In 1750, seven years before the Battle of Plassey and fourteen years before the Battle of Buxar, Fateh Bahadur Sahi ascended the throne on the eve of the foundations of the British Empire in India, as the ninety-ninth Raja of Huseypur. Robert Clive had joined the East India Company as a clerk in 1744; he was appointed the first Governor of Bengal in 1757.
We begin with the immediate concerns of the Huseypur Raja and the circumstances that shaped the nature of his opposition to the East India Company. When he rose to challenge British imperialism, it was in its earliest days. Even then, it was a fight between unequal opponents. The Company from the start was a private business firm, with huge financial resources, backed by rich and powerful investors with a considerable say in their home government in Britain. Additionally, it had a large, well-equipped and well-trained army. Fateh Sahi was no match for the Company, except, perhaps, in terms of his courage and his people’s support.
He was a hereditary raja, who had inherited a poverty-stricken, backward territory, where the socio-economic conditions had deteriorated under declining Mughal rule. The penetration of European traders into the region deepened the crisis, which was further aggravated once the Company acquired financial and administrative powers after the battles of Plassey and Buxar, and the grant of Diwani rights (right to revenue collection). However, Fateh Sahi seems to have made use of the situation. A glance at the prevailing conditions in the subcontinent provides some understanding as to the reasons for his acting the way he did, and for the rationale behind the long operations that kept the English on their toes for as long as he lived.
India had been a centre of attraction for people from faraway lands since time immemorial. As an important part of the Gangetic heartland with its long history, Bihar had attracted many foreign travellers, explorers and religious missionaries. In modern times, the prospects of trade and economic gains lured the Dutch, Danes, British and French traders, especially to Sarkar Saran and the adjoining areas. After a series of wars and diplomatic manoeuvres, the East India Company triumphed over its geopolitical rivals. Sarkar Saran was part of the Mughal Empire, though with decreasing control when the Europeans entered the region.
Peter Mundy had visited Bihar in November 1632. He stopped over in Patna and wrote about life in the city: a market with about 200 grocery shops along a thoroughfare lined with trees. It was the end of autumn and the beginning of winter. Boats laden with merchandise were being ferried up and down the Ganga, running along the northern fringe of the city. The river appeared to be a hub of commercial and social activities. Mundy spotted luxury boats used for pleasure trips on the river. There was no system of hotels for visitors then; so, he stayed in sarais that were something like modern-day hotels. He names a few of them and many more en route his westward journey. He also writes about some wrongdoings in them, probably by the agents of local officials, and hints at the tyranny of the local faujdar, which forced Mundy to move from one sarai to another.
During his stay, Mundy saw the Raja of Kalyanpur, who had come to meet the faujdar, with some unique gifts – an elephant, antelopes and hawks, among others. Mundy was pleasantly surprised. This indicated the affluence and status of the Kalyanpur Raja, who was well-received by provincial authorities and presented with a ceremonial robe. But in a surprising twist in events, the Raja was soon arrested and his property plundered. His wife and supporters rebelled against the outrage, creating bedlam, which forced local authorities to dispatch law enforcement personnel to restore order. This episode shows that the relations of the Raja with the provincial government were precarious – an indication of the struggle for autonomy of the Kalyanpur rajas. Mundy does not provide more details of the episode.
The hectic commercial activities on the Ganga in Patna at the time provide some clues as to future developments. This was the beginning of the extraction of India’s resources. Patna was a major hub for European commercial activities, as by this time, the Dutch, the French and the Danes had all established their local presence. Indeed, the main trading office of the Dutch in Patna, known popularly as the Dutch Building, still stands majestically on the banks of the Ganga in the city. Today, it houses Patna College, the forerunner of Patna University, and one of the oldest premier institutions of the country. It was from Patna that the Europeans, particularly the Dutch and the French to begin with, sailed to the west and northward, into the northern plains.
The Europeans started from Hooghly, Murshidabad and Calcutta in Bengal and sailed to Bhagalpur, Monghyr (Munger), and then to Patna. From Patna, they cruised westward to Buxar, Benares, Mirjapur, Jaunpur, Kanpur and Allahabad. From Allahabad, they continued on the Ganga further up towards its origins in the Himalayas; whereas River Yamuna, on the other hand, would allow them access to both Agra and Delhi – then two major centres of power and trade. Likewise, from Patna, they penetrated into the interiors of north Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh via the rivers Ghaghra (known as Saryug upstream), and the Gandak, both perennial rivers originating in the sub-Himalayan ranges. The traders entered with limited merchandise initially but stumbled upon rich deposits of the raw material of saltpetre, muslin, hides and varieties of the region’s forest products. They found its fertile alluvial soil most suitable for the cultivation of opium, indigo and other commercial crops, already in demand in the European market. Saltpetre was required for the production of gunpowder, urgently needed for wars for colonial expansion in Europe and elsewhere. Indigo was in demand for the production of blue dyes for the textile industry, heralding the Industrial Revolution in Britain, while opium was an important item of British trade with China.
The Ghaghra-Saryug and the Gandak rivers almost flanked the Huseypur territory from the west and east, respectively; in the north, it was enclosed by a deep stretch of dense forests. In this uneven wild topography, these water routes proved a boon, in conjunction with the auxiliary river networks, like that of the Jharahi along Huseypur in the west and smaller tributaries of the Gandak in the east. Together, they facilitated internal movement and transportation for foreign traders, and would soon turn into vital channels of military supply and political control. Their importance lay in the fact that they served as arteries to the great Ganga, fast emerging as the highway of European trade in India and finally of British power.
Excerpted with permission from The Raja, the Rebel, and the Monk: Fateh Sahi’s War Against the East India Company, JN Sinha, Penguin India.
