Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with young prince Mukarram Jah Bahadur at a dinner party in Hyderabad in early 1950's. (Photo: DC)
Feature 17 Jan 2023 Mukkaram
Jah: A life ...
Mukkaram Jah: A life of low
profile and a death in obscurity
DECCAN CHRONICLE. |
Published Jan 17, 2023,
11:58 pm IST
Updated Jan 17, 2023,
11:58 pm IST
Hyderabad: Despite inheriting a rich legacy and a huge fortune that left the world awestruck, Nizam Mir Barket Ali Khan Walashan Siddiqi Mukarram Jah Bahadur, the titular eighth Nizam of Hyderabad, maintained a low profile and died in obscurity.
Among the Nizams, Mir Barket Ali Khan, or Mukkaram Jah as he was known, was still the last popular face.
Although he lived in Australia and the UK, and Istanbul of Turkey in his last days, interspersed with rare visits to Hyderabad, his heart yearned for his family’s old kingdom so much that he willed for his mortal remains to be buried here.
The Nizam’s dominion was one of the richest states in the world before it merged with India.
Barket Ali Khan, the grandson of Hyderabad’s last Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, died in Istanbul, Turkey at 10.30 pm on Saturday at the age of 89.
As per his desire of being laid to rest in his homeland, the mortal remains will be buried at the Asaf Jahi family tombs. The mortal remains will be taken to Chowmahalla Palace and after the rituals to the final resting place.
Barket Ali Khan was anointed the VIIIth Nizam of Hyderabad after the death of his grandfather Mir Osman Ali Khan, the Nizam VII on April 6, 1967, at the historic Chowmahalla Palace.
He was heading the Nizam’s Charitable Trust and Mukarram Jah Trust for Education and Learning.
File Photo of Mukarram Jah, is the titular Nizam of Hyderabad ever since his coronation as the Nizam VIII at a glittering ceremony held at Chowmohalla Palace on April 6th, 1967, a few months after the death of his grand father Nizam VII, MIr Osman Ali Khan. The Nizam preferred his grandson over his elder son Prince Azam Jah to succeed him. (Photo: DC) Photo
Deccan Chronicle, now 85 years old, was among the few newspapers that had covered the 90-minute grand coronation ceremony, which was attended by the members of the royal family, nobility of Hyderabad and other distinguished guests.
File Photos of Nizams and Princess photos published exclusively in the Deccan Chronicle pages in the year 1938, May 15th. (Photo: DC)
He was officially called, “His Exalted Highness Prince Rustam-i-Dauran, Arustu-i-Zaman, Wal Mamaluk, Asaf Jah VIII, Muzaffar ul-Mamalik, Nizam ul-Mulk, Nizam ud-Daula, Nawab Mir Barakat Ali Khan Siddiqi Bahadur, Sipah Salar, Fath Jang, Nizam of Hyderabad and Berar.”
“We miss him. He was gentleman to the core and a typical Hyderabadi by heart, who spoke in the language Hyderabadis do. Though he stayed abroad and travelled a lot, he was down to earth. He was a quite a simple man despite being blessed with huge riches,” Faiz Khan, trustee, HEH The Nizams Mukarram Jah Trust for Education and Learning and Vice president of the Hyderabad Public School, told Deccan Chronicle on Tuesday.He said, “He was in good health and lived a comfortable life. He died in peace. As desired, his mortal remains are being brought to Hyderabad for the last rites. He choose to be buried in Hyderabad, which shows his love for the roots.”
Faiz Khan said he met Mukkaram Jah in Istanbul. “He lived a full life and was always cheerful,” he said.
Mukaram Jah was born to Azam Jah, son of Mir Osman Ali Khan and Princess Duru Shehvar, daughter of the last Sultan of Turkey, Ottoman Empire, Sultan Abdul Mejid II on October 6, 1933, in Nice, France.
The sauvé Mir Barket Ali Khan studied at Doon School in Dehradun, where many royals’ politicians’ children studied, and later at Harrow and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He also went to the London School of Economics and attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK.
The Government of India recognised his succession and called him Prince of Hyderabad and Berar till 1971, when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi abolished privy purses and titles of princely states.
Mukarram Jah married five times and owned fabulous properties, including the famed Falaknuma Palace, which has now been turned into Taj Falaknuma, a star hotel, Chowmahalla Palace, Khilwat Palace, the King Koti palace and the Chiran Palace, besides a large number of gold ornaments. He won 35 million pounds in a London court in 2020 in a case titled the ‘Hyderabad fund case’.
Princess Esra, his first wife, was instrumental in the renovation and lease of Falaknuma Palace to Taj Group of Hotels, India’s most luxurious baroque mansions, besides Chowmahalla Palace among others.
File Photo of Prince Mukarram Jah and his wife Princess Esra at the Chowmohalla Palace after the Coronation ceremony in April 1967. (Photo: DC)“Princess Esra was responsible for the makeover of the Chowmohalla Palace as it is today. She is calm, energetic and clear in her ideas. I had interacted with her several times. Princess Esra brought the palace to its glory,” said G. Kishan Rao, director of Chowmahalla Palace and the vice-chairman and CEO of Yadadri Temple Development Authority.
The Prince first married Princess Esra Birgin of Turkey, with whom he has two children, Prince Azmat Ali Khan and Princess Shehkyar, and then married Helen Simmons of Australia, with whom he has one son, Prince Alexander Azam Khan, who stays in London.
Later, he married Manolya Onur, with whom he has a daughter Niloufer, followed by marriages with Jameela Boularous and then fifth Princess Ayesha Orchedi.
Mukarram Jah had to navigate through financial chaos, huge staff, a large number of properties, claimants and legal fights immediately after the death of Mir Osman Ali Khan, Nizam VII. He also lost a legal fight with his third wife, Manolya Onur of Turkey, for maintenance and compensation package.
But he overcame all hurdles and was successful.
TERRITORIES OF THE NIZAM
The state of Hyderabad was a part of the Mughal subah (province) of Deccan. It included Aurangabad, Bidar, Khandesh, Berar and Hyderabad.
Mir Qamaruddin, the Mughal governor of Deccan established his own dynasty there called the Asaf Jahi dynasty in 1724.
Mir Qamaruddin never declared complete independence from the Mughals.
By 1742, the Hyderabad State extended southwards till Trichinopoly (present day Tiruchirappalli) and Madurai including the Golconda mines.
By 1795, the Hyderabad state lost almost half of its area due to political rivalry with the Marathas, French and British. It lost major areas like Daulatabad, Sholapur and Ahmednagar.
The Nizams regained their lost territories gradually. They allied with the British to defeat Tipu Sultan and also supported them during the First War of Independence in 1857. In return, the British rewarded them with the territories of Cudappah, Khammam, Naldurg and Raichur Doab.
In 1948, the Hyderabad State was incorporated into the Indian Union after an action launched by the Indian Government.
In 1956, the Indian States were reorganized along linguistic lines. The erstwhile Hyderabad state was divided into three parts viz. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Bombay state (later divided into the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960).
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Photographer and filmmaker son Azmet will succeed Mukarram Jah
DECCAN CHRONICLE.|
Published Jan 18, 2023, 1:11 am IST
Updated Jan 18, 2023, 1:11 am IST
Hyderabad: Prince Azmet Jah, a photographer and filmmaker who has worked with Hollywood directors such as Steven Spielberg and Richard Attenborough, will take over as Mukarram Jah's successor
Son of Mukarram Jah and Esra Jah, Azmet Jah was born in London on July 23, 1960. He is amongst the two surviving sons of Mukarram Jah.
The 62-year-old completed his early education
in London and spent the 1980s studying at the University of Southern California.
According to the wishes of Mukarram Jah, Prince Azmet Jah will succeed Mukarram Jah, according to M.A. Faiz Khan, trustee of the H.E.H , the Nizam's Mukarram Jah Trust.
“Given that
he is the eldest of his sons and since his father desires it, Prince Azmet Jah
would be his successor.”
According to sources, the ceremony of succession will be conducted after completion of the mourning days by this month's end or in February.
“Dastar Bandi ceremony could be held after
a few days of mourning and he will be declared a successor,” sources confirmed.
It is understood that the
nomination of the successor is more for legal purposes, and Azmet Jah will not
be referred to even as the titular ninth Nizam
In 1971, the then Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi had abolished princely pensions, titles and privileges,
which were being paid to the Nizam of Hyderabad and other princely state rulers
through the 26th Amendment Act, 1971 of the Constitution.
“The Prince, chief or other person who at any time before the commencement of the Constitution (26th Amendment Act, 1971) was recognised by the President as the Ruler of an Indian State or any person who, at any time before such commencement, was recognised by the President as the successor of such Ruler shall, on and from such commencement, cease to be recognised as such Ruler or the successor of such ruler,” the Act reads.
Deccan Chronicle January 21, 2023
BBC
Family of Indian royals wins £35m court battle against Pakistan
A London court has ruled that £35m ($42m) held in a UK bank account must go to the descendants of an Indian royal, and not to Pakistan.
The dispute began in 1948 when the last Nizam (king) of Hyderabad deposited £1m in the UK account, held by the then Pakistan high commissioner. With interest, the sum has grown to £35m.
The judge ruled there was no evidence to back Pakistan's claims to the money.
The origins of the dispute go back to the 1947 partitioning of British India.
Hyderabad, which was a princely state, was annexed by India in 1948 in a military operation - the cash transfer had been made shortly before that.
The Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, had not been able to decide whether his state should be in Pakistan or India.
His descendants alleged that he had asked for the money to be returned weeks after the annexation by India took place, but then Pakistan refused to give it back.
The court case had been fought by his family together with the Indian state.
National Westminster Bank, in which the money had been deposited, refused to release the funds to either party until the case was resolved by the courts.
The interest on the original deposit saw the money grow to £35m by 2019.
Pakistan argued it had been given the money in order to procure arms but the court determined it had the right to rule in the case, given that the money had been deposited in a British bank account.
"The court today made it clear that it did not think the money was handed to Pakistan outright. There is overwhelming evidence that Pakistan only held the money as a trustee and it actually belonged to the Nizam," Paul Hewitt, the lawyer for one of the grandsons, told the BBC's Gaggan Sabherwal.
Mr Hewitt said the case, which had begun when his client was a child, was finally being resolved when he was in his 80s.
"We welcome the judgment of Justice Marcus Smith," Najaf Ali Khan, one of the Nizam's grandsons, told BBC Telugu.
"The High Court has rightly rejected Pakistan's claim. The family has long awaited this judgement."
India's foreign ministry also welcomed the verdict in a press statement.
Pakistan could seek to appeal, but otherwise the money will be given to the Nizam's grandsons and the state of India.
177
Indian prince's third wife wins 11-year maintenance battle
Maseeh Rahman in New Delhi
Wed 28 Jun 2006 00.02 BST
A former Miss Turkey has won a maintenance and
compensation package worth millions of rupees from her ex-husband, an Indian
prince whose grandfather, the last ruling Nizam of Hyderabad, was once hailed
as the richest man in the world.
After a protracted legal battle an Indian judge
on Monday ordered the Nizam of Hyderabad, Mukarram Jah, 73, who lives with his
fifth wife in Turkey, to pay his divorced third wife Manolya Onur maintenance,
rent and mehr (Islamic divorce compensation) amounting to about 150m rupees
(£1.8m).
The prince was banned from selling any of his
palaces in Hyderabad until he had paid up. But the judge turned down Ms Onur's
request that her former husband should give their 15-year-old daughter,
Niloufer, the palace in Hyderabad in which the couple lived after their
marriage in 1990. They divorced four years later.
Ms Onur, who lives with her daughter in Istanbul, is flying to Hyderabad this weekend to celebrate victory in the 11-year court battle.
"I couldn't believe my ears when I heard the
news," she told Indian TV. "It was unjust that me and my daughter
have had to suffer over the years but finally I feel justice has been
done."
Besides the one-off mehr compensation, Ms Onur
will receive $10,000 (£5,500) in monthly maintenance and $5,000 as rent, a
pittance compared with the once fabulous wealth of the Nizam.
"It's middle class, not something great or
luxurious," Ms Onur's friend Scheherzade Jhaveri told a Hyderabad daily
newspaper. "The rents are pretty high in Turkey, and Niloufer studies in
an international school."
The Nizam is expected to appeal, but the family court decision was humiliating for a dynasty that ruled the kingdom of Hyderabad for more than 200 years.
His grandfather, Osman Ali Khan, was the
only maharajah in British India accorded the title His Exalted Highness, a
reward for contributing £25m to the British exchequer in the first world war.
The family had a fabulous jewellery collection, including the 184.75-carat Jacob diamond.
The hoard, valued at about 250bn
rupees, was taken by the government in 1995 after the Nizam and his family were
paid a 10th of its price, and is now on display at the Salar Jung Museum in
Hyderabad.
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The Nizam of Hyderabad |
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Guardian
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
Sat 8 Dec 2007 23.49 GMT
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.
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.
Portal became friends with Princess Niloufer, the Nizam's daughter-in-law and niece of the Caliph. One day, the princess took her to see some of the Nizam's treasure which was hidden in one of the palaces. They went down a flight of stairs, past a group of Bedouin guards, and there at the bottom was a huge underground vault, full of trucks and haulage lorries.
The disintegration of the state, and the dispersal of the wealth of the Nizam, the seventh in his line, is one of the 20th century's most dramatic reversals of fortune. After months of failed negotiations, India invaded Hyderabad in 1948, replacing the Nizam's autocratic rule with parliamentary democracy.
When the seventh Nizam died in February 1967, his grandson, Mukarram Jah, succeeded him, quickly finding himself enmeshed in debts and financial chaos. He had inherited a ridiculously inflated army of retainers: 14,718 staff and dependants, including 42 of his grandfather's concubines and their 100-plus offspring.
Most debilitating was the legal wrangling initiated by the several thousand descendants of the different Nizams, almost all of whom claimed part of Jah's inheritance. Jah's father, who had been passed over in the will, and his aunt led the legal challenge.
Eventually, in 1973, disgusted by the weight of litigation and the bitterness of the family in-fighting, Jah relocated to a sheep farm in Perth, Australia. There, he donned blue overalls and spent his days under the bonnets of his cars or driving bulldozers. As his biographer, John Zubrzycki, put it in The Last Nizam: "His grandfather composed couplets in Persian about unrequited love. To Jah's ears there was nothing more poetic than the drone of a diesel engine."
Jah sacked most of the 14,000 staff he left behind in India, and divorced his first wife, the sophisticated Turkish princess Esra, who saw no reason why she should move to a remote Australian sheep station.
In his absence, Jah's unsupervised Hyderabad properties were looted and his possessions dispersed by a succession of incompetent, dishonest or unscrupulous advisers. When Jackie Kennedy came to Hyderabad on a private visit a few years later, she recorded her impressions of this collapsing and leaderless remnant in a letter to a friend: "We had an evening with the old noblemen of the court..." she wrote.
In 1997, when I first visited Hyderabad, the plundering of the Nizam's property was nearly complete. The drawing rooms of the city were still buzzing with stories of how precious jewels, manuscripts, Louis XIV furniture and chandeliers from the Nizam's palaces were available on the market, for a price.
Meanwhile, his various palaces were decaying - some sealed by order of court, some sold off or encroached upon. Between 1967 and 2001, the Chowmahalla estate shrank from 54 acres to 12, as courtyard after courtyard, ballrooms and stable blocks - even the famous "mile-long" banqueting hall - were acquired by developers, who demolished the 18th-century buildings and erected concrete apartments in their place.
I visited the huge Victorian pile of the Falaknuma Palace, just to the south of the city. The complex, which stood above the town on its own acropolis, was falling into ruin, with every window and doorway sealed by red wax. Wiping the windows, I could see cobwebs the size of bedsheets hanging from the corners of the rooms.
In 2001, on another research trip to Hyderabad, I received a phone call from a friend. The first wife of the present Nizam, Princess Esra, had unexpectedly appeared in the city after an absence of three decades. With her, she had brought the celebrated Indian lawyer Vijay Shankardass.
Chowmahalla, dating from 1751, was one of the finest royal residences in India. After some negotiation, I was allowed to accompany the princess on her visit, and so was there at the breaking of the seals of some rooms that had not been opened since the death of the previous Nizam in 1967.
What we saw was extraordinary, as if we were in the palace of Sleeping Beauty. In one underground storeroom, thousands of ancient scimitars, swords, helmets, maces, daggers, archery equipment and suits of armour lay rusted into a single metallic mass on a line of trestle tables.
In the King Kothi palace, the Nizam's dynasty's complete correspondence since the mid-18th century filled three rooms floor to ceiling. When the archivists had been sacked in 1972, the archive, all 10 and a half tonnes of it, had been stuffed into the rooms and sealed. Other rooms were stacked with crates of French champagne.
It looked an impossible task even to begin to sort out the mess and dilapidation. Yet remarkably, six years later, the Chowmahalla is now open to the public and 1,000 visitors a day are streaming through. A massive conservation project, unique in India, has restored and catalogued the best of what remains. The result is little short of incredible.
In the story of how the Nizam's inheritance was saved, Esra's lawyer, Vijay Shankardass, plays the most extraordinary role. An urbane figure, Shankardass is the only lawyer who has both chambers in Lincoln's Inn and a practice in Delhi. He is renowned for being as clever as he is honest and, as the man who represents Salman Rushdie, he is also celebrated for his courage and tenacity.
I met him in the largest suite of Hyderabad's grandest hotel, which he has occupied intermittently since beginning work on the Nizam's estate in 1996:
It was Shankardass's amazing achievement to have persuaded all 2,740 claimants - legitimate and illegitimate descendants of the different Nizams - to agree to a settlement of the jewel issue.
In the end, the Indian government banned the export and public auction of the jewels, which they rightly regarded as a national treasure, but instead agreed to pay around £40m for them - less than a quarter of the market value, but much more than anyone had expected from the government. Of this, just under half was to go to the Nizam.
Next, the 130-odd legal cases still outstanding against the Nizam were settled, and debts, then standing at around £3m, were paid off.
All this still left a considerable fund for Esra to invest in the restoration of the Nizam's properties. She has the same talent for picking honest and effective people to work for her as her husband once proved to have for employing crooks.
The first task was to restore a service wing of the palace, which was turned into a scholars' retreat, where architects, urban designers, art and ceramic consultants, conservators, specialist carpenters, photographic experts, textile restorers, antique upholsterers and historians could be lodged while they worked on the different collections.
Fifteen Urdu and Persian scholars are currently sifting through the Nizam's vast archives. Already they have stumbled across a major historical discovery: the Nizam's negotiations in the early 40s with the Portuguese to buy Goa and so provide his state with a port, and with it a real hope - never realised, perhaps thankfully - of remaining independent from India once the British finally quit India.
Last month, Princess Esra returned to Hyderabad from her base on an island off Istanbul, to oversee progress. She swept in, sari-clad, imperious, a flurry of energy, and as ever, everyone stood to attention.
I asked if, looking back, she had any regrets. "Many," she said. "If I had the head on my shoulders I have now a few years ago, I would never have let things get into the state they did. But I was too young.
"And the Nizam?"
"He had a brilliant brain when I met him," she said. "He'd had the best education money could buy - Harrow, Cambridge, LSE, Sandhurst. But partly because of his diabetes he went into decline, and in the end really, well, disintegrated. Today he keeps to himself in Turkey.
Esra's 47-year-old son Azmet, heir to the eighth Nizam, Mukarram Jah, hopes to come back to Hyderabad and take on what remains of the family role in the city.
"I am planning to spend much more time here," Azmet told me. "The death threats and law suits that kept us away are cleared up now, and I have great affection for this place." He paused: "I am determined to maintain what has been saved. We'll not make the same mistakes again."
· William Dalrymple latest book is The Last Mughal: The Fall Of A Dynasty, Delhi, 1857 (Bloomsbury)
HYDERABAD: Silver Jubilee Durbar
India has no native state so rich, potent and extensive as Hyderabad which is about the size of the United Kingdom and there last week the Royal Family of the Asatia Dynasty celebrated the Silver Jubilee of "The Richest Man in the World," Lieut.
General His Exalted Highness Sir Mir Osman Ali Khan, the Nizam of Hyderabad & Berar.
Because the scheduled Coronation Durbar next winter of British King & Emperor George VI has had to be canceled by His Majesty (TIME, Feb. 15), there is no immediate prospect for the world to see such another Indian spectacle of pomp and power as that of the Jubilee Durbar which began in Hyderabad with warlike display of 10,000 Hyderabad troops last week and will close Feb. 26 when the Nizam prays in the public gardens of the Great Mosque, entertains the eminent Indian theologians of his Dominions, and throws open the characteristic and important Hyderabad Departmental Progress Exposition.
Some Indian sovereigns are lecherous, champagne-quaffing wastrels with a taste for French women and English horses which they spectacularly gratify from Monte Carlo to Epsom Downs and Hollywood, but decidedly the Nizam is different, and by an honored Hyderabad tradition no Nizam has ever left India no matter how good a reason might exist for doing so.
Ever since Hyderabad stood aloof from the great Indian Mutiny of 1857, its Royal Family have been accorded by British Royalty special honors and the Nizam now has the official status of "Faithful Ally."
This gracefully implies that his exalted highness is not so much the inferior as the colleague of His Majesty the Emperor of India — and, during the World War, the dry, grave "Richest Man in the World" contributed to Britain some $100,000,000 cash plus untold supplies and Hyderabad army units.
Safety First is the policy of the Richest Man, and in Hyderabad this continued to mean last week the flourishing reign of probably the ablest native government in India, with its key statesman Finance Minister the Nawab Sir Akbar Nazarally Hydari.
During the cycle of Depression his famed "Three-Year Budgets'' have always balanced with a surplus and Hyderabad taxes have not been raised.
Sir Akbar's system is to have an annual accounting of each Government Department provisionally, but to carry forward to a so-called "Grand Accounting" only every three years.
He will close the books of Hyderabad's present financial triennium Oct. 5, 1937, including such comparatively recent items as $65,000 to the Memorial Fund for King George V, $25.000 for Hyderabad broadcasting equipment, $12,000 to victims of the Quetta earthquake and an additional $9,000 to the academy named after Indian Poet Sir Rabindranath Tagore.
Because his exalted Highness the Nizam is a Mohammedan (a descendant of the last Mogul Viceroy), while about 90% of his 15,000,000 subjects are Hindus, it was discreet in 1902 to appoint a Hindu Prime Minister, the Maharaja Sir Kishen Pershad Bahadur who was still nourishing last week.
Living nowadays in semiretirement, Hindu Sir Kishen leaves the business of running Hyderabad largely to Mohammedan Sir Akbar Hydari, several of whose adroit coups have jolted Islam as well as the British Raj.
Holy Coup, Most news stories hung on the Richest Man are chiefly chatter about how careful His Exalted Highness is with his pennies — whereas $5,000 is his approximate daily income, his jewels have an estimated value of $150,000,000, he reputedly has salted down $250,000,000 in gold bars and his capital totals some $1,400,000,000, not to mention the fabled "Mines of Golconda." In English poesy, these disgorge a never-ending stream of diamonds.
They lie immediately west of the city of Hyderabad, India's fourth largest metropolis (pop. 400,000). frowned upon by the beet-domed tombs of the Royal Family (see cut, p. 22) about five miles out in the suburbs.
Poesy aside, the Mines of Golconda have yielded diamonds in only trifling quantity and were exhausted long ago. What fooled early English travelers was the fact that Golconda was long one of India's chief centres of diamond cutting, strongly fortified to protect these precious stones: "The Riches of Golconda."
The Nizam of Hyderabad is supposed to have once refused to pay 6¢ for a dab of ice cream, rebuking the vendor for asking this "high price." In Sunday supplements he is said to have his worn clothing cut down to fit the next smaller member of the Royal Family, and so on.
In fact the World's Richest Man is just about as tight & loose with his money as the poorer John D. Rockefellers. One of his old Hyderabad customs is never to receive one of his subjects, no matter how poor, unless the subject brings a cash present for His Exalted Highness.
To the Richest Man more money, gold or jewels would have no overwhelming appeal, but as a Mohammedan he could aspire to mix the blood of his descendants with that of descendants of the True Prophet and in 1931 a coup of this holy character was brought off by Sir Akbar Hydari.
Up to the fall of the Turkish Empire its ruler was both Sultan and Caliph or "pope" of Islam. On the French Riviera, thoroughly deposed so far as Turkey was concerned, lived and still lives "His Imperial Majesty the Caliph Abdul Medjid II" and a ripe 17 was his beauteous daughter Princess Dur-e-Shawar in 1931.
Beauteous too was his niece the Sultana Nilofar Hanim, great-granddaughter of Turkish Sultan Murad V. Best of all, the Caliph had no son and his hoary beard was that of a Patriarch unlikely to become again a father.
At the death of this pope of Islam, therefore, pious believers would look upon the offspring of his daughter perhaps not as an orthodox and regular Caliph but certainly with utmost reverence in the absence of any other Caliph.
Obviously the two pretty girls were a prime match for the two sons of the Nizam of Hyderabad and off these princes—Azam Jah and Moazam Jah—were packed to Europe—the first royal Hyderabad males ever to marry outside India (see cut, p. 20).
Nowadays there is always plenty of money for His Imperial Majesty the Caliph Abdul Medjid II and almost any sunny day he may be seen strolling with a mien of great dignity along the beach near Nice, attired in swimming trunks only and carrying a large parasol.
"I live apart from worldly vanities here in Nice," recently observed the Caliph, whose favorite reading is Anatole France. "I read, I play the piano, I paint. Nice is perhaps the only foreign city which is popular with the Turkish people. You will recall that in the 16th-Century Wars against Charles V of Spain, the people of Nice witnessed the imposing spectacle of 150 Turkish ships of war sailing to the aid of 40 galleys of the French King François 1er"
Two years after the Crown Princess of Hyderabad's marriage, she returned to Nice to give birth to her chubby son the Nawab Mukaramja (see cut, p. 22) in the holy presence of the Caliph her father.
Now back in Hyderabad, she has devoted herself to Indian female uplift movements and this week the Crown Princess marshaled the Hyderabad Girl Guides in the Jubilee Durbar. Unlike their husbands, who follow their father's example in dress, the Caliph's girls dress as Indian ladies do (see cut above).
26-Year-Old Rolls.
Attempts by correspondents to get advance stories on the Nizam's Jubilee drove them frantic as His Exalted Highness kept paring down his Durbar budget. Elephants cost a good deal more as a means of royal transportation than Rolls-Royce cars and while a lesser Indian potentate simply must ride out with elephants galore, one elephant has always seemed enough to the Nizam. (see cut below).
Of late he has given careful thought to whether the World's Richest Man need ride an elephant at all. Suddenly last week the Hyderabad State Railway Shops received rush orders to spend not a penny more than $500 putting streamlined fenders on a Rolls-Royce which gives only eight miles to the gallon and so has been run but 300 miles by His Exalted Highness during its career of 26 years in Hyderabad.
While putting on the streamlined fenders, Hyderabad artisans were instructed to build the centre of the body up much higher last week into a sort of throne topped by a gilt dome. In this way the Rolls was made practically as good for a parade as an elephant & howdah.
Up to the last few days before the Jubilee, citizens of Hyderabad had obeyed the Nizam's injunction not to waste money on decorations, but at the last minute strings of electric lights were invested in by many householders. Taxi drivers contributed to the excitement by going on strike.
In the crush of arriving guests were the Empire's No. 1 Mixed Couple: creamy onetime Mrs. Thomas Loel Guinness, formerly of the "British Beerage" and her present burnt-almond husband, the Prince Aly Shah Khan, son & heir of the famed Aga Khan.
With Hyderabad citizens kneeling at the roadsides in prayer this week the Jubilee began with the 26-year-old Rolls-Royce followed by two 30-year-old Rolls-Royces gliding through the streets escorted by four regiments of infantry, a detachment of native cavalry gaily caparisoned, two batteries of artillery, a regiment of Arabs and the personal bodyguard of His Exalted Highness who employs for this purpose Sidis from Africa.
Instead of cheering the populace prayed and the Nizam of Hyderabad on his Rolls Throne wore not a single ornament or diadem and was not in uniform. As on other days (see cut, p. 20) His Exalted Highness wore an ordinary suit and simple turban.
On the Mohammedan theory that "all are equal before Allah in prayer," the World's Richest Man prostrated himself with his subjects at the Great Mosque and everyone prayed. Poems were recited and the venerable Hindu Premier read an address hailing his Mohammedan Monarch as "today the sole relic of Mogul greatness in India."
Uncorked amid huzzahs was an appointment signed by His Majesty Edward VIII, and saved up for last week's Jubilee Durbar, creating Hyderabad's Crown Prince Azam Jah additionally Prince of Berar. Thus officially ended was the long dispute over Berar which was almost taken away from Hyderabad by domineering Viceroy Lord Curzon. Berar is about the size of Switzerland, immensely valuable because its peculiar soil produces the finest cotton which can be grown in India.
The State of Hyderabad, "Heart of the Indian Peninsula," occupies the centre of the continental lobe. Unusually fertile and desert free, it is dotted with artificial lakes and storage reservoirs, has no sea-coast—a grave disadvantage—but is well watered by a system of rivers on which float many a quaint coracle. The district drains eastward into the Bay of Bengal.
The Residency. No royal and ruling Indian, not even His Exalted Highness, ever escapes a British Residency, an outpost of London which makes him feel the more or less iron hand of Britain in a less or more velvet glove.
In his early days as Hyderabad's ruler the present Nizam dismissed the Diwan or acting cabinet and directed affairs as his own Prime Minister for some years with such vigor that "The Residency" was often rumored pressing for his abdication. Came the War.
The Nizam's $100,000,000 gift to Britain squared many things, and Sir Akbar Hydari now manages to square the rest. However, the Richest Man considered his Royal Family not too exalted last week to accept the hospitality of British Duncan George Mackenzie, in the white-columned palace of the Raj (see cut, col. 1).
Constitutional Crisis. Today Indians, royal and otherwise, are just beginning under a new Constitution (TIME, Jan. 11 et ante} to edge up to the head of India's table for the first time since the Empire was set up. Among ways of wrecking this Constitution would be for the ruling Indian potentates to refuse to sign the Act of Accession intended to bring their States into the new All-India Federation.
Last year the Maharaja of Patiala, longtime chairman of the Chamber of Princes, re-signed rather than continue his role of being more or less Britain's whip over his fellow Princes. In the secrecy of their courts and councils last week India's ruling Princes tensely and suspiciously watched the Indian elections.
Strongest figure on the princely stage was the Nizam of Hyderabad's trusty Sir Akbar Hydari, firm demanding of the British Raj virtual amendment of the new Constitution by insertion in the Act of Accession, presenting for the signature of His Exalted Highness and other native rulers, such ultrasafe clauses as: "Nothing in this instrument affects the continuance of my Sovereignty in and over this State."
In Hyderabad the native government is real, it is earnest, and the life of His Exalted Highness is much involved with projects of irrigation, soil conservation, the anxieties of how much in the way cotton piece goods is imported from Japan rather than England, modernization of the Hyderabad State Railways and the still somewhat novel issues raised by electricity.
The words on a modernistic building of which Hyderabad is proud are not in native characters but read "POWER STATION" (see cut, above), and the Nizam has promised communal radio sets to every town and village.
The cash Silver Jubilee gifts to the Nizam of Hyderabad, by his subjects were expected this week to total at least $1,000,000.
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