2012 সালের ফেসবুকের পাতা থেকে ফিরে দেখা যাক ইতিহাসের এক সত্যিকারের প্রতিবিম্ব - যা আমরা ইতিহাস ভাবি তা যে অনেক সময়েই তৈরী করা ঘটনা তার প্রতিফলন পাবেন এই লেখাটায়। সিরাজ কি সত্যিই ইতিহাসের কথামত ছিলেন নায়ক? নাকি ছিলেন এক জঘন্য নারীলোলুপ,হিংস্র চরিত্র যাকে হটিয়ে মীর জাফর, জগৎশেঠ, রাজা কৃষ্ণচন্দ্র বাংলাকে বাঁচাতে চেয়েছিলেন? জানতে হলে পড়বেন লেখাটি।
“Siraj: Between the Throne and the Truth”
A Dialogue Between a Freedom Fighter and a Journalist
By Tarashis Gangopadhyay
(In a shaded veranda of an old north Kolkata house, a journalist, Rohan, sits with his recorder beside an aged freedom fighter, Ananda Chandra, whose eyes have seen both the empire’s end and the confusion that followed independence)
Journalist (Rohan):
Dada, lately there’s a fierce debate on social media. Many say Siraj-ud-Daulah wasn’t the hero we were taught to admire. They quote Vidyasagar, Golam Hossain, even French writers like Jean Law. What’s your view? Was Siraj truly a patriot—or just another tyrant?
Freedom Fighter (Ananda Chandra):
(leans back slowly)
History, my boy, is like a battlefield long after the soldiers are gone—still filled with smoke. You see what you wish to see. But I must tell you, what you read in your schoolbooks was not the full story.
Rohan:
So… you mean the textbooks lied?
Ananda Chandra:
Not lied—simplified. In our youth, the British had already written most of our history. Later, our nationalist writers wanted heroes—men who stood against foreign power. Siraj was convenient for that role. A young nawab who opposed the English—what better symbol? But beneath that banner of rebellion lay a man far from noble.
Rohan:
You’re referring to Vidyasagar’s account?
Ananda Chandra:
Yes. Vidyasagar himself wrote that Siraj dismissed his grandfather’s loyal officers, surrounded himself with corrupt flatterers, and plunged Bengal into moral chaos. Property and honour were unsafe under him. Even women bathing in the Ganges feared his gaze. That is not the mark of a hero—it’s the mark of decay.
Rohan:
But then… why do so many still glorify him?
Ananda Chandra:
Because we have inherited confusion. Our colonial wounds made us desperate for pride. We painted even the cruel with patriotic colours, to prove that we had warriors of our own. But pride built on illusion is dangerous.
Rohan:
(scribbling quickly)
Golam Hossain, in Sair-ul-Mutakhkhirin, also called him cruel and woman-hungry, didn’t he?
Ananda Chandra:
Indeed. His contemporaries—like Golam Hossain, in Sair-ul-Mutakhkhirin—described him as lustful, greedy, and violent.
Rohan:
But we grew up thinking he was a ruler who cared for his people!
Ananda:
That’s what the colonial textbooks told you. And later, nationalist historians repeated it, wanting a hero against the British. But the record says otherwise. Even his contemporaries—like Golam Hossain, in Sair-ul-Mutakhkhirin—described him as lustful, greedy, and violent. He wrote that Siraj’s cruelty made even his own courtiers tremble. He seized wealth without reason, and women without consent. Bengal’s heart bled long before the British cannon fired.
Rohan:
I read something about Mohanlal’s sister—Madhabi?
Ananda:
Yes. A story rarely told in our books. Mohanlal, his most trusted general, had a sister named Madhabi—some called her Hira. Siraj forced himself upon her, even before marriage. She became pregnant. When she sought justice, Siraj mocked her. He tied the newborn to a horse and whipped it forward—watching, amused, as the helpless child cried.
It was Mohanlal who rescued the baby, running after the horse, tears streaming down his face. Only after Alivardi Khan intervened did Siraj marry Madhabi—after forcing her to convert. That marriage was not love; it was an act of shame covered in ritual.
Rohan:
There was also something about Rani Bhavani’s relative—Tarasundari?
Ananda:
Yes. Tarasundari Devi—believed to be Rani Bhavani’s widowed daughter or a close relative. Siraj’s lustful eyes fell upon her after seeing her once during a religious gathering. She fled to a hermitage for safety. The monks hid her. Siraj’s soldiers, acting on his orders, raided the ashram, beat the saints, and tore down sacred places searching for her.
Rani Bhavani had to secretly send Tarasundari away to Jessore to protect her. Even then, Siraj’s men continued their rampage. Such was his madness for domination—no woman, no sanctum was sacred.
Rohan:
(appalled)
And yet he’s called a martyr for Bengal!
Ananda:
(smiles sadly)
Martyrdom doesn’t erase cruelty. It is possible to fight a foreign power and still destroy your own people. Siraj’s rule proved that.
Rohan:
So those stories about his men capturing bathing women from the Ganges—they’re true?
Ananda:
They are. The French officer Jean Law wrote it himself. He said Siraj’s men would roam the Ganges in boats, looking for beautiful women bathing. They would abduct them and present them to the Nawab as “gifts.”
Jean Law called him “one of the most cruel and depraved characters of all time.” He described how Siraj took delight in drowning boats during floods, watching the panic of women and children struggling in the waters.
Rohan:
That’s... horrific. Why wasn’t this ever taught to us?
Ananda:
Because, my boy, we have rewritten history for comfort. We needed villains to hate—like Mir Jafar—and heroes to worship—like Siraj. But the truth is, Mir Jafar and others like Jagat Seth and Raja Krishnachandra revolted not out of greed alone. They were suffocating under Siraj’s tyranny. They wanted to save their people, their women, their faith.
Rohan:
So when we say Mir Jafar betrayed Bengal—
Ananda:
(interrupting gently)
He betrayed a tyrant, not Bengal. But we, blinded by patriotic pride, turned him into the symbol of betrayal. Remember, before the British, we were already enslaved—only by different masters.
Rohan:
Then Plassey wasn’t the start of our slavery—it was a transfer of it?
Ananda:
Exactly. As S. I. Saraswati wrote, “After Plassey, Bengal did not become enslaved—it only changed masters. From the cruel hand of the Middle-Eastern rulers to the polished hand of the English.”
Our bondage changed language and flag, not essence.
Rohan:
That’s a painful way to see it.
Ananda Chandra:
Painful, yes—but true. Real freedom did not come till 1947, and even then, not for all. Our minds are still enslaved by borrowed histories. We glorify tyrants and forget sages.
Rohan:
Then what should we, the new generation, do?
Ananda Chandra:
Read everything, not just what’s approved. Question your heroes, question your textbooks, question me if you must. Only then will the fog of illusion lift.
Rohan:
(pauses, voice quiet)
So Siraj wasn’t the villain or hero—just a mirror of his times?
Ananda Chandra:
Exactly. A product of decadence, not deliverance. We can learn from him—not to repeat his arrogance, nor to hate him—but to understand how ignorance and moral decay invite foreign rule.
Rohan:
(silent for a moment)
Then, Dada, how should we remember Siraj today?
Ananda:
With honesty. Neither with hatred nor blind pride. Siraj was not a hero; he was a warning. He shows us how moral corruption within makes a nation fall from within. When rulers dishonour women, silence saints, and trample their own people, they invite invasion—not by fate, but by consequence.
Rohan:
So, the fall of Plassey was not British conspiracy—it was divine justice?
Ananda:
Perhaps. Or perhaps it was history balancing its scales. But we must learn from it. We must not worship those who lost their humanity simply because they lost their throne.
Rohan:
(quietly closes his notebook)
Thank you, Dada. You’ve given me something no textbook ever did—context.
Ananda:
(smiles faintly)
Then write it truthfully, Rohan. Let the youth know that Bengal’s freedom was not stolen in a single night—it was eroded, drop by drop, by men who forgot dharma for desire.
Only when we learn to see through illusion will our history begin to heal.
No comments:
Post a Comment