White Mughals

by William Dalrymple

Book Overview

White Mughals is the romantic and ultimately tragic tale of a passionate love affair that crossed and transcended all the cultural, religious and political boundaries of its time. James Achilles... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0006550967
• ISBN13: 9780006550969
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 640 Pages
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

If there be a paradise on earth.....it is this, it is this, it is this......

White Mughals is a must for anyone interested in Indian history, particularly the early history of the British Raj. It turns everything one assumes about the exclusive, closed, late Raj Period on its head because it deals with a time when the British were open to Indian civilization, a period that extended from their arrival in India to roughly the late 18th century. The book starts off with a brief history of the early encounters of Europeans with India, between the 16th and 18th centuries, which included fascination with and acceptance of Indian culture as much as anything else. We remember Warren Hastings today for his impeachment for corruption. What we forget is that he was probably the most enlightened Governor General of India and had a deep respect for Hinduism and India. Certainly more fun to think about than Lord Curzon.... William Dalrymple touches on all sorts of interesting characters of the time, who assimilated into the culture to a degree unimaginable later on. These range from Irishmen who became sadhus to gunners who became local princes, as well as the fascinating Hindoo Stuart, whose singleminded crusade to get Englishwomen in India to adopt the sari deserves remembrance today.... Hindoo Stuart's quotes alone make the book worthwhile! One interesting thing is the number of Englishmen born in America, who backed the 'wrong' side in the War of Independence, left the US, and ended up in India, adapting to local customs and marrying Indian women. As history is written by the winning side, these are people one doesnt get to hear much about...... One of these, the Handsome Colonel, born in Georgia, was the father of James Kirkpatrick, Resident at the Court of the Nizam of Hyderabad. The Resident was the Crown representative at the courts of Indian rulers, about the same as an ambassador (what we forget is that the British only ever directly ruled 60% of India....a fact cleverly concealed by the British). The book is about Kirkpatrick's life in Hyderabad, his interactions with this highly civilized Mughul court as well as with his British masters, and his love affair with and marriage to Khair-un-Nissa, a highranking Hyderabadi Muslim noblewoman of Persian extraction. Kirkpatrick spent nearly all his life in India, so adopted the manners and dress of a Mughal nobleman, down to a title of honor accorded him by the Nizam (Hushmut Jung), and converted to Islam to marry Khair-un-Nissa. He may have gone as far as becoming a double agent working for the Hyderabadis against the East India Company. He certainly deplored the rigidity and exclusiveness that crept into British relations in India with the arrival of Lord Wellesley as Governor General. Dalrymple's portrait of Lord Wellesley is unforgettable! The book follows their lives (and those of many of their contemporaries) in the late 18th century down to their children, in the Victorian England of Carlyle. Its a truly fascinating story that begs us to consider what it mea

Under an Indian Enchantment

It seems that every generation the British are vouchsafed a truly remarkable travel writer. These are writers who do not just travel and write about it but combine their insatiable curiosity about places and people with often profound knowledge of history and languages: Arabic, Urdu, Chinese (all varieties), eighteenth-century Persian among many. The honour-roll is long and distinguished from Burton and Doughty to Freya Stark, Thesiger and Leigh Fermor. Now comes the latest prodigy, William Dalrymple. He began auspiciously with In Xanadu (1989) a prize-winning account of an expedition across Asia to Kublai Khan's `pleasure dome'. It was mature, informed, witty and exhilarating. At the time he was a twenty-two-year old Cambridge undergraduate. Five years later appeared his rich, densely packed account of a year in Delhi, which caused the Sunday Times to declare him "British Young Writer of the Year". In 1997 appeared his masterpiece, From the Holy Mountain in which he traces the footsteps of two monks who trudged across the entire Byzantine world, from the Bosphorus to Egypt, in 587A.D. It combined a detailed knowledge of mediaeval sources, a compassionate eye for the slow decline of Middle East Christianity, a grasp of modern politics and his characteristic black humour. It too proved a prize winner. In 1998 came a collection of superb articles and essays on India, The Age of Kali. Unsurprisingly Dalrymple was the youngest person to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Asiatic Society. Now he offers us White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India. If you seek magnificent holiday reading here it is. It is not a book to read at a sitting - or three sittings. Dalrymple is not afraid to write a long book and this is the longest of all. It runs to 500 pages, not including the fifty pages of scholarly apparatus that underpins it. It began as a paragraph in an earlier essay. Then he thought of writing part of a chapter of another book about it. Finally the saga got him in its grip and his narrative expanded to cover a territory as large as India in the era of the East India Company. The `plot' concerns a most unlikely love story that ends sadly but that is only one element in a huge canvas. The love story involves James Achilles Kirkpatrick a late eighteenth century British Resident at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad, a prince of immense wealth and ruling a huge territory. The woman Kirkpatrick improbably loves and marries is Khair-un-Nissa, the great niece of the Nizam's prime minister. Improbably because it was theoretically impossible for them to meet, or indeed ever see each other since she was always in purdah and in any event, as a descendant of the prophet was only supposed to marry a husband of the same descent. Indeed she was already engaged to a nobleman who met that criterion although the couple had never set eyes on each other. Love proverbially laughs at locksmiths and their story is surel

Fascinating and thoroughly researched history

A fascinating look at the turn of the century (18th to 19th) India at a moment when the gentleman scholars or Orientalists were still considered valuable commodities to the East India Company. Lt. Col. James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the thoroughly Orientalised British "Resident "--Ambassador-- at Hyderabad from1797-1805. Kirkpatrick's extensive knowledge of India's languages and customs made him an ideal ambassador but the fact that he married into an important Indian family(the Prime Minister's daughter) aroused suspicion within the British ranks. It was not unusual for British officials to take Indian wives. In fact it was quite common for British officials to have one or more Indian wives or mistresses or even a harem of their own. What was unusual in Kirkpatrick's case was that he married into such an important and powerful family and this placed him in a vulnerable position politically. In the eyes of his fellow Englishmen Kirkpatrick who often dressed in Indian clothes seemed to have acclimated so well that some wondered just whether his loyalties were with the British or with the Indians who he so obviously admired and imitated. It was perhaps Kirkpatrick's misfortune to be appointed Resident of Hyderabad at a time when the East India Company under the new leadership of Lord Wellesley was beginning to implement an increasingly lop-sided and self-serving imperialist policy in India. Initially Kirkpatrick was considered a valuable asset to Wellesley but as rumours of his marriage(and the compromising postion it put him in) spread Wellesley himself began to question whether Kirkpatrick could be relied upon any longer. Dalrymple uses Kirkpatrick's life to illustrate a fundamental shift in the relationship between Britain and India. Kirkpatrick represents the last of a breed of men who acclimated themselves to India and in Dalrymples view successfully bridged the gap between east and west. Dalrymple makes use of previously untranslated source material and gives us a rare and detailed glimpse at a moment in history; Kirkpatrick himself, however, remains an ambiguous figure . We get an especially detailed glimpse of the political intrigue that transpired during a time when the French and the English were competing for dominance in the region. Dalrymple quotes at length from Kirkpatrick's correpondences and gives a very insightful look into just how the great game was played. Less detailed and considerably more speculative is the personal side of this story. Dalrymple provides plenty of detail about Indian life in general but the personalities of Kirkpatrick and his young bride Khair un-Nissa remain sketchy. We feel like we can picture the time and place and we have a keen sense of the poltical goings-on and how they affect each relatonship but the actual love story between these two never emerges from the shadows and remains something of a secret. Dalrymple tries to use the story to illustrate his own point that cultures can in fact

An evocative, tragic but exquisitely written story

I so looked forward to reading White Mughals after the first reviews appeared in the UK papers. When it came out in paperback, I opened it with great anticipation. I was never let down - Dalrymple, known mainly for his highly evocative and well received travel books, has turned historian and historiographer to produce this wonderful, exquisite book.Although on one level it tells the story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick, British Resident in Hyderabad at the close of the 18th century, this book is a beautifully written examination of a number of white men from all over Europe (and America) who went adventuring in India from the time of Elizabeth I. Many of them became "white mughals", immersing themselves in the lifestyle and religions (both Hindu and Muslim) of the various princely states. Eventually, though, and most sadly, racist attitudes and unreasonable demands on local rulers made it more and more difficult for these men to carry on and eventually too many of the British in India became narrow minded, intolerant and xenophobic. The British presence in India eventually became intolerable and so ended the British Empire in due course. The author is particularly scathing of Lord Wellesley's governor-generalship.The author has created a wonderful tapestry of various men, their Indian wives and Anglo-Indian children, the art, literature, architecture, politics, military adventures, food, domestic arrangements, etc of a short but poignant era in Indian and British/western history. His scholarship is evident (the footnotes often fascinating) and he was very lucky to happen upon some original, never seen, sources which help make this book so vibrant.The sad story of James and his Khair was both a tragedy and a triumph - I shall never forget them and, should I ever travel to India, Hyderabad and the old Residency are a must-see for me.

A different take on the British in India

"White Mughals" is a fascinating picture of the British in India at the turn of the 19th century, before the British notions of Empire were fully formed. The author focuses on the life of James Kirkpatrick, a representative of the "Company," to explore the evolution of the British presence in India. Using the story of Kirkpatrick's marriage to a Mughal aristocrat as a touchstone, Dalrymple explores a different model for colonization. Kirkpatrick was the company's chief representative in Hyderabad, a Mughal kingdom. He admired and appreciated India's culture, customs and ancient learning, and quickly adapted to the Indian way of life. He was a gifted linguist and skilled diplomat, who successfully negotiated many thorny issues on behalf of the British with the rulers of Hyderabad. Kirkpatrick exemplified a European who believed that East and West could work together for the benefit of both, that the rulers at the time and the British could co-exist, that customs and culture could blend together.Dalrymple has assembled a huge amount of information, much of which is primary source material never before examined, to support the fact that this blending of cultures was common at the time. As might be expected, many British had Indian mistresses, but more surprisingly, intermarriage was not uncommon, and for a Muslim woman, marriage to a Non-Muslim could only occur if the man converted to Islam, which some did, including Kirkpatrick. At the time the Indian rulers were Muslim, but they did not attempt the impossible task of converting the Hindu population, and as a result, the same blending of culture that was occuring between east and west occurred to some extent between Hindu and Muslim. The two religions co-existed for the most part peacefully, a situation that changed radically at the time of Indian independence. Inevitably, the Company became ever more profitable and the British presence stronger, while at the same time the Mughal Empire began to crumble. Successive Governor-Generals reversed the trend, mixed race children became the targets of discrimination, and the remaining Mughal princes were forced into unfavorable agreements with the British. By the time of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, the notion of Empire, and a separation between the English and Indians, was largely complete, to last for almost 100 years.Finishing the book, one wonders whether the model exemplified by a Kirkpatrick would have worked. Or is conflict between cultures inevitable?--certainly in our fractured world it seems to be. Dalrymple's work is well-written, well-researched, and very thought-provoking.