The British East India Company won the Battle of Buxar on 22 October 17642. A much smaller Company army under Major Hector Munro defeated the combined forces of the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II, Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh and the deposed nawab of Bengal, Mir Qasim. The resulting Treaty of Allahabad in 1765 gave the Company the right to collect the revenues of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa1, making it a ruling power in India.
Seven years after Plassey, the East India Company's hold on Bengal was challenged by an alliance of the Mughal emperor and two powerful nawabs. At Buxar, on the banks of the Ganges, a small Company army settled the question, and a trading company became a territorial power.
After Plassey
After its victory at Plassey in 1757 the Company installed nawabs of Bengal who depended on its support. One of them, Mir Qasim, tried to rule independently, clashed with the Company over trade and taxes, and was driven out of Bengal in 17633.
The grand alliance
Mir Qasim fled to Shuja-ud-Daula, the nawab of Awadh, who was joined by the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II. Together they gathered a large army to restore Mir Qasim and push the Company back. Facing them was a much smaller Company force, mostly Indian sepoys with a core of European troops, under Major Hector Munro.
The battle on the Ganges
On 22 October 1764 the armies met near Buxar. The allied army attacked but was poorly coordinated, and the disciplined Company infantry and artillery held and then drove it back. Within hours the allied army was in retreat, with heavy losses, while the Company lost several hundred men.
The Treaty of Allahabad
The defeat broke the alliance. Shah Alam came over to the Company1, and in the Treaty of Allahabad in 1765, negotiated by Robert Clive, the emperor granted the Company the4 diwani, the right to collect the revenues of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Awadh paid an indemnity and became a buffer state4 allied to the Company.
Why Buxar mattered
Plassey had made the Company kingmaker in Bengal; Buxar and the treaty that followed made it the legal collector of the revenues of one of the richest regions in the world. Many historians see Buxar as more decisive than Plassey, because it defeated the Mughal emperor himself and laid the financial foundation of British rule in India. For Bengal itself, Company revenue rule soon brought heavy extraction, and the region suffered a devastating famine in 17704.