March 23, 2003

WILLIAM Dalrymple was engrossed in researching his latest book, White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India, when the flames of East-West discontent reduced New York’s Twin Towers to rubble on September 11, 2001. Since then, little has been done to soften the clash of cultures or to allay the suspicion and fear felt on both sides of the divide.

Published late last year, the story of the White Mughals is set in a period when the British colonization of India was still in its infancy and had not yet halted the forces of cultural assimilation. The book serves as a timely reminder of a reality which Dalrymple sums up in these words: “East and West are not irreconcilable... Only bigotry, prejudice, racism and fear drive them apart.”

The story revolves round the liaison, and later marriage, of James Achilles Kirkpatrick, the British resident in Hyderabad, at the fag-end of the 18th century, and Khair-un-Nissa, a young Muslim noblewoman. Unfortunately, their marital bliss proved short-lived, as Kirkpatrick died in 1805. About this time his two children from Khair-un-Nissa were sent to England where they were baptized and given Christian names. Left alone, Khair-un-Nissa never saw them again. She herself died in her twenties, a sad young woman, first widowed, and then abandoned by another English lover.

It took Dalrymple five years of hard work to uncover the tale that serves as a peg for a far wider narrative of the British in India. This narrative includes a wealth of information which readers should find new — and startling. The marriage of Khair-un-Nissa and Kirkpatrick was only one among many such cross-cultural unions in India during the early days of the British rule in the subcontinent.

Indeed, William Palmer, the British resident in Pune, had a long and happy marriage with Fyze Begum, who later became a close friend of Khair-un-Nissa. Not content with one, Sir David Ochterlony, the British resident in Delhi, had 13 ‘wives’ who often accompanied him on his evening jaunts around the city, each on her own personal elephant. Dalrymple comes up with several other examples of high-ranking British officials with Indian consorts, whom they provided for in their wills. “Of the Bengal Wills from 1780 to 1785 preserved in the India Office, one in three contains a bequest to Indian wives or companions or their natural children,” writes Dalrymple.

However, interracial conjugal ties were not the only aspect of the acculturation of the British that Dalrymple writes about. The British, it seems, were not averse to Indianizing themselves. Take the case of Major General Charles “Hindoo” Stuart who was labelled an “infidel” after he published a pamphlet titled A Vindication of the Hindoos.

Noting his eccentricities, Stuart’s deputy describes how a friend saw him “surrounded by a dozen faqueers who...gave him Benediction.” Enamoured of Indian women, Stuart went so far as to write, “I already begin to think the dazzling brightness of a copper coloured face, infinitely preferable to the pallid and sickly hue of the European fair.”

James Achilles Kirkpatrick too loved his Indian environment and while remaining a servant of the East India Company, immersed himself totally in Hyderabadi culture. Not only did he deck out in the apparel of the day (the book contains an interesting illustration of him in Mughal dress), he also smoked a hookah and applied henna to his fingers, and belched “appreciatively after meals”.

He kept up with the political gossip at a friend’s home, which according to him was the “coffee house of Hyderabad”. He took an interest in local pursuits like chess, cockfighting and pigeon-flying, and gave donations to the city’s sufi shrines. For the Nizam he was a “Beloved Son”, so when the Company offered Kirkpatrick a paltry sum for the reconstruction of the crumbling Residency, it was the Hyderabadi ruler who offered to finance this venture.

His knowledge of Hyderabadi customs and etiquette and his excellent relations with the Nizam should have made him indispensable to the British rulers in India, but the arrogant, racist, toffee-nosed governor-general Lord Wellesley was against Kirkpatrick’s sympathetic attitude towards the Hyderabad court.

While he was forced to acknowledge, more than once, that Kirkpatrick’s diplomacy and political acumen had benefited the British (the resident had successfully concluded strategic treaties with the Hyderabadi court), he also made Kirkpatrick feel extremely insecure about his political position, especially over his affair with Khair-un-Nissa. The reader feels such a rush of sympathy for Kirkpatrick and his natural goodness, that it is an utterly cathartic experience when Wellesley finally falls from grace, is recalled to Britain, and Cornwallis arrives to take his place.

White Mughals contains some beautiful illustrations of the period. A particularly poignant one shows a painting of Kirkpatrick’s children, Sahib Allum and Sahib Begum, (later baptized as William George and Katherine Aurora Kirkpatrick). The book also has photographs of the Residency and vestiges of the zenana that Kirkpatrick built for his beloved wife.

So painstaking is Dalrymple’s research that the footnotes too have a story to tell. His eye for detail — that may cause the reader to lose his way momentarily — is apparent in most of his works (specially so in From the Holy Mountain: a Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium — another piece of writing packed with interesting facts). This has helped in his transformation from a predominantly travel writer (In Xanadu) to one who makes deep, fascinating and often hilarious forays into history.

One could say that through his works, that amply demonstrate his sensitive understanding of the East, Dalrymple is well placed to help bridge the gap between two civilizations currently on the warpath.

 

White Mughals: Love & Betrayals in Eighteenth-Century India

By William Dalrymple

Penguin India

For more information log on to www.penguinbooksindia.com

Available at Liberty Books (Pvt) Ltd, Karachi. Tel: 021-5683026 Website: www.libertybooks.com

Mr Books, Islamabad. Tel: 051-2278843-5 Website: www.mrbooks.com.pk  and Paramount Books, Karachi Tel: 021-4310030

Email: paramount@cyber.net.pk
 
ISBN 067004930-1. 580pp. Rs1495

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