Remembering the Battle of Plassey

8/3/2019 Remembering the Battle of Plassey

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Remembering the Battle of Plassey

By Indranil Banerjie

While the nation celebrates the 150th

anniversary of a failed uprising, another equally historical

event that deserves to be commemorated is largely forgotten. Two hundred and fifty years ago, on

23 June 1757, a small army led by Englishman Robert Clive convincingly routed a much larger

army commanded by the last independent Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey. The defeatedNawab, Mirza Mohammad Siraj ud-daulah, was subsequently murdered and India laid open to

colonial conquest. The day merits recollection because it marks the 250th

anniversary of the

beginning of colonial rule in India.

Illustration 1: The Last Nawab: Mirza Mohammad Siraj ud-daulah

The Battle of Plassey was considered a marvellous event by the English, for whom it marked a

glorious victory of a small but well trained English force over a vast oriental army. Back in

England, Robert Clive was hailed as one of the greatest English generals of all times havingdefeated the powerful and immensely rich Indian nobleman, Sir Roger Dowler (Siraj ud-daulah). To

Indians, however, it was an unfortunate episode. All the principal actors passed into folklore and the


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day was lamented as the beginning of a period of colonial servitude.

Photo: Marking the Battlefield, Plassey

India does not seem to be terribly keen on recalling the encounter at Plassey. Today, the spot of the

battle is marked by a solitary obelisk like column and plaque which simply reads: Battlefield of

Plassey, 23rd

June 1757. The mango groves where Clive hid his army remains but has been taken

over by an official bungalow. In the paddy fields near the river Hooghly where Siraj ud-daulah's

troops had held positions, a forlorn memorial badly in need of repairs commemorates the three men

who had put up something of a fight that historic day. Their names - Bakshi Mir Madan, chief of

artillery, Bahadur Ali Khan, commander of the musketeers, and Nauwe Singh Hazari, captain of the

artillery are carved on a crude marble slab put up by a local district council a few decades ago.

These three men are remembered because they led an abortive charge against Clive's troops,

expecting support from their General and his cavalrymen. But Mir Jafar remained standing whilethe English gunners mowed down the three commanders and their men. The charge having failed,

Mir Jafar and a few other generals, who had earlier been bribed by Clive, melted away. Siraj ud-

daulah left without protection fled to his capital on camel-back. It was not the military supremacy of

the English soldiers that won the battle but treachery.

Today, the details of the battle itself are inconsequential, what is edifying are the lessons.

One enduring question about the politics that led to the battle is why Indians conspired against their

own country and helped pave the way for British rule over India? Why did people like Mir Jafar and

Jagat Seth, all so reviled in our times, so easily betray their Nawab? The answer lies in the way the

Moghul system worked. Mercenaries from Turkey, Arabia, Persia and Central Asia came to India tooffer their services to the emperor. Those who did well were rewarded and promoted to mansabdars

(rank holders) and some to subadars (governors of provinces). It is estimated that more than half the


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mansabdars in Aurangzeb's time were foreigners. As the empire declined after the death of

Aurangzeb, adventurers, soldiers and officials fought each other for control over the provinces and

principalities. The decadent durbar in Delhi favoured the winners or those who could offer the

highest bribes. The line between rulers and adventurers, always thin under the Mughals, blurred

during the twilight of the empire. Alivardi, the Nawab who placed his nephew Siraj ud-daulah to

Bengal's throne, was himself a usurper. He had snatched control of the Bengal subah by killing the

previous nawab. Alivardi's family was of Arabian descent and his grandfather had entered Moghulservice as a humble cup bearer. Everything about rulers like Siraj ud-daulah was alien: their

language, attire, cuisine and lifestyle. The local Bengalis had nothing whatsoever in common with

their rulers and therefore perhaps practically no loyalty.

Robert Clive thus was seen as just another conqueror, as foreign as the Muslim Nawabs that ruled

Bengal. Clive had, in fact, been accepted into the Moghul hierarchy ever since the Nawab of Arcot

conferred upon him the title Nawab Sabut Jang Bahadur (meaning the Nawab who is firm in

battle!). Thus, Clive was just another Nawab as far as the average person in Bengal in 1757 was

concerned. After the battle of Plassey, the Moghul powers in Delhi assumed that Clive would take

over as ruler of Bengal and conferred upon him the title of Zubdat ul-Mulk (meaning best of the

kingdom) . He was offered the diwani of Bengal in 1959 and by the time he left Bengal in 1760, hewas a full mansabdar (ranking Moghul nobleman) with the rank of 6,000 zat (foot soldiers) and

5,000 sawar (cavalrymen). British records of those times, show Clive's full title and name as Maj-

Gen. Zubdat ul-Mulk, Nasir ud-Daula, The Rt Hon Robert (Clive), 1st Baron Clive of Plassey,

Sabat Jang Bahadur, KB. What the Moghuls and their governor did not realise is that Clive, for all

his greed, was only emblematic. The power behind him was that of the East India Company, and

behind that, of the British crown. Clive did not conquer to establish a dynasty; he fought for

company and country.

Company rule ushered in a long period of tribulations. Prior to the advent of the British, Bengal was

a rich province. Robert Orme (1728-1801), the famous writer and official historiographer of the

East India Company, had this to say of Bengal: Of the provinces which had been subject to the

house of Tamerlane, the wealthiest was Bengal. No part of India possessed such natural advantages

both for agriculture and for commerce. The Ganges, rushing through a hundred channels to the sea,

has formed a vast plain of rich mould which, even under the tropical sky, rivals the verdure of an

English April. The rice-fields yield an increase such as is elsewhere unknown. Spices, sugar,

vegetable oils, are produced with marvellous exuberance. The rivers afford an inexhaustible supply

of fish. The desolate islands along the sea-coast, overgrown by noxious vegetation, and swarming

with deer and tigers, supply the cultivated districts with abundance of salt. The great stream which

fertilises the soil is, at the same time, the chief highway of Eastern commerce. On its banks, and on

those of its tributary waters, are the wealthiest marts, the most splendid capitals, and the most

sacred shrines of India. The tyranny of man had for ages struggled in vain against the overflowingbounty of nature. In spite of the Mussulman despot and of the Mahratta freebooter, Bengal was

known through the East as the garden of Eden, as the rich kingdom.

By the time the British left, Bengal had become one of the world's poorest places, haunted by

famines, landlessness and a vast dispossessed peasantry. One immediate effect of Company rule

was the devastating Bengal famine of 1770 where the number of deaths were estimated at 10

million, about a third of the population. British historians subsequently have strenuously tried to

argue that this catastrophe was not caused by the English but the fact remains that the

impoverishment of the Bengal peasantry was a direct result of the exorbitant increases in land taxes

imposed by the rapacious English, from 10 per cent to 50 per cent of the value of the agricultural

produce. In the first years of the rule of the British East India Company, the total land tax incomewas doubled and most of this revenue flowed out of the country. Even as the famine approached its

height, in April of 1770, the Company announced that land tax for the following year was to be


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increased by 10 per cent. Matters were made worse by the fact that farmers were often forced to

grow indigo instead of their staple, rice. Even after the famine, Company policies did not change

and resistance was beaten down by soldiers. The Company's profits soared while eastern India went

into terminal decline. That was the legacy of Plassey.

A tiny section of the population did, however, prosper under the British. These were a section of

caste Hindus, who were trained and employed as government clerks and minions. Largely denied anopportunity to be part of the ruling establishment by the Muslims, the Bengali caste Hindu

welcomed the British with open arms. They became their biggest collaborators and were rewarded

with jobs, positions of influence, money and, at times, zamindaris. As the British empire in India

grew, it required more and more servants and professionals. The Bengalis poured into the

administration in droves. Plassey was forgotten as the Muslim aristocracy in Bengal declined and

Bengali Hindus took their place in the order of things. The British built not just an empire but a new

bureaucracy, executive and judicial systems. Murshidabad, the capital of Bengal, went into the

shadows, while Calcutta, the Englishman's capital, grew into the jewel of the new empire.

Nevertheless, the distasteful memories of the Battle of Plassey persisted, reminding Indians, even

the ones who prospered during the Raj, of something precious betrayed and lost.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Battle of Plassey is its epilogue. History treated its three

main protagonists Siraj ud Duala, Mir Jafar and Robert Clive in very different ways. Plassey

was clearly the end of everything for Bengal's last Nawab. The traitor Mir Jafar's son, Minar, went

in pursuit of the fleeing Nawab, who was sailing up the Hooghly in disguise. A boatman is said to

have pointed him out and Minar's soldiers killed the Nawab. The young Nawab's body was taken to

his capital and paraded on an elephant. All his brothers too were systematically murdered.

Mercifully he had no children and Mir Jafar was content that his Nawab's line had been

extinguished. Siraj ud-daulah's faithful wife is believed to have maintained his grave but after her

death, that too faded into oblivion. No trace remains of Siraj's palace either. Locals say that the

shifting river long swallowed it, leaving no artefacts or written records.

Photo: Hazar Duari Palace, Murshidabad

Mir Jafar ruled as Nawab till his death and the British built him a reward for his treachery: a palace

with a thousand doors (Hazaar Duari), which survives to this day. His family prospered under the

British, who gave them title and land in Calcutta. After independence, Mir Jafar's best knowndescendant, Iskandar Mirza went on to become the first president of Pakistan. Ironically, it was

Mirza who ushered in military dictatorship in Pakistan. He himself was exiled and died in London


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in 1969. After his death, the Pakistani authorities refused to allow his body to be buried anywhere in

Pakistan. He was ultimately buried in Iran, the country from where the mercenary Mir Jafar had

come to India looking for employment, lucre and power. He had got it all, including eternal infamy

in the land of his choosing.

Photo: Mir Jafar's Crumbling House, Murshidabad

Clive, lauded as the great victor of Plassey and the de facto architect of British rule in India,

eventually settled in England a very wealthy man, the result of a lifetime of looting in India. But he

did not end up enjoying his riches. India might have given him fame and money but it also gave

himself a dreadful addiction, that of opium. The last part of his life was steeped in melancholy. He

eventually committed suicide at the age of just forty nine. As for British rule, it lasted for 190 long

years. Plassey deserves to be remembered not as a military disaster but as a saga of political deceitand the unbridled pursuit of power. India was lost not through war but through political chicanery.

This is a lesson that needs to be remembered even 250 years after Plassey.

Indranil Banerjie

Greater Noida, India.

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: 09350105044
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Remembering the Battle of Plassey

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