The Maratha invasions of Bengal (1742–1751), were the a series of raids by the Maratha forces in the

Bengal Subah The Bengal Subah (Bengali language, Bengali: সুবাহ বাংলা, ), also referred to as Mughal Bengal and Bengal State (after 1717), was one of the puppet states and the largest subah, subdivision of The Mughal India, Mughal Emp ...

(

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

Bihar Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...

, parts of modern

Orissa Odisha (), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is a state located in Eastern India. It is the eighth-largest state by area, and the eleventh-largest by population, with over 41 million inhabitants. The state also has the thir ...

), after the successful campaign in the

Carnatic region The Carnatic region is the peninsular South Indian region between the Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Bengal, in the erstwhile Madras Presidency and in the modern Indian states of Tamil Nadu and southern coastal Andhra Pradesh. During the Bri ...

at the Battle of Trichinopoly. The campaigns were carried out under

Raghoji Bhonsle Raghuji I (Raghuji Bhonsle, ; 1695 – 14 February 1755) was a Maratha general who is credited with the Maratha expansion into Gondwana, Odisha, and Bengal, thereby establishing Maratha supremacy in these areas. He was granted the title of ...

Nagpur Nagpur (; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Nāgapura'') is the second capital and third-largest city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is called the heart of India because of its central geographical location. It is the largest and most populated city i ...

. Between April 1742 to March 1751, the Marathas invaded Bengal many times, causing widespread economic losses in the Bengal Subah.

Background

The resurgent

Maratha Confederacy The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent Maratha states under the nominal leadership of the former. ...

emerging from

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

quickly repulsed the

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of pre ...

and subjugated them to the confines of

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

. It was during this period they were at the doorsteps of the independent

, particularly Orissa. They conducted raids within Bengal and plundered cities and villages and caused widespread devastation. However, due to their relentless attacks and raids the Nawab would be more partial towards signing the treaty eventually agreeing to cede

to the

to ensure peace for both states.

Invasions of Bengal

First invasion (1742)

In 1742, Bengal experienced its initial encounter with the Maratha invasion. However, Nawab Alivardi Khan successfully repelled the invasion, although not without the unfortunate consequence of

Murshidabad Murshidabad (), is a town in the Indian States and territories of India, state of West Bengal. This town is the headquarters of Lalbag subdivision of Murshidabad district. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hooghly river, Bhagirathi Riv ...

and Hooghly suffering from plundering.

Second invasion (1742)

Raghoji lead the Marathas and attacked and captured

Katwa Katwa is a sub-divisional town and railway junction in Purba Bardhaman district of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Katwa subdivision. The town was built at the confluence of Ganga and Ajay. Katwa is a border cit ...

and Hooghly in

Alivardi Khan Alivardi Khan (1671 – 9 April 1756) was the fourth Nawab of Bengal from 1740 to 1756. He toppled the Nasiri dynasty of Nawabs by defeating Sarfaraz Khan in 1740 and assumed power himself. During much of his reign Alivardi encountered frequen ...

conscripted tribal and peasant levies from

Birbhum Birbhum district () is an administrative unit in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the northernmost district of Burdwan division—one of the five administrative divisions of West Bengal. The district headquarters is in Suri. Other impo ...

. He responded to the Maratha attack by attacking the Maratha camp at Katwa in the First Battle of Katwa from the rear, at nightfall leading to a Subah victory. The Marathas believing a much larger force had been mobilized, evacuated out of Bengal on 17 September 1742. Bhaskar Pant the Maratha commander, was killed in action. In 1743, Raghoji occupied Burdwan with his camp at Katwa.

Third invasion (1745)

The Marathas tried again in 1745 where they succeeded in occupying

to take Katwa. The force of 20,000 horsemen ravaged

and moved onwards to

. The force was led by

Raghuji Bhonsle Raghuji I (Raghuji Bhonsle, ; 1695 – 14 February 1755) was a Maratha general who is credited with the Maratha expansion into Gondwana, Odisha, and Bengal, thereby establishing Maratha supremacy in these areas. He was granted the title of ...

, the Maratha ruler of

where he and his force were defeated by

at the Second Battle of Katwa. By way of the jungles of north Birbhum and the Khargpur hills (south of Mungir), Raghoji arrived near Fatua which he pillaged heavily, and then turned south-west, plundering Shaikhpura and many villages in the Tikari zamindari, till he struck the Son river.

Fourth invasion (1747)

The Battle of Burdwan oversaw

heavily repulsing and defeating the

Janoji Bhonsle Janoji I (Janoji Bhonsle, ; reigned 14 February 175521 May 1772) was the second Maharaja of Nagpur from the Bhonsle dynasty. He was one of the four legitimate sons of Raghuji I. Following a succession dispute with his brothers, Janoji ascended t ...

led Marathas. An army was amassed to defend against the invading Maratha forces at Orissa after the dismissal of

Mir Jafar Mir Jafar ( – 5 February 1765), was a commander-in-chief or military general who reigned as the first dependent Nawab of Bengal of the British East India Company. His reign has been considered by many historians as the start of the expansion ...

Fifth invasion (1748)

and Mir Habib enlisted in the army of Afghans at Rani Sarai to fight against Alivardi Khan at the

Battle of Rani Sarai A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force c ...

was able to break the Afghan lines and make them retreat through the use of war elephants by his eager generals and eventually he won the battle.

Atrocities during Maratha invasions

There were a total of five invasions between 1742 and 1751. The continuous conflict took a heavy toll on the population of Bengal. During that period of invasion by the Marathas, warriors called as "

Bargi Bargis () were a light cavalry mercenary group of Maratha Confederacy's who indulged in large scale depredations in the countryside of western part of the Bengal Subah for about ten years (1741–1751) during the Maratha invasions of Bengal. Ma ...

s", perpetrated atrocities against the local population of

Bengalis Bengalis ( ), also rendered as endonym and exonym, endonym Bangalee, are an Indo-Aryan peoples, Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the Bengal region of South Asia. The current population is divi ...

and

Biharis Bihari () is a demonym given to the inhabitants of the Indian state of Bihar. Bihari people can be separated into three main Indo-Aryan ( Bihari-speaking) ethnolinguistic groups: Bhojpuris, Maithils and Magahis. They are also further divid ...

. As reported in

Burdwan Estate The Bardhaman Raj (, ), also known as Burdwan Raj, was a ''zamindari'' Raja estate that flourished between 1657 and 1955 in the Indian state of West Bengal. Maharaja Sangam Rai Kapoor, a Punjabi Khatri from Kotli mahalla in Lahore, Punjab, who ...

and European sources, the Bargis are said to have plundered villages. Jan Kersseboom, chief of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

factory in Bengal, estimated that perhaps 400,000 civilians in Western Bengal and Bihar died in the overall conflict. Contemporary accounts of the invasions report mass

gang rape In scholarly literature and criminology, gang rape, also called serial gang rape, party rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape,Ullman, S. E. (2013). 11 Multiple perpetrator rape victimization. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrato ...

and

Wartime sexual violence Wartime sexual violence is rape or other forms of sexual violence committed by combatants during an armed conflict, war, or military occupation often as War looting, spoils of war, but sometimes, particularly in ethnic conflict, the phenomen ...

against women and

children A child () is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking ...

, and mutilation of victims by the Marathas which included cutting off their hands and noses and forced castration of men and even children. Many of the Bengalis in western Bengal also fled to take shelter in Eastern Bengal, fearing for their lives in the wake of the Maratha attacks.

Zamindar A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semi-autonomous feudal lord of a ''zamindari'' (feudal estate). The term itself came into use during the Mughal Empire, when Persian was the official language; ''zamindar'' is the ...

s outside the affected districts and also from the districts that involved this conflict were affected by the Maratha raids. The Bargi atrocities were corroborated by contemporary Dutch and British accounts. The atrocities devastated Bengal's economy, as many of the people killed in the Bargi raids included merchants,

textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...

weavers,

silk Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...

winders, and

mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of 19 species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 subordinat ...

cultivators. The

Cossimbazar Cossimbazar is a backwards village area of Berhampore city in the Berhampore CD block in the Berhampore subdivision of Murshidabad district in the Indian state of West Bengal."Cossimbazar" in ''Imperial Gazetteer of India'', Oxford, Clarendon ...

factory reported in 1742, for example, that the Bargis burnt down many of the houses where silk piece goods were made, along with weavers'

loom A loom is a device used to weaving, weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the Warp (weaving), warp threads under tension (mechanics), tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of ...

s. In 1743 two Maratha armies invaded - one belonged to Raghuji Bhosle, the other to Balaji Rao again. Alivardi Khan was obliged to pay a subsidy and promise to pay him ''chauth'' (tax) in the future. Baneswar Vidyalankar's text ''Chitrachampu'' attributed the victories of the Marathas to "the wonderfully fast horses they ride." Bharatchandra's ''Annadamangal'' attributed the attacks to a particular communal factor which was the destruction of temples at

Bhubaneswar Bhubaneswar () is the capital and the largest city of the States and territories of India, Indian state of Odisha. It is located in the Khordha district. The suburban region, especially the old town, was historically often depicted as ''Chakra ...

by Alivardi's soldiers. The further attacks took place in 1748 in Bihar, on Murshidabad in 1750, and in 1751 in Western Bengal. The internal fights within the Alivardi Khan's military also contributed to their losses. For example, in 1748

Pathan Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans until 1964 after the ...

soldiers rebelled and seized

Patna Patna (; , ISO 15919, ISO: ''Paṭanā''), historically known as Pataliputra, Pāṭaliputra, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, ...

which they controlled for some time. Another example is the ''

faujdar Faujdar under the Mughals was an office that combined the functions of a military commander along with judicial and land revenue functions. The term faujdar contained pre-Mughal origins. During those times, the term referred to a military offic ...

'' of

Purnea Purnia (; also romanized and officially known as Purnea) is the fourth largest city of Bihar and is emerging as the largest economic hub in North Bihar. It serves as the administrative headquarters of both Purnia district and Purnia divisio ...

who departed from Alivardi and created a small autonomous state. Apart from territorial losses, the Nawab of Bengal also suffered severe economic losses. Industries such as agriculture and trade were dislocated and a large number of people migrated from Western Bengal to the Northern and Eastern districts.

End of hostilities and aftermath

In 1751, the Marathas signed a peace treaty with the

Nawab of Bengal The Nawab of Bengal (, ) was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the ''de facto'' independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa which constitute the mod ...

and agreed to never cross the

Subarnarekha River The Subarnarekha River flows through the Indian states of Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha. Etymology The name is a portmanteau of two words: "Subarna," meaning gold, and "Rekha," meaning line or streak in Indian languages. As per tradition, g ...

. The territories beyond the

were now ceded to the Marathas, according to which, Mir Habib (a former courtier of Alivardi Khan, who had defected to the Marathas) was made provincial governor of

under nominal control of the Nawab of Bengal.ড. মুহম্মদ আব্দুর রহিম. "মারাঠা আক্রমণ". বাংলাদেশের ইতিহাস. ২৯৩–২৯৯. Thus ''de facto'' Maratha control over Orissa was established by 1751, while ''de jure'' it remained a part of

till 1752. After the assassination of Mir Habib, the governor of Orissa in 1752, the Marathas formally incorporated Orissa in their dominion, as part of

Nagpur kingdom The Kingdom of Nagpur was a kingdom within the Maratha Confederacy in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was ruled by the Maratha Bhonsle dynasty in the mid-18th century. The city of Nagpur was the capital of the state. After the Third Anglo-Mar ...

. The

agreed to pay Rs. 1.2 million annually as the ''

chauth Chauth (from ) was a regular tax or tribute imposed from the early 18th century by the Maratha Empire in the Indian subcontinent. It was an annual tax nominally levied at 25% on revenue or produce, hence the name, on lands that were under nominal M ...

'' of Bengal and Bihar, and the Marathas agreed not to invade

again. The Nawab of Bengal also paid Rs. 3.2 million to the Marathas, towards the arrears of ''chauth'' for the preceding years.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{MarathaEmpire, state=expanded Battles involving the Maratha Empire Bengal Subah 1740s in India 1750s in India 1740s conflicts 1750s conflicts Crime in West Bengal Mass murder in India Mass murder in Bangladesh Mass murder in the 1740s Mass murder in the 1750s Gang rape in India Gang rape in Bangladesh Wartime sexual violence in Asia