Two hundred and fifty years ago, a young and debauched Nawab lost a skirmish to a young British adventurer who worked for a trading company. This is supposed to have changed the course of Indian history. The Battle of Plassey (June 23, 1757) is one event that every school student knows. Clive’s victory there is often seen, and not without reason, as the result of a conspiracy that he hatched with Mir Jafar who was the commander-in-chief of Nawab Siraj ud Daulah’s army. But what also needs to be remembered is that Siraj ud Daulah’s incompetence and frivolity created an atmosphere that encouraged intrigue and corruption. Moreover, a clash between the English East India Company and the ruler of Bengal had been brewing for a long time, and was, in fact, inevitable given the rate at which the Company’s trade and the private trade of its servants were expanding. From the 1740s, Alivardi Khan, the then Nawab of Bengal, had begun complaining to the Company about allowing its servants to use the duty free pass which had been granted by the Mughal Emperor for only the Company’s trade. The Nawabi administration was also very concerned about the fortifications the Company was building in Calcutta. These were the sources of conflict between the Company and the Nawab and, in the long term, the interests of the two were irreconcilable. By managing things better, Siraj could only have deferred the encounter, not averted it.

In north India, the British victory at Plassey rang no alarm bells. People there were more concerned at that time with the imminent clash between the Marathas and the Afghan adventurer, Ahmad Shah Abdali. Most contemporaries saw the third battle of Panipat (1761) as more decisive and significant than the cannonade in Plassey. Panipat eclipsed Maratha power in north India and reduced the Mughal Emperor to less than a shadow. What Plassey did was open up the rich economy of Bengal to plunder by the Company and its servants. The shaking of the pagoda tree — as the plunder came to be known — created nabobs who went home rich beyond their dreams. This plunder and the palpable encroachment of the Company on the Nawab’s sovereignty created conditions for another, and more serious, conflict.

This battle took place at Buxar in 1764 and the British victory here provided the British with a bridgehead into north India. At Buxar, the British forces defeated the combined forces of the Nawab of Bengal, the Nawab of Awadh and the Mughal Emperor. In the wake of this victory, the Mughal Emperor gave to the Company the right to collect the revenues of Bengal. This meant that the Company could use the whole of that revenue to finance its trade in India. Both in terms of economic power and political authority, it was Buxar that tilted the balance irreversibly in favour of the British. Plassey is a myth that both Britons and Indians have created and nurtured.