This is a wonderful book which may be termed as ‘micro history on a global scale’. Based upon arcane data secured in different cities of Europe and India, it is a great display of a historian’s act of archive hunting. A very appreciable aspect of the book is that it derives from archives and data produced in multiple languages. Thus, we see usage of letters and official correspondence, accounts, administrative documents and poetry in Gujarati, Persian, French, English and Dutch by the historian. The major issue of the history of modern India is the arrival and impact of the tsunami of European mind, people, armies, capital and civilization. On the other hand, the reverse phenomenon–termed ‘counter-flows to colonialism’ by Michael Fisher—was a trickle at best. Markovits’s book studies one such trickle about the consequences of the conquest of the Nawabi of Bharuch (near Surat, Gujarat) by the East India Company in the late eighteenth century. Primarily, it is the tale of the visit of some scions of Muazziz Khan, the last Nawab to rule at Bharuch, to London and back. The purpose of this visit was to complain about the conduct of the Company to its Board of Directors, and to extract the best possible concessions for the Nawab’s family members. However, there were many twists to this tale. The journey became as relevant and interesting as the purpose of the travel. Lengthy stoppages took place in the Middle East and France at Basra, Baghdad, Istanbul, Salonika, Marseilles, Lyon and Paris. As it turns out, Ahmad Khan, the hero of this story—with whom the author empathizes–was not even a direct descendant of the Nawab of Bharuch!
Other than the Prologue, Epilogue and Conclusion, the book is divided into 15 chapters. It begins with a description of a small parade of the French community in Istanbul escorting the Verninac, the French envoy to the court of Sultan Selim III in April 1796. To impress the Sultan, the French envoy brought with him some non-citizen protectees of the new Republic. Amongst these was Ahmad Khan, accompanied by the dragoman Ruffin, an official charged with his upkeep. If we believe the French envoy’s report, the Sultan noticed the presence of a Muslim in the retinue, and was told the story of Ahmad Khan. Unfortunately, this news also rang in the ears of the English all the way from Istanbul to Bombay.
The opening chapter titled, ‘The Story’ lays out the theoretical framework of the work. The author has used elements from what Carlo Ginzburg popularized as ‘micro history’, i.e., seeing larger currents of the world reflected in local events. He has also examined what Sanjay Subrahmanyam innovated as ‘connected histories’ although the meaning of this concept has always been a bit unclear. Otherwise, the book has also utilized Erving Goffman’s concept of ‘passing’ to suggest that Ahmad Khan should not be dubbed an imposter. This is followed by ‘The Paper Trail’ which details the nature, purpose and content of the documentation of Ahmad Khan and his brothers by the English and French authorities. The next chapter titled, ‘Who was Ahmad Khan?’ focuses on the persona of Ahmad Khan, and discusses the gaps and confusions in available sources regarding his background, legitimacy and purpose. Apparently four sons of the Nawab, viz. Ahmad Khan, Navazish Khan, Anvar Ali Khan and Ahiduddin Khan, had undertaken this journey. However, there is great confusion in contemporary sources from Western India (in Gujarati, Persian and English) regarding the number of offsprings of the Nawab, and if it was three or four Princes who left for London. Markovits suggests that Ahmad Khan undertook this journey as an accomplice but with the evolving circumstances, he had to pass as a Prince. After their sojourn in Istanbul, the party had to split into two, with three of the sons going to London through the land route in France, and Ahiduddin Khan sailing off via the sea route. A more crucial event was the death of Navazish Khan in Lyon. For what it is worth, Ahmad Khan ensured that the body was preserved in Lyon while he visited London, and then took the body back to India for a proper burial in the land of their ancestors.
Subsequently, we have a bunch of chapters which provide a brief history of the rise and fall of the Nawabi of Bharuch. Bharuch was a mercantile and industrial centre located near Surat, a global commercial hub till it was replaced by Bombay. Numerous historical descriptions of Bharuch are extant. After Nadir Shah’s raids further weakened the central structure of the Mughal Empire, the Marathas, the subadar (governor) of Ahmedabad, and Nizam-ul-mulk (who subsequently became the Nizam of Hyderabad) competed for dominance. Abdullah Beg, the local faujdar of Bharuch, eked out independence in 1726 upon agreeing to share large portions of the revenue with the Gaikwads of Baroda. Muazziz Khan was the third ruler of Bharuch who began his tenure in 1769. The Bharuch Nawabi was primarily based on ‘military fiscalism’ through local military dominance and local Hindu bania financiers. The family commanded troops of different ethnicities including Arabs, Rajputs, Rohillas, Sindhis and others. Their most important financial backer and diwan was a man named Lallu Das, who is today remembered for his treachery during the English Company’s conquest. The Surat and Bombay factors of the English Company, fairly independent of their bosses in London and Calcutta, sent a military expedition to Bharuch in 1771 and 1772. Apparently, this was done in tandem with Hindu and Parsi financers, and a nod from Baroda. The 1772 expedition was successful in total annihilation of the Nawabi. Dutch and Parsi records tell us that Bharuch was sacked for three days and nights with rape, plunder and murder afoot. In 1783, the Nawabi was handed over to the Sindhias. The story of Bharuch came to be cited by many critics of the Company as an example of greed, pillage and misconduct. Meanwhile, some of the sons of the Nawab unsuccessfully tried to lead an armed struggle against the Company and Sindhias with the support of the local Kolis.
Upon this we come to the crux of the book, which is a group of six chapters that describe the voyage of the Princes from Surat to Istanbul and then London. The highlighting of Bharuch by English and French critics of the Company’s greed and misconduct in India provided favourable conditions for the sons of the Nawab to seek redressal in London. It is another matter that by the time they reached England, akin to the news cycles of today, the mood of the metropolis had changed. The entourage to London departed from Surat in March or May 1791, less than two years after the momentous events of the French Revolution, and a few years after the envoys of Tipu Sultan had departed via the same route to France. Considerations of the French Revolution and Tipu Sultan were essential in determining the attitudes of British agents. Markovits has described the ongoing struggles and alliances in Basra and Baghdad amongst the English, French, Ottomans and merchants and soldiers of various backgrounds including Jews and Armenians. He also points out that while the entourage did not visit any of the major Sunni or Shia sites in Iraq or Arabia, they certainly took advantage of the networks of Sufi shrines that existed in both the Middle East and South Asia. These networks could exist along ethnic lines, i.e., Indian or Uzbek shrines, or along the lines of silsilas, i.e., Naqshbandi or Kubraviya shrines. France was going through heightened xenophobia when the travellers reached.
Nevertheless, they were able to take advantage of the culture of ‘hospitality’ which had been encouraged by the post-1789 government policy of honouring misfortune (honore le malheur) by way of hospitality (à titre d’hospitalité), which was also decreed by the Comity of Public Safety when granting assistance to ‘Ahmad Khan Indian’. One of these chapters gives a short biography of Ruffin, the French official who was in charge of providing assistance to Ahmad Khan. This section offers a window into the method, logic and purpose of Frenchmen interested in Oriental culture, languages and commerce. It also tells us about how the culture of bureaucracy in France changed after 1789. Another chapter details Ahmad Khan’s efforts to learn the French language, and the reverse efforts by the French to gain knowledge about Persian language and Indian culture from Ahmad Khan. A wonderful discovery of the research undertaken to write this book is a bilingual copy (in French and Persian) of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a foundational document of the ideology of the French Revolution.
The side story of Ahiduddin Khan is narrated in a chapter titled ‘How Ahid-ud-din Reached London and Wrested a Pension?’. With the assistance of Henry F Thompson, a former Company official who had served in Bengal in the 1770s and had written The Intrigues of a Nabob: Or, Bengal, the Fittest Soil for the Growth of Lust, Injustice and Dishonesty (1780), Ahiduddin petitioned the Board of Directors for redressal of injustice meted out to him and his family. He managed to get the Board to sanction a pension of Rs 200 per annum for him and his brothers. The next chapter titled ‘A Pawn in Their Game?’ considers the possibility of Ahmad Khan becoming an instrument for the Revolutionary regime to showcase its universalist ideology in the backdrop of French-British conflict which existed on an intercontinental scale. Chapter 15 provides details of the arrest and interrogation of Ahmad Khan immediately upon his return to Bombay in 1796. Unfortunately, the book does not tell us the story of Ahmad Khan after this event. We do get to know of the fate of some of the descendants of the Nawab of Bharuch till 1951, when the Government of India decided to continue their pensions. Some of these descendants continue to bear the titles of ‘Nawabs of Bharuch’ to this day.
Vikas Rathee is with the Central University of Punjab, Chandigarh.