The Battle of Plassey 1757 and the British Conquest of Bengal
The Battle of Plassey, fought on 23 June 1757, was the engagement that transformed the British East India Company from a coastal trading corporation into the dominant territorial power in eastern India. The battle was fought between the Company’s forces under Robert Clive and a much larger army of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, but the outcome was decided less by military skill than by the conspiracy that Clive had organised with Mir Jafar, the Nawab’s commander-in-chief, and several other disaffected members of the Bengal court. The British victory at Plassey effectively placed Bengal under Company control, and the subsequent Treaty of Allahabad 1765 and the Diwani of Bengal consolidated the position. The principal treatment of the British expansion is the British East India Company and the Mughals page, and the related engagement is the Battle of Buxar 1764.
The Context of the Conflict in Bengal
The conflict that culminated in Plassey must be understood in the context of the political transformation of Bengal in the early eighteenth century. The province had been one of the richest of the Mughal provinces, and Murshid Quli Khan, the early eighteenth-century governor, had developed a revenue system based on the cooperation of the local Hindu and Muslim zamindars. The Murshid Quli system, examined in the economic decline of the Mughal Empire and the mughal successor states pages, had produced large surpluses for the provincial government, and Bengal had become a major centre of the Indian Ocean trade.
The European trading presence in Bengal, particularly the British, the French, and the Dutch, had expanded significantly in the early eighteenth century. The British East India Company had factories at Calcutta (Fort William), at Chandernagore, and at several other locations, and the European rivalry for commercial advantage in the region had become a major political issue. The War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) had brought European conflict to the Indian subcontinent, and the French and British presence in Bengal was a major factor in the political instability of the province. The fiscal and administrative arrangements of the period are examined in the land revenue administration page.
Siraj-ud-Daulah and the Attack on Calcutta
The Nawab of Bengal who presided over these political tensions was Siraj-ud-Daulah, a young man who had ascended the throne in 1756 on the death of his grandfather, Alivardi Khan. Siraj-ud-Daulah was a capable ruler, but he was confronted with a difficult set of political and economic problems, including the expansion of the European trading presence, the autonomy of the great zamindars of the province, and the independence of the European trading companies. His response was a series of measures directed at the British, including the attack on Calcutta in June 1756.
The attack on Calcutta resulted in the capture of Fort William and the Black Hole incident, in which a number of British prisoners, confined overnight in a small room of the fort, died of suffocation. The incident, which was much exaggerated in the British accounts, became a major propaganda event in the British campaign against Siraj-ud-Daulah, and it provided Robert Clive with a pretext for the military expedition that culminated in Plassey.
Robert Clive and the Recovery of Calcutta
The British response to the attack on Calcutta was a military expedition under Robert Clive, a capable Company officer who had already established a reputation in the campaigns of the previous years. Clive’s forces, drawn from the British garrison at Madras and reinforced by Indian troops, sailed to Bengal in October 1756 and recovered Calcutta in January 1757. The recovery of Calcutta was a humiliation for Siraj-ud-Daulah, and the British presence in the region was reinforced.
The British consolidation of Calcutta was accompanied by negotiations with the court of the Nawab, and the British authorities used the period after the recovery of Calcutta to organise the conspiracy that would decide the outcome of Plassey. The conspiracy, organised by Clive, involved elements of the Nawab’s court, including Mir Jafar, the commander-in-chief of the Nawab’s army, and several other figures who had grievances against Siraj-ud-Daulah. The diplomatic and military context is examined in the Mughal administration overview and the famous battles of the Mughals pages.
The Conspiracy with Mir Jafar
The conspiracy with Mir Jafar is one of the most discussed episodes in the history of the British presence in India. The terms of the conspiracy, recorded in written agreements signed by Clive and by intermediaries on behalf of Mir Jafar, provided that Mir Jafar would withdraw his forces from the impending battle and refrain from resistance, in return for territorial and fiscal concessions after the British victory. The rewards included the grant of the position of Nawab of Bengal for Mir Jafar himself.
The agreement was a betrayal of Siraj-ud-Daulah, and the political consequences of the conspiracy were major. The Nawab’s forces, deprived of their commander-in-chief on the field of battle, were reduced in their effectiveness, and the British forces, although smaller in number, were enabled to prevail. The significant inducements offered to the conspirators, and the considerable disorganisation of the Nawab’s court, are examined in detail in the British East India Company and the Mughals page.
The Battle of Plassey
The battle was fought on 23 June 1757, at Plassey (Palashi), a village on the banks of the Bhagirathi, a distributary of the Ganges, in the present-day state of West Bengal. The Nawab’s army was much larger than the British force, perhaps forty thousand men against the British three thousand, but the Indian army was weakened by the absence of Mir Jafar and the disorganisation that the absence produced. The major Nawab, deprived of his principal military commander, was unable to coordinate an effective response to the British attack.
The battle was a British victory. The Nawab’s forces made several attacks on the British position, but the attacks were broken by British artillery and musket fire, and the British forces, sheltered from the monsoon rain, were able to maintain their position throughout the day. The Nawab, abandoned by Mir Jafar and the other conspirators, fled the field, and the battle was over. The course of the battle is examined in the famous battles of the Mughals page.
The Outcome and the Installation of Mir Jafar
The outcome of the battle was a British victory. Siraj-ud-Daulah was captured and subsequently killed, and Mir Jafar was installed as the new Nawab of Bengal in accordance with the conspiracy. The installation of Mir Jafar was a major event in the history of Bengal, and the British position in the region was consolidated. Mir Jafar was a significantly weaker ruler than his predecessor, and the British authorities were able to use their position to extract significant fiscal and territorial concessions.
The new arrangement, in which the Nawab was a dependent of the British, was a departure from the previous pattern of British presence in the region. The British authorities were granted fiscal and territorial concessions, and the political influence of the Company in the region was established. The arrangement was a precedent for the subsequent British expansion in India, and it is examined in the British East India Company and the Mughals and the mughal successor states pages.
The Establishment of British Political Influence in Bengal
The British political influence in Bengal, established at Plassey and consolidated in the years that followed, was a departure from the pattern of European presence in the region. The Company, which had been a trading corporation, now had political authority, and the transformation was a milestone in the history of the British presence in India. The considerable expansion of the British presence in the period 1757 to 1765 is examined in detail in the British East India Company and the Mughals page.
The British position in Bengal was consolidated by the Diwani of Bengal in 1765 and the Treaty of Allahabad in the same year. The grant of the diwani gave the Company the fiscal resources to expand its territorial control, and the British presence in India was established on a fiscal and territorial basis. The subsequent British expansion, including the subsidiary alliance system and the doctrine of lapse, is treated in the relevant pages.
The Long-Term Significance
The long-term significance of the Battle of Plassey was major. The battle, decided largely by conspiracy rather than by military skill, established the pattern of British intervention in Indian politics that would shape the subsequent history of the subcontinent. The consequences of the battle are examined in the British East India Company and the Mughals, the mughal successor states, the colonial Mughal legacy, and the rebellion of 1857 pages, and in the broader Mughal decline overview. The Mughal history as a whole is surveyed in the Mughal history overview and the Mughal administration overview.
Sources
- P.J. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead (NCHI II.2, 1987), ch. 2.