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 defeated Nawab, 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 having defeated 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

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 while the 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 uddaulah 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 to offer 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

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 Moghul service 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, he was 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 MajGen. 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 overflowing bounty 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 income was 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

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 an opportunity 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 known descendant, 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

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 deceit and 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: indranil.banerjie@gmail.com Mobile: 09350105044