The battle took place between the nawab of "Sube Bangla," which was the province of Bengal comprising Bengal, Bihar and Orrissa, and the East India Company -- a trading house from Great Britain. At the end of the battle, the East India Company came out as the victor. The Battle of Palashi was one of the pivotal battles which led to the formation of the British Empire in India.

Two and a half centuries later, how shall we, in independent Bangladesh, look back at that battle and its outcome? To get a clear picture of what happened at Palashi, let us take a look into the racial identities of the people who were on the battlefield.

Let us start with Nawab Sirâj-ud-daulah -- the ruler of Bengal at that time. The father of Alivardi Khan, who was the grandfather of the nawab, was an Arab, and his (Alivardi's) mother was a Turk. The mother of the nawab was the daughter of Alivardi Khan, and the father was the son of Alivardi's elder brother. So we can say that from the racial point of view, Sirâj-ud-daulah was a Turk-Arab. The nawab was born at Patna in Bihar. He used to speak in Farsi. So in no way -- by parentage, or by birth, or by mother tongue -- was he a Bengali.

Mir Jafar Ali Khan, the commander-in-chief, was an Uzbek. He used to drive a mule-cart in Uzbekistan before he migrated to Bengal in his youth. The Bengalis, as a race, have got nothing to be ashamed of the treachery committed by Mir Jafar Ali Khan.

Neither of the two commanders, Mohan Lal and Mir Madan, who fought so bravely on the battlefield, were Bengalis. Mohan Lal was a Kashmiri, and Mir Madan was a Turk.

The only Bengali who was present on the battlefield, Raja Manik Chand of Bikrampur, fled away on hearing the first gunshot.

Let us now look into the racial identities of the ordinary soldiers of both sides in the battlefield of Palashi. There were 800 Europeans (English, Portuguese, etc) and 2,200 native Indians, known as sepoys, in the British army which took part in that day's battle. Most of the sepoys were from Madras -- present day Tamil Nadu. They were also known as Telengal.

The rest of the sepoys belonged to the Bengal Native Infantry. They were also known as Lalpaltan. The sepoys of Lalpaltan were Pathans, Rohila Afghans, Jats, and Rajputs. The majority of them were Muslim by faith. It may be mentioned here that the British conquered India with the help of none but the Indians -- the people of this land. They even subdued the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 with the help of Sikh (Punjabi) and Pathan sepoys.

The number of soldiers in the nawab's army at Palashi was 50,000. Of them, only 12,000 took part in the battle, and the rest 38,000, under the command of Mir Jafar, stood like dolls in the battlefield.

Among the 12,000 soldiers who were loyal to the nawab, and fought under the command of Mohan Lal and Mir Madan, 5,000 were Mughal cavaliers, and 7,000 were Pathan and Rajput foot soldiers. The 38,000 soldiers who did not take part in the battle were Mughals, Turks, Afghans, and Rajputs. On the battlefield, the nawab had on his side 45 French artillerymen under the command of Sinfray -- who himself was French.

We can see that though the Battle of Palashi was fought to determine the fate of Bengal, none of the commanders or soldiers on the battlefield was the son of the soil of Bengal. The soldiers were foreign mercenaries who worked under anyone who would pay them money. These days, young people of Bangladesh go to Middle Eastern countries to seek employment. In those days, young people from impoverished Central Asia and different parts of India used to come to Bengal, at that time the richest land in the world, to work as mercenaries.

As Bengal was a foreign country to them, the mercenaries were not defending the independence of their motherland on the battlefield of Palashi. 38,000 of them stood still like dolls while the nawab was defeated by another group of mercenaries serving in the East India Company under the command of Robert Clive.

These soldiers had no personal attachment to, or sympathy for, the nawab -- a Turk-Arab -- as he was a foreigner to them, in the same way that the English were foreigners. During the flight from the battlefield, the nawab could not manage even a small contingent of bodyguards. When, in the battlefield, the fight turned against the nawab, the 12,000 mercenaries who had fought for him for sometime fled away with the wind.

The nawab, fleeing in disguise from the battlefield, was recognised by a Bengali farmer who handed him over to the English. To the farmer, it was as simple as handing over a foreign ruler of his country to some other foreigner.

It is said that the nawab of Bengal was an independent ruler. In fact, he was not. At that time Bengal was treated as a province of the Mughal Empire, so it was known as "Sube Bangla," or the province of Bengal. According to the law of that time, after the death of a nawab of this province a new nawab was appointed by the reigning Mughal emperor in Delhi. The nawab also needed to pay an annual tribute to the Mughal emperor. Even the English followed these rules, the system of appointment and the paying of annual tribute, till 1857.

After the death of Alivardi Khan, Shaokat Jang -- an elder cousin of Sirâj-ud-daulah, and the son of the eldest daughter of Alivardi -- was appointed as the nawab of Bengal by the Mughal emperor in Delhi. So he, not Sirâj-ud-daulah, was the legitimate nawab of Bengal.

In independent Bangladesh, we have got no reason to be emotional about the Battle of Palashi. That battle was fought for forceful transfer of proprietary right over Bengal, from one foreign ruler to another foreign ruler. The interpretation of the history of the sub-continent from the Bangladeshi point of view differs from the interpretations from the Indian or Pakistani points of view.

Faruque Hasan is a freelance contributor to the Daily Star.