East Did Meet
West –2
Poor Khair-unnisa!
By Dr. Rizwana Rahim
TCCI, Chicago, IL
A widow before she was even 21, her late husband
(James A. Kirkpatrick, the East India Company
Resident at the Nizam’s court in Hyderabad)
buried a thousand mile away in Calcutta, her children
in England and incommunicado because their British
grandfather forbade them from contacting their
mother or her family, and no prospect of them
returning to even see her. But there’s more
for her in store.
Pursuing the people around her, Dalrymple found
more about Khair, quite by accident, in the papers
of Henry Russell, kept in Bodleian Library of
Oxford. Russell was a private secretary and a
loyal assistant to James at the Hyderabad Residency,
and because of this trust, James had designated
him as an executor of his will. In this capacity,
Russell dealt with and arranged a lot of personal
and property matters of Khair-unnisa.
In May 1806, Khair and her mother traveled with
an entourage to Calcutta to visit James’
grave. There, with the help of Russell who was
there on his other business, they rented a house
in Chowringhee district. After weeks’ of
her visits to James’ grave and with support
from some of her family and friends she slowly
emerged out of months’ of mourning to face
the world again. James’ niece, Isabella,
in whose house James had died, was already there
to console her. Then came to her side James’
old friend and another ‘White Mughal’,
General William Palmer (Resident at Poona until
he was sacked by Wellesley), and his wife, Fyze
Baksh (‘Sahib Begum’), daughter of
a Persian Colonel in the service of Nawabs of
Oudh. Fyze was Khair’s best friend.
As close friends, the Palmers and the Kirkpatricks
also helped each other in various ways. An interesting
aside involves one of several children of Fyze
and William Palmer: Capt. William Palmer, for
whom James had found a job in the Nizam’s
service, was one of James’ biggest supporters;
he was the one (writing under a pen-name ‘Philothetes’)
who blasted Governor General Wellesley for treating
James shabbily. Despite Wellesley’s demands
that James hunt the anonymous employee out for
insubordination, James refused. William (son)
later became a successful businessman and a powerful
Hyderabad banker, supported Fyze after his father’s
death, but then he went bankrupt. [Another aside:
Fyze’s sister Nur was married to another
‘White Mughal’, a Frenchman, General
Benoit de Boigne].
It’s here that Khair, coming out of her
mourning, finds refuge in Russell’s arms,
and thus begins her another disastrous relationship.
Henry Russell was no James Kirkpatrick. Yet, in
some ways he was (another ‘White Mughal’
with more than one affair), but things had changed
in Hyderabad, worse for Khair and her mother.
After Aristu Jah’s death (1804), Mir Abul
Qasim Mir Alam Bahadur had become the Minister,
because of Wellesley’s support. Mir Alam
was part of the old Shushtari family (first cousin
of Khair’s grandfather, Baqar Ali Khan).
He was also the person most responsible for conveying
malicious rumors about Khair’s husband to
Calcutta (which is why Wellesley forced him upon
the Nizam, even though Nizam had earlier exiled
Mir Alam in disgrace). To Mir Alam, Khair was
a big smear on his family honor. Both Khair and
her mother were vulnerable, and felt so and dreaded
it. He had his new Diwan (Rajah Chandu Lal) confiscate
the jagir (property) of Kair’s mother, Sharaf-unnisa.
From Calcutta, where he was trying to get himself
a new position, Russell tried to get the Diwan
pay Khair from her jagir.
Russell wanted to bring Khair back to Hyderabad
and had purchased a zenana next to his Residency
bungalow. Russell had acted as Resident for a
couple of months after James’ death, but
the new Resident, Thomas Sydenham, was busy removing
all traces of the ‘White Mughal’ culture
in the Residency that James had created. Sydenham
initially agreed to offer some protection to Khair
against Mir Alam, as Russell had requested. But
Russell’s personal involvement with Khair
was an open secret, and the new Governor General
Barlow, aware of how this may be taken in Hyderabad
and how damaging it might be for Anglo-Indian
relations, banned her from leaving Calcutta, which
made Sydenham modify his pledge accordingly. Russell
then successfully defended Khair’s right
as a Hyderabadi citizen (under NO control of the
Company or the Governor General), and got the
orders reversed so that at least her party could
leave Calcutta. Increasingly aware of the mounting
opposition from Mir Alam and others to this Russell-Khair,
Sydenham warned Russell that, once in Hyderabad,
he will have to give up any plans of seeing her.
The ever vengeful Mir Alam had already banished
her from Hyderabad.
The Khair party (with Russell) left Calcutta,
but Russell, instead of going direct to Hyderabad,
found accommodation for Khair and her party in
Masulipatnam (or Machlipatnam), which obviously
was not Khair’s Hyderabad or its culture,
and from there he went to Hyderabad alone. In
Hyderabad Residency, Henry Russell had a younger
brother, Charles, whom Henry had recruited to
help him defuse the rumors (like Khair’s
husband and Henry’s boss, James, did before
with his older half-brother, William) and act
as a secure, private communication link between
him and Khair. Henry found reasons to be in Madras,
and on his way he initially made stops to see
his “dear Khyroo” in Masulipatnam.
In the meantime, in Madras, away from Hyderabad
and the Mughal culture (and its rumors and scandals
about him) and unbeknownst to Masulipatnam, he
began moving in the British society, got involved
with other women, an Anglo-Portuguese beauty,
Jane Casamajor, in particular. Then, he sought
Charles’ help to keep Khair in dark about
this, as well as Russell’s children with
another Hyderabadi woman. Khair was getting money
from her estates that Russell had managed to arrange
and, while in Masulipatnam, she remained at Russell’s
beck and call (through his brother). Her mother,
on the other hand, through appeals to Mir Alam
family, was allowed to make a trip alone to Hyderabad
on the occasion of Muharram, while Khair remained
in Masulipatnam.
Khair had desperately wanted to have the portrait
of her children that George Chinnery had made
in Calcutta but hadn’t gotten from him.
Henry Russell had his brother Charles write to
their father, Henry Russell, sr., the Chief Justice,
to help it retrieve it. For Khair, THAT was the
only link to her children.
Over time, Charles’ reports to Khair about
his brother Henry became more and more irregular.
Finally, Henry asked Charles to break to Khair
the news of his marriage (to Jane on 20 October
1808), which clearly shattered Khair’s highly
fragile state of mind. Henry wasn’t destined
for much happiness either; Jane died within 6
months of the marriage. Henry went back to England,
only to return as the Resident to Poona (1809),
and then a year later to his dream job, as the
Resident at Hyderabad. In the meantime, Mir Alam
had died of leprosy in 1808, which made it possible
for Khair and her mother to return to Hyderabad.
After that, there was NO contact between Henry
and Khair, even though, there was some occasional
contact between Sharafunnisa and the new Resident.
Then, in the summer of 1813, Lady Mary Hood from
Scotland happened to be in Hyderabad, and wanted
to meet some ‘Hyderabadi women of rank’.
For that, Resident Henry Russell brought Khair-unnisa
and Fyze Palmer to the Residency, where he did
meet Khair herself, some five years after he had
abandoned her. Khair returned to the Residency
some eight years after she had kissed her own
children off to England and saw her husband for
the last time. Lady Hood was quite taken by Khair
and impressed by her kindness in making a dress
for her.
Toward the end of September, 1813, however, Khair
wrote to her former lover for the first time in
five years that she was dying. Henry did rise
to the occasion and invited her to the Rang Mahal;
she was returning to the place some eight years
after she was widowed. Over the next two weeks
there, she got weaker, and finally passed away
on 22 September 1813 (on the same couch she had
given birth to her daughter 11 years ago) -- with
her best friend, Fyze Palmer, and her mother,
holding her hands. She was buried next to her
father in a family cemetery, and her funeral was
attended by ‘every person of rank’
in Hyderabad. Sharaf-unnisa was inconsolable.
Fyze was so moved by the loss of her best friend
that she refused to see anyone for about a month.
In the final months, Khair and her mother had
begged the children’s British guardians
for their return, but there was no response. Finally,
a letter with portraits of her children arrives
in Hyderabad, in November 1813. Six weeks too
late !
Dalrymple writes: “When she [Khair-unnisa]
died – this fiery, passionate and beautiful
woman—it was as much from a broken heart,
from neglect and sorrow, as from any apparent
physical cause.” Hard to believe, but Khair
was “only 27” when she died (could
actually have been 29), but she did live a remarkable
life, in a remarkable era. An era that Dalrymple
so patiently and richly documented in his book*!
Dalrymple then has more to say about Khair’s
children and other people.
[* “The White Mughals: Love and Betrayal
in Eighteenth Century India” by William
Dalrymple (ISBN: 0-670-03184-4, hardcover; 0 14
20.0412 X, paperback)] (To be continued)
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