Last Nizam (9781742626109) (5 page)

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'.
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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.'
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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.
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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.
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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.'
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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.
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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'.
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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.'
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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.
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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.'
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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.
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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.
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