Victoria & Abdul (41 page)

Hewitt was staying at the Government House in Nainital, a town nestling in the Uttar Pradesh hills, where he too was enjoying a break from the heat. He sent a letter to W.H. Cobb, the Commissioner of Agra, and informed him of the Royal request.

The Commissioner and the Collector left immediately for Karim Lodge, the Munshi’s house in Agra. It was the house that he had received as a gift from the Queen. They were met by his grieving family, the Munshi’s widow, his brother, Abdul Aziz, and his nephew, Abdul Rashid. The Munshi had no children. The family listened in disbelief as the King’s officials came, not to offer sympathy at the death of the Munshi, but demanded that they hand over any remaining letters written by Queen Victoria to him. They protested that the letters had already been handed over but, on the insistence of the Commissioner, eventually gave up the Munshi’s entire box of correspondence. As the Munshi’s wife wept silently behind her veil, the young Abdul Rashid, who had attended school in St Andrews in Scotland and played with the Royal grandchildren, entered solemnly carrying the letters and documents in a bag.

Seizing the letters, the Commissioner returned to his office and despatched a letter to Hewitt, who reported back to the Viceroy:

I have heard from the Commissioner of Agra that he and the Collector went yesterday to Karim Lodge and were shown the
entire correspondence of the late Munshi. It included only two letters of a date up to her late Majesty’s death, one from the Queen herself, and one from Sir Thomas Dennehy. There was nothing in either of them which might not be published to the world at large. The only point worthy of note was that the Munshi’s nephew had not produced the Queen’s letter in the first instance: it was only when he was asked whether no letter at all had been kept as a special memento of the late Majesty that he showed it. The letter had however been brought into the room in the same bag which held the other papers, so that there was apparently no intention of suppressing it.
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Cobb gave only sketchy details of what had actually been an emotionally charged scene. They had entered a house of mourning and made harsh demands. The Munshi’s distraught nephew, Abdul Rashid, had told them that there were no letters left. He told them he had been present with the Munshi eight years ago in Frogmore Cottage in Windsor when the first raid had taken place on their house after Queen Victoria’s death. He described how Queen Alexandra and Princess Beatrice had come to their house and demanded all the letters from the Queen to the Munshi. The letters had been burnt in the presence of Karim, his wife, his brother and Abdul Rashid.

The Collector went through the pile that young Rashid brought out. The letters included friendly correspondence from members of the Court, Christmas cards and other trivia. In one letter, the Munshi was found fault with for asking favours from His Majesty. The Munshi had kept all his letters carefully, even those that were critical of him.

The Collector noted: ‘Only one letter contained a political allusion.’ It was from Sir Dighton Probyn, who mentioned that the ‘war between Russia and Japan was the general subject of conversation and that England hoped that Japan would gain the victory which her bravery and honesty entitled her to.’
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The Commissioner said he drew Abdul Rashid’s attention to this letter and pointed out how the changed relations existing between Russia and England rendered it ‘undesirable that such a letter should become public and impressed on him that he should seek out any other such correspondence that might have been overlooked and bring it to his notice’.

It was significant that a senior courtier like Sir Dighton Probyn, secretary to the Prince of Wales and a recipient of the Victoria Cross for his bravery during the Indian Mutiny, was discussing matters of political importance with the Munshi. Clearly, he considered him astute enough to discuss subjects like the war between Russia and Japan, even though he knew the nationalists in India had backed Japan as they had seen it as a small country taking on a mighty Imperial power with obvious parallels. The Commissioner and the Collector left Karim Lodge with the letters, convinced that the family had shown them all the correspondence they possessed.

They informed Hewitt that the Munshi had left two widows. He had taken a second wife, as Muslims were allowed to do, and she lived in Delhi. The family thought the second widow may give them some trouble. The first wife, who had travelled to England and had known the Queen, continued to live in the family home in Agra.

Hewitt himself clearly felt that there was nothing more to be done. Privately he felt that the seizure of the letters was hardly justified. He told the Viceroy: ‘It does not appear to be possible to take any further action as regards the papers and unless your Excellency directs me to I do not propose to do anything more.’
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The letters were duly sent to King Edward VII with all the covering correspondence. However, he was not completely satisfied. On 21 May another memo arrived from Buckingham Palace: ‘No doubt but that it will be necessary to watch the relatives of the late Abdul Karim for a certain time. Edward.’
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The scent of pine leaves was strong in the air. In the Viceregal Lodge in Simla, the summer capital of the British in India, the Viceroy, Lord Minto, was enjoying the fresh air after the monsoon. The deodar trees framed the grounds of the Lodge, which had been completed in 1888 under Lord Dufferin to provide the Viceroy and his office a refuge from the scorching sun of the plains in the summer. Every year the entire administration of the British Raj moved desks to the hills, the coolies carrying an army of cabinets, files and boxes up the steep slopes so that the business of the Empire could continue uninterrupted, 7,200 feet up in the tranquil surrounds of the Himalayas. Minto looked
forward to this break and the opportunity it provided for a little relaxation: watching the latest plays from London staged by the Simla Amateur Dramatic Club in the neo-Gothic surrounds of the Gaiety Theatre on the Mall, scones and tea in the afternoon, the whirl of the summer parties, pink gins and the occasional round of golf on the nearby slopes.

He had reason to feel particularly pleased this summer. The Minto-Morley reforms had been passed in May and the Indians had been satisfied by it. The Indian leader, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, had praised it, saying that Minto and Morley had saved India from drifting ‘towards what cannot be described by any other name than chaos’.

Minto was watching the changing colours of the snow-capped Himalayas in the late afternoon sun when he received another message from the King; more on the Munshi and the troublesome letters. The King wrote tersely: ‘I am not satisfied in my mind that there may not be still letters in Queen Victoria’s handwriting in their possession.’ He recommended ‘discreet investigations’ and suggested that ‘they [the Munshi’s family] should be told to return them at once, or risk being “the sufferers thereby”’.
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The fact that Ahmed Husain, the Queen’s former servant and the Munshi’s arch-rival, had hinted that the Munshi still possessed a few letters from the Queen was playing on the King’s mind.

Not too pleased, the Viceroy wrote once again to John Hewitt. A few days later Hewitt visited the Viceroy at Simla. As the two men walked along the Observatory Hill and looked out over the valley below, they discussed what they should do about the King’s further instructions to revisit the Munshi’s house.

Hewitt decided there was nothing to do but obey. Once again, the Commissioner and the Collector of Agra were despatched to Karim Lodge. One morning in September, four months after their first visit, the King’s representatives rapped on the door of the late Munshi’s house again. This time the language was stronger, there were angry threats and talk of heavy repercussions on the family. The three family members pleaded and begged but the officials were intimidating. At last, the Munshi’s widow pulled out eight letters from the Queen that she had kept as mementoes. Weeping, the lady who had once been visited regularly by Queen Victoria begged that the letters were of no value to anyone but her. They were personal letters and she would like to keep them as long as
she lived. The production of the letters led to more harsh words and accusations that the family were probably hiding more.

The distraught nephew, Abdul Rashid, pleaded that there were no more. In desperation he brought out a copy of the Koran and swore on it that there were no more letters in the Queen’s handwriting. The Commissioner and his team marched out of the house with the letters. Feeling like criminals, the family watched as the uniformed officers of the Raj rode away. The Munshi’s wife wept uncontrollably, more for the humiliation she had suffered and the insulting manner in which the family had been treated.

She remembered her days in England when Queen Victoria would visit her house and stay for a cup of tea. Then she would lift her veil and sit with her. The Queen would try to speak in Hindustani, while she replied in broken English. Often a member of the Royal family or visiting European Royalty would come with the Queen. She remembered the last Christmas present the Queen had given her and how she had driven to their house personally to give it. Nothing remained with her now, not even a memento of the Munshi and Victoria. The photographs were handed over, the letters burnt. Her husband had died, still grieving for the Queen and never forgetting his days spent by her side. She felt a dull ache in her heart as she remembered the past years.

The seized letters were sealed and sent by the Commissioner to Hewitt who forwarded them to Minto with the note: ‘I enclose the original letters in possession of the late Munshi’s representatives … the widow is particularly anxious to be permitted to keep letters dated 12 October 1893, 15 February and 15 September 1894 and 6 November 1898 as long as she is alive. Her wish seems a reasonable one.’
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Minto in turn sent them to Knollys.

Hewitt, clearly quite unhappy at the whole affair, said he did not believe the family were concealing any letters from the late Majesty. He pointed out that in addition to the Munshi’s widow, both the descendants – the brother and the nephew – were in government service and were unlikely to conceal anything. The bureaucrats at the India Office, and the Viceroy himself, clearly disapproved of the hounding of the Munshi’s family by the King. At a time of political discontent and the government trying to balance the relations between the Hindus and Muslims, this persecution of a Muslim family did not seem an ideal situation
to Minto. He felt he did not need any aggravation of an already delicate situation, least over what he perceived as some irrelevant personal letters and postcards.

Though he had pressing administrative matters to attend to, Minto sent off the letters to Lord Knollys, private secretary to the King, along with copies of the letters to Arthur Bigge. The clutch of letters included some Christmas cards sent by the Queen with ‘Good Wishes’ and ‘xxx’ marked on them.

In the pile of letters sent to Knollys, there were three letters written by the Queen to the Munshi. One, in the Queen’s own handwriting, was addressed from Balmoral. It was headed: ‘Extracts from the Prince of Wales’s letters to the Queen in answer to hers.’ These showed the humbling of the Prince of Wales by his mother. In the first letter, dated 28 September 1899, the Prince of Wales wrote: ‘I shall always be ready to notice and speak to the Munshi when I meet him.’ The second, dated 2 October 1899, authorised the Queen to assure Abdul Karim ‘that I [Edward] have no ill will against him and only trust that matters should go smoothly and quietly.’
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The Queen had copied her son’s correspondence and given it to the Munshi.

Two other letters in the pack were marked as ‘True copies’. They were of a slightly earlier date. One was written in February 1894 by the Queen and declared: ‘I have given to the Munshi Abdul Karim (for whom I have specially written this) a gun as a present and have allowed him to wear a sword here and in India since the year 1890. Victoria R.I.’ The other was written in 1896 and defined the Munshi’s duties. None of them, apart maybe from the one in reply to the King’s original letter on the Munshi, could have caused the King any embarrassment, but he was determined to mop up even the smallest scrap of paper that could have passed between his mother and her Indian confidant.