“Wajid Ali was weak and contemptible, the wedge of British treachery. But our ladies were always strong and perfect. Nobody could defy Oudh.”
Begum Wilayat Mahal made this statement in an interview with the Chicago Tribune in 1985. It provides a telling insight into her thoughts on the 1857 Revolt, and why she mostly referred to Hazrat Mahal, rather than Wajid Ali Shah, as her ancestor. She admired her greatly and wished to see herself in the same line of strong women fighting for their kingdom, and for their rights.
The life of Hazrat Mahal, the warrior queen who gave the British a stiff fight during the 1857 Revolt, remains an enigma that has not yet been fully explored.
The initial part of her life, especially her origins, has never been conclusively established; the latter part of her life spent in Nepal has also not been examined sufficiently. Only her role during the 1857 Revolt has received the attention of historians, due to the availability of records from that period.
Perhaps this is why it was possible for Wilayat to claim ancestry from Hazrat Mahal. Her life story was simply not known enough. Even though Wilayat did not provide documented proof, the ancestry was ultimately stated as a fact in most articles, without questions regarding the exact family line, suggesting that they never told reporters either. But, as mentioned earlier, Sakina does discuss the family line in her book. It is here that we discover how exactly they explained their link to Hazrat Mahal. Wilayat’s ancestor, Sakina writes, was Almas Mahal. And Almas Mahal, she claims, was a daughter of Hazrat Mahal.
No other record of this daughter exists. But when records are scarce and history obscure, anyway, unproven theories go around – and in the case of Hazrat Mahal, her having a daughter is hardly the only unproven story. As the saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
One of the few books describing Hazrat Mahal’s life is Jaan-e-Alam Aur Mehak Pari, written by Lucknow-based historian Nusrat Naheed. About Hazrat Mahal, she writes that “she was born in a poor family in Faizabad”. Her father Umber was the slave to a nawab, called Gulam Husain, from Farrukhabad. Her mother, Meher Afza, was the nawab’s “Khawas”, which means something akin to the head of his household staff.
Due to her beauty, Hazrat Mahal, then called Umrao, attracted the attention of two female brokers who worked for Wajid Ali Shah, and they presented her to the king on one of his birthdays. She was admitted into the Parikhana for training in music and dance and given the title Mehak Pari.
Subsequently, Shah married her and she became pregnant, due to which her training could not be completed, writes Naheed. She gave birth to a son called Mirza Ramzan Ali, who was given the title of Birjis Qadr Bahadur. When Shah ascended the throne, he gave Mehak Pari the title of Nawab Begum Hazrat Mahal Sahiba.
Historian Roshan Taqui presents a similar account, but with several different nuances. Citing the research done by Dr AK Srivastava, former director of the Uttar Pradesh State Archives at the India Office Library in London, he writes that her father’s name was Miya Amber and her mother was called Meher Afza. According to Taqui, Miya Amber was from Farrukhabad and came to Lucknow during the reign of Wajid Ali Shah’s father, Amjad Ali Shah.
When Wajid Ali Shah ascended the throne, he placed all his former associates and employees in various positions in the new regime. Miya Amber knew someone who knew Wajid Ali Shah’s sitar teacher, and through this connection, he managed to secure the position of daroga (caretaker) at a mausoleum in Lucknow. He died within a year of his new posting. Following his death, Hazrat Mahal, then called Muhammadi, went to live with her relatives who were experts in making caps for the elites of Lucknow. Owing to an incident, which is not historically established but hearsay, on one occasion, a cap that had been commissioned for Wajid Ali Shah was found with a strand of hair in it; when an investigation was carried out, it led to the discovery of Muhammadi – who had apparently worn it before it was delivered to the king; her beauty charmed the king and she became a member of his Parikhana.
Sakina’s account differs from all others. She claims that Hazrat Mahal was of Nepali origin and was a princess from the Malla dynasty in Nepal. The Malla dynasty ruled Nepal from the 13th to the 18th century. The same theory is mentioned in a lengthy article published in the Kathmandu Post on 24 September 2019. The article cites a couple of books in this regard: a novel by famous Hindi writer Amritlal Nagar called Gadar Ke Phool, and another called Doon-Ghati Nalapani by Kumar Ghising, where this speculation finds a place. However, this theory has no historical basis and the article goes on to mention that.
Sakina further writes that Hazrat Mahal’s father was the cousin of an aristocratic woman, Lady Sughra, who owned an estate called Munnepore, which lies between Faizabad and Ayodhya. She was already “impoverished” and was under the control of a local chieftain called Maun Singh; she calls him her “oppressor”. She gives the name of the father as Syed Mansur Ali and the mother’s name as Gayatri Devi. The family had four children, according to Sakina. She writes that although the family was not keen, they ended up presenting Hazrat Mahal to Wajid Ali Shah, perhaps under pressure from the aunt or her ‘oppressor’.
Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, in her book The Last King in India as well as in several interviews since, gives a new interpretation of Hazrat Mahal’s origins. According to her, Hazrat Mahal’s father was an African slave. She draws on the research of Nusrat Naheed, but concludes that her father’s name was a complimentary name for dark-skinned people, in particular African male slaves.
Taqui, when we meet him at his Lucknow residence, says he disagrees with this interpretation. “This is not true,” he says. “As far as Hazrat Mahal is concerned, everybody knows her parents were not [black].”
He goes into the various theories that are there around her origins. “Some say her father came from Faizabad. There is one reference that her father was the caretaker of a monument. Another story says that her father was in attendance of a nawab of Farrukhabad. There is no third story, as far as I know.”
Taqui reminds us that there are not many objective sources that have recorded Hazrat Mahal’s life story. “She was never in the limelight until the rebellion started. So, when she led the war against the East India Company, both sides started writing things. That’s the only period you will find things about Hazrat Mahal from.”
Because of the context of the revolt, we must remember that these sources had an agenda – and not all historians agree on which is more reliable. Taqui, narrating a meeting with Llewellyn-Jones, adds: “A couple of years back, Rosie told me: don’t rely on Urdu references of that period. I asked her, why? I consider the Urdu references of that period more relevant and reliable. The English media was bent upon maligning characters of that period.”
We decided to ask Nusrat Naheed herself, as it is her research that Llewellyn-Jones based her conclusion on. It’s not easy to find her, with no contact details or place of work mentioned anywhere online. We decided to ask around at the Amir-ud-Daula Library in Kaiserbagh, a well-known public library in Lucknow, which published her book. The library is housed in a beautiful building, built for the purpose in the 1920s. When we visit, there is a big project of digitising all their books ongoing and many books are lying in a big pile. But Naheed’s book is special and the staff should know where to locate it, a manager tells us. “She used to be the chief librarian here, a very educated lady. When she worked here, the library was doing very well.” We are given English and Hindi versions of her book to read. When we ask where we can find her, we are told she is retired now, but lives nearby.
In a small living room in an apartment complex above a shopping centre, Naheed offers us tea and shows us her books. Apart from the one on Hazrat Mahal, there is one on several begums of India, and another one on the culture of Awadh. Some of her books are written in Hindi, and some in Urdu. We converse in a mix of these languages and English.
“No,” she insists without hesitation when we ask her about Hazrat Mahal’s possible African descent. “Umber means ‘sky’. It does not mean he was from Africa or dark-skinned. A slave could have come from this region too.” We ask her if she ever spoke to Llewellyn-Jones to discuss her conclusions, and she says no. “She never visited me.”
She shows us the document where she found the details on Hazrat Mahal’s parents. It is in an archive of rent-free landholdings, a one-page document printed in her book in the original English. It mentions that the land was 750 acres in size, contained 55 wells, and was in the village of Mahudinaggar. Wajid Ali Shah gave this land to Hazrat Mahal in the year 1840, it says, and in a separate column, it mentions the then occupants’ parents: “The begum is the daughter of ‘Umber’ a slave of Gulam Hossain Ali Khan, and her mother was Maher Afza, Khawas of the same person.” The use of past tense here suggests her mother had passed away at the time this document was written, which was in 1860, three years after the Revolt of 1857. It goes on to describe her: “This is the notorious rebel begum who has persisted in remaining absent. She has one son, Birjis Kud (sic) 13 years old, who is with her.” The document was the conclusion of an investigation into such landholdings, after the annexation of Awadh. The chief commissioner ordered: “Sanction of Government to the confiscation of this tenancy solicited.”
Excerpted with permission from The House of Awadh: A Hidden Tragedy, Aletta André and Abhimanyu Kumar, HarperCollins India.
