Treaty of Allahabad 1765

History glossary

Topic: Europeans in India and the Rise of Company Rule · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The Treaty of Allahabad (1765) was a pair of agreements signed by Robert Clive in August 1765, after the Battle of Buxar (1764). In the first, the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II gave the East India Company the diwani (the right to collect land revenue) of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in return for a yearly tribute. In the second, Awadh was given back to its Nawab, Shuja-ud-Daula, after he paid a war indemnity.

It matters because the Company now legally held the revenue of India's richest province. A trading company became a ruling power that collected taxes from millions of people.

Explanation

Background — from Plassey to Buxar

  • Plassey, 23 June 1757: Clive defeated Siraj-ud-daulah with the help of the traitor Mir Jafar, who was then made Nawab [1]. After this the Company was a military and political power in Bengal [1].
  • Puppet Nawabs: the Company first ruled Bengal through Nawabs it had chosen. When Mir Qasim (Mir Jafar's son-in-law, who became Nawab in 1760) tried to act on his own, he fell out with the Company.
  • Grand alliance against the Company: Mir Qasim joined with Shuja-ud-Daula (Nawab of Awadh) and Shah Alam II (the Mughal emperor).
  • Battle of Buxar, 1764 (October): the Company army under Hector Munro defeated all three together. Plassey was won through a betrayal. Buxar was won in open battle, and it beat the Mughal emperor himself.
  • Clive's return: Clive came back as Governor of Bengal in 1765 for his second term. He negotiated the peace at Allahabad.

The two treaties — main terms

  • Treaty with Shah Alam II (12 August 1765):
  • The emperor granted the Company the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. ("Orissa" here meant mainly the Midnapore area, not the whole of modern Odisha.)
  • The Company agreed to pay the emperor about ₹26 lakh a year as tribute.

  • The districts of Kora and Allahabad were taken from Awadh and given to Shah Alam II to live on. He stayed at Allahabad under British protection.

  • Treaty with Shuja-ud-Daula (16 August 1765):

  • Awadh was returned to him, except Kora and Allahabad.
  • He paid ₹50 lakh as war indemnity (the cost of the war).
  • The Company promised to help defend Awadh, and Shuja-ud-Daula would pay for the troops sent to help him.

  • Balwant Singh, the zamindar of Banaras, was confirmed in his lands.

  • Why Clive did not annex Awadh: holding Awadh would have been costly and would have brought the Company up against the Marathas and the Afghans. A friendly Awadh worked as a buffer state (a weak state between two powers that keeps them apart) between Bengal and those powers.

How it worked — the Dual Government (1765–1772)

  • Bengal now had two authorities:
  • Diwani (revenue and civil justice) went to the Company.

  • Nizamat (police, criminal justice and law and order) stayed with the Nawab, now Najm-ud-Daula, a son of Mir Jafar.

  • The Company did not collect the revenue itself. It used Indian deputy diwans: Muhammad Reza Khan for Bengal and Shitab Rai for Bihar.

  • This is called the Dual Government (or Dual System), linked with Clive.
  • The Company had power without responsibility: it took the money but did not have to govern.
  • The Nawab had responsibility without power: he was blamed for running the province but had no money.

Results

  • Bengal was drained of wealth:
  • Bengal's revenue now paid for the Company's trade and armies. The Company no longer needed to bring silver from Britain to buy Indian goods.

  • Revenue was collected harshly, and peasants and artisans suffered.

  • The Bengal famine of 1770 came under this system. A large share of Bengal's people (often put at about one-third) are said to have died.

  • The end of the Dual Government: Warren Hastings ended it in 1772, and the Company took direct charge of revenue collection.
  • Shah Alam II broke away: in 1771 he left Allahabad for Delhi under Maratha protection. The Company then stopped the tribute. By the Treaty of Banaras (1773) it sold Kora and Allahabad back to Awadh.
  • A model for later control: Awadh was made to pay for Company troops and kept as a dependent buffer state. This was an early form of the system later made formal as the subsidiary alliance under Lord Wellesley (1798–1805) [2].

Time, place and evidence

  • When: August 1765, after the Battle of Buxar (1764) and eight years after Plassey (1757) [1].
  • Where: Allahabad (today's Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh). The treaty covered Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Awadh.
  • Key people:
  • Robert Clive — Governor of Bengal (second term), who made both treaties.
  • Shah Alam II — Mughal emperor, who granted the diwani.
  • Shuja-ud-Daula — Nawab of Awadh, who got his state back.
  • Najm-ud-Daula — Nawab of Bengal, who kept the nizamat.
  • Mir Qasim — the deposed Nawab, whose revolt led to Buxar.

  • Hector Munro — the Company commander at Buxar.

  • How we know:

  • the text of the treaties and the farman (a royal order) of Shah Alam II granting the diwani
  • the Company's official records and correspondence

  • later British inquiries into the Company's affairs in Bengal

  • Using the Mughal emperor's name was important. The Company's revenue rights now had Mughal legal backing, even though the emperor himself depended on the Company.

Don't confuse with

  • Treaty of Banaras (1773): made under Warren Hastings. It sold Kora and Allahabad back to Awadh and ended the deal made at Allahabad. Allahabad (1765) gave the diwani; Banaras (1773) undid the emperor's share.
  • Battle of Plassey (1757) vs Battle of Buxar (1764): Plassey was against only the Nawab of Bengal and was won through Mir Jafar's betrayal [1]. Buxar beat three powers together, including the Mughal emperor. The Treaty of Allahabad followed Buxar, not Plassey.
  • Dual Government (1765–72) vs Dyarchy (1919): the Dual Government divided diwani and nizamat between the Company and the Nawab in Bengal. Dyarchy came under the Government of India Act 1919 and divided provincial subjects between ministers and the Governor's executive council.
  • Subsidiary alliance: a formal system of Lord Wellesley (1798–1805), with a Resident in the court and troops paid for by the ruler [2]. The 1765 Awadh treaty only foreshadowed it. The first state usually linked to the full system is Hyderabad (1798).

Prelims Hooks

  • The Treaty of Allahabad was signed in 1765 by Robert Clive, after the Battle of Buxar (1764).
  • Shah Alam II granted the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the Company for an annual tribute of about ₹26 lakh.
  • Shuja-ud-Daula got Awadh back after paying ₹50 lakh. Kora and Allahabad went to Shah Alam II.
  • The Dual Government in Bengal (diwani with the Company, nizamat with the Nawab) is linked with Clive. Warren Hastings ended it in 1772.
  • Correct order: Plassey (1757) → Buxar (1764) → Treaty of Allahabad (1765) → Bengal famine (1770) → end of Dual Government (1772) → Treaty of Banaras (1773).
  • Trap: the Company got the diwani (revenue), not the nizamat (criminal justice and police). The nizamat stayed with the Nawab until 1772.

Mains Points

  • From trader to ruler — through a Mughal grant. Buxar gave the Company military power. Allahabad turned that power into legal revenue rights in the emperor's name. The Company used Mughal legitimacy as a cover for its own rule, which is a good example of how colonial power grew step by step. The sequence runs: Plassey (a puppet Nawab) → Allahabad (revenue rights) → 1772 (direct rule).
  • Power without responsibility — the cost to Bengal.
  • The Dual Government split revenue from administration.
  • The Company took the revenue, and nobody was answerable for how people were governed.

  • The result was harsh revenue collection, a drain of Bengal's wealth, and the famine of 1770. This later pushed Parliament to step in with the Regulating Act of 1773.

  • Awadh as a buffer — an early model of indirect rule. Clive gave Awadh back and made it pay for Company troops. That gave the Company a safe frontier at little cost. It points ahead to Wellesley's subsidiary alliance, the "empire on the cheap" [2], and to the later annexation of Awadh, which fed into the Revolt of 1857.

Related concepts

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Sources

  1. 1Battle of Plassey — Background, Impact, Legacy, Map, & Factsbritannica.com · tier 3
  2. 2India — The ascent to paramountcybritannica.com · tier 3