Alivardhi Khan (Maternal Grand Father of Siraj-ud-Daulah)

Around 1733, soon after the birth of Siraj, Alivardhi Khan appointed as the Deputy Governor of Bihar by
the then Nawab of Bengal Shuja-ud-Din Muhammad Khan. In later wars, Alivardhi Khan, in aspiration of
larger authority killed the successor of Shuja-ud-Din, Sarfaraz Khan to claim his authority over Bengal
and Orissa which came under the control of Alivardhi Khan.

One of the major battles fought by Alivardhi Khan is the Battle of Burdwan. It was a major
confrontation between the Mughal Empire's Nawab of Bengal, Alivardi Khan and his invading
Maratha opponents Janoji Bhonsle and Bhaskar Pandit in 1947. The battle concluded with a victory
for the Nawab of Bengal, Alivardi Khan who was accompanied throughout the campaign by his wife
Nafisah Khanam.

Mirza Muhammad Siraj ud-Daulah (1733 – July 2, 1757) succeeded his maternal
grandfather, Alivardi Khan as the Nawab of Bengal in April 1756 at the age of 23. Betrayed by Mir
Jafar, then commander of Nawab's army, Siraj lost the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757. The
forces of the East India Company under Robert Clive invaded and the administration of Bengal fell
into the hands of the Company. Siraj was the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The end of his
reign marked the start of British East India Company rule over Bengal and later almost all of South
Asia.

Siraj, as the direct political disciple of his grandfather, was aware of the global British interest in
colonization and hence, resented the British politico-military presence in Bengal represented by the
British East India Company. He was annoyed at the company's alleged involvement with and
instigation of some members of his own court in a conspiracy to oust him. His charges against the
company were mainly threefold. Firstly, that they strengthened the fortification around the Fort
William without any intimation and approval; secondly, that they grossly abused the trade privileges
granted to them by the Mughal rulers, which caused heavy loss of customs duties for the
government; and thirdly, that they gave shelter to some of his officers, for example Krishnadas, son
of Rajballav, who fled Dhaka after misappropriating government funds. Hence, when the East India
Company started further enhancement of military preparedness at Fort William in Calcutta, Siraj
asked them to stop. The Company did not heed his directives, so Siraj-ud Daulah retaliated and
captured Kolkata (Shortly renamed as Alinagar) from the British in June 1756.The Nawab gathered
his forces together and took Fort William. The captives were placed in the cell as a temporary
holding by a local commander, but there was confusion in the Indian chain of command, and the
captives were unintentionally left there overnight, and many died. A British account of the number
who died may be overstated.

Fort William was established to protect the East India Company's trade in the city of Calcutta, the
principal city of the Bengal Presidency. In 1756 India, there existed the possibility of imperial
confrontation with military forces of the Kingdom of France, so the British reinforced the fort.
Meanwhile, the local ruler, the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, was unhappy with the East India
Company's political interference in the internal affairs of his province; the British merchants were
undermining his political power. As the Nawab, Siraj perceived a threat to Bengali independence and
himself. He ordered the immediate cessation of the reinforcement of Fort William, but the East India
Company paid no heed to the native ruler.
In consequence to that British indifference to local Bengali authority, Siraj ud-Daulah organised his
army and laid siege to Fort William. In an effort to survive the losing battle, the British commander
ordered the surviving soldiers of the garrison to escape, yet left behind 146 soldiers under the
civilian command of John Zephaniah Holwell, a senior bureaucrat of the East India Company, who
had been a military surgeon, in earlier life.[2]
Moreover, the desertions of allied Indian troops made ineffective the British defence of Fort William,
which fell to the siege of Bengali forces on 20 June 1757. The surviving defenders who were
captured and made prisoners-of-war numbered between 64 and 69, along with an unknown number
of Anglo-Indian soldiers and civilians who earlier had been sheltered in Fort William.
The Black Hole of Calcutta was a small dungeon in Fort William in Calcutta, India where troops
of Siraj ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, held British prisoners of war after the Bengali army
captured the fort on 20 June 1756.
John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the British prisoners and an employee of the East India Company,
said that, after the fall of Fort William, the surviving British soldiers, Anglo-Indian soldiers, and Indian
civilians were imprisoned overnight in conditions so cramped that many people died from suffocation
and heat exhaustion, and that 123 of 146 prisoners of war died.
The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of
Bengal and his French[1]allies on 23 June 1757. The battle consolidated the Company's presence
in Bengal, which later expanded to cover much of India over the next hundred years.
The battle took place at Palashi (Anglicised version: Plassey) on the banks of the Bhagirathi River,
about 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Calcutta and south of Murshidabad, then capital
of Bengal (now in Nadia district in West Bengal). The belligerents were the Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah,
the last independent Nawab of Bengal, and the British East India Company. Siraj-ud-daulah had
become the Nawab of Bengal the year before, and he 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. He defeated the Nawab at Plassey in 1757 and
captured Calcutta.[2]
The battle was preceded by the attack on British-controlled Calcutta by Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah and
the Black Hole massacre. The British sent reinforcements under Colonel Robert Clive and
Admiral Charles Watson from Madras to Bengal and recaptured Calcutta. Clive then seized the
initiative to capture the French fort of Chandernagar.[3] Tensions and suspicions between Siraj-ud-
daulah and the British culminated in the Battle of Plassey. The battle was waged during the Seven
Years' War (1756–63), and, in a mirror of their European rivalry, the French East India Company (La
Compagnie des Indes Orientales)[1] sent a small contingent to fight against the British. Siraj-ud-
Daulah had a numerically superior force and made his stand at Plassey. The British, worried about
being outnumbered, formed a conspiracy with Siraj-ud-Daulah's demoted army chief Mir Jafar, along
with others such as Yar Lutuf Khan, Jagat Seths (Mahtab Chand and Swarup Chand), Omichund
and Rai Durlabh. Mir Jafar, Rai Durlabh and Yar Lutuf Khan thus assembled their troops near the
battlefield but made no move to actually join the battle. Siraj-ud-Daulah's army with 50,000 soldiers,
40 canons and 10 war elephants was defeated by 3,000 soldiers of Col. Robert Clive, owing to the
flight of Siraj-ud-daulah from the battlefield and the inactivity of the conspirators. The battle was
ended in 11 hours.
This is judged to be one of the pivotal battles in the control of Indian subcontinent by the colonial
powers. The British now wielded enormous influence over the Nawab 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 in Asia.
Thus after helping the British defeat Siraj ud-Daulah in Battle of Plassey, Mir Jafar became the new
Nawab of Bengal in 1757 with military support from the British East India Company as a reward for
his betrayal of Siraj-ud-Daulah. However, Jafar failed to satisfy constant British demands for money.
In 1758, Robert Clive discovered that through his agent Khoja Wajid, Jafar had made a treaty with
the Dutch at Chinsurah. However, the British defeated the Dutch at the Battle of Chinsurah in
November 1759 and retaliated by forcing him to abdicate in favor of his son-in-law Mir Qasim.
However, Qasim proved to be both able and independent, strongly condemned the interference of
East India company in the governing of his domain. Mir Qasim formed an alliance to force the British
East India company out of East India. The Company soon went to war with him and his allies.
The Battle of Buxar was fought on 22 October 1764 between the forces under the command of the
British East India Company led by Hector Munro and the combined army of Mir Qasim, the Nawab of
Bengal: the Nawab of Awadh and the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II. With the defeat in Buxar, Mir
Qasim was eventually overthrown. Mir Jafar managed to regain the good graces of the British; he
was again installed Nawab in 1763 and held the position until his death in 1765.

Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II formed a piece agreement with British EIC and this came to be
known as Treaty of Allahabad. The Treaty of Allahabad was signed on 12 August 1765, between
the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II, son of the late Emperor Alamgir II, and Robert, Lord Clive, of
the East India Company, as a result of the Battle of Buxar of 22 October 1764. The Treaty marks the
political and constitutional involvement and the beginning of British rule in India. [2] Based on the
terms of the agreement, Alam granted the East India Company Diwani rights, or the right to collect
taxes on behalf of the Emperor from the eastern province of Bengal-Bihar-Orissa. Thus East India
Company got appointed as the imperial tax collector for the Eastern province (Bengal-Bihar-Orissa).
These rights allowed the Company to collect revenue directly from the people of Bengal, Bihar
and Orissa. In return, the Company paid an annual tribute of twenty-six lakhs of rupees (equal to
260,000 pounds sterling) while securing for Shah Alam II the districts of Kora and Allahabad. The
tribute money paid to the emperor was for the maintenance of the Emperor's court in Allahabad. The
accord also dictated that Shah Alam be restored to the province of Varanasi as long as he continued
to pay certain amount of revenue to the Company. Awadh was returned to Shuja-ud-Daulah, but
Allahabad and Kora were taken from him. The Nawab of Awadh also had to pay fifty-three lakhs of
rupees as war indemnity to the East India Company.
The Nawab of Awadh, Shuja ud Daulah, was made to pay a war indemnity of 5 million rupees to the
Company. Moreover, the two signed an alliance by which the Company promised to support the
Nawab against an outside attack provided he paid for services of the troops sent to his aid. This
alliance made the Nawab dependent on the Company. This was a turning point in Indian history.