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If anyone was entitled to complain that the British had stolen from India, it was (Duleep Singh) for his precious and sacred diamond, the Koh-i-Noor, had been delivered as a gift from the East India Company in 1849 and was now locked up in the Tower of London. Lord Dalhousie had so rightly and memorably said, 'I regarded the Koh-i-Noor as something by itself, and with my having caused the Maharajah of Lahore, in token of submission, to surrender it to the Queen of England. The Koh-i-Noor has become in the lapse of ages a sort of historical emblem of conquest in India.' The owner of the diamond had been depicted as a beautiful boy by Winterhalter, and his portrait hung on the walls of the Queen's palaces. He had been so entirely assimilated as to have undergone baptism, to have been established as a landowner with a great shooting estate at Elvedon in Suffolk, and to send his sons to Eton. But the svelte youth whose fleeting beauty was captured by Winterhalter had lost his hair and developed a paunch, and as well as becoming an old roue who haunted theatres and bars in London. He was also confronted by death. And he wanted to revert to the religion of his youth. He converted back to Sikhism, and dreamed of reclaiming his old territories in the Punjab. It was a threat which the British authorities took extremely seriously - so much so that when he set off for India by ship, he and his family were waylaid at Aden and sent home again. His long-suffering wife and children went to spend their few remaining thousands of pounds living at Claridge's. The maharajah went AWOL in France, and then,with a false passport, and a chambermaid from a London hotel who was carrying his baby, he set off for Russia to throw himself on the mercy of the Russian Emperor.
In the event, Duleep Singh's rebellion was a damp squib, but it provided an embarrassing sideshow to the Jubilee. The Amritsar police superintendent wired back to the India Office in London that, since the issuing of the maharajah's 'proclamations', 'the behaviour of the Sikhs has quite changed in the villages. They are defiant and insolent now.
Queen Victoria, who had always nursed a soft spot in her bosom for the maharajah, urged her ministers and their underlings in the army and the Secret Service to proceed with gentleness. 'Some kind person should meet him at Paris and set him straight,' she said, 'pacify him and prevent his ruining his children.' She sagely cautioned that it would have 'a very bad effect in India if he is ill used'. Why not give him a peerage, she suggested, 'and then they could live as any other nobleman's family?' The idea fell on Lord Salisbury's deafest of ears. Nevertheless, whenever she could get a letter through to (Duleep Singh), the Queen persisted in calling herself 'your friend and perhaps the truest you have'.
She had always felt awkward about taking the Koh-i-Noor; her fondness for Duleep Singh was personal and strong; and she had, in general, an affection for Indians. The English habits of circumlocution and understatement and suppressing feeling had never been hers. Victoria was revivified by contemplating her Indian subjects, much more so than when listening to the dry-stick pronouncements of Oxford-educated bishops and politicians. Moreover, did not the sacred city of Agra contain the most famous shrine of marital bereavement, the Taj Mahal? It was to Agra that application was made for two Indian servants to join Her Majesty's household.
One of the men selected was Mohammed Buksch, a sort of butler to General Thomas Dennehy, the political agent in Rajputna. The other was Abdul Karim, a clerk to the supervisor of Agra jail.Hearing that he had been chosen to serve as an orderly to Her Majesty, Karim supposed that he would be riding as her escort; this was what 'orderlies' did in the Indian Army. Kitted out in the most splendid uniforms which the best tailor in Agra could run up in a short time - deep red and blue tunics, with matching pugrees or waistbands, white trousers or salwars, and bejewelled turbans - Buksch and Karim were actually being hired to wait at table. They were to be little more than junior footmen, designed to add a little colour to the Queen's entourage as she received the homage of the many Indian dignitaries visiting London and Windsor for the Jubilee.
Only four years after the demise of John Brown (in March 1883), the courtiers had new cause to squirm while, shamelessly eccentric as ever in her choice of favourites, the Queen wallowed in the company of Abdul Karim. Down the corridors of Osborne wafted the delicious aromas of spices which Abdul had brought with him from Agra: cloves, cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg and cardamom drowned out the pong of overboiled cabbage and mutton. To the amazement of the cooks, Abdul Karim had entered the kitchen and prepared the Queen a fine chicken curry, daal and fragrant pilau. She considered it 'excellent' and decreed that curries should be prepared regularly. Coming out of the dining room one day, she had said to Karim, 'Speak to me in Hindustani, speak slowly that I may understand it, as I wish to learn.' She had soon acquired a special scarlet morocco notebook from the royal stationers in which she noted down Hindustani phrases, and she and Abdul began to sit down, while he taught her the language. She arranged for him to have an hour's English lesson each day, so that he could converse with her. He explained to her the differences between Hindus and Muslims - he and Buksch were Muslim. He told her about the conflicts between Hindus and Muslims at Agra. By the time the autumn leaves were falling, the Empress of India found that, in the space of a few weeks, she had learned more of India, its languages, religions and customs, than she had known in seventy years of life.
The courtiers (watched) at first hand the Queen's growing devotion to Abdul Karim, or, as he was now to be called, Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim, the Queen's official Indian clerk and Muslim teacher. ('Munshi' is Hindustani for language teacher and/or secretary.) Other Indian menials were now engaged to wait at table. The Munshi's salary was increased to £144 per annum, and would rise to £250. Her Hindustani was improving. She could now say, 'You may go home if you like', and 'You will miss the Munshi very much' and 'Hold me tight'. Visitors and correspondents were treated to encomiums: 'I take a little lesson every evening in Hindustani and sometimes I miss writing by post in consequence,' she admitted to Vicky. 'It is a great interest and amusement to me. Young Abdul (who is in fact no servant) teaches me and is a vy. strict Master and a perfect Gentleman. He has learnt English wonderfully - and can now copy beautifully and with hardly any faults. He will I hope remain and be vy. useful in writing and looking after my books and things.' The Munshi was 'very intelligent & useful', 'He is so good & gentle & understanding all I want & is a real comfort to me', 'such a good influence with the others…he and all the others set such a good example and so respectable'. She either did not notice, or for the time being chose to ignore the snobbish and racist feelings of the English servants and the courtiers, none of whom liked Karim, and some of whom already felt was John Brown in a turban.
One journal entry made by the Queen during one of her visits to the South of France, in March 1891 (was):'Received bad news from India, of a revolt at Manipur. The Commissioner from Assam, on his way there, was attacked & forced to retreat.' But then, on the very same day, she received a visit from the man who had called upon all 250 million of his fellow Indians to rise up against their Empress:
"I saw, in the small drawing-room below, the poor misguided Maharajah Duleep Singh, who had asked to see me, having some months ago humbly begged forgiveness for his faults & rebellion. He is nearly paralysed down his left side. He was in European clothes, with nothing on his head, & when I gave him my hand, he kissed it, & said, 'Pray excuse my kneeling'. His second son Frederick, who has a very amiable countenance, came over from Nice with him. I made the poor broken down Maharajah take a seat & almost immediately afterwards he broke into a most violent fit of weeping. I took & stroked his hand & he became calm & said, 'Pray excuse me & forgive my grievous faults,' to which I replied, 'That is all forgiven & past.' He complained of his health, & said he was a poor broken down man. After a few minutes' talk about his sons & daughters, I wished him goodbye & went upstairs again, very thankful that this painful interview was well over."
No pain could be felt, by the Queen at least, in the presence of the Munshi, and nor could he be described as broken: indeed, with each promotion and increase in salary, he became plumper and more self-satisfied. In the spring, he developed a carbuncle on his neck, and the Queen kept up a steady flow of letters to Dr Reid: 'The Queen is much troubled about her excellent Abdul, who is so invaluable to her, and who has hitherto been so strong and well. She trusts Dr Reid is not anxious about him? He has always been so strong and well that she feels troubled at the swelling.' Not content to leave the Munshi in the doctor's capable hands, the Queen visited him in his bedroom, which raised a few eyebrows. 'Queen visiting Abdul twice daily,' noted her doctor testily, 'in his room taking Hindustani lessons, signing her boxes, examining his neck, smoothing his pillows, etc.' No one suspected the Munshi, as they had evidently suspected John Brown, of impropriety with the Queen, but they were made anxious by so glaring a departure from the conventional. Queen Victoria was oblivious to conventions when it suited her, and she was besotted with her favourite. To Vicky, she gushed about the portrait of the Munshi which she had commissioned by the Austrian artist Heinrich von Angeli: the artist 'was so struck with his handsome face and colouring that he is going to paint him on a gold ground'.
Fully aware that her children and courtiers would not treat Abdul kindly when she herself left the scene, Victoria determined to provide for him, and wrote to the Viceroy of India commanding him to give 'a grant of land to her really exemplary and excellent young Munshi, Hafiz Abdul Karim, who is quite a confidential servant - (and she does not mean in the literal sense, for he is not a servant) - and most useful to her with papers, letters, books, etc.' Lord Lansdowne was uneasy about the request, since there was no precedent for such a grant being given to an Indian attendant. Land grants were normally only given in recognition of long military service. Then, some old soldier might be given land yielding a rent of, say, 300 rupees a year. Since he was often on tour, covering vast distances, the viceroy did not put the grant of land to the Munshi high on his list of tasks, but his sovereign did not allow him to forget it, and throughout that summer she sent a regular stream of letters and telegrams, insisting that the Munshi be given land yielding at least 600 rupees. Land was eventually found in the suburbs of Agra, and she also made it plain to Lord Cross, the Indian Secretary in the Cabinet, that the Munshi must be recognized officially as the Queen's Indian Secretary. It was a remarkable rise for a man still in his twenties, and who had only been hired so short a while previously as a waiter.
VICTORIA: A LIFE
Author: A N Wilson
Publisher: Atlantic Books;distributed by Penguin Books India
Pages: 656
Price: Rs 999
Excerpted with permission from Penguin Books India
