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A Memoir of the Mughal Empire: Events of 1757-1761
The information given in this book should help those interested in history an answer. The informer Jean Law de Lauriston was French, who wrote the facts in 1763-64. He was the commander and administrator at the French factory in Kasimbazar when the English decided to interfere in Sirajuddaula’s rule in Bengal. Siraj’s demand that merchants must pay their taxes properly was highly resented by Indian merchants, who had been cheating the imperial system of revenues with help from the English East India Company. These merchants then requested the English to organise a military coup to oust Siraj. The result was Siraj’s defeat and murder in the battle of Palasi. The English came to dominate the trade of Bengal and forced the French out. Law then turned a soldier, gathered 100 armed men, all of them Europeans and 10 light guns and set out to offer his services to whomsoever would take it. He roamed around the Ganga-Yamuna banks for four years. He wrote down his observations in this interesting volume in the hope that the French East India Company might be able to make use of this intelligence for its own benefit. ‘How did the English manage to attain this degree of power... where only 15 years ago no European could have dared to undertake the smallest military expedition?’ The French Company, however, was a government one, a PSU. Inefficient and corrupt, most of Law’s cohorts dismissed Law’s efforts to network with Indian rulers and provide intelligence. A reader needs to remember that this was the mid 18th century we are talking about here. This was the time when Europe was neither an economic power, nor a military or an industrial power. It was India where all the goodies of the world existed, where there was more food available than in Europe, life expectancy was higher, and Indian artisanal production dominated the markets of Europe. And yet, Law the nomad, noticed many things that might explain the easy capitulation of Indians to the English. His simple observation was that ‘Indian nobles are a set of disorderly inconsistent blockheads’. There was no system in place for governance. Freedom to do anything depended upon the amount of immediate force that anyone could gather to defeat the opposition. The individual bravery of Rajputs, Jats, Telingas, and other races never translated into a mighty army. He also talked about the sorry spectacle of a 1000 European troops chasing an army of 10000 Indians as if they were a flock of sheep. In the present context, when India is battling the demon of communalism, Law’s observations stand valid. At Benares, he noticed, ‘Brahmins have their university’ and here exists ‘a beautiful mosque built by the famous Aurangzeb, frequented by Muslims and Hindus alike. One adores Vishnu in one corner, while in the other, muslims worship Muhammed’. The people, even the rich, he reported, lived simply, mostly on rice, milk and seasonal vegetable. But they were all, Law would say, romantics, moved to tears easily, sometimes even on hearing good music.
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For
lovers of adventure and connoisseurs of history, this book has a lot
to offer. The racy read is also a very competent translation from its
original French version. The book transports you back to the era when
Delhi was ruled by Muhammad Shah. Aptly nicknamed Rangeela, the Mughal
emperor tamely handed over the Koh-i-Noor to a Persian invader. The
story of the Bengali defeat at Palasi has been ingrained in the Indian
history in the form of treachery by Mir Jafar. However, a few know
that these defeats were more of minor setbacks. Indian rulers were
still ruling India. So why they did not try to fill in the vacuum that
the dissolution of Mughal authority created?