Finally, Mir Jafar tried the desperate expedient of changing one master for another and entered into a conspiracy with the Dutch at Chinsura. The Dutch were very eager to supplant the English influence by their own and made an attempt to import fresh military forces from their settlements in Java. But the vigilance of Clive thwarted their design. They were defeated and humbled at Bedara in November, 1759, and sued for peace.
Clive thus maintained the supremacy of the English in Bengal for nearly three years, mainly by his personality and character. His departure on 25th February, 1760, was followed shortly by the death of Miran, the son of the Nawab, and the question of succession immediately came to the forefront. The treachery and incompetence of the Nawab and his failure to make the payments due to the Company made him and his family distasteful to the English. Holwell,. the acting Governor, suggested the bold step of taking over the administration of the country, but the other members of the Council did not approve of the plan. He then supported the cause of Mir Kasim, the son-in-law of the Nawab, and Vansittart, the permanent Governor, acquiesced in this view. A secret treaty was accordingly concluded with Mir Kasim on 27th September, 1760. Mir Kasim agreed to pay off the outstanding dues to the Company and also to cede the three districts of Burdwan, Midnapur and Chittagong. In return for these concessions the English offered to appoint him Deputy Subahdar and guaranteed his succession to the throne.
Vansittart and Caillaud, the commander of the Company’s troops, thereupon proceeded to Murshidabad. But Mir Jafar refused to appoint Mir Kasim as Deputy Subahdar. After a fruitless discussion for five days, Caillaud was ordered to occupy the Nawab’is palace. The helpless Nawab decided to abdicate rather than yield to the demands of the English. Mir Kasim was then declared Nawab and the revolution Of A.D. 1760 was effected without any bloodshed.
It is somewhat singular that neither the English nor the new Nawab took advantage of the new agreement to clear up the relations between the two parties. It was gradually becoming clear that, while the Nawab claimed to be an independent ruler, the English Authorities in Bengal had been acting in a manner which was incompatible with that position. It was evident that sooner or later the matter must come to a head, and the crisis came much earlier than was expected.
Vansittart followed throughout the policy of strengthening the hands of the Nawab. While Clive protected Ram Narayan, the deputy governor of Bihar, Vansittart handed him over to Mir Kasim who first robbed him and then put him to death. Having thus asserted his internal Autonomy, Mir Kasim felt strong enough to enter into that dispute with the English regarding inland trade which was to prove his ruin.
By an imperial firman the English Company enjoyed the right of trading in Bengal without the payment of transit dues or tolls. But the servants of the Company also claimed the same privileges for their private trade (see pp. 801-2). The Nawabs had always protested against this abuse, but the members of the Council being materially interested, the practice went on increasing till it formed a subject of serious dispute between Mir Kasim and the English. At last towards the end of 1762 Vansittart met Mr Kasim at Monghyr, where the Nawab had removed his capital, and concluded a definite agreement on the’subject. The Council at Calcutta, however, rejected the agreement. Thereupon the Nawab decided to abolish the duties altogether; but the English clamoured against this and insisted upon having preferential treatment as against other traders. Ellis, the chief of the English factory at Patna, violently asserted what he considered to be the rights and privileges of the English, and even made an attempt to seize the city of Patna. The attempt failed and his garrison was destroyed, but the events led to the outbreak of war between the English and Mir Kasim (1763).
On 10th June Major Adams took the field against Mir Kasim with about 1,100 Europeans and 4,000 sepoys. The Nawab assembled an army 15,000 strong, which included soldiers trained and disciplined on the European model. In spite of this disparity of numbers, the English gained successive victories at Katwah, Murshidabad, Giria, Sooty, Udaynala, and Monghyr. Mir Kasim fled to Patna, and after having killed all the English prisoners and a number of his prominent officials, went to Oudh. There he formed a confederacy with Nawab Shuja-ud-daulah and the Emperor Sh&h ‘Alam II with a view to recovering Bengal from the English. The confederate army was, however, defeated by the English general Major Hector Munro at Buxar on 22nd October, 1764. Sh&h ‘Alam immediately joined the English camp, and some time later concluded peace with the English. Mir Kasim fled, and led a wandering life till be died in obscurity, near Delhi, in -A.D. 1777.
The short but decisive campaign against Mir Kasim has an importance which is generally overlooked. The battle of Plassey was decided more by treachery than by any inherent superiority of English arms, and had the rights of the English in Bengal rested on that battle alone, their conquest of Bengal might justly have been attributed to a political conspiracy rather than to any fair fight. But the defeat of Mir Kasim cannot be explained away by any sudden and unexpected treachery such as had overwhelmed Sir&j-ud-daulah. It was a straight fight between two rival claimants for supremacy, each of whom was fully alive to its possibilities and forewarned of its consequences. Mir Kasim knew quite well that a final contest with the English was the sure outcome of his policy, and he equipped his army and husbanded his resources as best he could. He was not inferior in capacity to an average Indian ruler of the day. His repeated and decisive defeats only demonstrate the inherent weakness of the army and the administrative machinery of Bengal. The confederacy which he brought into being against the English shows an astute diplomacy far in advance of the age, and its failure was again due to the inherent defects of Indian army and State Organisation. The engagements with Mir Kasim established the claims of the English as conquerors of Bengal in a much more real sense than did the battle of Plassey. They also reveal that the establishment of British rule in Bengal was due as much at least to the irresistible logic of facts as to the element of chance or accident.
