Victoria & Abdul (35 page)

The urgent letter was signed ‘your faithfully true friend, VRI’. The Queen was determined to ensure that Karim would be looked after when she was gone. Her family and the Household, she knew, would not be kind to him. The letter she wrote to him was one of the many that her son Bertie destroyed after her death.

Meanwhile, the Royal family and the Household were beginning to get frustrated with their attempts to expose the Munshi. The Prince of Wales approached the Prime Minister twice, but he told him that ‘he did not see it was his business’. Since the Prince could not speak to his mother directly, he turned to Reid to help him on the Munshi issue. The doctor found he was once again becoming the hapless intermediary between mother and son. The Munshi did not make things easier for himself either. He seemed to have alienated most of the Indian servants as well. Ghulam Mustapha, the Indian attendant, apparently complained to Reid that he felt compelled to return to India because of the Munshi’s tyranny and described him as a ‘bad man’ and ‘a debbel’.

The Household made another attempt to discredit the Munshi through his association with Rafiuddin. Much was made of the fact that in January 1898 Rafiuddin had chaired a rally of the Muslim Patriotic League (MPL) at Chancery Lane. His presence at another ‘disloyal’ meeting at Bloomsbury was also confirmed by none other than Dadabhai Naoroji, the first Indian to be elected to the House of Commons, who wrote a letter to
The Standard
about it
.
The latter’s statement, quoted by the media, was immediately picked up by the Household, and the Chief of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ernest Bradford, thought it reason enough to keep Rafiuddin under further surveillance.

As with most things to do with the Munshi and Rafiuddin, the event turned out to be nothing more than a lot of hot air. The MPL rally had not actually passed any ‘disloyal’ resolutions, but had in fact resolved to stand by the Queen’s government. A newspaper report quoted Rafiuddin Ahmed as saying that at a time when serious attacks were being made on Imperial India, ‘it was the duty of all loyal subjects of the Queen, who sincerely appreciated the government, to come forward and freely bear testimony to the beneficent character and impartial spirit of that government’.

The resolution passed at the meeting clearly called on Indians to support the British government saying: ‘That this meeting of the MPL has no sympathy with the revolutionary resolution recently passed at the conference held in Bloomsbury, and reaffirms its loyal support to the British rule in India because situated as India is at the present time it is under that rule alone that the peaceful progress of the country is at all possible.’

When Dadabhai Naoroji wrote that Rafiuddin had earlier attended the conference in Bloomsbury where a ‘revolutionary resolution’ had been passed, it gave the Household fodder to accuse Rafiuddin of disloyalty. Rafiuddin stated that he had attended the Bloomsbury conference merely as an observer and vehemently denied stoking any revolutionary feelings among fellow Indians. But it was enough for the surveillance on him to continue and for Reid to seize the opportunity to have a word with the Prime Minister. Reid wrote to Lord Salisbury personally, warning him once again of the association of the Munshi and Rafiuddin, and the fact that the Munshi would probably wish to take Rafiuddin to Cimiez as his companion.

‘Should he [the Munshi] urge this on the Queen, I believe Her Majesty might consent, as she has of late been getting you to think well of Rafiuddin, and is believing that all suspicions about him are groundless,’ wrote Reid. He went on to inform the Prime Minister that Ernest Bradford ‘knew something of Rafiuddin’ and entertained an unfavourable opinion about him and his capacity for mischief. He suggested that he meet Sir Ernest sometime and hear what he had to say on the subject, so he could get ‘an unbiased and unprejudiced opinion from an authority of conspicuous probity’.
²

Reid continued to have long conversations with Salisbury about Rafiuddin, trying to persuade the Prime Minister to take pre-emptive action against him. He even told Salisbury that Rafiuddin could at any time support the revolutionaries and make a case for weapons, and that he was ‘quickly accumulating them’.
³
His attempts to convince the Queen about Rafiuddin, as always, came to nought as she simply dismissed him saying: ‘But he does not sympathize with them.’

Salisbury decided to deal with the Rafiuddin issue in his special diplomatic way. He tried to dissuade the Queen from allowing Rafiuddin to go to Cimiez, suggesting that it would be ‘unfortunate’ if the French press got word of anything on him and treated her with ridicule. The Queen found this reasonable and agreed to the exclusion of Rafiuddin from the European trip. ‘She saw this and seemed impressed by it, and I am quite sure that this is the argument to use with her,’ Salisbury told Reid.

Reid tried to tell the Prime Minister that the Munshi was bullying the Queen, but did not get far with that. Salisbury told him he did not agree with this as she could always get rid of him if she wanted. Salisbury told Reid that he believed the Queen ‘really liked the continual excitement, as he [the Munshi] is the only form of excitement she can have’.
⁴

The Queen went to Cimiez alone that year, but the Household was premature in celebrating their victory as Karim joined her within days. The Queen had apparently written to him to do so. Before his arrival she sent a thirty-two-page memo to Reid and warned her Household that there should be no recurrence of the ‘lamentable and unnecessary occurrences of last year’, and they should be ‘
buried in oblivion
’. She forbade her gentlemen to indulge in any gossip and put down strict instructions: ‘I
cannot
allow any
remarks
about
my people being made by my Gentlemen, or any gossip and reports or stories being listened to by them; but [they] are at once to be stopped.’ The Queen also said that the Munshi would have his carriage as usual and have his name mentioned in the circulars on arrival.

In her Journal she recorded that she had immediately resumed her Hindustani lessons as she had missed these while Karim was away. Though the Household fumed at his return, the Queen and the Munshi went about their walks and lessons simply as if nothing had happened. She would often take her lesson in the grounds in the donkey chair (the donkey being taken out) or the pair would sit in the gardens of the Hotel Regina and enjoy the Mediterranean sun. With Abdul by her side, the Queen would look through her boxes and fill her Hindustani Journal with sprawling Urdu letters, recording the weather and the day’s events. Satisfied in the knowledge that she had not been browbeaten by her family, the Queen was calm and composed. Her family did not dare question her anymore. Their discussions on the Munshi continued in private. Princess Christian and Beatrice and the Prince of Wales all consulted Reid and had several discussions with him, but they did not confront the Queen. She would be entering her eightieth year soon, had lived longer and seen more Prime Ministers than any British monarch and was not to be taken lightly. The bitterness against the Munshi remained on the boil. One day, when the Household was invited to the Queen’s Drawing Room to hear a Hungarian band from Monte Carlo play, the Queen warned Reid beforehand that the Munshi would be present and that he was to be ‘civilly spoken to’. Reid recorded that ‘no one did, but Clark’ (Captain Clarke, the Prince of Wales’s equerry).

The Munshi simply put up with the obvious hostility from the Household, but the Queen had had enough of it. Having spent a few pleasant weeks with Karim at Cimiez, she decided to let her Household know exactly how she felt about their behaviour towards him. She sent a lengthy memo to Reid accusing the Household of racist feelings and jealousy towards the Munshi.

The bitterness feeling and nasty racial feeling can only have produced extraordinary behaviour and injustice which led to it last year. What could have recently caused this enmity to the
poor man who injured no one, interfered with no one, never put himself forward and the very few occasions he appeared is credible.

He may have given himself airs or boasted in India but not more than others. He very most likely was misled into publication and let his name appear without reflection, but that has happened to others … More and more does the plot of Indian and English jealousy show that stories utterly unfounded to have appeared and were told by people out of sheer spite and jealousy behind everything and a tissue of falsehoods were believed which must be put a stop to. VRI.

She added a postscript:

I have added to this long yarn as such numbers of things come to my mind. But one thing I have outlined which is the attack on Abdul Karim’s position. It is not a high one and it’s not in England that we should speak of this. Archbishops, bishops, generals and peers have risen from the lowest and as Lord Salisbury and I remember, Sir William Jenner who the Queen chose to raise a chimney sweep. They have no right to say a word. It is all very disgraceful, I must repeat.
⁵

The Queen had chastised her Household. Despite their best efforts, her opinion of the Munshi or Rafiuddin had not changed.

The Queen was nearly eighty, frail, but still enjoying an active life. The Aga Khan, who had an invitation to Windsor for lunch, marvelled at her appetite, noting that she ate and drank heartily ‘every kind of wine that was offered, and every course, including both the hot and the iced pudding’. She had given instructions to Reid about who was to look after her when she was ill. Not surprisingly, these were her ‘regular gentle nice Indian servants’ who were to do ‘whatever may be required to lift or help me and in any way moving me’. The Queen remembered that when she was ill in 1871, her ‘excellent servant and friend J Brown’ used always to lift her in and out of bed and on to the sofa and saved her pain. This would now be done by her trusted Indians, who looked after her reverentially.

Thoughts about what would be done with the Munshi after the Queen’s death were now crossing the minds of the gentlemen of the House. Colonel Arthur Davidson, one of those actively involved in the anti-Munshi campaign, set up a meeting with Sir Edward Bradford, Chief of Police at Scotland Yard, to discuss how to secure all the Queen’s letters from the Munshi. Davidson told Reid that he had had a long talk with Bradford and discussed the suggestions made by the Prince of Wales about what action would be taken after the Queen’s death. His own idea was that Lord Salisbury’s approval of the discussion should be obtained first and that a responsible legal adviser should act for them. Bradford, however, thought that discussing the legality of the action would lead to a ‘tangle of difficulties’ and he was prepared to ‘do anything when the moment arrived’ and worry about the legal implications later.

Davidson said that Bradford also felt the Prince of Wales should be kept in absolute ignorance of anything that they discussed and any decision that was made so that if ‘errors were made and there was a row’ then they would bear the blame and the Prince of Wales would not be mixed up in it in any way.

With regard to simultaneous action being taken in India, he thought it would be sufficient if the Prince of Wales insisted on the Secretary of State wiring the necessary instructions to India when the time came. Bradford told Davidson that secrecy was of the utmost importance. He was, however, a little worried that Dennehy, in his blundering way, may have given the Munshi a hint of what to expect and this may have put him on his guard and he may have put the letters away safely. The Prince of Wales had agreed to these arrangements.

He also had an update on Rafiuddin, who he constantly referred to as ‘the Ruffian’: ‘Of course, the Ruffian enters largely into the business and to my mind the danger lies in papers and letters being with
him
but Bradford said he did not see how we could well get at him,’ said Davidson.

Davidson had gone to the British Library and looked up the newspaper reports on the MPL meetings and the letter in
The Standard
by Dadabhai Naoroji and had come to the following conclusion:

29 Dec 1897 – Report of Naoroji’s meeting (no mention of Ruffian being there) at which disloyal sentiments were enunciated and similar resolutions passed.

10 Jan 1898 – Meeting of Muslim Patriotic League. Ruffian in chair at which loyal resolutions were passed.

12 Jan 98 – Letter from Dadabhai Naoroji with reference to Ruffian’s championship at this meeting. He was present at 29 December meeting and took part in the disloyal manifestations which he now pretended to deplore.

14 Jan 98 – A long and wordy reply from the Ruffian. Saying he was only present as a spectator and not a participator at meeting. After which the matter apparently dropped.

I have sent Bradford this data and we will get the papers referred to but I don’t really think there is much in it except as showing the interesting underhand nature of the Asiatic generally.
⁶

On receiving the enclosures from Davidson, Bradford admitted there was nothing much in it except that it showed the duplicity of Rafiuddin who had tried to make capital of his presence at the conference. The case against Rafiuddin was ending in a whimper.