Spare a Thought for Mir Jafar Tomorrow

Tomorrow is Independence Day, perhaps the best day to go back to where the ‘Dependence’ all started — Palashi, the place that Indians could try pronouncing correctly, instead of the anglicised ‘Plassey’. Siraj-ud-daulah, beaten at the Battle of Palashi on June 23, 1757, by the Robert Clive-led occupational forces of the East India Company, ultimately leading to India becoming a colony of the British crown in 1874, is painted as the good guy. Mir Jafar, Siraj’s commander who betrayed him, is seen as the bad guy. But Jafar turning Vibhishan was really the result of local leaders of Bengal, bankrollers Jagat Seths included, finding the nawab incompetent, reckless and disastrous as a ruler. The plan was to use Clive’s army to get Jafar to rule Bengal more sensibly. But what happened, of course, was a twist with destiny.

India isn’t the only country that reads a ‘bad guy’ from history unfairly. People of the Mexican state of Tlaxcala (pronounced the way it’s spelt) are seen by the rest of their countrymen as traitors. Tlaxcalans fought along with the 700-odd Spanish conquistadores to topple the Aztec empire on August 13, 1521. They, too, had ‘used’ the invaders in a freedom struggle. But history had other plans. So, spare a thought for Mir Jafar tomorrow. He would have liked an independent India — which remembers him with more understanding.