CHAPTER 2

In the Court of Hyderabad

NIZAM UL-MULK OUTLIVED EIGHT Mughal Emperors and achieved victory in all but one of the 87 battles he fought in his lifetime. As the Viceroy of the Deccan he had freed himself from all but the most nominal dependence on his masters and grew more powerful than the rulers of Delhi. But for all his foresight and skills as a ruler, there was nothing he could have done to prevent the fratricidal power struggle that broke out after his death.

Muslim law does not set down any rules for the succession of sovereigns. Under the Mughals it was not the eldest son who inherited the throne, but the son or grandson with the longest sword and the strongest army. In the case of the Nizams, the succession process was further complicated by the fact that no distinction was made between legitimate and illegitimate offspring.¹ Discord and strife would remain a feature of the dynastic succession in Hyderabad well into the twentieth century, when the state had been reduced to a few crumbling palaces and rusty safes stuffed with gemstones and jewellery. Even today Hyderabad’s courts are clogged with cases filed by Mukarram Jah’s relatives demanding their share of the fortunes allegedly lying in Swiss vaults and overseas bank accounts.

Had the wishes of the First Nizam been followed it would have moulded a very different dynasty from the one that would totter between plenty and penury and be constantly prey to slander and court intrigues. Rather than building on the foundations that Nizam ul-Mulk had laid for statehood, his successors began tearing it down. Power-hungry rulers obsessed with their own comfort, security and wealth conveniently forgot the more salient points of Nizam ul-Mulk’s testament. His warnings about the folly of wars fought for the sake of conquest were ignored. His belief that the income of the state would last seven generations did not anticipate the firesale of territories and their revenue that his heirs were forced to undertake for the dynasty to survive. Several times over the course of the next 150 years Hyderabad would teeter on the verge of bankruptcy. Suspicion, jealousy and manipulation became the lifeblood of the Nizams’ entourage. Looking back at seven generations of dynastic rule, one observer wrote: ‘They seemed to carry with them an echo of Mughal Emperors long dead or whisperings and betrayals in the Red Palace of Shah Jehan.’²

The British and the French were well-placed to take advantage of the chaos that followed Nizam ul-Mulk’s death. The crumbling might of the Mughal Empire had stirred their empire-building ambitions. Founded in 1600, the East India Company by now had a presence in three provinces. Madras had been acquired in 1640 from the Vijayanagar king, Bombay was part of the dowry of Charles II’s Portuguese queen and Bengal was a lonely group of villages on the Hoogly River. Essentially they were trading posts or ‘factories’, but by the end of the eighteenth century they would be transformed into fully fledged outposts of the empire. Events in the Deccan would be the trigger for the East India Company’s transformation.

The First Nizam had maintained a strict neutrality in his dealings with the European powers, perceiving correctly the danger of becoming a pawn in hostilities that were being played out half a world away. But that did not stop them from trying to engage him. In March 1742, the British who were based in Fort St George in Madras sent a modest hamper to Nizam ul-Mulk in recognition of his leadership of the most important of the Mughal successor states. Its contents included a gold throne, gold and silver threaded silk from Europe, two pairs of ‘large painted looking glasses’, an ‘equipage for coffee cups’, 163¾ yards of green and 73½ yards of crimson velvet, brocades, Persian carpets, a gold ceremonial cloth, two Arab horses, half a dozen ornate rose-water bottles and 39¾ chests of rose water – enough to keep the Nizam and his entire darbar fragrant for the rest of his reign. Careful to maintain his distance, the Nizam sent in return just one horse, a piece of jewellery and a note warning the British they had no right to mint their own currency, to which they meekly complied.³

In 1747 Nizam ul-Mulk listened favourably to their complaint that the ‘insolent and perfidious’ French were subjecting innocent English traders to ‘robberies, cruelties and depredations’. He immediately instructed one of his governors, the Nawab of Arcot, to ‘protect, aid and assist the British in all respects, and use your best endeavours in such a manner that the French may be severely chastised and rooted off’.⁴ His son, Nasir Jung, fired off an even stronger missive to Joseph Dupleix, the French Governor of Pondicherry, warning him of ‘severe punishment’ if he did not comply.⁵ Dupleix had arrived as Governor of Pondicherry in 1742 after serving as a commercial director in the small French trading post of Chandernagar in Bengal. ‘Vain, irascible and pompous’⁶, he was the first European to recognise the opportunities for the Western powers to take advantage of what would be a 14-year-long war for control of the court of Hyderabad following the First Nizam’s death.

Nizam ul-Mulk left six sons and one grandson fighting for their right to succeed him. It was Nasir Jung who made the first move, seizing the treasury and claiming the title of Nizam that he had coveted ever since he had crossed swords with his father in 1741. Nasir Jung was described as ‘high-spirited, but tenderhearted’, qualities which at the time did not make for a long life-expectancy. According to James Grant Duff, the nineteenth-century author of the iconic History of the Marathas, Nasir Jung was also a poet and a lover of literature and would have become a ‘gallant knight and an accomplished gentleman’ if only he had partaken of a dose of ‘European education’. However, Grant Duff concluded pessimistically that he ‘was totally destitute of his father’s prudence and if successful in his fortunes would probably have sunk into a Mahommedan sensualist’.⁷

Still smarting from having their pride insulted by Nasir Jung, the French backed Nizam ul-Mulk’s grandson, Muzzafar Jung. Unlike his scheming uncle, Muzzafar Jung was said to be ‘a brave and gallant youth, with noble promise of making a great and good monarch’.⁸ He also had the advantage of being Nizam ul-Mulk’s nominated heir.

The attributes of the two men, however, mattered little to the British and the French, whose main concern was extending their influence in whatever way possible. For the first time, peaceful traders of two countries so far removed from India that it took six months for news to arrive, went into battle on opposite sides. With the help of soldiers of fortune from as far afield as America, Ireland and even Armenia, Britain and France would play a vital role in consolidating the warring armies of India. Introducing European methods of training, attack and defence, they demonstrated how small corps of highly disciplined troops could accomplish in well co-ordinated strikes what had once taken enormous Mughal armies months or even years to achieve. They ranged from lofty aristocrats such as Benoit de Boigne, who entered the service of the Maratha ruler Madhaji Sindia, to the Irish deserter George Thomas, who fought against Sikh brigands, became a land-pirate, drank copiously and ‘kept a zenana of charming girls’.⁹

The forerunner of this motley crew cut an unlikely figure. Stringer Lawrence was a stoutly built man with a protruding stomach, double chin and heavy jowl who arrived at Fort St George on 1 January 1748. An ex-navy captain, he had been brought out of retirement by the East India Company at the age of 50 to take command of the Madras garrison and had been given the rank of major. Lawrence is credited with being the creator of the Company’s army in southern India by training English and Indian troops to become a small but competent military machine. One of his disciples was Robert Clive, who went on to become one of the Company’s most successful generals and the master of Bengal.

Now that the British had thrown their support behind Nasir Jung, Lawrence assembled a small English force backed by 300,000 native troops and marched to the fort of Gingee to await the forces of Muzzafar Jung. Built on a number of hills in the form of a circle and connected by strong walls, Gingee had withstood a 12-year siege by Aurangzeb and was considered the most impregnable fort in southern India. Mutinous, and convinced of Nasir Jung’s military superiority, the French force supporting Muzzafar Jung refused to attack and retreated to Pondicherry. Muzzafar Jung, however, remained behind after being told that his uncle had promised forgiveness and had sworn on the Koran not to take his nephew prisoner; but on approaching Nasir Jung’s camp he was seized by guards and placed in chains in a tent.

Muzzafar Jung’s capture, and the ignominious retreat of the French forces along with most of their native troops, looked like the end of Dupleix’s ambition to make himself ruler of southern India. The flamboyant Frenchman now faced a huge force under the command of an angry Nasir Jung and supported by a strong body of British troops. But whatever setbacks Dupleix faced on the military front were more than countered by his political genius and unique insight into how to exploit local Indian authorities to his advantage. Through well-placed spies he soon learned that all was not well in Nasir Jung’s camp. The nawabs of Cuddapah, Kurnool and Savanur were dissatisfied with his treatment of Muzzafar Jung. The British were frustrated by Nasir Jung’s refusal to appoint their nominee as Nawab of Carnatic and had recalled most of their forces to Fort Saint David. Believing the campaign to be over, Nasir Jung sent most of his troops back to Hyderabad while he went to Arcot on a hunting expedition. Seizing the moment, Dupleix sent a small force of 250 Europeans and 4200 sepoys under the command of diplomatist and soldier Charles de Bussy to attack Gingee. Instead of attempting a regular siege, de Bussy stormed the fort, taking its defenders by surprise, and with only four guns obtained the surrender of Nasir Jung’s forces.

Stung by the defeat, Nasir Jung assembled a 60,000-strong force to retake the fort, but Dupleix had yet to play all his cards. As the two sides negotiated the release of Muzzafar Jung, Dupleix was exploiting the discontent among the nawabs in Nasir Jung’s camp while secretly preparing an attack. When the French force arrived, Nasir Jung put on a white tunic and rode unarmed on his elephant to the camp of the Nawab of Kurnool, Himmat Khan, demanding that his men join him and fight their common enemy. As instructed by Dupleix, Himmat Khan refused to move, and when Nasir Jung called him a coward the nawab and his watchman ‘discharged their guns into [Nasir Jung’s] breast and sent him at once to paradise’.¹⁰

With Nasir Jung now out of the way, the French took Muzzafar Jung to Pondicherry, where, on 26 December 1750, ‘amid exultation and festivity’, the firing of salutes and the singing of the Te Deum, he was proclaimed the new Nizam.¹¹ Muzzafar Jung’s inauguration at Pondicherry rather than Hyderabad was a deliberate act. Dupleix wanted to remind the Muslim world that power had passed from the Viceroy of the Deccan to the French. ‘This was but the beginning of the greatness of Dupleix,’ wrote one of his early biographers, Thomas Macaulay. ‘The new Nizam came thither to visit his allies and the ceremony of his installation was performed there with great pomp. Dupleix, dressed in the garb worn by Mohammedans of the highest rank, entered the town in the same palanquin with the Nizam and in the pageant which followed took precedence of all the court.’¹²

In return for France’s assistance Muzzafar Jung bestowed honours, treasure and land upon Dupleix and declared him Viceroy of the whole of southern India from the Kistna River to Cape Comorin. Dupleix now ruled 30 million people with almost absolute power. No honour or emolument could be obtained from the government but by his intervention. No petition signed by him was perused by the Nizam. ‘His countrymen boasted that his name was mentioned with awe even in the chambers of the palace of Delhi, the native population looked with amazement on the progress which in a short space of four years a European adventurer had made towards domination in Asia.’¹³

By his actions, Muzzafar Jung set an important precedent which would dictate the future of his dynasty. He became the first Indian ruler to engage a military force under the command of a European commander in exchange for a grant of territory. As the geopolitical situation in the Deccan became more complex, the Nizams would pawn off more and more swathes of territory until they found themselves mere surrogates of empire-builders in Paris and then in London.

For all the pomp and ceremony of his installation, Muzzafar Jung’s reign was never officially recognised by the Mughal Emperor in Delhi and was in any case destined to last only six weeks. The same nawabs who had plotted with Dupleix to kill his uncle were now demanding exorbitant sums from Muzzafar Jung for putting him on the throne. Fearing an ambush, he asked Dupleix for a French contingent to accompany him to Hyderabad to take possession of his inheritance. Dupleix was only too happy to oblige. Seeing it as a way of ensuring French influence continued in Hyderabad, he provided a force of 300 French soldiers under the command of de Bussy. But things did not go according to plan. Intoxicated with their success in killing Nasir Jung and smarting at the measly share they had received for helping to put Muzzafar Jung in power, the nawabs laid a trap. While approaching a narrow pass in the Eastern Ghats, Muzzafar Jung found his way blocked by forces under the command of the Nawab of Cuddapah, who attacked the Nizam’s army forces from the rear. Instead of waiting for French reinforcements, Muzzafar Jung mounted his war elephant and personally led the charge against the nawab’s forces. The encounter was brief. A well-aimed arrow from Himmat Khan’s bow hit Muzzafar Jung in the eye, killing him instantly.

Normally the battle would have ended there with the defeat of the Nizam’s forces, but a Hindu rajah named Raghunathdas, sitting behind Muzzafar Jung, removed the arrow, took hold of the corpse’s lifeless arms and pretended that his leader was still alive. ‘By moving its head every now and then and asking for water and bread, and making the arms of the dead man move as if directing the soldiers to kill their enemies, he inspired every one of them with the belief that Muzzafar Jung was still alive,’ wrote one witness. ‘To the end of the battle, no one knew that the body of Muzzafar was lifeless, until the Afghans had fled, and the leaders of Muzzafar’s army had cut off the heads of the Afghan chiefs and placed them on spears, and the music had sounded in triumph and all had gone to their tents.’ Only then did the news spread that Muzzafar Jung had ‘quaffed the sherbet of death’.¹⁴

De Bussy would not allow himself to be diverted by such a minor matter. As luck would have it, Muzzafar Jung’s brother, Salabat Jung, had been encamped with the French forces when the fatal arrow was fired, and before the day was over had been installed by the Frenchman as the next Nizam. Salabat Jung promptly imprisoned two of his brothers, Basalat Jah and Nizam Ali Khan, leaving only one other remaining claimant to the throne, Ghazi-ud-Din, still alive and at liberty. The eldest son of Nizam ul-Mulk, Ghazi-ud-Din had been serving as a minister in the court of the Mughal Emperor in Delhi since his father’s death. Deciding the time was now right to claim the viceroyalty, he marched to the Deccan accompanied by a large force of Maratha warriors to wrest back the throne that he believed was rightly his. But Ghazi-ud-Din only made it as far as Aurangabad before falling victim to what would become a speciality of Hyderabadi palace politics. Living in Aurangabad was one of Nizam ul-Mulk’s former wives, whose ambition was to put her son, Nizam Ali Khan, on the throne. ‘There seemed to be’, wrote Grant Duff, ‘a prospect of settling the claims of all parties, when Ghazee-ood-Deen in an evil hour accepted an invitation to an entertainment provided in the city, partook of a poisoned dish prepared by the hand of the mother of Nizam Alee, and expired the same night.’¹⁵

With three rivals to the Nizamate now dead and a further two in prison, Salabat Jung ruled the Deccan for the next eleven years, even though the real power lay in the hands of the French and his reign was never recognised by Delhi. Neither Dupleix nor de Bussy rated Salabat Jung’s intelligence highly. Dupleix called him a ‘duffer’. De Bussy exploited his constant fears of being overthrown by his nobles, his relatives and the British by strengthening French influence in Hyderabad.¹⁶ Since Britain was not at war with France, there was little the East India Company could do about it. In the end, however, de Bussy dug his own grave. His ‘pompous and overbearing manner’ (he went everywhere on an elephant preceded by musicians singing his feats of chivalry) and his closeness to the Nizam alienated the nobles in Salabat Jung’s court.¹⁷

Salabat Jung soon found out there was a price attached to the privilege of French protection. Although de Bussy’s contingent was always paid on time, Salabat Jung had to borrow from local moneylenders to pay for his own troops. Not for the last time would the treasury run dry in order to pay a foreign force ostensibly there for the Nizam’s protection, but in reality asserting European dominance over Hyderabad.

The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War between the British and the French in 1756 had important ramifications for India as a whole and the Deccan in particular. Seen as too ambitious and divisive, Dupleix was recalled to Paris. Two years later de Bussy was also told to withdraw his forces from Hyderabad. With de Bussy gone, Salabat Jung was left fatally weakened.

The main players in the competition for control of India’s trade were also changing. Robert Clive, who had risen through the ranks from a lowly Company writer to a brilliant general, now entered the picture. In 1758 a small force sent by Clive from Bengal invaded the Northern Circars. The French forces were defeated. Feeling exposed, Salabat Jung promised the district to the British in exchange for their military protection. But Salabat Jung’s vacillations cost him the support of his nobles and he was thrown into prison in the fortress of Bidar on 6 July 1762, where he was eventually strangled.

In 1762, after 14 turbulent years during which the map of southern India was redrawn a dozen times, the Mughal Emperor in Delhi issued a farman recognising Nizam Ali Khan as the rightful heir to the Asaf Jahi dynasty and proclaimed him the Second Nizam. The fourth son of Nizam ul-Mulk, Nizam Ali Khan was 28 years old when he took power. Over succeeding generations the Nizams grew more corpulent and their jewellery more extravagant as they increasingly left the running of the state to others and indulged in more sensuous pursuits. But Nizam Ali Khan was clearly a fighting man. He dispensed with his father’s long, white beard, but maintained the carefully manicured moustache that his successors adopted. Of all the Nizams, Mukarram Jah most closely resembles this great ancestor. They share the same prominent chin, resolute gaze and deeply furrowed eyebrows and prominent Turkoman nose. Nizam Ali Khan was destined to become the second-longest-serving ruler of the Asaf Jahi dynasty and the last to lead its armies into battle, but his longevity and military prowess did not translate into glory for the Nizam’s Dominions.

Though he had come to power with the support of the East India Company, Nizam Ali Khan believed the British had no right to rule over the kingdoms of southern India. For their part the British constantly derided the Nizam and exploited his weaknesses to their full advantage in their skirmishes with the French. In military matters he would prove to be a poor strategist and his insistence on going into every battle with his extensive zenana nearly cost him his empire and his life. James Kirkpatrick, who served as the British Resident in Hyderabad around the turn of the century, found Nizam Ali Khan to be ‘a Prince who though not endowed with either splendid talents or great mental resources, has proved himself on some trying occasions not deficient in those arts which are considered in the East as constituting the essence of Government . . . His defects as a warrior are amply compensated by his skill as a politician.’¹⁸

Too weak to take on the East India Company by force, but too ambitious to give up pretensions of power, Nizam Ali Khan’s constantly shifting interests and alliances so frustrated the British that they ultimately forced him to sign no fewer than six treaties to keep him in line. By the end of the century he had played into their hands so completely that the East India Company was the strongest power in southern India and the leading trading conglomerate in the world. For its part, Hyderabad became the largest and most important princely state in India, but its independence would be nominal.

After his inauguration, the Nizam’s first priority was to restore some of the territory lost to the French and the British following the death of the Nizam ul-Mulk. For their part the British wanted to strengthen their hold over the Northern Circars because of the protection they provided for Madras. In November 1766, the first of a series of treaties between ‘the great Nawab, high in station, famous as the Sun, Nawab Asaf Jah Nizam Ali Khan’ and the East India Company was signed in Hyderabad. Under the treaty the Northern Circars were ceded to the English, who agreed to pay the Nizam a rent of 900,000 rupees a year. They also agreed to furnish the Nizam with a ‘body of their troops ready to settle the affairs of His Highness’s Government in everything that is right and proper, whenever required’. In return for the protection of what became known as the Subsidiary Force, the Nizam was obliged to raise a corps of troops should the English require it.¹⁹

The terms of this treaty were very favourable compared with those that followed. Nizam Ali Khan had yet to commit the tactical blunders that would increasingly strengthen the Company’s stranglehold. However, its Court of Directors in London did not have long to wait.

Even as he was negotiating the treaty’s terms with the British, Nizam Ali Khan was setting aside half a century of hostilities and conducting secret talks with the Marathas on a new military alliance. The reason for the change of heart towards his most bitter foes was the emergence in Mysore of a powerful new dynasty. Located to the south of Hyderabad, the ancient Hindu kingdom of Mysore was now the fiefdom of a Muslim nobleman and military adventurer called Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan. With the help of French mercenaries Haider Ali had built up a formidable army and was looking to expand his territories.

Having secured the support of the Marathas, the Nizam called on the British to join an alliance to attack Mysore. Alarmed by Haider Ali’s conquest of Kerala and fearing that the Carnatic was next on his list, the British agreed to send a body of troops to help in the campaign. The Nizam’s motives for calling on his old adversaries the Marathas and burying the hatchet with the British were based entirely on self-interest and self-preservation. He needed the Marathas’ military strength, but also wanted to keep the English on his side in order to ensure a favourable division of the spoils of battle.

When Nizam Ali Khan set out from Hyderabad with 17,000 of his own troops and 10,000 Maratha soldiers paid for out of his treasury in January 1767, Haider Ali decided his best defence was bribery. The Maratha leader was bought off for 3.5 million rupees plus land, but the Nizam proved harder to sway. He wanted 5 million rupees, but Haider Ali was only prepared to give 2 million. The Nizam, however, had other grievances that the ruler of Mysore proved adept at exploiting. It was already March and the troops promised by the British in December had yet to arrive. As the commander of the British forces later concluded gloomily, Haider Ali’s ‘treasure (I am afraid) has found its way here, sooner than our troops’.²⁰ The Nizam also felt he had been cheated by the East India Company into ceding the Northern Circars. He had never attacked any of the Company’s settlements or interfered with their trade, yet in return they had seized the Circars at gunpoint. As the Madras Government later conceded, the Nizam could be forgiven for believing that: ‘Once possessed of them as renters we might be tempted to keep them as Lords.’²¹

When the Madras army finally reached the Nizam’s encampment on 13 April 1767 for the three-pronged assault on Haider Ali, they were shocked to find that the Marathas were nowhere to be seen and the Nizam had changed sides. ‘I blush when I think of the degree of contempt I was treated with, considering my Station and those I represented,’ the commander of the British forces Lieutenant Colonel Charles Tod wrote to his superior Colonel Joseph Smith.²² The Madras Government had suspected the Nizam might return to Hyderabad, but they never believed he would enter into an offensive alliance with a power he set out to control. They now found that he was preparing to fight the Company forces. ‘What you deem treachery in Nizam Ally,’ the Court of Directors later explained to the Governor in Madras, ‘is nothing more than his ideas of his own interest which most probably is, that an alliance with Hyder Ally will be the best security he can have against the Marathas.’²³

In the end, Haider Ali had been able to buy off the Nizam quite cheaply. So defective were Nizam Ali Khan’s forces in arms, discipline and pay that Haider Ali secured his acquiescence for a mere 600,000 rupees a month for the duration of the war. In August 1767 their combined forces swept across the Ghats in what was to be the first of four wars against the British for the control of Mysore. Meeting only sporadic resistance, the Mysore forces were soon at the gates of Madras and by the end of September were ‘scampering about’ in the gardens of the Company’s villas around St Thomas’s Mount.²⁴ The British, however, gave Haider a severe beating at Tiruvannamalai. The Nizam had proved to be a useless ally.

Determined to teach the Nizam a lesson, the British decided to send a military force to invade the largely undefended city of Hyderabad. Fearful of losing his capital, the Nizam again switched sides and sent his representatives to Madras to negotiate a new treaty. This time the British were not as generous. Under the treaty of ‘Perpetual Friendship and Alliance’ signed on 26 February 1768, Nizam Ali Khan was made to cede the Northern Circars to the East India Company and pay war expenses of 2.5 million rupees, which was to be deducted from the annual peshkash (tribute) of 700,000 rupees over six years. It was also agreed that in the case of another outbreak of hostilities with Mysore, the forces of the Nizam and the Marathas ‘in number not less than 25,000 but as many more and as much greater an equipment as may be’ should immediately invade his Dominions and ‘seriously and vigorously’ prosecute the war. Unlike the previous treaty, the Nizam was now made to pay for the privilege of having British troops in his territory whether he needed them or not. The Nizam was also forced to declare Haider Ali ‘an usurper, a rebel, a restless and troublesome man’ and revoke all treaties with him.²⁵

The signing of the treaty did little to allay the fears of the Bombay Government as to the Nizam’s intentions. There were ‘evident signs of an intention to keep the late peace as ill as he did the former’, the Records of Fort William noted. ‘Notwithstanding the most scrupulous exactness on our part in observing the treaty . . . Nizam Ally will pay little or no regard to his engagement if any opportunity offers to give us trouble.’²⁶

If there was a strategy behind the signing of this treaty and other moves the East India Company was making in southern India at the time, it can be found in the East India Board minutes of 17 November 1867:

The grand point we ought to aim at is to have the Carnatic, Mysore country and the Deccan so much under our influence that no disputes or jealousies may arise between the several governing powers, and that we may be able by this system to lay the foundation of internal tranquillity in these countries by which means alone the Marathas can be kept in bounds.²⁷

Although their aims were clearly spelled out, the British lacked a coherent strategy to achieve them. They were challenged by the shifting alliances of the sub-continent, they felt vulnerable to attack and were constantly looking over their shoulder to try to ascertain the views of the French. They were also prey to political machinations in London between the Directors of the East India Company and the British Government, as well as events overseas such as France’s intervention on the side of the colonists in the American War of Independence.

The Nizam, meanwhile, was planning his revenge. In 1778 he opened secret correspondence with Nana Phadnavis, the ‘Maratha Machiavelli’ Prime Minister, on creating a grand alliance against the British. ‘We shall manage the English by means of the French whose Vackeel is with us, with who we have entered into a Treaty,’ Nana wrote to the Nizam in August 1778. ‘After the present Disturbances are quelled we shall call in his Troops, act in the most vigorous manner, to be a future example to others.’²⁸ Unfortunately for both men the letter was intercepted by the British, as was the Nizam’s reply a few months later. ‘I will repair in person to you, and rouse that bad race from their Dream of Security, and overthrow all their ambitious designs.’²⁹

The contents of the letters and other intelligence that the Governor-General Warren Hastings collected made for disturbing reading. The ‘Vackeel’ Nana was referring to was the French agent Chevalier de St Lubin who had been favourably received in Pune in 1777. The French, Hastings believed, had ‘seized on the only means by which they can ever be formidable to us in India’. He immediately began to consider plans to ‘avert the dreadful consequences’ of their designs.³⁰

Those designs were complicated by the formation in 1780 of a powerful confederacy comprising the Nizam, the Marathas and Haider Ali. All three held strong grudges against the British and now they conspired to attack all three presidencies – Bombay, Madras and Bengal – simultaneously. Nana Phadnavis and Maratha military chieftain Madhaji Sindia were to attack Bombay, the Nizam and Haider Ali would march on Madras, while Bhonsle, the Maratha ruler of Nagpur, would take on Bengal. The depth of the Nizam’s hatred towards the British at this time was apparent in a letter he wrote to the Mughal Emir Najaf Khan in September 1780:

The World is now involved in calamities through the turbulence of the English; the deceits of this wicked nation are spread over the whole Empire . . . A handful of people without a head of foundation have possessed themselves of the three richest Provinces in the Empire, every one of which is equal to a Kingdom, a set of merchants without a name and scarcely known have engrossed and disposed of as they please.³¹

Such ‘extorted and palliated confessions’³² were enough to convince Hastings that the Nizam was behind the formation of the confederacy, but he also knew the dangers of alienating Hyderabad’s ruler. Nizam Ali Khan was now at the height of his power, successfully playing off the British against the French. Through the confederacy he was threatening the very future of the East India Company’s presence on the sub-continent. With Haider Ali’s troops now marching once again towards the Carnatic and the Nizam threatening to join them, Hastings had to act fast. Through the skilful mix of military force, diplomacy and a little bribery, Hastings managed to avert disaster. Pune was brought to heel by the unexpected arrival of six sepoy battalions that had been marched all the way from Bengal, and Nagpur’s leader was bought off. Hastings also sacked the controversial Governor of Madras, Sir Thomas Rumbold, and reappointed the British Resident John Holland in Hyderabad, who had been suspended by the Madras Government. Impressed by Hastings’ evident good faith, the Nizam abandoned his hostile intentions.

Hastings was replaced as Governor-General in 1786 by Lord Cornwallis, who arrived in India fresh from his surrender to George Washington at Yorktown during the American War of Independence. Although Hastings had restored the East India Company’s fortunes in India, he left some unfinished business. Cornwallis’s intention from the moment of his arrival was to go to war against Tipu Sultan, but first he needed to build up alliances with Hyderabad and the Marathas. Then he needed a pretext.

The trigger for the Third Maratha War was what Cornwallis described as an attack on Travancore in December 1789. Tipu Sultan denied there had been an attack, describing it as a skirmish, but instead of backing off, he followed the skirmish up with a full-scale invasion. Cornwallis reacted by instructing his Residents in Pune and Hyderabad to bring the Marathas and the Nizam into a tripartite alliance against Mysore and assemble the strongest possible armies to press an attack.

Appointed Resident of Hyderabad in 1788, John Kennaway was considered to be ‘a gentleman well acquainted with the country, languages and customs’.³³ An ex-grammar-school boy, he arrived in India in 1772 and rose quickly through the Company’s ranks. Under the terms of the treaty concluded with the Nizam in July 1790, which was almost identical to one signed with the Peshwa of Pune, it was agreed that Hyderabad would wage war separately against Tipu Sultan. Both treaties contained clauses that bound the peshwa and the Nizam to each send on demand 10,000 cavalry to operate with the British. In return the British would supply them with two detachments of battalion strength. Each party would receive a third of the share of any territory captured during the campaign.

This time the Nizam kept to his side of the bargain, but his forces moved so slowly that it was April before they finally joined Cornwallis’s at Kottapalli, some 140 kilometres north of Bangalore. According to the nineteenth-century historian Mark Wilks, the Nizam’s cavalry, numbering 10,000 to 15,000 men, was one of the most bizarre forces ever assembled on the sub continent. ‘It is probable that no national or private collection of ancient armour in Europe contains any weapon or article of personal equipment which might not be traced in this motley crowd,’ wrote Wilks. ‘The Parthian bow and arrow, the iron club of Scythia, sabres of every age and nation, lances of every length and description, metallic helmets of every pattern, simple defences of the head, a steel bar descending diagonally as a protection to the face; defences of bars, scales of chain work descending behind or on the shoulders, cuirasses, suits of armour . . . quilted jackets, sabre proof.’ Wilks was also struck by ‘the total absence of order, or obedience, or command, excepting groups collected around their respective flags; every individual an independent warrior, self impelled, affecting to be the champion whose single aim was to achieve victory; scampering among each other in wild confusion’.³⁴ When Cornwallis selected 3000 of the most capable soldiers to join one of his brigades, hardly any turned up. ‘The only alacrity they showed was in devouring forage and grain and in setting fire to villages.’³⁵

The Nizam’s forces never fully recovered from their ‘wild confusion’. Their horsemen stumbled between an English battalion and Tipu’s forces during the attack on Seringapatam, allowing the latter to regroup. They were successful in the siege of Koppal, but instead of taking the remaining Mysore forces head-on they swung into the district of Cuddapah, where they became bogged down in another time-consuming attack on the hill-fortress of Gurramkonda. The war itself culminated in the year-long siege of Seringapatam, where a heavily outgunned and outnumbered Tipu finally called for a negotiated settlement in February 1793. The settlement which Kennaway negotiated on behalf of Cornwallis was severe. Tipu was to pay an indemnity of 33 million rupees, surrender half his territories and hand over to the British custody of two of his children, both aged eight, as surety.

All that was left was for the victors to share the spoils. Although his forces had played a minor role, the Nizam walked away with a large swathe of territory along his southern border running from Cuddapah in the east to the Tungabhadra River in the west. The Marathas received Koppal and the British the spice-bearing Malabar coast, the district of Coorg and territories adjacent to the Carnatic.

No sooner had the booty been dispersed, however, than the triple alliance Cornwallis hoped would become permanent began falling apart. This time it was the Marathas and the Nizam who would come to blows while Tipu and the British watched from the sidelines.

For more than a hundred years the Marathas had been a source of constant trouble for the various players competing for control of peninsular India. The Marathas were essentially predators whose main source of income was their practice of demanding chauth (one-fourth of all revenue) from their conquered subjects. One historian described the Maratha army as being ‘more indefatigable and destructive than myriads of locusts’. ‘The [Marathas] are total strangers to charity, and possess an insensibility of heart with which other nations are unacquainted.’³⁶

In 1794 the Nizam decided to throw caution to the wind and attack the Marathas at Pune to eradicate the menace once and for all. The ‘motley crowd’ that had fought in the Mysore War was now a more polished war machine thanks to the Gascon adventurer and former French regular officer Michel Joachim Marie Raymond. A deserter from the Second Mysore War, Raymond arrived in Hyderabad in 1792 with just 300 men and armed with hired guns from a French merchant at the rate of a shilling a month. Promising the Nizam that under his command Hyderabad’s army could defeat any force, European or Indian, he steadily increased his troop numbers. By 1795 he had under his command 11,000 infantry and artillery officered by Frenchmen. Dressed in red jackets, black tricorn hats, white shirts and short shin-length boots, Raymond’s brigade was impressive to look at, but had yet to prove itself on the battlefield.

As his forces massed at Bidar, dancing girls sang the Nizam’s expected victory. His Diwan, Aristu Jah, predicted that the peshwa would be sent with a ‘brass pot in his hand’ and a ‘cloth round his loins’ to mutter mantras on the bank of the Ganges at Benares.³⁷ The Nizam then sent Aristu Jah to ask the new British Resident, William Kirkpatrick, to enlist the support of the East India Company’s armies. But his appeals to the British for help were turned down on the grounds that the treaty of 1768 required them to remain neutral. John Shore, an equivocating evangelical Christian, who had succeeded Cornwallis as Governor-General, was reluctant to question the letter of the treaties. To him the Nizam was a defaulter trying to evade his obligations. ‘His record towards the company had long been one of duplicity,’ Shore later explained. Moreover he did not deserve to be helped as he was ‘incorrigibly depraved, devoid of energy . . . [and] consequently liable to sink into vassalage’.³⁸ The more important reason was the perceived need to stay on good terms with the Marathas and isolate Tipu Sultan.

Fluent in Persian and possessing a knowledge of the workings of the native courts that was ‘unrivalled in the Company’s civil or military service’, Kirkpatrick as Resident of Hyderabad had unprecedented access to the Nizam and his coterie.³⁹ He could also see that the Nizam’s army was not strong enough to take on the Marathas. Their leader, Nana Phadnavis, had a far larger pool of mercenaries to train his soldiers in the latest military techniques. Altogether the Marathas had four brigades of European-led troops under the command of Benoit de Boigne, a French soldier of fortune who had begun his military career with the King of Sardinia and went on to become one of the most important military figures in eighteenth-century India.

Kirkpatrick’s warnings were ignored, and in December the Nizam’s 110,000-strong army began its slow march towards Pune from where 130,000 Maratha soldiers had been dispatched. The two sides met on 14 March 1795 near the half-ruined fort of Khardla. Kirkpatrick, who accompanied the forces, was so meticulous about observing Britain’s neutrality that he refused to even comment on the strategy and tactics of the Nizam’s forces. On the side of the Marathas, Charles Malet, the Resident at the court of Pune, maintained a similar treaty-bound discretion.

The first day of battle was an extraordinary sight as Raymond’s corps, flying the tricolour, swept down on de Boigne’s forces, under the white cross of royalist Savoy. At the end of the first day of fighting, the Nizam’s forces had advanced several kilometres despite continuous firing from the Marathas. But whatever advantage the Nizam gained in this bewildering battle was short-lived. With what the late nineteenth-century historian Herbert Compton called ‘the imbecile infatuation of an Oriental Potentate’,⁴⁰ the Nizam had brought with him his new favourite wife, Bakshi Begum, and the rest of his oversized zenana. According to one eyewitness, Bakshi Begum became so frightened by ‘the booming of the cannon and at the sight of men falling down dead’ that she blackmailed the Nizam by threatening to ‘expose herself to public gaze’ unless he took her and the rest of the zenana to shelter inside the fort.⁴¹

In the confusion a Maratha night patrol looking for water stumbled upon the Nizam, who was accompanied by a unit of female bodyguards. During the ensuing gun battle, the Nizam tried to escape but found himself trapped in the fort. Panicstricken, his troops also retreated to the fort, leaving all their weapons, ammunition and stores scattered on the battlefield. The Marathas quickly surrounded the fort and after a siege lasting 22 days forced the Nizam to sign a treaty ceding the territories of Daulatabad, Ahmadnagar and Sholapur as well as an indemnity of 30 million rupees. In addition, he had to hand over Aristu Jah as a hostage to Nana Phadnavis.

It was a humiliating defeat. Instead of pushing back the Marathas, Nizam Ali Khan surrendered more than half of his already diminished Dominions and most of his strongest forts, not to mention his hapless Prime Minister. For the British the campaign was also a disaster. Their policy of neutrality had backfired badly. Ignoring British protests that he was treaty-bound not to employ foreign troops, the Nizam ordered the Subsidiary Force to leave Hyderabad and gave approval for Raymond to increase the size of his contingent and set up arsenals and foundries to manufacture weapons.

By the end of 1795, after only three years in Hyderabad, Raymond’s force consisted of 15,000 men divided into 20 battalions under the command of 124 Europeans. Nizam Ali Khan was so fond of the Frenchman that he showered him with titles such as ‘Dragon of War’ and ‘Bravest in the State’ and ceded the newly acquired districts of Cumbum and Cuddapah to him to pay for the maintenance of the troops. Cuddapah was located beside the Company’s borders, making it possible for Raymond to menace British possessions in the Carnatic.

The growing influence of the French in Hyderabad alarmed the British. France was the dominant power in Pune, while in the south Tipu Sultan was wearing the cap of Liberty, calling himself ‘Citizen Tippoo’ and actively planning his revenge for his humiliating defeat at the hands of the British. The British also learned he was in communication with Napoleon Bonaparte, who was commencing his campaign in Egypt. Back in Europe, Britain and France were at war, yet again.

Complicating matters further, the Nizam suffered a stroke in February 1796 from which he never fully recovered. With the Nizam incapacitated, Aristu Jah deprived of his liberty in Pune, and the British still treaty-bound not to favour one group or another, rival factions within the Nizam’s court had free rein. The Paigah nobles favoured Feridun Jah, while pro-British factions supported the Nizam’s eldest son Sikander Jah, who also had the backing of Aristu Jah. Both rivals sought the support of Raymond, who the British feared would become the kingmaker and force the new Nizam to join forces with Tipu. Should Tipu be joined by French troops from Egypt it could have paved the way for France to become the predominant power on the peninsula.

Into this unfolding scenario stepped the new Governor-General, Richard Wellesley. In contrast to the timid and self-effacing Shore, Wellesley was an uncompromising empire-builder who between 1798 and 1804 expanded the Company’s holdings from a few small pockets of territory to most of southern India, the entire eastern coastal strip, all of Bengal and parts of northern India. British troops would be in occupation in Hyderabad and Pune and Residents stationed at every native court. Wellesley’s first priority was to deal with Tipu Sultan. That meant getting rid of the French in Hyderabad, where British spies were reporting that Raymond might be planning a coup d’état. Wellesley instructed James Achilles Kirkpatrick, who had taken over the post of Resident from his ailing brother William, to open the negotiations with the Nizam on a new treaty under which the British Government would give him protection against the Marathas, provided he dismissed French officers from his service and agreed to an increase in the Subsidiary Force.

Kirkpatrick was on good terms with the ‘old Nizzy’ as he liked to call him. He grew so fond of the ailing monarch that he ordered a special quilt to keep him comfortable during the winter. The Nizam, in turn, adopted him as his own son and bestowed on him titles such as Hashmat Jung (Glorious in Battle). Nizam Ali Khan was also aided by the return of Aristu Jah, who while in captivity had managed to negotiate the return of most of the territory seized by the Marathas and a waiver of the indemnity. The only danger was that the Nizam would die or be overthrown before a new treaty could be signed. By now Nizam Ali Khan ‘was fast losing his strength, speech and appetite, and by his obstinacy, and the quackery to which he submitted, was hastening his own end’.⁴² The British had also uncovered a plot to kill off the Nizam using black magic. Kirkpatrick reported to his superiors in Calcutta that images made out of paste had been found in the palace with ‘powdered glass in their bodies & dog hair’.⁴³

Kirkpatrick’s task of getting rid of the French was made easier by Raymond’s sudden death on 25 March 1798 in circumstances that suggested he had been poisoned. Raymond left behind 15,000 well-drilled and disciplined fighters under the command of his deputy, Jean-Pierre Peron, a native of Alsace. Peron was less sophisticated than his former commander and had less influence over the Nizam. Supported by the arguments of Aristu Jah, Kirkpatrick was finally able to convince the Nizam that a Subsidiary Alliance was the answer to all Hyderabad’s problems.

Today, Kirkpatrick is most often remembered for his scandalous alliance with Khair-un-Nissa, the great niece of Aristu Jah’s vakil (deputy), Mir Alam. Writing to his brother, Kirkpatrick said the affair started with ‘the fiery ordeal of a long nocturnal interview with the charming object of the present letter. It was this interview I alluded to as the one when I had a full and close survey of her lovely person.’⁴⁴ The alliance eventually led to their marriage, Kirkpatrick’s conversion to Islam, his adoption of Hyderabadi dress and the birth of two children. When news of the affair reached Wellesley in Calcutta, it nearly ended Kirkpatrick’s career.

Khair-un-Nissa, however, did not distract him from concluding three treaties that changed the history of Hyderabad and its relationship with the British forever. The first of these was concluded by Kirkpatrick and Nizam Ali Khan on 1 September 1798. Under the Preliminary Treaty all French battalions were to be dismissed, and a 6000-strong Subsidiary Force, officered and controlled by the British, but paid for by the Nizam, was to be stationed in Hyderabad, in addition to two already existing battalions. The British also won the right to mediate in all disputes between the Nizam and Maratha peshwa. For his part, the Nizam agreed to raise the subsidy for the maintenance of the British troops from 57,713 rupees to 201,425 rupees a month.

The treaty, however, did not spell out how the French forces were to be disbanded. As the Subsidiary Force started its march from Guntur, Wellesley received the news that Napoleon had landed in Egypt. An invasion of India by the French, which had seemed fantastical just a few months previous, was now looking more real than ever. The news was a morale booster for Peron’s beleaguered forces, who had become mutinous as their pay fell further into arrears. After the arrival of the Subsidiary Force in early October, Kirkpatrick wrote to Aristu Jah demanding the execution of that part of the treaty which referred to the dismissal of the French. For several days there was no reply and Kirkpatrick suspected that the Nizam, on hearing of Napoleon’s successes, had changed his mind. Finally he gave the Nizam an ultimatum that if he hesitated any longer he would order an attack on the French lines. The ultimatum worked and one day later the Nizam issued the formal order dismissing the French officers and disbanding the troops.

The order sparked a mutiny in the French lines and Peron was taken prisoner. John Malcolm, who was the commander of the British forces and became Kirkpatrick’s deputy, surrounded the French cantonment with 2000 cavalry and 4000 infantry. After demanding that they end their mutiny and disband or be attacked, the French complied. Without a single shot being fired, or a single drop of blood being shed ‘the celebrated French corps of Hyderabad had passed into tradition’,⁴⁵ and Napoleon’s designs for India suffered a severe blow. As Kirkpatrick wrote to Calcutta a day later: ‘It was at once a glorious and a piteous sight to see between eleven and twelve thousand of these French sepoys laying down their arms in heaps in presence of our line of troops drawn up in a most awing position, and moving off in crowds attended by their wives and chattels. Only three days ago matters wore a very dismal appearance.’⁴⁶

Having dislodged the French from Hyderabad, Wellesley’s next move was to remove Tipu Sultan and establish Britain as the pre-eminent power on the sub-continent. Even though the Nizam had proved an unreliable ally in the past, Wellesley needed his forces to complete this ambitious task. Privately the Governor-General had a very low opinion of Nizam Ali Khan, remarking once that it was ‘impossible for persons to have behaved in a more shuffling manner’.⁴⁷ Britain’s dealings with Hyderabad ‘ought to be a lesson to us to beware not to involve ourselves in engagements either with, or in concert with, or on behalf of, people who have no faith or no principle of honour or of honesty, or such as usually among us guide the conduct of gentlemen, unless duly and formally authorised by our government’.⁴⁸

On 19 February, 6000 of Hyderabad’s best cavalry under Mir Alam, together with four battalions of Hyderabadi sepoys under the command of John Malcolm and six East India Company battalions under Lieutenant Colonel James Dalrymple, joined up with the main British force led by Major General Arthur Harris. This time the Nizam’s army performed admirably, and by April the combined force had taken several key forts and beaten Tipu back to Seringapatam. Harris was able to breach the north face of the fort after a siege lasting only a few weeks. On 4 May 1789 a storming party crossed the breach and after several hours of fierce hand-to-hand fighting captured Tipu’s capital. Amid a heap of dead and wounded soldiers Tipu’s corpse was found, still warm with its eyes open. It had three bayonet wounds to the body and a musket shot to the head.

Whatever satisfaction the Nizam felt at defeating Tipu dissipated when he learned that the lion’s share of the conquered territory would go to the Hindu Wadyar dynasty that had ruled Mysore before Haider Ali. Nizam Ali Khan was not amused, especially after learning that Mir Alam had agreed to the deal behind his back. So far his only gain from the whole campaign had been 100,000 gold pagodas, which he had to share with his 6000 troops. Wellesley saw it differently and wrote to Kirkpatrick asking him to impress upon the ageing leader that thanks to his alliance with the British, ‘his most formidable enemy has been destroyed’. Moreover, ‘from a weak, decaying and despised state, he has recovered substantial strength, secured the means of cultivating and extending his resources, with power and honour at home and abroad, and resumed a respectable posture among the princes of India’.⁴⁹ Finally it was agreed that the Nizam would receive a slab of territory to the south of Hyderabad worth 600,000 pagodas.

With Mysore now neutralised, the triumphant Wellesley turned his attention again towards Hyderabad. Not satisfied with the terms of the Preliminary Treaty, he instructed Kirkpatrick to negotiate a new treaty that would give the British an even greater stranglehold over Hyderabad. The Treaty of Perpetual and General Defensive Alliance, signed on 12 October 1800, was a masterstroke of British diplomacy. Though it spoke in glowing terms of how the Nizam and the East India Company ‘have in fact become one and the same in interest, policy, friendship and honour’,⁵⁰ it gave the British complete control over the Nizam’s external affairs without imposing on them any stringent or matching obligation. By signing the treaty, the Nizam signed away his status as an independent ruler for the next 150 years.

The treaty guaranteed the integrity of the Nizam’s Dominions against all threats, but the Nizam was forbidden to enter into any negotiations with an external power without reference to the Company’s government. To pay for the maintenance of an enlarged Subsidiary Force, which was fixed at 8000 infantry, 1000 cavalry and the requisite number of guns, the Nizam gave up all the territories he had just gained from the British for helping win the war against Mysore. The purpose of the force was ostensibly to ‘overawe and chastise all rebels or exciters of disturbance in the dominions of the Nizams’.⁵¹ In case the two powers faced a common foe the Nizam agreed to put 6000 infantry and 9000 cavalry with artillery in the field and supply more troops if needed.

Wellesley was congratulated by the Company for planting British power ‘in the very centre of the mountains which hold India together’.⁵² Kirkpatrick, however, felt uneasy about what he saw as Wellesley’s grasping, bullying approach. When, in 1801, Wellesley demanded that he renegotiate the latest treaty despite the fact that not a single promised extra soldier had arrived, Kirkpatrick remarked that the British were cheating an ‘old and highly useful ally’.⁵³

As it turned out, the Nizam’s usefulness as an ally was short-lived. In June 1803 he suffered another stroke, which Kirkpatrick said left him ‘emaciated in the extreme, his eyesight dim and drowsy, his countenance worn, his speech feeble and inarticulate and his faculties greatly impaired’.⁵⁴ Two months later, on 6 August, he died at the Chowmahalla palace and was buried on the same day at the Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad’s main mosque.

‘So passed an eastern monarch, evincing great promise in early years, relapsed into that apathetic life which seems peculiar to an oriental climate,’ wrote Briggs in a fitting epitaph to the Second Nizam’s remarkable reign. ‘He is the first of his family who sought the English; and that he did not make more out of his connection was – whatever may be asserted to the contrary – in consequence of his unbounded faith in his ally.’⁵⁵