No sooner had they landed in Europe than the temptations of shopping on the Champs-Élysées and trying their luck in the casinos of Monte Carlo took precedence over their administrative training. The network of informants the British nurtured in the princes’ entourage reported that Azam devoted himself to polo and driving expensive cars, while Moazzam spent most of his time with tailors and haberdashers ‘being manicured and scented’ and attending nightclubs. Moazzam also developed ‘an unerring flair for selecting approachable women, and, within a few minutes of entering a restaurant where all sorts were congregated, had made his choice and never made a mistake’. The only thing Moazzam could talk of was ‘the night life of Berlin and Paris which he much prefers to London’. Word also leaked out from one of Moazzam’s dancing partners that the heir apparent and his brother wanted ‘to get away from their controllers and marry anyone they took a fancy to in Egypt or Europe’.20
The same information quickly reached Osman Ali Khan, who confided in Barton in January 1930 ‘that he feared there was a danger of his heir-apparent falling in love with someone in Europe’. He asked Barton for his assistance ‘in the shape of giving his son a hint that the match should be one of his [father’s] selection but one acceptable to him’.21 A few years earlier the Nizam had put the word out among fellow Muslim leaders in India that he was interested in finding suitable brides for his two sons, but with only a handful of Muslim rulers in British India the choice was limited. The Nizam’s next preference was an arranged marriage with relations of his already considerable family. In a letter to his sons he argued that such a marriage was necessary ‘so that the elephant which carries the standard at the head of the procession should be the pick of the train’. After that, he added, ‘you can marry as many outsiders as you like’.22
But even among his relations eligible brides were scarce. When the Nizam presented two young female relatives of his first wife Dulhan Pasha to Barton’s successor, Terence Keyes, for his assessment and approval, he was taken aback by the reaction. ‘They were uneducated, undersized, unattractive little things, and most obviously the matches would have been distasteful to the Sahibzadas,’ Keyes wrote in a secret cable to his superiors in Simla, the summer capital of British India, in August 1931. ‘His Exalted Highness seemed very disappointed at my opinion and twice tried to persuade me to see them again in the hopes that I would change.’23
Aside from this negative judgement regarding the Nizam’s taste in women, Keyes was much less critical of Osman Ali Khan than Barton had been. ‘Barton’s “Frontier attitude” was illadapted to the atmosphere of courtly Hyderabad and to what Barton saw as the Nizam’s “characteristic oriental mentality”,’ writes historian Lucien Benichou.24 In one of his last cables, Barton had described the Nizam’s dominant motive for getting back his old tyranny as ‘loot, pure and simple’.25 Keyes was less critical. Just a few months into his posting in May 1930 he described the Nizam to the Viceroy Lord Irwin as a ‘queer little creature’ with ‘distinct powers for good . . . a quick sense of humour, an unexpected capacity for friendship . . . [and a] pathetic craving to be liked and understood’.26 Added Keyes: ‘He never seems to bear malice, takes every setback with good humour and, within his limitations, I really believe he means to do well.’27
The difficulty in finding a suitable match for the young princelings did not escape the attention of Shaukat Ali, who had begun working on a plan that involved marrying Azam to Mejid’s only child, Durrushehvar, the piano-playing princess with a fondness for sweetmeats. Shaukat Ali told the Nizam that she was ‘aged about 17 . . . attractive and very well-educated’ and that Mejid was in favour of the marriage.28 Moreover, Prince Ahmad Tevhid, the ex-Caliph’s nephew, had a sister called Niloufer who was of marriageable age. If a marriage was fixed between Azam and Durrushehvar, Moazzam could complete the arrangement by taking Niloufer as his bride. To drive his point home, Shaukat Ali reminded the Nizam that such a match with the family of the ex-Caliph would ensure that he became the predominant Muslim leader not only in India but in the Islamic world.
Shaukat Ali’s description of Durrushehvar hardly did her justice. Mejid had devoted nearly all his time in exile to his young daughter’s education. She dominated the Turkish microcosm that existed inside the villa in Nice where she was nicknamed ‘Sultan’ but always formally addressed as ‘Her Imperial Highness’. ‘She is extraordinarily well educated and has an excellent style in English and French,’ observed one of her early admirers. She contributed poetry to French magazines, spoke fluent English and Turkish and showed promise as a musician. ‘She is beautiful, has great dignity and savoir faire and a very strong character.’29
Niloufer attracted even greater compliments. When writing his autobiography, Conrad Corfield was so taken by Niloufer’s ‘violet eyes and blue black Circassian hair . . . her perfect features, her creamy complexion and the dimples in her cheeks’ that he devoted almost half of the chapter on his term as Political Secretary in Hyderabad to describing the hold she had over men.30
Even if the Nizam took notice of such flattering remarks about his future daughters-in-law, it did not allay his fears about forging ‘too close an alliance with a numerous and impecunious family with a royal etiquette which may prove very burdensome’.31 His preference, he told Keyes, was still for matches ‘from certain respectable local families – Hyderabadi girls not independent and advanced like those of Turkey and Persia’.32 Marrying into the Sultan’s family also went against ‘the traditions of the House’ which had never sought a matrimonial alliance with royalty from overseas.33 Moreover, the Nizam feared it would ‘certainly be embarrassing as the entry of one member of the Sultan’s family will be followed by an influx of the many descendants of the Sultans of Turkey of which there appear to be many residing in France and Syria’.34 There was, however, another reason that the Nizam was loath to admit to, but the British were well aware of. His wife, Dulhan Pasha, was furious at being overruled in her choice of whom her sons should marry and at the prospect of losing what little influence she had over them.35
As the Nizam dithered, a bidding war broke out among three other royal families for Durrushehvar and Niloufer. King Faud of Egypt, King Faisal of Iraq and Shah Reza of Persia lobbied hard to obtain the hands of the girls in marriage for their sons or relatives, believing that an alliance with the spiritual head of the Muslim world would strengthen their thrones. Press reports spoke of vast sums of money and fabulous dowries for the princesses.36 It was a high-stakes game. On the death of the ex-Caliph, the world’s 300 million Muslims would look to the male offspring of his daughter as the new ‘Pope’ of Islam if none other had been chosen. But in the end what mattered to Mejid was not the money but the Nizam’s long-standing generosity. By 1931 the Nizam was keeping at least seven of Mejid’s relatives clothed and fed. Nothing that Faud, Faisal or Reza could offer was enough to offset the personal debt that Mejid felt he owed to the House of Hyderabad. Finally, in the summer of 1931, the Nizam mustered enough courage to take on Dulhan Pasha and ordered that his sons would marry into the ex-Caliph’s family. As usual, the Nizam then asked the Resident to seek the Viceroy’s permission for the match. As soon as that approval was forthcoming he sent a team of officials to London, headed by his Finance Minister, Akbar Hydari, to negotiate terms for the dowry and trousseau with representatives of the brides’ family. Whatever charitable streak had motivated Nizam to help an exiled fellow Muslim evaporated as soon as the talks began. Updated daily by his informants, Keyes watched in disbelief as the marriage was nearly derailed by the Nizam’s pettiness and the proposed treatment of his future daughters-in-law.
Throughout October 1931 Keyes relayed each unseemly bargaining point in secret cables to the Viceroy’s office in Delhi. To save money the niggardly Nizam firstly insisted on a double wedding with one trousseau and that the funds should come from the state’s funds rather than from his own personal fortune. Twice he called the talks off owing to the ‘unacceptable conditions’ put forward
by the ex-Caliph. The Turks wanted a trousseau worth 20,000 rupees. The Nizam was only willing to give 10,000, but eventually compromised on 15,000 rupees.37 Keyes then reported that the Nizam was against providing his eldest son’s future wife with a decent allowance as this would enable her to ‘maintain a large alien establishment, jeopardise her relations with her husband and upset seriously the tenor of Hyderabad society’.38 He also objected to the demand that Durrushehvar be allowed to return to Nice ‘every hot weather’ with her husband in tow. ‘The Nizam is convinced this would end in the extinction of his dynasty.’39
A clearly exacerbated Keyes urged the British Government to inform the ex-Caliph ‘that unless he and his daughter are prepared for her to throw in her lot unreservedly with her husband’s State, he should give up all idea of the match’.40 Azam Jah should be reminded ‘that to marry a Turkish Princess whose heart and interests lie outside India would be fatal to his future career and happiness’. As for the Nizam, he was ‘disgustingly above himself at having got the better of the bargain and at being treated like an equal by the Khalifa’.41
Keyes was also outraged at being told that ‘two mean little zenana quarters’ had been built in the grounds of Eden Gardens to house the ‘two poor little creatures’ after their marriage. Moreover, the quarters were to be next door to their mother-in-law ‘who hates the Turkish alliances and who is hated by her sons’. ‘I foresee that I am going to have a difficult time seeing that these two Turkish princesses are suitably treated and in preserving the peace between the Nizam and his sons,’ Keyes predicted at the end of October 1931. ‘I hear that they have got very badly above themselves and never cease to blackguard their father.’42
When the negotiations were eventually finalised, largely in Hyderabad’s favour, wire services flashed the news that the Nizam had sealed the contract with gifts of US$200,000 in cash and jewels worth US$1 million. Durrushehvar was described as ‘the epitome of Oriental beauty’, fluent in six languages and a ‘thoroughly modern woman’, while Azam was billed as ‘the heir to more wealth than that held by all the Fords, Rockefellers and Morgans’.43 The event was described as the merger of ‘the mightiest houses of Islam’.44
The civil service was set for 12 November 1931, the Nizam’s birthday, but Osman Ali Khan was content to send emissaries to Nice rather than attend himself. Durrushehvar was 17 and her cousin Niloufer had not yet turned 16. The signing of the marriage contract was held at the ‘down-at-the-heels’ Palais Carabacel in the suburb of Cimiez. Six officers of the royal bodyguards wearing rose-coloured tulip-shaped turbans accompanied the two princes, bejewelled and covered with garlands of flowers, into the marriage hall. For half an hour the princes prayed, kneeling before full-length portraits of their brides-to-be who remained in a room upstairs. The British Consul Wiseman Kehoe then legalised the wedding and asked the couples and their entourage to assemble in the drawing room where 30 photographers were waiting.
Wedding photographs published in Nice’s L’Eclaireur du Dimanche Illustré show two unsmiling brides in day dresses with hands clasped and feet crossed while their grooms stand behind them wearing traditional Hyderabadi sherwanis, their faces almost concealed by their elaborate head-dresses.45 According to The Washington Post’s reporter, the ex-Caliph, having served the guests ‘temperance drinks’, retired to his library. ‘His snowwhite beard clutched in both his hands, he meditated over the business just completed.’46
A week later a much more lavish religious ceremony took place, officiated by the ex-Caliph before ‘beturbaned Oriental dignitaries arrayed in white and wearing scimitars of gold studded with diamonds’.47 The Nizam sent Mejid a message extolling a ‘most happy and auspicious day for the Asaf Jah dynasty because it is the day when alliances by marriage have strengthened the bonds of friendship and cordiality between the House of Asaf Jah and the House of Osman . . . Thus an alliance has been established between the two ancient and historic Dynasties which, it is hoped, has prospects of a bright future.’48
The Muslim press in India took a different angle. It reported that the alliances foreshadowed a restoration of the Caliphate and gave front-page coverage to Shaukat Ali’s calls to give the royal couples an enthusiastic reception when they landed in Bombay. From Bombay the couples travelled by train to Hyderabad, where Osman Ali Khan broke with protocol and greeted his sons’ new wives by kissing them on the cheek and presenting ‘them to their chief mother-in-law, of whom they will have several’. Press reports said the princesses appeared nervous as they rode to the harem ‘in a closed car with black robes or charshafs covering their faces’.49
The British Resident, meanwhile, had other pressing matters to attend to. Without elaborating, Keyes wrote to the political secretary in Delhi on 7 December regarding Azam, that there had been ‘some unpleasantness in Nice over the ceremony of consummation of marriage and I am afraid we should be prepared for Khalifa trying to insist on his wife accompanying her daughter’. Of more immediate concern was Moazzam, whom Keyes described as being ten times smarter than his brother but nevertheless ‘sulky, malevolent and the most amusing and convincing liar’. Keyes was particularly outraged that Moazzam had already neglected Niloufer by indulging in what he called ‘night life’ during their stopover in Bombay and then by ignoring her in Hyderabad.50
Keyes put his concerns to one side at a state banquet held at the Chowmahalla palace on 4 January 1932 to welcome the newlyweds. Proposing a toast, the Resident said that it was the first time since the Mughal conquest of India that the heir of the ruling prince had sought a bride ‘from a royal house beyond the seas’.51 In his speech he also discounted suggestions of any ‘deep-seated plan’ behind the alliance.
Celebrations, however, soon gave way to more sinister designs. Within weeks of Durrushehvar and Niloufer’s arrival the ex-Caliph’s private secretary Hussein Nakib Bay began hearing rumours that Dulhan Pasha wanted to poison the young brides and immediately alerted Keyes. The absence of stray cats at the King Kothi palace, Moazzam boasted, was the result of his mother’s experiments with various deadly potions. Her aim, he started joking to his friends, was to poison himself and his brother and take over the throne after the Nizam died.52
Poisoning had always been a Hyderabadi pastime and a preferred way of eliminating one’s opponents. Keyes took the stories seriously enough to place spies in the kitchens of Bella Vista palace where the royal couples were residing, but the Resident had a different theory. ‘I am more inclined to think that if there were any poisoning the greater danger would be from Moazzam Jah,’ he cabled Delhi. ‘The bitterness of the enmity between these two brothers, who used to be such good friends, is most distressing. It has reached such a pitch that the elder firmly believes that his brother is trying to poison him.’53 Moazzam Jah was:
. . . entirely without scruple; the temptation to clear his way to such wealth and position must be enormous, and, apparently, his mind runs on poisoning. The friendship between these two brothers was always remarkable for an Oriental family, but it has not stood the test of their travels in Europe. Azam Jah is now disgusted with his brother and ashamed of his conduct in Europe and here. He would like him pensioned off and persuaded to live out of India.54
But far from meeting the same fate as the cats of King Kothi or falling victim to other evil schemes conjured up by a mad mother-in-law or capricious brother-in-law, Durrushehvar and Niloufer adapted remarkably well during their first year in Hyderabad. The Ottoman culture they had grown up in prepared them for the routines of palace life and the duties expected of them as princesses. Instead of going into purdah as their father had feared, they exchanged their French chiffon for expensive silk saris and plunged into the hectic social life of Hyderabad.
A little over a year after marrying Azam, Durrushehvar became pregnant and returned to Nice for her confinement. On 7 October 1933 L’Eclaireur du Dimanche Illustré carried a public notice announcing the birth one day earlier of a son to the heir apparent of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Overnigh
t the number of potential kings and Caliphs residing on the French Riviera rose modestly in size, but monumentally in stature.
CHAPTER 7
Bounty of God, Blessed by Allah
IN EARLY MARCH 1934, a motorcade carrying Aza m Jah and Durrushehvar wound its way from Bella Vista to the Purdah Gate of King Kothi palace. The Nizam’s own Arab guard, dressed in baggy red trousers, heavy blue jackets covered in gold braid and striped headdresses, stood at attention as the heavy canvas curtain hiding the carved wooden doors from the street swung open. Osman Ali Khan had been eagerly awaiting this moment. Swaddled in fine muslin cloth in the crib that Durrushehvar was carrying was the future heir to the Asaf Jahi dynasty. Although the birth had taken place in far-off France, the event had been marked in Hyderabad by the firing of cannons from the Chowmahalla palace, the lighting of fireworks and the distribution of sweets to the population. A notice was published in the local press and government employees were given the day off. A telegram was sent immediately to the Viceroy informing him of the birth and a congratulatory telegram signed by Lord Willingdon on behalf of the Crown was dispatched in return.
Now six months old, Barkat Mukarram Jah, whose name meant ‘Bounty of God, Blessed by Allah’, had the piercing eyes of his grandfather and the determined expression of a ruler-in-waiting. Osman Ali Khan was thrilled. It had been ten years since one of the women in the zenana had borne a child. Now he was holding his first legitimate grandson. As he had always done regardless of whether it was the child of an official wife or one of his dozens of concubines, he bent down and kissed the infant reverentially on the forehead.
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