Mir Qasim

Mir Qasim (also spelt Mir Kasim full name:Mir Kasim Ali Khan) (died 1777) was Nawab of Bengal from 1760 to 1764. He was installed as Nawab by the British East India Company replacing Mir Jafar, his father-in-law, who had himself been installed by the British after his role in the Battle of Plassey. However, Mir Jafar had started to assert independence by trying to tie up with the Dutch East India Company. The British eventually overran the Dutch forces at Chinsura and replaced Mir Jafar with Mir Qasim.[1] Qasim later fell out with the British and fought them at the Battle of Buxar. His defeat has been suggested as the last real chance of preventing a British-ruled India following Britain' s victory in the Seven Years War. 

Conflict with British

Upon ascending the throne, Mir Qasim repaid the British with lavish gifts. To please the British, Mir Qasim robbed everybody, confiscated lands, reduced Mir Jafar's purse and depleted the treasury. He also transferred the districts of Burdwan, Midnapur and Chittagong to the British East India Company. However, he was soon tired of British interference and endless avarice and like Mir Jafar before him, yearned to break free of the British. He eventually shifted his capital from Murshidabad to Munger in present day Bihar where he raised an independent army, financing them by streamlining reforms in tax collection.

He opposed the British East India Company position that their imperial Mughal licence (dastak) meant that they could trade without paying taxes (other local merchants with dastaks were required to pay up to 40% of their revenue as tax). Frustrated at the British refusal to pay these taxes, Mir Qasim abolished all taxes on the local traders as well. This upset the advantage that the British traders had been enjoying so far, and hostilities built up. After losing a number of skirmishes, Mir Qasim overran the Company offices in Patna in 1763, killing several Europeans including the Resident. Mir Qasim teamed up with Shuja-ud-Daula of Avadh and Shah Alam II, the itinerant Mughal emperor, who were also threatened by growing British might. However, their combined forces were defeated in the Battle of Buxar in 1764, thus ceding control of the rich Gangetic plain to the British.

The short campaign against British of Mir Qasim was significant. It was a direct fight against outsider British by native Bengali. Unlike Siraj-ud-Daulah before him, Mir Qasim was an effective and popular ruler. The battle with Mir Qasim and the success at Buxar established the British as conquerors of Bengal in a much more real sense than the Battle of Plassey ten years ago.

Death

Mir Qasim died in obscurity, possibly in Delhi in 1777. He passed his last days in abject poverty. His shawl had to be sold for paying off his coroners.

[edit]Observation

Mir Qasim was the one of the affected parties of the indecisiveness and foolhardiness of the Nawab of Oudh, Shuja-ud-Daula the first being the Marhattas in the Third Battle of Panipat. Never fully committed to a cause, Shuja lost the Battle of Buxar in spite of having vast numerical superiority due to poor planning and the fact that he was trying to score a point over the Mughal Emperor and the Nawab of Bengal.