The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire

by William Dalrymple

The evening that Adams’ reply reached Mir Qasim, Gentil was called by the Nawab to the tented hall of audience he had pitched in the Patna fort. ‘I found the Nawab alone,’ he wrote later. ‘He had me sit on a small bolster next to his throne and said’:

  ‘I wrote warning Major Adams that if he went beyond Rajmahal, I would have all the English prisoners now in my power killed, and I made a solemn oath on the Quran to that effect. He took no notice of my threats, as he has now taken Monghyr and passed beyond it. Surely I must act on my oath? If they take me prisoner, they will surely treat me in the same way. Well, I’ll strike first! What do you advise? Don’t you think like me?’

  Dumbfounded by his suggestion, I did not reply, believing that my silence would more eloquently signify the abhorrence I felt, than any well-reasoned arguments. But Mir Qasim insisted I give him my honest opinion on the matter, so I replied: ‘I must tell you that acting on such an oath would be a crime, in the eyes of all nations: a pointless crime, one that would rule out any possibility of peace. If you had killed these Englishmen in the course of a military action, no one would protest – these are the risks run by any fighter in combat. But to murder prisoners, men who are not your enemies in the sense that they cannot do you any harm, who have laid down their arms on the assurance of safety of life and limb given by your officers in your name – that would be a horrible atrocity, unparalleled in the annals of India. Not only should you not harm them in any way, rather you should protect and succour them in all their needs. Besides, you should not vent your hatred of their nation on them, as they might be of use to you!’

  ‘But,’ replied the Nawab, ‘if I fell into the hands of the English, they would not spare me, they’d have me killed.’

  ‘Never!’ I replied. ‘Don’t believe such a thing: rather they would treat you as they did your father-in-law when they replaced him with you: if they removed you as governor of Bengal, they would grant you the means to live according to your rank.’

  ‘And how could they be of use to me?’ the prince asked.

  ‘By choosing two of the most highly respected among them,’ I replied, ‘and sending them to negotiate peace: I guarantee they would do their utmost to secure terms, and that, having given you their word of honour, they would come back to you to report on negotiations.’

  Sumru arrived at that moment and saluted the prince from a distance, then went to take his place; Mir Qasim called him to sit beside him and dismissed me, saying in an irritable tone that my presence would not be required at his council.

  I had barely emerged from the Nawab’s tent, when Sumru too rose, saluted the Nawab and went to prepare the massacre of the English. A French sergeant of sepoys named Chateau refused to carry out Sumru’s orders to kill the English, saying, ‘Though, as a Frenchman, I may be an enemy of the English, I am not their executioner: I will have nothing to do with this atrocity!’ Sumru had the man put under guard, and went himself to carry out the barbaric orders of his master.23

  It was seven o’clock in the evening when Sumru and his platoon of armed sepoys arrived at the haveli where the British prisoners were being kept. He first called out Ellis and his deputy Lushington ‘who, being acquainted that he had private business with them, went to him, and were instantly cut down’.24 Sumru then posted his soldiers on the terraces overlooking the central courtyard of the prisoners’ lodgings, where they were just finishing their dinner on a long table in the open air. According to the Comte de Modave, who later quizzed Sumru personally about what happened, the assassin claimed that, with a view to saving as many as he could, he ‘shouted out several times that if there were any French, Italian, German or Portuguese among them they could leave. But the prisoners did not realise the significance of the question, and as they were eating their supper, shouted back cheerily that they were all English.’25

  As soon as the dinner was over, and the plates had been cleared away and the servants had withdrawn, Sumru told his troops to take aim. Then he ordered them to begin firing. He had the marksmen bring them down with musket shots, then descended to finish off with their bayonets those who had run to escape; one man who had hidden in the lavatory trench was executed three days later: ‘It is said that the English prisoners, while they had life, did not lose their spirits, but rather fought off their executioners, even with wine-bottles and stones’, their knives and forks having been taken from them after dinner.26 Their ‘cut up and mangled’ corpses were then thrown into a well in the courtyard. Wherever else there were Company servants imprisoned, they were also killed; only a very few, like the popular Scottish surgeon and aesthete Dr William Fullarton came out alive, thanks to the personal intervention of his old friend the historian Ghulam Hussain Khan, with whom he used to discuss their shared loved of Mughal miniatures.

  Forty-five Company servants perished in what came to be known by the British as the Patna Massacre. In addition to this number, though rarely referred to in British histories, were 200 of their sepoys who were killed because they refused to join Mir Qasim’s ranks, and who were being kept in various places under guard by the local military chiefs.27

  The next morning, Mir Qasim struck his tents and headed for the Karmanasa, the border with Avadh. With him he took all that he could retrieve of his wealth and all his remaining troops: some 30,000 of his battered fighters and 100 million rupees,* carried on 300 treasure elephants, with more hidden inside purdah carriages – ‘numbers of covered coaches and chairs, which passed for containing some favourite ladies, but which, in reality, contained nothing but bags of white cloth, full of gold coin, as well as jewels of high value’.28 He had with him, as Gentil put it, ‘all the accumulated wealth of Bengal, which he had extracted from the landholders, who had themselves been pillaging this rich province since time immemorial’.29

  Mir Qasim had earlier sent messages ahead to Shuja ud-Daula, the Nawab of Avadh, and to Shah Alam, who was still staying with him as his guest, proposing a grand Mughal alliance against the Company. Now, as Mir Qasim’s army neared the border, messengers arrived responding positively to the overture, bringing a copy of the Quran ‘on some blank leaves of which glorious book were written that Prince’s promise of safe conduct, under his own hand and seal’.30

  Mir Qasim was delighted. On the march he had taken Gentil aside and told him he no longer trusted any of his own men, and now badly needed new allies. ‘While resting in the shade on the march, this Prince told me: “You see all these people? All my troops? The commanders abuse me, because I’m retreating and not leading them against the English – but they’re all traitors! If I led them into battle, they wouldn’t fight, they’d betray me to the enemy! I know them: they’re unprincipled cowards, I can put no trust in them! And now they have too much money: I’ve had them paid all I owe them, since leaving Patna – 25 million rupees.”’*31

  Only one man spoke out against the proposed alliance – the young Persian cavalry officer, Mirza Najaf Khan, who was the only one of Mir Qasim’s commanders to have acquitted himself with honour on the campaign. He pointed out that Shuja ud-Daula had a reputation for treachery, and that he had over the years double-crossed almost everyone he had entered into alliance with: ‘Never,’ he said, ‘put yourself in that prince’s power. Retire to the fortress of Rohtas with your family and treasure, and leave the management of the war to me.’32

  But Mir Qasim chose to ignore the warnings and replied that the waters of Rohtas had never suited him. Instead, on 19 November, he forded the Karmanasa, and crossed into Avadh.

  Shuja ud-Daula, son of the great Mughal Vizier Safdar Jung and his successor as Nawab of Avadh, was a giant of a man. Nearly seven feet tall, with oiled moustaches that projected from his face like a pair of outstretched eagle’s wings, he was a man of immense physical strength. By 1763, he was past his prime, but still reputedly strong enough to cut off the head of a buffalo with a single swing of his sword, or lift up two of his officers, one in each hand. One hostile Maratha source described him as ‘no ordinary man. He is a de
mon by nature … who, if he puts his foot on the hind leg of an elephant and seizes its tail, that elephant cannot get away.33* Jean Law described him as ‘the handsomest person I have seen in India. He towers over Imad ul-Mulk by his figure, and I believe also in qualities of the heart and temperament. He is occupied in nothing except pleasure, hunting and the most violent exercises.’34

  Shuja was a man’s man: impulsive and forthright, he had the capacity – notably rare in eighteenth-century India – to inspire loyalty in his followers. His most obvious vices were his overweening ambition, his haughty self-importance and his inflated opinion of his own abilities. This was something that immediately struck the urbane intellectual Ghulam Hussain Khan, who regarded him as a slight liability, every bit as foolish as he was bold. Shuja, he wrote, ‘was equally proud and ignorant’:

  He had conceived as high an opinion of his own power, as he had an indifferent one of what his enemies could perform; and he thought himself more than equal to the task of conquering all the three provinces [of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa]. Indeed he had a numerous army with plenty of artillery, great and small, and all the necessary requisites for war; but no real knowledge about the means of availing himself of so much power … Yet he fancied himself a compound of all excellence … [and believed] that asking advice would detract from his own dignity, even if the advisor were an Aristotle …

  He was so full of himself, and so proud to have fought by the side of Ahmad Shah Durrani, whom he had taken for his model, that when anyone proposed any advice upon the mode of carrying on the war, he used to cut him short with, ‘do not trouble yourself about that; just fight as I bid you!’35

  Shuja had been delighted with Mir Qasim’s suggestion of a grand Mughal alliance against the Company, and had no doubt at all that if he, the exiled Nawab of Bengal and the Emperor Shah Alam were to unite their forces, resources and authority they could, as he told startled peace envoys from the Company shortly afterwards, easily ‘reconquer Bengal and expel the English, and – whenever the English come to court as humble petitioners – His Majesty may choose to assign them a suitable outpost from where they may trade. Otherwise my sword will answer your proposals.’36

  His guest, the Emperor Shah Alam, was less certain. The Company had formally sworn him fealty, and so in his eyes was now an imperial ally, just as Mir Qasim and Shuja were. According to Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, the Emperor was extremely anxious about the consequences of Shuja’s ambitions and told him flatly that ‘he had previously seen English fighting methods when he was in Bengal, so he now firmly tried to put a stop to the Nawab Vizier’s plans, saying’:

  ‘A fire that has died down should never be stirred into flame. The rulers of Bengal who have fallen out with the English have had a rough time of it. Whoever has dared attack them has not escaped from the rage of their infantry. If 50,000 Hindustani cavalry should face one thousand of their modern sepoy infantry in battle, it is impossible for them to save even their own lives! So, it would be wiser to proceed cautiously in our dealings with these people, and send letters to intimidate them into accepting our peace-proposals. Besides their respect and devotion to our royal person has already been tried and tested, and they will most certainly follow our royal orders.’

  The Nawab Vizier had other ideas and countered ‘The English have not yet seen the prowess and skill of our heroic commanders – a mere slap from our royal horsemen will wipe out these people!’ His Majesty, remembering the loyal service of the English, felt inclined to favour them, but lacking a decisive independence of mind, he could see no other choice than that of following his host, the Nawab Vizier.37

  Shah Alam and Shuja were on campaign at the opposite end of Avadh, near Orchha in Bundelkhand, when news arrived that the defeated Mir Qasim had crossed the Karmanasa from Bihar. So it was not until the following February, 1764, that Mir Qasim reached his new host and the three Mughal armies finally came together.

  ‘On hearing that the Nawab Vizier [Shuja] was coming to greet him, His Highness of Bengal [Mir Qasim] had tall scarlet tents erected, in which he placed the two Nawabi thrones.’

  The cavalry and infantry lined the road for six miles, the officers dressed in their finest scarlet broadcloth jackets and sparkling new flintlocks. The Nawab Vizier descended from his elephant and was greeted by His Highness at the entrance with all pomp and ceremony. They exchanged greetings, and holding hands, mounted the thrones together. His Highness of Bengal sent to His Majesty 21 trays of precious robes and jewels, as well as elephants majestic as mountains. The Nawab Vizier was impressed by the opulence with which Mir Qasim was travelling, and, with all the desire of his enormous appetites, dreamed of extracting from the English huge sums of gold and all the riches of Bengal. He talked gently to his guest and commiserated with his loss, promising help and seconding his demand for the English to return his confiscated provinces. Then Mir Qasim and Shuja ud-Daula went to wait on His Majesty the Emperor, and, sitting on one elephant, like a conjunction of two auspicious constellations, processed into the royal camp.38

  Over the weeks that followed, the Mughal leaders finessed their plans, while continuing to levy tribute from the courts of Bundelkhand, and raising money for a final joint effort to expel the Company from Bengal. By early March, they were heading eastward again, their numbers swollen by a regiment of French prisoners-of-war who, under the leadership of a Breton soldier of fortune, René Madec, had taken the opportunity to mutiny against the British officers who had press-ganged them, most unwillingly, into Company service. The combined armies ‘moved by slow stages, covering the land like ants or locusts’. But it was only on 17 March, when the armies encamped together outside Benares, near the place where Shuja had ordered a bridge of boats thrown across the Ganges, that the full scale of the force became apparent.

  Observers estimated that an unprecedented host, over 150,000-strong, had now gathered from across the Mughal Empire. On one side there were the remnants of Mir Qasim’s New Army under the leadership of Sumru, whose reputation for cold-blooded ruthlessness had been greatly enhanced by the Patna Massacre. Next to these, ranged along the riverbank, were the magnificent scarlet tents of Shah Alam’s Turani Mughal cavalry. Shuja’s forces were even more diverse. There were contingents of Persian Qizilbash cavalry in their red felt hats, and 3,000 pigeon-coated and long-booted Afghan Rohillas, who had once fought with Ahmad Shah Durrani; they were mounted on both horse and camels, and armed with large-bore armour-piercing swivel guns. Then there was Madec’s regiment of French deserters, still, somewhat ironically, dressed in the uniform of the Company. But perhaps Shuja’s most feared crack troops were a large force of 6,000 dreadlocked Hindu Naga sadhus, who fought mainly on foot with clubs, swords and arrows, ash-painted but entirely naked, under their own much-feared Gossain leaders, the brothers Anupgiri and Umraogiri.39

  The colossal scale of the combined armies bolstered the confidence of the leaders, as did the news of unrest and further mutinies among the Company forces on the other side of the river. Shuja, convinced that a great victory was imminent, wrote to Calcutta as the vizier of the Emperor, with an ultimatum to the EIC. In his letter he cast the Company as ungrateful aliens – unruly and disobedient rebels against the legitimate Mughal order who had usurped ‘different parts of the royal dominions … Hand over all the territory in your possession,’ he demanded, ‘and cease to interfere with the government of the country. Revert to your proper place [as humble merchants] and confine yourselves to your original profession of trade – or else take the consequences of war.’40

  But for all that Shuja wrote in Shah Alam’s name, the Emperor himself, who had faced the full force of the Company war machine before, remained unconvinced about the expedition. He was not alone. In early April, Shuja took the Emperor and Mir Qasim to meet the most celebrated poet of the age, Shaikh Muhammad Ali Hazin, in Benares, where he had settled after surviving two of the great disasters of his age: first, the terrible sacking of Isfahan by the Afghans in 1722, and then that of
Delhi by Nader Shah in 1739. He was now an old man of seventy-two and revered by all.

  When the poet-saint asked Shuja the purpose of his visit, the Nawab Vizier boomed: ‘I have firmly decided to make war on the infidel Christians and with God’s help will sweep them out of Hindustan!’

  Shuja expected to be congratulated by the poet. But the grey-bearded Shaikh merely smiled and said ‘With untrained troops like yours, who mostly haven’t learned how to un-sheath their swords or handle a shield properly, who have never seen the face of war close-up on a modern battlefield, where human bodies scatter and shatter and fall with their livers blown out, you intend to confront the most experienced and disciplined army this country has ever seen? You ask my advice? I tell you it is a shameful folly, and it is hopeless to expect victory. The Firangis are past-masters at strategy … only if unity and discipline entirely collapses among them will you ever have any chance of victory.’

  This good advice was not at all to the liking of the Nawab Vizier, but he refrained from contradicting the aged scholar-Sufi out of respect. When they rose to leave, the Shaikh sighed and said ‘May God help this camel caravan, whose leaders have no idea of what is bad or good for them!’41

  Within a week, by 26 March, the whole army had crossed the Ganges by the bridge of boats and was now heading in the direction of the much-contested city of Patna: ‘The army proved so very numerous that as far as the eye could see it covered the country and plains, like an inundation, and moved like the billows of the sea,’ wrote Ghulam Hussain Khan. ‘It was not an army but a whole city in motion, and you could have found in it whatever could be had in former times in Shahjahanabad itself, whilst that fair city was the capital and eye of all Hindustan.’42

  As the massive Mughal army advanced eastwards, Major John Carnac, the Company’s warden of the border with Avadh, abandoned his heavy baggage and retreated as fast as he could towards Patna without contesting the crossing of the Karmanasa or offering the slightest resistance. He had only 19,000 troops – the largest army the Company had yet fielded, but one that was dwarfed by the huge host of 150,000 who were now heading fast towards him. He now had less than a fortnight to prepare dykes, entrenchments and state-of-the-art modern artillery defences against his would-be besiegers.43