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Mir Qasim () was the Nawab of Bengal from 1760 to 1763. He was installed as Nawab with the support of the British East India Company, replacing Mir Jafar, his father-in-law, who had himself been supported earlier by the East India Company after his role in winning the Battle of Plassey for the British. However, Mir Jafar eventually ran into disputes with the East India Company and attempted to form an alliance with the Dutch East India Company instead. The British eventually defeated the Dutch at Chinsura and overthrew Mir Jafar, replacing him with Mir Qasim. Qasim too later fell out with the British and fought against them at Buxar. His defeat has been suggested as a key reason in the British becoming the dominant power in large parts of North India and East India.
Qasim was married to Fatima Begum, a daughter of Mir Jafar and Shah Khanum, and a granddaughter of Nawab Alivardi Khan of Bengal. Prior to becoming the Nawab of Bengal, he served as the Faujdar of Rangpur Division for roughly two decades.
Qasim vigorously opposed the East India Company's position that their Mughal license ( a dastak) meant that they could trade without paying taxes (other local merchants with dastaks were required to pay up to 40% of their revenue as tax). Frustrated at the British refusal to pay these taxes, Mir Qasim abolished taxes on the local traders as well. This upset the advantage that the European traders had been enjoying so far, and hostilities built up. Mir Qasim invaded the Company offices in Patna in 1763, massacring 45 Europeans, including the Resident. Mir Qasim allied with Shuja-ud-Daula of Avadh and Shah Alam II, the incumbent Mughal Empire against the British. However, their combined forces were defeated in the Battle of Buxar in 1764. Qasim also launched a brief invasion of Hindu Kingdom of Nepal in 1763 during the reign of Maharajadhiraja Prithvi Narayan Shah, the first King of Nepal. Kanak Singh Baaniya, Chief Minister of Makwanpur, had requested Qasim's intervention against Shah after he had taken Bikram Sen, the king of Makwanpur, hostage. Qasim dispatched a military force under the command of his general Gurgin Khan to invade Nepal. Gurgin was swiftly defeated by Shah's army, and retreated.
Unlike Siraj-ud-Daulah before him, Mir Qasim was an effective and popular ruler. His defeat at Buxar established the East India Company as a powerful force in the province of Bengal in a much more real sense than at Plassey seven years earlier and at Bedara five years earlier. By 1793 the East India company had abolished the Nizamat (referring to the Mughal suzerainty) and became completely in charge of the former Mughal province.
Mir Qasim died in obscurity and abject poverty possibly from Edema, at Kotwal, near Delhi on 8 May 1777.
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