Jagat Seth

The Jagat Seth were a Bengali Jain banking family and the title of the eldest son of the family. The family sometimes referred to as the House of Jagat Seth, were a wealthy business, banking and money lender family from Murshidabad, Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, during the time of Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah.[1]

Jagat Seth
Died1763
Murshidabad, Bengal, Indian subcontinent
NationalityBengal ( Under Nawab of Bengal)
OccupationBusiness
Known forRole in Battle of Plassey
House of Jagat Seth

The title

Jagat Seth was a title conferred by the Nawab of Bengal and can be interpreted as "banker or merchant of the world".[2] House of Jagat Seth Museum contains personal possessions of Jagat Seth and his family including coins of the bygone era, muslin and other extravagant clothes, Banarasi sarees embroidered with gold and silver threads.

Jagat Seth, also the title for the powerful moneylender family he belonged to, looked after the mint and treasury accounts of Bengal during the Nawabi period. He played a key role in the conspiracy involving the imprisonment and ultimate killing of Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah. His house, replete with a secret tunnel as well as an underground chamber, where illegal trade plans were hatched, is what has been converted into the aforementioned museum.

Death

Jagat Seth Mahtab Rai and his cousin Maharaj Swaroop Chand were captured and shot dead on the orders of Mir Qasim shortly before the Battle of Buxar in 1764.

Jagat Seth was considered to be a traitor as he financed the British during the Battle of Plassey which led to the Death of Siraj ud-Daulah and the eventual start of the British Raj.

He was shot dead on orders of Mir Qasim, the British Puppet Ruler who had defied British Rule.

References
  1. "Jagat Seth".
  2. Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (2006). India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press. p. 282. ISBN 978-0-521-80904-7.


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