Thread by @syedurahman

Battle of #Plassey was the most important war in history of modern India. It was a decisive victory of British East India Company over Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757, under leadership of Robert Clive. It permanently changed political equation in India.

The victory was made possible by treachery of Mir Jafar, who was Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah's commander in chief. The battle helped the British East India Company take control of Bengal. Over the next 100 years, they seized control of most of Indian subcontinent, Burma, Afghanistan.

There is no iota of doubt that it was the battle of Plassey that exposed the subcontinent’s internal conflicts, destroying the native dynasties then in power and also the economy of imperial Bengal besides the Mughal Empire brick by brick.

In 1756, anticipating French and Dutch fortifications in Bengal, the English began reinforcing troops at Fort William, their ramparts in Calcutta. Siraj ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal asked Britishers to stop fortification forthwith. But they didn't.

On June 26, 1756, the British forces surrendered, Calcutta was renamed Alinagar, and a mosque was ordered to be built inside the fort. The Nawab captured the British enclave in Cossimbazar, near Murshidabad, and imprisoned many British officers, including a young Warren Hastings.

However merely a year later, Clive exacted revenge at Plassey. With the help of the Nawab’s uncle, Mir Jaffar, and local moneylenders, the Jagat Seths, Siraj ud-Daulah was betrayed. The formidable Bengal army of about 60,000 soldiers, 300 cannons and 300 elephants outnumbered

Clive’s forces of 3,000 by 20 times, and yet ended up deserting or surrendering. The battle was lost by soldiers who did not fight and won by generals or subedars, not exactly gallant. From Ali Wardi Khan to Sirajuddaula, it was fall far too fast, too soon

Clive’s annual salary was £5, with £40 for expenses. When he returned to England in 1767, he was ‘Clive of India,’ with a trade revenue of £4 million, more enormous than any European kingdom then, and had a personal jagir of £34,567 (£3.5 million today).

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