"
Nasir-ul-Mulk, Etmaz-ud-Daulla, Ali Jah, Nasrut Jang (
Victor of the Country, Politician of the State, of high rank, Victorious in War)"
Nawab Mir Qasim, grand son of
Syud Imtiaz, Subahdar of Gujrat, was put on the throne of Murshidabad by
The East India Company, replacing his father-in-law Mir Jafar,
on 20
th October 1760. Able and ambitious, Mir Qasim was determined to assert his independence at
the earliest opportunity, and he embodied the Indian reaction to the English company's exploitations.
But he had mortgaged his country's fortunes for the office: the three districts of Burdwan,
Midnapur and Chittagong were assigned to the company for the maintenance of their troops;
the outstanding debts of Mir Jafar were to be paid. Mir Qasim had bought British patronage by the promise of a vast sum, but his predecessor's
treasury had already been impoverished in the three short years of his reign as an appointee of the
Company. Qasim, therefore, undertook heavy taxation to pay his debts and supported it with a
severe and ruthless collection of the taxes. Defaulters were arrested and their properties
forfeited. The number of tax collectors was increased. Tax inspectors were invested with vast
and arbitrary powers. Heavy fines were imposed and extracted for the slightest default.
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His Reign
To please the British, Mir Qasim robbed everybody, confiscated lands, reduced Mir Jafar's purse and depleted the treasury.
Suspecting
Nanda Kumar of intrigue with Shah Alam's agents, the Nawab imprisoned him. He then marched against the rebellious
Zamindars of Birbhum and after suppressing them, proceeded towards Patna.
Mir Qasim then demanded
Eyre Coote to remove the English guards from the gates of the fort of Patna and complained to
Henry Vansittart at Calcutta of the insolence of
Eyre Coote and Brigadier-General
John Carnac, who were in consequence recalled to Calcutta.
Raja Sitaram, whose sympathies were with Mir Jafar and one of the
principal dewan of the Nawab, was tried and found guilty of treason and executed
in 1762. The Nawab then imprisoned
Raja Ram Narain
the
Naib (
deputy-governor) of Bihar and perpetrated other acts of cruelty at Patna.
Raja Ram Narain with his family were imprisoned and their entire
property confiscated. After undergoing long ordeal at Patna, Murshidabad and
Mongyer, he was put to death by throwing in to the Ganges with a sand-bag
fastened to his neck in August, 1763. Immediately after Raja Ram Narain was
removed,
Raja Rajballabh was advanced in the
Deputy Governorship of Bihar. But he could not remain long in the good-book and
confidence of suspicious Mir Qasim who got him removed and imprisoned with his
son in June 1762. He was succeeded by
Raja Naubat Roy.
Raja Rajballabh's entire property and effects, even in Dacca, were confiscated.
Later on he was also put to death at Mongyer in August 1763, along with Raja Ram
Narain and other prisoners of distinction.
The reformation of the army and the administration of revenue next attracted his attention.
Ram Kanta, the husband of
Rani Bhavani (
রানি ভবানি), was ousted from his
Zamindari of Rajshyee, which however was returned to him at the intercession of Jagat Seth. In three years the revenue of Bengal increased to an alarming extent. Mir Qasim's administration has been described as more a pillage than a system of Government. The arrests of Mansaram,
Khojah Petrus Arathoon and Hay, the strictures passed by Ellis William, the refusal of the keeper of the fort at Mongyer to admit armed European soldiers, the interception of letters at Cossimbazar and other circumstances caused great estrangement of feelings.
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Conflict with British
Despite all his compromises there was a limit below which even Qasim was not prepared to
descend. By adroit diplomacy Mir Qasim both obtained his own investiture from Shah
Alam II, the Mughal emperor, and induced him to leave Bihar. He next began to raise a force of disciplined troops, and to secure himself from undue interference from Calcutta he transferred his capital from the riverine Murshidabad to the hilly district of Mongyer. He was able to increase the state revenue by resuming vast amount of
lakheraj (
rent-free) lands, by conducting a new survey of land and increasing the rate of land tax. He then turned to the English and attempted to remove their corruption, which was harming his revenue administration. The English did not like this. They disliked the nawab's attempts to cheek the misuse of the imperial
farman of 1717 by the company's servants, who demanded that their goods, whether destined for export or for internal markets, should be free of duties.
Mir Qasim's attempt to enforce discipline through his
faujdars was one of the immediate causes of the company's breach with him.
The nawab decided to abolish customs duties on internal trade altogether, thus giving his own subjects a concession that the English had seized by force. But the alien merchants were no longer willing to tolerate equality between themselves and the Indians. They demanded the re-imposition of duties on Indian traders. Thus, there could be no compromise between the company's servants, who were determined to assert their supremacy in Bengal, and the nawab's resolve to be master in his own house, and therefore, war was now inevitable.
There was a commercial exploitation. The violence and strong-arm methods used by the Company servants agents undermined the whole structure of the society. Tension rose, with English complaints of deliberate obstruction and Indian complaints of English agents violence and extortion. It was now a case of the private-trader majority against the Nawab.
Mir Qasim wanted to settle the question of inland trade by negotiation with the Company.
Governor
Vansittart and
Warren Hastings, a member of the council, came to Mongyer for
this purpose. It was agreed that the English trader would pay nine percent duty on the prime
cost of commodities and that the Nawab alone would issue the
dastaks for the company
and would be the final authority for the settlement of all trade disputes. The majority
of memebers of the Calcutta Council, however, rejected this agreement.
Consequently, the Nawab abolished all inland duties for all merchants, foreigh or indigenous, to give an equal
treatment to all but this step was regarded by the Company as an attack on the preferential treatment, enjoyed
by them till then.
Conflict was inevitable : all that was needed was a flash-point and some justification. The flash-point was provided by the attempt of
Ellis William, the Company's chief at Patna, to seize the city on the news of the approach of Mir Qasim's new troops.
The plot was foiled and Ellis William surrendered with 170 Europeans and 1200 Indians. A few days later
Amyatt Peter (
a company servant who was chief of Patna in 1759), returning from a last mission to Mir Qasim was waylaid at Murshidabad and killed. The Nawabs troops surrounded Cossimbazar and
Mir Qasim wrote a taunting letter to the Calcutta Council demanding reparation for the damage caused by the English.
On the 7
th July, 1763 AD war was declared against Mir Qasim, and his deposition was announced.
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End of Reign
A regular campaign ensued during the summer of 1763, and on 10
th June
1763
Major Thomas Adams (d. 1764) with a
force of 1000 Europeans and 4000 Sepoys headed up country. The nawab's new army was defeated in pitched battles at
Katwa on the 19
th of June 1763. On the 24
th
the English, having routed the troops of the Nawab that were posted at Moti
Jheel took
Murshidabad. On the 2
nd of
August another battle was fought at a place called Giria, near Suti (
a town
in the Province of Bengal thirty miles N.N.W. from Murshidabad) where Mir
Qasim's army was again literally defeated. The whole of the troop fled for
refuge to a strong entrenchment at
Udaynala
near
Rajmahal. During all these engagements
Mir Qasim was at Mongyer; but he now resolved to join the army at Udaynala.
The fighting was the most severe the English had yet experienced in Bengal. Mir Qasim was no soldier and never led his troops. But he was a man of strong passions as well as of resolution. As the Company's troops advanced, his frustrations and resentments exploded with a burst of mindless vindictiveness. On his march from Mongyer to Patna he executed
Gorgin Khan (
গুরগিন খাঁ), his Armenian commander-in-chief and shortly after the two heads of the Jagat Seth banking family (
Madhab Rai Jagat Seth and
Raja Swaroop Chand)
were beheaded. While Mongyer was still besieged he executed his fifty-six English prisoners including
Ellis William and the councillors
Lushington and
Hay, on October 5, 1763. Patna fell on 6
th November, and Mir Qasim escaped into Oudh. Mir Qasim with the help of his treasure obtained support of
Shuja-ud-Daulla the nawab wazir of Oudh (
Ayodhya) and the emperor Shah Alam II. On 23
rd May 1764 AD the
battle of Bauxer was fought. It was bitterly contested, the English suffering 847 casualties of about 7000 men engaged. But the battle was decisive. Shah Alam
II came over the Company's side and asked for terms, while Shuja-ud-Daulla refused further fighting and retired to the west.
On 23
rd October 1764,
Major Hector
Munro (1726-Dec 27, 1805) led Company forces of 900 Europeans, 5000 Sepoys and 900
Indian Cavalry to Victory at Buxar over Shuja-ud-Daulla of Oudh (Ayodhya). Later in
February 1765 Company forces captured Allahabad forcing Shuja-ud-Daulla to
Lucknow and then to Rohilla region. Mir Qasim disappeared into obscurity. He then visited Allahabad, Gwalior and Delhi and then, deserted by his friends and attendants,
he died like a pauper from dropsy, at Kotwal, near Delhi, 8
th May 1777 AD, and his funeral was performed with the proceeds of the sale of a pair of Shawls, the only property left by him.
The Massacre of October 5, 1763
On October 5th, having surrounded the building in which the prisoners were interned,
Mir Quasim sent for the three leading civilians of the party -
Ellis,
Hay, and
Lushington.
No sooner had they approached than they and the party accompanying them were attacked and killed,
their mutilated bodies afterwards being cast into an adjacent well.
Subsequently, a body of sepoys, under
Walter Reinhardt Sombre's (
afterwards the husband of the famous Begum Samru) orders,
mounted the roof of the house and poured down a deadly fire upon the unfortunate prisoners who were in the yard below.
Some who escaped the murderous volleys took refuge in an inner chamber, where they desperately defended themselves against
the parties of sepoys sent against them.
The sepoys, struck by the heroism shown, sought to be excused from proceeding further with the massacre.
But Sombre would accept nothing short of a full tale of slaughtered victims, and by energetically exercising
his authority, ultimately achieved his vile purpose.
So complete was the holocaust that even Mr. Ellis's infant child was murdered by Sombre's directions.
Altogether, fifty-six civil and military officers and over one hundred European soldiers perished on the occasion.
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Family Tree :: Najafi Dynasty
Mir Qasim was the son of
Mir Razi Khan, and grandson of Nawab
Mir Imtiaz Khan Bahadur, who was Subahdar of Gujarat.
He married Nawab Fatima Begum Sahiba daughter of Mir Jafar and Shah Khanum, and had four sons.
- Mirza Ghulam Uraiz Ja'afari
- Mirza Muhammad Baqir ul-Husain
- Nawab Muhammad Aziz Khan Bahadur
- Nawab Badr ud-din Ali Khan Bahadur