Victoria & Abdul

by Shrabani Basu

  For my daughters,

  Sanchita and Tanaya

  ‘I am so very fond of him. He is so good & gentle & understanding … & is a real comfort to me.’

  Queen Victoria to her daughter-in-law,

  Louise, Duchess of Connaught

  3 November 1888

  Balmoral

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Working in the historic archives of Windsor Castle was one of the most pleasurable moments of writing this book. For this I have to thank Jill Kelsey, Deputy Registrar of the Royal Archives, and Pam Clark, for all their help in sorting through the material and for coming to my aid whenever I found reading Queen Victoria’s handwriting a challenge. Thanks also for the wonderful tea and cakes which provided a welcome break every day!

  Thank you to Sophie Gordon, Curator of the Photographic Collection at Windsor Castle, and to Katie Holyoak of the Royal Collections at St James’s Palace for all their help and patience. I am grateful to Her Majesty the Queen for her gracious permission to reproduce material from the Royal Archives.

  This book could not have been written without the complete access to the several volumes of the Reid Archives provided by Sir Alexander and Lady Michaela Reid and I am truly indebted to them for all their help and generous hospitality in their beautiful house in Jedburgh. I would also like to thank them for permission to quote from the diaries and journals of Sir James Reid and for use of photographs from his scrapbook.

  My thanks to Michael Hunter, Curator at Osborne House, for all his help and especially for taking me to the basement at Osborne House to show me the menus from Queen Victoria’s time. I am also grateful for his permission to use images from the files.

  I am grateful to the staff at the British Library for their patience and guidance.

  In Agra, I would like to thank Syed Raju and Rajiv Saxena for their invaluable help in the search for Abdul Karim’s grave. My thanks also go to the staff at the Regional Archives in Agra for their help in tracing Karim’s files.

  In Delhi, I would like to thank Krishna Menon for translating Queen Victoria’s Hindustani Journals from Urdu into both Hindi and English.

  I would like to thank all the descendants of Abdul Karim in Bangalore and Karachi who allowed me to read his personal memoirs and access family photographs and memorabilia. In Bangalore, I am grateful to Begum Qamar Jehan, grand-niece of Abdul Karim and daughter of Abdul Rashid, for sharing her memories of Karim Cottage. I would also like to thank Javed Mahmood, Naved Hassan, Lubna Hassan and Samina Mahmood. In Karachi, I am grateful to Rizwana Sartaj and Sayeed-ul-Zafar Sartaj for all their help with the memoirs and their generous hospitality. I am also grateful to Khalid Masroor, Umrana Kazmi, Afza Kaiser Alam, Ishrat Hazoor Khan, Abid Sahebzadah, Hina and Sharoze, Rukshana, Nighat Afzal, Khursheed Alam, Dabeer Alam, Faisal Sartaj, Kamran Sartaj, Mahjabeen Sahebzada, Zafar Jahan, Huma Inam, Ambreen Waqar, Adil Sartaj, Asif Alam, Javaid Manzoor and Farhat Manzoor.

  Very special thanks are owed to my agent, Jonathan Conway, who flagged me off on Karim’s trail, helped me structure my thoughts and whose sense of humour kept me going.

  I am grateful to Simon Hamlet, commissioning editor at The History Press, for believing in the book from the start, and to my meticulous editor, Abigail Wood.

  I would like to thank Aveek Sarkar, my editor-in-chief at Ananda Bazar Patrika, for his constant support and encouragement with all my books. Thanks also to Vishal Jadeja, Prince of Morvi, for his input on his ancestor. For inputs and help in various ways, I am grateful to historians Indrani Chatterjee, Sumit Guha, Shahid Amin and Kusoom Vadgama.

  To my sisters, Nupur and Moushumi, I owe more than I can ever say, for all their help in Delhi and Agra, in locating Karim’s grave and sourcing translations. Thanks to my husband, Dipankar, for his patience and support and for brewing endless cups of tea, and to my daughters, Sanchita and Tanaya, for their enthusiasm in reading my early drafts, acting as my helpdesks for all technical problems and for persuading me to enter the virtual world and finally set up a website. To all of you, I owe this book.

  Shrabani Basu

  London

  CONTENTS

    Title page

    Dedication

    Acknowledgements

    Author’s Note

    Foreword

    Dramatis Personae

    Queen Victoria’s Family Tree

    Map of India showing Crown Territories and Princely States

    Map of Britain showing Royal Palaces and Cities

    Introduction

   1 Agra

   2 A Jubilee Present

   3 An Indian Durbar

   4 Curries and Highlanders

   5 Becoming the Munshi

   6 A Grant of Land

   7 Indian Affairs

   8 The Viceroy Receives a Christmas Card

   9 The Household Conspires

  10 Rebellion in the Ranks

  11 ‘Munshimania’

  12 Redemption

  13 Death of a Queen

  14 Last Days in Agra

  15 Endgame

    Epilogue

    Notes and Sources

    Bibliography

    Copyright

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In order to retain the authenticity of the period, I have used the old British names of the various Indian cities in this book. Hence, Cawnpore for present-day Kanpur, Benares for Varanasi, Simla for Shimla, Bharatpore for Bharatpur, etc.

  Queen Victoria often underlined her words for emphasis. The italicised words in her quotes indicate the words that she underlined in her letters.

  The words ‘Hindustani lessons’ refer to Urdu lessons and not Hindi lessons. The word Hindustani was used by the British as a generic term for both Urdu and Hindi.

  Queen Victoria learnt to read and write in Urdu from Abdul Karim.

  FOREWORD

  While writing the first edition of this book I was painfully aware that I had not been able to contact any of Abdul Karim’s descendants. The trail had gone cold as the family had left Agra after the partition of India and gone to Pakistan. Karim had no children and any descendants would be the children of his nephew, Abdul Rashid. With no names and no addresses in Pakistan, I had hit a dead end. I sent the book to press hoping that someone would contact me after publication.

  It happened sooner than I expected. I was in Bangalore for the launch of Victoria & Abdul when I received a call from the British Council that Javed Mahmood, great-grandson of Abdul Karim, wanted to see me. It transpired that his mother, Begum Qamar Jehan, 85, was the daughter of Abdul Rashid. Frail and blind, Begum Qamar Jehan nevertheless had vivid recollections of her days in Karim Lodge in Agra, which she described as the ‘happiest’ in her life. The family showed me pictures of Abdul Karim and Abdul Rashid and told me there was a diary in Karachi. Abdul Rashid had nine children and their families lived in India and Pakistan. Begum Qamar Jehan was the last survivor of his children. Two months later I was on a plane from London to Karachi to meet the rest of the family and see the diaries of Abdul Karim. The story had come full circle.

  In Karachi, I was handed the diary – a neat brown journal with gold edges – that I recognised instantly as the stationary used in Windsor. Inside was the record of Karim’s ten years in London between the Golden and the Diamond Jubilees. The pages were also filled with pictures and magazine cuttings. It was a scrapbook and journal. The diary had been smuggled out by the family along with other artefacts when they had left India in 1947 in the dark days of the partition riots.

  ‘There was a rumour that Karim Lodge would be attacked,’ said Zafar Sartaj, who was nine when the family left India. As Hindus and
Muslims rioted in the streets of Agra, the women and children were sent in the dead of night to Bhopal in central India, where the nawab was a friend. From Bhopal they took the train to Bombay (the women hiding their jewellery in their saris) and finally an overcrowded ship to Karachi, joining the thousands of refugees leaving for Pakistan. Two trunks full of precious artefacts were sent on the goods train to Pakistan. The train was looted and the treasures never arrived. The diary, some pictures and artefacts including the tea set gifted by the Tsar of Russia and a statuette of Abdul Karim did make it, carried on the boat by the men of the family.

  The English in the diary was too flawless to be Karim’s, so I suspect he dictated the words to someone. Perhaps they were written by his friend Rafiuddin Ahmed. The diaries make no mention of the unpleasantness he suffered in court, almost as if he wanted to cauterise those details. Sadly, there is nothing after 1897, so we have no account of his leaving England and the last days in Agra. In the diary he mentions that his wife was planning to publish her own journals. She would have written these in Urdu. There is no trace of this diary. The Munshi’s wife died on the boat to Karachi, an old woman who had lived in Royal palaces and seen European Royalty at close hand, but was now leaving her country as a refugee.

  Karim began his journal with due modesty:

  Under the shadow of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, I a humble subject venture in the following pages to lay before the reader a brief summary from the journal of my life in the court of Queen Victoria from the Golden Jubilee of 1887 to the Diamond Jubilee of 1897. As I have been but a sojourner in a strange land and among a strange people I humbly trust all mistakes will be kindly overlooked by the reader who would extend indulgence to the writer of these pages.

  He ended with the words: ‘I shall be well content if the perusal of this little work be attended with some interest or pleasure to the person into whose hands it may chance to fall.’

  Over a hundred years after it was written and lost, it has been a privilege to update this edition with Karim’s diary.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  The Royal Family

  Queen Victoria – Queen of England and Empress of India

  Prince Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, ‘Bertie’, later King Edward VII – son of Queen Victoria

  Princess Alix, Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra – consort of Prince Edward

  Princess Victoria, Vicky, Empress of Germany – eldest daughter of Queen Victoria

  Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse – second daughter of Queen Victoria

  Princess Helena of Schleswig Holstein – third daughter of Queen Victoria

  Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught – son of Queen Victoria

  Princess Beatrice – youngest daughter of Queen Victoria

  Prince Henry of Battenberg – husband of Princess Beatrice

  Prince George, later King George V – grandson of Queen Victoria

  Princess May of Teck, later Queen Mary – consort of Prince George

  Prince Louis of Battenberg – husband of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter

  The Indians

  Abdul Karim – Queen Victoria’s Munshi

  Mohammed Buksh – Queen Victoria’s attendant

  Dr Wuzeeruddin – Abdul Karim’s father

  The Munshi’s wife

  The Munshi’s mother-in-law

  Hourmet Ali – Queen Victoria’s attendant and Abdul Karim’s brother-in-law

  Ahmed Husain – Queen Victoria’s attendant

  Sheikh Chidda – Queen Victoria’s attendant

  Ghulam Mustapha – Queen Victoria’s attendant

  Khuda Buksh – Queen Victoria’s attendant

  Mirza Yusuf Baig – Queen Victoria’s attendant

  Bhai Ram Singh – architect of Durbar Hall

  Sir John Tyler – Superintendent of Agra Jail

  Abdul Rashid – Abdul Karim’s nephew

  Rafiuddin Ahmed – solicitor, journalist, friend of Abdul Karim

  Duleep Singh – son of Maharajah Ranjit Singh deposed ruler of Punjab, Queen Victoria’s ward

  Nripendra Narayan – Maharajah of Cooch Behar

  Sunity Devi – Maharani of Cooch Behar

  Hurwan Singh – Maharajah of Kapurthala

  Sayaji Rao Gaekwad – Maharajah of Baroda

  Chimnabai – Maharani of Baroda

  The Household

  Sir Henry Ponsonby – Private Secretary to Queen Victoria

  Sir James Reid – Personal Physician to Queen Victoria

  Frederick (Fritz) Ponsonby – Assistant Private Secretary to Queen Victoria

  Arthur Bigge – Assistant Private Secretary to Queen Victoria, later Private Secretary to Queen Victoria

  Alexander (Alick) Yorke – Groom in Waiting and Master of Ceremonies for Royal Theatricals

  Marie Mallet – Maid of Honour

  Lady Jane Churchill – Lady-in-Waiting

  Harriet Phipps – Woman of the Bedchamber and Private Secretary to the Queen

  Lady Edith Lytton – Lady-in-Waiting

  Ethel Cadogan – Maid of Honour

  Fleetwood Edwards – Keeper of the Privy Purse

  Dighton Probyn – Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales

  Edward Pelham Clinton – Master of the Household

  The Viceroys

  Lord Dufferin

  1884–88

  Lord Lansdowne

  1888–94

  Lord Elgin

  1894–99

  Lord Curzon

  1899–1905

  Lord Minto

  1905–10

  The Secretaries of State, India Office

  Lord Cross

  1886–92

  Lord Kimberley

  1892–94

  Lord Fowler

  1894–95

  Lord Hamilton

  1895–1903

  Lord Morley

  1905–10, 1910–14

  The Prime Ministers

  Marquess of Salisbury

  1885–86, 1886–92, 1895–1902

  William Gladstone

  1880–85, 86, 1892–94

  Earl of Rosebery

  1894–95

  Map of India showing the British India Territories and the Native States in the nineteenth century.

  Map of Britain showing the Royal palaces and neighbouring cities during Queen Victoria’s reign.

  INTRODUCTION

  As the January mist enveloped Osborne House, a short line of mourners passed silently through the grounds towards Queen Victoria’s private apartments. In the corridor outside her rooms a tall Indian man stood alone. It was Abdul Karim, the Queen’s Indian Munshi or teacher. He had been waiting there since morning, his eyes occasionally looking out across the garden where he had spent so many hours with the Queen. In the distance, the ships in the Solent bobbed silently, their flags at half-mast.

  The eighty-one-year-old Victoria had died peacefully in her sleep three days earlier, her family beside her. She was now dressed according to her wishes for this final journey to Windsor. The Royal family had been summoned to say their last farewells. The Queen lay in her coffin, her face covered by her white wedding veil. She looked, as one witness described, ‘like a lovely marble statue, no sign of illness or age’, regal in death as she had been in life. A bunch of white lilies was placed in her hand. The procession filed past – her son and heir Edward VII and his wife Queen Alexandra, the Queen’s children and grandchildren, together with a collection of her most trusted servants and Household members. Each stood for a few moments before the coffin of the woman who had ascended the throne at the age of eighteen and proceeded to define an age. The King then allowed Abdul Karim to enter the Queen’s bedroom. He would be the last person to see her body alone.

  The Munshi entered, his head bowed, dressed in a dark Indian tunic and turban. His presence filled the room. The King, knowing his mother’s wishes, allowed him a few moments alone with her. The Munshi’s face was a map of emotion as he gazed at his dead Queen, he
r face lit by the softly glowing candles. She had given him – a humble servant – more than a decade of unquestioned love and respect. His thoughts raced through the years spent in her company: their first meeting when he had stooped to kiss her feet at Windsor in the summer of 1887; the lazy days spent together as he taught her his language and described his country; the gossip and companionship they shared; her generosity to him; her loneliness that he understood. Above all, her stubborn defence of him at all times. He touched his hand to his heart and stood silently, fighting back tears. His lips mouthed a silent prayer to Allah to rest her soul. After a final look and bow he left the room slowly as two workmen closed and sealed the Queen’s coffin behind him.

  At her funeral procession in Windsor, Abdul Karim walked with the principal mourners. The elderly Queen had given this instruction herself, despite what she knew would be intense opposition from her family and Household. She had ensured her beloved Munshi would be written into the history books.

  But only days after the Queen’s death, the Munshi was woken by the sound of loud banging on his door. Princess Beatrice, Queen Alexandra and some guards stood outside. The King had ordered a raid on his house, demanding he hand over all the letters Victoria had written to him. The Munshi, his wife and his nephew watched in horror as the letters in the late Queen’s distinctive handwriting were torn from his desk and cast into a bonfire outside Frogmore Cottage.

  As the ‘Dear Abdul’ letters burnt in the cold February air, the Munshi stood in silence. Without his Queen he was defenceless and alone. Postcards and letters from the Queen, dated from Windsor Castle, Balmoral, the Royal yacht Victoria and Albert and hotels across Europe, crackled in the flames. The Queen used to write to the Munshi every day, signing her letters variously as ‘your dearest friend’, ‘your true friend’, even ‘your dearest mother’. The Munshi’s distraught wife sobbed beside him, tears streaming down her veiled face. The nephew looked frightened as he was ordered to bring out every scrap of paper from the Munshi’s desk with the Queen’s seal on it and confine it to the mercy of the guards. The Munshi’s family, once so essential to the Royal Court, stood bewildered, treated like common criminals. With Queen Victoria in her grave, the Establishment had come down hard and fast on the Munshi. King Edward VII asked him unceremoniously to pack his bags and return to India.