White Mughals

White Mughals

By William Dalrymple

Penguin, 2002

In his book, “City of Dijins”, William Dalrymple touched upon the phenomenon of the early English merchant-conquerors marrying into Indo-Islamic families and practicing their customs –   dress, language and some even embracing their religion, Islam.  Though rare, this tribe of English-Mughals were a significant presence in the late 18^th Century.  The East India Company tolerated them early on, but  the later Viceroys, pressurised by missionary groups, clearly discouraged this practice.

By the early 19^th Century, the British learnt their lessons from the American Revolution.  No  settler population was to be allowed in colonial countries to develop an identity of their own.  In India, this was particularly so, because the early soldier-settlers were from economically poorer sections of the English society.

One can only speculate on what would have happened had this trend of British settlers adopting native ways was allowed to proceed unhindered.  What form would it have assumed over a period of time?  Would these while Mughals have enlarged themselves into a significant settler population, emboldened to threaten the hold of the company  and imperial rule from London?  Would this settler-population have formed a coalition and partnership with the native Indians and pushed forward the arrival of modernity to India? Or would it have assumed a separate identity and occupied a dominant position and constituted themselves into a new elite akin to the settlers in South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)? 

The story of While Mughals is the marriage between James Kirkpatrick, the English Resident at Hyderbad and Khairunnissa, the grand niece of the Prime Minister of Hyderabad.  Dalrymple exhibits his formidable skills of research while narrating the story through letters, personal memoirs and manuscripts of the late 18^th-early 19^th Century.  

The pull of personal romance and the counter-pull of imperial compulsions for territorial acquisition runs through the story. There were two streams of thought amongst the British of this period, one, which was considerate towards the native rulers and the other, imperial, which set aside personal considerations for advancement of imperial goals.  James Kirkpatrick along with William Palmer, English Resident at the Maratha capital, Pune represented the former while Lord Wellesley, the new Viceroy belonged to the latter.

Despite human failures – of which James Kirkpatrick had many – he held  his ground against the Viceroy and stood behind his wife till the end.  He did not ditch her till his lonely death at Calcutta, which comes as a surprise after two hundred years.  The personal conduct of James in his relationship with Khair-un-nissa opens up the possibility of a different relationship between the British and Indians as a whole and the new trajectory the history of the sub-continent would have taken had there been more practioners like him.