Land of Bangla: Arrivals of

Nawabs and Britishers

Dr. Sudhangshu Sekhar Roy

Professor
Department of Printing and Publication Studies
University of Dhaka

The present Bangladesh is comparatively a new state of ancient land. However, it is

only the split portion of greater Bengal as the other two Bengali-speaking regions, the
West Bengal and Tripura, are now very much parts of India. The splitting of greater
Bengal is the outcome of the partition of greater India in 1947 as per the demand of
execution of Two-nation theory that Muhammad Ali Jinnah initiated. Bangladesh’s
age is now little more than fifty years. In 1971, we (Bangladesh) earned our complete
geographical independence and sovereignty after going through a straight armed-
battle for nine months against the brutal Pakistani occupying and repressive forces.
Okay, Bangladesh is now an independent state, but why is it said as a new state of an
ancient land? Is it the land that has existed for many, many years? If so, then why is
Bangladesh considered comparatively a new state? Why is its age only over fifty
years? What was the status of Bengal before 1971, even before 1947, or even in
ancient time?

From an anthropological and sociological point of view, the existence of this land
named like Bangla, Bongala, Banga, Vanga, etc., are found in the records for more
than one thousand years. If so, why then Bangla is considered a new state? From the
records of the history, we have come to know that Bangla, most of the time with a few
exceptions remained under control of the foreign or neighbouring rulers or invaders.
For more than one thousand years, Greater India, comprised of present India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and some parts of Afghanistan,
Bengal was the part of it, had faced several cruel and devastating invasions from the
foreign intruders. This is the land where originally the Dravidian people once lived in
terms of ethnicity. They were mainly the worshippers of nature and fire. Dravidians
are credited to be the pioneers of developing the Indus (Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro)
Civilization, discovered by Rakhal Das Banerjee, which supposed to have appeared in
about 2500-1700 BCE. The Hindu race of India is reportedly to have evolved through
the Indus Valley. At any time of that civilization, the Aryan Hindus were reported to
have come here from the Persian regions or may be from Caspian valley that
connected Asia and Europe. But, another claim suggested that the locally evolved
Aryans had been living here before the arrivals of other group of Aryans from the
outside. However, it is also claimed that there were one stream of Aryans had been
living here for a long, especially, in the northern part, and they established the
Hinduism in India few thousand years back. But later, both the Dravidian and Aryan
Hindus practically had maintained more or less the similar Vedic religious faiths with
significant different regional ritual cultures at north and in south. And based on Vedic
system, the people of greater India with religious faith of Hinduism had rolled for few
thousand years.

But, the religious scenario and landscape of India had started to change and to take a
new shape with the arrivals of one Iranian (or Saudi?) Muslim General as well as a
spice trader, Muhammad bin Kashim, at Karachi in 712. He indulged in a local clash
between two Hindu kings, and in the process, he defeated one Hindu King there by
extending the help to the other Hindu King. Muhammad bin Kashim, however, did
not stay long in India. But later on, with the arrival of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni,
Afghanistan, and Turkic by origin, the penetrations of Muslim foreigners had started.
Sultan Mahmud came and invaded India as many as 17 times, especially, in the
Somenath temple of Gujarat, between 1,000 to 1027 AD, and looted a huge amount of
valuable ornaments and wealth from there. With those resources, grabbed mainly
from Indian temples, he modernized the some parts of his own country- Iran. This is
the similar way many years ago in the last century; the Pakistanis had also extracted
the huge amount of resources and foreign currencies from Bangladesh between the
period of 1947 to 1971 to develop their new capital at Islamabad, and the country, as a
whole.

The first invader who came and ultimately settled in India was Muhammad Ghori of
the Slave dynasty. He was also from Afghanistan. So, in the process, the other foreign
invaders came to India. Some of them went back, and most of them came here only
for looting. Some of them started to settle here and created their own empires; some
of them had started to destroy the local language and culture; some of them tried to
build up a rapport with the local people and created a mixed culture. Sufism in Islam
was developed in this way after mixing with the Vaishnavite culture of India,
especially in the Bengal region. And some of them started to impose their own culture
and language, and in the process, they not only grabbed our lands, but rather started to
kill our language, culture and ethnicity, too. So, Sultans, Emperors, Nawabs, Raja-
Maharaja, Badshah, Kings, etc., one after another, had occupied the land of greater
India and the land of Bengal as well, and some of them even had extended their
annexation up to the reach of Bengal. Whenever they started to rule over the majority
of local people, we had to lose our independence from time to time.

Therefore, through the long history of struggle, we had to earn our complete freedom
and sovereignty only in 1971. In the process of occupation made by foreigners,
especially from Central Asia, the Middle East, and European regions, the British
people, like the other people of Europe, had landed in greater India at the beginning of
the 17th century during the time of the Mughal Emperor, Jahangir. They succeeded to
earn a permission of making business in India. Therefore, they created a few Banijya
Kuthi (Trading houses) in different parts of India, like Mumbai, Chennai, Odisha, and
Kolkata, etc. Later, they under the name of British East India Company came to an
agreement (DASTAK) with the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, in 1690 to make
business confined only to import and export in exchange for paying taxes of 3000
rupees annually. During this period, they bought three zamindaries (rather villages),
namely Govindapur, Sutanuti and Kolikata under the initiative of Job Charnock (the
Founder of Kolkata) in the region which are presently known as Kolkata. They later
bought another 38 villages, and on the way, they established and expanded this city
later. The British people then created a fort, namely Fort William, at the heart of
Kolkata city and deposited huge arms and ammunitions inside of that fort as if no
outsider, especially the business rivals would create any harm to them. They also
created few trading centers at around Kolkata, especially at Hugli and Kashimbazar at
Murshidabad. After the death of Emperor Aurangzeb, the Mughals started to
disintegrate. In 1717, whenever one weak emperor of the Mughals, Farrukh Shiear,
was in Delhi, British people pressurized the emperor to earn a deal for not paying any
taxes annually for their business purposes.

Moreover, they started to penetrate in Bengal’s local business and bypass the orders
of the then Nawabs, they stopped paying taxes from their profit in the local business.
The local business people had to pay taxes and face stiff challenges of survival. And it
had created a conflict between the local business community and the British people.
Besides, the Nawabs were deprived of getting taxes from them. Naturally, the local
Nawabs were also annoyed with the Britishers. And that was the beginning of the
conflict between the Nawabs and the British.

On the other end, we know the last Nawab of greater Bengal, Nawab Sirajuddowlah,
was defeated in 1757 at the hands of the British, and subsequently killed by the people
loyal to the next future Nawab Mir Jafar Ali Khan. We generally know that Nawab
Sirajuddowlah was the last Nawab of popularly called ‘independent’ Bengal, but
practically, we were not independent then as the Nawabs were not from this land, and
they were not at all any Bengali by origin or by practice. We usually are very
sympathetic towards Sirajuddowlah as he was a Muslim and very much emotionally
attached to him due to his struggle against the British and his sad exit and fate. But,
what kind of cruel actions had been applied upon him or his family, the same kind of
cruelty he and his father Jainuddin and his maternal grandfather Nawab Alivardi Khan
had also committed to his predecessors and challengers. Incidentally, most of them
were Muslims. The incident of killing former Nawab Sarfaraz Khan and Mostafa
Khan, a Pathan Commander of his army, and Maratha Bargi leader Bhaskar Pandit
were the few clear manifestations. It was then, however, very usual political rituals
that when one rose to power after defeating others, the victorious would obviously kill
the losers. It was also a practice for them that they could not have spared killing even
their parents, siblings, or relatives if they considered it necessary to keep their throne
free of challenge and risk.

Factually, Nawab Sirajuddowlah was not a Bengali, and not even accustomed to
speak in Bengali. Although he was born in Bengal (Murshidabad- a district of West
Bengal, India now) but he was Turkish by origin. His maternal forefathers came to
India, and started to settle here during the Mughals. Accordingly, Alivardi Khan was
born in Deccan (south India). He worked under Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, and
showed his some courage and qualities before him. But after the death of Aurangzeb,
Alivardi Khan almost lost everything, and for changing his fate and fortune, he
proceeded towards Bengal. However, the then Nawab of Bengal Nawab Murshid Quli
Khan did not allow him. In terms of Nawabi, Murshid Quli Khan was virtually the
first Nawab of Bengal, and he was originally from India. Murshid Quli Khan was
born to a Hindu Brahmin family in south India as Surya Narayan Mishra. In his early
childhood, his parents were reported to have killed in a communal riot during the time
of the Mughals, then an Iranian Sufi clergyman, Haji Shafi, who worked in the court
of Aurangzeb, bought/adopted him and a few years later, he had taken that child away
to Iran. The child was circumcised there and converted to Islam, and given a new
name, Muhammad Hadi. After the death of Haji Shafi, his sons reportedly freed
Murshid Quli Khan from slavery, and he (Muhammad Hadi) came back to India and
started working in the regime of Aurangzeb. He showed his some good qualities,
especially in revenue collection and smooth administration. Aurangzeb was pleased
with him for that and given him the new name of Murshid Quli Khan. He was later
appointed as like of Lieutenant Governor in Subah Bangla (Bengal Province), and
subsequently, he had been awarded the Nawabship of greater Bengal. While he
worked for few years at Dhaka as like of a Lieutenant Governor, one of his enemies
under influence of Subhader (Governor) and son-in-law of Aurangzeb, Azim-ush-
Shan had attempted to take his life. After surviving whenever he was made the full
Nawab later, he shifted the capital of Bengal from Dhaka to Murshidabad as he
considered Mutshidabad was much safer place for him than Dhaka. He had chosen
Murshidabad as his capital as it was located in the central part of the then undivided
Bengal, and by the side of Padma (Ganges/Bhagirathi) river and its tributaries.
Besides, Murshidabad was surrounded by a lot of rivers through which the movement
of people and business activities were found very comfortable. Murshidabad was then
identified as Moksudabad, but a few years later it was renamed as Murshidabad after
Murshid Quli Khan.

Murshid Quli Khan was comparatively a good administrator, and unlikely of other
Nawabs he married only once. He had two daughters and a son, and after his death,
his son-in-law Shujauddin Ahmed was made the next Nawab. He maintained the
regime more or less peacefully, but after his death, his son Sarfaraz Khan was made
the next Nawab. Sarfaraz Khan was not quite competent ruler, and some kind of chaos
had erupted around the region. Capitalizing this opportunity, clever Alivardi Khan
ultimately entered into Bengal by defeating and killing of a ruler of Behar first and
later defeated Sarfaraz Khan in a war and killed him. In the process in 1740, Alivardi
Khan declared himself as the new Nawab of greater Bengal including western and
eastern parts of Bengal, Behar and Assam. He later defeated the king of Odisha also at
the south-west and annexed it with the Bengal. In the process, the Nawabi Bangla, an
expanded Bengal, was created. Despite his older age, he was very competent but very
ruthless. He killed prominent Pathan commanders of his army and the Maratha Bargi
leader Bhaskar Pandit after alluring him to use his intelligence in his administration in
exchange of settling the conflict with him.

Nawab Alivardi Khan had three daughters and had no son. His elder daughter was
Ghaseti Begum, and the second and youngest daughters were Maimuna Begum and
Amina Begum. Maimuna had one son namely Shawkat Jung and he was the ruler of
Purnia (Behar) during Alivardi as well as Sirajuddowlah’s regime. Amina had more
than one child and Sirajuddowlah was one of them. Sirajuddowlah’s father was the
son of Alivardi’s elder brother. Alivardi Khan had huge affection towards his
grandson Siraj than the others, and that irked other members of his family especially
Ghaseti Begum, who had influence on her father as well as in the court of Nawab.
Ghaseti begum was virtually the de-facto Nawab especially at Alivardi’s last time. If
she was a male, she could have become the Nawab. After the rule of almost 16 years
when Nawab Alivardi Khan was forcefully got bedridden due to an acute disease, he
almost settled his grandson Siraj as his successor. Siraj then was only about 23 years
of age and very immature man in terms of handling the critical issues of politics and
administration. Besides, he was very arrogant, stubborn and not quite respectful to a
disciplined life. On the other hand the chief commander of the army and the Chief
Bakshi (Chief of Finance) of the regime Mir Jafar Ali Khan had the dream to be the
next Nawab. He was also the brother-in-law of Nawab Alivardi Khan. Nawab
Alivardi Khan was reportedly assured to make him next Nawab too. This dilemma
ultimately had history changing big impact in Bengal as well as in whole India.
Ghaseti Begum had the intention to make Shawkat Jung as the next Nawab, and
alternatively she was ready to see Mir Jafar Ali Khan as the next Nawab. Both of
them had some communication between them for a long in this respect. After the
death of Nawab Alivardi Khan, when Sirajuddowlah was found as new Nawab in the
month of April, 1756, it was a very shock to some people especially in the royal court
as well as in the royal family.

After ascending to the throne, the young Nawab Sirajuddowlah had to face three-
pronged challenges. He had the problems in his own family as well as in his court as a
lot of family members and the courtiers was not happy to see Siraj at the throne and
had some planning to forcefully oust him from the reign. A lot of people were
involved in this click like Mr Jafar Ali Khan, Ghaseti Begum, Rajballav, Jagat Seths,
Umichad, Yar Latif Khan, Raidurlav, etc. On the other hand Nawab had to face stiff
challenges from the people of British East India Company also. At the very
beginning, his cousin and the ruler of Purnia, Shawkat Jung did not agree to show his
loyalty to the new Nawab. Therefore, Nawab advanced with his army towards Behar
and defeated Shawkat Jung and killed him. He also sacked Mir Jafar Ali Khan from
the post of Chief Bakshi. He also showed his behaviour indifferently towards his
some courtiers also that irked some of the courtiers. On the other hand he also
advanced his army to crush the British people at Kolkata to stop of illegal business
and unauthorized fortifications at Fort William. And those extreme approaches had
cost him dearly. Instead of not going far, in some stages he could have been taken
some compromising initiatives to settle everything peacefully and diplomatically. He
had dearth of intelligence in this regard.

After doing these interventions in Behar and Kolkata, and in his family, Nawab was
reportedly to be happy that his throne had been come to a safe position, but practically
it was not. Going through an eventful and hostile one year he had ultimately faced
almost a full scale war against the British people on June 23, 1757, but he had to
embrace a painful exit from the throne and subsequently killed on July 2, 1757 due to
conspiracies cooked by his own people in the court as well as in the family. The
common people then were mostly detached from the Nawabs and the people of the
administration, and they did not have any idea or attention or not even aware who the
man coming or going to or from the power. The dead Nawab, however, ultimately
portrayed as a big hero, especially during the time of partition of Bengal in 1905,
mostly by the Hindu writers against the British. Similarly in the sixties of the last
century, Nawab Siraj once again portrayed as a big hero by some Bengali Muslim
writers and film makers like Sikandar Abu Zafar, Zaheer Raihan, etc. to fight against
Pakistani economic and cultural repressions.

Like the most other invading foreigners the British people also came here first as for
making business, but after conquering Bengal they thought of settling here and to rule
for a long. Therefore they used Bengal as Springboard; from here they started to
steadily expanding their movement and annexing the all parts of greater India. As they
decided to settle here, for that they needed to bring some changes in India as if they
can smoothly collect the revenues and to run the administration smoothly. Keeping
the idea in mind, they brought a lot of changes in Indian ruling and administrative
system and policy. Some of the changes they brought were extremely bad like of
introducing Divide and rule policy, Indigo planting, Trespassing of wealth and raw
materials of Bengal to England for use in industries of England at the advent of
Industrial revolution in Europe, etc. On the other hand some of the changes they
brought were equally good like of introducing modern Institutional Educational
System, Modern Administrative System (Bureaucracy), a Democratic Representative
System instead of long standing Feudal structure, carrying Intellectual Movements
(Bengal Renaissance), good Railway (transportation) network, etc. As they needed to
rule their newly created colony in a bureaucratic structure, for that, they needed a lot
of trained people. But it was not possible for them to bring hundreds of thousands of
people from England. So they needed to train up the local people first to fit them in
the modern administrative system including the courts and to work with them.
Therefore, they started of creating modern primary schools first, then colleges and
other vocational institutes as if the people could learn a certain level of knowledge in
Language both English and Bengali, Mathematics, Sciences, Modern Literature, etc.
to cope with the new system and the new age. What the schools and colleges they
started to introduce either directly by them, or later by the mostly Hindu elite and
educated people, we the people of different generations since then are the great
beneficiaries of that system. If it was not, then we had to remain at a very traditional
medieval age and to lagging behind from the other upgraded developing countries of
the world.

In the process at 2023, Bangladesh now stands at a certain level or position, which is
much better than that of our immediate past colonizer Pakistan. However, fifty years
after of creating a secular and liberal country in 1971 after going through a hard-
fought struggle for 23 years against Pakistan based on Bengali language, culture and
ethnicity, the way we are retreating back towards the strict and rigid, and conservative
ideals under pressure from different groups, it would have the maximum chance of
facing a big catastrophe in the near future. And if it continues, we have to be trapped
again in the mediaeval mold and slavery for a long.