison members.

Response of the British

• When news of Calcutta’s fall reached Madras on 16 August 1756, the Council immediately despatched an expeditionary force under Colonel Robert Clive and Admiral Watson.
  • The force dislodged the enemy from the fort of Budge Budge; Clive and Watson then moved against Calcutta on 2 January 1757, and its 500-strong garrison surrendered after only scanty resistance.
  • With Calcutta recaptured, the Council was reinstated, and a plan of action against the Nawab was prepared; Fort William’s fortifications were strengthened, and a defensive position was set up in the city’s north-east.

The Bengal Campaign

• On 9 January 1757, a force of 650 men under Captain Coote and Major Kilpatrick stormed and sacked the town of Hooghly, 37 km north of Calcutta.
  • On learning of this, the Nawab marched on Calcutta, encamping beyond the Maratha Ditch.
  • Despite British successes, the war left them cut off from trade and resupply, making it in the Nawab’s interest to prolong the conflict. Instead, he made the strategic mistake of trying to finish it quickly, bringing an army of 40,000 horses, 60,000 foot soldiers, and 50 elephants up to Calcutta to prepare an attack.
  • Clive launched a pre-emptive attack, a decision that proved decisive: the Nawab’s army broke up and many fled. The British lost 57 men, the Nawab 1,300.
• Faced with this surprising defeat, Siraj now preferred a negotiated settlement, and on 9 February, the Treaty of Alinagar was signed.

Treaty of Alinagar (9 February 1757)

• The attack scared the Nawab into concluding the Treaty of Alinagar with the Company — named after the short-lived title “Alinagar” that Siraj had given Calcutta after its capture.
  • Signed between Robert Clive and Siraj-ud-daula, its key terms were:
    • the Nawab agreed to restore the Company’s factories;
    • the Nawab recognised all 1717 provisions of Emperor Farrukhsiyar’s farman;
    • all British goods passing through Bengal were exempted from duties; and
    • the British would face no hindrance in fortifying Calcutta or minting coins there.
  • The Nawab withdrew his army back to Murshidabad. The signing of this treaty was one of the events leading up to the Battle of Plassey.
• The peace, however, did not last. Clive had not come to Bengal merely to retake Calcutta — even before sailing for Bengal, he had written that “this expedition will not end with the retaking of Calcutta only… the Company’s estate in these parts will be settled in a better and more lasting condition than ever.”
  • Now concerned by the approach of Bussy towards Bengal and the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in Europe, the Company turned its attention to the French threat in Bengal. English fears over Siraj’s friendship with the French, and apprehensions about their trading privileges, led to the destruction of Hughli and a French defeat at Chandernagore.
  • The Nawab, infuriated by the attack on Chandernagar, saw his former hatred of the British return, and now felt the need to strengthen himself through alliances against them. Though apprehensive of an Afghan attack under Abdali, and preferring a negotiated settlement, a confident Clive instead decided on a coup d’état.

Conspiracy for the Coup d’État

• The confident servants of the Company at Calcutta were unwilling to tolerate a young, tyrannical nawab threatening their trading privileges and the source of their fortunes.
  • There was already a disaffected faction at the nawab’s court — merchants, bankers, financiers, and powerful zamindars, including the Jagat Seth brothers (Mahtab Rai and Swarup Chand), Raja Janki Ram, Rai Durlabh, Raja Ramnarain, and Raja Manik Chand — who felt threatened by the young nawab’s assertive attempts to reorder the balance of power at his court.
  • A natural community of interest also existed between the Indian mercantile community and the European traders, since many Indian merchants operated in collaboration with the English Company and private traders as dadani merchants, supplying textiles from the interior in exchange for advances (dadan).
    • Many Indian merchant princes had, in fact, come to prefer English ships for carrying their cargo, contributing to the gradual decline of the port of Hughli in favour of Calcutta.
• A collusion between these two groups was thus not unlikely, and what followed was a conspiracy to replace Siraj with Mir Jafar, his commander-in-chief and the choice of the Jagat Seths, without whose support the coup would have been virtually impossible.
  • Whether the conspiracy originated at the Murshidabad court and was merely exploited by the English, or was hatched by the English themselves, is a question historians continue to debate — what matters is that this collusion culminated in the Battle of Plassey (June 1757), in which Siraj was finally defeated by Clive.

The Battle of Plassey

• On 23 June 1757, the Battle of Plassey was fought between the forces of Siraj-ud-daula and the troops of the British East India Company under Robert Clive — in military terms, hardly more than a skirmish.
• The arrival of a strong force under Clive at Calcutta from Madras strengthened the English position in Bengal, and Clive forged a secret alliance with the nawab’s own men — Mir Jafar, Rai Durlabh, Jagat Seth (an influential Bengal banker), and Omichand — under which Mir Jafar was to be made nawab in return for rewarding the Company for its services.
  • This secret alliance ensured that the English victory at Plassey was effectively decided before the battle was even fought.
• The Nawab’s army numbered 50,000 infantry and 28,000 cavalry, against Clive’s mere 3,000 men, including English soldiers. Of the Nawab’s three divisions, the largest was commanded by Mir Jafar; from the outset, Mir Jafar, Rai Durlabh, and Yar Lutuf Khan assembled their troops near the battlefield but made no move to actually join the fighting.
  • Only two generals — Mohan Lal and Mir Madan — fought desperately for the Nawab. When Mir Madan fell dead on the field, the Nawab lost courage; for hours the battle’s course remained undecided, until Mir Jafar advised the Nawab to order Mohan Lal to halt the fighting and withdraw.
  • Siraj, who distrusted his generals and had already been warned of impending defeat by his astrologer (possibly bribed), lost his nerve at Mir Jafar’s advice and fled on a fast camel, his demoralised army following suit.
• Siraj-ud-daula fled the battlefield for his life but was later killed by Miran, the son of Mir Jafar.

Significance of Plassey

• The Battle of Plassey carried great political significance, marking the beginning of the English East India Company’s political supremacy in India — it laid the foundation of the British empire in India and has rightly been regarded as the starting point of British rule.
  • The battle established English military supremacy in Bengal; their chief rivals, the French, were ousted, and the Company obtained territorial grants to maintain a properly equipped military force, greatly enhancing its prestige.
  • Militarily, however, the battle itself was insignificant — a mere conflict in which no real military superiority was shown, the Nawab’s camp having been deserted in advance. The victory owed itself to Clive’s diplomacy rather than combat; some historians describe it as “a transaction in which the bankers of Bengal and Mir Jafar sold out the Nawab to the English.”
  • In 1759, the British defeated a larger French garrison at Masulipatam, securing the Northern Circars, and also defeated the Dutch. Thus, from mere commerce, the English came to exert exclusive control over the administration as well — Plassey proved to be a battle with far-reaching consequences for India’s fate.
• The new nawab Mir Jafar (1757–1760) became a puppet in the hands of the English, entirely dependent on them to maintain his position in Bengal and secure protection against foreign invasions.
  • Being an incompetent ruler, real power throughout his reign remained with the English, who maintained an army of 6,000 troops in Bengal to assist the Nawab.
  • English sovereignty over Calcutta was formally recognised, and the English posted a Resident at the nawab’s court.

The Plassey Plunder

• What followed came to be known as the “Plassey plunder.” The battle placed at the disposal of the English the vast resources of Bengal, and thereafter, the English virtually monopolised Bengal’s trade and commerce.
  • Immediately after the war, the English army and navy each received the hefty sum of £275,000 for distribution among their members.
  • Between 1757 and 1760, the Company received Rs 22.5 million from Mir Jafar; Clive himself received a personal jagir worth £34,567 in 1759.
• The battle brought a major change in the structure of the Company’s trade.
  • Prior to 1757, English trade in Bengal had been financed largely through the import of bullion from England; after Plassey, bullion imports ceased altogether, and bullion instead began to be exported from Bengal to China and other parts of India — giving the English Company a competitive advantage over its European rivals.
  • For Company officials, Plassey opened the gates to personal fortunes — not just through direct extortion, but also through the rampant abuse of dastaks for private trade.
• The Bengal plunder began arriving in London, with seemingly instantaneous effects — historians broadly agree that the Industrial Revolution began around 1770, following Plassey in 1757.
• The condition of the common people of Bengal gradually deteriorated owing to the Nawab’s weakness; lawlessness and the continuous economic exploitation by Company servants broke the backbone of a people who had once led prosperous lives.
  • The British built and trained an army of native Indian Sepoys, which went on to serve the ambitions of further colonisation; the Company also acquired buffer colonies — Singapore, Penang, Burma, Nepal, Malacca, and others — to protect its rich Indian possessions, its advance in Asia further aided by superior military technology, artillery, and naval power.
• The Battle of Plassey ushered in a new era in Indian history, marking a turning point not merely for Bengal but for the whole of India — it has rightly been remarked that Plassey marked the end of one epoch and the beginning of another, and it also proved crucial to the East India Company’s eventual triumph over its French rivals.

Mir Jafar (1757–1760)

• After Plassey, Mir Jafar became Nawab of Bengal in name only, entirely dependent on the British for his position and for protection against foreign invasions.
  • Being incompetent, he had to face a grave financial crisis, as Company servants extracted money from him in various ways, and he had also committed to paying Clive a substantial sum in gratitude; the Company additionally pressed him for instalment payments.
  • Growing restless under this financial pressure and the rising supremacy of the English, Mir Jafar conspired with the Dutch against the English in 1759.

Battle of Chinsura / Bedara (1759)

• Feeling that his subordinate position under the British could no longer be tolerated, Mir Jafar encouraged the Dutch to advance against them and eject them from Bengal.
  • In late 1759, the Dutch sent seven large ships and 1,400 men from Java to Bengal, ostensibly to reinforce their settlement at Chinsura, even though Britain and Holland were not officially at war.
  • Clive, however, launched an immediate offensive and defeated the much larger Dutch force on 25 November 1759 in the Battle of Chinsura.
• That same year, Ali Gohar, the eldest son of the Mughal Emperor, revolted against his father and, seeking shelter, besieged Patna in Bihar with the help of Shuja-ud-daula, Nawab of Awadh.
  • Unable to face Ali Gohar alone, Mir Jafar sought help from the English, who defeated the Mughal army on his behalf. In return, Clive was granted the right to collect revenue from South Calcutta, popularly known as Clive’s Jagir — an arrangement that cost Mir Jafar a further loss of Rs 30,000 per annum.
  • Note: When Clive returned to England owing to ill health, he was rewarded with an Irish peerage as Lord Clive, Baron of Plassey*, and also secured a seat in the British House of Commons.*
• After Clive’s departure, Company servants grew increasingly uncontrollable, individually and collectively enriching themselves by corrupt means. Mir Jafar, exhausted by continuous payments, saw his treasury run empty; unable to meet further English demands, he lost interest in governance, and the people of Bengal came to despise him for his inefficiency.
  • Under these circumstances, the English looked for an alternative successor — Mir Kasim, Mir Jafar’s son-in-law, who promised to pay the British more than Mir Jafar had.

Mir Kasim

• The English, annoyed by Mir Jafar’s treachery and failure to make due payments, turned to Mir Kasim. Meanwhile, following the death of Miran (Mir Jafar’s son), a fight broke out over the nawabship between Mir Kasim and Miran’s son.
  • Vansittart, the new Governor of Calcutta, agreed to support Mir Kasim’s claim after a treaty between Mir Kasim and the Company was signed in 1760, whose key features were:
    • Mir Kasim agreed to cede the districts of Burdwan, Midnapur, and Chittagong to the Company;
    • the Company would receive half the share in the chunam trade of Sylhet;
    • Mir Kasim agreed to pay off outstanding dues to the Company;
    • he promised Rs 5 lakh towards financing the Company’s war efforts in southern India;
    • Mir Kasim’s enemies would be treated as the Company’s enemies, and his friends as the Company’s friends; and
    • tenants of the nawab’s territory would not be permitted to settle on Company lands, and vice versa.
  • Under Company pressure, Mir Jafar resigned in favour of Mir Kasim, receiving a pension of Rs 1,500 per annum.
• Mir Kasim, the ablest nawab among Alivardi Khan’s successors, ruled from 1761 to 1763. More talented, vigorous, and ambitious than his father-in-law, he refused to accept the role of a mere puppet in British hands.

Steps Taken by Mir Kasim

• After assuming power, Mir Kasim shifted his capital from Murshidabad to Munger in Bihar, to gain a safe distance from the Company at Calcutta.
  • He reorganised the bureaucracy with men of his own choosing, and, to fortify his position against the English, reorganised his troops and set up factories for manufacturing arms.
  • He trained his army in the Western fashion and worked to realise state arrears to replenish his empty treasury.
  • Unable to stop the misuse of dastaks, he took the bold step of abolishing internal duties altogether, so that Indian merchants could enjoy the same privileges as the English.
    • The British protested strongly, insisting on preferential treatment over other traders.
• These measures gradually incurred the displeasure of the English, who disliked this assertion of independence and, as a retaliatory measure, once again replaced Mir Kasim with Mir Jafar.

The Battle of Buxar

Background of the Battle of Buxar

• The seeds of the Battle of Buxar were sown after Plassey, once Mir Kasim became Nawab of Bengal — the primary cause being conflict between the English and Mir Kasim, whom the Company had hoped would prove an ideal puppet, but who defied their expectations.
• Ram Narayan, the deputy governor of Bihar, refused repeated requests from the nawab to submit Bihar’s revenue accounts — an open defiance of authority that Mir Kasim could not tolerate. Ram Narayan, however, enjoyed the support of the English officials at Patna.
  • The resulting Nawab–Company tussle over transit duty led to the outbreak of war between the English and Mir Kasim in 1763. Successive English victories eventually compelled Kasim to flee to Allahabad, where he met Shuja-ud-daula.
• At Allahabad, Kasim sought to form a grand alliance with the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II and Shuja-ud-daula of Awadh.
  • The emperor had been in the region since 1758, having fled as crown prince from the turbulent politics of the Delhi court to carve out an independent kingdom in the eastern provinces.
  • In December 1759, on hearing of his father’s assassination, he proclaimed himself emperor and appointed Shuja as his wazir.
  • When Mir Kasim sought refuge with him, it was only after long and tortuous negotiations that the two agreed to proceed against the English — Shuja’s support was secured only after he was promised Bihar and its treasury, along with a payment of Rs 30 million upon the mission’s successful completion.

The Battle

• The Battle of Buxar was fought on 23 October 1764, at the battleground of Katkauli, six kilometres from Buxar (then within Bengal’s territory), between the forces of the British East India Company under Hector Munro and the combined army of Mir Kasim (Nawab of Bengal), Shuja-ud-daula (Nawab of Awadh), and the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II.
• The combined army was decisively routed by the British:
  • The eighteenth-century Indian army, with its segmentary social organisation, was at a serious disadvantage against a technically efficient English army operating under unitary command.
  • The lack of basic coordination among the three desperate allies proved decisive in their defeat.
• After the war, Mir Kasim fled to the north-west and died; Shah Alam II left Shuja-ud-daula and sought shelter in the British camp, while Shuja-ud-daula continued resisting the British until 1765, without success, and later fled to Rohilkhand.
  • Clive was in England when the battle was fought and won; he returned to India in 1765.

Treaty of Allahabad (1765)

• The key outcome of the Battle of Buxar was the Treaty of Allahabad, comprising two separate treaties signed at Allahabad.
• First treaty — between the East India Company (Lord Clive) and Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II, who had submitted to the British in battle:
  • The Mughal Emperor granted Diwani (fiscal rights) — the right to administer territory and collect taxes — to the East India Company over Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, allowing the Company to collect revenue directly from the people of these provinces; Nizamat rights (police and judicial authority) remained with the Nawab of Bengal.
  • In return, the Company paid the Mughals an annual tribute of Rs 26 lakh.
  • The districts of Kora and Allahabad were restored to the Mughal Emperor.
• Second treaty — between the East India Company (Lord Clive) and Shuja-ud-daula, Nawab of Awadh:
  • Awadh was restored to Shuja-ud-daula, but Allahabad and Kora were taken from him.
  • The Nawab of Awadh paid Rs 53 lakh as war indemnity to the British.
  • The zamindari of the Banaras region was granted to Balwant Rai.
  • An English Resident was to be stationed at Lucknow, with the Nawab bearing all expenses of this appointment.
  • The Company was granted duty-free trading rights in Awadh — a clause that later created fresh tensions and prepared the ground for Awadh’s eventual annexation.
  • The Nawab additionally entered into an offensive and defensive treaty with the Company, committing to render military help when needed, while the Company agreed to assist him with troops for defending his frontier, in return for payment towards their maintenance.
• The British Resident posted at the court of Murshidabad gradually, by 1772, became the locus of real administrative power in the province — making Bengal the site where the Company’s policy of indirect rule was first initiated.
  • Through this settlement, Clive, in person, effectively settled the fate of almost half of Northern India.
  • Clive chose not to annex Awadh, since doing so would have obligated the Company to defend an extensive land frontier against Afghan and Maratha incursions; the treaty instead made the Nawab a firm friend of the Company and turned Awadh into a buffer state.
  • Similarly, Clive’s arrangement with Shah Alam II was driven by practical considerations — it turned the emperor into a useful “rubber stamp” for the Company, while his farman legalised the Company’s political gains in Bengal.

Significance of the Battle of Buxar

• The battle’s importance lay in the fact that not only the Nawab of Bengal but also the Mughal Emperor of India was defeated by the English — the victory made the English a major power in northern India and a contender for supremacy over the whole country.
  • The Company treated the defeated Mughal emperor with respect, owing to his continuing symbolic significance in eighteenth-century Indian politics — indeed, the British did not formally repudiate the Mughal emperor’s sovereignty until 1857.
• The seeds of British imperialism sown at Plassey flowered after Buxar, making the latter battle historically more significant — it finally consolidated British rule in Bengal, reduced the Nawab to a mere figurehead, allowed the Company to begin an unchecked plundering of Bengal’s wealth, turned the Nawab of Awadh into a submissive ally, and reduced the Mughal emperor to living on a Company allowance.
• Buxar proved decisive in establishing British sovereignty in Bengal, exposing the political weaknesses and military shortcomings of Indian powers and the hollowness of the Mughal Empire; it demonstrated English military superiority and the inherent weakness of native forces.
  • It is considered more significant than Plassey, since Plassey was won through deceit rather than military might; while Plassey defeated the Nawab of Bengal, Buxar defeated the Mughal Emperor and the powerful state of Awadh as well.
• The Treaty of Allahabad heralded, in a single stroke, the establishment of East India Company rule over one-eighth of India.
  • While Plassey secured a foothold for the Company in India, Buxar made it the dominant force in the country — Buxar effectively completed the work begun at Plassey.
• Following Buxar, the East India Company gained dominance over the whole of Bengal; the Mughal emperor came fully under British control, and all duties and revenues from Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa — the most prosperous Indian provinces — flowed to the Company, which also gained administrative control over the army, finances, and revenues.
  • With the wealth of Bengal, the British were able to conquer other regions of India, establishing their supremacy over eastern India; Buxar finally riveted the shackles of Company rule upon Bengal, and the verdict of Plassey was thus confirmed by the English victory at Buxar.