LYCOS RETRIEVER 
British East India Company: Bengal Delta
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The roots of the modern Indian army are traced to the forces employed by the English (later British) East India Company, chartered in 1600, and the French East India Company (Compagnie des Indes Orientales), established in 1664. The French, headquartered at Pondicherry (Puduchcheri) by the 1670s, were the first to raise Indian companies and use them in conjunction with European soldiers. Subsequently, in the 1740s, the British started to organize and train Indian units. British units were divided into three armies corresponding to the company's centers of Bengal (headquartered at Fort William in Calcutta), Bombay (or Mumbai in the Marathi language), and Madras (headquartered at Fort Saint George). In 1748 the East India Company armies were brought under the command of Stringer Lawrence, who is regarded by historians as the progenitor of the modern Indian army. Under his guidance, British officers recruited, trained, and deployed these forces.
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In the first Burmese war of 1824-26 the troops of the East India Company seized the Province of Assam, bordering on Bengal, and the coastal districts of Arakan and Tenasserim. The second Burmese war (1852) resulted in the seizure by the British of the Province of Pegu. Burma did not sign a peace treaty... and refused to recognise the seizure of Pegu. In 1853 the British authorities threatened to resume military operations but abstained from this step, largely due to the guerrilla warfare in Pegu against the foreign invaders, which continued until 1860. In the 1860s Britain imposed on Burma a number of unequal treaties and in 1885, as a result of the third Burmese war, annexed the whole territory of Burma.
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The work on the history of irrigation in Eastern India focused in the first year on the Great Hydraulic Transition: The Making and Un-making of the Bengal Delta in British India. The study by Dr D'souza aimed at exploring and documenting a hitherto untapped vein of historical source material that exists on the colonial encounter with eastern India's complex and varied hydrology. Starting from the early decades of the nineteenth century to well into the final decades of British rule, the Bengal delta was witness to a number of engineering and administrative actions with regard to 'improving', 'harnessing' , 'controlling' and 'commandeering' the regions many complex hydraulic endowments. In the first year of the Award grant Dr D'souza collected and processed the extant documents and papers relevant to the study from the Central Water Commission Library (R.K.Puram, New Delhi), National Archives of India (New Delhi), Teen Murti (New Delhi). He ... had exploration done at Roorkee University Library (Uttar Pradesh), Institution of Engineers (Hyderabad) and National Library (Calcutta) and the Orissa State Archives (Bhubaneswar). He has been finishing a paper on the early years of the British East India Company's hydraulic encounters in the Bengal delta.
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In 1640, the East India Company established an outpost at Madras. In 1661 the company obtained Bombay from Charles II and converted it to a flourishing center of trade by 1668. English settlements developed in Orissa and Bengal. In 1690 Job Charnock, an agent of the East India Company established a factory in Bengal; almost a decade later the factory was fortified and called Fort William. Three adjoining villages Sutanati, Kalikata and Gobindpore were developed into a single area called Calcutta. Calcutta became a trading centre for East India Company.
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In 1756, in an effort to avert a British invasion, the Nawab of Bengal started a war, seizing Calcutta, the British base in North-Eastern India. But the armed forces of the British East India Company under Robert Clive’s command soon recaptured the city, demolished the Bengal fortifications of the French, who supported the Nawab, and defeated him at Plassey on June 23, 1757. In 1763 they crushed the uprising that broke out in Bengal against British rule. Along with Bengal, the British took possession of Bibar, a region on the Ganges, which was under the rule of the Nawab of Bengal. In 1803, the British completed the conquest of several feudal principalities of Orissa situated south of Bengal.
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There is a stone Obelisk that has been placed at Plassey by the British colonialists to mark the defeat of the forces of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah by the army of Robert Clive of the East India Company. On the Obelisk is inscribed – Battle of Plassey — June 23, 1757. Near this spot, in preparation for the rally, the activists of the BBPPF had put up hoardings of anti-imperialist slogans. A bust of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah had been erected at the spot for this program. The program began with the leaders of the BBPPF garlanding this bust. They then marched towards the maidan where the rally was being held, militantly shouting slogans against imperialism and hailing the unity of the people of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
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Bengal Delta