India Under Ripon: A Private Diary. Blunt Wilfrid Scawen
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is under Trevor’s influence. Cordery is angry with Major Clerk because he has opposed a guarantee of the Northern Railway which the Indian Government for strategical reasons supports. Cordery wants to get rid of Clerk and Gough and all the former friends of the late Salar Jung, and to isolate young Salar Jung from such liberal advisers as Seyd Huseyn Bilgrami. The policy seems to be to keep the Hyderabad nobles in ignorance of modern thought, and it also looks as if the Indian Government encourages the bad administration purposely. It is precisely what they are doing in Egypt.
“5th Dec.– We received from our friend Rasul Yar Khan this morning a little compliment, consisting of thirty ‘cups of sweetness,’ that is to say of that number of dishes of whipped cream. In acknowledgement, Anne wrote in Arabic, ‘The sweetness of your gifts delights us, but we are grieved at the absence of the giver.’ This seems to have been much appreciated, and he now sends to ask us to dinner, calling me in his note, ‘The defender of the Moslems.’ Rasul Yar Khan is the chief of the Ulema here, and is, moreover, a magistrate, and much respected.
“We breakfasted with Ali Abdullah, the Arab superintendent of the Nizam’s breeding establishment, and met there Salar Jung and his brother, Seyd Huseyn Bilgrami and others, and went on to drink tea with them at Salar Jung’s country house at Serinagar. They talked freely about social and political matters. We discussed the drinking of wine, which is common among the Mohammedans of Hyderabad, where there are drinking shops even in the City. I told them that in England we did not respect Mohammedans who drank wine, and that very few drank in Egypt, and none in Arabia. I begged Seyd Huseyn to advise Salar Jung most strongly to speak to Lord Ripon when he is at Calcutta, and tell him the whole state of things here.
“Dined with Bushir-ed-Dowlah, a rather dull entertainment of about forty people, mostly English, our only new native acquaintance being the chief of the Shiah Ulema, Seyd Ali, a native of Shustar, with whom we conversed in Arabic. He, too, is a friend of Jemal-ed-Din’s, he says, but has the name of being ‘a great fanatic.’ He is a thorough Iraki, and I confess I do not like him. He remembers Layard at Mosul, when he was a boy. Bushir-ed-Dowlah speaks very little English. After dinner we were entertained rather lugubriously with a magic lantern representing the Afghan War.
“6th Dec.– Anne went with the rest on a long expedition to Golconda, but I stayed at home, being tired with the constant gaieties, going only to Seymour Keay’s.
“Dined at Vikar-el-Omra’s, a handsome house – gold plate, nautch, and illuminations, but no native guests. Vikar-el-Omra is out of favour with the Residency on account of the quarrel with his brother Kurshid Jah. Cordery, however, was there and about twenty English. Major Gough, who is one of the Nizam’s people, was among them, and begged me to speak to Lord Ripon in support of Salar Jung when I see him at Calcutta, which I most certainly will do.
“7th Dec.– Received a visit from a native teacher at the Moslem school, and we had some interesting talk. He told me the Mohammedans here were far from happy. They were isolated and without knowledge of what happened in the outer world. They wanted knowledge and education; schools there were, but no superior instruction. They had had a great Minister in Salar Jung, but he was dead. The men now in power had never left the walls of Hyderabad. They were in the hands of the English, who were destroying all the good work that Salar Jung had done. His son was a good and able young man, who had large ideas because he had travelled. But the Peishkar knew nothing, and he made a circle on the table with his finger, signifying the walls of the city. I asked him about Kurshid Jah, and he made the same sign. The Government, he said, is in the hands of two or three ignorant men. Men of learning are being driven from the country. The teacher had with him a friend who knew Persian. They were both much pleased to hear that Anne had read the Koran through three times. This is an old-fashioned man, who evidently hates the English heartily, but I am struck with his liberality as between Mohammedans; and Mohammedan Hyderabad, whether Sunni or Shiah, seems ripe for reform. I had a talk later with Cheragh Ali, mostly about his book. His book contains nothing more than Mohammed Abdu, or any of the Liberal Ulema of Cairo, would subscribe to. Indeed, the reforms it suggests have all been advocated by them, and are defended with much the same reasoning. I showed him, however, that he was leaning on a broken reed if he trusted to Constantinople for a reformation.
“We dined at Salar Jung’s, a very beautiful fête, and Anne had much conversation with him as he took her in to dinner. He has promised her to entrust me with his father’s correspondence as to the disputes of recent years. And he has asked us to a private breakfast for Sunday, when he will tell me everything, and consult me fully. At these big dinners, unless you sit next any one, there is no opportunity of talking to him. Every one is afraid, even if there are no Europeans present, of being overheard by the Residency retainers. Seyd Ali Shustari was there, and Rasul Yar Khan, and we talked in Arabic, and thus we had no such fears. The old Shiah is a poet and a wag, and as such, licensed to be free in his discourse, even a little mejnun, and made great game of the Resident’s hilarity in his cups. He was outspoken, too, about the Peishkar. The Hindus, he says, are pleased at the new régime, but the Mohammedans are all angry. The Peishkar was of the party, but, being a Hindu, he did not dine. He has asked us to a dinner he gives on Monday, but we shall by that time have left Hyderabad. He does not dine at table even in his own house with his guests, but superintends the feast. We cannot stay here longer than until Monday.
“8th Dec.– Saw a Mekkawi, one Seyd Abdullah, a merchant, who gave us a great deal of information both about Meccan and Hyderabad politics. He is a great admirer of the Sherif Abd-el-Mutalleb, whom he remembered as a boy at Mecca, for he has been here thirty years without going home. He told us of the rebellions of Abd-el-Mutalleb against the Turks, and how, when they fired at him in the street, he used to throw his cloak open so as to show he had no fear. The Sherifs used to keep the Arabs in rebellion for fear they should join the Turks against them. In his old age Abd-el-Mutalleb had taken to opium and spent his days in sleep, and so had been deposed. My visitor is himself a pure Arab, and his language is easy to understand. His chief lamentation was at living away from home, and that it was impossible to get Arab wives here. They would not leave Arabia, and the Arabs of Hyderabad, of whom there are a large number, were obliged to marry the women of the place.
“With regard to Hyderabad politics, he spoke with the greatest enthusiasm of the late Salar Jung, who was himself of Arab descent. He described the state of things when he first came here thirty years ago, how people killed each ether openly in the streets, and how the great Minister had established peace everywhere. I asked him about the Shiahs, and he said there was no quarrel here between them and the Sunnis. He himself was a Sunni, but they all prayed together. They were on good terms, too, with the Hindus. The Hindus did not eat with them, but that was all. Of Laik Ali he spoke very highly, said he was a young man of good thought and good language, and would become a great Minister like his father. All the people loved him. As to the Peishkar he neglected public business. He had no energy, and letters of importance were put aside. It was very different from old Salar Jung’s time. I asked him about the Nizam, whom he spoke of as the ‘Pasha,’ and he said he was good, not at all dull, but that he was young, and the nobles about him taught him to be silent in public, and so he seemed lacking in intelligence, but with his own people he talked and was merry enough. I like this Meccan merchant much, and doubt if there are many shop-keepers in London who could give me as sensible an account of their local politics as he has given me. The Hindus in the Deccan are mostly men of the lower castes. There are few nobles or Brahmins among them, and their only rich men are the money-lenders. The rest are shop-keepers, and out of the town peasants. The Peishkar is their only great man.
“The Nizam came to dinner at the Residency, and took Anne in. There was also a large party of Nawabs and dignitaries, the Peishkar, Salar Jung, Kurshid Jah, Bushir-ed-Dowlah, Vikar-el-Omra, and the rest, as well as the Roman Catholic bishop and some English. Kurshid Jah has asked us to dinner for Tuesday, but neither to him, nor to the Peishkar can we go, as we leave on Monday. The Nizam was as usual very silent, but this is etiquette. Trevor tells me the Nizam’s father never spoke at all to the English officials, or even looked at them.
“9th Dec.– The schoolmaster called again. He asked me what the Mohammedans ought to do to better their condition. Every year they were becoming poorer in India. The Government ruined them where they had land with taxes, and they