Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
78. The Battle of Plassey, Part 1 of 2
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
“It is not too much to say that the destiny of Europe hinged upon the conquest of Bengal,” wrote the historian Brook Adams in 1896. People who look at today’s impoverished Bangladesh cannot imagine that in the mid-18 thcentury, it was the hub of the most prosperous region inAsia. The Nawab of Bengal, SirajudDawlah, ruled a territory extending from Dacca (Bangladesh) to Benares (northern India). The province had a population of 25 million; about four times the population of England at that time. The Ganges delta provided abundant rice, fish and jute. The province was bustling with manufacturing activity. The fine muslin cloth of Murshidabad was sought after the world over. Bengal also produced the finest steel, using iron ores imported from Tanzania in Africa.
Within a span of ten years after its capture by the British, Bengal, once the richest province in Asia, became destitute.
To understand how it happened, one must examine the broader political developments in South Asia in the early part of the 18 th century. The death of Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb (1707) let loose the centrifugal forces that were kept in check by the indefatigable energy of the aging Emperor. Prince Muazzam, who was already in his sixties, was hastily called back from Kabul to Delhi, and ascended the throne in the Red Fort under the title of Bahadur Shah. By this time, the empire was in turmoil. The Maratha advance in the Deccan was in full swing. A truce between the Moghuls and the Sikhs broke down after the assassination of Guru Govind Singh (1708) and a full-scale uprising erupted in the Punjab under Banda Singh. Bahadur Shah spent a greater portion of his tenure in office containing the Sikh revolt. Although the Moghul armies recaptured the principal cities, the Sikhs continued their guerilla war from the hills in northern Punjab. Bahadur Shah, tired of these campaigns, died in 1712.
Court intrigue took over the Moghul court. Azim us Shan the heir apparent, and two of his brothers, were murdered at the instigation of Zulfiqar Khan, a general in the army. In his place, Jahandar Shah, a debaucher who spent all his time with his concubine Lal Kunwar, was hoisted as the new king. Enraged at the murder of his father, Farrukhsiyar (1713-1719), the eldest son of Azim us Shan, raised an army in Bengal, and marched on Delhi with the help of two Sayyid brothers, Hassan Ali and Hussain Ali. Jahandar and Zulfiqar were both killed. The two Ali brothers gained enormous power in the court. Hussain Ali obtained the regency of the Deccan as payment for his services. But a rift developed between Hassan Ali and the Emperor; the Ali brothers blinded Farrukhsiyar and imprisoned him until death. Raushan Akhtar, a grandson of Muhammed Shah, was made the king. Raushan broke the stranglehold of the Ali brothers by forging an alliance with Afghan and Irani nobles.
One of the Afghan nobles, Chin Qilich Khan, was given the title of NizamulMulk and was made the divan. He tried to arrest the decay in the empire, but the rot was too far-gone. Disgusted, he left for the Deccan in 1723, where he founded the state of Hyderabad, which lasted until 1948. Similarly, Bengal and Oudh broke away in 1722. These provinces accounted for the bulk of Moghul revenues. Although the local rulers continued to acknowledge Moghul overlordship, they were all but independent. Meanwhile, the Marathas consolidated their hold on central India. In 1732, they occupied the province of Gujrat, cutting off the important trading center of Surat from Delhi. Under the leadership of Baji Rao, they moved north and reached the suburbs of Delhi in 1737. Alarmed at the Maratha advance, the Emperor recalled the Nizam from Hyderabad. But international events overtook the turmoil in India at this juncture.
The disintegration of the Safavid Empire and the occupation of its capital by the Afghans in 1722 invited intervention from the Russians and Ottomans. The Persians rallied under Nadir Quli, a general in the Safavid army, drove the Russians out, and won their territories back from the Ottomans. Nadir tried to interest the Safavid Shah Tahmasp II in the affairs of state, but finding him incompetent, dethroned him, and declared himself Nadir Shah of Persia (1736).
Once the Russian menace had been contained, Nadir turned his attention to the east towards Qandahar from where the Afghans had launched an invasion of Persia. Nadir Shah appealed to the Moghul Emperor Muhammed Shah for his help in preventing the Afghan rebels from escaping to Kabul. In the bureaucratic machinery of the Moghul court, it is not even certain that the Emperor was briefed on the full import of events in Persia and Afghanistan. The reply from Delhi was ambiguous. The irate Nadir Shah captured Qandahar in 1737, and in hot pursuit of the rebels, moved to Kabul in 1738. He would not overlook the indifference of the Delhi court to his appeal. He crossed the Khaiber Pass in the winter of 1738, and took Peshawar. Moving forward, in 1739, he occupied Lahore and sent word to Delhi that he “had arrived in India to punish the courtiers who had shown him disrespect”.
The gauntlet was thrown. The Moghul armies moved towards Karnal in Punjab to meet Nadir Shah. The Persians avoided the main Indian force. Instead, they raided auxiliary troops, which were being brought in by the Moghul generals, cutting down the Indian forces one by one. Camels loaded with gunpowder were let loose on the Indian formations, causing havoc on the infantry and elephant corps alike. In one of the skirmishes, the commander-in-chief of the Indian army, Khan e Dauran, was killed, and Burhan ulMulk, governor of Oudh was captured. With the Moghul armies in disarray, the Moghul emperor sued for peace.
Once he was in captivity, the treacherous Burhan ulMulk turned against his own Emperor, and advised the Persian monarch to demand an indemnity of twenty million rupees from the Moghul. He also demanded the position of commander-in-chief of the disarrayed Moghul armies. Muhammed Shah gave the job instead to NizamulMulk. The irate Burhan ulMulk advised the Persian invader to up the ante and move on Delhi. A face saving formula was arranged, and the humbled Moghul Emperor led the victorious Nadir Shah into the capital, presumably as his “guest”. While negotiations were going on about the indemnity, a rumor spread that Nadir had been killed. The ill-advised citizens of Delhi went on a rampage and killed several hundred Persian soldiers. Enraged, Nadir Shah gave orders for a general slaughter. Not since the invasion of Timur had Delhi seen such destruction. Over a hundred thousand citizens were butchered. Peace was restored after Muhammed Shah offered one of his grand-daughters in marriage to the son of Nadir Shah. The peacock throne of Shah Jehan, together with the entire collection of gold, diamonds and rubies in the Moghul treasury was given away as “dowry”. In addition, Nadir’s soldiers tortured the nobles into giving up vast amounts of hoarded wealth. It is said that Nadir required 70 camels to load up the gold and the precious stones. So large was the amount of loot that upon returning to Persia, Nadir Shah forgave the collection of taxes in his vast empire for three years. He also annexed all the territories to the west of the Indus River, comprising most of what is today Pakistan.
Nadir Shah’s invasion destroyed whatever remained of the prestige of the Moghul emperor. The Marathas moved to fill the political military vacuum, advancing from central India towards Delhi. The Sikhs regrouped and rejoined their armed struggle in the Punjab. Bengal, Oudh, and Hyderabad practically became independent. Without the revenues of these vast provinces, the Moghul Empire became but a shadow of its old self. Its hold now diminished to a few square miles around Delhi.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
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