During the 1600s and early 1700s, Bengal was the jewel of the Mughal Empire—a region of immense economic prosperity, thriving agriculture, and rich cultural traditions. Local folklore, such as the famous Gazi Scroll (the Gazi Pat), vividly depicted the Bengal tiger as an absolute symbol of local power, spiritual authority, and untamed nature. Yet, beneath this cultural and economic golden age, the British East India Company (EIC) who landed in the subcontinent for commercial purpose was suprised by the land's prosperity, natural resources and man power. Driven by greed EIC had quietly begun to weave a web. Like an hungery python slowly coiling around its prey, the British traders developed a good rapport with local rulers over a period of time. Having firmly settled, when the opportunity arose, they tacticallt used economic subversion, political manipulation, and outright deception to eventually overthrow the Bengal Nawabs.
The Wealth of the Bengal Tiger
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| Alivardi Khan, en.wikipedia.org |
Above image: Mogul representative Alivardi Khan adopted strict attitude toward European mercantile companies, in particular EIC which never paid the customs duty properly. So friction developed between his administration and the English company. This made the EIC get a special farman directly from the Mogul administration. EIC tactically used the black sheep there.......
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| Shuja-ud-Daula Bharatpedia.com |
Industrial Centers: Cities like Dhaka (Decca), Murshidabad, and Hooghly grew rapidly. Dhaka exported high-quality muslin and textiles worth 30 lakh rupees annually, while Qasim Bazaar produced over two million pounds of raw silk per year.
Financial Backbone: Sophisticated banking dynasties, most notably the Jagat Seths ("Bankers of the World"), managed the state’s massive revenues. Their financial network was so vast that it mirrored, and sometimes exceeded, the efficiency of the contemporary Bank of England. At one stage they even financed the European countries operating in Bengal, besides the Nawabs.
The British Footprint: Establishing the Foothold
The British entry into Bengal was methodical. They transition from cautious guests to heavily fortified occupiers over several decades:
First Factories1633-1651
Granted permission by the Mughal governor of Orissa to establish factories at Hariharpur and Balasore (1633), followed by a major trading post at Hooghly (1651).
Mughal Restrictions 1658-1663
Governor Mir Jumla recognized the growing threat and imposed strict limits and customs duties on British trade to protect local commerce.
Privileges Restored1664+
The new viceroy, Shaista Khan, relaxed these rules, allowing the British to spread their settlements to Qasim Bazaar and Balasore.
Foundation of Calcutta 1690
Job Charnock selected Sutanuti, Kalikata, and Govindpur to build a centralized British trading center, laying the groundwork for modern Calcutta. Earlier, these island were trade centers on a small scale. What the British did was, they focussed on infra-structure development for future growth.
Fort William Completed 1700
The construction of Fort William gave the EIC a military stronghold, officially designated as the "Presidency of Fort William. It was built to safeguard their business interest, store their merchandise and station an army for security.
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| Ft. William,Kolkata en.wikipedia.org |
Above image: Ft. William, Hastings, Kolkata. Named after King William III in 1700 with the largest park in front close to the river Hooghly. An internal guard room (dungeon) became the scene of Black Hole (June 1756) incident of Calcutta which gave the British an excuse to attack Nawab Siraj with additional enforcement from Madras headed by Robert Clive. His subsequent dishonest war exploits on the soil of Bengal laid the basic foundation of the British. Today the fort Williams is the headquarters of Eastern Command of the Indian Army........
"The Great Deception: The 1717 Farman and Economic Cheating
The turning point in Bengal’s subversion occurred in 1717, when the British secured a royal decree (farman) from the Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar. In exchange for a meager annual payment of 3,000 rupees, the British were granted unprecedented trade privileges.
How the EIC Cheated the System:
The farman granted the EIC the right to issue Dastaks (trade passes) for duty-free import and export. However, Company servants corruptly used these dastaks to exempt their private, personal trade from taxes. Even worse, they sold these passes to illegal third-party merchants for a profit.
This created a completely rigged economy:
Ruined Local Merchants: Local Indian traders, who were required to pay heavy taxes, could no longer compete with duty-free British goods.
Bankrupted the State Treasury: The Bengal Nawabs lost millions in customs revenues. Nawab Murshid Quli Khan fiercely resisted these abuses, but his authority was repeatedly bypassed by British appeals to the corrupt imperial court in Delhi.
The Fall of the Tiger
By the mid-18th century, the central Mughal authority was fracturing. The British capitalized on this chaos by stockpiling heavy weapons and fortifying Calcutta without the Nawab's permission. When the young, proud Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah attempted to rein them in, the British resorted to political espionage.
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| The British lion and Bengal tiger.bonhams.com |
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| Battle of plassey,Bengal,India. visitthepat.com |
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| Cliv meeting with traitor Mir Jaffer Battle of Plassey. June 1757 Bengal |
Above image: Nawab Siraj's own relative amir Mir Jaffar became a traitor (in return for big favor) and the plot to dethrone the Nawab was hatched in collusion with William Watson of EIC and others with support from Clive before the Plassey war..........
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| quotesgram.com |
Following the victory at Plassey and other battles, the British systematically plundered the Bengal treasury, shipping over £22 million worth of wealth straight to London. This massive extraction of wealth served as the financial engine for the British Industrial Revolution, It saw the overall growth of big cities there and vastly shot up their GDP while leaving Bengal—once the most prosperous land in Asia—vulnerable to severe poverty, resource exploitation, and eventual famine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_PlasseyK. N. Jayaraman (Author: navrangindia.blogspot.com )
