Battle of Plassey

British possession of India in 1744                                                                                              

                                                         On June 23, 1757, at Plassey, a small village and mango grove between Calcutta and Murshidabad, the forces of the East India Company  under Robert Clive met the army of Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal.

Clive had 800 Europeans and 2200 Indians where as Siraj-ud-Daulah in his entrenched camp at Plassey was said to have about 50,000 men with a train of heavy artillery. During the battle a monsoon storm, lasting nearly an hour, drenched both sides and the ground . The Indian guns slackened their fire because their powder was insufficiently protected, but when the Indian Cavalry charged in the hope that the British guns had suffered similarly, they were sharply repulsed by heavy fire. The battle lasted no more than a few hours, and indeed the outcome of the battle had been decided long before the soldiers came  to the battle field.

The aspirants to the Nawab's throne, Mir Jaffar, was induced to throw in his lot with Clive, and by far  the  greater number of the Nawab's soldiers were bribed to throw away their weapons , surrender prematurely, and even turn their arms against their own army.

Siraj fled, leaving a still nervous Mr. Mir Jafar to occupy the palace and treasury, and to await Clive's coming before ascending the masnad or throne. The act ended with the capture of Siraj  when nearing Bihar, he was brutally murdered by Mir Jafar's son Miran. Plassey was decisive for the British in India and for Clive .  Mir Zaffar paid 8 lac pound and got the masnad at the cost of the Independence of India.      Clive also defeated Shahjada, son of Alamgir II, and got a land as gift the income of which was 30,000 pound a year. On the other hand , Cornel Ford being sent by Clive to Vishakhapattanam defeated the French and occupied Maslipattanam.

Clive went to England on 25th February, 1760.                         

British Possessions in1767                                                                                                             

( video) Battle for India Part 2

( video) Attack Of India Part 1

Conspiracy to overthrow Siraj (contd-1)

Mir Jafar and the Seths desired that the confederacy between the British and himself be kept secret from Omichand, but when he found out about it, he threatened to betray the conspiracy if his share was not increased to three million rupees (300,000 pounds). Hearing  this, Clive suggested an expedient to the committee. he suggested that two treatise be drawn - the real one on white paper containing no reference to Omichand and the other on red paper, containing Omichand's desired stipulation, to deceive him. The members of the committee signed on both treaties, but Admiral Watson signed only the real one and his signature had to be counterfeited on the  fictitious one. Both treaties and separate articles for donations to the army, navy squadron and committee were signed by Mir Jafar on 4 June .

      

Conspiracy to overthow Siraj .

The Nawab was infuriated on learning of the attack on Chandenagore. His former hatred of the British grew. Though he was plagued by the fear of attack from the north by the Afghans under Ahmad Shah Durrani and from the west by the Maharathas. Therefore he could not deploy his entire force against the British for fear of being attacked  from the flanks. A deep distrust set in between the British and the Nawab. As a result Siraj started secret negotiations with Jean law, chief of the French factory at Cossimbazar, and de Buray. The Nawab also moved a large division of his army under Raj Durlabh to Plassey, on the Island of Cossimbazar 30 miles south of Murshidabad.     

Popular discontent against the Nawab flourished in his own court. The Seths, the traders of Bengal, were in perpetual fear for their wealth under the reign of Siraj, cotrary to the situation under Alivardi's reign.They have engaged Yar Lutuf Khan to defend them in case they were threatened in any way.William Watts, the Company representative at the court of Siraj, informed Clive about a conspiracy at the court to overthrow the ruler.  The conspirators included Mir Jafar, paymaster of the army, Raidurlabh, Yar Latif Khan, and Omichand(Amir Chand), a sikh merchant, and several officers in the army. When communicated in this regard by Mir Jafar, Clive referred it  to the select committee in Calcutta on 1 May.The Committee passed a resolution in support of the alliance . A treaty was drawn between the British and Mir Jafar to raise him to the throne of the Nawab in return for support to the British in the field of Battle and the best of all of large sums of money upon them as compensation for the attack. On 2 May, Clive broke up his camp and sent half the troop to Calcutta an the other half to Chadernagar.    

The Character of Siraj-Ud-Daulah

Siraj-Ud-Daulah is usually regarded as a freedom fighter in modern India, Bangladesh and Pakistan for his opposition to the British annexation. As a teenage, he led a reckless life, which came to the notice of his  grandfather. But keeping a promise he made to his dear grand father on his death bed, he gave up gambling and drinking alcohol totally after becoming the Nawab.
     "Siraj-Ud-Daulah has been pictured ," says the biographer of Robert Clive , " as a monster of vice, cruelty and deprivity". In 1778, Robert Orme wrote of the relationship with his maternal grandfather Alivardi Khan.
Two Muslim historians of the period wrote of him.
Ghulam Husain Salim wrote,
"Owing to Siraj-Ud Daulah's harshness of temper and indulgence, fear and terror had settled on the hearts of everyone to such an extent that no one amongst his generals of the army or the noblemen of the city was free from anxiety. Amongst his officers,  whoevet went to wait on Siraj Ud Daulah despaired of life and honour, and whoever returned without being disgraced and ill-treated offered thanks to God . Siraj ud-Daulah treated all the noblemen and generals of Mahabat Jang with ridicule and drollery, and bestowed on each some contemptuous nickname that ill-suited any of them and whatever harsh expressions and abusive epithet care to his lips, he uttered them unhestatingly in the face of everyone , and on one had the boldness to breath freely in his presence."

Holwell Monument

The Black Hole of Calcutta was the British Raj's first chamber of horrors. It served as a pretext and justification for conquest and violence in India. As Nirod Choudhuri said " it threw a moral halo over the British conquest of India." Perhaps because of this reason, it continues to attract Britons to write books about it. It is significant that in the last three decades to Indian historian or writer has been tempted to write on the event. The book under review is by a journalist with the Financial Times. The revival of interest took place in the hands of two great paladins of the British empire. One was Lord Macaulay, who in 1840 described it as "that great crime memorable for its singular atrocity. " The other was Lord Curzon, who restored the monument after he was moved by the "moral agony of the Black Hole"   Dalley follows the myth-making, but also gives details about the battle for Calcutta in 1756 when Siraj attacked the place.
For many years, it stood close to Laldighi (later known as Dahousie Square and then BBD Bagh,through burst of post-colonial myth-making) an  obelisk to commemorate the victims of the Black Hole. It was erected by Holwell himself at his own expense and thus known as Holwell Monument,Newspapers in Britain in 1758 carried extracts from his recollections of captivity, but then the report died down. No new edition of his account appeared. Most contemporaries of Holwell, the British historian, Linda Colley notes,did not accept Holwell's velification of Siraj ud-Daulah.
    
The history of the Black Hole monument in the early 19th century is significant. It was allowed to fall into ruin, and in 1821, under the orders of the Marquis of Hastings, Lord Moira, the then Governor general, it was taken down. Before it was brought down , Cotton records in Calcutta old and new , the obelisk, the monument to British suffering, had become a godown or waterhouse and was filled with goods.
The Black Hole made a dramatic reappearence when Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1840 descrribed it as that crime memorable for its singular atrocity Lord Curzon, at the begining of the 20th century restored the crumbling Holwell Monument, and erected in 1901 at the corner of Dalhousie Square, which was said to be the Black Hole.
At the apex of the Indian Independence movement, the presence of this monument in Calcutta was turned into nationalist course celebre. Nationalist leaders like Subhas Chandra Bose lobbied energetically for its removal. As a result, Abdul Wasek Mia of   Nawabganj thana (now in Bangladesh), a student leader of that time, led the removal of the monument from Dalhousie Square in July, 1940. The monument was re-ercted in the graveyard of St. John's Church, where it remains even today.