Last Nizam (9781742626109) Read online

  Despite the unrest that began to 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 by the first half of the twentieth century. ‘History has done scant justice to his achievements,’ reads one modern account of his legacy. ‘He was not only in command of armies, but was indeed a leader of men. He not only founded a State, but also organised and established it.’ The endless platitudes heaped upon him include his loyalty and bravery, his skills as a poet and scholar as well as his ‘political sagacity and statesmanship of a high order’.37

  When compared with his successors the First Nizam’s achievements were indeed remarkable; but it would take another century before Hyderabad recovered from the misrule that followed his death. Henry George Briggs was more critical in his assessment of Nizam ul-Mulk than most Indian historians, but he was still impressed by his stature:

  If pliableness of will, unparalleled duplicity and utter unscrupulousness constitute the necessary elements to greatness, Nizam ul-Mulk possessed them in a degree passing belief. But it must be remembered that Nizam ul-Mulk lived at a time and in a country where men gloried in excelling in these qualities . . . Nurtured and trained at the court of Aurangzebe, it is not strange that Nizam ul-Mulk should have been both wily and unscrupulous; nor yet that, like his royal master, he should have exercised his devotions to austerity; but unlike Aurangzebe, he was an affectionate parent and his attachment to his friends was both sincere and steady. He left a legacy to his posterity whi ch the rebellion of 1857 has made ‘the greatest Mohammadan power in India’.38

  CHAPTER 2

  In the Court of Hyderabad

  NIZAM UL-MULK OUTLIVED EIGHT Mughal Emperors and achieved victory in all but one of the 87 battles he fought in his lifetime. As the Viceroy of the Deccan he had freed himself from all but the most nominal dependence on his masters and grew more powerful than the rulers of Delhi. But for all his foresight and skills as a ruler, there was nothing he could have done to prevent the fratricidal power struggle that broke out after his death.

  Muslim law does not set down any rules for the succession of sovereigns. Under the Mughals it was not the eldest son who inherited the throne, but the son or grandson with the longest sword and the strongest army. In the case of the Nizams, the succession process was further complicated by the fact that no distinction was made between legitimate and illegitimate offspring.1 Discord and strife would remain a feature of the dynastic succession in Hyderabad well into the twentieth century, when the state had been reduced to a few crumbling palaces and rusty safes stuffed with gemstones and jewellery. Even today Hyderabad’s courts are clogged with cases filed by Mukarram Jah’s relatives demanding their share of the fortunes allegedly lying in Swiss vaults and overseas bank accounts.

  Had the wishes of the First Nizam been followed 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. Several times over the course of the next 150 years Hyderabad would teeter on the verge of bankruptcy. Suspicion, jealousy and manipulation became the lifeblood of the Nizams’ entourage. Looking back at seven generations of dynastic rule, one observer wrote: ‘They seemed to carry with them an echo of Mughal Emperors long dead or whisperings and betrayals in the Red Palace of Shah Jehan.’2

  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. Founded in 1600, the East India Company by now had a presence in three provinces. Madras had been acquired in 1640 from the Vijayanagar king, Bombay was part of the dowry of Charles II’s Portuguese queen and Bengal was a lonely group of villages on the Hoogly River. Essentially they were trading posts or ‘factories’, but by the end of the eighteenth century they would be transformed into fully fledged outposts of the empire. Events in the Deccan would be the trigger for the East India Company’s transformation.

  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 did not stop them from trying to engage him. In March 1742, the British who were based in Fort St George in Madras sent a modest hamper to Nizam ul-Mulk in recognition of his leadership of the most important of the Mughal successor states. Its contents included a gold throne, gold and silver threaded silk from Europe, two pairs of ‘large painted looking glasses’, an ‘equipage for coffee cups’, 163¾ yards of green and 73½ yards of crimson velvet, brocades, Persian carpets, a gold ceremonial cloth, two Arab horses, half a dozen ornate rose-water bottles and 39¾ chests of rose water – enough to keep the Nizam and his entire darbar fragrant for the rest of his reign. Careful to maintain his distance, the Nizam sent in return just one horse, a piece of jewellery and a note warning the British they had no right to mint their own currency, to which they meekly complied.3

  In 1747 Nizam ul-Mulk listened favourably to their complaint that the ‘insolent and perfidious’ French were subjecting innocent English traders to ‘robberies, cruelties and depredations’. He immediately instructed one of his governors, the Nawab of Arcot, to ‘protect, aid and assist the British in all respects, and use your best endeavours in such a manner that the French may be severely chastised and rooted off’.4 His son, Nasir Jung, fired off an even stronger missive to Joseph Dupleix, the French Governor of Pondicherry, warning him of ‘severe punishment’ if he did not comply.5 Dupleix had arrived as Governor of Pondicherry in 1742 after serving as a commercial director in the small French trading post of Chandernagar in Bengal. ‘Vain, irascible and pompous’6, he was the first European to recognise the opportunities for the Western powers to take advantage of what would be a 14-year-long war for control of the court of Hyderabad following the First Nizam’s death.

  Nizam ul-Mulk left six sons and one grandson fighting for their right to succeed him. It was Nasir Jung who made the first move, seizing the treasury and claiming the title of Nizam that he had coveted ever since he had crossed swords with his father in 1741. Nasir Jung was described as ‘high-spirited, but tenderhearted’, qualities which at the time did not make for a long life-expectancy. According to James Grant Duff, the nineteenth-century author of the iconic History of the Marathas, Nasir Jung was also a poet and a lover of literature and would have become a ‘gallant knight and an accomplished gentleman’ if only he had partaken of a dose of ‘European education’. However, Grant Duff concluded pessimistically that he ‘was totally destitute of his father’s prudence and if successful in his fortunes would probably have sunk into a Mahommedan sensualist’.7

  Still smarting from having their pride insulted by Nasir Jung, the French backed Nizam ul-Mulk’s grandson, Muzzafar Jung. Unlike his scheming uncle, Muzzafar Jung was said to be ‘a brave and gallant youth, with noble promise of making a great and good monarch’.8 He also had the advantage of being Nizam ul-Mulk’s nominated heir.

  The attributes of the two men, however, mattered little to the British and the French, whose main concern was extending their influence in whatever way possible. For the first time, peaceful traders of two countries so far removed from India that it took six months for news to arrive, went into battle on opposite sides. With the help of soldiers of fortune from as far afield as America, Ireland and even Armenia, Britain and France would pla
y a vital role in consolidating the warring armies of India. Introducing European methods of training, attack and defence, they demonstrated how small corps of highly disciplined troops could accomplish in well co-ordinated strikes what had once taken enormous Mughal armies months or even years to achieve. They ranged from lofty aristocrats such as Benoit de Boigne, who entered the service of the Maratha ruler Madhaji Sindia, to the Irish deserter George Thomas, who fought against Sikh brigands, became a land-pirate, drank copiously and ‘kept a zenana of charming girls’.9

  The forerunner of this motley crew cut an unlikely figure. Stringer Lawrence was a stoutly built man with a protruding stomach, double chin and heavy jowl who arrived at Fort St George on 1 January 1748. An ex-navy captain, he had been brought out of retirement by the East India Company at the age of 50 to take command of the Madras garrison and had been given the rank of major. Lawrence is credited with being the creator of the Company’s army in southern India by training English and Indian troops to become a small but competent military machine. One of his disciples was Robert Clive, who went on to become one of the Company’s most successful generals and the master of Bengal.

  Now that the British had thrown their support behind Nasir Jung, Lawrence assembled a small English force backed by 300,000 native troops and marched to the fort of Gingee to await the forces of Muzzafar Jung. Built on a number of hills in the form of a circle and connected by strong walls, Gingee had withstood a 12-year siege by Aurangzeb and was considered the most impregnable fort in southern India. Mutinous, and convinced of Nasir Jung’s military superiority, the French force supporting Muzzafar Jung refused to attack and retreated to Pondicherry. Muzzafar Jung, however, remained behind after being told that his uncle had promised forgiveness and had sworn on the Koran not to take his nephew prisoner; but on approaching Nasir Jung’s camp he was seized by guards and placed in chains in a tent.

  Muzzafar Jung’s capture, and the ignominious retreat of the French forces along with most of their native troops, looked like the end of Dupleix’s ambition to make himself ruler of southern India. The flamboyant Frenchman now faced a huge force under the command of an angry Nasir Jung and supported by a strong body of British troops. But whatever setbacks Dupleix faced on the military front were more than countered by his political genius and unique insight into how to exploit local Indian authorities to his advantage. Through well-placed spies he soon learned that all was not well in Nasir Jung’s camp. The nawabs of Cuddapah, Kurnool and Savanur were dissatisfied with his treatment of Muzzafar Jung. The British were frustrated by Nasir Jung’s refusal to appoint their nominee as Nawab of Carnatic and had recalled most of their forces to Fort Saint David. Believing the campaign to be over, Nasir Jung sent most of his troops back to Hyderabad while he went to Arcot on a hunting expedition. Seizing the moment, Dupleix sent a small force of 250 Europeans and 4200 sepoys under the command of diplomatist and soldier Charles de Bussy to attack Gingee. Instead of attempting a regular siege, de Bussy stormed the fort, taking its defenders by surprise, and with only four guns obtained the surrender of Nasir Jung’s forces.

  Stung by the defeat, Nasir Jung assembled a 60,000-strong force to retake the fort, but Dupleix had yet to play all his cards. As the two sides negotiated the release of Muzzafar Jung, Dupleix was exploiting the discontent among the nawabs in Nasir Jung’s camp while secretly preparing an attack. When the French force arrived, Nasir Jung put on a white tunic and rode unarmed on his elephant to the camp of the Nawab of Kurnool, Himmat Khan, demanding that his men join him and fight their common enemy. As instructed by Dupleix, Himmat Khan refused to move, and when Nasir Jung called him a coward the nawab and his watchman ‘discharged their guns into [Nasir Jung’s] breast and sent him at once to paradise’.10

  With Nasir Jung now out of the way, the French took Muzzafar Jung to Pondicherry, where, on 26 December 1750, ‘amid exultation and festivity’, the firing of salutes and the singing of the Te Deum, he was proclaimed the new Nizam.11 Muzzafar Jung’s inauguration at Pondicherry rather than Hyderabad was a deliberate act. Dupleix wanted to remind the Muslim world that power had passed from the Viceroy of the Deccan to the French. ‘This was but the beginning of the greatness of Dupleix,’ wrote one of his early biographers, Thomas Macaulay. ‘The new Nizam came thither to visit his allies and the ceremony of his installation was performed there with great pomp. Dupleix, dressed in the garb worn by Mohammedans of the highest rank, entered the town in the same palanquin with the Nizam and in the pageant which followed took precedence of all the court.’12

  In return for France’s assistance Muzzafar Jung bestowed honours, treasure and land upon Dupleix and declared him Viceroy of the whole of southern India from the Kistna River to Cape Comorin. Dupleix now ruled 30 million people with almost absolute power. No honour or emolument could be obtained from the government but by his intervention. No petition signed by him was perused by the Nizam. ‘His countrymen boasted that his name was mentioned with awe even in the chambers of the palace of Delhi, the native population looked with amazement on the progress which in a short space of four years a European adventurer had made towards domination in Asia.’13

  By his actions, Muzzafar Jung set an important precedent which would dictate the future of his dynasty. He became the first Indian ruler to engage a military force under the command of a European commander in exchange for a grant of territory. As the geopolitical situation in the Deccan became more complex, the Nizams would pawn off more and more swathes of territory until they found themselves mere surrogates of empire-builders in Paris and then in London.

  For all the pomp and ceremony of his installation, Muzzafar Jung’s reign was never officially recognised by the Mughal Emperor in Delhi and was in any case destined to last only six weeks. The same nawabs who had plotted with Dupleix to kill his uncle were now demanding exorbitant sums from Muzzafar Jung for putting him on the throne. Fearing an ambush, he asked Dupleix for a French contingent to accompany him to Hyderabad to take possession of his inheritance. Dupleix was only too happy to oblige. Seeing it as a way of ensuring French influence continued in Hyderabad, he provided a force of 300 French soldiers under the command of de Bussy. But things did not go according to plan. Intoxicated with their success in killing Nasir Jung and smarting at the measly share they had received for helping to put Muzzafar Jung in power, the nawabs laid a trap. While approaching a narrow pass in the Eastern Ghats, Muzzafar Jung found his way blocked by forces under the command of the Nawab of Cuddapah, who attacked the Nizam’s army forces from the rear. Instead of waiting for French reinforcements, Muzzafar Jung mounted his war elephant and personally led the charge against the nawab’s forces. The encounter was brief. A well-aimed arrow from Himmat Khan’s bow hit Muzzafar Jung in the eye, killing him instantly.

  Normally the battle would have ended there with the defeat of the Nizam’s forces, but a Hindu rajah named Raghunathdas, sitting behind Muzzafar Jung, removed the arrow, took hold of the corpse’s lifeless arms and pretended that his leader was still alive. ‘By moving its head every now and then and asking for water and bread, and making the arms of the dead man move as if directing the soldiers to kill their enemies, he inspired every one of them with the belief that Muzzafar Jung was still alive,’ wrote one witness. ‘To the end of the battle, no one knew that the body of Muzzafar was lifeless, until the Afghans had fled, and the leaders of Muzzafar’s army had cut off the heads of the Afghan chiefs and placed them on spears, and the music had sounded in triumph and all had gone to their tents.’ Only then did the news spread that Muzzafar Jung had ‘quaffed the sherbet of death’.14

  De Bussy would not allow himself to be diverted by such a minor matter. As luck would have it, Muzzafar Jung’s brother, Salabat Jung, had been encamped with the French forces when the fatal arrow was fired, and before the day was over had been installed by the Frenchman as the next Nizam. Salabat Jung promptly imprisoned two of his brothers, Basalat Jah and Nizam Ali Khan, leaving only one other remaining claimant
to the throne, Ghazi-ud-Din, still alive and at liberty. The eldest son of Nizam ul-Mulk, Ghazi-ud-Din had been serving as a minister in the court of the Mughal Emperor in Delhi since his father’s death. Deciding the time was now right to claim the viceroyalty, he marched to the Deccan accompanied by a large force of Maratha warriors to wrest back the throne that he believed was rightly his. But Ghazi-ud-Din only made it as far as Aurangabad before falling victim to what would become a speciality of Hyderabadi palace politics. Living in Aurangabad was one of Nizam ul-Mulk’s former wives, whose ambition was to put her son, Nizam Ali Khan, on the throne. ‘There seemed to be’, wrote Grant Duff, ‘a prospect of settling the claims of all parties, when Ghazee-ood-Deen in an evil hour accepted an invitation to an entertainment provided in the city, partook of a poisoned dish prepared by the hand of the mother of Nizam Alee, and expired the same night.’15

  With three rivals to the Nizamate now dead and a further two in prison, Salabat Jung ruled the Deccan for the next eleven years, even though the real power lay in the hands of the French and his reign was never recognised by Delhi. Neither Dupleix nor de Bussy rated Salabat Jung’s intelligence highly. Dupleix called him a ‘duffer’. De Bussy exploited his constant fears of being overthrown by his nobles, his relatives and the British by strengthening French influence in Hyderabad.16 Since Britain was not at war with France, there was little the East India Company could do about it. In the end, however, de Bussy dug his own grave. His ‘pompous and overbearing manner’ (he went everywhere on an elephant preceded by musicians singing his feats of chivalry) and his closeness to the Nizam alienated the nobles in Salabat Jung’s court.17