Like a beast awakening, the British Howitzers and cannons roared to life. The searing flame moved from right to left as the guns fired in sequence. Ram Prasad saw the charging infantry getting mowed down as he saw the General himself getting hit and toppling from the horse.
“Charge!” Ram Prasad heard his own voice calling. He saw his men as they rose from behind the embankment and moved forward. The unforgiving howl of the British guns erupted again and he saw his brave men falling all around him.
But why was a large part of the Bengal army not moving? He felt a searing pain in the left shoulder and then in the abdomen. Blood erupted from his body, he had been hit. But still, the main flank of the army remained stationary. Indeed, they seemed to be mute spectators of the massacre.
The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over Nawab Siraj Ud Daulah of Bengal on 23 June 1757.The battle took place at Palashi on the banks of the Hooghly River, about 150 kilometres north of Calcutta and south of Murshidabad, then capital of Bengal.The outcome of the battle was to change the history and shape of things to come for ever not only for India, but as some say, for the world, in terms of ascendancy of the British Empire.
The battle of Plassey features in the story ‘The Chronicler of the Hooghly’, part of my forthcoming book of the same name.
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A New Beginning 