Company Rule, Early Resistance and 1857 in Bihar

Buxar and the Diwani

After Plassey (1757), the Company's grip on Bengal tightened. Mir Qasim, the Nawab it had installed, tried to act independently, fled, and allied with Shuja-ud-Daula (Nawab of Awadh) and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II.

• Battle of Buxar, 22 October 1764: Hector Munro defeated all three. Historians think Buxar was more decisive than Plassey because it defeated the Mughal emperor himself.
• Treaty of Allahabad, 1765: the Company received the Diwani (revenue rights) of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

How Company rule changed Bihar

• The famine of 1770 devastated Bengal and Bihar. Golghar, a huge beehive-shaped granary, was built at Patna in 1786 by Captain John Garstin.
• The Permanent Settlement (1793), under Lord Cornwallis, fixed revenue forever and made zamindars owners of the land. It created great estates such as Darbhanga (the Khandwala dynasty), Bettiah, Hathwa and Dumraon. Peasants faced abwabs (illegal cesses) and evictions.
• Opium: grown under compulsion and processed at the Gulzarbagh factory in Patna for export to China.
• Indigo: European planters dominated Champaran, Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur, setting the stage for 1917.

Early resistance

• Tilka Manjhi, a Paharia leader of the Rajmahal hills near Bhagalpur, attacked the Company in the 1780s and was hanged at Bhagalpur in 1785.

• The Wahabi movement was an Islamic revival movement inspired by Syed Ahmad Barelvi. Patna was its headquarters, and Vilayat Ali and Inayat Ali led it. It sent men and money to fight the British on the north-west frontier, and was broken up by the Ambala (1864) and Patna (1865) trials.

1857 in Bihar

• Peer Ali, a bookseller of Patna, planned a rising. He was hanged on the orders of Commissioner William Tayler.
• 25 July 1857: the sepoys at Danapur rebelled and marched to Arrah.
• Kunwar Singh of Jagdishpur (Bhojpur), from the Ujjainiya Rajput family and then about 80 years old, took command. He besieged the British at Arrah, then fought a long campaign across Uttar Pradesh (Azamgarh and beyond).
• He returned and recaptured Jagdishpur on 23 April 1858, but died of his wounds three days later. Bihar celebrates 23 April as Vijay Utsav.
• His brother Amar Singh carried on the fight. Other centres of revolt included Gaya, Rajgir and Rohini (Deoghar, now in Jharkhand).

Exam tip: One date per event: 1764 Buxar, 1765 Diwani, 1786 Golghar, 1793 Permanent Settlement, 25 July 1857 Danapur, 23 April 1858 Jagdishpur.