Victoria & Abdul

by Shrabani Basu

  The Household was incensed when the article appeared, not least because they themselves were hardly ever noticed or commented on by the European media. Fritz Ponsonby sent the cutting to the Viceroy, Lord Elgin, with the note: ‘I send you a cutting from a French newspaper, apparently the details have been supplied by the Munshi himself.’12

  The Munshi visited Monte Carlo, famous for its casinos, but did not enjoy the place. He wrote in his Journal:

  Article on Karim in a French newspaper, including a sketch of the Munshi.

  My curiosity led me to the gambling saloons, where in the very short time I remained inside, I saw hundreds of pounds change hands. Gambling is not the only vice of Monte Carlo, all kinds of vice are rampant and undisguised. I wonder if this is what the nineteenth century would call civilization. The whole place was utterly disagreeable to me.

  The Munshi was moved by a beggar he saw in Nice who had lost the use of his legs and who had devised an ingenious way of surviving. He photographed the beggar and noted:

  He had lost the use of his legs and had adopted rather a clever plan of earning his alms. He was pulled along in a small basket carriage drawn by two dogs while a third dog was in attendance. The dogs seemed to understand every word the old man said. In fact these dogs obeyed the man better than many a child obeys his father. It used to hold the hat for passersby and at the word of command would run off with hat in mouth to any carriage that stopped within a reasonable distance. These dogs drew the man twelve miles everyday. The beggars had the honour of receiving something from Her Majesty everyday. My admiration for the old man’s clever teaching of these dumb animals causes me to be generous to the old man also, but indeed everybody admired and was kind to these peaceful and obedient dogs.

  When the Queen’s suite moved to Darmstadt in Germany, she gave the Munshi a special note of recommendation to give to her daughter Vicky, Empress Frederick, asking her to show him around the Palace.

  If the Munshi is able to go tomorrow, you wld. kindly remember that he is my Indian secretary and considered as a gentleman in my suite and that as you kindly proposed Herr Walter would show him about & especially let him see the charming House. He can take no meat and only a little milk and fruit cld. be offered him. If Herr V Reischach shld. happen to be at home perhaps he wld just see him for a minute, I hope I am not troublesome?13

  The Munshi enjoyed the Palace and gardens and was particularly struck by the library, which he noted contained ‘many old and valuable volumes’.

  In Darmstadt, the Grand Duke of Hesse presented the Munshi with the Hessian Order of 2nd Class. On their return from Nice, the Queen decorated the Munshi with the CIE (Companion of the Indian Empire). He now wore several medals on his chest at Court functions, including the Star of India (1890) and the Order of the Red Eagle given by the Kaiser in 1890. The Household disapproved thoroughly and tried their best to dissuade her, but the Queen rarely listened to their opinions on the Munshi. Instead, she gushed over him in her usual way, taking a stream of visitors to call upon his wife. When the Munshi’s cat had kittens, the Queen was most excited and informed her ladies-in-waiting. Lady Churchill was interested in having one of them and the Queen scribbled a note to Karim:

  Lady Churchill and Miss Phipps wd. like to call on ‘Mr Munshi’ between 12 and one and the former choose a kitten. This cd. then be sent over to Lady Churchill’s place near here as soon as it can leave its mother.

  If the weather is like today – please come up here at 1/2 p.10.

  If it shd. be hot I wd. telephone down to you not to come up, but to join me at the Tea Cottage.

  Your affte Mother, VRI.14

  In June the Munshi’s mother-in-law fell ill and Reid had to attend to her. Reid once commented that every time he visited the Munshi’s house, a different tongue would be stuck out for him from behind the purdah. Later, Tyler, who was visiting England, was also sent by the Queen to look her up and feel her pulse. ‘He knows the family well and their peculiar nature,’ the Queen wrote to Reid, to explain the visit.

  Reid took the opportunity of Tyler’s visit to have another conversation with him about the Munshi. Even though Tyler had a somewhat tainted reputation following the revelations by the Viceroy and the controversial business of his promotion, Reid took his views on the Munshi seriously and kept detailed notes in his diary:15 Tyler was clearly jealous that Karim – a humble clerk chosen by him – was rapidly going from position to position in the Royal Household and had now been honoured with the CIE. While seated next to Reid at a Household dinner Tyler told him that the Queen had a made a vital mistake in giving the Munshi the CIE, that he was a man of very low origin and of no education and that he was never anything but a ‘Khitmadgar’ in which capacity he was sent to London. Tyler said that the idea of Karim being considered a gentleman was most ludicrous to those who knew him. He also informed Reid that accounts of him published by Rafiuddin Ahmed in Black and White and other magazines were false, and that Rafiuddin was a clever but unscrupulous and dangerous man ‘who ought never under any pretext to be admitted into any of the Queen’s houses’. Tyler said that Rafiuddin used the Munshi as a tool for his own purposes, and that when he had served his purpose, he would be the first man to expose him and turn him into ridicule with the public.

  Fritz Ponsonby, meanwhile, wasted no time in relaying to the sympathetic Elgin the adverse reactions in the government and the Household to the Munshi’s new honour. ‘Mr Fowler [Secretary of State for India] and Lord Rosebery [prime Minister] tried very hard to persuade the Queen not to give the Munshi the CIE but she wouldn’t listen to them.’ While running down the Munshi, Fritz Ponsonby had no qualms in requesting the Viceroy in the same letter to consider his elder brother, John Ponsonby, for a job at his office in India, saying his brother had spent the last two years at the Cape and though he had a ‘slight impediment in his speech, this did not in any way prevent his being able to run Govt House at the Cape single handed’.16

  It wasn’t everybody who was opposed to the Munshi’s CIE, however. The Munshi received a congratulatory letter from Lord Breadalbane, who belonged to the Campbell clan, one of Scotland’s great landowning families with their baronial estate at Taymouth Castle, and was the Lord Steward of Her Majesty’s Household. A copy of the letter was sent to Reid.

  Harcourt House

  Cavendish square

  23/6/95

  Dear Munshi,

  I was so very sorry I did not have the opportunity when at Balmoral of congratulating you on your well earned honor Her Majesty has conferred upon you. A CIE, CSI or CB are all distinctions any one should be proud to possess as they are only given for service and were I ever fortunate enough to have any one of them offered to me, I should feel as I have no doubt you do, proud of such a mark of our Queen’s favour.

  I send you a photo of myself and would much like if you would have some time or send me one of yourself.

  Yr truly

  Breadalbane17

  The Queen and the Munshi remained unfazed by the criticism around them. Both were unaware that Reid was compiling a dossier on Karim and that Fritz Ponsonby was complaining about him to the Viceroy and the Secretary of State, and that letters concerning them were circulating in Whitehall. They were preoccupied with other things that summer. The Empire of India Exhibition was running through the summer at Earl’s Court in London. The Munshi had organised for the two Indian jugglers, who the Queen had enjoyed seeing in Villa Liserb, to come to London for the exhibition. He also arranged for the entire party of 112 members, who had arrived from India and Burma for the exhibition, to visit the Queen at Windsor. One Sunday morning in July, the whole troop came to Windsor. They were conducted across the quadrangle to the Victoria Tower and assembled in a group beneath the windows of the Oak Room, where the Queen acknowledged their presence with a gracious bow. Princess Alexandra and Princess Ena of Battenberg, the Queen’s granddaughters, stood with them in the courtyard. Victoria stood at the window and asked the Munshi to tell
her the names and the different castes of the visitors. She then received one of the natives, a resident of Bombay called Ardesher, who presented her with an exquisitely carved silver rosewater bottle and a bouquet of roses, carnations and maidenhair fern. After offering his gift, Ardesher pronounced an Indian blessing on the Queen. The delegation were then conducted to St George’s Hall and given a tour of some of the state apartments. The Queen was said to be very pleased with the rosewater bottle and the devotion of her subjects.

  Early in September, the Royal train wound its way to Scotland as the Queen journeyed to her Highland home. The Aberdeen Journal reported the arrival of the party:

  The black attendants were, as usual, turbaned and smiling. The Munshi Abdul Karim’s lady arrived in a saloon by the ordinary forenoon train. She was closely veiled, and on her arrival was quickly bundled into a closed carriage. Last year this lady had her first taste of Balmoral, and as may easily be supposed, the climate did not suit her. She had also her first taste of a male doctor, Dr Reid, as he then was, who found some difficulty in diagnosing the case from the hand extended through a curtain for his inspection.18

  The Munshi was not the only one who had been honoured that summer. James Reid had been made a baronet and was now addressed as ‘Sir James’. Over the next few years, ‘Ask Sir James’ became one of the Queen’s constant phrases as the doctor was drawn into various Court issues regarding the Munshi, all quite beyond his duties as a doctor.

  Lady Lytton, widow of the former Viceroy to India, Lord Lytton, now took up employment in the Palace as the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, and she too arrived in Balmoral to take up her duties. As was customary, the Queen wanted to take her to Karim Cottage to see the Munshi’s wife.

  The hills of Scotland reminded Lady Lytton of the mountains in India and she told the elderly Queen this. The Queen spoke to her about her favourite Indian, the Munshi: ‘Her Majesty spoke of the Munshi for the first time, and wished me to see him and his wife,’ wrote Lady Lytton. The Munshi had once been presented to her late husband, Lord Lytton, at Grasse. The Queen had a detailed discussion about India with Lady Lytton and told her that she wished the Muslims would be left alone by the Christian missionaries. Lady Lytton did not quite agree with this view and it left her concerned about whether the Queen discussed these things with the Munshi, which she felt was ‘a risk’.

  Her account of the first meeting with Karim is recorded in her diary:

  The Queen wished me to go and see Mrs Karim and the Munshi at their house, so Miss Phipps came with me. She is a nice little woman and had such a pretty native dress and jewels. He came in very jauntily after a bit and put out his hand á l’Anglaise, so of course we took it, but we did not sit down and we did not stay long.

  I wrote my name in his book where many Royalties have written. I wonder what he writes home to his country?19

  The Munshi’s guestbook was a truly exotic collection of names of various European Royals, diplomats, officials, lords and ladies. His cottage was decorated with many gifts given to him by visiting Royals from the Continent and included an exclusive gold and enamel tea set presented by the Emperor of Russia. Sardar Nasrullah Khan, son of the Amir of Afghanistan, had also given him a walking stick with his monogram in diamonds and rubies mounted on gold in remembrance of meeting Karim at Windsor. The Munshi was now very much part of the Queen’s close circle. At a dinner for the King of Portugal in Balmoral, he was included in the Royal circle with the gentlemen of the Household.20 Lord Wolseley, who had succeeded the Duke of Cambridge as Commander-in-Chief, recounted how on being summoned to Balmoral after his appointment, he was riding up from Ballater station in a hired carriage when he was astonished to see ‘the Munshi drive by taking the air in a Royal carriage’.21

  Back in India, the Munshi’s father was also moving in quasi-Royal circles. As a recipient of the honour of Khan Bahadur, he was invited to the Viceroy’s Durbar in Agra and brushed shoulders with local gentry and Maharajahs. The Munshi’s family members were also promoted, causing a ripple in the Viceroy’s office and annoying Elgin.

  ‘How did it happen – by whose authority that the brother became a tahsildar without examination?’ thundered Elgin, who was already irritated with the Munshi following the Christmas card fiasco and the reports from Ponsonby.

  Of course they will become rich: that doesn’t so much matter: but I feel from the danger lies chiefly in the fact that in India more than anywhere else, the supposed possession of influence may be used to get money out of more or less important people, as that this may be worked not only by the Munshi but by the Munshi’s friends, about whom there is some uneasiness.

  It must be a bother, I am afraid and an anxiety to you, but I hope as have said before, that Sir H Fowler’s view that it is a troublesome but not a serious matter may be verified.22

  Lord Hamilton had barely taken up his new job as Secretary of State for India replacing Henry Fowler when he was being flooded with letters and complaints about the Munshi. He replied briefly to Elgin that he was disturbed to learn about the exaltation of the Munshi’s family and the fact that they had been given promotions.

  In November 1895 Sir Henry Ponsonby died, succumbing to his long illness. The Queen wrote to his daughter Magdalen:

  There is one person who feels your beloved Father’s loss more than anyone, and whose gratitude to him is very deep, and that is my good Munshi Abdul Karim. Your dear father was kinder to him than anyone, always befriending him, and the loss to him is, as he says, that of ‘a second Father’. He could not well go to the funeral tomorrow to his regret, but sends a wreath, and I enclose what he wrote on it as I fear in the multitude of similar wreaths this tribute of gratitude might be overlooked.23

  Magdalen wrote to Reid, enclosing the Queen’s letter, asking: ‘If you think I ought to write to the Moonshi [sic], I will if you think it is expected of me, and that the Q. wishes it. I don’t want to start him as a brother.’ Reid told her not to, saying that the wreath was made in the garden on the Queen’s special command and that she dictated what was to go in it. Yet, there was no doubt that Henry Ponsonby had been kinder to the Munshi than his successor, Arthur Bigge, or his son Fritz Ponsonby would ever be, and the Munshi was aware of this. Karim wrote in his memoirs that Sir Henry was ‘perhaps the best officer that ever served in Her Majesty’s Household … I myself received innumerable favours from him and always found him a true friend and his memory will be held sacred by me as long as I live’.

  As Karim continued to be decorated, rewarded and protected by the Queen, the media became fascinated by him and soon the Munshi featured in lengthy newspaper articles. On 19 December 1895 The Times newspaper carried an article on Karim titled ‘The Queen’s Munshi Follows his Sovereign to Osborne’. In the flowery language of the Royal reporter, it covered the journey made by Abdul Karim and his family, their cat and the canary, across the Solent to Osborne House, describing his unique semi-regal position in the Royal Court.

  The Munshi Abdul Karim came to England as the Queen’s personal attendant and instructor in Hindoostani. Her Majesty, having acquired the language, has promoted Abdul Karim to be her private secretary for India, and he now occupies a position as regards India corresponding to that held for the United Kingdom by the late Sir Henry Ponsonby. He has his own apartments, his personal staff and is admitted to the drawing room with the gentlemen of the court. No longer does the Queen rest upon his arm when moving from room to room, but she rests upon his judgment when she is in communication with the subject princes of the Great Empire beyond the seas and Abdul Karim Knows His Own Importance.

  Yesterday the Queen travelled from Windsor to Osborne. So did AK. For the Sovereign, the Alberta was the detailed yacht, for the dusky secretary the Elfin. Like his Sovereign he is a stickler for secrecy and like her, too, he is very human. He never travels without his Scotch attendant, he has a horror of salutes; and though he courts ceremony it must not be ostentatious. The Queen has her animal attachments and the donkey is h
er favorite; the Munshi takes a lower ground, but his cat and his canary go with him wherever he travels.

  The Munshi stands some six feet in height, speaks broken English in a melodious voice, and interprets to his wife and mother in law who are so veiled and draped as to resemble moving automata, and as they pass down the Elfin they vanish out of sight of the porters, who are the only spectators of the passage of the singular Oriental who has a rooted antipathy to the gaze of the vulgar. Yet to look upon his face and hear his voice one would think that the Munshi could tame lions and silence tigers. But he has an exalted position and fully recognises his own importance. For the Munshi is the only member of the Queen’s personal staff who is allowed to travel in semi-regal state.24

  The Munshi could not have asked for more.

  There were other articles on the Munshi in the newspapers and magazines. Never had an Indian been so profiled in the media. The Munshi pasted one of the clippings from Black in the Queen’s Hindustani Journal as part of his annual year-end entry. The article carried a picture of him and the cottages given to him by the Queen: Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, Arthur Cottage in Osborne and Karim Cottage in Balmoral.

  The article concluded: ‘By the decoration of the CIE just conferred by her Majesty upon the Indian Secretary, is marked the value placed upon his services.’25 The article eulogised Karim and said he was a well-wisher of the people and helped his relations, orphans and the poor, mixed with people of other religions in London and still kept his own faith.