The Treaty of Allahabad was signed on 12 August 1765, between the Mughal Emperor

Shah Alam II Shah Alam II (; 25 June 1728 – 19 November 1806), also known by his birth name Ali Gohar (or Ali Gauhar), was the seventeenth Mughal Emperor and the son of Alamgir II. Shah Alam II became the emperor of a crumbling Mughal empire. His powe ...

, son of the late Emperor

Alamgir II Aziz-ud-Din Muhammad (6 June 1699 – 29 November 1759), better known as Alamgir II, was the fifteenth Mughal Emperor of India, who reigned from 3 June 1754 to 29 November 1759. He was the son of Jahandar Shah. Born Aziz-ud-Din, the second s ...

, and

Robert Clive Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, (29 September 1725 – 22 November 1774), also known as Clive of India, was the first British Governor of the Bengal Presidency. Clive has been widely credited for laying the foundation of the British ...

, of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

, in the aftermath of the

Battle of Buxar The Battle of Buxar was fought between 22 and 23 October 1764, between the forces under the command of the British East India Company, led by Hector Munro, and the combined armies of Mir Qasim, Nawab of Bengal till 1764; the Nawab of Awadh, Sh ...

of 23 October 1764. The treaty was handwritten by

I'tisam-ud-Din Mīrzā Sayyid Muḥammad Iʿtiṣām ad-Dīn ibn Tāj ad-Dīn ibn Shahāb ad-Dīn Panchnūrī or Itesham Uddin ( bn, মির্জা সৈয়দ মোহাম্মদ ইতেশামুদ্দীন পাঁচনূরী, fa, ...

, a

Bengali Muslim Bengali Muslims ( bn, বাঙালি মুসলমান; ) are adherents of Islam who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. Comprising about two-thirds of the global Bengali population, they are the sec ...

scribe and diplomat to the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

Shah 'Alam conveying the grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive

The Treaty marked the political and constitutional involvement and the beginning of British rule in India. Based on the terms of the agreement, Alam granted the East India Company ''Diwani rights'', or the right to collect taxes on behalf of the Emperor from the eastern province of Bengal-Bihar-Orissa. These rights allowed the company to collect revenue directly from the people of

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

, Bihar, and

Orissa Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of Sch ...

. In return, the Company paid an annual tribute of twenty-six

lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ex ...

s of rupees (equal to 260,000

pounds sterling Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO 4217, ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of #Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories, its associated territori ...

) while securing for Shah Alam II the districts of Kada and

Allahabad Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...

. The tribute money paid to the emperor was for the maintenance of the Emperor's court in Allahabad. The accord also dictated that Shah Alam be restored to the province of

Varanasi Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic t ...

as long as he continued to pay a certain amount of revenue to the company.

Awadh Awadh (), known in British historical texts as Avadh or Oudh, is a region in the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. It is synonymous with the Kośāla region of ...

was returned to

Shuja-ud-Daula Shuja-ud-Daula (b. – d. ) was the Subedar and Nawab of Oudh and the Vizier of Delhi from 5 October 1754 to 26 January 1775. Early life Shuja-ud-Daula was the son of the Mughal Grand Vizier Safdarjung chosen by Ahmad Shah Bahadur. Unlike ...

h, but Allahabad and Kora were taken from him. The

Nawab of Awadh The Nawab of Awadh or the Nawab of Oudh was the title of the rulers who governed the state of Awadh (anglicised as Oudh) in north India during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Nawabs of Awadh belonged to a dynasty of Persian origin from Nishapu ...

Shuja ud Daulah also had to pay fifty lakhs of rupees as war indemnity to the East India Company. Moreover, the two signed an alliance by which the company promised to support the Nawab against outside attacks provided he paid for services of the troops sent to his aid. This alliance made the Nawab dependent on the company. This was a turning point in Indian history.

References

British East India Company History of Bengal 1765 in India 1765 treaties Treaties of the British East India Company 1765 in Great Britain A History of Allahabad 1765 in the Mughal Empire {{India-hist-stub

See also

References