Victoria & Abdul
Page 26
The Queen’s maid of honour, Marie Mallet, observed that the Queen gossiped more with the Munshi than she did with the other ladies in the Household. ‘He is ubiquitous here,’ she noted, ‘and I am for ever meeting him in passages or the garden or face to face on the stairs and each time I shudder more …’2
The Queen’s Munshi was described by the Household as ‘repulsive’ and ‘disagreeable’. Even Henry Ponsonby described him and his relatives as the ‘Black brigade’, forcing the Queen to decree that the word ‘black’ was not to be used with reference to the Munshi and the other Indians.
Lady Curzon, wife of the Viceroy, while on a visit to London, made a few deductions about the Household and the Munshi. She wrote to her husband six months after the Munshi had been banished: ‘The Munshi bogie which had frightened all the household at Windsor for many years proved a ridiculous farce, as the poor man had not only given up all his letters but even the photos signed by the Queen and had returned to India like a whipped hound.’ She also missed the presence of the Indian servants and wrote: ‘All the Indian servants have gone back so that now there is no Oriental picture and queerness at court.’3 Lady Lytton, widow of the former Indian Viceroy Lord Lytton and lady-in-waiting to the Queen, was also perhaps one of the few to be fairly sympathetic to the Munshi. Her granddaughter, Mary Lutyens, later edited her diaries and concluded:
Though one can understand that the Munshi was disliked, as favourites nearly always are, it is difficult to believe that he was ‘so personally repulsive’, for Queen Victoria was as sensitive as any woman to male attraction. One cannot help feeling that the repugnance with which he was regarded by the Household was based mostly on snobbery and colour prejudice. There were few English people in those days who would sit down at table with an Indian were he not a Prince.4
The Munshi was certainly no Prince. He aspired to be a nawab, was proud of the decorations that the Queen bestowed on him and soon became incredibly wealthy, but his low birth and lack of formal education did not win him friends from the upper classes.
Looked down upon by Indian Princes like Sir Pertab, the Maharajah of Jodhpur, and alienated from the other Indian attendants, who were jealous of him, he too cut a lonely figure in the Court, with only the Queen by his side. Their last moments together on that January morning in Osborne, as the Munshi stood praying over the Queen’s coffin, captured a tender story. While the King had summoned the Munshi at the very end to pay his respects to the Queen, purely because he disliked him so vehemently, his action only ensured that the Munshi became the last person to see the Queen alone before the coffin was closed. Inadvertently, Edward VII had scripted the perfect ending.
The Viceroy’s office in Calcutta was flooded with mail. The Queen’s death had led to a clamour for a memorial for her. Lord Curzon wrote to Hamilton that the scores of letters he was getting from the native societies or individuals all referred to the late Queen as ‘mother’. He was beginning to realise just how much Queen Victoria meant to her Indian subjects.
‘They truly loved her as a mother, even more than they revered her as a Queen,’ he wrote.5‘All India is seething with a desire to raise some sort of memorial.’ The Viceroy felt the memorial should be some sort of building or structure on a ‘sufficiently noble scale’ that would possess the requisite connections with the Queen’s reign and personality. He felt a central gallery could house the relics of the momentous crises through which the Empire had passed, and capture the ‘thrilling scenes and drastic incidents both of war and peace and the famous men by whom it has been served’. A statue – paid for by public subscription at the time of the Diamond Jubilee – could be placed in the front of the hall.
Curzon energetically set about raising funds for the memorial and addressed a large gathering in the Town Hall in Calcutta on 6 February 1901. He recalled the Queen’s great love for India ‘as no other monarch from a motherland had done’, and said the fifteen Governor Generals who had served under her were witness to this love.
The role of Karim in the Queen’s life also proved an effective fund-raiser for Curzon. The Viceroy told the gathered crowds: ‘As we know, she learned the Indian language when already advanced in years. She was never unattended by Indian servants, and we have read that they were entrusted with the last sorrowful office of watching over her body after death.’ Curzon did not name the man who had helped the Queen learn Hindustani and brought her closer to India. Karim was not invited to the function, though funds were being raised on the basis of what he had achieved.
The Viceroy held forth on the Queen’s love for India. He pointed out that in her two Jubilee processions she had decreed that the Indian Princes, and the pick of her Indian soldiers, should ride in her train. He said:
There are many of those Princes, who could testify to the interest she showed in them, to the gracious welcome which she always extended to them when in England, and to the messages of congratulations or sympathy which they often received from her own hand. But it was not to the rich or titled alone that she was gracious. She was equally a mother to the humble and the poor, Hindu and Mahomedan, man and woman, the orphan and the widow, the outcaste and the destitute. She spoke to them all in the simple language that came straight from her heart and went straight to theirs. And these are the reasons why all India is in mourning today.
The very qualities in the Queen that the Household and the Indian Office had despaired of during her reign were now being used to appeal to the Indians and get them to donate. Barely a few months ago, Curzon had expressed his annoyance at the fuss made over the Maharajah of Kapurthala by the Queen and the fact that she had invited him to Balmoral. ‘It is hopeless for me to endeavour to take a strong line about the unworthy and dissolute members of the princely class, if they receive encouragement and compliance from the Queen at home,’ he had written angrily to Hamilton in November 1900. ‘I am afraid that every Indian prince, whatever his character or personality is invested with a sort of halo in HM’s eyes, and so strong are her sentimental feelings about the matter that I have not of course ventured to say anything about it in writing to her.’6
He had also complained to Hamilton that: ‘At home every man with a turban, a sufficient number of jewels, and black skin is mistaken for a miniature Akbar, and becomes the darling of drawing rooms, the honoured guests of municipalities and the hero of newspapers.’7
Neither had the Household approved of her retinue of Indian servants and her closeness to the Munshi and the trust she placed in him, but these were of no consequence now that the Queen was dead. The fund-raising appeal for her memorial had to rely principally on her love for India and the Indians. Despite a severe famine in India, the cash flowed in. The Maharajah of Gwalior pledged Rs 10 lakhs (Rs 1 million), the Maharajah of Kashmir pledged Rs 15 lakhs (Rs 1.5 million), and the Maharajah of Jaipur pledged Rs 4 lakhs (Rs 400,000) to famine relief and Rs 5 lakhs (Rs 500,000) to the memorial fund.
So quickly were the funds flowing in that a cut-off premium was set at Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) for further donations, though the large amounts already accepted were retained. India was welling with emotion at the Queen’s death and the native Princes and the principalities were all prepared to stretch themselves for a memorial in her name.
Meanwhile, in London, the fund-raising efforts for a memorial were not going half as well and the King appealed to Indian Princes to bankroll the English memorial. This led to a clash with the Viceroy and Curzon decided to put his foot down, saying the Indian funds should be kept for the Indian memorial. By the end of February the Viceroy had collected Rs 1.6 million from the native Princes, and by March this figure had reached Rs 2.3 million or nearly £170,000.
‘The Indian Empire is held by the British crown, partly by the justice and sanity of our administration, partly by personal loyalty to the Sovereign,’ Curzon wrote to Hamilton. ‘No Sovereign will be well advised who does not extend to the uttermost the influence of the latter factor.’8 Ever since the death of the Queen, the Vicer
oy had found himself locked in argument with the King and the India Office over what he thought was the excessive exploitation of the native Princes. He vehemently objected to the proposal by the India Office that the Indian Princes be asked to pay their way to attend the King’s Coronation. He had begun to realise how important the goodwill that the Queen had enjoyed was to the Empire and he did not want the new King rocking it. He also objected to the fact that Indians were being asked to pay for the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught to India, and asked Hamilton whether he thought it was ‘possible or practicable to make us pay for our Royal guests whom we did not invite, but who offered themselves here, at the very moment that you are declining to pay for the Indian guests whom you specially invited to England.’9
Instead of the Princes travelling to England at considerable expense to themselves, Curzon felt it was better to hold a grand Coronation Durbar in India which could be attended by the native chiefs. He received the permission to do so, and the Durbar was held in Delhi between December 1902 and January 1903. Curzon took personal interest in everything, from the setting down of the train track and the design of the plaster to the position of the flower beds. A local newspaper reported: ‘Fifty-six native Indian chiefs arrived in an elephant procession with the Duke and Duchess of Connaught acting as representatives for the King. Curzon spoke for 29 minutes and had to speak slowly as there were 13,000 people in the arena.’
Curzon informed Hamilton that the Duke and Duchess were ‘delighted by everything’. The former accepted a sword of £20,000 from the Maharajah of Jaipur, something that did not please the Viceroy. He noted that there was a ‘general feeling of disgust: for the impression already exists that an Indian chief exists only to be bled’. The present King, noted Curzon, gave presents in India of £20–25,000 and ‘took away presents worth over 1 million sterling’.10
Curzon warned Hamilton that the Royals were prone to freeloading. ‘When the Prince and Princess of Wales come next year, it will be necessary to lay down the strictest of rules. They really must not loot the Chiefs. The Associations, Municipal and Communities will give them excellent gifts.’ Curzon also felt strongly that the Duke of Connaught should not have imposed for three weeks after the Durbar.
Meanwhile, the statue of Queen Victoria arrived in Calcutta by March 1902 and was placed temporarily in the Maidan where it was ‘surrounded by thousands of admiring Natives’. The Viceroy also visited Agra in April 1902 and noted that the monuments being erected there would be the most beautiful. It is not recorded whether the Viceroy met the Munshi while in Agra or whether the Munshi was invited to any of the Viceroy’s Durbars in the city.
The Munshi had built a new house, Karim Lodge, in the heart of Agra, on the land that the Queen had given him. He lived comfortably on his sizeable income and was seen riding through the city in his carriage. Karim Cottage had a grand drive with fruit trees planted around the edges. The walls inside were covered with framed photographs of the Munshi and signed photographs of the Queen and other Royals. The glass cabinets proudly displayed the gifts Karim had received from European Royalty, including the tea set from the Tsarina of Russia, the jewel-embossed walking stick presented by Sardar Nasrullah of Afghanistan and other treasures. There was a silver Diamond Jubilee cup specially engraved for Abdul Karim and presented by the Queen, and a bronze statuette of Karim cast in England in 1890. In the basement of the house were drawers full of elegant personal stationery and correspondence from Karim’s days in the Royal Palaces. Visitors flooded in to see the objects and often Karim could be heard regaling people with his tales about life in Queen Victoria’s Court.
In December 1905 George, Prince of Wales, went on a tour of India and visited Agra, where he was captivated by the beauty of the Taj, and gave an account of it that his grandmother would have so loved to hear: ‘After dinner we paid a short visit to the Taj Mahal which looked quite lovely in the moonlight. It is, I should think, the most beautiful building in the world, the white marble looks so dignified and peaceful and yet so grand, it impressed us immensely.’
The next day he visited it again and spent a good hour and a half examining it ‘most carefully, both inside and out from every point, both near & far & I must say it is the most graceful and impressive building I have ever seen’.
The Prince of Wales also made time to see his grandmother’s favourite Indian, the Munshi. He wrote to his father:
In the evening we saw ‘the Munshi’. He has not grown more beautiful and is getting fat. I must say he was most civil and humble and really pleased to see us, he wore his CVO which I had no idea he had got. I am told he lives quite quietly here and gives no trouble at all. We also saw dear Grandmama’s last four Indian servants who were with her up to her death, they also live here.11
The next day, the Prince of Wales unveiled a statue of Queen Victoria by Sir Thomas Brock which was erected in the centre of MacDonald Park in Agra. ‘With the Fort on one side and the Taj on the other, no more perfect site could have been found, and the statue can be seen a long way off. Dear Old Sir Pertab was quite affected when I unveiled it, as you know how devoted he was to Grandmama,’ said the Prince, who wore full military uniform for the occasion. He did not notice the figure of the Munshi also quietly wiping a tear as the Queen took her place in his city with a thirty-one gun salute fired from Agra Fort and the troops in full attendance. The day-long event ended with a dinner attended by all the leading people of Agra followed by a reception. The Prince described the evening as a ‘tedious affair’. It was one of the last formal engagements with the Royal family attended by the Munshi.
He was not invited to the laying of the foundation stone of the Victoria Memorial Hall by the Prince of Wales in an elaborate ceremony in January 1906, where the ‘whole of Calcutta, both English and Indian’ made an appearance. It was followed by a state ball at Government House, Calcutta, attended by 2,000 people, where the Prince danced till 1.30 a.m. Lord Curzon, the main motivator behind the project, was also not present as he had left for England.
In his letter to his father, George wrote that he had a ‘very successful’ month in Calcutta as it was successful politically as well, given the negative feelings about the British government following the partition of Bengal. ‘Our visit too was most opportune, as the feeling was very strong against the government owing to the Partition of Bengal and it made them think of something else, and the Bengalis most certainly showed their loyalty to the throne in a most unmistakeable manner,’ wrote the Prince of Wales. He also added that he had killed during his month’s stay in India thirteen tigers and four panthers.
The Indian political landscape was changing rapidly. Within three years an Indian was appointed to the Viceroy’s Council to keep revolutionary sentiments against the British in check. The appointment was vehemently opposed by King Edward VII, who wrote a strong protest to Lord Morley, the Secretary of State for India, after he was forced to approve of it. The Prince of Wales wrote to the King: ‘I think it will be fraught with grave danger to our rule in India.’12
In Agra, the Munshi had fallen ill. He had aged quickly over the last few years and was often melancholy. All the material wealth that he had could not compensate for the precious moments he had spent with the Empress of India, the warmth of her presence as she visited his house and had tea with his wife, and the quiet lessons that they had enjoyed together. He spent his last days riding in his carriage to MacDonald Park, sitting by the statue of Queen Victoria and watching the sun set over the Taj Mahal. His mind drifted back to the wintry days in Balmoral, the fresh smell of Highland heather, the sound of the River Dee as it flowed behind Karim Cottage and the feel of the leather-bound volumes of the Hindustani Journals passing through his hands. As the harsh winter turned to spring in 1909, the Munshi died quietly in Karim Lodge with his wife and nephew by his side. The colourful spring festival of Holi, which he had so often described to the Queen, had just been celebrated in Agra.
15
ENDGAME
The Times had carried a small obituary, written by its Lucknow correspondent, briefly giving the Munshi’s duties in the Court and the Queen’s high regard for him.
The Queen reposed the utmost confidence in her Indian secretary. He was made a companion of the Order of the Indian Empire in 1895 and a Companion of the Royal Victorian Order in May 1899 only three years after the institution of the Order. Her Majesty continued her lessons in Hindustani until stricken by her brief final illness … Owing to the pressure of the daily duties of state, she had not the leisure to make rapid progress in this study, but the fact that she understood it and became able both to write and speak the language with some facility gave profound gratification to her Indian subjects.1
Somewhat discreetly the correspondent added: ‘Munshi Abdul Karim was liberally pensioned and returned to India. He lived a quiet estimable life at Agra, his closing years being clouded by indifferent health. He cherished the memory of his illustrious pupil with profound veneration.’