Last Nizam (9781742626109) (21 page)

The Nizam's court also reverberated with the sound of poetry. Osman Ali Khan was an accomplished poet whose ‘perfumed
ghazals
' were often written on scraps of paper at the rate of up to a dozen a day. Despite having a phalanx of wives, Osman Ali Khan portrayed himself as a love-ravaged hero whose ‘tortured heart' beat against a breast blushing with ‘love's wounds'. His output included an annual Christmas ode which was rendered into English by one of Hyderabad's most noted poets, Nizamat Jung. Criticism of the couplets was unheard of. They could only be recited in gatherings officiated over by the President.

In a nod to modernity, Osman Ali Khan had issued a ban on subjects making an
adab
(salutation) as he passed through the city. The practice of placing one's head on the Nizam's feet had also fallen into disuse. But in the confines of the court little else had changed. On the arrival of the Nizam, noblemen, courtiers and officials would arrange themselves according to rank. They would then bend low and make a dozen or more salutations reaching almost to the ground before saluting with scooping gestures in front of their mouths so as not to defile the air around their ruler as they stood upright. Before approaching the Nizam, a nobleman would place on the upturned palm of their right hand a gold coin on a silk handkerchief, and then, bowing deeply, present it to their ruler. Once this was done, the nobleman would return to his place, still bowing and without turning around because it was forbidden to turn one's back on the Nizam. It was not unusual for the gold
ashrafis
to be washed with perfumed soap before a noble would touch them.

Protocol was strictly observed. If a member of the Paigah nobility wanted to go to Poona for the races, he had to seek the permission of the Nizam with the following plea in eloquent Persian: ‘After kissing the Threshold of Your Throne, it is humbly submitted to the Great and Holy Protector of the World, Shadow of God, Mighty Holder of Destinies, Full of Light and Most Elevated among Creatures, the Exalted, May God's Shadow Never Grow Less, May God Protect Your Kingdom and Your Sultanate, Most Respectfully I beg to submit . . .'
³¹

Palace life was bound up in formality. Mukarram spoke to his grandfather directly on only two occasions. Once he was asked: ‘How is your mother?', and another time the Nizam asked if he wanted more food. Otherwise his grandfather would ask through a chamberlain questions such as ‘How is my grandson doing at school?', to which Mukarram would reply, indirectly: ‘My honoured grandfather, I did well in my term exams.'
³²

Shortly after Mukarram's tenth birthday, the Resident, Sir Arthur Lothian, sent a confidential telegram to the Viceroy's secretary in Delhi warning that:

. . . the question of his future education has necessarily to be taken up some day soon, as he is getting beyond the control of his mother and governess. The Prince of Berar takes little apparent personal interest in this matter, but the Princess is most anxious to see that her son is given a really good education, which she considers it will be impossible for him to obtain in Hyderabad in view of the atmosphere of adulation that would surround him there.
³³

Durrushehvar's first preference, for her son to be sent to Eton, received a cool reception in Delhi. ‘Even if there had been no war we doubt if it would have been wise to fall in with the Princess of Berar's idea that the boy should go to Eton,' the Political Department advised Lothian at the end of 1943. ‘Over-Anglicisation has its dangers too and what we feel here is that the early education of heirs-apparent should be in India with possibly a term at Oxford or Cambridge.'
³⁴

The only options were leaving Mukarram at Madrassa Aliya or sending him to an English-style ‘public school' outside Hyderabad. The choices were limited. Most Indian potentates sent their sons to one of six so-called ‘chiefs' colleges', the most famous of which was Mayo College in Ajmer. Established in the late nineteenth century the charter of the colleges was to provide ‘for the sons of the ruling classes such an education as will fit them for the discharge of their responsibilities to their subjects'.
³⁵
For Durrushehvar, however, attending one of these colleges would simply reinforce the princely culture she held in disdain.

The other choice was the ‘Doon School'. Situated in the foothills of the Himalayas on the outskirts of the town of Dehra
Dun, the school was the brainchild of S. R. Das, a Calcutta lawyer. Das attended an English grammar school in the 1890s and qualified as a barrister at the Middle Temple, before returning to India and eventually becoming a legal advisor to the Viceroy. Inspired by the English public-school system, Das was determined to open a school in India that would ‘develop in the course of a generation or two as an institution of incalculable value to the future of the educated classes'.
³⁶
What differentiated the school Das proposed from the chiefs' colleges was his belief that it should promote the ideals of equality and freedom which in 1930s India would give it a decidedly nationalist tinge.

Doon was indeed a ‘very different kind of place', as Marjorie Ussher, governess to three wards of the Nizam, wrote in a letter to her family in England in 1943.

No personal servants are allowed at all and the boys have to make their own beds and do lots of things for themselves. They take boys of all classes and all are treated exactly alike although they have several rulers' sons there at present . . . The question of religion is not allowed to come between the boys at all – Hindu sleeps with Muslim – they eat at the same table.
³⁷

This appealed to Durrushehvar, but not to the Nizam. When she finally convinced her husband to write to Osman Ali Khan urging him to give permission for Mukarram to be sent to Dehra Dun, the response was decidedly negative. On receiving the letter the Nizam remarked to his new Prime Minister, the Nawab of Chhatari, that ‘the Princess was a Turk and outsider, and did not know the traditions of his house'.
³⁸

Durrushehvar, however, was not deterred. After a decade in Hyderabad, she knew how to get her way in the royal household and the Residency, particularly as far as her son's upbringing was
concerned. She knew that Mukarram was the Nizam's favourite grandson and for all intents and purposes the heir apparent. Over the next 18 months she patiently chipped away at her father-in-law's opposition to a western education for her son. In her determination to succeed, Durrushehvar never shied at twisting the arm of the Resident and even the Viceroy to achieve her goals.

By early 1944 Durrushehvar's perseverance was beginning to pay off. The Nizam gave way to the proposal to send both Jah and his younger brother to Doon School, but only on the condition that they would be day scholars and their religious training would be looked after in their residence by a special teacher of Islam. But in order not to be seen to be bowing to his daughter-in-law, Osman Ali Khan wrote to Lothian stating that Durrushehvar's ‘insistence' was ‘reasonable as the health of the boy is not strong and he has to be kept on a special diet. His physique is not such as to be able to withstand the strain of the very exacting daily routine of the school.'
³⁹

The health issue was a red herring as Jah was extremely strong for his age. He could ride horses as well as any of his instructors, had developed a passion for cars and anything mechanical or that involved using his hands. He was a reasonable shot and had accompanied his father on hunting expeditions. The only thing he was not particularly good at was his schoolwork.

Having won over the Nizam, Durrushehvar convinced Lothian to send a telegram to Delhi saying that ‘everything should be done to get the Prince of Berar's eldest son to the Doon School (even as day boy) accompanied by a Muslim co-guardian. We do not think the acceptance of this proposal need create an awkward precedence. Hyderabad is in a class by itself.'
⁴⁰
Hyderabad's special status, however, cut no ice with the Doon School's formidable headmaster Arthur Foot. A former student of Winchester College and a graduate of Oxford and Cambridge universities, Foot had been the science master at Eton when he was recruited
to become Doon's first headmaster in 1935. Foot was also a Fabian with strong views on ‘civil society, its aesthetic principles and the rules and ceremonies of its functioning'. As far as he was concerned ‘all boys, once they are in our school, must have similar treatment irrespective of their social position'.
⁴¹

Lothian now advised the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, to write directly to the Nizam asking him that the boy be allowed in as an ordinary boarder. On 29 May 1944 Wavell did just that, telling the Nizam that in his opinion, ‘the governors are right in maintaining a strict attitude in this matter, and in insisting that the special character of the Doon School be preserved. If, therefore, Your Exalted Highness's grandson is to go to the Doon school he must go as a boarder.'
⁴²
The Nizam knew he couldn't defy Wavell but in order to save face he waited almost two months before informing Lothian that he agreed with the Viceroy's suggestion. The only issue outstanding was the question of a
maulvi
(religious tutor) accompanying Jah to Dehra Dun. On this issue, Foot refused to compromise, writing to the Viceroy's office that ‘we do not allow any doctrinal teaching of any particular religion'.
⁴³

Durrushehvar knew the Nizam would oppose a
maulvi
not accompanying her son. With less than a month to go before the start of school in September she wrote to Lothian begging him not to tell the Nizam that Foot had not allowed a
maulvi
at his school. ‘Please do your utmost to assist in this matter, as it would be a calamity for Hyderabad if the arrangement to get the boy educated outside the state fell through at this stage owing to a hitch over this minor point.'
⁴⁴

Finally, in early September, Durrushehvar and her two sons boarded a special train in Hyderabad which took them to Delhi, and then changed for the Dehra Dun service. For a highly pampered prince like Mukarram, Doon School was a boot camp. The daily routine started with a rising bell, and continued with exercises, breakfast, assembly, classes, lunch, rest period, sports,
extracurricular activities, bathing time, evening meal, study time and finally sleeping. It quickly became apparent to the young Jah that his status no longer counted. The list of morning prayers read out at assembly included one beseeching the ‘Lord of all nations' to grant that ‘in this our nation, there may be none, high or low, whatever his race or caste, who is bound by the shackles of ancient contempt, and barred from his right of free manhood'.
⁴⁵

Durrushehvar was determined that her son stick to the rules and receive no special treatment, but she also took the precaution of renting a house in Dehra Dun in case he had difficulties settling in. Foot reported that the princess was ‘a great addition to the rather provincial society of Dehra Dun and we all got on very well with her'. But he was not impressed with Jah's performance in his entrance test which showed that ‘even if he understood a sum, he had always been accustomed to have a tutor to do the tedious business of working it out'.
⁴⁶

Habeeb Jung, Mukarram's prefect at Doon School, remembers how he hated the routine. ‘He was too pampered, spoon fed and used to sycophants. I used to call him knock-knees. I allowed him to keep his tuck and his comics, strictly forbidden, under his mattress. He couldn't stand team games. Anything where he was an individual he excelled at, gym, diving, he was superb at fencing, but when it came hockey he wouldn't play.' Foot was a socialist in every sense, Habeeb Jung explains. ‘Boys were not registered according to any titles. Whether you were the son of the Maharajah of Jaipur, or Gwalior, or Kashmir, you were called by your first name. He was preparing us for independence, when we were going to get a boot up the you-know-where. That was good. Nonetheless, the Doon School at the time also produced the biggest snobs in India.'
⁴⁷

Despite Durrushehvar's concerns, Foot reported at the end of term one that Mukarram had settled in well. ‘He seems quite at home and inconspicuous which is about the most valuable thing
for him as he is now merged in the mass of small boys his age,' Foot wrote to the Viceroy's office in February 1945. ‘When I first saw him at the beginning of his first term in September I thought it very doubtful if he would stay the course at all. He has certainly never mixed with other boys and had never done anything for himself.' Academically, however, Mukarram was struggling. He was at the bottom class for Arithmetic and one above for English. ‘He is very slovenly in his work and lacking in concentration,' Foot reported. It was also apparent that Jah was more interested in doing things with his hands than exercising his mind. ‘He is very keen on carpentry and spent a good deal of his spare time in the workshop and this can provide unlimited scope in the future.'
⁴⁸

Still licking his wounds at being outsmarted by a ‘Turk', the Nizam finally found the excuse he was looking for to remove Mukarram from the Doon School before the end of his first year. In May 1945 he wrote to Lothian that his grandson ‘was not keeping good health at the school and losing weight. It was on this account that his mother, acting upon medical advice, took the boy away from the school before it closed to Kashmir for a change.'
⁴⁹

Once again the health issue was a red herring. The school's medical officer reported that Jah had lost just over five pounds, which was normal for boarders. He was however prone to being ‘extremely absent-minded and the greatest vigilance on the part of the dame is necessary to see that he takes his tonics'.
⁵⁰
J. A. K. Martyn, Foot's successor, agreed that there was nothing wrong with Jah's health but he shared his medical officer's concerns about his student's absent-mindedness. ‘He seems to have very little idea of what is going on around him,' he wrote to Lothian.