Im curious to know what transpired at the battle of Plassey.
The Wikipedia article doesn't mention the word 'Hindu' or 'Muslim' !
Revisionism or Political correctness ?
Can members (esp eastwatch and Joe Shearer) give a better account ?
I thought we had dealt with this on the original thread, but I was so sleepy last night that I landed up writing a lot of rubbish (observers have however informed me that nobody can make out the difference from my normal writing
).
Surely
eastwatch meant this as a date for an historical process to start, rather than having a significance in itself with regard to Hindu-Muslim relations? My impression is that any tension between Hindus and Muslims commenced in the last quarter of the 19th century and gradually picked up momentum, peaking at partition.
I would like to hear on this one too, since idk what made bengali muslims go against the bengali hindus.
We need to get eastwatch's confirmation on this. The facts, of course, are that Hindus and Muslims betrayed Siraj-ud-Daulah in equal measure. His generals, Mir Jafar (venerated ancestor of General Iskandar Mirza) and Rai Durlabh, were equally treacherous. Only the leaders of a very small vanguard, Mir Madan and Mohanlal, remained loyal, and fought Clive's very small contingent, led by Clive in very indifferent fashion, with grit and tenacity till a random musket ball killed Mir Madan. Their resistance then collapsed, while the many times larger contingents of Mir Jafar and Rai Durlabh cleaned their toe-nails, trimmed their moustaches and conducted various other strategic manoeuvres with a vital bearing on the outcome of the battle.
Off the field, Hindu traitors predominated, which will gladden a sick old faggot who haunts these fora. The financier of the joint venture between John Company and the Murshidabad gentlemen was Jagat Seth, and the intermediary was Omichand, who was promised 25% of the take. Alas for him! the promissory note was a forged document, and he got nothing.
On the face of it, there is nothing religious about Plassey.
Whoever said that there was any religion involved in battle of plassey. People really need to get over this religious obsession.
The events were as follows-
Siraj-ud-daula had a long standing dispute with the British over merchant passes known as Dastak. The British had been evading taxes by passing on rights to Indian merchant. The English had also started building fortifications which the Nawab objected to because the British were considered only traders up till then. The British on the other hand cited the threat from French as the reason for fortifications.
Ultimately negotiations broke down and and Siraj attacked the English factories at Cassimbazar ang Calcutta and defeated them. The British were taken prisoners and were stuffed into a small room, leading to their death by suffocation, however whether Siraj knew all this is not clear.
This is a discredited story, which originated in the feverish account of Holwell. Very soon after, British sources themselves began to sound extremely diffident about the whole incident, but it was felt necessary to maintain the fiction in the interests of European credibility.
The british decided to attack the nawab and called up Clive, the brilliant English officer who had earlier defeated the French at Arcot.
He managed to win over an important nobel Mir Jafar an Durlabh to his side. The admiral of the British fleet was reluctant to give Clive permission to attack since Siraj had accepted all the British demands when he came toknow of their atttack. Clive, impatient with his plan, forged the signatures of his superiors and proceeded to attack.
Not according to M/s. Majumdar, Raychaudhuri and Datta.
Immediately before this, in March, the expedition had driven the French out of Chandernagore (this was a consequence of the Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, in Europe, which among other things, pitted Britain and France against each other). Watson and Clive then proceeded to Plassey in June. In a pre-battle conference, Clive was for retreat, Watson pressed for a conclusion.
The matter of the forgery arose out of another incident. The intermediary for the payment of bribes to Mir Jafar and Rai Durlabh was Omichand, who took the money from Jagat Seth and conveyed it to the two recipients. For this service, Omichand wanted a very large share of the plunder. Clive agreed, Watson didn't, and Clive got over the difficulty by preparing a special copy of the contract admtting Omichand's claims, and forging Watson's signature to it.
In the actual battle Clive had 1100 British and 2100 Indian Sepoys with artillery. The Nawab had 50000 troop and cavalry with some French artillery. The Nawab commenced the Batttle but used up all his artillery ammunition too quick without damage to Clive. He might still have won but Mir Jafar, who was commanding the bulk of his forces, left the field in treachery. Ultimately the Nawab had to escape with 2000 horsemen handing the British an easy victory.
Mir Jafar was made the new Nawab and a puppet in the British hands. However he too did not last long and was replaced by the British with Mir Qasim,another puppet, and was ultimately killed in the battle of Bastar. Clive received 2 million pounds and made a fortune though he was denounced for treachery and fraud which later became hallmarks of the British rule in India.
The real outcome of the Battle was that it placed Bengal in the hands of the British, giving them a strong foothold in the country. From Bengal would the British have the resources necessary in the future to conquer and rule the rest of India.
This is quite summarised but is the gist of the story, it could take a small book to write down all the story encompassing the political, social and military aspects and outcomes of the war.
This doesn't address the larger question about the growing distance between Hindu and Muslim in Bengal.
