Last King in India: Wajid Ali Shah Read online

  godown a shed, or warehouse

  Governor General based in Government House, Calcutta and from 1833 in charge of all Company administration in India. After the Company’s abolition in 1858, the title of Governor General continued, now linked to that of viceroy, the British monarch’s representative abroad.

  hakeem physician, native Muslim doctor practising the yunani (Greek) tradition of medicine

  haveli palatial mansion, walled villa or courtyard house, often an ornate, high-status residence

  hookah/huqqah pipe for smoking tobacco, the vapour of which is passed through scented water before being inhaled

  howdah covered litter, a box-like structure fitted usually to an elephant’s or camel’s back, containing seats, a canopy and curtains for passengers

  hukumnamah a written order or warrant

  imambarah building for Shi‘a commemorations during Muharram and other ritual gatherings, often incorporating tombs

  ‘itr otto (of roses), attar, perfume from rose petals, developed at the Mughal court

  ‘izzat honour, status or respect

  jagir a gift of land for a person’s lifetime

  Janab-i ‘Aliyyah ‘Her Sublime Excellency’, title for a Queen Mother, here for Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s mother

  karindah worker, agent or manager

  kharitah purse, envelope, charter or map, but here an important official letter

  kincob gold brocade

  lakh a hundred thousand, usually rupees

  mu‘afi exemption, remission, a rent-free grant

  maulawi ‘lordly’ or ‘milord’, a learned man, often but not always a religious cleric, also used as a title

  mamtu‘at plural of wives married through the practice of mut‘ah

  marsiyah dirge, solemn poetry usually recited during Muharram

  masnavi narrative poems, usually epic or romantic in theme

  mela a fête

  mohubutnamah a friendly letter

  mohur a gold coin, first struck in sixteenth-century India

  Muharram first month of the Islamic lunar calendar (hijri), a time of mourning, especially for Shi‘as

  mujtahid a religious leader among Shi‘a scholars, noted for interpreting the Qur‘an and the Shi‘ite tradition

  munshi musha’ira mut‘ah a scribe or writer, also used as a title a gathering of poets, often at night a temporary marriage, underpinned by contract

  nawab, nawwab also Anglicised as nabob, originally meaning a deputy or governor. The first nawabs in Awadh and other states were deputies of the Mughal emperor. Also a term of respect for eminent Muslims.

  nazr nikah a gift from an inferior to a superior permanent marriage, underpinned by contract

  paan addictive chew made from shaved betel nut and other ingredients, wrapped in betel leaf, supposedly eaten to refresh the breath and aid digestion, but it eventually rots the teeth

  pandal large constructions of bamboo and canvas in the shape of a building

  peshkar a deputy

  peshkari the office of deputy

  peshwa chief minister of a Maratha state

  purcha pyam a written announcement

  purdah literal meaning is a curtain or veil, but it is also a metonym for confinement to the zananah

  rahas a religious musical play

  Resident an employee of the East India Company assigned to a native court to report back to the Governor General

  Residency home of the British Resident and his office where administrative work was carried out

  risalah a treatise or pamphlet, but here a cavalry troop, or regiment

  ryots native peasants

  sayyid title of respect for learned Muslim cleric, also a descendant of the Prophet

  shamiyanah an open-sided tent

  takhallus pen name adopted by writers

  ta’luqdars native revenue-farming landholders

  tawa’if courtesan employed for entertainments and dance performances, also derogatory term for a prostitute

  taziatnamah letter of condolence

  ta’ziyah symbolic tomb carried in a procession of remembrance by Shi‘as during the first ten days of Muharram

  waqf a building, or plot of land, donated for religious or charitable purposes; an endowment

  wakil an agent or diplomat, or attorney

  wali ‘ahd heir apparent

  wasiqahdar a pension-holder (not necessarily an elderly person)

  wazir minister of state

  zananah the female quarters in a house where only close male relatives can visit

  INTRODUCTION

  ‘Bougainvillea Wajid Ali Shah—a very showy, cultivated plant, with rose-coloured bracts, often grown indoors and in conservatories’

  National Botanic Gardens, Lucknow

  This is the story of a man whose memory continues to divide opinion today. Was he, as the British believed, a debauched ruler who spent his time with fiddlers, eunuchs and fairies, when he should have been running his kingdom? Or, as many Indians remember him, a talented poet whose songs are still sung today, and who was robbed of his throne by the English East India Company? Somewhere between these two extremes lies a gifted, but difficult, character—a man who married more women than there are days in the year—who directed theatrical extravaganzas that took over a month to perform, and who built a fairytale palace in Lucknow, which was inhabited for less than a decade. The last king in India, Wajid ‘Ali Shah, was written out of the history books when his kingdom of Awadh1 was annexed by the Company in February 1856. Some people even thought he had been killed the following year, during the Great Uprising (also called the Indian Mutiny). In fact he lived on at Garden Reach, a riverbank estate near Calcutta, where he spent the last thirty years of his life recreating the lost paradise that was Lucknow.

  He remained a constant thorn in the side of the ruling British government with his extravagance, his menagerie and his wives. Even so, there was something rather heroic about a man who refused to bow to changing times, and who single-handedly endeavoured to preserve the etiquette and customs of the great Mughals well into the period of the British Raj. When Wajid ‘Ali Shah died in 1887, the year in which Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee, a link which stretched back to medieval times was severed. The thousands of mourners who lined his funeral route at dusk on 21 September 1887, with their loud wailing and shouted prayers, were not only marking the passing of the last king but also the passing of an intangible connection to old India, before the Europeans came.

  Awadh was one of three major states to emerge between 1717 and 1724 as the central Mughal government began to lose real authority. The death of the Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707 generally marks the end of the era of the great Mughals, and this was sensed by ambitious men who had worked for them as deputy officials. As the emperors became increasingly impotent, independent rulers established themselves in states around the periphery of empire. Bengal was the first, in 1717 under Murshid Quli Khan, the founder of a short-lived dynasty, whose successors were to be emasculated by the East India Company forty years later at the Battle of Plassey. The second was Awadh, which became virtually autonomous in 1722 under Burhan-ul-Mulk, who had been appointed deputy minister (nawab wazir) to deputise for the emperor, and who gradually assumed his master’s role. His sixth-generation descendant was Wajid ‘Ali Shah, the subject of this book. Awadh survived for a little over 130 years before its annexation, subject to increasing interference from the Company. The third state was Hyderabad, established under Asaf Jah in 1724; it survived the fate of Bengal and Awadh by remaining more or less independent until 1948.

  What the three breakaway states had in common were dynamic and ruthless founders, all of whom came from outside the territories they were to make their own, with the vigour of new immigrants and the need to create a fresh power base. Both the nawabs of Bengal and Awadh were Shi‘a, a minority, although powerful, sect within Islam, while Muslims themselves were always outnumbered in Hindu India. Revenue from land brought wealth
to the new rulers, although it failed to trickle down to the majority of their subjects. Their capital cities, Murshidabad in Bengal, Lucknow in Awadh, and Hyderabad in its own district, began to boast extravagant architecture as palaces, mosques and imambarahs were erected, seemingly almost overnight. Builders, carpenters and craftsmen arrived, along with bankers and armament manufacturers.

  Court culture began to develop too, inspired by the customs and patronage of the earlier Mughals, and there was rivalry between Lucknow and Hyderabad over which city was the true heir to the old Delhi Court. When Delhi fell to the East India Company in 1803, and the emperors became virtual paupers in their own capital, many of its poets moved to Lucknow, adding to its lustre, although there was some grumbling in verse about their changed circumstances.2 All kinds of artists, including jewellers, musicians, painters, dancers, singers, skilled artisans and even cooks, settled in Lucknow, providing services to the rich men and women at Court and in the city. Some of these services were of course sexual, and the cult of the tawa’if, or high-class courtesan, blossomed here with women who were skilled in music, dance and repartee, among other things. A number of Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s many wives were to come from this group. There were also male and female brothels, and among the commonest diseases was ‘syphilis complicated with Venereal taint’, as an English doctor working in Lucknow reported.3 It is not surprising that Wajid ‘Ali Shah, growing up in this culturally rich but licentious environment, should become a noted poet and patron of the arts, with a fondness for pretty women. It would have been more surprising had he not. Lucknow has long been a byword for high culture, but it was not until a recent exhibition brought together artefacts from its so-called ‘golden age’, that is from about 1775 to 1856, that a proper appreciation of what this post-Mughal kingdom may actually have looked like could begin.4 Exquisite jewellery, decorated glassware, delicate panoramic paintings, heavily-embroidered dresses and jewel-studded jade objets d’art are physical reminders of why the word ‘Lucknow’ still has such evocative powers today in the Indian imagination.

  Ironically, none of the exhibits came from Lucknow itself, the city having been comprehensively looted during its recapture by British and Gurkha troops in 1858. Every book on the Great Uprising mentions the kingdom of Awadh, because its annexation is seen as the final element that set the revolt in motion. The annexation is discussed in detail in Chapter Three, together with the immediate events that led up to it. But a Company takeover had long been threatened, and Company interference in Awadh had begun as early as 1764 when Burhan-ul-Mulk’s grandson unwisely took on British troops at Buxar and was thoroughly beaten. A compromise, similar to that which the Company had first tried out in Murshidabad was reached. Battalions of sepoy (Indian) troops—commanded by British officers—were to be stationed in Awadh ostensibly for its protection, in return for a financial tribute from the ruling nawab. In order to ensure that this was paid regularly, a British Resident was appointed to the Court of Awadh, and his position was described bluntly as having ‘for its Object the cementing of the Friendship between the Company and the Vizier [wazir] and the obtaining of large Sums of Money said to be due from him’.5 The unhappy relationship between the Company and the nawab wazirs, mediated or exacerbated by successive British Residents, formed the subject of my first book, A Fatal Friendship: The Nawabs, the British and the City of Lucknow. There was always something for the Resident to complain about to his superior officer, the governor general in Calcutta. One has to see the whole of Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s life as a life under surveillance by the British; and it is this uneasy relationship between the hedonistic king and the greedy, self-righteous Company, followed by the government of India, that forms the core of this book.

  Although Wajid ‘Ali Shah had left Lucknow for Calcutta long before fighting broke out at the end of June 1857, the Uprising was to affect him and his family profoundly and forever. Many of the soldiers who mutinied in the Company’s Bengal Army came from Awadh, and when its mild-mannered ruler was unceremoniously stripped of his throne and his kingdom on the grounds of mismanagement, their first reaction was one of disbelief. Their second was anger. Lucknow was one of the most bitterly contested cities during the Uprising. Its British and Anglo-Indian inhabitants, together with Indian staff, were besieged in the Residency for four and a half months, from July to mid-November 1857, until they were rescued by a British task force at a second attempt. By this time Wajid ‘Ali Shah was a political prisoner of the Company, locked up in Fort William in Calcutta, on what now seems like a spurious charge. His mother, brother and son had travelled to England on an unsuccessful mission to get the annexation reversed.

  The Company’s forces were not initially strong enough to recapture Lucknow from its defenders, who were led by a divorced wife of the king, Begam Hazrat Mahal. During the winter of 1857–8, with the British gone and their recent administrative changes abandoned, Lucknow reverted briefly to the old days, but without its king. Former ministers were reinstated in a provisional government, and a number of disbanded regiments from the Awadh Army were re-formed. Approaches were made to members of the royal family who had remained in Lucknow to select a new ruler. Even Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s disabled eldest son, Nosherwan Qadr, deaf and unable to speak, was briefly considered. Begam Hazrat Mahal was then persuaded to offer her twelve-year-old son, Birjis Qadr, as a nominal king, and he was crowned on 5 July 1857 in the Safed Barahdari at Qaisarbagh, the palace built by his father. Meanwhile, huge defensive ramparts of earth and timber baulks were erected around the city and many wealthy citizens were ‘persuaded’ to contribute to the war fund, while the properties of those who had left for Calcutta were looted. By the end of February 1858 the Company had mustered sufficient troops to mount an assault on Lucknow, and they were joined by the forces of the Nepalese ruler, Jang Bahadur. The city was recaptured after a bitter two-week struggle, and Begam Hazrat Mahal, with her son and her followers, escaped to Kathmandu.

  The end of the Uprising was marked by a proclamation from Queen Victoria which was read throughout India on 1 November 1858 and offered a general pardon; but Wajid ‘Ali Shah remained in prison for a further eight months. The governor general’s not-very-convincing excuse was that Begam Hazrat Mahal had cited her ex-husband’s name in her stand against the British. Wajid ‘Ali Shah had never, for a moment, considered joining the Uprising. He maintained his position as a loyal friend to the Company. While he was still ruler, he had patriotically ordered 21-gun salutes to celebrate British victories during the Crimean War. Thus he was quick to condemn the Uprising that burst forth in 1857, even though it was largely inspired by his own downfall. ‘We have learned with great concern that a rebellion has been created in Hindustan as well as in Oudh. We were ready to serve the British government to the best of our ability and power’, he announced in a petition written from prison in November 1857.6 He proposed to Lord Canning, the governor general, the formation of a new Awadh Army to fight the rebels ‘under the Standard of the King’, subject to the question of annexation being reconsidered. His suggestion was turned down. Yet the king seemed remarkably free from bitterness towards his British captors as he left Fort William, his prison for two years, to be driven home to Garden Reach.

  Wajid ‘Ali Shah will always be seen in the context of British India: firstly that of the East India Company, then, after its abolition in 1858, the British government in India, which assumed responsibility for the country. There is a tendency to see the second half of the nineteenth century as the high point of Empire, not only in the Indian subcontinent, for the moment subservient to Britain, but in other parts of the world too. Yet how secure did the British actually feel? The theme of British unease runs throughout Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s life, and even after his death, revealing underlying anxieties. While he was king, the East India Company was criticised for allowing the perceived mismanagement of Awadh to continue, although it did nothing to support his attempts at land reform. During the Uprising of 1857 he was promptly arrested and he
ld as a political prisoner for many months longer than was necessary. On his release he was monitored by a succession of British agents, who reported to the government in weekly diaries. His letters were censored and his movements were restricted. On his death, the Garden Reach estate was sold off and much of it demolished in a final attempt to eradicate his memory. Clearly a man who attracted this much attention from the British is an important figure in the history of India.

  Many histories mention Wajid ‘Ali Shah only in the context of his brief reign in Lucknow, from February 1847 to February 1856, a period of nine years—less than a decade. He was in his early thirties when he left Lucknow forever, and thus almost half his life was spent in voluntary exile in Calcutta. These last thirty years are much less well documented, although recently scholars have begun to examine this period, which for this author, at least, holds as much interest as the earlier and better-known accounts of his reign.7 Immediately after the annexation, Company officials believed that the king would remain in Lucknow, relieved by the British from the burden of administering his kingdom and content with a large pay-off, in the form of a generous pension. How the rich cultural life of the city might have developed further can only be speculated upon, but one suspects that Wajid ‘Ali Shah would have provoked, or suffered, the same conflicts with British officials over his extravagance and consequent debts, and his shabby treatment of his wives and children.

  As it was, a consistent British policy towards the king in exile was never developed, which led to fresh confrontations as each new crisis arose. This was partly due to changes of personnel at senior level in the civil administration, and also among the government-appointed agents to the king. New men would come along with new solutions to the problem, as they saw it. The king was the one constant, living into his late sixties, in spite of his hypochondria and the belief (and hope) among British officials that he was frequently on the verge of collapse and death. A very small number of Britons were sympathetic towards the king, including Captain Robert Bird, who spoke up for him; John Rose Brandon, who gave him practical help; and Major Charles Herbert, a government agent who worked with him to reduce his debts, and also produced a delicate little pen-and-ink sketch of his royal charge.