By John Zubrzycki
(Author of The Last Nizam and The Mysterious Mr Jacob)
Most of the books I read are either biographies or histories. A great deal of course depends of how they are written but I find both genres equally enjoyable. When it comes to putting pen to paper, however I prefer concentrating on the lives of individuals. For me biographies add a special dimension to the study of history. As the American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger pointed out, political leaders, whether they be presidents or prime ministers are not supermen but human beings, “worrying about decisions, attending to wives and children, juggling balls in the air, and putting on their pants one leg at a time”.
I for one am constantly searching for the next eccentric figure living an extraordinary life in an exotic setting to write about. But writing about such a figure without describing the historical milieus in which they lived would be a futile exercise - we would get only half the story. For me the great satisfaction in writing biographies is that not only to do I get to pluck often obscure or misunderstood figures from the past and bring them to life, I get to read about the historical tide they were swimming with or struggling against.
Biographies, of course, do not have to be about great heroic figures such a Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru or Barack Obama. They can be about people from all walks of life and social classes. Indeed the lives of less-exalted and ordinary people can give us extraordinary insights into the ways in which particular institutions and events and larger-scale social, economic and political developments were felt, experienced and understood by those who lived through them.
A biographical approach in history, therefore offers an important addition to the understanding societies and historical eras.
So far I have written two biographies about two very different individuals.
Alexander Jacob and Mukarram Jah never met. Jacob died in obscurity in 1921, whereas Mukarram Jah was not born until 1933. But their lives intersected right here in Hyderabad. It was Mukarram’s Jah’s great grandfather, Mahboob Ali Khan, who tried to purchase what was then known as the Imperial Diamond from Jacob in 1891.
While I will be concentrating on the legacy of the Nizams, I do want to briefly is to compare and contrast these two fascinating individuals. What struck me most when researching the pasts of Alexander Jacob and Mukarram Jah was their relationship to the events around them. Whereas Jacob took advantage of the social and historical milieu -- the West’s fascination with the occult and Eastern mysticism, the weakness of Indian rulers for what the British dismissed as “pieces of sparkling vanity” and the geopolitical tensions stirred up by the Great Game, Mukarram Jah was very much a slave to his dynasty’s past and the tumultuous changes that took place during his lifetime. Jacob exploited every opening he could find, whereas Mukarram Jah found himself at times exploited by those around him.
Jacob turned his skills at performing sleights of hand into a reputation for the being the greatest wonder worker of his time, a man credited with making grapes grow out walking sticks and projecting past lives onto the walls of his dining room. He turned a rudimentary knowledge of precious stones acquired as an apprentice at a small British firm in Calcutta into the most famous jewellery and antique business on the subcontinent. And he took full advantage of the Raj’s lack lustre intelligence gathering network to position himself as a spymaster of sorts to the British.
Mukarram Jah, was the exact opposite turning down the many openings that came his way. He refused to capitalise on his religious status (he is still revered by some Muslims as the Caliph of Islam), his political pulling power or the opportunity to invest his wealth productively. Quite a few Indian princes turned their palaces into hotels, ran for Parliament or became entrepreneurs. Jah bought a half million acre sheep station in one of the most remote parts of Australia and decided to live like a hermit.
So how did it come to pass that Mukarram Jah would swap the greatness of Hyderabad for a kingdom of kangaroos and acacias. The answer lies not only in Mukarram Jah’s unique personality but also in Hyderabad’s history.
As we all know the Asaf Jahis were one of the greatest ruling dynasties in India. Hyderabad was the largest, richest and most powerful state and the most important centre of Islamic culture and learning east of Mecca. The groundwork for this extraordinary dynasty was laid by someone i regard as one of the most interesting figures of 18th century India, Nizam ul-Mulk.
First known as Qamruddin, Nizam ul-Mulk, was just six years old when he was brought to the Emperor’s court in Agra by his father in 1677. According to the Imperial records Aurangzeb told his father: ‘The star of destiny shines on the forehead of your son.’
That destiny was to see the young Qamruddin carve a new state out of the chaos that accompanied the disintegration of the Moghul empire following the death of Aurangzeb in 1707. After a decisive battle in 1724 in which he defeated his main rival Mubraiz Khan, the emperor Muhammad Shah bestowed on Qamrudddin the highest title that be be awarded to a subject of the Mughal empire, that of Asaf Jah, or the Equal to Asaf, the Grand Wazier in the court of the biblical ruler King Solomon.
What I find fascinating is that Nizam ul-Mulk never formally declared his independence and insisted that his rule was entirely based on the trust reposed in him by the Mughal Emperor to whom his swore eternal loyalty. The Nizam’s dominions yielded an income that was almost equal to the rest of the Mughal empire, yet there was no throne, no crown and no symbol of sovereignty. Coins were still minted with the Emperor’s name until 1858. It was in the name of Mughal ruler and not the Nizam that prayers was read out in the Khutba or Friday Sermon.
As the Viceroy of the Deccan, the Nizam was the head of the executive and judicial departments and the source of all civil and military authority. Assisted by a Diwan the Nizams drafted their own laws, raised their own armies, flew their own flags and formed their own governments, but they refused to adopt the title of king even when it was offered to them by the British in 1810. It was not until India was granted its independence in 1947 that the Seventh Nizam, Oman Ali Khan, formally claimed to be a ruler in his own right. But by then it was too late for a sovereign Hyderabad to coexist with a free India. Its independence lasted less than 400 days.
Nizam ul Mulk’s first priority was to consolidate his empire and establish security which was constantly under threat from rapacious highway robbers, Marathas and zamindars. In 1739 he answered a desperate plea from Mohammed Shah for help to prevent the invasion of Delhi by the Persian conqueror Nadir Shah. Nizam ul Mulk was unable to prevent the march on Delhi but he was able to stop what would have been the complete annihilation of the city by Nadir Shah’s troops using a Persian couplet to appeal to the ruler’s sense of justice.
Ironically Nizam ul Mulk would become a beneficiary of Delhi’s downfall as the steady stream of exiles from the Mughal capital to the Deccan became a flood. Administrators, artisans, musicians, poets and religious teachers were welcomed into the Nizam’s court. Despite the unrest that spread through his Dominions in the final years of his rule, Nizam ul-Mulk is remembered as laying the foundation for what would become the most important Muslim state outside the Middle East in the first half of the 20th century.
Just days before he died in 1748, Asaf Jah dictated last will and testament. The document was a blueprint for governance and personal conduct that ranged from advice on how to keep the troops happy and well fed to an apology for neglecting his wife. He reminded his successors to remain subservient to the Mughal Emperor who had granted them their office and rank. He warned against declaring war unnecessarily and he urged fiscal restraint. There is enough money in the treasury to last seven generations -- if properly spent.’ he said. Finally, he insisted: ‘You must not lend your ears to tittle-tattle of the backbiters and slanderers, nor suffer the riff-raff to approach your presence.’
Had the wishes of the First Nizam been followed not only until the reign of the Seventh Nizam but until today it would have moulded a very different dynasty from the one that would totter between plenty and penury and be constantly prey to slander and court intrigues. Rather than building on the foundations that Nizam ul-Mulk had laid for statehood, his successors began tearing it down. Power hungry rulers obsessed with their own comfort, security and wealth, conveniently forgot the more salient points of Nizam ul-Mulk’s testament. His warnings about the folly of wars fought for the sake of conquest were ignored. His belief that the income of the state would last seven generations did not anticipate the firesale of territories and their revenue that his heirs were forced to undertake for the dynasty to survive.
The British and the French were well placed to take advantage of the chaos that followed Nizam ul-Mulk’s death. The crumbling might of the Mughal empire had stirred their empire-building ambitions. The first Nizam had maintained a strict neutrality in his dealings with the European powers, perceiving correctly the danger of becoming a pawn in hostilities that were being played out half a world away. But that advice too was forgotten as his sons fought over the spoils of empire, losing much of their territory in the process.
Into this unfolding scenario stepped Richard Wesley -- an uncompromising empire-builder who between 1798 and 1804 expanded the company’s holdings from a few small pockets of territory to most of southern India, the entire eastern coastal strip, all of Bengal and parts of northern India. By the end of his reign as governor general British troops would be in occupation in Hyderabad and Pune and Residents stationed at every native court.
The crowning point of Wellesey’s career was the Treaty of Perpetual and General Defensive Alliance signed on October 12, 1800 with the second Nizam, Nizam Ali Khan. The treaty was a masterstroke of British diplomacy. It gave the British complete control over the Nizam’s external affairs without imposing on them any stringent or matching obligation. By signing the Treaty, the Nizam signed away his status as an independent ruler for the next 150 years. The treaty guaranteed the integrity of the Nizam’s dominions against all threats. But the Nizam was forbidden to enter into any negotiations with an eternal power without reference to the Company’s Government.
By 1803, when Nizam Ali Khan was succeeded by Sikander Jah, the real power in the state lay in the hands of the British resident. The Resident was in many ways a ruler in his own right maintaining Britain’s supremacy, approving executive appointments and ensuring, with varying degrees of success, that the local administration was efficient and free of corruption.
Of Britain’s residents, a number like James Kirkpatrick whose liaison with Khair un-Nissa was so wonderfully described by William Dalrymple in the White Mughals, were enlightened men who spoke fluent Hindustani and Persian, wore Mughal-style dresses at home, smoked hookahs, chewed betel-nut and became so enamoured of Hyderabad’s rulers. Others like Henry Russell were fierce critics of all the Nizam stood for.
I want to spend just a little time on period when Russell was resident in the 1810s as for me it represented perhaps one of the lowest points in Hyderabad’s history and in many ways was a dress rehearsal for what happened a century and a half later when Mukarram Jah took on the mantle of Nizam.
Vain, ambitious and corruptible, Russell had arrived in Hyderabad in 1801 as an assistant to Kirkpatrick. He had little time for the Nizam, who he believed presided over a system that ‘was rotten to the very core. He was also a strong supporter of Chandu Lal a Hindu moneylender who became the defacto diwan in 1809. From then until his resignation in 1843 Chandu Lal exerted more influence over Hyderabad than any other individual, obliging both the British and the Nizam through the reckless expenditure of Hyderabad’s revenues that in the process nearly sent the state broke.
When the third Nizam Sikander Jah demanded that Russell sack Chandu Lal, he was so stung by this rebuke that withdrew to the Chowmahallah Palace and took no further role in the administration of the state. The seclusion was so complete that four years elapsed before he ventured outside the palace on the pretext of going on a hunting expedition with his harem and 4000 foot soldiers. The Nizam’s seclusion only served to strengthen Chandu Lal’s position in the court. The defacto Diwan became the sole authority for the conduct of any business at the royal court. He also became the lynchpin in Russell’s ingenious plan to strengthen the Company’s stranglehold over Hyderabad while enriching himself in the process.
In 1812 two battalions of the Nizam’s army mutinied, and threatened to blow their British commanding officer out of the mouth of a cannon unless they were paid on time and their offences pardoned. To Russell the episode underlined the need to professionalise the Nizam’s forces. With the help of Chandu Lal, he established the Russell Brigade. Chandu Lal made sure that payment for the Brigade came from the state treasury. As the Brigade grew so did its cost. The commander was paid £5000 a month and like other officers received a house and free servants. Keeping a cut for himself. Russell kept on creating fresh posts for new applicants until the proverbial expression in Hyderabad became ‘Poor Nizzy pays for all.’
However poor Nizzy could not pay for all without borrowing money and here again Russell and Chandu Lal came up with the perfect solution, namely to allow the establishment of a banking firm known as William Palmer and Co. Under the arrangement the Nizam’s treasury borrowed money from Palmer & Co to pay the troops of the Russell Brigade to the tune of 4 million rupees a year, or roughly half the entire tax revenue of the state. Palmer & Co then paid the troops and recovered what they had spent plus interest, which was charged at 24 per cent from villages mortgaged by the Nizam. Forced into paying for troops he had no control over and little if any use for, the Nizam was soon caught in a dangerous debt trap. By the end of the 1810s the Nizam owed Palmer & Co a staggering 6 million rupees.
Charles Metcalfe who became Resident in 1820 was so shocked by what he saw that he wrote : ‘I can hardly imagine a situation more entitled to pity, or more calculated to disarm criticism, than that of a Prince so held in subjection by his servant under the support of an irrepressible foreign power.’
I'm not saying that all of Hyderabad's rulers responded to the unequal power structures the British imposed on them in the same way as Sikander Jah. Hyderabad benefited from the foresight and experience of Salar Jung, the prime minister from 1853 until 1883 who steadied the state's finances and introduced important administrative and fiscal reform. Mahboob Ali Khan was so revered by the population he was nicknamed the beloved. And Osman Ali Khan was credited with transforming Hyderabad into a semi-modern state through his vast public works, the creation of educational institutions such as Osmania University and reforms.
But there was a certain pattern that marked the workings of the royal court for much of its history. Hyderabad's rulers did everything possible to keep the government of the day off their back while leaving the administration of the state to their own handpicked lieutenants, who were often untrustworthy or incompetent. This hands-off approach encouraged corruption, the siphoning of assets to corrupt officials and a general unwillingness to rein in extravagant expenditure and address basic cash-flow problems. These sycophants kept their rulers in the dark, knowing that their interests were best served by pretending that everything was in order.
When Mukarram Jah was crowned the 8th Nizam in 1967, very little of this medieval character changed. Despite two decades of being groomed in the finest British public schools, universities and military academies and at one point being placed under the guidance of India’s foremost statesman, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jah was totally unprepared for the responsibilities expected of him. He had few friends in Hyderabad, and was more at home listening to jazz at London nightclubs than to ghazals in the great hall of the Chowmahalla palace.
The burden of history weighed heavily on Jah right from the beginning. In 1948, When he was just 15 years old Hyderabad it’s lost independence in the police action. In 1971 Indira Gandhi would abolish the privy purses. India’s tax officials were determined to get a slice of the whatever revenue they could from his vast estate.
Jah also had to misfortune of coming from a rather dysfunctional family. In an arranged marriage meant to cement ties between the world's two most important Muslim families Jah's father and uncle were matched with the daughter and niece of the last Ottoman caliph, Abdul Mejid. For Osman Ali Khan, Jah's grandfather this arrangement was more than just an alliance of convenience. The offspring of such a union would be the next Caliph of Islam.
Jah's father Azam, however, proved to be a poor role model spending much of his time accumulating vast gambling debts and neglecting his wife, the beautiful Durrushevar. The situation became so intolerable that Osman Ali Khan disinherited Azam and decided that the princely crown be passed onto Mukarram Jah instead.
When the seventh Nizam died, Jah aged 33 was tasked with sorting out what was, at the time, the largest inheritance in the world. Unable and unwilling to manage such a vast estate with its 14,700 servants, hundreds of aging concubines and inestimable quantities of jewels and antiques stashed away in dozens of decaying palaces, he bought a half- million-acre sheep station in Western Australia where he could indulge in his real passion—driving bulldozers through the desert.
Unfortunately Jah was destined to repeat all the mistakes of his forefathers. Instead of retreating into his palace for four years without emerging like Sikander Jah, he escaped to the Australian Bush. He left the administration of his vast inheritance to a succession of Chandu Lal’s -- largely corrupt and incompetent officials who over the years would do their best to hide the real financial position of the estate from him, the prying eyes of bankers and insatiable tax officials. Substitute the Bank IndoSuez in Geneva for Palmer and Co and I think you are being to see a pattern. Of course not all those who advised Mukarram Jah in these early years can be categorised in this way. Indeed I met many of his friends who warned about what was happening.
As we now know by the late 1980s, Mukarram Jah was in serious financial trouble, His first impulse was to auction off part of the crown jewels which included what was now known as the Jacob diamond. Unfortunately, his grandfather had put the crown jewels into various trusts precisely to guard against them being squandered in this way. The trustees decided to give the Indian government first option at buying the Jewels. Not surprisingly, New Delhi was offering only a fraction of the estimated 6 to 7 billion rupees the 173 pieces would fetch on the open market and it would not be until 2002 that Jah would pocket his share of the proceeds of the sale. But, by then, it was too late. In 1996, after being forced to sell his sheep farm to cover his debts he left Australia and went to Turkey.
So was Mukarram Jah just a slave to history or did his personality have something to so with it. I do believe is that his upbringing played a role. His mother Durrushevar wanted to give him the best education and training, but she also estranged him from his Indian roots. But his grandfather Osman Ali Khan also played a role. Time and time again when Durrushevar insisted that her son be given a normal education among his peers at say the Doon school, Osman Ali Khan found some pretext to send him back to Hyderabad where he would attend one of the small palace schools. As Philip Mason, who briefly tutored Mukarram and his brother Muffakham, wrote in his memoir A Shaft of Sunlight, Durrushevar wanted them preserved from the corruption that grew from continual flattery and from wealth without responsibility. There was no one in the whole state who would say no to them except their mother, who was not always around, and their grandfather, who they rarely saw.
Bilkees Alladin, who lived behind Mukharram Jah’s Banjara Hills house told me how she had once seen him spending all day and night in the garage under one of his cars. “He never made out he was royalty. It was frustration probably. The set up here was very medieval,” she said to me.
I couldn’t end this talk without mentioning something of Mukarram Jah’s legacy. It is unfortunate but true that Hyderabad’s architectural and cultural heritage is poorer for the fact that he didn’t remain here prevent palaces being encroached on or pulled down and tonnes of priceless antiques ending up in the catalogues of southeby’s and Christie's when they should have stayed in India.
Luckily that neglect is being rectified. I have yet to see the Chowmahalla Palace since the completion of its renovation. But from what I have read Princess Esra and her team of restorers deserve the highest praise from making it into one of the finest museums in India. The Falaknuma of course is now one of the world’s most luxurious hotels and I understand that steps are even being undertaken to renovate the King Kothi palace.
Hyderabad’s potential as an IT hub and industrial powerhouse has clearly been realised. Now its cultural heritage needs to be brought to the fore. If my book has helped even in a slight way of raising awareness of the this city’s enormous potential in that regard then I am honoured.
(Full text of speech delivered by the Australian author at Maulana Azad National Urdu University on February 1, 2013)
Like everyone else, many Muslims find the 13 minute Islamophobic video "Innocence of Muslims" trashy and offensive. Protests have spread quickly, tapping into understandable and lasting grievances about neo-colonialist US and western foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as religious sensitivities about depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. But the news coverage often obscures some important points: 
