The author of Victoria and Abdul has discovered previously unknown diaries by Abdul Karim, the young Indian employed by Queen Vitoria to teach her Urdu and Hindi. They have been used by Shrabani Basu to update her book.
Victoria and Abdul tells the story of the queen’s close relationship with Abdul Karim, who, at the age of 24 was given to her as a “gift from India”.
The diaries reveal that when Karim was contemplating leaving his job soon after his employment started, the queen successfully convinced him not to go. The queen’s letter asking him not to resign is quoted in the diaries: “I shall be very sorry to part with you for I like and respect you, but I hope you will remain till the end of this year or the beginning of the next that I may learn enough Hindustani from you to speak a little.” Within a year of being at the court, Karim had become a powerful figure, even advising the queen on Indian affairs. He also became one of her closest confidants.
“The queen signed letters to him as ‘your loving mother’ and ‘your closest friend’,” Basu told the BBC.
“On some occasions, she even signed off her letters with a flurry of kisses — a highly unusual thing to do at that time.
“It was unquestionably a passionate relationship — a relationship which I think operated on many different layers in addition to the mother-and-son ties between a young Indian man and a woman who at the time was over 60 years old.”
It was a relationship many in the court were unhappy about, and when Queen Victoria died, within a few hours Karim was sacked by her son Edward VII. The prince also ordered that all records of their relationship be destroyed. However, Basu was able to unearth the diaries, kept by Karim’s family.
“At a time when the British empire was at its height, a young Muslim occupied a central position of influence over its sovereign,” Basu said.
Karim says in his diary on meeting Queen Victoria for the first time: “I was somewhat nervous at the approach of the Great Empress... I presented nazars (gifts) by exposing, in the palms of my hands, a gold mohar (coin) which Her Majesty touched and remitted as is the Indian custom.”