THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MUGHAL EMPIREmoved to the north in order to challenge the nawab on the battlefield of
Plassey. Mir Jaffar was supposed to change sides while the battle was on and
Clive would then see to it that he would become the nawab of Bengal. This
was a risky gamble. Clive had only 3,000 troops and the nawab’s army was
far greater; there was also no guarantee that Mir Jaffar would keep his
promise. With Clive still hesitating to join the battle, one of his young
officers scored a sudden success with his field artillery. Mir Jaffar then did
change sides: the nawab was defeated and killed. The traitor duly succeeded
to power and rewarded Clive handsomely with a fief and a huge sum of
money. Back in Calcutta Clive got himself elected as governor of Bengal by
the company’s officers there—a rather unusual procedure, indeed.
At the court of the Great Mughal in Delhi the reaction to this news was
quick. The nawab of Bengal had been as good as independent and his defeat
was welcome. The Great Mughal thought that he could perhaps restore
some of his authority in Bengal by entrusting the British with the civil
administration (Diwani) of that province so as to curb the influence of the
new nawab, who would be left with the military command only. When Clive
received this offer in 1758 he was eager to accept. Young Warren Hastings,
at that time the company’s agent at the court of the nawab in Murshidabad,
also recommended it. None the less, Clive also thought that the company
would be ill-equipped for this task and wanted the Crown to accept this
responsibility, as he clearly foresaw that this would be the beginning of a
British empire in India. Clive wrote to Pitt about it, but this astute prime
minister rejected the idea. He feared the vesting of too much power and
patronage in the hands of the ambitious King George III, which might enable
the Crown to circumvent the budgetary control of Parliament by drawing on
the rich tribute of Bengal. Pitt, although also enchanted by the vision of
empire, did not want to jeopardise the parliamentary system: he advised that
the company accept the Diwani of Bengal as it would be better for the
tribute of the province to fill the pockets of private citizens rather than the
royal treasury. On the other hand, Pitt agreed with Clive’s assessment that,
following the latter’s imminent departure from India, there would be nobody
able to cope with this task. Clive did leave India in 1760, without arriving at
a decision on the Great Mughal’s offer. He was not to know that the course
of events would force his return to India only a few years later.
The Seven Years War and the Battle of PanipatThe Seven Years War which led to a world-wide confrontation between the
British and the French—from the forests of Canada to the east coast of
India—was actually only a three years’ war in India. By their decision of
1754 the French had given up the position gained by Dupleix and de
Bussy; but now when the war began they made a further fatal mistake.
Instead of appointing de Bussy as the supreme commander of the French