#history
#memory
Battle of Plassey.
23 June is the anniversary of the Battle of Plassey.
The colonisation of India by the imperialist British Empire started with the Battle of Plassey.
On 23 June 1757, the forces of the British East India Company secured a decisive victory over the army of the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies.
The battle of Plassey helped the Company seize control of Bengal. Over the next hundred years, the Company, and later the British Government seized control of the entire Indian subcontinent stretching from Afghanistan to Burma.
The battle took place at Plassey on the banks of the Hooghly River, north of Calcutta . Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal, and the British East India Company met in battle. Siraj-ud-Daulah had become the Nawab of Bengal the year before, and he had ordered the English to stop the extension of their fortification. Robert Clive bribed Mir Jafar, the commander-in-chief of the Nawab’s army, and also promised him to make him Nawab of Bengal to betray the Nawab. Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah at Plassey in 1757 and captured Calcutta.
The battle was preceded by an attack on British-controlled Calcutta by Siraj-ud-Daulah, which resulted in the Black Hole massacre. The British sent reinforcements from Madras to Bengal and recaptured Calcutta. Calcutta remained the capital of India till it was shifted to Delhi. Tensions and suspicions between Siraj-ud-daulah and the British, culminated in the Battle of Plassey. Siraj-ud-Daulah had a numerically superior force and made his stand at Plassey. The British, worried about being outnumbered, entered into a conspiracy with Siraj-ud-Daulah’s demoted army chief Mir Jafar, along with others. Mir Jaffer and allies assembled their troops near the battlefield but made no move to actually join the battle.
The British now wielded enormous influence over the Nawab and Mir Jafar, and consequently acquired significant concessions for previous losses and revenue from trade. The British further used this revenue to increase their military might and push the other European colonial powers such as the Dutch and the French out of South Asia, thus expanding the British Empire.
A War Memorial has been erected on the banks of the Bhagirathi river in Murshidabad district of West Bengal.
– Joy Kallivayalil.
Painting:
1.Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey
artist :
Francis Hayman, 1762.
2. Clive leading the battle.
