Last King in India: Wajid Ali Shah

by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

  Although the Act of 1862 seemed, at first reading, to exempt the king from the jurisdiction of the law courts, there were certain clauses in it that were open to interpretation. In particular, there was nothing in the Act to stop an individual or a group of people from suing the king, although he could not be called to appear in person in court. What would now be called a ‘class action’ was launched by three of the late munshi’s female relatives, Begam Bibi, Bismillah Khanum and Zainab Khanum, who, with other creditors, were represented by the Hindu lawyer Babu Dwarkanath Mitter. The group was known collectively as the ‘Heirs of Safdar ‘Ali’. The initial hearing was in October 1866 and took place in the Court of the 24 Parganas, whose curious name derived from the grant of lands to the East India Company in the middle of the eighteenth century. The heirs filed a suit against the king for nearly 40 lakhs, equivalent to about £400,000. Lawrence duly informed the District Judge, Mr F. L. Beaumont, that as he declined to let the king be sued, the case should be struck off. But there was too much at stake to accept this initial defeat. The plaintiffs, led by their lawyer Mitter, appealed to the Calcutta High Court, which decided that while it could not issue a writ against the king without government agreement, there was nothing to stop it from accepting the suit, or case, from his creditors.26

  The case was heard in the High Court on 16 February 1867, and to Lawrence’s dismay it was allowed to proceed. By error there was no counsel to represent the government, although its official solicitor, Mr Stack, had been told to liaise with the advocate general to make sure that the government’s view was heard. When Stack was reprimanded, he replied quite reasonably that a case could not be tried until the defendant had been summoned, and since the king had not been summoned, there was no point in a government lawyer attending. The new English-language newspaper The Pioneer reported on 18 March 1867 that ‘The case of the heirs of Moonshee Sufdur against the ex-King of Oude seems beset with mishaps. It came on for trial, and it was expected that it would prove of no ordinary difficulty. Instead, however, of an exciting legal contest, the ex-King was unrepresented and the case was therefore, decreed against him.’ The advocate general was told to apply for a review of the judgement, and a week later it was reported that Amir ‘Ali had applied on behalf of the king for a postponement of the case, which was subsequently permanently withdrawn while bargaining went on behind the scenes.

  Although it is gratifying to note the independence of the judiciary, the problem of the king’s creditors remained. The High Court decision was ‘fraught with serious consequence’, wrote Lawrence. Although any decree the ‘Heirs of Safdar ‘Ali’ might obtain would be ineffective, ‘yet the existence and perhaps the accumulation of unsatisfied decrees against the King will obviously be a public scandal, bringing odium upon the Government’. It was a measure of his continuing significance that Wajid ‘Ali Shah was capable of causing almost as much trouble as a deposed monarch as he had when a ruling king. Lawrence admitted that his officials had not foreseen the full extent of the difficulties facing them when tackling the problem. Safdar ‘Ali was blamed ‘as the ex-King’s principal parasite’, but Wajid ‘Ali Shah, though certainly naïve, was not blameless either, as it was his ‘custom to make all purchases at second-hand from his own attendants, the great majority are parasites of the lowest repute, who enrich themselves at his expense. All of them have allowed the King credit as a speculation, demanding enormous interest for their risk.’27 The ‘parasites’ had deliberately traded on the assumption that their accumulated demands against the king would ultimately create such a public scandal that the government would be forced to bail him out. It was a dangerous game and played for high stakes. Would the creditors get their inflated bills met by the government, or would the government face them down and risk more public criticism over its treatment of the king, wrenched abruptly from his throne under the old Company regime?

  A solution was proposed by John Lawrence and his Council, but not without a further mention of the king’s supposedly delicate health. ‘Though not an old man’, wrote Lawrence, he ‘has exhausted his constitution by his habits of life, and is not likely to live very much longer’, although ‘on the other hand the ex-King may live much longer than his present physical constitution leads us to expect, and the longer he lives, the heavier and more complicated will his debts become’.28 Even Major Herbert, who knew the king better than most, ‘thought [his life] may be cut short at any time’. (The king’s premature death, long anticipated by British officials, would have solved a number of problems. In fact Wajid ‘Ali Shah was forty-six years old at the time and, in spite of his hypochondria, was to live for a further twenty in reasonably good health.) Assuming that the king did not die immediately, Lawrence suggested further legislation that would place him in the same position as ‘minors and others incapable of contracting debt’. The king would be given another ‘final warning’, and six months to resolve his financial problems. If he did not do so by 1 March 1868, then a government-appointed commission would take charge of his affairs.

  The governor general’s warning letter was written from Shimla on 9 August and ten days later it was given to the king, who expressed ‘immediate annoyance’ at its contents. Major Herbert was pretty upset too, because it seemed to him as if a senior government official was going to take over his job. ‘I can’t think’, he wrote in a pained letter, ‘that the Government would so injure me after I have worked gratuitously in the office of Agent to the governor general as to nominate some other person over my head to perform a duty that would naturally fall to me, and I trust that such would not be the case.’29 Lawrence’s letter to Wajid ‘Ali Shah was called a kharitah, the Persian term for ‘a letter between two great personages’, and one would think that such a sensitive matter would be highly confidential. Instead the kharitah was leaked to the press and appeared in full in Allen’s Indian Mail, showing that the governor general had addressed the king as ‘My Royal and Illustrious Friend’. The leak was almost certainly deliberate, by a government official. Publication of the letter would stave off criticism from Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s numerous creditors that nothing was being done; it would, hopefully, warn off anyone else who might feel inclined to lend him money; and it would embarrass him, the very thing that government claimed it was trying to avoid.

  Once he got over his annoyance, Wajid ‘Ali Shah appointed Amir ‘Ali to audit and adjust all his accounts; and after a three-month scrutiny, the king explained to Herbert what had happened. ‘The rumours of my indebtednesss which have been generally circulated, and especially reported to His Excellency [the governor general] and yourself, are nothing but the ingratitude of my own dependents. I only employed my own dependants and advanced and paid to them, pending and after their own work, lacks [lakhs] and thousands of rupees; but being in the power of Moonshee Sufder, they agreed among themselves and deceived me and obtained my signature to papers and formed the evil design of embarrassing me.’ As soon as the lawsuit against him began, he ‘understood their rascality’ and was in fact actually in the process of ‘arranging his affairs’ when the kharitah from Shimla arrived.30 So once again, as in the quarrels with his wives, it was not the king’s fault, but the faithlessness of those around him.

  Herbert had by now seen off the proposed challenge to his own position, and began work with Amir ‘Ali on 9 November 1867, sifting through the ridiculous claims by the creditors. A list of fourteen chief creditors, men who were employed by Wajid ‘Ali Shah to provide goods and services, was compiled. Safdar ‘Ali had been the ‘chief authority’ and the other thirteen were appointed to specific duties, receiving cash and goods: ‘and, in my opinion’, wrote the king, ‘each has received more than his due’. Statements were taken from eight of the men. Aluf-ud-daulah admitted that he ‘could not explain the accounts and prove all items’, so his claim was reduced. Amanat-ud-daulah, who lived in Garden Reach, confessed that he did not have all his ‘papers of accounts with him’, and in fact when he questioned his clerks again, it tur
ned out that all his bills had been paid by instalment ‘and not a pice remains due to me’. ‘I cannot prove every item’ and ‘I cannot explain the accounts and give proof of all items’, said the others. Those accounts that were produced, wrote Herbert, were ‘simply diaries, without any system and unsupported by vouchers’. Defending his royal burden, Herbert gallantly explained that ‘His Majesty’s necessary ignorance of the world and unfortunate aversion to advice, or to anything like interference, rendered him an easy victim.’ At the same time, Herbert praised Amir ‘Ali, who had ‘exhibited great shrewdness and untiring industry and [who] deserves the greatest credit’. By the end of the 1867 calendar year, Herbert and Amir ‘Ali had managed to reduce the king’s debts from nearly half a million sterling to a more reasonable £71,000, and the king agreed to pay off the revised figure by monthly instalments.

  By the end of the British financial year, 5 April 1868, all claims had been settled, except for the ‘Heirs’ case, which was still pending in the civil court. This was dealt with in an adroit move by Lawrence, who on 11 April gave his assent to The King of Oudh’s Act No. XIII of 1868. The new act contained two important clauses: it made the king incapable of entering into any financial obligations through contract; and it also exempted the Secretary of State and the government of India from any liability for the king’s debts which had already been run up. It seemed that both the king and the government had been saved from further embarrassment, particularly as the civil court case could not proceed. But the tenacity of the ‘Heirs’ had been underestimated, and they now petitioned Lawrence himself, as any Indian or British national had the right to do. The patient Major Herbert had retired in July. He had been with Wajid ‘Ali Shah since 1857, after the murder of the first agent, Captain Fletcher Hayes.31 An officiating or temporary agent was appointed, Captain Henry Phipson Peacock, who as a twenty-year-old officer had been present at the recapture of Lucknow in March 1858.

  Peacock was soon initiated into the claims and counterclaims still flying around Garden Reach. The fact that agreements had been reached with the king’s major creditors gave the ‘Heirs’ new hope that, even if they could not now bring a court case, by sheer persistence they might be able to wear down the king and his new agent. Wajid ‘Ali Shah admitted that he had employed two of the seven petitioners, and their evidence was further proof of the king’s financial gullibility. Muhammad Beg had been introduced by the late Safdar ‘Ali and got a job as a sowar, or cavalryman. His starting salary was 25 rupees a month, later increased to 30 rupees, which included the cost of fodder and stabling for his horse. He was dismissed in August 1867 when the king claimed to have realised the full extent of the ‘imposition played upon me’ by Safdar ‘Ali’s ‘creatures, relations and connections’.32 In his statement, dictated to a clerk, Muhammad Beg said he could neither read nor write, with the exception of writing his own name. Nevertheless, he claimed he was owed £30,000 for ‘merchandize and money’ supplied through Safdar ‘Ali to the king. ‘I don’t consider my claim really against the King’, he said, but admitted that he was petitioning the governor general in the hope of getting some of the money due to him.

  Like others before him, Muhammad Beg was unable to produce account books and, when challenged, slammed out of Peacock’s office ‘in a most insolent manner’. Peacock’s robust response was that if Beg did have the account books hidden away, they would show that his financial dealings were with Safdar ‘Ali and not the king. Wajid ‘Ali Shah seemed bemused by how members of his menial staff could run up such enormous bills against him. Ali Raza, a brother-in-law of Safdar ‘Ali, got 20 rupees a month for his job as caretaker of the Badami Kothi, but claimed he was owed £12,500. ‘How could such persons, indigent, needy, and living on such small salaries as they are, amass vast amounts enabling them to prefer such large claims?’33 the king asked. The sad fact was that anyone who came into contact with the corrupt Safdar ‘Ali could hope to make a small fortune at the king’s expense, and many clearly did.

  An ingenious excuse was proposed by three higher-ranking servants who had written agreements from the king, and therefore stood a better chance as petitioners. One claimed it was out of ‘sheer kindness’ that Wajid ‘Ali Shah ordered goods from them. The servants bought goods in the bazaar, on credit, in their own names, then sold them on to the king as a dealer would do, making a profit of course, but one which the king accepted as a way of boosting their salaries. The old eunuch, Diyanat ud-Daulah, reiterated this. The king had given him a written order, a hukumnamah, to supply him with money to pay day-to-day expenses, and even to erect buildings for him. It was an honour to deal with the traders on the king’s behalf, he said, and of course the accounts were kept in his (Diyanat ud-Daulah’s) name. Any traders trying to claim direct from the king would be quite wrong. ‘How can their such false claim be admitted by the British Court?’34 he demanded indignantly.

  There was much more. Endless petitions in highly flowery language passed in front of Peacock’s bewildered eyes. It seemed that even those servants with written agreements from the king were to be disappointed, for Peacock discovered that they ‘distinctly declare that His Majesty was in no way to be held liable for the transactions of his servants, and clearly show, I think, that the present petitioners have no just grounds’. The governor general agreed and issued his verdict in November 1868. The majority of petitioners admitted that they had no orders from the king to furnish the goods and money for which they now demanded compensation. Their transactions were entirely with Safdar ‘Ali, and therefore they could not claim against the king. They had taken the risk ‘on their own shoulders in dealing with the King’s servants as principals, if they knew of the Agreements. If not, they have fallen victim to the dishonesty of the King’s servants.’ Although there were some mutterings, Lawrence’s statement signalled the end of the matter. It had exposed the king’s naïvety and his vulnerability in what was to him a new world, full of unforgiving Bengali creditors.

  Major Herbert had left Calcutta before the end of the Safdar ‘Ali affair. One of his last tasks at Garden Reach was an unpleasant one. On the morning of Tuesday, 23 June he was informed that Diyanat ud-Daulah had died, shortly after defending his master’s financial dealings. As a eunuch, of course, there could be no descendants, and as an African slave imported into Lucknow, there were no relatives either. But Diyanat ud-Daulah had adopted a young boy, Fida Hossein, as his son. The garden house in which the eunuch died was within the Garden Reach boundary, and thus outside Herbert’s jurisdiction. Nevertheless, Amir ‘Ali called Herbert and reported that Promissory Notes, or bonds, to the value of 67,000 rupees (about £6,700) were missing from the eunuch’s house. Jewellery and cash had also been taken. Herbert grumbled that the police should have secured the house immediately after the death was reported, and he got the Bank of Bengal to put a stop on the Notes. Although Diyanat ud-Daulah’s origins in India were unpropitious (he may have been among the eighteen African slaves sold to Nasir-ud-Din Haider in 1831), his subsequent career was spectacular, as we have seen. He died a wealthy man. He left his house and its land to Wajid ‘Ali Shah, who claimed it anyway, saying it was customary on the grounds that the deceased ‘had been of his household’. The king had also borrowed 34,000 rupees (about £3,400) from the eunuch, which the latter had graciously cancelled in his Will.

  It was quickly established that the thief was none other than Fida Hossein, abetted by Mirza Hossein ‘Ali. Both boys were employed as armed guards at the karbala (shrine) in Lucknow—built by Diyanat ud-Daulah in 1852—and both claimed, although it could not be proven, that they had sent the Promissory Notes to Lucknow to stop Wajid ‘Ali Shah getting his hands on them. The eunuch’s body was taken to Howrah Station, from where it travelled by train to Lucknow to be interred in his karbala.35

  If Amir ‘Ali had not called in Herbert to investigate the theft, then the agent would have been none the wiser. In spite of being a familiar face at Garden Reach and trusted by Wajid ‘Ali Shah, insofar as a
ny British officer could be trusted, Herbert said that he had no way of knowing what was going on behind the high boundary walls of the estate. ‘In case of anything happening to the King of Oudh himself, the Agent might be hours, or even a day or two, before he heard of it, for all would be interested to keep him in the dark as long as possible to carry out their own purposes.’ Herbert imagined that looting on a grand scale would take place on the king’s death. There was a police superintendent at Garden Reach who was supposed to keep the agent informed of ‘police occurrences’, but his salary was paid by the king, and he was ‘as much his servant as other retainers’.36 The whole question of law, order and security at the palaces needed to be examined.

  On Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s release from Fort William in July 1859, it was made clear to him that he would not have the right to ‘exercise jurisdiction or administer justice within the limits of his residence’. As ruler of Awadh he had had ultimate authority over all the kingdom’s administrative departments, including those that dealt with criminal and civil cases. Now it seemed that he was not even to be master in his own house. The governor general admitted that the king had been promised the right to keep order and dispense justice within his palace when Awadh was annexed. But this promise had been made in another world and today, post-mutiny, ‘this privilege can now no longer be conceded to any person, however high his position, who is resident within British territory’.37