Battle of Plassey

Also called: Battle of Palashi

Robert Clive of the British East India Company defeated Siraj ud-Daulah, the French-backed Nawab of Bengal, at Plassey — the starting point of British rule over Bengal and then India.

As the Mughal Empire broke up after Aurangzeb’s death, provincial governors became independent, and the British and French East India Companies competed for influence by intervening in the quarrels of rulers in the Carnatic in southern India. In 1756 Siraj ud-Daulah, the young Nawab of Bengal, attacked and took Calcutta (modern Kolkata) when the British fortified it without his permission. The next year Clive, arriving from Madras, recaptured the city.

Clive secretly won over the Nawab’s commander Mir Jafar and the great merchant bankers of Bengal. On 23 June 1757 at Plassey a Company army of some three thousand faced the Nawab’s tens of thousands; Mir Jafar’s troops stood by without fighting, and the Nawab’s army collapsed. Siraj fled but was caught and killed, and Mir Jafar became the Company’s puppet Nawab.

At Buxar in 1764 the Company defeated an alliance of the Mughal emperor and regional rulers, and the following year it gained the right to collect the revenues (diwani) of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, becoming the real ruler there. France was pushed out of India. Built on the wealth of Bengal, British rule spread across India. Joseon at this time was ruled by Yeongjo.