Talk:Battle of Plassey

Page One

This was removed by 67.65.5.63:

After the battle, all the soldiers who had betrayed their Nawab were killed by the British on the maxim : "If you could betray your Lord and Master, you will betray us tomorrow."

If this is true, I think it should stay . Can anyone verify it? Seabhcán 00:13, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

From the bottom of the third paragraph of the article:

" The battle was ended in 40 00minutes. And took all 18,000 soldiers to Fort William in Kolkata. He killed all soldiers with the help of Mir Jafar. Later They also killed Siraj-ud-daulah in Murshidabad which was the capital of Bengal."

Someone has reinserted the above, initially removed point, about the murder of the conspirators' troops by the British. It is in poorly written English, seems to be agenda-based, contains no reference or citation, and thus should be removed. The assertion made by Seabhcán is correct and this detail should be included if it meets the Wikipedia quality standards but, as such, it does not. Mountsorrel wiki (talk) 11:04, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

move proposal

I propose to move this article to "Battle of Palashee". The name Plassey is wrong, my guess is that the original authors of this article took information from 1913 Encyclopedia Britannica, which used the mis-spelt name Plassey. Note that many modern references and books refer to the battle correctly as "Battle of Palashi" or Palashee. See this book's chapter name and Banglapedia. So, the name should be corrected, with a redirect in "Battle of Plassey" pointing to the article. --Ragib 21:51, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

• Oppose. The battle is called "Battle of Plassey", and to be honest, it doesn't matter in the least what you call the place in Bangladesh today. The article should stay at this title. Adam Bishop 20:42, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Clearly not a misspelling in 1913 Encyclopedia Britannica, as Clive's title was 1st Baron Clive of Plassey not "1st Baron Clive of Palashee". Philip Baird Shearer 17:07, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Most common English name for this battle. – AxSkov (T) 12:55, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose Similarly Battle of Spion Kop, Black Hole of Calcutta etc. --Henrygb 10:45, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose The place in Ireland named after the battle has always been spelt Plassey. Thus that was the original British spelling and name for the battle. This is the English language wikipedia, Moscow instead of Moskva, Japan instead of Nipon, Plassey instead of Palashee (but of course the article should explain the more propper transliteration.) Seabhcán 14:01, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

This vote is now closed

Discussion

Are there any other references? I have always known it as Battle of Plassey since about 20+ years. Alren 13:48, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

The correct name for the place is "Palashi" in Bengali Language. In Bangladesh, every single book on history I ever came across uses the correct name and spelling. I would request any one from West Bengal, India to comment on this too. In any case, my main point is that like "Calcutta" and "Madras", the name was something misspelled by the British colonial rulers. The actual name has always been written as "Palashi" in Bangla. I'm looking for the official name used by West Bengal state government. --Ragib 14:10, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

I would add that the Bengali language spelling for the place's name has always been (পলাশী) (P-o-la-sh-ee), and Polashi or Palashi or Palashee has always been the spelling used locally in Bangladesh and India. --Ragib 19:36, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I find this proposal bizarre. All sources I have ever seen on the battle refer to it as Plassey; and Clive was Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive of Plassey. Spell the placename Palashi or Palashee by all means, and link to it; but this is the English name of the battle. (If it be argued that this is the name in Bengali English, that is not enough; the usage of the original author should still prevail.) Septentrionalis 19:47, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

And why Battle of Palashee, not Battle of Palashi? Septentrionalis

Either one would be fine, Palashi is commonly used but Palashee more closely reflects the Bangla spelling (long ee). I guess Palashi would be a better choice. --Ragib 20:20, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

What is the most common name for the battle in English? Battle of Plassey gets 13,000 + hits on Google, Battle of Pelashi gets 0. The article should note that the correct name of the place in Bengali is Pelashi, and it should also give the Bengali name for the battle, similar to the opening of the Williamite war in Ireland: "The Williamite war in Ireland, which could also be described as the Jacobite war in Ireland and is known in Ireland as Cogadh an Dá Rí or The War of the Two Kings..." --Jpbrenna 20:32, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I can see where it's possible that the modern Bengali spelling will eventually come to be the common one used for the battle, but it's just not the most common use right now. We should monitor and re-ask the question a year from now. Stan 17:57, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

the name was something misspelled by the British colonial rulers. Erm no, they wrote down what they heard it being spoken-as and spelled it as best as they could. There were no books on converting Bengali names into English then, so they could only write down what the names sounded like. The 'correct' spelling you now refer to is a revision in the same manner as the Bombay/Mumbai and Peking/Bejing controversy.

Decision

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. violet/riga (t) 17:12, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Post script

LordGulliverofGalben: I agree with Ragib that the name should be changed to Palashee/ Palashi as that is the name used by the West Bengal government and not Plassey. Plassey, like Calcutta, Bombay, Madras was a name given by the British to suit their colonial interests and not that of the people who lived locally. With the onset of the post colonial recovery most of the names have been changed (like Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai) . There could be a disambiguation page for the aftermath in India and in Ireland.

Anyway I am not sure if voting is a correct procedure for determining the views of the people residing there as most (if not none) of the residents of Palashi do not use computers anyway. (It is an agricultural township with no trace of battlefields. It has some factories making electrical and agricultural equipment) This voting merely reflects the views of some people who have 24*7 access to the internet.

No, it reflects the common view of the English-speaking world. Change that, and Wikipedia must follow. Septentrionalis 21:12, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Lastly the maxim : "If you could betray your Lord and Master, you will betray us tomorrow" , though not verified by European historical discourse is very much a part of the local written and oral folklore, discourse and tradition --- in the local Muslim population. Even today local Muslims stone the grave of Mir Jafar as he is still considered a "Namak Haram" or "Traitor", who is regarded as all the woes of Muslims living in India ever since. That name is not the name in vogue to baptise a newborn Muslim male child. LordGulliverofGalben

Nothing wrong with that last paragraph being in the article, as long as it is clearly the account of a tradition, not a claim of contemporary evidence. Septentrionalis 21:12, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Moving the article to Battle of Palashi was a daft idea. This is a historical event which has always been known by this name, and still is throughout the English-speaking world. And what on earth is meant by this: "Plassey, like Calcutta, Bombay, Madras was a name given by the British to suit their colonial interests" ? So, an anachronistic (but phonetic) mis-spelling is evidence of some profound colonial conspiracy is it? And how exactly are slightly corrupted forms of "Kalikata" (Bengali) "Bom Bahia" (Portuguese) and "Madraspatnam" (Portuguese/Tamil) serving British colonial interests? The truth is that these names are politically neutral products of gradual historical evolution, unlike some of their highly politicised replacements, in particular the Shiv Sena's renaming of Bombay to the spurious "Mumbai" as part of their Bhumiputra policy. If you want sinister political motives behind a name, look no further. In general this oft-suggested idea that English Wikipedia should use the forms of place-names in use in the country where they are located is arrant nonsense. If that were true then Germany would be found at "Deutschland", Venice at "Venezia", Moscow at "Moskva".....need I go on? I'm very glad indeed that this vote failed. Sikandarji 07:22, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Its also worth pointing out that whatever the place may be called now, what is important is what it was called then: Stalingrad is now Volgograd, but the battle there in 1942-43 is still called the Battle of Stalingrad even though the name has since changed.--Jackyd101 11:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

English

I've changed the references throughout from "English" to "British".

Shatranj ke Khilari

Great film - but what on earth has it got to do with Plassey? It worst movie events in Lucknow a hundred years later. Sikandarji 07:12, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

Replaced the current one with Infobox Military Conflict. Added Clive and Mir Jafar's picture. Does anyone have any other picture of the actual combat? --Victor 20:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

This page seems to attract a lot of nonsense-posters. Perhaps it should be locked? Bastie 09:11, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Figures

The article has seen repeated changes (several times daily) in the figues of numbers engaged and casualties of the battle. This does not bode well for the article's accuracy. Can anybody provide a Sourced definitive answer to these totals?--Jackyd101 19:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Quotes

I have removed both quotes made by the First Indian Prime Minister. Not only are they obviously biased (him being leader of an indian nation recently gaining independence from britian) but they are completely out of context (being made almost 200 years after the battle - whereas the other quotes were made by politicians and individuals at the time)

Figures

The figures for the battle are wrong. In Robert Clive of India by Nirad C Chaudhuri (page 246) we read "a general estimate that the force had between 15,000 and 20,000 cavalry, 35,000 to 40,000 infantry and nearly 50 guns, mostly twenty-four and thirty-two-pounders. Against this army, Clive had less than 1,000 European soldiers, about 2,000 sepoys, 8 field guns (six pounders) and 1 howitzer." I have read in other books that there were 950 Europeans - this is the first time I have ever seen that there were around 2,000. So this must be wrong. Other points, are that the British guns were not superior in range to that of their enemy - they were much smaller, aside from the single howitzer. ALSO it seems on reading the article (at first) that Mir Jafa's forces actually turned on Siraj's men - which never happened. Quote: "Siraj-ud-Daulah's army commander defected to the British". He didn't openly declare any alliance with the British during the battle.

The article seems to give many excuses for the defeat, in truth 30,000 could have rushed and totally overwhelmed an enemy numbering 3,000 - of which over 2000 were mercinary auxileries. It's almost funny how the defeat is explained away. I think the words "cowardly", "disorganized" and "unprofessional" would far better explain the defeat of Siraj's forces.

TB

Jagat Sheth

Changed 'sikh' to 'marwari' in description of Jagat Sheth near the end of the article. All sources - books as well as websites - quote Amichand and Jagat Sheth to be marwari businessmen. Additonally, though I have not changed this, Jagat Sheth is often understood to represent many such businessmen and might not be the name of only one person, in this context. For the benefit of those not knowing Bangla, 'sheth' is a surname but also a term used to describe a properous trader. wildT 14:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Figures

I quote: "Mir Jafar Ali Khan - commanding 16,000 cavalry" - so these were the Indian forces held back under his command. I have never read that 90% of the Bengali army never engaged the enemy, and I have serious doubts about the source. A compendium about 100 famous battles printed in the USA in 1999 seems a VERY poor source for such an important issue, especially as it contradicts many quite famous historians. Also, further down the page it (again) states that there were 1000's of Europeans battling Siraj, as opposed to the real 950. So, it now reads that there were only 5,000 Indians battling a combined East India Company (not "East Indian Company" by the way) force of 5,000. Ohh, how very convenient for Indian national pride - to hell with authentic source material.

So this article has....

A. contradicted every scholarly historical account of the battle B. contradicted itself C. couldn't even wtite EAST INDIA COMPANY properly

Congratulations on another brilliant British India articles in Wikipedia !

I would correct the entire thing and quote REAL 18th century sources, but all my work would get erased anyway, so what's the point? Wikipedia's British India articles are very much tainted with Indian nationalistic revisionism, whereby trendy and obscure authors are cited, and cotemporary sources and famous historians, who lived during (or not long after) the times they wrote of, are ignored. The result is not only biased, but really mess, as they can't even keep their "story" together.

TB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.216.81.169 (talk) 01:43, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 17:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

LIES & BIAS IN THIS ARTICLE

"Out of the initial 35,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry, 45,000 of them were withheld by Mir Jafar, leaving 5,000 men to participate in the battle.[1]" - this is rubbish, Mir Jafar only controlled about a third of the army, and 100 history books tell us this. As for the crass description of only 5,000 engaging the British, in Nirad C. Chaudhuri's book ROBERT CLIVE OF INDIA, on page 248, we read quite a detailed account of how the bulk of the Indian forces were simply too scared to press home a charge, but did exchange shots with the fortified British. Therefore, they did engage.

To quote Nirad C. Chaudhuri (page 249) "Much has been made of the inactivity of Mir Jafar and his collaborators, but even without them Siraj had, according to contemporary estimates, 15,000 good troops - in fact his best engaged in battle, and an overwhelming superiority in artillery."

It is absolutely true that the bulk of the force made little effort to engage, but where did the "5000" figure come from? - but in the article this has been blamed on Mir Jaffa (the boxed section) - when in fact no serious historian, nor any contemporary records, confirm this. The Bengali army was fearful and badly led - but of course, as this article has been written by Indian nationalists, they would prefer to LIE and just blame Mir Jaffa. Also, the main reason why Siraj attacked the British, - his stated cause - was because the British had started to fortify Calcutta. They did this, because the 7 Year War had broken out with France, and they knew that the French were about to attack. Siraj had proved himself unable to keep the peace within Bengal, and the British saw themselves with no other option than to dig a ditch around Calcutta - which is all it really amounted to. But of course, this really important information has been edited out by the nationalist writers of this article in order not to include anything that may explain British actions. If this was a brief article, I would forgive this - but, it's not so brief and some rather odd information has found its way into it - like a very obscure letter from Orme, penned in 1752.--Blenheim Shots (talk) 23:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of british imperialist bias in this article (and in this discussion for that matter): what's with this reference to "natives" in the article..? Were they "restless" or something? Clearly, Wikipedia has a long way to go yet, before it leaves the land of pro-Western imperialism... if it ever does.

Pazouzou (talk) 04:51, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Infobox footnote disagrees with text

In the Infobox the footnote states "Out of the initial 35,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry, 45,000 of them were withheld by Mir Jafar, leaving 5,000 men to participate in the battle". This disagrees with the much more convincing sounding main text which states that Mir Jafar only commanded 16,000 cavalry. Rwestera (talk) 20:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

only the text in the infobox is referenced though I can not verify it myself. Would it be possible for Mir Jafar to have only 16,ooo men under his control but still manage to withhold others from participating in the war? I guess we need reference for the text in the body of the article and someone needs to verify the infobox claim. may be you can do it if you have access to the book. --Like I Care 23:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

The text in the info box note is taken from 100 Decisive Battles. While the note accurately reports what is said in 100 Battles, other sources used in the article which cover the battle in greater detail contradict the notion that Mir Jafar was able to withhold 45,000 troops. Malleson (p.70) is quite clear that all of Mir Madan's contingent of 12,000 (5,000 horse, 7,000 foot) was loyal and fought and while that of Jafar's 16,000 held off and while the leaders of the other contingent were defectors, the rank and file of the other contingents remained loyal and attacked making "charge after charge" piecemeal and uncoordinated without the benefit of overall leadership. And, of course, all the artillery were engaged. Fortesque, in History of the British Army V.II is in agreement with Malleson, as is Harrington in Plassey 1757: Clive of India's finest hour. It appears that 100 Battles is a minor source and should not be given undue weight here. I suggest that the note be removed as it is misleading and contradictory to the other sources.Tttom1 (talk) 03:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Shaw?

Who is this person named just once, in the Court intrigue section? Does he have any significance? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:42, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Causalities of the Indians in this battle.

I thought the Indian causalities were 1500. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Espatad (talk • contribs) 03:40, 13 February 2012 (UTC) (Espatad (talk) 03:43, 13 February 2012 (UTC))

Omichund / Omichand.

Omichund is referred to as such except for the last instance when it is Omichand where it states he went insane. This reference uses the name Omichand and expands on the situation: http://www.cyclopediabritannica.net/index.php/Omichand PB Sheeran (talk) 11:03, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Citations?

There are several pages cited in this entry that do not have a corresponding text. Particularly 'Mahon' and 'Bengal v.1' What are these texts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.63.141 (talk) 07:20, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

The citations are messed up. Mahon refers to the Stanhope book (Lord Mahon was Phillip Stanhope) and Bengal refers to the Hill book. This will take some work but I'll attempt a fix. Thank you for pointing this out.--regentspark (comment) 16:44, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Why the date is 23rd June?

Why the date is given as 23rd June? The following is a passage from William Dalrymple's Anarchy

"On 13 June 1757, a year to the day since Siraj had begun his attack on Calcutta, Clive sent an ultimatum to Siraj ud-Daula accusing him of breaking the terms of the Treaty of Alinagar. That same day, with a small army of 800 Europeans, 2,200 south Indian sepoys and only eight cannon, he began the historic march towards Plassey."

I think if Clive began his march on 13th, then the date should be 13th. Knight Hall (talk) 14:44, 24 September 2022 (UTC)