Latest / The Rise of Colonialism: How Europe Divided the World — Fexingo History / The Rohilla War 1774: East India Company's First Afghan Conflict
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about how the East India Company got the diwani of Bengal, how they fought the Marathas, how they squeezed the Nawabs. But there's a war that often gets skipped — the Rohilla War of 1774. It's this strange, brutal little campaign where Warren Hastings basically hired out the Company's army to the Nawab of Awadh to crush a group of Afghan settlers. Luna: Wait — Afghan settlers in India? I thought the Afghans came as invaders, like the Durranis. Lucas: That's the common image, but by the mid-1700s there were whole communities of Afghans — Rohillas they called themselves — who had migrated into the Ganga-Yamuna Doab, the fertile region between the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. They were mostly Pashtun soldiers and mercenaries who served under the Mughals, and over time they carved out their own principality called Rohilkhand, centered around Bareilly. Lucas: Their leader was a man named Hafiz Rahmat Khan, a seasoned commander who had fought alongside the Mughals and against the Marathas. He wasn't some wild tribesman — he was a literate, diplomatic ruler who maintained a well-ordered state. But he was also sitting on land that the Nawab of Awadh, shuja ud daula, wanted. Luna: Ah, so this is the same shuja ud daula we met in the Battle of Buxar. Lucas: Exactly. shuja ud daula had fought against the Company at Buxar in 1764, then switched sides and became their ally. By 1773, he was deeply in debt to the Company — he owed them huge sums for the use of their troops and for buying back territories like Kora and Allahabad. So he proposed a deal to Warren Hastings: the Company would lend him its army to conquer Rohilkhand. Once conquered, Shuja would pay off his debt by giving the Company a chunk of the loot, and then he'd buy the land from them. Lucas: Hastings saw it as a clean business transaction. The Company's troops were already stationed in Awadh anyway, and the Rohillas were, in his view, a lawless band of Afghan adventurers who had no legitimate claim to the land. Never mind that they'd been there for decades, paid taxes to the Mughal emperor, and had treaties with shuja ud daula himself. Luna: So the Company just invaded them on a debt-collection scheme? Lucas: Pretty much. In April 1774, Colonel Alexander Champion marched into Rohilkhand with about 30,000 men — a mix of Company sepoys and Awadh troops. Hafiz Rahmat Khan had around 40,000, but many were tribal levies, not disciplined infantry. The two armies met near a village called Miranpur Katra. Lucas: Hafiz Rahmat Khan knew he couldn't win a pitched battle against the Company's artillery and drilled sepoys. He tried to negotiate, offering to pay a huge tribute if they'd leave. But Hastings wanted total submission — the Rohillas had to accept Company overlordship, disarm, and become tributaries. Hafiz refused. Lucas: And then there's this moment — you know, one of those things that just sticks with you. Hafiz Rahmat Khan was about 60 years old at the time. He could have fled, saved himself. But he chose to make a last stand. He put on his finest robes, sat on a howdah atop an elephant, and led a charge straight at the Company lines. A sepoy shot him off the elephant, and that was it. Luna: He died in battle like a Mughal nobleman. Lucas: Exactly. And once he was dead, the Rohilla resistance collapsed. Champion's troops sacked the Rohilla villages, seized thousands of cattle, and took hundreds of prisoners. The survivors fled into the jungle or across the Ganges. The Company then handed Rohilkhand over to shuja ud daula, who promptly annexed it into Awadh. For the Company, it was a neat profit — they got paid, and they didn't even keep the territory. Luna: But I imagine this didn't go over well back in London. Lucas: No, it didn't. And this is where the story gets really interesting politically. The Rohilla War became a major scandal in Britain. Edmund Burke, who was already suspicious of the Company's power, seized on it as proof that the Company was waging aggressive wars for private profit. He later used it as one of the articles of impeachment against Warren Hastings. Lucas: Burke argued that the Rohillas were a peaceful people who had done nothing to provoke the attack — that Hastings had violated treaties and natural justice. Hastings defended himself by saying the Rohillas were a threat to Awadh and that the war was necessary for stability. But the truth is, it was a land grab disguised as a bailout. Luna: It's interesting that this war happened right after the Regulating Act, which was supposed to control the Company. Lucas: That's the irony. The Regulating Act of 1773 created the position of Governor-General — and the first Governor-General was Warren Hastings himself. So the very man who was supposed to be supervised by a council in Calcutta was the one launching a controversial war. Hastings actually kept the council in the dark until after the campaign was over. He presented it as a fait accompli. Lucas: And you know, this war also shows something about how the Company's army worked. The sepoys who fought at Miranpur Katra were mostly men from Bihar and the Ganges plain. They had no loyalty to the Rohillas. They followed orders because that's what soldiers do. But the Rohillas were also Muslims, same as many of the sepoys. It wasn't a religious war — it was a business war. Luna: And the Rohillas themselves — did they ever recover? Lucas: Not really. The survivors scattered. Some went to Delhi and served under the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II. Others joined the Marathas. A few even ended up in the Company's own army. But Rohilkhand as a political entity was gone. The region remained part of Awadh until the British annexed the whole of Awadh in 1856, and that became one of the causes of the 1857 rebellion. Luna: So in a way, the Rohilla War planted a seed for 1857. Lucas: It did. The annexation of Awadh was hated by the local nobility, many of whom were displaced. And the memory of how the Company treated the Rohillas — a Muslim kingdom wiped out for debt — fed into the narrative that the British were destroying the old order. But that's a story for another episode. Luna: One thing I'm curious about — how did the Rohillas end up in India in the first place? Were they just mercenaries? Lucas: Mostly. From the 17th century onward, Pashtun soldiers from the hills of what's now Pakistan and Afghanistan migrated eastward seeking employment under the Mughals. They were known as 'Rohillas' because they came from the 'Roh' region — the mountainous area around Peshawar and Kabul. Under the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, they were given land grants in the Doab as payment for military service. Lucas: By the 18th century, as the Mughal Empire weakened, these Rohilla leaders became virtually independent. They built forts, collected taxes, and ruled their own little kingdoms. Hafiz Rahmat Khan was actually the most powerful of them, but there were others — like najib ud daula, who we've mentioned before in the context of Panipat. Luna: Right — najib ud daula fought alongside the Durranis against the Marathas. Lucas: Exactly. The Rohillas were never a unified nation. They were a collection of chieftains who sometimes cooperated and sometimes fought each other. That lack of unity made them vulnerable when a disciplined army like the Company's showed up. Lucas: And there's another layer here: the Rohilla War also had a personal angle for Hastings. He needed to prove to his critics in London that he could generate revenue and maintain order without costing the Company money. The war was, in his mind, a way to shore up his political position. He could say: look, I got shuja ud daula to pay off his debt, I expanded British influence without taking on new territory, and I pacified a troublesome border region. It was a neat package. Luna: Except it wasn't neat at all. Lucas: No, it wasn't. The human cost was real. And the political fallout in Britain eventually caught up with him. But that's the pattern of early colonialism — each decision looked rational from the desk in Calcutta, but on the ground it meant burning villages and displacing communities. Lucas: So if you're following along with our story of how the Company became the de facto ruler of India, the Rohilla War is a key moment. It shows that by 1774, the Company was already acting like a sovereign power — making treaties, waging wars, and collecting tribute — all under the cover of being a mere trading company. And it would take another decade of scandals and parliamentary inquiries before London really tried to rein them in. Luna: And even then, the Regulating Act barely slowed them down. Lucas: Exactly. The Company's momentum was too strong. But that's where we'll pick up next time.