Last Nizam (9781742626109) (20 page)

Despite persistent demands by the British to put the police under their control to curtail corruption, the Nizam steadfastly refused to accede to the demand. As well as keeping himself informed of every intimate detail of every affair that his relatives and nobles indulged in, they kept the machinery of state well-oiled. The tasks of the police force, the Resident cabled the Viceroy's office in Delhi, included being used as:

. . . an instrument of terrorism for sorts of irregular work such as rounding up and bringing back of palace servants (who were rarely paid) when they absconded, the keeping of nobles and relatives of the Nizam who had displeased him under restraint in their houses, the seizing of property of deceased persons, the procurement of cigarettes, ice and mineral waters for the Palace and the compulsory sales of fruit and Palace rubbish, etc.
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Osman Ali Khan had now completed the twenty-fifth year of his rule. Plans to celebrate his silver jubilee in 1936 had been postponed for a year because of the death of King George V of England. Billed as a ‘spectacle of pomp and power' that would never be matched by any other Indian ruler,
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the world's media now flocked to Hyderabad to observe the two-week-long celebrations and take pot-shots at guessing the wealth of the ‘Richest Man in the World'. Estimates of the Nizam's income,
The New York Times
reported, varied from ‘$2,500,000 [US] to $50,000,000 a year and in his vaults below his palace he reputedly has $250,000,000 in gold bars stowed away and an additional $2,000,000,000 worth of precious stones, mostly diamonds and rubies. The combined fortunes of Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, have been estimated at $1,000,000,000, less than half the value of the Nizam's jewels.'
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Yet the paper also noted that the Nizam was said to dislike dinner parties because of the expense they entailed and would scribble invitations on slips of paper torn from the backs of used envelopes. ‘No suit of clothes or pair of shoes, according to legend, is discarded by the Nizam until it has been inspected by him and personally pronounced beyond repair.'
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Another popular story doing the rounds of the press pack was how the Nizam once refused to pay six cents for an ice-cream and reprimanded the seller for asking such a high price.

A year earlier Mackenzie had also tried to calculate Osman Ali Khan's wealth based on the income from his own private estate and customs and state revenue. Mackenzie put the total annual income at 21,750,000 rupees or about 27.3 per cent of the net and 19.5 per cent of the gross revenue of the state. By comparison, Mackenzie noted, the late King George V and all his family appearing on the civil list took just .091 per cent of the revenues of the state. ‘It is doubtful whether any Ruler in the world, at any rate in historic times, has ever possessed so large a private fortune; and it has to be said that the Nizam could live without difficulty on the interest of the interest of his income,' concluded Mackenzie. ‘Moreover, apart from this income his hoards may be said without exaggeration to be almost beyond computation. He still manages to take some two
lakhs
a year in
nazars
, and a good deal more in bribes; and he has occasional windfalls which help to swell the total.'
¹⁸

Time
magazine put the silver jubilee on the front cover of its February 1937 edition and began its coverage by declaring that no other state in India was as ‘rich, potent and extensive as Hyderabad'. ‘Some Indian sovereigns are lecherous champagne-quaffing wastrels with a taste for French women and English horses which they spectacularly gratify from Monte Carlo to Epsom Downs and Hollywood, but decidedly the Nizam is different,' the magazine reported. ‘By an honoured Hyderabad tradition no Nizam has
ever left India no matter how good a reason might exist for doing so.'
¹⁹
Time
lavished praise on the Nizam's administration. ‘Safety first is the policy of the Richest Man, and in Hyderabad this continued to mean last week the flourishing reign of probably the ablest native government in India, with its key statesman, Finance Minister Sir Akbar Nazarally Hydari. During the cycle of Depression, his famed “Three Year Budgets” have always balanced with a surplus and Hyderabad taxes have not been raised.'
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The jubilee's guest list was impressive. It included ‘the Empire's No. 1 Mixed Couple: creamy onetime Mrs. Thomas Loel Guinness, formerly of the “British Beerage” and her present burnt almond husband, the Prince Aly Shah Khan, son & heir of the famed Aga Khan', as well as numerous other Indian princes.
The New York Times
reported that orders had been given for 1000 oxen and 10,000 sheep to be slaughtered.
²¹

The celebrations began with a thanksgiving at the mosque in the Public Gardens, followed by a motorcade through the city. Hundreds of thousands of people knelt in prayer beside the road as the Nizam drove past in a 1911 Rolls-Royce with its seating specially modified to resemble a ‘throne topped by a gilt dome'.
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Escorting the Nizam's motorcade were four regiments of infantry, a detachment of native cavalry, a regiment of Arab soldiers and his personal bodyguard made up of Sidis from Africa. The Nizam then prayed at the Mecca Masjid before proceeding to the Silver Jubilee Parade at the Fateh Maidan. Kishen Pershad read an address hailing his ruler as ‘the sole relic of Mughal greatness in India'. For his part the Nizam promised: ‘I will devote the rest of my life for serving my
ryots
with affection and shall work for their prosperity. I shall be a servant of the people, created by God and shall consider this service as the highest title.'
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Leading the review of 5000 native troops at Fateh Maidan was Azam Jah, mounted on a ‘magnificent charger covered by a gold cloth with gilded hooves'. The ceremony culminated with the
Nizam's African bodyguards presenting arms to their ruler and chanting prayers in Arabic followed by a 21-gun salute. Images captured by the state photographer, Raja Deen Dayal & Sons, show the three-and-a-half-year-old Mukarram recoiling in terror at the sound of the cannons being fired. In one frame Osman Ali Khan has his hand protectively placed on Mukarram's shoulders. In another, Mukarram, who is dressed like his grandfather in a traditional
sherwani
, looks awestruck as he nestles in his grandfather's lap. Jah remembers the Nizam ordering the guns to stop firing midway through the thunderous ovation.

Mukarram's parents also appear in photographic souvenirs published after the jubilee
darbar
, with Azam looking stiff and uncomfortable marshalling the state troops and Durrushehvar in a sari officiating at a Girl Guides ceremony. By now the couple were officially known as the Prince and Princess of Berar. In a bid to draw Hyderabad into the Chamber of Princes, the British conceded the nominal sovereignty of the Nizam over Berar. Under the deal made in 1933, the Nizam could fly his flag along with that of the British from public buildings, confer Hyderabadi titles on the inhabitants of Berar and have his name read in the
khutba
on Friday in mosques across the district. Essentially, Azam and his wife were vested with titles that had no territory attached to them. It was, as one wit pointed out later, similar to making Mountbatten Earl of Burma after Burma had ceased to be a colony of Britain. ‘It made no difference in the end, but gave a lot of pleasure.'
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The jubilee celebrations coincided with the provincial elections of 1937. The passing of the Government of India Act two years earlier had paved the way for the provinces of British India to become self-governing and contained a provision for an Indian Federation on the condition that a substantial number of princes agreed to join. The election saw the Indian National Congress win a majority in all Hindu provinces and make inroads into
Muslim areas. Although the princely states had stayed out of the elections because of the internal autonomy they enjoyed, the Congress victory filled many rulers with dread. The gradual devolution of power to the provinces by the British and the rise of the increasingly left-wing Congress had the potential to threaten their territorial integrity and their dynastic rights. Before the elections, Congress had paid little attention to the princely states, but now it realised that if it was to rule in its own right it needed popularly elected representatives from those states in the newly created federal legislature. The party's leadership began branding princely rule as a corrupt anachronism and extended financial and organisational support to provincial offshoots in the states.

In September 1938, plans were announced to establish a Congress Party in Hyderabad. Two days before its launch, the Nizam's government banned the party on the grounds that it was ‘constituted with communal and subversive motives and would only retard the pace of legislative reforms in the state'.
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Undeterred, the Congress Provisional Committee dissolved itself and set up a Council of Action, which demanded responsible government under the auspices of the Nizam and fundamental rights for the people. In October 1938 it launched the first of a series of
satyagrahas
, a form of non-violent protest used so brilliantly by Mahatma Gandhi against the Raj. Again the government responded decisively, placing its leader Ramananda Tirtha in solitary confinement for 111 days and imprisoning dozens of others. The agitation, however, continued until July 1939 when the Nizam announced a comprehensive scheme of constitutional reform providing the creation of a unicameral Legislature composed of 85 members, 43 of whom would be elected. Electorates were based on economic interests, with separate seats for nobles, farmers and other occupations. Half the elected members were to be Hindus and half Muslims. Freedom of assembly was guaranteed and the press controls liberalised. Though the
legislature had the power to initiate bills, the government still had the power to veto any measure passed by the Assembly. As for the Nizam, he was still regarded as ‘the source of law and justice'.
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For the majority of princes a federation dominated by democratic forces that would entail a levelling down of their internal sovereignty was unacceptable. Hyderabad struck a harder bargain than most. The Nizam's conditions for joining a federation included a ban on federal officials working in his state, the retention of his own currency and postal services and control of the railways. Above all he demanded a written guarantee that Britain would protect the ruling Asaf Jahi dynasty and that any forces used to implement this guarantee would always be composed of races not politically hostile to his government. The best Britain could offer was a vague statement in March 1939 that it would fulfil its treaty obligations ‘if it could'.
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Britain's refusal to give Hyderabad a defence guarantee and the Congress agitation killed off any prospect of the Nizam agreeing to federate. And a federation without the premier ranking Indian state appeared unthinkable.

The outbreak of World War II provided some breathing space for the princes. The British subordinated their long-term visions for India to the necessity of retaining the support of their princely allies in their hour of need. Schemes for a federation were temporarily shelved.

The war also intervened in the fate of five-year-old Mukarram. In October 1938, Hyderabad's Director General of Revenue, R. M. Crofton, wrote that the prince's education demanded special attention. ‘He is said to be a brilliantly clever boy, with a good deal of determination and courage.'
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Durrushehvar was in favour of sending her son to Eton while the Prime Minister Akbar Hydari favoured Winchester, but the Nizam was steadfastly opposed to any education abroad. ‘The question of schooling should be settled during the coming English tour,'
advised Crofton.
²⁹
But there was no ‘English tour'. As German troops advanced westwards towards France, Durrushehvar hastily made arrangements to leave Nice and bring Mukarram, his younger brother Muffakham and their governesses to India.

To Durrushehvar's despair Mukarram's education was to follow the same pattern as his father's, grandfather's and greatgrandfather's. A private school known as the Madrassa Aliya was set up within the grounds of the exclusive Jagirdars College. English and Indian tutors were appointed and several sons of Hyderabadi nobles were given places alongside the young prince.

Unable to travel to Europe, her plans for educating her son thwarted by the war, Durrushehvar found the atmosphere in Hyderabad stifling. For all the cautious steps towards political and administrative reform undertaken in the last 50 years, palace life was still governed by layer upon layer of tradition, at the apex of which, only one step removed from God Himself, was the Nizam.

‘A strange pageant passes through his marble halls,' wrote one visitor to the Nizam's court. ‘Magistrates, philosophers, rich Marwaris of India who come to display their gorgeous fabrics and jewels, debauchees who fan themselves with peacock feathers, gourmands fattened by high living, the dreamy-eyed users of hashish, the effete, the supercilious, the curious, the coarse, the delicate, the pleasure loving and effeminate.'
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