Battle of Buxar
Buxar, Bihar
Munro's Company army defeats Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daula and Shah Alam II; a year later the emperor grants the Company the diwani of Bengal.
On 22 October 1764 Hector Munro's army of about 7,000 broke the combined forces of Mir Qasim, the deposed Nawab of Bengal, Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II beside the Ganga at Buxar. Plassey had been decided by a conspiracy; Buxar was won in the field, against the emperor himself.
By the treaties of Allahabad in August 1765 Clive returned most of Awadh to Shuja for an indemnity and took from Shah Alam the diwani, the right to collect the revenue of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, in return for a tribute of 26 lakh rupees a year. The Company became a Mughal revenue officer with its own army, and the revenue of the richest province paid for its wars from then on.
Historians differ on how much Buxar changed by itself. The Company was already the real power in Bengal after 1757; the diwani gave that power a legal form the Mughal world recognised.
- war
- colonial
- political