Victoria & Abdul (31 page)

The Queen was adamant to defend her Munshi. On 23 April she sent a defiant memo to the members of her Household.

Excelsior Hotel Regina

Memo from Queen April 23, 1897

I wish to be assured on the foll points viz

1.
 
That the gentlemen here shd not go on talking about the painful subject either amongst themselves or with outsiders and not
combine
with the Household agst the person.

2.
 
That while I know that they do not wish to consider him at all as an equal which I never considered him, they shd treat him with common civility, which good breeding must prompt.

3.
 
Give him his carriage at home which Sir H Ewart thought it right he shd have for himself and wife. His name will only appear when all the others of the suite are mentioned and he has been there, and in the same way he will be invited to plays and parties, as he has been for several years past, and will come in with the others when all the others are asked.

4.
 
His friend will not come to the castle unless specially asked by the queen. He will also occasionally when there are addresses and receptions come in if there are members of the Household, and as I may wish, as heretofore, occasionally on India.

5.
 
Great care can be taken to avoid all special and separate mention of him excepting on the occasion of going for several months to India, when as is often the case with other people who are in my office, to prevent people (photographers, booksellers etc) from writing to him.
¹⁸

She also clarified that the much talked about carriage the Munshi used was a hired one, just as the dressers used. The Queen had reclaimed her Munshi. The Household were now told firmly that they could not gang up on him and that he would continue to be invited for Court occasions. They were not prepared to give up so easily. Lord Rowton told the Queen that the conditions of her memo were dependent on ‘the person’ respecting them.

Not prepared to waste any time, Fritz Ponsonby immediately wrote to the Viceroy’s secretary, Babington Smith, from the Hotel
Regina, urging him to treat his letter and its contents as ‘
strictly confidential
’ and to treat it ‘like the confessional’. He recounted that they had been having a good deal of trouble lately over the Munshi and although they had tried their best, they could not get the Queen to realise how very dangerous it was for her to ‘allow this man to see every confidential paper relating to India, and in fact to all state affairs’. Ponsonby said he did not know where the Queen would stop if it was not for their protest. ‘Fortunately he happens to be a thoroughly stupid and uneducated man, and his one idea in life seems to be to do nothing and to eat as much as he can. If he had been kept in his proper place, there would have been no harm done,’ said Ponsonby. He said that the real danger lay in his friend, Rafiuddin, who supplied the brains that were deficient in the Munshi, and he tried to extract all he could from him. Ponsonby said the Munshi was allowed to read the Viceroy’s letters and other letters of importance that came from India. He said the police had supplied interesting details on Rafiuddin, but it was of no use, ‘for the queen says that is “race prejudice” and that we are all jealous of the poor Munshi!’

Ponsonby requested Smith to send him cuttings from the native or European papers carrying any details on the Rafiuddin question. ‘I got hold of some from the Hindoo papers before I left India, & had them read to the Queen, but their contents did very little good. Now however as the question has arisen with such force, it would be of the greatest use to be able to quote Indian papers,’
¹⁹
he added. Fritz Ponsonby was not accepting defeat yet.

While the Household carried on trying to discredit the Munshi, the Secretary of State, Lord Hamilton, was beginning to grow weary of the Munshi issue and the constant flurry of letters and telegrams on the subject. When nothing substantial was pegged on either the Munshi or his friend Rafiuddin, despite the surveillance on them, he wrote to the Viceroy, Lord Elgin, saying Karim had done nothing wrong and could not be charged with anything. He also felt that the Household was overreacting on the friendship of Rafiuddin and the Munshi and over-representing it to the Queen.

Hamilton wrote to Elgin that there was some ‘commotion going on as to the position and conduct of the Munshi’. The Secretary of State felt that the Household generally, and especially the private secretaries, resented the social and official position accorded to the
Munshi in the Court Circulars and in all occasions by the Queen. He, however, added that as far as he knew, ‘the Munshi has done nothing to my knowledge which is reprehensible or deserving of official strictures’. Hamilton acknowledged that Karim was close to the ‘Mohamedan intriguer named Rafiuddin’ who was known to the reactionary police in India as an ‘untrustworthy adventurer’ and ‘the agent of the Amir’. Nevertheless, he disapproved of the fact that under the pretext of investigating Rafiuddin, it was the Munshi who was being subjected to scrutiny by the Thugee and Dacoity Department in India on the request of Lee Warner. Clearly annoyed, Hamilton wrote:

I did not see the letters till after they had gone. This I do not want done. I do not want to get mixed up in any court matters unless the Queen directly asks me. Enquiries shd be made as regards Rafiuddin … If he is a fellow making money out of his association with the Munshi, then it might be seen to make such a statement to the Queen. I do not however want any fishing enquiry to be made in connection with the Munshi as such enquiries wd not be right, unless they were in connection with some definite statement or accusation.
²⁰

Hamilton had made his disapproval of the enquiries against the Munshi clear. The Royal suite returned to Portsmouth on 30 April, a sober and weary group of people. The Queen said she had taken a dislike to her room in Cimiez on account of the ‘scenes’ she had there with the doctor and from the pain she suffered. The Munshi, firmly back in the Queen’s favour, now asked her to honour him with the rank of KCIE (Knight Commander of the Indian Empire) in the Jubilee honours. He quite fancied the thought of being called ‘Sir Abdul’.

The Household, though chastised, would not go quietly. The Prince of Wales continued to meet Reid and urged him to carry his messages on the Munshi to the Queen, leading to more painful interviews with her. General Dennehy visited Windsor and also spoke to Reid saying he was ‘resolved to be firm’ on the Munshi question. Dennehy and Reid went over all of Karim’s letters to the Queen and found that the chief one was
‘written by the Hindu’. They did not remember that Rafiuddin was a Muslim. The Munshi’s own letters were apparently full of ‘vile spelling and composition and very insolent’. Reid wrote: ‘HM getting shaken about him.’ The four-way talks between Dennehy, the Munshi, the Queen and the doctor continued for a few days and the Queen complained that Karim was being sulky in her presence.

When the Munshi went to London in an ordinary train rather than the Royal train, the Queen was very upset. Reid wrote in his diary on 12 May that he had a long and unpleasant discussion about him with the Queen before dinner and quoted to her the opinion of members of her own family. The doctor learnt from Dennehy that the Munshi had asked to be made KCIE. When he was last in India he had apparently written to the Queen and asked her to make him a nawab, a title which gives regal dignity. The Queen wrote to Dennehy to ask him what he thought and when the latter explained to the Queen what it meant, she said it could not be done. The meetings with Dennehy had troubled the Queen and she wrote to Reid:

All you shd say to Sir T Dennehy wd be to say how troubled and distressed I have been and how anxious I was that he shd help me. That nothing has happened but tittle tattle of outsiders which had not been properly put down and too much talked.

That unfortunately a remark of mine had led to misunder- standing and people had behaved very ill. However that is passed and I will explain that to him – the ill nature and spite came from India – but all can be set right with a little tact – no alteration in treatment is required – he can help me as you can say how troubled I am.
²¹

The Viceroy’s office and the Thugee and Dacoity Department in India were still continuing their investigations on the Munshi and the reasons behind his trip to Kashmir the previous year. They reported that Sham Narain, whom the Munshi stayed with in Srinagar, was a sub-judge and a friend of the Munshi’s. They also reported that the Munshi had probably written to Sham Narain about Lord Breadalbane, who was visiting Srinagar, and the latter had therefore been put up in the government house. Lord Hamilton wrote to Lord Elgin that two Indian officials in
the Queen’s Court had spoken frankly to her about the official position accorded to the Munshi and his social standing in India.

‘This does not concern us here but indirectly and is too delicate a matter for me to interfere with, so when I am affected I shall sit still,’ wrote Hamilton. ‘But the result of this row has been to put him more into his humble place, and his influence will not be same in the future, what it has been in the past.’ Hamilton also told Elgin that he thought he could write freely on general matters to the Queen. ‘So far as I know nothing I say or write to her is committed to the Munshi. He may of course get hold of papers, but I doubt if he does. Where care has to be exercised, it is officers or individuals,’ said Hamilton.

Elgin had been firmly told by Hamilton that he should not pursue the Munshi. But when he heard that the Munshi was asking for a knighthood, the Viceroy could not take it lying down. He immediately wrote to Hamilton that the Munshi was ‘wholly unsuitable for a place in an order of knighthood’ as it would offend the Indian nobility and Royalty. The Viceroy emphasised:

I should be the last to desire to appear to interfere with her Majesty’s prerogative, but I shd. fail in my duty if I did not represent to you that the idea of promoting him to one of the higher grades might raise very serious political questions. The distinction of KCIG is bestowed on men of the highest rank and cover to Ruling Chiefs and yet precedence in the order is determined by seniority. What wd. be the feelings of the Rajputana chiefs who found himself in a chapter of the order placed below a man of the Munshi’s social status?
²²

The Viceroy was determined to block any chance of a knighthood for the Munshi. He suggested that the Secretary of State ask the Queen to give him the MVO or the Victorian Order, an honour which was granted to those who had served in Britain, and therefore would not have too many ramifications in India.

Later that month, the Viceroy wrote to Lord Hamilton again. He too now wanted to distance himself from an enquiry into the Munshi’s affairs. He explained that he had written to Bayley to make a few enquiries and Bayley had written to the agents in the North-West Province to see if they could provide information, but had not received anything.

I told him you did not want fishing enquiries and that I shd say to you that I was myself satisfied from enquiries made in 1894 and from what occurred when the Munshi came to India on wh. I took steps to be informed … there really was nothing more to learn. As to the other gentleman, I asked him if he could be shown in your words ‘that he is disreputable fellow making money out of his connection with the M.’ He said No – there was absolutely no proof. There was not even a pool to fish in – we certainly believe that you rightly describe him, but we have no facts.
²³

Both enquiries into Rafiuddin and the Munshi had come to nought. The Munshi had emerged triumphant. On his return from the Continent, he went salmon fishing in the River Dee in Balmoral ‘with much success’, according to the
Pall Mall Gazette
. The Emperor of Russia came visiting and the Empress accompanied by the Queen and Princess Beatrice called at Karim Cottage. Karim presented the Empress with a dress of Indian embroidery which she was happy to accept. She then wrote her name in his visitors’ book. In the autumn Karim wrote that he went hunting in the Scottish hills and ‘shot altogether fourteen or fifteen deer’. It was as if nothing could touch him now.