Syed Reza Ali Meerza or Chhote Nawab is indignant with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. The descendant of Mir Jafar, the commander-in-chief of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah’s military, says he has made up his thoughts by no means once more to vote for the Trinamool Congress, the social gathering he and most of household have been staunch supporters of. The purpose is embedded in historical past.
The legend goes that in the Battle of Plassey between the British and Siraj-ud-Daulah in 1757, the East India Company cosied as much as Mir Jafar to make sure the defeat of the nawab. Siraj-ud-Daulah had allied with the French and the English have been decided to defeat him. The East India Company’s military had solely about 3,000 males whereas Siraj-ud-Daulah had over 50,000. But the largest weapon for the British was Mir Jafar who, it is believed, held again the nawab’s forces so the English military had a bonus in the battle. Siraj, the final impartial nawab of Bengal, was quickly captured and executed. Mir Jafar turned the first dependent nawab in what quickly turned British India. And his title has now change into a pejorative, synonymous with being a traitor.
Chhote Nawab is indignant with this notion of Mir Jafar and calls it a distortion of historical past. But what has angered him extra is the indisputable fact that in rally after rally for the ongoing Bengal meeting polls, Mamata Banerjee has referred Suvendu Adhikari, Dinesh Trivedi and Mukul Roy, and all others who give up the TMC to affix the BJP, as “Mir Jafar”, suggesting that they’re traitors.
“This is most unfair. The British have called him a traitor. All the history books have been written by the British, including this incorrect version,” Meerza informed News18. “Mir Jafar was not a traitor. If he were, do you think we would have been allowed to be around?”
Chhote Nawab lives in Murshidabad, on the prime flooring of an previous, light, blue home, not too far-off from the Hazarduari Palace or “the palace with a thousand doors” that was constructed for the nawabs. This palace has now been transformed right into a museum and is the most wonderful and placing landmark of this previous city. Not too far-off from the palace is the mausoleum of Mir Jafar. Next to his grave is that of his begum. These are the solely two graves which have contemporary flowers on them. It’s Mir Jafar’s household that continues to go to and preserve the graves. Others in the city shun the place as Mir Jafar is thought-about a British stooge who betrayed his grasp.
Chhote Nawab, now 85, can barely see with out his glasses. But he tells us he has seen loads of change. His earnings has trickled down to reveal pittance and his son Fahim runs a pc retailer. “Our mistake is that no one from our family has ever written a book about the nawab days. Whatever you all know about Mir Jafar is from British historians. They have distorted history,” mentioned Fahim. “I intend to write a book to reveal the facts.”
Fahim additionally says that he has been a volunteer for the Trinamool Congress however is now having second ideas. At rally after rally, he heard the chief minister ridicule the TMC turncoats, calling them Mir Jafars whom Bengal won’t ever forgive. “She hasn’t even bothered to acknowledge what we have done for her,” mentioned Chhote Nawab. “She too, like others, has listened to the history dictated by the British. We stayed back here unlike the rest of my family who have settled in Pakistan. And this is what we get in return. I feel cheated and we won’t vote for the TMC anymore.”
Murshidabad has 22 meeting constituencies, the place polling shall be held on April 26 and 29. The Muslim inhabitants right here is greater than 69 per cent and the Trinamool Congress hopes to win them over to make up for what it could have misplaced in the earlier 4 rounds of the eight-phase elections to polarisation. The TMC is additionally apprehensive of the Congress, led this time in the state by a decided Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, as the space has been a stronghold of the grand previous social gathering. It is additionally cautious of Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM and widespread cleric Abbas Siddiqui’s Indian Secular Front reducing its votes, although these two events don’t pose a severe problem, in accordance with TMC insiders. The BJP has been hoping to make inroads by capitalising on the substantial variety of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh in the space and is optimistic of successful not less than two seats. Interestingly, the saffron social gathering has put up 8 Muslim candidates in the district as a illustration of its mantra “Sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas” (with all, growth for all, with everybody’s belief). Voting in the state will now happen on April 17, 22, 26 and 29, earlier than relying on May 2.
The princely state could have gone. And there is little attachment to monarchy and the nawabs. But the city will get its vacationers and fame from its historic landmarks. Plassey, or Palashi, the place the battle was fought, is about 51 km away. The city of Cossimbazar, the stunning heritage web site Katra Masjid, the Rajbari, Motijheel Mosque, and so on, are all reminders of the indisputable fact that regardless of progress and adjusted occasions, Murshidabad can by no means break the umbilical wire with its previous. And as Chhote Nawab seethes in anger over the Mir Jafar taunts, his household hopes Mamata and others get a style of historical past too.
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