Last King in India: Wajid Ali Shah

by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

  This could almost be a blueprint for justifiying the pension offered to Wajid ‘Ali Shah on the surrender of Awadh and the British notion, repeated down the years that Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s days were numbered too because of his ‘dissolute’ lifestyle. Because it had not been made clear to the peshwa that the annual 8 lakhs pension and his title would cease on his death, his adopted son, Nana Sahib, demanded that both be continued to him. This was refused, in spite of a well-publicised journey to England by the Nana’s advisor, Azimullah Khan, and it was the chief cause of the Nana’s violent revolt at Cawnpore in 1857. It also explains why the government frequently reiterated that the title of ‘king’ would cease on Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s death, together with his pension.

  Other deposed rulers, or rulers who had opposed the Company, generally suffered the same fate. The amirs of Sindh, who were treated even more shabbily than most after Sindh was annexed by the Company in 1843, were exiled first to Poona, then to Calcutta, where they arrived the following summer and settled down at Dum Dum. There was severe criticism in Britain of the Company’s treatment of the amirs and their families. Their state wealth was seized from the treasury, as well as their personal possessions. To mollify public opinion, a generous pension was settled on them and, unusually, those who survived were allowed to return to Hyderabad (in Sindh), arriving home in the summer of 1855.23 Others were not so lucky. The Maharaja Duleep Singh, heir to the Sikh kingdom, was deposed by the Company when he was a young lad of eleven years old. He was exiled from Lahore to Fatehgarh, a small town on the Ganges, above Cawnpore, and put under the guardianship of Dr John Login and his wife before choosing to settle in England.24 The last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, was exiled to Burma accompanied by a few relatives after the failure of the revolt at Delhi in 1857. Conversely, the Burmese royal family arrived at Ratnagiri in the Bombay Presidency after their defeat in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885–6. It all seemed like a gigantic chessboard, with real kings and queens being moved around by British players.

  Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s case was unusual, in that he had not been forced out of Awadh on its annexation. He chose to go to Calcutta, but having got there was not allowed to return to Lucknow.25 Because the Mysore princes, Tipu Sultan’s descendants, were also in exile in Calcutta, comparisons were inevitably made between the head of their family, Prince Ghulam Muhammad, and the newly arrived king of Awadh. The fact that the British agents to the king also acted as agents to the Mysore princes made this easier. Ghulam Muhammad had the advantage of having settled in Calcutta exactly half a century before Wajid ‘Ali Shah arrived. He had built two handsome mosques there in memory of his father. Both still stand today: one in central Calcutta, completed about 1832 and named the Tipu Sultan Shahi mosque, the other on the road to Tollygunge and the Russapuglah suburb where the Mysore princes had settled on their arrival. Here, too, there had been garden houses built for the British, including the present-day Tollygunge Club, originally home to a British indigo planter. The Mysore princes and their families were poorly lodged at first in bungalows, and it was almost entirely due to Ghulam Muhammad that their position improved. He visited England at least twice to plead for increased pensions, bringing gifts for Queen Victoria and her children. He was finally successful in 1860 when the Secretary of State for India, Sir Charles Wood, agreed a one-off settlement of over £500,000, to be invested, with the interest to be a ‘perpetual endowment’ for Tipu’s descendants.

  The size of the sum caused protests both in Britain and Calcutta, but Wood justified it to the House of Commons, pointing out it would solve the family’s financial problems once and for all, and adding that the British government had a ‘moral obligation … to provide in a fair and liberal manner for these persons’.26 During the 1860s the Mysore family thrived, living in Tollygunge and owning land where the Royal Calcutta Golf Club stands today. In addition they bought houses in other parts of Calcutta, including six houses at Alipore which were rented out. A sociable life with the cream of British society was enjoyed too. ‘Prince Gholam Mahomed’s Ball comes off on the 15th and is sure to be most enjoyable’, gossiped The Pioneer in January 1867.27 The Ball was given in honour of the governor general, Sir John Lawrence, and his wife Lady Lawrence, who were greeted at the door by the prince and his son, Feroze Shah. The following month another huge ball took place for the departing lieutenant governor of Bengal, Sir Cecil Beadon, and his wife, when five hundred guests were present. Shortly before his death in 1872, Prince Ghulam Muhammed was awarded the title of Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India by Queen Victoria, an order created after the Uprising to honour Indian chiefs and princes, as well as British administrators.

  None of this went down very well with Wajid ‘Ali Shah. In a prolonged outpouring to the Governor General, the Marquess of Ripon, he bitterly compared his lot with that of the Mysore princes: ‘these pension holders are no other than persons who rose in arms against the British Government and stained their hands with blood, as its avowed enemies. But in my case, it may be truly said that I was created in this world of trial and probation only to obey and carry out the orders of the British Government and I have, to the best of my knowledge, never given it any cause of offence. I surrendered my territories without fighting and bloodshed, and never murmured at the indignity of being placed in confinement in Fort William without any reason. Further, in consideration of the pecuniary assistance which my forefathers rendered to the British Government at times of need, not a farthing was added to my pension. Again ever since the surrender of my Kingdom of Oudh, I have not received a single pice in the shape of interest, on the debts due by the East India Company for which I hold in [my] hands bonds under the signature of preceding Governors General. For these reasons, there is, and shall be, none in all India so much entitled to the kind indulgence of the government in this country, and to the favourable consideration of her Imperial Majesty in England.

  If I had not been made homeless, I should not have come to my present pitiable and distressed condition. Just and impartial historians perhaps have written that I have made a nazar or present of my Kingdom, wealth and all, to Government, in [a] true spirit of allegiance.’28

  No-one reading this today could deny the king’s right. No one reading this today could deny the king’s right to feel angry and cheated. Everything he said was true. But why was he treated so differently from the Mysore princes, with whom he chose to compare himself? The answer is complex and bound up with the attitudes and beliefs of officials at the head of the British government in India, attempting to justify the actions of its predecessor, the East India Company. Prince Ghulam Muhammad’s father, Tipu Sultan, had died a hero’s death, fighting to the last, and was struck down defending his palace at Seringapatam. Although his earlier treatment of captured British soldiers was deplorable, nevertheless there was a recognition at home and in India that his death marked a watershed in the history of Mysore.

  A number of intensely dramatic paintings of the event were exhibited by British artists in the early 1800s, including ‘The Last Effort and Fall of Tippoo Sultan’ by Henry Singleton and ‘Finding the Body of Tippoo Sultan’ by Samuel Reynolds. There was something almost noble, almost classical, in the depiction of the sultan’s death. His palace was comprehensively looted by Company soldiers and sepoys, and relics of the sultan, including clothes, weapons and his throne, were brought to Britain. Perversely, the odd British trait of expressing sympathy for a defeated enemy led to a grudging respect for the manner in which Tipu Sultan met his death. In contrast, Wajid ‘Ali Shah surrendered his kingdom in 1856 without a shot being fired, or indeed any pictorial representations at all, until the Indian director Satyajit Ray filmed the scene for The Chess Players in 1977, a fictionalised account of the annexation of Awadh.29

  Although this timid surrender was highly convenient for the East India Company, who had threatened and plotted it for two decades, it was hardly the stuff of legend. This was compounded by the impression that the king had duck
ed out of going to England in person to plead his cause, and instead had sent his elderly and ailing mother. Although this was not entirely true, as we have seen, it was another black mark against him. By contrast, the urbane Ghulam Muhammad had persuaded the Secretary of State for India to take up his case. The Mysore prince spoke English and was well integrated into Calcutta society. He had no band of exiled courtiers around him. Wajid ‘Ali Shah chose not to compete, but contented himself by sending flowery Persian letters to English royalty and governors.

  Another British trait, not entirely extinguished even today, was a dislike of anything too ‘arty’ or culturally pretentious. This went hand in hand with a robust distrust of intellectuals. Although the king could not claim to be among the latter, he was certainly among the former. The musical events at Garden Reach were not accessible to the British, either physically, because they were not invited, or culturally, because Indian drama and music were not at that time widely appreciated by foreigners. The days when a British Resident could be entertained by a nautch in a rich man’s house were long gone. Wajid ‘Ali Shah had been labelled as a weak and dissolute ruler before he came to the throne. Thus all these feelings—wrong impressions, irrational prejudices, non-comprehension—were added up against him. The very thing that Wajid ‘Ali Shah perceived as a virtue, his obedience to the British government, seemed to count for little. There was also the irritant of his frequently reminding that same government of the huge financial loans made to it by him and his forefathers. No one likes to be reminded that they owe money, not even governments, particularly when the sums cannot easily be paid back.

  Very little sympathy was shown by British officials to Wajid ‘Ali Shah in his declining years. He had become ‘a querulous old man not altogether responsible for the working of his representations’, the governor general was informed in 1886.30 Colonel V. E. Law, acting agent, agreed: ‘The King is not in good health, and at best, looking to the kind of life he has left, cannot have many years of this world left to him … he is very obstinate and very obstructive and very troublesome. But his position was not always what it is now, and whatever liberality may now be shown to him will hardly be a charge in the revenues for many years.’31 The assistant secretary to government at Fort William conceded that ‘The King has been unfortunate in his life and he is a soured and discontented man.’ He was also, by July 1886, ‘very infirm for his age, and, in the last hot season especially, suffered very much from ill-health’.32 Colonel Prideaux, as permanent agent, told Dufferin that ‘instead of being surrounded in his old age by his children and their families, the King lives in the midst of a band of parasites and harpies who on receiving the first symptom of his approaching dissolution, would make it each his business to appropriate what spoil he could’.

  From a photograph of Wajid ‘Ali Shah taken in old age it seems he had never lost any of the weight acquired as a young man. In later life he took no exercise at all and was carried everywhere in a sedan chair, while remaining committed to his hookah and paan. He is reported to have suffered from an anal fistula, causing him to spend many painful hours on the commode. There is not enough written evidence to show the cause of Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s death, but a suggestion that he had been poisoned by one of his ministers can be dismissed. Everyone at Garden Reach knew that with the king’s death their lives, too, would be irrevocably altered.

  Wajid ‘Ali Shah died at 2.00 a.m. on 21 September 1887 in a room on the ground floor of the Sultan Khana, opening into a small court which was full of monkeys and pigeons.33 It was the beginning of Muhurram, the month of mourning. A messenger was immediately sent with the news from Garden Reach to Colonel Prideaux’s home in Alipore Lane. Shortly before 7.00 a.m. the telegraph office in Park Street was opened and the news transmitted to the Viceroy, the Earl of Dufferin, at Viceregal Lodge, Shimla. The first telegram, number 06893 and marked ‘Urgent’, was sent at 6.55 a.m. and read simply, ‘King of Oude died this morning. All quiet.’34 This was followed a minute later by telegram 06894 from the commissioner of police to the Foreign Secretary, Durand, advising him that the ‘King of Oude died last night. Police down there sharp all quiet.’

  The police presence was more to prevent the king’s relatives and servants from looting their late master’s property than to put down any disturbances that might flare up at Garden Reach. Indeed, a newspaper editorial in The Statesman a week before Wajid ‘Ali Shah’s death reported that ‘while he lies abed his attendants seem to be helping themselves to his effects. It is even hinted that his goods are being removed by the cart-load.’35 But there was always the possibility, in the minds of British officials, that trouble could break out now that the head of the little kingdom was no more. The king had been scrupulously monitored during his thirty-year exile. His actual potential for causing trouble was considerably over-rated by the British, but old habits died hard and the fact that the king was now dead too did not diminish, in British eyes, his capability for causing unrest in India.

  Although it had been made quite clear to Wajid ‘Ali Shah that the title of ‘king’ ceased with him, there was the possibility that his eldest surviving son, Prince Qamar Qadr, might take it into his head to declare himself the new king. It was, after all, a short step from being a prince to becoming a king on the death of one’s father. The government had a fear, fuelled by suspicion, that a court-in-exile might be formed at Garden Reach, which already contained hundreds of armed followers. It would have been a huge embarrassment if a focus for malcontents became established no more than five miles from Government House, particularly while its occupant was enjoying the summer in Shimla. The lieutenant governor of Bengal was also absent, having moved to the hill station of Darjeeling for the hot weather. Alerted by Colonel Prideaux, the lieutenant governor also sent a telegram to Shimla, timed at 9.15 a.m. Three-quarters of an hour later, Dufferin received his third telegram of the morning, from Khas Mahal, first wife of the king and now his widow. This was not only to inform the Viceroy of her husband’s death, but to throw herself on his mercy. ‘Now I have no protection but God and Your Excellency and her most gracious Majesty [Queen Victoria] whom God preserve … I trust that my widowed condition will meet with your warm sympathy. Reply prepaid two rupees.’36

  Dufferin did not rise to the bait of the pre-paid reply, but instead telegraphed Colonel Prideaux asking him to convey his sincere condolences to the wives and family of the late king. He also asked Durand to telegraph the news to the Secretary of State for India in London. (A punctilious clerk enquired if the 2 rupees sent by Khas Mahal for the pre-paid reply should be returned to her, and was told not to be silly.) Colonel Prideaux was at Garden Reach by midday, and having assessed the situation, which was indeed ‘all quiet’, telegraphed Durand about arrangements for the funeral, which was to be held that same evening. Prideaux, careful not to waste money on superfluous words, suggested ‘propriety of military escort at funeral of King Oude this evening’. His telegram, 07001, sent from the Garden Reach post office at 12.18 p.m. was marked ‘Very urgent—any precedent?’ Durand telegraphed back that there was no precedent. Indeed, how could there be? There had only been one king in India with a British-bestowed title, and now he was gone.

  Time was too short to consult the Military Department, so Durand advised that there was ‘no political objection to escort if local military authorities agree’. And if they did, then the authorities at Fort William were to act without waiting for further orders. So the king’s body was escorted from Garden Reach along the road towards Calcutta, with all the British pomp that could be mustered at short notice. His corpse had been washed and wrapped in several sheets of fine linen, inscribed in red with verses from the Qur‘an. The funeral procession, lit by flaming torches, started at about 10.00 p.m. as a large crowd gathered outside the gates of the estate. The promised escort of native soldiers was provided by the Loyal Poorbeah Regiment, their weapons reversed in mourning, following the bier which was carried aloft under a green canopy, supported at the four co
rners by spears. A military band played the solemn ‘Dead March’ from Saul, an oratorio by Handel, and this was accompanied by loud wailing and lamentations from the crowd—particularly from the king’s retainers, dressed for the last time in their blue uniforms. The principal mourner leading the procession was the king’s heir, Prince Qamar Qadr. It took the best part of an hour to reach the Sibtainabad Imambarah on Garden Reach Road. A Muslim correspondent for The Statesman described the mood of the crowd watching the funeral cortège pass by: ‘The wailing cries were heard incessantly. The feeling was universal, and it has scarcely ever been my lot to witness so impressive and so mournful a scene. The entire Mahomedan community seemed to have felt a sense of personal calamity in the death of the King of Oudh.’37