Wishesh Magazine November_2018 Wishesh Magazine November 2018 | Page 103

It was “Plassey which
necessitated,” wrote
Malleson, “the conquest and
colonisation of the Cape of
Good Hope, of the Mauritius,
the protectorship over
Egypt; Plassey which gave
to the sons of her middle-
classes the finest field for the
development of their talent
and industry the world has
ever known… the conviction of
which underlies the thought of
every true Englishman.”
It was Plassey, however, that
exposed the subcontinent’s
internal conflicts, destroying
the native dynasties then in
power and also the economy
of imperial Bengal.
In the early 18th century,
India was a gigantic cesspool
of business interests torn
between European powers,
native rulers, and the local
or migrant merchants — all
of them prowling about the
hunting grounds of opium,
saltpetre, textiles, spices, and
bullion. 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, had just succeeded to
the throne, after his grandfather
Ali Vardi Khan. Infuriated,
he asked the English to stop
their fortifications, and when
they ignored him, Siraj ud-
Daulah attacked the fort and its
neighbouring church.
The context
By the mid-18th century, the
Mughal Empire, which had
once controlled most of the
Indian sub-continent, was in
a state of collapse as native
Indian and European states
attempted to carve out their
own political and economic
power bases.
The East India Company
was one of these competing
powers. While battling the
French for trading supremacy,
NOVEMBER 2018 | WWW.WISHESH.NET