Nizam of Hyderabad: The Lost World

[Jamroll]

The lost world


The rulers of Hyderabad, once the richest people in the world, were ruined by politics and family feuds. Now their cultural heritage is being restored.

By William Dalrymple

Saturday December 8, 2007
The Guardian


Sixty years ago, four months after British rule had come to an end in India, the Nizam of Hyderabad, then the richest man in the world, was still refusing to join the new Indian union. Sir Osman Ali Khan saw no reason why Hyderabad should be forced to join either India or Pakistan. His state, which had remained semi-independent within the framework of the Raj, had an economy the size of Belgium's, and his personal fortune was more remarkable still -according to one contemporary estimate, it amounted to at least £100m in gold and silver bullion and £400m in jewels. Many of these came from the Nizam's own mines, source of the Koh-i-Noor and the Great Mogul diamond, at the time the largest ever discovered. He also owned one of the Islamic world's great art collections -libraries full of priceless Mughal and Deccani miniatures, illuminated Qur'ans and the rarest and most esoteric Indo-Islamic manuscripts.

Partly because of this extraordinary wealth, the Nizam was always feted by the British as the most senior prince in India, and given precedence over his rivals. For more than three centuries, his ancestors had ruled a state the size of Italy as absolute monarch, answerable - in internal matters at least - to no one but themselves, and claiming the allegiance of up to 15 million subjects.
In the years leading up to the second world war, the Nizam was regarded by many as the leading Muslim ruler in the world. In 1921, his two sons had been sent to Nice where they married the daughter and the niece of Abdul Majid II, the last Caliph of Turkey. The Caliph had recently been expelled from the Topkapi palace by Atatürk, and sent into exile in France. As part of the marriage arrangements, the Caliph had nominated the Nizam's son as heir to the Caliphate, so uniting the supreme spiritual authority of the Muslim world with its greatest concentration of riches. The dynasty seemed unassailable.

Yet by the late 30s, more far-sighted observers realised that the Nizam's world could not last. "He was as mad as a coot and his chief wife was raving," I was told by Iris Portal, sister of the British politician Rab Butler. She had worked in Hyderabad before independence: "It was like living in France on the eve of the revolution. All the power was in the hands of the Muslim nobility. They spent money like water, and were terrible, irresponsible landlords, but they could be very charming and sophisticated as well. They would take us shooting, talking all the while about their trips to England or to Cannes and Paris, although in many ways Hyderabad was still in the middle ages and the villages we would pass through were often desperately poor. You couldn't help feeling that the whole great baroque structure could come crashing down at any minute."

Read the rest here: William Dalrymple on the rulers of Hyderabad | Weekend | Guardian Unlimited

[GOTFIVEONIT]

yup this is very true. while many of the nizam's monuments still exist today, such as the princess nilofour hospital or the princess azra hospital across the street from mecca masjid, the nizams were a dying era. it would have been impossible for the nizam to maintain independence right smack in the middle of India. he only existed because the british allowed him too. sure his culture that he brought, the grand palaces etc. are something very nice to see. and it is true that Hyderabad state economy was the size of belguim. my father's family benefited greatly from it. but at what price? he was in the end a feudal landlord. he got wealthy off the backs of the poor, and many did not share in that wealth. such as my mother's family. the villages and the outlying areas were never developed under the nizam, aside from linking them by railroads. it was only after independence did the landless peasants get thier fair share and land that they worked hard on day and night and toiled with. i think the land re-distributition was a very good idea, and the nizam's era did in the end come to a close.