Latest / The Rise of Colonialism: How Europe Divided the World — Fexingo History / The Battle of Buxar 1764: Britain's Forgotten Conquest of Bengal
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Plassey — the treachery, the quick victory, how Clive essentially bought Bengal for the Company. But here's the thing: Plassey wasn't the end. It was more like the first act. Luna: Right, because Mir Jafar was still on the throne, but he was basically a puppet. Lucas: Exactly. And puppets have a way of wanting to cut their strings. Within a few years, the Company's demands got so heavy — they wanted more territory, more money, more control over trade — that Mir Jafar started pushing back. But he was old, and not very effective. So the Company, in 1760, decided to replace him with his son-in-law, Mir Qasim. Lucas: Now, Mir Qasim was a different animal. He was young, ambitious, and he had actually seen how the Company operated. He agreed to give the Company some valuable districts — Burdwan, Midnapore, and Chittagong — in exchange for the throne. But he wasn't going to be a passive figurehead. Luna: So what did he do that actually sparked the war? Lucas: He tried to reform the administration. He moved his capital from Murshidabad to a more defensible town called Monghyr, up the Ganges. And he started building a modern army, trained by European officers — some French, some Dutch. But the real flashpoint was trade. The Company's private traders were abusing their tax-free passes, called dastaks, to avoid duties on internal trade, undercutting local merchants. Lucas: Mir Qasim decided to abolish all duties on internal trade altogether — for everyone, including Indians — to level the playing field. The Company saw that as a direct challenge to their privileges. They refused to accept it. And when Mir Qasim insisted, they decided to remove him, just like they'd removed siraj ud daulah. Luna: But this time the Mughal emperor got involved, right? Lucas: Exactly. Mir Qasim wasn't just fighting the Company — he appealed to the Mughal emperor, Shah Alam II, who was then a young, restless ruler trying to restore some imperial authority. And he also allied with shuja ud daula, the Nawab of Awadh, a powerful kingdom to the northwest. So we have a triple alliance: Mir Qasim, Shah Alam, and shuja ud daula, all determined to push the Company out of Bengal. Luna: That sounds like a formidable coalition. What was the Company's response? Lucas: The Company had a new commander: Major Hector Munro, a Scottish officer who had served in the Seven Years' War. He was a strict disciplinarian. And he had about 7,000 men — mostly sepoys, with a small contingent of European infantry and artillery. Against him, the allied army had somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 men, plus a large number of cannon. But they were a coalition — different commanders, different agendas. Lucas: The two armies met at Buxar, a small town on the banks of the Ganges in what is now Bihar, on October 22, 1764. Munro's troops had marched through the night and were exhausted. But he knew that if he showed hesitation, his sepoys might lose confidence. So he formed them up in a long line and advanced. Luna: Wait — his men were tired, and he faced a massive enemy army? That sounds risky. Lucas: It was. But Munro had two advantages: discipline and firepower. The Indian allies had cannon, but they were slow to move and poorly coordinated. The Company's sepoys, trained in European linear tactics, could load and fire faster. Munro also had a small cavalry force that he used effectively. The battle started with artillery exchanges, then the allied cavalry charged — but they were repelled by volley fire. Lucas: The turning point came when some of Mir Qasim's newly trained troops, commanded by an Armenian officer named Gurgin Khan, held their ground for a while. But when the Company's infantry advanced with bayonets, the allied line broke. shuja ud daula's men were the first to flee, and soon the entire army collapsed. The Company lost only a few hundred men; the allies lost thousands. Luna: So it was a total rout. What happened to Mir Qasim? Lucas: He fled with his family and a small retinue, heading west. But before he left, he committed a terrible act. He had heard that his own officials in Patna had surrendered to the Company. In a fit of rage and despair, he ordered the execution of several British prisoners he was holding — around 150 men, including some women and children. It was a massacre, and it permanently blackened his name in British accounts. Luna: That's horrible. Did he ever face justice? Lucas: He lived as a fugitive for a few years, eventually dying in obscurity near Delhi in 1777. But the real consequences were political. Shah Alam II and shuja ud daula had to sue for peace. The result was the Treaty of Allahabad in 1765, which reshaped India. Lucas: Under that treaty, the Company got the diwani — the right to collect revenue — for Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. In exchange, the Company agreed to pay an annual tribute to the emperor and to protect him. Shah Alam, meanwhile, was given the districts of Kora and Allahabad as a pensionary holding. But effectively, the Mughal emperor became a puppet of the Company — a situation that lasted until 1858. Luna: So Buxar is really the moment the Company stopped being just a trading company and started acting like a sovereign power. Lucas: Absolutely. Plassey gave them influence; Buxar gave them legitimacy. They now had the legal right to tax the richest province in India. And with that money, they could finance further conquests. It's no exaggeration to say that the British Raj began not in 1757, but in 1765, at Allahabad. Lucas: And there's a human side to all this. Think about the millions of peasants in Bengal who suddenly had a new landlord — a foreign company that cared only about profit. The revenue demands became crushing. Within a few years, a terrible famine hit Bengal in 1770, killing millions. The Company's tax policies made it worse. Luna: It's a sobering legacy. So often we focus on the battles and the personalities, but the real story is about ordinary people caught in the middle. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why we keep coming back to these episodes — to understand not just what happened, but what it meant. If today's conversation felt worth a coffee to you, you know the link: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It helps us keep digging into stories like this, without any ads. Luna: Honestly, the kind of detail you bring is exactly why I keep listening. So if anyone out there feels the same, that link is there. Lucas: Thanks. So to wrap up: Buxar is one of those battles that doesn't get the attention it deserves — partly because it's overshadowed by Plassey, partly because it's a messy coalition story. But it's the moment the Company became the de facto ruler of Bengal. And that set the stage for everything that followed: the expansion into Awadh, the Mysore wars, the Maratha wars. It all traces back to that dusty plain at Buxar. Luna: I think a lot of people will be surprised to learn that the Mughal emperor himself was on the losing side. That really marks the end of an era. Lucas: It does. Shah Alam II would spend the rest of his long life as a pensioner of the Company, living in Allahabad and later Delhi, a shadow of his ancestors. The Mughal Empire never recovered. And the British Empire in India was born.