Jagat Seth, a banker to the Nawabs and the English company, Bengal!! - his dark side

After arriving from Madras, Robert Clive got into business and  took  drastic steps  to eliminate the unfriendly Nawab of Bengal with the help of his relatives who were ready to betray him for pelf and power. In Bengal, the English company had a row with the ruler  as he was not cooperative with their trade activities.that were going on in violation of  the trade agreements.  The main reason was  EIC never paid the custom duty  fees and other taxes, as time went by, arrears of taxes mounted. Obviously, their breach of trade treaty and promises infuriated the Nawab and this led to several skirmishes, culminating in the capture of Ft.William in Calcutta, a trading post run by the company. During the raid the unfortunate death of numerous English men and women in a small room - a dungeon on the fort premises, later came to be famously called the ''Black Hole of Calcutta''(26 June  1756.),  was purely an accidental one.  The English company purposely  spread a false story about the number of causality to gain sympathy and turn the British public and the British Crown against  Nawab. Siraj. This stratagem worked well for them.

Robert Clive recaptured the Ft.William  with additional army and  decided to  speed up measures to get rid of Nawab Siraj.  Many of the members in the Nawab's council  were poorly treated by Siraj who had a bad temper, Clive  intelligently used the whistle blowers in the royal court to his advantage. The persistent  irksome issues with the ruler led to the Battle of Plassey  and this major battle in Bengal saw the downfall of Nawab Siraj who was later killed by his own relative. Thus Mir Jaffer, the head of Nawab's army, who had been demoted  by the Nawab  became  a puppet  Nawab.

In the conspiracy initiated by the English company that eliminated Siraj, besides the dissident members, there was yet another unexpected silent partner who had a financial muscle in the Bengal province. Mahtab Rai, also known as Jagat Seth, was a well known financier and  banker and no big financial transactions would take place there without his knowledge and help. Being a banking and financial wizard, he was held in great esteem by the rich people. It was the Mogul ruler of Delhi who gave him  the title''Jagat Seth''(meaning banker of the world). No doubt, Jagat Seth wielded enormous power and had close relationship with Nawab Siraj and his relatives.He and his family members collected the revenue for the Nawab, made remittances, to foreign traders offered loans to needy traders, big land owners  and companies operating there. Besides, they minted coins for the  Nawab, an excellent source of income  involving procurement of vast gold and silver.Their financial grip on the fertile land of Bengal was so strong, they had  covetous status by monopolizing the financial aspect of this region. With flourishing banking business, their financial services  expanded manifold to other places  like Calcutta, Dhaka, Delhi and Patna  through their branches.The empire was founded by Manik Chand, a Marwari Jain from Rajasthan who moved  here over in the 17 century. Initially they made money in the  saltpeter business  which was in great demand world over by the military. .At one stage, the Seths used to give financial tips to Mogul ruler Emperor Aurangzeb. Earlier, Manik Chand  expanded his business with the help of Murshid Quali Khan, the then Diwan of Bengal. 

A little known  fact  about Jagat Seth  is his  unpalatable and unjust  role in the assassination of Nawab Siraj. Jagath Seth, according to some historians, offered a huge sum to the English company for their silent campaign against the rude Nawab.  What made Jagat Seth  shift his loyalty away from Siraj? One  Sudeep Chakravarti, a historian and writer mentioned  an incident in which the reputed financier was insulted. by Nawab Siraj, in rage by slapping him for his failure to raise rupees 30 million. Wounded and humiliated, Jagat since that incident   had stoically suffered pain and agony. Further, the Seths were in perpetual fear of losing their vast wealth under intemperate Nawab Siraj. In a period of  uncertainty, when an opportunity came up from the English company to dethrone Nawab Siraj, Jagat Seth  willfully became one of the many  conspirators, perhaps to save his banking empire and his status in the society.  When many trading issues cropped up with the company, Jagat  acted as an intermediary between the ruler and the British and collected a fee from the latter.  In the light of the  revelation of Nawab Siraj getting in touch with the French at Pondicheery and Chandnagore to drive the British  out of Bengal,  the company became cautious. Further, their patience  reached the fag end over frequent demands of money by Nawab,. The dethronement of the Nawab had become an absolute necessity  so that they could put a puppet ruler in charge and would have him bend the laws in their favor.  Robert Clive chose  an employee  William Watts (c. 1722 – 4 August 1764) to make arrangements for getting rid of  the ruler. with help from the dissident members in the Nawab's court. Thus the decisive  battle of Plassey 

Prime traitor Mir Jaffer, the betrayer of the Nawab, Bengal, wikipedia

(June 1757) and the subsequent murder of Nawab Siraj on 2 July 1757 when he was at large after the war, had its roots in Murshidabad, the then capital of Bengal where the plot was hatched at the instigation of Clive.  It was in that town, Jagat Seth ran the mint. for the Nawab  of Bengal.  

In the annals of world History and the British empire, the Battle of Plassey (a small village in Bengal) was an important turning point. It marked the fall of  the last independent Nawab of Bengal.and  the beginning of British East India Company rule over Bengal and later almost entire South Asia.The victorious British never turned back and in the next  200 years they looted India and its resources as much as they could and became a world power.Their monopoly had an impact on the Americas as well. Thus this war acted as a spring board for the company whose revenue  vastly improved Britain's economy (the GDP was way below 3 then) and later financed the industrial revolution there.The British empire grew like a big banyan tree  with a big canopy cutting across many continents. 

Pinrest.com

Diabolical Lord Robert Clive of East India co en.wikipedia.org.

But for conspirators and dissident emirs  like Mir Jaffer, his son Mir Miron, Mir  Kasim, Omi Chand, and ,EIC 's  Qasimbazar chief, William Watts and to some extend Jagat Seth, Robert Clive would not laid the basic foundation for the British empire on the soil of fertile Bengal. As for Nawab Siraj, his fate was already sealed well in  Murshidabad before the war at Plassey. The British, hereon had an open range and with unabated greed, they had begun their land-grabbing spree. As for the future of  the Seths, Jagat Seth, Seth Mahtab Rai and his cousin Maharaj Swaroop Chand were captured and shot dead on the orders of Mir Qasim, the new Nawab of Bengal shortly before the Battle of Buxar in 1764. Jagat Seth was considered to be a traitor as he financed the British during the Battle of Plassey which led to the Death Nawab Siraj and the rise of  the British power in the Indian subcontinent.

https://tbsnews.net/feature/jagat-seth-bengal-banker-world-41777

https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/bengal-banker-jagat-seth-who-gave-loans-to-east-india-company-financial-tips-to-aurangzeb/486979/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagat_Seth