Nor was Mir Alam the only member of the Shushtari clan to fall under the displeasure of the Nizam. An intriguing incident had taken place a fortnight before the Mir’s return. After the fall of Seringapatam, Bâqar Ali Khan had accompanied Mir Alam and John Malcolm to Madras, whence they had been summoned to be presented to Lord Wellesley. But for some reason Bâqar Ali had suddenly made his excuses, deserted the army and headed back two weeks early to Hyderabad. When news of his desertion reached the durbar, Bâqar Ali was severely criticised by Aristu Jah for having left his post without permission, and at first ‘was refused admission to the City’; more ominous still, his petitions asking for forgiveness were returned unopened by the Minister.95 The dispute fizzled on for some time. According to James, ‘hurt at this treatment, the old gentleman in the first emotions of anger, wrote an arzee [petition] to the Minister requesting leave to go to Mecca [i.e. to temporarily give up the world and become a pilgrim]. To this arzee he received no answer which provoked him to such a degree that he positively prohibited his wife and family from continuing their attendance in the Minister’s Mahl, and it was not until repeated messages and intreaties from the Boo Begum [one of Aristu Jah’s wives], between whom and Baukers family a great intimacy exists, that the Minister allowed him to return thither.’96 This was all extremely odd—and also extremely unwise and uncharacteristic—behaviour by Bâqar Ali Khan. James’s letters are the only source for this incident, and naturally they contain no mention of what would be the most obvious explanation of Bâqar Ali’s behaviour: that he had somehow heard rumours that something was afoot in his zenana, and the women of the family badly needed his supervision.
For all these growing tensions, the popular mood was still one of celebration, and a great round of public entertainments was organised to celebrate the fall of Tipu. The first party—on 18 October, a week after the return of the army—was a huge nautch at Mir Alam’s house during which the Mir’s mistress, Mah Laqa Bai Chanda, danced for the audience and presented a book of her poems to John Malcolm.97 Malcolm, who had become close to the Shushtari clan on the Seringapatam campaign, was also invited to a party at Bâqar Ali’s deorhi, where he was invited to meet the women of the family—an unprecedented honour, tantamount in the etiquette of the day to declaring him an honorary brother of Bâqar Ali. It was a measure of the family’s liberal principles, very far, as one observer put it, ‘from the usual narrow prejudices of their sect’.98
Nautch parties and mehfils in Hyderabad at this period, as in Delhi and Lucknow, tended to be held outside at night in the illuminated garden courtyards of the great palaces. Some of the most alluring descriptions of such parties are given by Farzand Begum’s grandfather, Dargah Quli Khan, who writes how,in the evenings, the courtyards are swept and sprinkled with water and colourful carpets are spread on a raised platform. Then the established poets start the recitation of ghazals … [sometimes] shamiana tents are erected … Dancers entertain the people and good looking women gather in such large numbers that the mere sight of them appeases the appetite, although for the lecherous this does not suffice. The illumination of the lamps and candles is akin to the light in the Valley of Tur.cz The omrahs occupy a separate side which is adorned with most beautiful carpets. They are courteously offered fruits and other delicacies along with perfume. Those desirous of wine are also provided with it … The sounds emanating from the bow on the strings of the sarangi are like arrows piercing the heart … The music makes people listless with ecstasy and the sounds of appreciation rend the air … 99
James enjoyed such entertainments, and usually stayed to the very end. Certainly, his letters to Calcutta during November are full of apologies for being so behind in his work, and after one particularly late night at Aristu Jah’s he excuses himself on the grounds that ‘in compliment to the Minister I did not take leave until a very late hour … [Indeed] I have engaged myself to a regular nightly attendance during the remainder of the festivities—the fatigue from which will I hope plead as an apology for the lateness of my address to your Lordship.’100
Just as this circuit of celebratory parties was coming to an end, the announcement of the forthcoming marriage between the Nizam’s son and heir apparent, Sikander Jah, and the granddaughter of Aristu Jah, Jahan Pawar Begum,da prompted a whole new round of entertainments. It also provided James with what he regarded as an important diplomatic opportunity. He was very worried by the marked cooling of relations between the durbar and his Residency which had taken place following the announcement of the much-hated Mysore Partition Treaty, and said he saw ‘serious inconveniences from the ill humour’ of the Nizam, ‘which will increase if not soothed in some way or other’.101
Up to this point James had been an unqualified admirer of Lord Wellesley, writing to his brother of his veneration for the Governor General in terms that sometimes come close to hero-worship: ‘How I long to throw myself at his Lordship’s feet and express to him if possible the deep sense of [my gratitude for] all his goodness towards me,’ he had written to William at one point in February 1799. ‘I earnestly trust this to be not impracticable before his Lordship’s return to Bengal. I really think my veneration and attachment to that great and worthy nobleman is only short of what I feel to my beloved Parent, and of course my love and regard for you.’102
Now however James’s views were beginning to change. For the first time, the Partition Treaty had led him to re-examine his attitude to Wellesley’s aggressive and bullying approach to Indian princes. The Nizam had unflinchingly stuck to his commitments in the 1798 Preliminary Treaty and had provided a huge army at very short notice to fight alongside the British at Seringapatam. The reward of the Hyderabadis was to be cheated of their full share in the division of the spoils. Irritated by this, and by the damage it had done to his carefully nurtured relations with the Hyderabad durbar, James now wrote to his friend General William Palmer, the Resident in Pune, openly criticising the Governor General’s policy: ‘I perfectly concur in the justness of your reflexions respecting our late dictatorialness of spirit. Our success indeed appears to me to have somewhat intoxicated us.’103 It was a view that James would hold more and more strongly over the following months.
In order to try to undo some of the damage done by this Treaty, he now wrote to Calcutta for permission to lay on a major jashn (the word means simply ‘party’, but in this case refers to a post-marriage feast)—for Aristu Jah and the Nizam, during which generous presents could be presented to all the members of the Nizam’s and the Minister’s families, including the key members of both zenanas, and so pour oil on the troubled waters.104
James realised that it was not going to be easy to sell such massive expenditure to a thoroughly sceptical Lord Wellesley, who would never be particularly enamoured of the idea of spending so much money on ‘natives’, least of all in making donations to the women of various harems, troupes of nautch girls and a series of Hyderabadi Sufi shrines. In his letter, therefore, James acknowledged that from the point of view of Calcutta ‘the time is no doubt gone by when the friendship or enmity of this state was an object of serious importance to us, and nothing but some strange vicissitude can hereafter render its smiles or its frowns of much consequence to us. Nevertheless you will no doubt agree with me that harmony and good understanding are at all times desirable things between states in alliance and that it is better if possible to maintain our ascendancy and influence in this by conciliatory acts than by any other means.’105
In the event Lord Wellesley refused to countenance James’s initial estimate of over three lakh rupees for the jashn, but he did finally authorise him to throw a more modest party costing one lakh. A date in April 1800 was set, as custom dictated, five months after Sikander Jah’s marriage.
As the great state marriage grew imminent, gatherings of the durbar were increasingly marred by clashes between Aristu Jah and Mir Alam. ‘Meer Allum and Solomon have been sparring a great deal of late,’ James wrote on 1 November, ‘so much so, indeed, that the Meer
has sent his son Meer Dauran twice to me, to request my advice or interposition on the occasion … candidly acknowledging at the same time, that the open declaration of my readiness to take his part to the extent required would in all probability enable him to carry the points [with Aristu Jah] he was contending for’.106 When James politely declined to intervene, Mir Alam let it be known—to James’s surprise and mild alarm—that he regarded it as a personal insult.
The real crisis point was however reached two days later on 3 November, during the middle of the wedding celebrations. Aristu Jah had thrown the wedding party at Purani Haveli, one of his residences which he had just gifted to his granddaughter as part of her dowry. James had arrived with the senior Residency staff and some of the more senior army officers led by James Dalrymple, along with ‘the trays containing dresses and jewels for the brides principal male and female relatives’. They had sent ‘various trays of viands together with a large assortment of confectionary into the female apartments for distribution’, and had themselves been ‘regaled agreeably, as is the usage on such occasions, with sherbet’. Moreover each British officer was presented with a valuable sarpèche or turban jewel. Aristu Jah, huge bearlike man though he was, spent much of the party in tears, ‘so great is his grief in parting with his granddaughter in whom all his affections centre’.107
Later that night, very publicly, in front of the gathered Hyderabadi nobles, a tearful Aristu Jah challenged Mir Alam as to the whereabouts of Tipu’s state jewels. Mir Alam denied all knowledge of them and after a moment’s silence and extreme embarrassment the festivities continued; but everyone realised that a point of no return had been reached in the relationship between the two most powerful officials in Hyderabad.
Even so, when Mir Alam left Hyderabad a few days later to take up his post as Governor of the newly conquered Mysore district of Rydroog, few could have guessed how swift, complete and ingenious Aristu Jah’s retribution would be.
Mir Alam was the Nizam’s official vakil to the Company, effectively his Minister for British Affairs. Ever since his three-year stay in Calcutta with Bâqar Ali Khan from 1787 the Mir had had excellent contacts with the senior Company staff in Calcutta, and Aristu Jah realised that if he wished to disgrace him, he would have first to alienate him from his British supporters. He now set about using James and Khair un-Nissa as the unwitting agents of this revenge. His plan was as brilliant as it was simple.
Mir Alam had already heard rumours about James’s infatuation with his cousin, and according to James had joshed him good-naturedly on the subject before he left Hyderabad again at the end of December.108 The Mir clearly had no idea, however, how far the relationship had progressed. So, shortly after Mir Alam arrived at his new posting in January 1800, Aristu Jah hit on the simple but ingenious ruse of leaking the news to a Hyderabadi newswriter, but in a deliberately exaggerated form.
The two resulting newsletters—or akhbars—accused James not just of sleeping with Khair un-Nissa but of raping her, and of using his position to force her mother and grandfather to hand the girl over to him for his pleasure. Moreover, the akhbar included several titbits of gossip about James’s previous revelries in Hyderabad, including a long and complicated tale of how James had ‘debauched a brazier’s wife’, leaving the cuckolded husband to attempt to commit suicide at the most public place in Hyderabad, directly in front of the Char Minar. There was a kernel of truth behind the story: there was a brazier’s wife, and she had indeed attempted to take shelter from her abusive husband with her mother who worked in the Residency; but James had never seen her, and when the woman was called in front of the Hyderabad durbar, her far from attractive physical features were enough to convince the court of James’s complete innocence.109
There was however a much more serious charge contained in the newsletters. Sharaf un-Nissa’s brother, and Khair un-Nissa’s uncle, Mahmud Ali Khan had died soon after Mir Alam’s departure for Rydroog, after a gun he was playing with—part of the loot from Seringapatam—had exploded in his face.110 Bâqar Ali Khan had testified that ‘the gun accidentally burst as he [Mahmud] discharged it … he retained his sense and talked until 9pm in the night and himself mentioned that this had happened in consequence of the trait which he had always had since his infancy of amusing himself with fireworks’.111 But according to the scurrilous newsletter, the story was much darker: the uncle had strongly opposed Khair un-Nissa’s relationship with James, and had been quietly assassinated on the Resident’s orders so as to remove the one remaining obstacle to him attaining his wicked ends. As James reported to William, the akhbar maintained ‘that I sent or hired people to despatch him as an obstacle to my views on his Niece, or as other [gossips] related it, that I presented him with the fatal weapon, from the extreme badness of which I foresaw all that actually followed’.112
Beyond the central undeniable truth that James had been sleeping with Khair un-Nissa, none of these charges had any basis in fact; but they were sufficiently credible for Mir Alam—already angry with James for failing to take his side with Aristu Jah—to believe them. Once they had been published, according to the historian Ghulam Husain Khan’s contemporary account, the Gulzar i-Asafiya, ‘Aristu Jah wrote all the details of this affair [in an anonymous letter] and sent it to Mir Alam at Krapa … So it was that he [Mir Alam] wrote to Calcutta to the Lord Bahadur [Wellesley] demanding that the scandalous behaviour of Hushmat Jang [Kirkpatrick] should be punished as it deserved, to be a warning to others. Mir Alam acted according to the suggestion, and wrote a fulminating letter demanding Hushmat Jang’s execution.’113
Mir Alam had fallen straight into Aristu Jah’s trap. As Aristu Jah had guessed he would, Wellesley reacted to Mir Alam’s letter by writing immediately to the Nizam and Aristu Jah, demanding to know the truth about Mir Alam’s charges.
He sent the letter via James. On the morning of 7 March 1800, James received in the weekly dak (post) what was probably the single most terrifying missive he was ever to be sent by Wellesley. There were none of the pleasantries or compliments he was used to. Instead the letter was as abrupt as it was menacing. It simply instructed James that
as soon as you shall have read the [enclosed] papers [i.e. copies of the akhbars] you will lay them before His Highness and Azim ul-Omrah [Aristu Jah]. You will in my name request H.H. & the Minister to insert on the blank margins of the papers such observations as may occur to them on the allegation contained in the papers. I request HH and the Minister will authenticate their respective observations under their hands and seals. You will add such explanations as may appear necessary to vindicate your character against the heavy charges which these papers contain. In the meantime my judgement on the matter of those charges will remain suspended & the subjects will be preserved in the strictest secrecy.114
At this point, according to the usually very reliable Gulzar i-Asafiya, Aristu Jah called in James. ‘After some cockfighting’ he made it clear how serious the charges were, pointed out that James’s fate rested in his hands, and outlined what James’s fate would be if he chose to corroborate Mir Alam’s charges.115 Then he effectively offered to cut a deal. If James sacked Mir Alam as the Company’s vakil and was prepared to work with Aristu Jah for the best interests of Hyderabad, then in return the Minister would make sure that James’s name was completely cleared. He would personally persuade the Nizam to write to Wellesley, telling him that the charges were a malicious invention of Mir Alam. The dialogue put into James’s mouth in the Gulzar i-Asfiya is presumably invented, but the substance of the conversation has the clear ring of truth and tallies with all the other evidence:Kirkpatrick went to have a private interview with Aristu Jah to beg for his life and his position, saying: ‘It was the girl who became obsessed with me. I did nothing; it was she who came and threw herself at me. I used no force. If you write this to Lord Bahadur, my life will be safe. In recognition for this great help, as long as I remain Resident here, I shall never forget the debt I owe, I shall strive for the best interests of you
r government and will obey all your orders.’ [My italics.]
Aristu Jah replied: ‘If I did try my utmost to have your life spared, I wonder whether you would be willing or able to do that service that I would require of you in return?’
Hushmut Jung [Kirkpatrick] asked: ‘And what is that?’
Aristu Jah made Hushmut Jung swear to total and utter secrecy, then said: ‘To have Mir Alam dismissed from the service of the English Resident and that I might succeed him in that office so that the Nizam’s Prime Minister and the English political agent will be as one—if you could persuade Calcutta to instruct the Nizam accordingly?’
Hushmut Jung accepted with all his soul, and swore to keep his part of the bargain.
Then Aristu Jah went into the presence of the Nizam and presented the case according to Hushmut Jung’s version, that he was completely innocent … [and Mir Alam was guilty of wilfully wrecking relations with the British by making unsubstantiated allegations against the blameless British Resident]. They sent the letter making this point to Calcutta, and the English notables, after due consideration, wrote that: ‘If Hushmat Jang is not guilty, and if the Nizam’s government is content to have him still as Resident, then let him keep his position. We are only concerned to secure the satisfaction of the Nizam’s government.’
White Mughals Page 24