Chhota Nawab pays tribute to his forefather Mir Jafar at the graveyard. Picture by Amit Datta

Mir Jafar, 1691-1765
Nawab from 1757-60 and 1763-65

The gateway to the crumbling palace is called Nemok Haram Deuri, or traitor’s gate.

If that is an apt epitaph to Syed Mir Muhammed Jafar Ali Khan, through one history-changing act the man gave Bengal — and India — the eloquent expression Mir Jafar, a traitor.

Syed Reza Ali Meerza, the eighth generation descendant of Mir Jafar from his mother’s side popularly known as Chhota Nawab in Murshidabad, is still living down his family’s past. “There is no use denying what Mir Jafar did but we are not all Mir Jafars. Our forefathers have dedicated themselves to this country. Then why won’t people let us forget?”

Because at least in Murshidabad, the then capital of Bengal, it’s hard to.

Except an austere stone monument, built apparently by the British, to mark the place of battle, Palashi, or Plassey, bears no sign of the event that changed the course of Indian — and even of British — history.

Farmland and a manicured garden now cover Rani Bhabani’s mango grove of 100,000 trees, where Robert Clive and his men had taken shelter, outnumbered and outgunned many times over by Siraj-ud-Daullah’s forces. Even the river Bhagirathi has moved west.

“People come to pay their respects to Siraj-ud-Daullah. They go around Murshidabad expecting that the structures they see were built by him. They are disappointed when they find out that they have all been built by Mir Jafar’s descendants,” said Chhota Nawab.

All the touristy places — the Hazaar Duari palace, Wasif Ali Manzil and the Imambara — in Murshidabad, 55 km from Palashi, were built by the descendants of Mir Jafar.

The school that Munni Begum, Mir Jafar’s wife, started is still run on the interest from the Rs 90 lakh she gave to the British. The descendants of the family get free education there.

Chhota Nawab, 62, has booked for himself a place in the graveyard where Mir Jafar and his descendants lie.

But not the ghost. Historians do not accept that Mir Jafar alone changed the course of history. Rajat Roy, the vice-chancellor of Visva-Bharati University, said: “He was part of a conspiracy. He was a conspirator but he was not a conspirator against India.”

They agree that he was a “conspirator” whose objective was to climb the throne. In doing so, however, did he become the most famous Bengali in history?

Mir Jafar was an Arab but he settled in Bengal and died here, which makes him a domiciled Bengali. Given his tale of betrayal — though such stories abound in history — it is difficult to accept that no single Bengali has had such influence on history.

“An individual can’t shape history and so we can’t say Mir Jafar changed the course of history. There wouldn’t have been a Mir Jafar if the circumstances were different,” said Suranjan Das, who teaches history in Calcutta University.

He was a villain among villains but he was the villain everyone remembers and, therefore, famous or infamous.

No one recalls Jagat Seth, the Marwari trader, who was a co-conspirator, Meerza said.

“As a commander at the Battle of Plassey he should be held responsible. But he was not in it alone. There were people like Jagat Seth who sold themselves to the British.”

It was truly a secular conspiracy, though this is an aspect of secularism the concept’s modern-day champions in India would not like to highlight. Those ranged on the other side would want to forget that a Hindu trader — their base of support now — had plotted with a Muslim general to unwittingly usher in British rule in India. Even the army was not free from Hindu betrayers, commander Rai Durlabh being one.

In 1756, Siraj had suppressed the opposition of the rival camp, but in the following year he could not summon up the strength to act against Mir Jafar, writes Brijen K. Gupta in Siraj-ud-Daullah and the East India Company, 1756-1757.

Some historians have criticised Siraj’s failure to forge a strong alliance with the French, whose influence with the Nawab had alarmed the British. Others, like Gupta, say had he succeeded in driving the British away with French help, Bengal would have fallen to the French instead.

In that case, Nemok Haram Deuri might have been named after Siraj, and not Mir Jafar.