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The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v2.c50: Chapter XXVI. The End of Muslim Rule

The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v2.c50

Language
English

Contents

Chapter XXVI. The End of Muslim Rule

I. Recovery of the English

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Conqueror of Calcutta in June and of Purnia in October, 1756, Siraj-ud-daulah now reached the zenith of his fortune, as the Patna historian Sayyid Ghulām Husain observes (Siyar. 224.) He was still further gratified by the arrival of a farmān from the Delhi Emperor confirming him in the subahdāri of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, in return for a heavy tribute. He continued to expect that the English merchants would humbly petition for being restored to their peaceful business, as they had done so often before, after their ruptures with the Mughal Government under Shāista Khan and Murshid Quli Khan. But his dream was rudely disturbed when at the beginning of December he received news of English reinforcements coming to their refugees at Faltā for the recovery of Calcutta.

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During this interval, the supreme English Council in Madras had decided to postpone military operations in Bengal till after the unhealthy monsoon months. And now strong forces, military and naval, the British king's and the E. I. Company's, led by Col. Clive and Admiral Watson, began to assemble at Faltā on the 15th of December. On the 27th of that month the expedition started from Faltā, and two days later sailed past Budge Budge and anchored between Makwā Thānah and Aligarh (a new mud fort some three miles east of Budge Budge and on the same left bank of the Ganges.) There was a skirmish at noon (29th) between the land forces under Clive and the Nawab's troops coming down from Calcutta under Mānik Chand to reinforce the garrison of Budge Budge. A surprise attack inflicted some loss on the English, but Mānik Chand fled away, when a shot whizzed by his turban. Budge Budge fort was bombarded from the ships. In the night following, the enemy had already begun evacuating Budge Budge, when near midnight a drunken English sailor named Strahan "alone stormed the fort" by climbing the breach and attacking the guards, after which he was joined by his naval comrades. These initial victories damped the morale of the Nawab's troops. "What had most terrified the natives, was the firing of the heavy guns on the big ships. Nothing so dreadful had ever been known in Bengal, and the most extraordinary ideas were entertained of what the ships could do” . . . “The courage of the Admiral’s sailors is almost incredible. Three or four with their cutlasses will attack fifty or more of the enemy, who are struck with such a panick at the sight of them . . . the sailors being determined neither to give nor to receive any quarter.” (Hill, Vol, I. cxxxvii and cxli). Budge Budge fortifications were dismantled the next day, and as the British advanced, they found the forts of Makwā Thānah and Aligarh (opposite each other) deserted. A land force under Clive marched up the left bank of the river and reached Calcutta on the 2nd of January 1757. But that city had been already taken possession of by a party from the ship of Admiral Watson who had arrived before Fort William about half past ten in the forenoon. The British loss was only nine men.

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A manifesto was issued by Clive and Watson, declaring war on the Nawāb and giving the reasons for it, (3rd January.) A week later Clive formed a fortified camp near Barnagore, and on the 10th stormed the Mughal thānah of Hugli, the soldiers and sailors sacking that town and plundering and burning the villages around.

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The Nawāb, roused by the news of the fall of Budge Budge, reached Hugli on 19th January, and the English fell back on Calcutta to their Barnagore camp. On 3rd February, Sirāj-ud-daulah arrived outside Calcutta and encamped in the northern suburb, he himself in Amir Chand’s garden¹. Under him were 40,000 horse and 60,000 foot with 30 guns. The British army numbered 711 European infantry and 100 artillerymen, with 1,300 sepoys and 14 guns. Negotiations for peace were started but half heartedly.

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¹ Situated on the eastern bank of the Maratha Ditch, just outside Calcutta, and bounded on the north and south by the eastward prolongations of the old Shova Bazar and Shambazar streets respectively.

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On 5th February Clive delivered a surprise raid on the Nawāb’s camp early in the morning. The attacking force was composed of 500 British rank and file, 600 sailors, 60 artillerymen and 800 sepoy infantry with six guns. From the Barnagore camp, it started about 3 a.m., and moving nearly parallel to the Maratha Ditch entered the Nawab’s camp, south of the village of Chitpur at daybreak. But a dense fog covered the damp rice fields, Clive’s guide lost the way, “and the battle was fought in great confusion. The British after repulsing one or two bold attacks of the Persian cavalry, forced their way through the enemy’s camp, . . . until they came opposite to the Nawab’s tents in Amir Chand’s garden. The Nawab . . . escaped with great difficulty. About 9 a. m., the fog began to lift, and the British were exposed to a cannonade from the Maratha Ditch.” This inflicted heavy loss on the British and threw their whole force into confusion. But Clive crossed the “causeway” or elevated embanked road running eastwards over the fields from the end of the modern Bechu Chatterji’s Street, and pushing on further south gained the road issuing eastwards from the Sealdah end of Bowbazar Street. Thus, fighting all the way, he returned to the old Fort William about noon.

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In this action the British lost 57 men killed and 137 wounded, besides abandoning two guns; the Nawab’s side suffered 1300 casualties. But though “this skirmish was much more bloody than the decisive battle of Plassey,” it was not fruitless. The Nawāb felt fully insecure in the neighbourhood of the English, retired to the salt Lakes (modern Dhākurīā) and renewed peace parleys in earnest. Only four days later, a treaty¹ was signed, by which the E. I. Company’s trade rights and factories were restored, and restitution and money compensation promised by the Nawāb for the losses of the Company and its servants and tenants, and the English were allowed to fortify Calcutta and to coin sicca rupees.

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¹ For details see Hill, vol. I. cxlviii, where additional money indemnities and presents are mentioned, but no mention of the Black Hole victims.

II. Capture of Chandernagore

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Having thus neutralised the Nawāb, Clive in the development of his far-sighted policy, promptly turned to crushing the French power in Bengal, so as to leave no European rival capable of assisting the Nawāb in future. Sirāj-ud-daulah had neither the wisdom nor the courage of Alivardi in sternly forbidding any war between the foreign traders in his own dominion. He oscillated between his suspicion of the French who had reduced the Nizām to a puppet, and his fear of the English who might attack him if he openly stood by the French. Like other weak men, he gave the evasive reply, “Your friends and enemies will be my friends and enemies”, when Clive asked for his permission to attack French Chandernagore. When the French governor appealed to the Nawab for protection against the impending invasion of their settlement by the English, he made no response.

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The English lost no time. Their land and sea forces moved up against Chandernagore. On 12th March, Clive encamped two miles from that town, and on 14th attacked and drove in their outposts.

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Chandernagore was really in no defensible condition, though its Director (chief) Mons. Renault had done all that was in his power, in his utter want of money, men, and trained officers. His garrison was hopelessly inadequate against a European enemy. He had only 247 soldiers (including 45 French pensioners and sick), 120 sailors, 70 half-castes and private Europeans, 100 civilians, 167 sepoys, and 100 topasses or half-caste gunners,—forming a total of 794 fighting men of all classes.

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The fort within Chandernagore, named Fort d' Orleans, was a square, 600 feet on each side, built of bricks, flanked with four bastions of 16 guns, without outworks, ramparts or glacis. A part of the south curtain and the entire north curtain, consisted of a wall of earth and brick, a foot and a half thick and 18 feet high. Warehouses lined the east curtain which faced the Ganges. All this side had no ditch, and the ditch that surrounded the other three sides was dry and only four feet deep. The fortifications of the Fort were only 15 feet high, while the houses which commanded it from the edge of the counterscarp within musket range, had a height of 30 feet.

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Inadequate as the fortifications were, the difficulties of the defenders were increased by their "unwise wish to defend the town, which led to a great waste of time in erecting outposts and barriers in the principal streets at some distance from the Fort. The Fort itself was commanded by a number of houses, from which the British musketeers could command the men working the batteries in the Fort." Vessels had been sunk in a narrow part of the Ganges, below the eastern face of the Fort, in the hope of preventing the English ships from coming up alongside; but this work had not been completed, and in the actual attack the English admiral overcame this obstacle, by sending up small vessels and carefully piloting them.

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Hostilities began on the 14th of March, when Clive drove in the outposts (at night), and then waited for the coming of his ships. In the evening of the 17th, Sub-Lieutenant Cossart de Terraneau, who commanded the French artillery, deserted to the English, and the information which he supplied enabled them to direct their bombardment with the greatest destructiveness to the vital points of the defence works. "He was the only French artillery officer, and so his desertion was a serious loss to his countrymen." But the French from within fought on regardless of the odds.

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Early in the morning of the 23rd Clive stormed the French battery which commanded the river passage, and three British ships of light burden passed the sunken ships without any difficulty. For two hours or more there ensued a terrible cannonade between the ships with their 100 guns and the hopelessly outclassed and outnumbered French batteries. Two of the English ships were severely damaged, "but the walls of Fort d' Orleans were in ruins, the gunners almost all killed, and the men were being shot down by Clive's musketeers from the roofs of the neighbouring houses . . . In this single day's fighting the French lost two Captains and 200 men in killed and wounded. About half-past nine Renault hoisted the white flag." Articles were signed by which the French lost their military power and even independence in Bengal, and the English were left without a rival in the province. The victors had lost fully as many men as the French,¹—almost entirely on the ships.

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¹ An official return showed that out of an original strength of 552 Frenchmen, the fall of Chandernagore found 212 Europeans killed wounded and sick in hospital (that is over 40 per cent.), 125 released on parole, and 215 made prisoners. (Hill, vol. III. 420.)

III. Mir Ja‘far's Conspiracy

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From the fall of Chandernagore to the battle of Plassey lay a period of exactly three months, during which a relentless Fate seemed to be dragging a blind Sirāj-ud-daulah on to destruction. Clive's capture of Chandernagore "deprived the Nawab of his natural (and only capable) allies against the English; and nothing can extenuate his folly in allowing their destruction . . . He changed his mind again (and again), and in the end did nothing. No conduct could have been feebler or more unwise. He gave open display to his hostile feelings against the English, while allowing them unmolested to destroy the French . . . He proceeded to write to Bussy to come to his help from the Deccan." (Dodwell.)

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The Nawab's mind was further confused by the alarming news coming from Delhi, where the imperial city had been entered by the agents of Ahmad Shah Abdāli the Afghan invader, in whose name the khutba had been read there on 21st January 1757. A month later Ahmad Shah had left Delhi and gone south to Agrā and Mathurā slaying and plundering. There was reason to fear that he would push eastwards to Oudh and Bengal. And therefore Sirāj-ud-daulah courted the good will of the English as the only power strong enough to oppose an Afghan invasion. But Abdāli retired from Delhi on 3rd April, this danger passed away, and Sirāj now began to protect Mons. Jean Law and the French fugitives from Chandernagore at Qāsimbāzār,. This policy alarmed the English, who now decided to overthrow Sirāj-ud-daulah and set up a friendly Nawāb on the throne, so that they would be sure of their defence if a strong French force from the Deccan under a general of Bussy's capacity invaded Bengal to restore the French power. "It was becoming apparent (at Calcutta) that many persons besides the English had cause to fear Sirāj-ud-daulah and desired a revolution in the government. The chief people in this movement were Hindus . . . Sirāj alienated all the principal men of the darbar. The great Hindu bankers, the (Jagat) Seths . . . had been threatened with circumcision," and Rāi Durlabh the former diwān and Mir Ja'far the former bakhshi had been deprived of their offices and humiliated. The Seths took the leading part in organising this plot for purifying the administration, as after the fall of Shaukat Jang the English were found to be the only power that could deliver the country from this insane and cowardly tyrant. Towards the end of April, the Calcutta Council began to get promises of co-operation from important personages, especially Mir Ja'far, and on 1st May the Council agreed to a secret treaty with Ja'far, promising to place him on the throne on the following conditions: "an alliance, offensive and defensive; the surrender of all French fugitives and factories; restitution of all English losses, public and private, caused by the capture of Calcutta; the admission of all farmān rights; liberty to fortify Qāsimbāzār and Dacca (factories); no fortifications to be erected (by the Nawāb) below Hugli; the recognition of English sovereignty within the bounds of Calcutta; the grant of territories for the maintenance of a proper military force; extraordinary expenses while the troops were on campaign for the Nawāb to be paid by him; and the residence at the Nawāb's darbār of one of the Company's servants."1

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This conspiracy was conducted and completed in Murshidabad by William Watts, the chief of the English factory in Qāsimbāzār, with remarkable diplomatic skill, secrecy and courage. On 5th June he visited Mir Ja'far in secret and obtained his oath to the treaty. It was his good fortune that the secret of it was kept from the Nawāb's loyal courtiers and from M. Jean Law, who jealously watched the English from the French factory and had ready access to the Nawab’s ear. On 11th June the treaty was delivered to the Select Committee at Calcutta, and as arranged, on the 12th Watts and his companions fled from Murshidabad. (Dodwell.)

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¹ In short, this treaty turned the subahdār of Bengal Bihar and Orissa into a mediatised Indian ruler, subject to British control, exactly of the type created by the subsidiary alliance system ascribed to Wellesley, with two differences, (a) no land was politically ceded for the maintenance of a subsidiary contingent, and (b) no ban was explicitly placed on the employment of European servants by the Nawab. But no reference was made to the Emperor of Delhi for the confirmation of the "English Nawāb."

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On 13th June Clive began his march on the Nawab’s capital, with an army of 3,000 men; of whom only 800 were Europeans, and the rest sepoys and half-caste gunners.¹ Leaving his camp in the French Gardens outside Chandernagore (now in British occupation), he awed the Nawab’s faujdār of Hugli into inaction, and sent a letter of complaint to the Nawab, in which he maintained silence about his intention to fight. His sepoys marched by land, and white troops and Eurasians by boat. On the 17th the army reached Patli.

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¹ 650 European infantry, 100 half-caste gunners (topasses), 150 artillerymen including 50 sailors, and 2100 sepoys, with a 8 pieces of cannon (six pounders.)

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On the 19th a detachment sent by him under Major Eyre Coote took Kātwā fort, which the enemy deserted at his approach. This place commanded the highroad to Murshidabad and it also contained a very large quantity of grain. The rest of the English army arrived at Kātwā late that night and halted for two days.

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Clive was filled with anxiety as he gazed at an uncertain future. “Up to this time he had received nothing but bare promises from Mir Ja‘far, . . . and he hesitated to risk the fortunes of the Company on the bare word of a man who was a traitor to his own sovereign.” So, he at first thought of holding his present position at Kātwā (instead of crossing the Ganges and advancing on Murshidabad), till the end of the rainy season. A council of war held by him on 21st June decided by a majority in favour of halting there instead of advancing and seeking battle. But an hour after this council, Clive changed his mind and decided to advance next day without caring whether he received any assurance of junction from Mir Ja‘far or not. On the 22nd the English army set out from Kātwā, crossed the Ganges and after a long toilsome march in rain and heat, reached Plassey about midnight. Here they made contact with the enemy.

IV. Plassey, the Ground and the Rival Hosts

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Clive’s camp was a mango-grove called the Lakshabāgh (or the Park of a hundred thousand trees), 800 yards by 300, with the trees planted in regular rows, and surrounded on four sides by an earthen embankment, which served as a good breast-work; while the thick branches gave protection from the enemy's shots overhead. The north-western corner of the grove was only 150 yards from the Ganges, which thus guarded its left flank, while the village of Plassey, 1,100 yards behind protected the rear. About 200 yards north of the grove, on the bank of the river stood the Nawab's hunting-lodge (known as "Plassey House"), a brick building surrounded by a masonry wall which Clive immediately occupied and the roof of which served as a good observation post. Four hundred yards north of the hunting-lodge and again close to the river bank stood a large tank, and 100 yards north of it a smaller tank, surrounded by high earthen banks, as usual in Bengal. Here were posted about 45 French helpers of the Nawab, under Monsieur de Sinfray with four light field-pieces, served by his men with remarkable accuracy. Still further northwards, some 500 yards beyond this French party and 400 yards east of the river stood a large dry mound, covered with jungle, which was held by the Nawab's own men and guarded the main entrance to his camp. A redoubt in the southern line of his entrenchments, a little west of this mound, formed the defence of the main entrance on its western side. From this point the trenches ran in a long line curving north-eastwards, with many openings to allow the troops to issue for battle from their respective quarters. The site of the Nawab's camp is called Māngor-pārā in a Dutch letter from Qasimbazar.

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Between the shelter of the French tank and this big dry mound, was massed the most effective portion of Siraj-ud-daulah's army,— indeed the only men who fought for him, under the faithful Mir Madan (Chief of Artillery), Mohan Lāl Kashmiri, and other men of honour. This was the vanguard of the Nawab's troops and numbered 5,000 chosen Mughal horse and 7,000 infantry (Rajputs and Pathans), with two heavy guns, and these alone were actually engaged in that day's battle.

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The vanguard formed a short north-to-south line, behind the French tank. Making a sharp angle to this line, on the left of it the other troops were drawn up in a huge semi-circle, to the east and south in three vast columns, under Yar Lutf Khan, Rai Durlabh and Mir Ja'far, placed further and further away from the English in this order. But all these troops were "outside the combat" on that eventful day. Each column had its own artillery placed on its two flanks, instead of all the guns being grouped together in one strong battery.

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The Nawab's forces made a most impressive show, as after issuing from their camp they drew up on the plain north-east of the village of Plassey, in a vast arc, over two miles in length, almost surrounding the British army and threatening to drive it into the Ganges which flowed on its left. Taking horse and foot together they numbered nearly 50,000 men, but only some 12,000 men forming the vanguard or the right wing and 12 pieces of cannon took any part in the battle.¹ The Nawab's infantry possessed little or no discipline . . . and most of the men were armed with swords, pikes, bows and arrows! His cavalry was of a superior description, both men and horses being of northern origin and large size. (Broome, 143).

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¹ As Jean Law writes: "With the exception of some 50 Europeans who were with M. Sinfray, and two or three chiefs who commanded bodies of cavalry; all the rest of the army stood with folded arms or only showed that they were on the side of Siraj-ud-daulah by the promptitude with which they took to flight. Fear pervaded the whole army before the action commenced. Every one was persuaded that Siraj-ud-daulah was betrayed, and no one knew whom to trust. (Hill, iii 212). Except the vanguard under Mir Madan and Mohan Lal, and its 12 guns, the rest of the Nawab's artillery (under the three traitors) did not fire a single shot during the day.

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Sirāj had 53 pieces of artillery, mostly of heavy calibres, 32, 24 and 18 pounders. These were mounted on large platforms furnished with wheels, and drawn by 40 or 50 yoke of powerful oxen, assisted by elephants; an elephant followed each carriage, pushing it forward with his head, whenever it came to any difficulty. On these platforms were conveyed not only the guns and carriages, but the ammunition, stores and gunners also. (Broome, 142.) "Their cannon moved along, and in front of their main body, in such manner that their whole front was almost covered with the bullocks that drew them." (Clive.)

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This huge many-coloured crowd of men, horses, and elephants was faced by a thin line of red coats and white cross-belts, some 600 yards in length, the white faces (950) in the centre and the brown faces (2,100) in the wings with six very light guns in front.² But there was to be no clash of steel that day, no hand to hand cavalry fight, so dear to the heart of every Indian soldier of that age.

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² Broome (p. 142) gives 900 Europeans (infantry, artillery and naval gunners) and 200 Topasses *i. e.*, Portuguese Eurasians serving with the British infantry, a total of 1,100 besides Indian laskars to assist the artillery; 2,100 sepoys, eight six-pounder guns and two howitzers. Hill (I. cxcvi) reduces the numbers of the Europeans and the Topasses by 100 each.

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The British portion of Clive's army was made up of 950 European infantry and 150 artillerymen (including 57 sailors), with a number of laskars to assist. His Indian troops were 2,100 sepoys, all infantry, partly Madras men (called Telingās) and partly the Bengal Native Infantry (First Battalion) popularly called the Lāl Paltan. This last had been raised as recently as January, after the recapture of Calcutta, by enlisting men of Bihar, Oudh, the Doab and Rohilkhand, and it contained Pathans, Rohillas, Jats, Rajputs and Brahmans (the “Pāndés” of the Sepoy Mutiny), but the majority of the men in the ranks were Muslims, many of them disbanded soldiers of the Indian princes. (Broome, 93).

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The battle line of Clive was thus formed: in the centre were placed the Europeans, in four battalions, under Majors Killpatrick, Archibald Grant, and Eyre Coote, and Captain Gaupp. On the two wings the sepoys were posted in two divisions, with three six-pounder guns on each flank of the Europeans, a little ahead of the infantry. They were drawn up in the plain in front of the mango-grove, in a line about 600 yards in length, from west to east with the river on their left.

V. Battle of Plassey

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Thursday the 23rd of June, 1757 exactly one year and two days after the Nawab’s capture of Calcutta, witnessed a battle which was destined to revolutionise the life of India, and indirectly and slowly that of the eastern hemisphere, though when judged as a trial of arms military critics are apt to slight it as a mere skirmish or distant cannonade.

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At eight o’clock in the morning both hosts were in position. The first blood was drawn by white men from white men. The French opened fire from the big tank only 200 yards from the English line and killed one grenadier and wounded another of the Bengal European Regiment. This was the signal for the whole attacking force to join in the action, and a heavy cannonade began from the Nawab’s line, most of which was badly aimed and did little mischief. The English at once replied with their six-pounders, which took effect on the dense masses of the enemy and kept them back, but were too short in range to silence the Nawab’s artillery. In half an hour the British lost 30 men in killed and wounded, and Clive retired his men to the grove, where the trees protected them overhead and the embankment in front.

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The smart and accurate fire of the English guns from the embrasures made in the mud wall of the mango-grove, killed a number of the enemy’s gunners and caused several serious explosions among their carelessly exposed munitions. Hence, the falling back of the English line did not embolden the Nawab’s cavalry to charge.

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Three hours passed in this static cannonade. And then, shortly after 11 a.m a thunderstorm burst with tropical fury, turning the sandy plain of Plassey into a mud swamp. The Nawab's artillery was now put out of action as their uncovered gunpowder had been damped by rain while the English had carefully kept their powder dry. When the rain ceased, Mir Madan ordered the long-awaited-for gallant charge in the hope of overwhelming the English by numbers, thinking that their guns had been similarly rendered useless by rain. But the rapid fire of grape-shot from the English guns at close range wrought havoc among the advancing crowd of Bengal cavaliers. Here at the head of the charge fell Mir Madan, Bahādur Ali Khan (the son-in-law of Mohan Lāl and commander of the bahalia musketeers), Nauwe Singh Hazāri (captain of artillery), and some other high officers. The advance was checked and the cavalry turned their faces towards their entrenchment.

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It was now two o'clock in the afternoon. Clive on learning of the enemy's flinching, came out of the hunting-lodge and found that their cannonade had entirely ceased and the men were yoking their oxen and slowly retiring towards their camp. Treachery had been at work in the Nawab's army. On hearing of Mir Madan's fall, Sirāj-ud-daulah had called Mir Ja'far to his tent and appealed to his loyalty, by laying his turban at his feet and saying, "It is for you to defend my honour." Mir Ja'far swore on the Quran to fight the English, and advised the Nawab to withdraw his troops from the field and fight with renewed vigour next morning under his leadership. On coming out of the Nawab's tent to his own troops in the field, he sent a letter to Clive telling him of the Nawab's helplessness and despair and urging the English to advance at once and seize the camp.

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His treacherous advice had begun to work. The troops in the field, while shaken by Mir Madan's fall and the repulse of their vanguard, received orders that the engagement was suspended for the day, and began a withdrawal. But the handful of Frenchmen kept their stand at the most advanced post facing the English. Such was the sight which had made Major Killpatrick on his own initiative order an advance by a small English detachment. Clive came upon the scene immediately after this forward movement had started; he took the command himself, and launched an assault upon Sinfray's isolated position in force. The Frenchmen were outnumbered; but limbering up their guns they retired in good order and made a second stand in the redoubt guarding the entrance to the Nawab's camp.

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Having seized the French tanks, Clive planted all his field-pieces there and began to throw shots into the enemy's camp. Here he halted for about two hours, keeping a keen eye on the vast enemy position before him and watching for his chance. Soon there was a return of the tide; the Muslim retreat stopped. All the Bengal army was not made up of Mir Ja'fars and Rai Durlabhs; there were in it many men of honour, Rajputs with their inborn contempt of death and Shias nursed on the chivalrous traditions of Persia, who would not yield without one more struggle.¹ The shower was over, they had eaten their afternoon refreshments in the camp and now began to come out again from the entrenchment with dry gunpowder from their stores, to renew the combat, even though they had no supreme leader to inspire and guide them. But the ground beneath them was rain-soaked. As their horses were floundering in the mud and the clumsy wheels of their heavy gun-platforms were sinking in the ground, and their draught oxen refused to make any advance under the lash, the English cannon fired from only two hundred yards' distance with deadly precision and rapidity, ploughed their disordered and crowded ranks. The confusion passed beyond remedy from the writhing of wounded men, horses and oxen, the stampede of elephants, and the exploison of powder. But all was not yet over.

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¹ "The Nawab's soldiers could not understand how so small a British force could overwhelm so powerful an army as their own; so, declining to accept defeat, they brought up large bodies of cavalry, who had not hitherto taken an active part in the engagement; and who having obtained dry powder from their entrenchment, poured a heavy fire on the mound which Clive had just captured from the French." (*Innes, Hist. of Bengal Europe, Reg.*, 63). "When Mir Jafar counselled the Nawab to suspend the fight for that day and recall his troops from the field, Mohan Lal refused to retreat on the ground that it would lead to a rout. But Mir Jafar stuck to his own advice and left the decision to Siraj." (*Siyar*, text, 229).

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"Sinfray plied his guns from the redoubt with great spirit, and the enemy's matchlockmen from the entrenchments and the hillock east of the redoubt, maintained an irregular but unittermitting fire. Their cavalry also made several bold attempts to charge, but were as often repulsed by the rapid and deadly fire of the British field pieces. It was here that the contest was most obstinate, and on this occasion the chief loss of the English was sustained." (*Broome*, 148).

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But, in truth, by this time the Bengal army was really spent. In their centre and left, the vast cavalry hordes of Mir Ja'far, Durlabh Ram, and Yar Lutf were seen retiring further and further away without having fired a shot during the whole day, while Clive's musketeers, now lodged close behind the nearest mounds, kept up volley firing with a precision and rapidity unknown to our indigenous forces.

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Many of their own comrades were seem to be on retreat behind them.

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The eagle eye of the British General seized this psychological moment. Clive sprang forward to deliver the decisive blow. His halt at the French tanks was over. He sent two strong detachments to advance on his two flanks to dislodge the defenders of the redoubt and the dry jungly mound east of it;¹ these were the posts held by his enemy outside their camp. At the same time the main body of the British army moved forward more slowly in support of the right or the left advance as might be found necessary.

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¹ “The (British) detachment at the first tank, with some sepoys in front, being ordered, accordingly rushed on, fired on the enemy when they got to the top, and drove them off with . . . precipitation.” (Clive in Hill, II, 436).

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At last the struggle was over. The Nawab’s army fled away leaving their guns behind, and then the whole body of the victors entered the entrenchments. All was confusion and flight within. The Nawab himself had fled away soon after 4 p.m., there was no leader left to conduct an orderly retreat. The victory was complete by 5 o’clock. Clive’s soldiers, with wonderful discipline did not stop to plunder such an immensely rich camp, but pushed on to Daudpur, six miles from the field, that night, in order to seize the the Nawab’s capital before he could rally his forces there.

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In this historic action, the British lost only seven Europeans and 16 sepoys killed, and 13 Europeans and 36 sepoys wounded, a total casualty figure of 72.² Eighty per cent of this loss fell on their artillery,—evidently the feat of Sinfray’s men. On the Nawab’s side about 500 men were killed and a due proportion wounded. Among the wounded officers were Mohan Lāl, Mānik Chand (a Bengali Kāyastha), and Khwāja Hādi [Hill, II, 426.] But all his artillery (53 pieces), baggage, camp equipage, stores and cattle fell into the victor’s hands; nothing could be carried away. But as there was no opposition, there was not after Plassey the carnage that usually follows a rout; all the Bengal losses were suffered in the open field.

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² Broome, 149. But Hill (Vol. I, ccii) gives Europeans, 4 killed and 15 wounded; sepoys 15 killed, 38 wounded,—total 72. The official return after the battle, signed by Major of Brigade, John Fraser, gives 76 killed and wounded and four missing, a total of 80. (Hill, II, 425).

VI. The Contrasted Tactics

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The tactics of the battle of Plassey are quite easy to follow when we bear in mind the difference between the two sides in armament and war training (especially the vitally important elements of discipline among the men and leadership among the junior officers). Only 12,000 men with 12 guns fought 3,200 men with 8 guns. Clive's policy after the first half-hour (in which he lost 30 men from the French-directed artillery) was to keep his men under cover and fire his guns from embrasures fully shielded by earthworks. Mir Madan, on his part, followed the stereotyped Mughal war-plan of first making a big gun cannonade for overpowering the enemy's inferior artillery, throwing the opposite cavalry into confusion, and if luck assisted blowing up their munition in the field; then after such a preparation for about two hours, launching his own massed cavalry in one charge, riding down the enemy forces, and winning the day by one move.

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Such tactics had succeeded in Indian warfare in the 17th century and even in the 18th, when both sides had indigenous armament and leaders; but they proved futile when opposed to the discharge of grape from smaller but very mobile and rapid-firing guns aimed with deadly accuracy from close range, and highly trained musketeers (not clumsy match-lock-men) firing by platoons with the shock effect of machine guns.

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Clive handled his small force (entirely infantry-men and foot artillery) with judicious economy. After the first half-hour (when they were exposed and suffered nearly half the casualties of their side for the entire day), he carefully kept them back from exposure. And when in the afternoon, he did again issue into the open plain, every step was taken under artillery protection, and every advance was made in the form of a dash from one protective embankment (round some tank) to another where a halt was made under cover and his artillery brought up alongside and employed in pounding the enemy in their nearest post in front, so as to prepare the ground for the next advance of his infantry.

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The Nawab's troops, after the failure of their first old-style charge under Mir Madan at about 2 p.m., learnt a lesson and changed their tactics by using every ground cover available and shooting down the English sepoys from behind such covers as long as they could hold them.

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Unlike the English, the Nawab's troops had no grape-firing guns to support their infantry, and, indeed, no artillery help whatever in the afternoon's fighting, except Sinfray's guns in the Redoubt at the angle of their entrenched line. The musketry fire of the British-led sepoys was far superior to that of the Nawab's bahalias. In the final stage of the battle, as the British advance was headed by the sepoys, their white infantry suffered no loss, and their only casualties were among the sepoy infantry and white artillery-men.¹

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¹ Clive's letter—"Our four guns from the top of the (first) tank, being a rising ground, played upon the enemy, (who covered the plain with their numbers and at no very great distance), with vast success. They (i.e., the Nawab's troops) had got possession of the second tank (really, the dry mound on one side of the main entrance to the Nawab's camp) with horse and bargandazes or gunmen,—as many as could cover themselves from our cannon, behind it, and from thence with their musketry wounded several of our men . . . The enemy endeavoured to use their guns, but we took care to fire on those parts which put their bullocks in such confusion that we received but few shot." (Hill, III, 435).

VII. The End of Siraj-ud-daulah

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From the lost field of Plassey, even before the last struggle had ended, the craven Nawab deserted his soldiers and followers and fled away alone about 4 p.m., on a swift camel, with a few servants and arrived at his capital at midnight. All was terror and confusion in Murshidabad. No real attempt could be made to organise a defence, as the soldiery had lost heart and gone utterly out of hand. Above all Siraj-ud-daulah knew not whom to trust. So, overcome by fear and urged by his women, he resolved on a flight to Patna. In the night of 24th June, he escaped unnoticed from the city attended by a trusty eunuch and his devoted wife Lutf-un-nisā Begam. The capital of Bengal was left without a magistrate or a master, because Mir Ja'far who had reached it on the day after the battle, kept himself confined to his own house and refused to assume the government. But Clive entered the city on the 29th and took up his residence in the Murād-bāgh near the palace of Sirāj. Later, in the afternoon, he went to the palace of Hirājhil, where Mir Ja'far was in residence, and "there in the presence of all the Rajahs and great men of the Court, he led Ja'far Ali Khan by the hand to the royal seat (masnad), seated him on it, and saluted him as Nawab of the three Subahs, upon which his courtiers congratulated him and paid him the usual homage." (Clive, in Hill, Vol. II. 437.)

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Thus ended Muslim rule in Bengal; the foreign master of the sword had become its king-maker.

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The fallen Nawab fled by road to Bhagwāngolā on the Padmā and there took boat for going up-stream and reaching Pātnā and his French allies under M. Jean Law. A little below Rājmahal, he alighted from his boat (30th June) to ask for a meal to be cooked for him. Though he had disguised himself in mean clothing, he was recognised by a Muslim faqir, named, Dānā Shāh, whose ears and nose he had ordered to be cut off in the days of his power. This man informed the governor of Rājmahal, who seized Sirāj-ud-daulah and sent him under guard to Murshidabad. Here the fallen monarch was brought with great secrecy at night on 2nd July. Mir Ja‘far could not decide what to do with him, but left him in the hands of his son Miran and retired to sleep. This brutal youth had Sirāj murdered in prison¹ that very night without the knowledge of the English.

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¹ Miran also murdered Siraj’s sole surviving brother Mirza Mahdi and his dead brother Akramuddaulah’s son Murad-ud-daulah, thus extinguishing the entire male line of Alivardi’s descendants. We know nothing further of Mirza Ramzani, a younger brother of Shaukat Jang (of Purnia), mentioned in the Siyar.

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His executioner was Muhammadi Beg, a low fellow, whom Sirāj’s father had brought up and mother given in marriage. The fallen monarch abased himself to the ground, made frantic appeals for mercy, and promised to live in harmless obscurity if only his life was spared. But all his efforts proved futile. No time was given to him to pray and prepare himself for facing the Great Judge. Then with his last breath he cried out, “I am being killed in retribution for my unjust murder of Husain Quli Khan.”

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Next morning his mangled body was placed on an elephant and paraded through the streets of the capital as a mark of public degradation (tash-hir). Men noted with horror that when the elephant came to a halt for a few minutes at the place where Siraj had caused Husain Quli to be murdered three years earlier, some drops of blood fell down from the dead body on the very same spot. Thus was proved divine justice. When the corpse reached the bazar in front of Sirāj’s old residence, and a public clamour arose, a noble matron in dishevelled dress, without shoes on her feet, without a veil to cover her head, was seen to rush out of the palace and approach the elephant, beating her breast and uttering cries of anguish. It was the mother of Sirāj. She learnt of her darling son’s fate for the first time from the noise outside, and broke out of parda with her weeping train, to have a last look at his mortal remains. But it was not to be. This daughter of a king, wife of a vice-king, and mother of another king was driven back to her home with blows by the ruffianly guards of Khādim Husain, a General, who had been watching the scene from his balcony opposite. And Khādim Husain had been cherished in youth by Alivardi. His gratitude to his benefactor only paralleled that of Mir Ja‘far. (Siyar, text, 232.)

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Ignoble as the life of Siraj-ud-daulah had been and tragic his end, among the public of his country, his memory has been redeemed by a woman's devotion and a poet's genius. For many years after his death, his widow Lutf-un-nisā Begam used to light a memorial lamp on his tomb every evening as long as she lived. The Bengali poet Nabin Chandra Sen in his master-piece *The Battle of Plassey*, has washed away the follies and crimes of Sirāj by artfully drawing forth his reader's tears for fallen greatness and blighted youth.

VIII. Reflections

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When the sun dipped into the Ganges behind the blood-red field of Plassey, on that fateful evening of June, did it symbolise the curtain dropping on the last scene of a tragic drama? Was that day followed by "a night of eternal gloom for India," as the poet of Plassey imagined Mohan Lāl foreboding from the ranks of the losers? Today the historian, looking backward over the two centuries that have passed since then, knows that it was the beginning, slow and unperceived, of a glorious dawn, the like of which the history of the world has not seen elsewhere. On 23rd June, 1757, the middle ages of India ended and her modern age began.

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When Clive struck at the Nawab, Mughal civilization had become a spent bullet. Its potency for good, its very life was gone. The country's administration had become hopelessly dishonest and inefficient, and the mass of the people had been reduced to the deepest poverty, ignorance and moral degradation by a small, selfish, proud, and unworthy ruling class. Imbecile lechers filled the throne; the family of Alivardy did not produce a single son worthy to be called a man, and the women were even worse than the men. Sadists like Sirāj and Miran made even their highest subjects live in constant terror. The army was rotten and honey-combed with treason. The purity of domestic life was threatened by the debauchery fashionable in the Court and the aristocracy and the sensual literature that grew up under such patrons. Religion had become the handmaid of vice and folly.

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On such a hopelessly decadent society, the rational progressive spirit of Europe struck with resistless force. First of all, an honest and efficient administration had to be imposed on the country and directed by the English, if only for the sake of the internal peace on which their trade depended and the revenue by which its necessary defence force could be maintained. Thus, while the English rulers kept protesting that they were merchants and not rulers in Bengal, the civil administration, no less than the armed defence, of the country was forced upon them. In the space of less than one generation, in the twenty years from Plassey to Warren Hastings (1757-1776), the land began to recover from the blight of mediæval theocratic rule. Education, literature, society, religion, man's handiwork and political life, all felt the revivifying touch of the new impetus from the west. The dry bones of a stationary oriental society began to stir, at first faintly, under the wand of a heaven-sent magician.

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It was truly a Renaissance, wider, deeper, and more revolutionary than that of Europe after the fall of Constantinople. Bengal had been despised and thrown into a corner in the Vedic age as the land of birds (and not of men), in the epic age as outside the regions hallowed by the feet of the wandering Pāndav brothers, and in the Mughal times as " a hell well stocked with bread." But now under the impact of the British civilisation it became a pathfinder and a light-bringer to the rest of India. If Periclean Athens was the school of Hellas, " the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence," that was Bengal to the rest of India under British rule, but with a borrowed light, which it had made its own with marvellous cunning. In this new Bengal originated every good and great thing of the modern world that passed on to the other provinces of India. From Bengal went forth the English-educated teachers and the Europe-inspired thought that helped to modernise Bihar and Orissa, Hindustan and Deccan. New literary types, reform of the language, social reconstruction, political aspirations, religious movements and even changes in manners that originated in Bengal, passed like ripples from a central eddy, across provincial barriers to the furthest corners of India.

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Finally, after less than two centuries of rule the British have left Bengal free, and better fitted to keep that freedom in the modern world than the Romans had made Britain when they abandoned their imperial domination over the white island, more permanently civilised than the Hellenistic world on the dissolution of Alexander's empire, and more peaceful and progressive than the American colonies of Spain when they shook themselves free of European rule.

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Has not Bengal, unknown to herself, been working through the ages to reach this consummation? Her storied past, as narrated in these pages, shows how the diverse limbs of the country and warring tribes and sects of the people were fused into one by the silent working of time and a common political life till at the end of the Muslim period a Bengali people had become a reality. But not yet a Bengali nation, for the pre-requisites of a nation were then wanting. Two centuries of British rule and the neighbouring example of British society have now ground down large sections of the Bengali people to that uniformity of life and thought which alone can create a nation. It is for the future to perfect this good work.

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In June, 1757, we crossed the frontier and entered into a great new world to which a strange destiny had led Bengal. Today, in October 1947 we stand on the threshold of the temple of Freedom just opened to us. May the course of the years 1757 to 1947 have prepared us for the supreme stage of our political evolution and helped to mould us truly into a nation. May our future be the fulfilment of our past history.