Last King in India: Wajid Ali Shah

by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

  In ponderous terms John Baillie, Professor of Arabic at Fort William College, Calcutta, who had translated the Digest, explained that Shi‘as recognised two kinds of marriage: a permanent marriage (nikah) that lasted for life, and a temporary marriage (mut‘ah) ‘contracted for a limited period, for a certain sum of money’. No more than four nikah marriages were allowed. Mut‘ah marriages were a businesslike arrangement that could last for anything from a day to a year, or longer, but the length of time had to be specified and agreed by both parties, as did the amount of money or goods in kind that went to the mut‘ah wife. If she became pregnant during the marriage, the child was considered to have been fathered by the husband and was therefore legitimate. There were various stipulations: mut‘ah wives could only be chosen from among Muslim, Christian or Jewish women,7 although there were allowances for mut‘ah relationships with female slaves too—but basically this was what allowed Wajid ‘Ali Shah to acquire such a large number of wives. Later on, as we shall see, there were to be fierce ideological battles between the exiled king and British officials over the fate of his mut‘ah wives whose contracts had ended.

  But for the time being the young Wajid ‘Ali Shah was free to marry whom he chose, as frequently as he liked. With his official wife, Khas Mahal, dutifully producing sons at regular intervals, the children of his mut‘ah marriages seemed like an additional blessing. In 1845 he learned that Mahak Pari was pregnant or, as he put it, ‘the angel of day and night conveyed the good news of an infant flower’s arrival’. Wajid ‘Ali Shah immediately put Mahak Pari into purdah and gave her the title of Iftikhar-un-nissa, which means ‘dignified among women’. She is better known today as Begam Hazrat Mahal, who defied the British during the great Uprising of 1857–8. The prince’s joy over the birth is obvious: ‘My darling exalted son was born.’ The baby’s grandfather, King Amjad ‘Ali Shah, granted the infant an 11-gun salute and the title of Mirza Birjis Qadr. The proud father prepared a celebratory banquet, with female dancers and musicians who drew admiration from the spectators for their performance.8

  Shortly after this event, there was another piece of good news: ‘Fizzah the Abyssinian’ was pregnant. Fizzah may have been one of Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s African bodyguards. The term ‘Abyssinian’ was loosely used to cover men, women and children, usually slaves, brought from the African subcontinent to India by Arab traders. After giving thanks in the ‘great shrine’, Wajid ‘Ali Shah put Fizzah into purdah and in due course a baby girl was born. Her grandfather, the king, seemed equally delighted at her arrival and suggested she should be called Jahanara, which means ‘world-adorning’.9

  Not everything was so harmonious in the ‘House of Fairies’. Both Yasmin Pari and Sarfaraz Pari claimed to be pregnant and were duly put into purdah. However, after a few days it emerged that this was only a rumour, and they were both brought out again and resumed their dancing and music lessons. When Hur Pari said she was pregnant, Wajid ‘Ali Shah was more cautious, having been humiliated over the two previous false claims. ‘I did not attribute much credence to it’, he wrote, and it was only when Hur Pari was five months pregnant that she was put into purdah, which she hated. Continually tearful, she refused to be shut up behind curtains (the literal meaning of purdah) and told Wajid ‘Ali Shah she would abort the child if he did not let her out. At seven months she gave birth to a little boy, who died just after a month.10 It was unfortunate, too, that Wajid ‘Ali Shah contracted gonorrhoea from one of his wives, Qaisar Begam, with whom he was particularly infatuated. ‘Day and night’, he wrote, ‘I would loiter around her like one possessed. Wherever she slept, I would rest there too. Wherever she ate, I would eat there too … I gave her papers [Promissory Notes] for thousands of rupees in cash. I also presented her with the mansion of the late Jalal-ud-daulah to live in.’11 He added ruefully that until he discovered he had the disease he was continually prepared to indulge her, but afterwards found himself spending more time with his doctor than his lover.

  Visual material from Lucknow during this period is sparse.12 The infamous sack of Qaisarbagh by the triumphant British and Gurkha troops in March 1858, which lasted for three days and during which The Times reporter William Russell reported that he saw men ‘drunk with plunder’, is clearly the reason. Paintings, miniatures, illustrated manuscripts and personal photograph albums either disappeared as loot or were simply destroyed. But one important royal treasure survived, rescued from destruction by Sikh soldiers fighting alongside the British. It is the illustrated version of the king’s youthful autobiography that we know as the Pari Khana, an Indo-Persian manuscript with 103 painted miniatures, produced in 1849/50, shortly after he had completed the original prose version. The Sikh soldiers presented it to Sir John Lawrence, the former chief commissioner of the Punjab, who in turn presented it to Queen Victoria on his return to England in 1859. It has been at Windsor Castle ever since.

  The Windsor manuscript is called the Ishqnamah, a difficult word to translate. ‘Chronicle of Passion’ is probably the nearest we can get to it, but is still an imprecise rendition of the subtle Persian title. Its connection with the Urdu version, the Pari Khana, has not previously been recognised. The English title of the manuscript, Customs of the Court of Oudh, is an imprecise description of the riches contained in this large leather-bound volume. The majority of the illustrations show a succession of women parading, one by one, in front of Wajid ‘Ali Shah, who is seated on a gilt chair, or a velvet sofa, under a canopy in the courtyard of his palace. Typically, the young woman enters through a side door, hung with a curtain, and walks across the yard towards the prince. It is both a theatrical performance and an audition, where the courtyard is the stage and Wajid ‘Ali Shah the sole audience and casting director. The women are already dressed in the approved court costume of gharara (excessively wide, flowing pyjamas), a tight-cropped blouse (choli) and a transparent dupatta, or veil, across the breast. On their feet they are wearing ghatelas, probably one of the most awkward shoes ever invented, where the leather toe is shaped like the trunk of an elephant, curving round towards the wearer. The women’s hair is pulled back into a long plait, covered with brocade and looped up to fasten at the back of the head. The faces of the women are beautifully detailed. Each is an individual in her own right, but all look apprehensive, and none are smiling. All the women are named at the top of each painting, and several appear more than once in different scenes.

  Safaraz Mahal, one of the fairies who falsely claimed to be pregnant, appears in ten of the paintings and was, for nearly a decade, a favourite mut‘ah wife of the prince. In folio 263 she stands hand-in-hand with Wajid ‘Ali Shah in a European-style room. A female attendant holding a fan of gilded peacock feathers looks on. An elaborate Victorian couch of gilt and red velvet is the only piece of furniture in the room, placed suggestively behind the couple on a thick and luxurious carpet. Although the scene is painted in daylight, with blue skies beyond the open door at the end of the room, there is an erotic element here in the positioning of husband and wife, which leaves something to the viewer’s imagination. The fan-bearer can darken the room by closing the shutters before she leaves. Wajid ‘Ali Shah can take off the sword hanging suggestively around his waist, and perhaps the shy young woman can be teased into taking off her dupatta. Sadly, whatever happened in this room in 1845 was not to lead to a lasting relationship. Safaraz Mahal was divorced by the king in 1848 and spent the rest of her life in Lucknow. A cat-fight between her and another mut‘ah wife on the palace terrace was serious enough for Wajid ‘Ali Shah to have to wade in and break it up, leading to a lively illustration in a later folio. Many years later, when Safaraz Mahal tried to claim a small pension, she was ungallantly described as ‘a common public woman of low origin’, who was subsequently found unworthy of the king as she was carrying on an intrigue with another person.13 Her original name, before she was elevated on her marriage with the title of nawab Safaraz Mahal Sahiba, was Gana, a Hindu name, so she became a convert to Islam on her mut‘ah marria
ge.

  Turning the pages of the Ishqnamah, it soon becomes obvious that Wajid ‘Ali Shah had a soft spot for dark-skinned brides. Yasmin Mahal, whom he married in 1843, is clearly of African origin with her short black curly hair and un-Indian features. She appears in four paintings, one of which shows her with a group of people seeking permission to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Another African bride, married about 1845, was named Ajaib Khanum, which translates as ‘strange woman’, possibly from her foreign appearance. But most intriguingly of all, a recent examination of the old landholding records in Awadh by an Indian scholar has shown that Begam Hazrat Mahal’s father was a slave called Umber, who was owned by one Ghulam Hossein ‘Ali Khan.14 Her mother was Maher Afza, Umber’s mistress. There is no doubt that for a short time Wajid ‘Ali Shah was completely besotted by Hazrat Mahal, writing her many poems. She appears once in the Ishqnamah, on folio 155, the only authentic portrait known of her at present. She is a dark-skinned woman, with no obvious African features like Yasmin Mahal, and was clearly highly attractive to the young prince.

  Because some of the wives pictured in the Ishqnamah chose not to show their faces in public, the artist or artists have found ingenious ways to indicate that they are present, but still in purdah. Some are shown only from the rear, or retreating across the courtyard. Others are coquettishly holding up fans in front of their faces, either the fashionable Victorian bladed fans, or the Indian axe-shaped cloth and card punkahs. When Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s paternal grandmother, Hazrat Maryam Makani, appears in an early folio, her face is hidden with a golden halo, placed in front of her head rather than behind it (although it is clear that under cover of the halo she is puffing away on a hookah). As the second nikah widow of the King Muhammad ‘Ali Shah, she is obviously a purdah woman of high status whose face cannot be revealed, even in an intimate family portrait with her grandson.

  The Ishqnamah has never been published, although two of its folios, the coronations of Wajid ‘Ali Shah (in 1847) and his father Amjad ‘Ali Shah (1842), have been copied and used in other manuscripts. It is a unique glimpse into the world of the Lucknow fairies and their restricted lives once they entered the palace. Although written by the prince and illustrated by a (presumed) male artist or artists, it nevertheless unconsciously hints at tensions within the zananah and jostling among the wives for the husband’s attention. Wives sometimes invite Wajid ‘Ali Shah to a meal in their own quarters in the palace, where dishes are invitingly laid out all together on a tablecloth (dastarkhwan) on the floor and the king sits cross-legged to eat. It is clearly a privilege to entertain him, just as it is a privilege to be invited by him to a fireworks party in the palace gardens. In a few curious paintings, a wife shows Wajid ‘Ali Shah an injury, usually a burn mark on her inner thigh, which means she has to pull up her skirt to expose it. The captions note that the women receive sympathy from their husband over the injury, which was self-inflicted either as an expression of love’s ardour or, to gain attention and sympathy from the king. One atypical painting shows a woman with her hands tied to a tree, while a barber shaves her head, ‘on the Prince’s order as a warning’. In a happier image, some of the wives are entertained by a dancing hijra, dressed in women’s clothes apart from masculine headgear and sporting a nascent moustache.15 The Ishqnama was produced for Wajid ‘Ali Shah alone and was not for public viewing. It may have been shown to selected friends, and in fact there is nothing indecent in it—no Kama Sutra poses or much that could be considered erotic. But it is the frankness of the whole enterprise, the unsmiling women and the illustrated recital of the king’s many passions that make it slightly uncomfortable viewing today in the library of Windsor Castle.

  From outside the Lucknow palace, and particularly from the British Residency up on the hill overlooking the palace, Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s amours were a private matter. Protocol did not allow the Resident to meet any of the wives when he breakfasted at the palace on official occasions; these were strictly men-only events, where male servants prepared and served the food. It was permissible for British ladies of high status to visit Indian women in purdah, and there are several descriptions of just how embarrassing this was for both parties concerned. Emily Eden, sister of the governor general Lord Auckland, met some of the wives of Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh in Lahore in 1838. ‘The conversation is always rather stupid’, she reported; ‘they laughed at our bonnets, and we rather jeered their nose-rings.’16 But in Lucknow only Mrs Login, wife of the Residency surgeon Dr John Login, seems to have visited the palace at this period, becoming friendly with Janab-i ‘Aliyyah, but not with her numerous daughters-in-law.

  It was not until 1865, when Major George Malleson, the agent who had replaced Herbert, became involved in a case between the king, now in exile, and one of his mut‘ah wives, that the royal domestic arrangements became clear to the British. The ‘female establishment’, as it was called, was run on business lines, with the eunuch Diyanat ud-Daulah in charge (the same man who had earlier been head of the Customs Department). There were three classes of mut‘ah wives, the agent learned: the mahals, who had given birth to the king’s children, and who were allowed to veil their faces; the begams, who had not given birth, and who went unveiled; and the khilawati, the lowest class, who did menial jobs around the palace as domestic servants but were nevertheless tied to the king in marriage. In theory, each woman received a monthly allowance, or salary, according to her rank. The mahals, at the top of the scale, could get up to Rs1,600 (about £160) a month; the middle-ranking begams got about Rs100; and the servants got Rs20. But these were nominal wages, and only a very small proportion was paid in actual coin. The begams, for example, got only Rs16 in cash, ‘the remainder being withheld to supply food, clothing and accommodation’.17

  On entering the establishment after a mut‘ah marriage, the new wife got a small sum as a dower, a gift from the king, which was hers to keep. She also got ‘a uniform of dress and ornaments’, including jewellery, but this was only on loan. The king had been in the habit, it was reported, of ‘purchasing ornaments from time to time and making temporary grants of them to the ladies of his household for the purpose of being worn in his presence on Muhammadan festivals and other occasions of ceremony’.18 When the jewels and ornaments were not in use, they were either kept safe by an appointed palace superintendent or if the ladies wanted to retain the jewellery, then each item had to be entered into a register, along with the name of its temporary holder. At the end of the mut‘ah marriage, the ‘uniform’ and jewellery were to be returned to the king. This naturally led to all kinds of ‘misunderstandings’, where the dismissed women claimed that their jewellery was a gift, not a loan, from the king, which of course was difficult to prove.19

  Clearly the administration of the female establishment was a responsible and time-consuming job that required good organisational skills, financial acumen and huge amounts of tact. Diyanat ud-Daulah became a wealthy and influential man, and, apart from a period out of favour, he remained a friend of the king. A number of junior eunuchs would have been employed to assist him. Although life in the zananah has been well-documented by the Englishwoman Mrs Meer Hassan Ali, who married a Shi‘a and lived in Lucknow for twelve years, she does not touch on the day-to-day running of the establishment. There is also too little evidence to show whether Wajid ‘Ali Shah was simply following the customs of his forefathers in the administration of his women’s lives, or whether he initiated the rulings on how much each got as a salary and the register recording the deposit of jewellery. The different ranks of mamtu‘at, the collective noun for mut‘ah wives, seems well-established in the Awadh dynasty, and the use of the title ‘mahal’ for a wife who produced a child was standard among both Shi‘as and Sunnis.

  However, there was yet another category of women, the pari or fairy, who by serving a musical apprenticeship might be taken on as a mut‘ah wife if the king found her pleasing and talented. The fairies were certainly an innovation of Wajid ‘Ali Shah and were recruited fro
m the lower classes, including the courtesans (tawa’if) who lived mainly in Chauk, in the old city. These women were not themselves educated, explained Wajid ‘Ali Shah, ‘but after instruction some of them acquired knowledge’. Some of the fairies went on to become expert singers or dancers, while others could not even learn the A or B of musical notation. The king employed expert tutors, all of whom had already made names for themselves, to teach the women singing and dancing. He tutored one particular student, Musahib Pari, himself, and having expended ‘much effort on her musical education’, found that within a few days she had considerably improved in comparison with the other women.20 Rather like a twenty-first-century talent show, the newly-trained fairies performed at various functions, although Wajid ‘Ali Shah was quick to point out that these were ‘not organised to satisfy feelings of love and lust’ but to provide an ordinary yet interesting entertainment that allowed the women to perform in a supervised setting.

  Whether the Pari Khana, the House of Fairies, existed as an actual building is disputed. Some reliable writers like Sharar21 do not mention it at all, while others place it firmly in the main Qaisarbagh courtyard, where a school of music stands today. Wajid ‘Ali Shah himself said that the fairies were taken to a small house called Rashk-e-Iram, ‘the Envy of Paradise’, which was both a hostel and a school. But there were female African soldiers on guard, to make sure the fairies did not escape, and there was certainly an element of coercion. One way to get out was to catch the king’s eye and be summoned to his bedchamber. This could lead to promotion, particularly if the fairy subsequently became pregnant. As we have seen, Mahak Pari became Begam Hazrat Mahal after she gave birth to a son, and others lost their simple names like Piyari (Darling) to become mahals or begams. All the mut‘ah wives of the first and second rank were given the title of nawab sahibah22 in addition to the female title of mahal sahibah or begam sahibah, as well as their personal name. The khilawati servants, the lowest rank, got the simple suffix pasand (pleasing) after their personal name, with no additional title.