White Mughals
Page 56
103 ‘Report of an Examination …’, op. cit., p.364.
104 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/11, p.2, Hyderabad, 2 January 1799, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.
105 This account comes from a translation of Sharaf un-Nissa’s letter to her granddaughter Kitty Kirkpatrick, in the private archive of her descendants.
106 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/96, ‘Account of the marriage of Sharpun Nisa Begam with Colonel Kirkpatrick called Hashmat Jang, Resident, Hyderabad’. This document was apparently compiled by a munshi working for Trevor Plowden, Resident in the early 1890s, after Plowden was asked for information about the romance by Edward Strachey, who was writing his 1893 article for Blackwood’s Magazine, op. cit. In the event, the information arrived a year after Strachey’s article had been published. The anonymous munshi states that he got the information from Khair un-Nissa’s cousins and an elderly slave girl of Sharif un-Nissa, all of whom were still alive in Hyderabad at the time. It seems generally reliable, with the single major error of calling Khair un-Nissa by her mother’s name throughout.
CHAPTER 4
1 Shushtari, op. cit., pp.36, 56.
2 Ibid., pp.82-5, 121-130.
3 Khan, Gulzar i-Asafiya, pp.305-15. Also Mohammed Sirajuddin Talib, Mir Alam, Chapter 1, passim.
4 Kirkpatrick, ‘A View of the State of the Deccan’, op. cit., f.45.
5 Khan, Gulzar i-Asafiya, pp.305-15.
6 Delhi National Archives, Hyderabad Residency Records, Vol. 57, pp.256-7, Henry Russell to Hastings, 29 November 1819. Also Henry Russell quoted in Talib, op. cit., pp.183-90.
7 Makhan Lal, Tarikh i-Yadgar i-Makhan Lal (Hyderabad, 1300 AH/AD1883), p.54. Durdanah Begum was ‘from the house of Mir Jafar Ali Khan, son of Benazir Jung’.
8 Abdul Raheem Khan, Tarikh i-Nizam (Hyderabad, AH1330/AD1912), pp.68-9; Anon., Riyaaz e-Muqtaria Salthanath Asafia, p.57; Khan, Gulzar i-Asafiya, pp.305-15.
9 Shushtari, op. cit., p.485.
10 Ibid., p.427.
11 Ibid., p.153.
12 Ibid., p.257.
13 Ibid., pp.11, 270.
14 Ibid., p.342.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., p.309.
18 Stephen Blake, ‘Contributors to the Urban Landscape: Women Builders in Safavid Isfahan and Mughal Shahjehanabad’, in Hambly, op. cit., p.407.
19 Asiya Begum, ‘Society and Culture under the Bijapur Sultans’ (unpublished Ph.D., University of Mysore, 1983), pp.62-3. There are numerous depictions of Chand Bibi on horseback, many of them from Hyderabad, including one from the collection of Henry Russell now in the India Office Library: OIOC Add Or. 3849.
20 See for example the fascinating comparison in scale of patronage between Mughal and Saffavid women in Blake, op. cit., pp.407-28.
21 Zinat Kausar, Muslim Women in Mediaeval India (Patna, 1992), p.145.
22 For Jahanara see Blake, op. cit., p.416. For Gulbadan see Gulbadan Begum, Humayun Nama, trans. Annette S. Beveridge as The History of Humayun by Princess Rose-Body (London, 1902).
23 Saqi Must’ad Khan, Maasir i-Alamgiri, trans. by Jadunath Sarkar as The History of the Emperor Aurangzeb-Alamgir 1658-1707 (Calcutta, 1946), p.322.
24 Shushtari, op. cit., p.342.
25 Parkes, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp.417-18. For the contemporary Mughal practice of providing girls to Indian rulers as a means of preferment, see Michael H. Fisher, ‘Women and the Feminine in the Court and High Culture of Awadh, 1722-1856’, in Hambly, op. cit., pp.500-1.
26 Husain, Scent in the Islamic Garden, op. cit., pp.27, 40, 127.
27 Niccolao Manucci, Storia do Mogor, or Mogul India, 1653-1708 (London, 1907), Vol. 1, p.218. For extra-marital relations in the Mughal mahal see K. Sajun Lal, The Mughal Harem (New Delhi, 1988), pp.180-2.
28 From a conversation with Dr Zeb un-Nissa Haidar. The records are now in the Andhra Pradesh archives.
29 Dargah Quli Khan (trans. Chander Shekhar), The Muraqqa’ e-Dehli (New Delhi, 1989). For Ad Begum, p.107; for Nur Bai, p.110.
30 That Mah Laqa was Mir Alam’s mistress is confirmed by James Kirkpatrick in his letters: see for example OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.269, Hyderabad, 12 October 1799.
31 Shushtari, op. cit., p.157.
32 See her entry in the Tazkirah e-Niswan e-Hind (The Biography of Indian Women), by Fasih-ud-Din Balkhi (Patna, 1956).
33 For Mah Laqa’s poetry in the Nawab of Avadh’s library see A. Sprenger, Catalogue of Arabic, Persian and Hindustany Manuscripts of the libraries of the King of Oudh 1854; for Mah Laqa’s status in the durbar see Dr Zeb un-Nissa Haidar, ‘A Comprehensive Study of the Daftar i-Dar ul Insha 1762-1803’ (unpublished Ph.D., Osmania University, 1978), p.114.
34 Rahat Azmi, Mah e-laqa (Hyderabad, 1998), pp.34, 48-9.
35 Jagdish Mittal, ‘Paintings of the Hyderabad School’, in Marg, 16, 1962-63, p.44.
36 See Delhi National Archives, Secret Despatches, 1800, p.2491, Fort William, 10 May 1800, No. 3, ‘Intelligence from Azim ul Omrah’s Household’.
37 Tamkin Kazmi, Aristu Jah, p.38, quoting the Tarikh i-Saltanat i-Khudadad, p.39.
38 At least so Arthur Wellesley was told by Mir Alam; Wellington, ‘Memorandum of Conversations … Dummul 26th Sept 1800’, op. cit.
39 Quoted in Butler, op. cit., p.166.
40 Ibid., p.170.
41 Talib, op. cit., p.6.
42 Denys Forrest in Tiger of Mysore: The Life and Death of Tipu Sultan (London, 1970), pp.227-8.
43 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Mss Eur F228/11, p.10, 8 January 1799, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.
44 Organising the carriage bullocks and sheep for feeding the army was one of Kirkpatrick’s main concerns at this period. See OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Mss Eur F228/11, pp.14, 15, 28 etc.
45 Wellesley’s remark quoted by Moon, op. cit., p.286; the subsistence remark quoted by Buddle, op. cit.
46 For Colonel Bowser see ‘Report of an Examination … ’, op. cit., pp.362, 364.
47 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Mss Eur F228/83, Hyderabad, 23 May 1800.
48 Ibid.
49 Fyze’s sanad is in the OIOC, Persian Mss IO 4440. Mildred Archer in her magisterial India and British Portraiture, op. cit., wrongly states that Fyze was from the Delhi royal house. That she, and her sister Nur Begum, were the daughters of a Persian captain of cavalry is clear from numerous references in the de Boigne archive, Chambéry.
50 Bengal Wills 1825; OIOC L/AG/34/29/37, pp.185-205.
51 For Mubarak Begum’s background see the Mubarak Bagh Papers in the archives of the Delhi Commissioners Office, DCO F5/1861. Here it is recorded that ‘Mubarik ul Nissa was originally a girl of Brahmin parentage, who was brought from Poona in the Deckan by one Mosst. Chumpa, and presented or sold by the said Chumpa to Genl. Ochterlony when twelve years of age. Mosst. Mubarik ul Nissa from that time resided in Genl. Ochterlony’s house, and Mosst. Chumpa resided with her there, being known by the name of Banbahi.’
52 Gardner Papers, National Army Museum, Letter 16, p.42.
53 Ibid.
54 See the Mubarak Bagh Papers in the archives of the Delhi Commissioners Office, DCO F5/1861.
55 According to the evidence Bâqar Ali Khan gave to Colonel Bowser in Lord Clive’s Report, ‘After the death of Colonel Dalrymple, the Furzund Begum (Daughter in Law of the Minister) did twice use importunities with my Begum, when on a visit at the Minister’s house, to give up her Grand Daughter to the Resident.’ ‘Report of an Examination …’, op. cit. As late as 1802 Khair un-Nissa and her mother are reported making ‘occasional visits’ to Farzand Begum’s zenana in for example OIOC, Mss Eur F228/58, p.24, James Kirkpatrick to William Palmer, 1 April 1802.
56 Wellington, ‘Memorandum of Conversations … Dummul 26th Sept 1800’, op. cit.
57 Makhan Lal, Tarikh i-Yadgar i-Makhan Lal, op. cit., p.54. Lal reports that Bâqar Ali and Sharaf un-Nissa received jagirs and titles from the Nizam following the marriage, and that ‘Sharaf un-Nissa Begum is receivi
ng the jagir from the government until now’, i.e. AD1819/1236AH, the time of writing.
58 Wellington, op. cit., p.176.
59 See Fisher, ‘Women and the Feminine …’, op. cit.
60 Wellington, op. cit., p.174.
61 Dhoolaury Bibi appears intermittently in William Kirkpatrick’s letters, as do her two children by him, who in Kent were known by the names Robert and Cecilia Walker: see OIOC, F228/10, p.14, 14 September 1797, for James promising to pay Dhoolaury Bibi her allowance of one hundred rupees per month during William’s absence. In William’s will, Dhoolaury Bibi is explicitly referred to as the mother of Robert Walker, and receives a legacy of twelve thousand rupees, a very large sum considering the ruinous state of William’s finances.
62 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/13, p.113, 4 August 1801.
63 ‘Report of an Examination …’, op. cit., p.364. Also Khan, Tarikh i-Khurshid Jahi, op. cit., pp.713-14.
64 Arthur Wellesley to Colonel Close, 22 September 1800, op. cit.
65 Wellington, op. cit.
66 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/13, p.113, 4 August 1801.
67 The letter is now lost but is quoted by Lady Strachey in a letter. Kirkpatrick Papers, OIOC, F228/96, Letter from Mrs R. Strachey [Julia Maria Strachey], 69 Lancaster Gate W, to Sir Edward Strachey, Sutton Court, Pensford, Somersetshire, dated and postmarked 3 April 1886.
68 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/59, p.27, 24 October 1804, James Kirkpatrick to his father, the Handsome Colonel, on his son’s death.
69 For eighteenth-century English aristocratic men, treating women from different classes in utterly different ways as far as sexual relations were concerned, see for example Amanda Foreman, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (London, 1998), and Stella Tillyard, Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox 1740-1832 (London, 1995), passim.
70 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.348, 14 March 1800, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.
71 Now sadly lost.
72 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Mss Eur F228/83, Hyderabad, 23 May 1800.
73 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.30, 15 January.
74 Ibid., p.73.
75 Quoted by Buddle, op. cit., p.15.
76 See for example Lord Macartney quoted in Lafont, Indika, op. cit., p.158.
77 For the bore of the artillery see ibid., p.157. For the rockets see Colley, ‘Going Native, Telling Tales’, op. cit., p.190.
78 Lafont, Indika, op. cit., p.186.
79 Quoted by Buddle, op. cit., p.34.
80 Weller, op. cit., p.73.
81 Quoted by Moon, op. cit., p.288.
82 See Buddle, op. cit., p.37.
83 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, pp.162-75, 17 and 18 May 1799.
84 Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (London, 1868).
85 Khan, Gulzar i-Asafiya, pp.305-15. A similar picture is painted by Mehdi Hasan, Fateh Nawaz Jung, Muraqq i-Ibrat (Hyderabad, 1300AH/AD1894), p.14.
86 Shushtari, op. cit., p.160.
87 Alexander Walker Papers, NLS 13,601-14, 193, Ms 13,601, f.156, Madras, 6 August 1799.
88 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.321, 7 March 1800.
89 Ibid., p.252, 14 September 1799.
90 Ibid., p.200, 8 August 1799.
91 James was also surprised by the scale of the ‘pension’: OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.258, 14 September, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.
92 Ibid., p.174, 22 May.
93 Khan, Gulzar i-Asafiya, pp.309-10.
94 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.275, 15 October.
95 Ibid., p.262, 26 September, and p.269, Hyderabad, 12 October 1799, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.
96 Ibid., p.269, Hyderabad, 12 October 1799, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.
97 The divan given by Mah Laqa Bai Chanda is now in OIOC, Islamic Ms 2768. The book contains an inscription: ‘The Diwan of Chanda the celebrated Malaka of Hyderabad. This book was presented as a nazr from this extraordinary woman to Captain Malcolm in the midst of a dance in which she was the chief performer on the 18 October 1799 at the House of Meer Allum Bahadur’.
98 ‘Report of an Examination … ’, op. cit., p.364.
99 Khan, The Muraqqa’ e-Dehli, op. cit., p.45-6, 56, 76, 81.
100 New Delhi National Archives, Hyderabad Residency Records, Vol. 20, p.218, 5 November 1799, James Kirkpatrick to Lord Wellesley.
101 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/53, p.16, 24 July 1799, James Kirkpatrick to William Palmer.
102 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.59, 3 February.
103 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/54, pp.151-2, September, James Kirkpatrick to William Palmer.
104 James’s proposal for the jashn is a fascinating document, and worth reproducing in full, for it reveals his knowledge both of Mughal etiquette in general and, in particular, of the intimate hierarchy that formed the Nizam’s household. At the top of the pile came the Nizam, his three senior wives and the princes, each of whom was to receive the different types of jewels and dresses of honour appropriate to their rank:Rough Estimate of a great Jushn
His Highness the Nizam and the
Begums of his Mahal
To His Highness: Jewels, nine sorts, viz 1 jiggah [turban ornament in the form of a raised bejewelled flower
spray] 1 sarpeich [a different sort of turban jewel] 1 pr dustbund [a jewelled wristband] 1 ditto Bhojbund [armband], 1 ditto bazoobund [an
armband formed of especially large jewels], 1 malla of pearls, 1 toorah [another form of
turban ornament, round and hung with pearls, associated with the end of the ornament]
. . . . . . 60,000 Rs khillut [i.e. a dress of honour, of which in the Mughal court there were five ranks] of
Badelah [gold and silver cloth]
khillut of 10 complete dresses
shawls ten pairs
kumkhauls [kincob furs] 10 pieces . . . . . . . . . 10,000
2 Elephants . . . . . . 10,000
4 Horses . . . . . . 4,000
Dinners, pawn &c . . . . . . . . . 1,000
Rs. 85,000
To the Principal Ladies of the Mahl:
To the Bukshy Begum, 9 sorts of jewels,
1 kuntee [pearl necklace], 1 pair Bhojedbund, 1 ditto bazoobund …… 4,000
badelahs, kumhuals and shawls 1,000
Rs. 5,000
To Thyneat un Nisa Begum
The same as Bukshy Begum
Rs. 5,000
To Zeib un Nissa Ditto
Rs. 5,000
To the Princes
Secunder Jah
(As with his Highness, but to the value of only) Rs 45,000
To His Bride
(Jewels as above plus 1 poownchee [‘pearls for wrists’] . . . . . . Rs. 15,000
Feridun Jah, Akbar Jah, Jehander Jah, Jumsheid Jah, Soliman Jah, Meir Jehunde Ali (‘lately born’), Humayoon
Jah (His Highnesses brother) Rs. 5,000 each
Then comes a similar list for the household of Aristu Jah, his two Begums (’To the Begum of his Great Mahl . . . . . . 5,000 Rs [of jewels and shawls] To the Begum of his Little Mahl . . . . . . 5,000 Rs ditto’, and the same amount to his daughter-in-law Farzund Begum). This is followed by disbursements to the three different ranks of Hyderabadi omrahs, and finally the costs of the ‘Notch Girls, flower garlands, fireworks, illumination, Donations to shrines and victuals to poor . . . . . . 15,000 Rs.’ OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.259, 14 September, James Kirkpatrick to Lord Wellesley.
105 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.217, 21 August.
106 Ibid., p.281, 1 November.
107 New Delhi National Archives, Hyderabad Residency Records, Vol. 20, p.218, 5 November 1799, James Kirkpatrick to Lord Wellesley.
108 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.348, 14 March.
109 The akhbars survived in the New Delhi National Archives, Hyderabad Reside
ncy Records, where they were copied by Bilkiz Alladin in the 1980s, but have now become unusable since the records were waterlogged sometime in 1999 or 2000. Bilkiz kindly gave me access to her copies and I have worked from them. Some of the correspondence relating to them, however, is still intact in the New Delhi National Archives, Secret Consultations, 1800, Foreign Department, 15 May, No. 14, received from Mir Alam 18 February 1800. Part of the ‘Memoranda of the Papers referred to in the minute of the Rt. Hon. The Gov Gen of the 10th of May 1800’.
110 As above, also OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.338, 9 March.
111 New Delhi National Archives, Secret Consultations, 1800, Foreign Department, 15 May, No. 21, ‘Translation of a Letter from Bauker Alli Khaun to Lt Col Kirkpatrick’.
112 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Eur Mss F228/11, p.338, 9 March.
113 Khan, Gulzar i-Asafiya, pp.305-15.
114 New Delhi National Archives, Hyderabad Residency Records—see n109, above.
115 New Delhi National Archives, Secret Consultations, 1800, Foreign Department, 15 May, No. 22, pt 2, ‘Meer Uzeez Ollah’s report of his conference with Auzim ool Omrah 4 of March’.
116 Khan, Gulzar i-Asafiya, pp.305-15.
117 Munshi Khader Khan Bidri (trans. Dr Zeb un-Nissa Haidar), Tarikh i-Asaf Jahi (written 1266 AH/AD 1851, pub. Hyderabad, 1994), p.84. M. Abdul Rahim Khan, Tarikh e-Nizam (Hyderabad, 1311 AH/AD 1896), pp.167-8.
118 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/96, ‘Account of the marriage of Sharpun Nisa Begam with Colonel Kirkpatrick called Hashmat Jang, Resident, Hyderabad’. For further details see Chapter 3, n106.
119 Wellington, ‘Memorandum of Conversations … Dummul 26th Sept 1800’, op. cit.
120 Ibid., pp.175-6.
121 Ibid., p.178.
122 Khan, Tarikh i-Khurshid Jahi, op. cit., pp.713-14.
123 Wellington, op. cit., p.180.
124 Arthur Wellesley to Colonel Close, 22 September 1800. See Chapter 3, n15.
125 Khan, Gulzar i-Asafiya, p.308; Khan, Tarikh e-Nizam, op. cit., pp.86, 167-8.