Khoja Gregory [lower-alpha 1] (died August 1763), better known as Gurgin Khan, was an Armenian merchant and military leader who served Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal from 1760 to 1764, as minister of war and commander-in-chief. He was responsible for reforming the nawab's army along European lines. He was assassinated under unclear circumstances—possibly on Mir Qasim's orders—during the nawab's conflict with the British.
Khoja Gregory was born in the Erivan quarter of New Julfa, an Armenian suburb of Isfahan and the center of an extensive merchant network. He had two brothers, Khoja Petrus and Khoja Barsick Arathoon, who were both also merchants in Bengal. Gregory is said to have worked as a cloth merchant in Hooghly. [2] He is described by Raymond, a French Creole [2] who met him, as having "a remarkable physiognomy. His height was above the average. He had fair complexion, large and black fiery eyes, arched eyebrows that were joined in the middle and an aquiline nose with a ridge in the middle of its length." [3] He may have come to know Mir Qasim through his brother Petrus, who was involved in politics in Bengal. According to Mesrovb Jacob Seth, he was already close to Mir Qasim before the latter became Nawab of Bengal in 1760. He was appointed commander-in-chief of the nawab's army and renamed Gurgin Khan after Mir Qasim's enthronement. [2] Many contemporaries were surprised by the appointment of an Armenian merchant to the post of commander-in-chief. [4]
One of Mir Qasim's main goals was to reform his military in order to increase his independence and check the growing power of the British East India Company. [4] Gurgin Khan organized these reforms, gradually replacing the nawab's old standing army with new troops recruited according to higher standards. He personally took charge of the artillery and organized the artillery and musketeers along European lines. [5] A factory was set up at Monghyr for the production of guns and muskets; munitions imported by Europeans were also available for purchase. It appears that Gurgin Khan personally arranged the acquisition of European munitions with the help of his brother Petrus, who was closely connected with the British. [6]
According to contemporary sources, Gurgin Khan was an intelligent, prudent, and loyal advisor to Mir Qasim who tempered the nawab's eagerness to start a war with the British, urging him to wait until the time was ripe. The nawab is said to have greatly relied on his advice. [7] In 1763, Gurgin Khan led his forces on a campaign against Nepal in order to test the effectiveness of the newly reformed troops and artillery. After an initial victory, his troops were routed by a Nepalese nighttime attack. According to the hostile account of Ghulam Hussain Khan Tabatabai, Gurgin was greatly shocked and ashamed after this defeat and had to be persuaded by another officer of Mir Qasim to return to the camp of the nawab. [8] After the British seizure of Patna later in 1763, Gurgin Khan sent troops to assist the local governor. Patna was successfully recaptured. However, this was followed by a string of defeats for the nawab's generals. Gurgin Khan declined to personally take charge of the defense of Udhuanala, stating that he could not leave the nawab in this chaotic situation; in fact, neither Gurgin Khan nor Mir Qasim were present at any of the battles fought with the British. [9] Bhaswati Bhattacharya suggests that Gurgin Khan may have wanted to avoid facing defeat against the British, having seen in Nepal that the nawab's army was not ready for such a confrontation. While he is described as a "military genius" by all contemporary sources except Ghulam Hussain, he lacked experience. [10] The lack of a commander-in-chief in the field, as well as the divisions within the nawab's army, prevented the Mughal forces from acting in unison. [11]
In August 1763, Gurgin Khan was assassinated outside his tent in the nawab's camp while traveling from Monghyr to Patna after the Battle of Udhuanala. According to Ghulam Hussain's eyewitness account, he was killed by two or three Mughal horsemen who approached him on the pretense of asking about their pay. Jean Baptiste Joseph Gentil, a French officer in the nawab's service and a friend of Gurgin, writes that the Armenian general had been killed because of "jealousy and slander." [12] He believed that Mir Qasim had ordered Gurgin Khan's assassination, suspecting him of conspiring with the British. [13] It appears that the nawab, in his desperation, ordered Gurgin's killing after receiving reports that he had been plotting with the British, when in fact Gurgin Khan had rejected a British offer to abandon the nawab to save the life of his brother, Petrus, then a prisoner of the British. [14] However, this is not the only version of the events. According to a report by Louis Taillefert, the director of the Dutch East India Company, the Seth brothers Mahatab Rai and Swarupchand, hoping to ingratiate themselves with the British, had paid some Mughal soldiers to kill Gurgin Khan.} According to Ghulam Hussain, a servant of the Seth brothers named Shahab al-Daula had earlier accused Gurgin of conspiring against Mir Qasim. [15] In Bhattacharya's view, it is possible that the Seth brothers had organized the assassination of Gurgin Khan with British support. [16]
An eighteenth-century painting made in Murshidabad by Dip Chand probably depicts Gurgin Khan. The painting depicts an officer seated on a terrace, smoking a hookah, with two servants standing by. It is now held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. [17] Gurgin Khan is a character in the historical novel Chandrasekhar by the famous nineteenth-century Bengali author Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. In the book, the Armenian general is depicted as an opportunist seeking to take the throne of Bengal for himself. [18]
The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company, under the leadership of Robert Clive, over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757. Robert Clive was paid £1 million by the Jagat Seth family – a rich Indian family business group – to defeat Siraj-ud-Daulah. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar, Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah's commander in chief who was also paid by the Jagat Seths, as well as much of the Bengal Subah's armies being earlier committed against an Afghan invasion led by Ahmad Shah Durrani against the Mughal Empire. The battle helped the British East India Company take control of Bengal in 1772. Over the next hundred years, they continued to expand their control over vast territories in the rest of the Indian subcontinent, including Burma.
Mir Syed Jafar Ali Khan Mirza Muhammad Siraj-ud-Daulah, commonly known as Siraj-ud-Daulah or Siraj ud-Daula, was the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The end of his reign marked the start of the rule of the East India Company over Bengal and later almost all of the Indian subcontinent.
Murshidabad is a historical city in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located on the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi River, a distributary of the Ganges. It forms part of the Murshidabad district.
Rajmahal is a subdivisional town and a notified area in Rajmahal subdivision of the Sahebganj district in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It is situated at the banks of Ganges and was former capital of Bengal Subah under Mughal governor, Man Singh I.
Shah Alam II, 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 power was so depleted during his reign that it led to a saying in the Persian language, Sultanat-e-Shah Alam, Az Dilli ta Palam, meaning, 'The empire of Shah Alam is from Delhi to Palam', Palam being a suburb of Delhi.
The Nawab of Bengal was the hereditary ruler of Bengal Subah in Mughal India. In the early 18th-century, the Nawab of Bengal was the de facto independent ruler of the three regions of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa which constitute the modern-day sovereign country of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. The Bengal Subah reached its peak during the reign of Nawab Shuja-ud-Din Muhammad Khan. They are often referred to as the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The Nawabs were based in Murshidabad which was centrally located within Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha. Their chief, a former prime minister, became the first Nawab. The Nawabs continued to issue coins in the name of the Mughal Emperor, but for all practical purposes, the Nawabs governed as independent monarchs. Bengal continued to contribute the largest share of funds to the imperial treasury in Delhi. The Nawabs, backed by bankers such as the Jagat Seth, became the financial backbone of the Mughal court.
Mir Syed Jafar Ali Khan Bahadur, more commonly known as just Mir Jafar, was a commander-in-chief or military general who reigned as the first dependent Nawab of Bengal of the British East India Company. His reign has been considered by many historians as the start of the expansion of British control of the Indian subcontinent in Indian history and a key step in the eventual British domination of vast areas of pre-partition India.
Mir Qasim was the Nawab of Bengal from 1760 to 1763. He was installed as Nawab with the support of the British East India Company, replacing Mir Jafar, his father-in-law, who had himself been supported earlier by the East India Company after his role in winning the Battle of Plassey for the British. However, Mir Jafar eventually ran into disputes with the East India Company and attempted to form an alliance with the Dutch East India Company instead. The British eventually defeated the Dutch at Chinsura and overthrew Mir Jafar, replacing him with Mir Qasim. Qasim too later fell out with the British and fought against them at Buxar. His defeat has been suggested as a key reason in the British becoming the dominant power in large parts of North and East India.
Alivardi Khan was the fourth Nawab of Bengal from 1740 to 1756. He toppled the Nasiri dynasty of Nawabs by defeating Sarfaraz Khan in 1740 and assumed power himself.
The Bengal Armenians were ethnic Armenians who lived in what is now called Bangladesh. Their numbers have gradually diminished and there are now no Armenians in the country.
The Munger Fort, located at Munger, in the state of Bihar, India, is built on a rocky hillock on the south bank of the Ganges River. Its history is not completely dated but it is believed that it was built during the early rule of Slave dynasty of India. The Munger town where the fort is situated was under the control of Muhammad bin Tughluq of Delhi. The fort has two prominent hills called the Karnachaura or Karanchaura, and the other a built up rectangular mound deduced to be the location of a citadel of the fort with historical links. The fort had a succession of Muslim rulers (Khaljis, Tughlaqs, Lodis, Nawabs of Bengal, followed by Mughal rulers, till it was finally acceded to the British by Mir Quasim, after unseating his father-in-law Mīr Jafar on the grounds of old age, for a monetary reward negotiated by Vansittart. This deal involved payment by the East India Company's merchants of an ad valorem duty of 9 percent, against an Indian merchant's duty of 40%. The fort became a place of considerable importance to the British in Bengal till 1947.
Thomas Adams, was a British Army major, posthumously promoted to Brigadier-general based on accounts of his defence of the British position in Bengal in 1763.
Jean Baptiste Joseph Gentil (1726-1799) was a French Army Colonel, Knight of the Royal and Military Order of Saint-Louis, who worked in India. He is known for the collections he made of historic manuscripts and artifacts from India and for his cartography and documentation of Mughal history.
The Third Battle of Katwa occurred between the Nawab of Bengal, Mir Qasim and the British East India Company in 1763. Dissatisfied with Nawab Mir Qasim's administration, the English deposed him in favor of his father-in-law Mir Jafar and officially declared war against Mir Qasim on July 7, 1763. The English command was given to Major Thomas Adams, who led a small force, variously estimated as between 3,000 and 5,000 men, of whom, approximately 1,000 were European. The Nawab had a total of approximately 25,000 troops at his disposal, led by the Armenian general Gurgin Khan. Although the Nawab's forces were numerically larger, they were hastily cobbled together and riven by internal strife. The Nawabi force that confronted the English at Katwa was a much smaller contingent under the leadership of the accomplished general Muhammad Taqi Khan, the Faujdar of Birbhum.
The Bengal War, also called the second Anglo-Mughal war, was waged by the Mughal Empire in order to to expel the British East India Company (EIC) from Bengal Subah. Hostilities began in 1763 and ended in 1765.
William Fullerton was a Scottish surgeon who served the East India Company in Bengal and Bihar from 1744 to 1766. He is best known for his close ties with local people, their languages and for surviving the 1763 attack by the order of Nawab Mir Qasim of Bengal, against the British.
The Patna massacre of 1763 was the killing of 45 members of the East India Company, mainly English, on 6 October 1763, in Patna, India, on the order of Nawab Mir Qasim. These men had been imprisoned by Mir Qasim since William Ellis' failed attempt to seize Patna for the East India Company on 25 June the same year. Following Mir Qasim's defeat, a pillar was erected over the site of the well into which their bodies were thrown and over the houses where the massacre was committed, but nowadays a hospital stands where the monument used to be.
Ghulam Hussain Khan also known as Ghulam Husain Khan Tabatabai (1727/28-1797/98) was an 18th century Indian historian and scholar-administrator from Delhi who later settled in Azimabad (Patna). He is the writer of the famous book Seir Mutaqherin, one of the notable contemporary historical accounts on the late Mughal Empire.
Jagat Seth was a wealthy merchant, banker and money lender family from Murshidabad in Bengal during the time of the Nawabs of Bengal.
Khoja Wajid was a wealthy Armenian merchant who played a prominent role in the economic and political life of Bengal in the 1740s and 50s.