Within a span of ten years, Bengal was on its knees. What was once the richest province of Asia was now broke. Famine set in 1765 and the streets of Calcutta were littered with corpses. The Bengal Region Was Once The Most Richest Province in Asia Following the death of Moghul emperor Aurangzeb, the empire is ruled by a series of weak emperors who witness the slow diminution of their power and territory. Bengal began to drift slowly apart from the shield of the ummah, with the remaining governors holding less influence between 1707-1717 in the face of the rise to power of the viceroys, or Nawabs [history files].Nominally they were still under the control of the Moghul emperors, but in reality they felt they could ignore the emperor at will. In 1757, Muslims lost the Battle of Plassey due the treacherous plan from puppet of British,Mir Ja’afar. In addition, The Last battle between Mughals & England was named the Battle of Buxor (1764). The Mughals suffered a disastrous defeat. Under the terms of capitulation, the Moghul Emperor surrendered to the British the revenues from Bengal, Bihar and most of the United Provinces. The document signed at the termination of the Battle of Buxor became the legal basis for the British rule. What Robert Clive started, his successor, Warren Hastings completed. With the instincts of a cold, ruthless extortionist, Hastings used every administrative trick in his bag to extract the last ounce of gold from Hindus and Muslims alike. He imposed hefty taxes on Indian manufactures while flooding the Indian market with cheap cotton goods manufactured in Lancashire. He waged war on the Afghans of Rohilkhand, pillaging the northern territories as he went. He starved the Begums (princesses) of Oudh and tortured their servants until the Begums surrendered more than a million pounds in state jewels. Within a span of ten years, Bengal was on its knees. What was once the richest province of Asia was now broke. Famine set in 1765 and the streets of Calcutta were littered with corpses. The transfer of this immense treasure from Bengal made possible the Industrial Revolution in Europe. The stripping of resources and treasures of the Muslim lands lead to the infusion of capital into England. Inventions appeared in rapid succession. The flying shuttle was invented in 1760, the spinning jenny in 1764, the steam engine in 1768 and the “mule” in 1779. Before the Battle of Plassey, the iron and steel industry in England was no more advanced than that in Bengal. Within a generation after Plassey, Europe had far outstripped Asia in technology. [Extracted from History of Islam ]
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 17:20:52 +0000
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