Battle Of Buxar
Mir Jafar (made Nawab after Battle of Plassey) was increasingly irritated by the interference of Clive. The treachery of Mir Jafar (conspired with the Dutch against the English) and his failure to make the payments due to the Company annoyed the English. Thus in 1760, under the pressure of the Company Mir Jafar decided to resign in favor of Mir Qasim.
- Mir Qasim was the ablest Nawab among the successors of Alivardi Khan. After assuming power, he shifted the capital from Murshidabad to Munger in Bihar to allow a safe distance from the Company at Calcutta, reorganized the bureaucracy with the men of his own choice and remodeled the army to enhance its skill and efficiency.
- To check the misuse of dastaks by Company’s servants, Mir Qasim decided to abolish the duties altogether but the British protested against this and insisted upon having preferential treatment as against other traders.
- The Nawab-Company tussle over transit duty led to the outbreak of wars between the English and Mir Qasim in 1763. The English gained successive victories at Katwah, Murshidabad, Giria, Sooty and Munger. Mir Qasim fled to Awadh and formed a confederacy with the Nawab of Awadh, Shuja-ud-daulah, and the Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam II, with a view to recover Bengal from the English.
- The combined armies of Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Awadh and Shah Alam II were defeated by the English forces under Major Hector Munro at Buxar on October 22, 1764 in a closely contested battle.
- The importance of this battle lay in the fact that not only the Nawab of Bengal but also the Mughal Emperor of India was defeated by the English. The victory made the English a great power in northern India and contenders for the supremacy over the whole country.
- After the battle, Mir Jafar was again made the Nawab and Robert Clive concluded two important treaties at Allahabad in August 1765—one with the Nawab of Awadh and the other with the Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam II.
- Through the Treaty of Allahabad (1765):
> Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula agreed to surrender Allahabad and Kara to Emperor Shah Alam II and pay Rs 50 lakh to the Company as war indemnity. Clive did not want to annex Awadh and instead turned it into a buffer state.
> Shah Alam II agreed to reside at Allahabad under the Company’s protection and issued a farman granting the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the East India Company. Thus the Treaty of Allahabad made the emperor a useful ‘rubber stamp’ of the Company.