Hafiz Abdul Karim, (1863?-1909), better known as "the Munshi" (variously translated as "teacher" or "clerk" in Urdu), was an Indian servant of Queen Victoria who gained her affection in the final fifteen years of her reign.

The Munshi was one of two Indian servants brought over to mark Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. The Munshi was initially a dining room waiter. The Queen took a great liking to him, and, after he supposedly alleged that he had been a clerk at home and thus menial work as a waiter was beneath him,[1] he was soon promoted to the unique position of "the Queen's Munshi"--he gave her Hindustani and Urdu language lessons,and taught her Indian customs. In later years, he became first Personal Indian Clerk to the Queen, and later her Indian Secretary (not to be confused with the Cabinet office of Secretary of State for India)
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1897 Queen Hindustani Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim C.I.E.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2010

Queen Victoria and Abdul: The royal love for Urdu

Munshi Abdul Karim's name might not ring a bell today but his life and stay in England has now been documented in a book. Munshi Abdul Karim was sent as gift from India to the Queen in 1887. From being a waiter, Munshi Abdul Karim rose to become one of Queen Victoria's closest confidante and companions.

(Portrait of Munshi by Rudolf Swoboda commissioned by Queen Victoria)

He started teaching her Hindustani/Urdu and constantly enlightened her on India and her people. His proximity to the Queen caused consternation among the Royal staff members but the Queen's interest in India and Abdul Karim ensured no one could touch him.

Munshi Abdul Karim's life and his relationship with Queen Victoria is the subject of a book written by Shrabani Basu. Titled Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidante, the book explores the intimacy and trust the Queen shared with Munshi Abdul Karim. However, after Queen Victoria's death the Munshi was shipped back to India with his wife and relatives. If not for this book, Abdul Karim would have remained unknown and hidden in the records of the British Royalty.

His eminence can be gauged by a simple reference to the London Gazette. The 25 May, 1895 issue of the London Gazette mentions Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim as the last name under the head 'To Be Companions'. The May 30, 1899 issue of the London Gazette says:

THE Queen has been pleased to make the

following appointment to the Royal Victorian

Order :—

To be Commander.

The Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim, C.I.E., Indian

Secretary.

Thus, Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim became The Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim, C.I.E., Indian Secretary. Between this journey lies the extraordinary story of an ordinary Indian native from Agra, walking the corridors of the mighty British Empire in England. Before Munshi Abdul Karim there were several Indians who were in demand for their knowledge of Urdu and Persian. They were employed to make the Britishers learn the languages used by the masses and the native Maharajas and Nawabs.

Michael H Fisher, an expert on the British Raj, notes that a certain Monshee Mahomet Saeed advertised in London newspapers in 1777 offering to teach Persian and Arabic to Britishers. Sheth Ghulam Hyder, a Bihar native, came to London to work as Persian teacher. He applied to the Haileybury College in 1806 and was appointed on a salary of 200 pounds a year.

In 1799, Mirza Abu Talib Khan came to England to start a Persian department but returned back to India. Maulvi Mir Abdul Ali of Varanasi and Maulvi Mirza Khalil of Lucknow were later selected to go to England in 1807 and 1808 respectively, and were offered 600 pounds per year at Haileybury College. Fisher writes that Abdul Ali and Ghulam Hyder became Christians and died in debts due to their lifestyle.

In 1809, Mir Hasan Ali belonging to the ruling family of Awadh too came to England and was appointed as Persian and Hindustani teacher in Addiscombe College. He went back to India in 1817 after marrying an English woman. Mirza Khalil too went back to India on an annual pension of 360 pounds.

Their lives, as brought out by scholar Michael Fisher, stand in stark contrast to that of Munshi Abdul Karim. Unlike the munshi they had come to England on the strength of their knowledge and expertise in the Indian languages which they sought to share with the eager Britishers. Munshi Abdul Karim, however, started as just a waiter and rose to enjoy the confidence and affection of the mighty Queen Victoria.

And that is why Munshi Abdul Karim will continue to live for longer times in our collective memories than the others, as the pauper who almost became a 'prince'.

Diaries reveal Queen Victoria's affection for her 'Indian John Brown'

For more than a century, Munshi Abdul Karim was derided as a jumped-up servant who refused to know his place in Queen Victoria's household.

Queen Victoria and her Indian attendant the Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim Photo: UPPA

By Dean Nelson in Karachi

8:30AM GMT 27 Mar 2010

After arriving from the subcontinent in 1887, he quickly won the monarch's devoted affection and became known as the "Indian John Brown".

His influence over the queen was so envied that when Victoria died her son King Edward ordered palace guards to destroy correspondence she sent to the Munshi to erase all record of their relationship.

But a new archive of letters, photographs and the Munshi's handwritten 'autobiography' shown to The Daily Telegraph, held secretly by his descendants for more than a century, has emerged in India and Pakistan which paints a different picture of Abdul Karim and his relationship with the Queen.

They chart the extraordinary rise of the 24-year-old clerk from Agra in Northern India who was picked as one of two Indian table waiters to serve Victoria during her Golden Jubilee. They reveal her "maternal" care and concern for his welfare and the hostility and racism Victoria believed he faced as he made his ascent.

He wrote: "This is the journal of my life at the court of Queen Victoria from the Golden Jubilee of 1887 to the Diamond Jubilee of 1897. I've been but a sojourner in a strange land and among a strange people.

"I came to England as an orderly to the queen. I must mention that the word 'orderly' as understood by us in India means one who has to accompany the sovereign or prince on horseback. It's a much higher position than an orderly in the British Army …. who is a personal servant.

"While I record of my life I cannot but call to mind the many honours which have fallen to my lot and all through the great goodness of Her Majesty. I pray to the Almighty for the richest blessings to be showered down on our good Queen Empress."

He records his apprehension at his first meeting with the 'Great Empress' – during which he is said to have kissed her feet.

"I was somewhat nervous at the approach of the Great Empress accompanied by His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught and Princess Beatrice. Dr Tyler [his patron] at once did homage, whilst I did the same in oriental style," he wrote.

His impact on the royal household was immediate. He introduced curry to their menu and soon began teaching the Queen to speak Urdu.

By the following year Victoria was so pleased with her orderly that she appointed him "Munshi and Indian Clerk to the Queen Empress at a salary of 12 pounds per month".

He records his pride at being photographed "assisting her majesty in the study of the Hindustani language," and being awarded the Eastern Star medal and lands in Agra.

He began accompanying the Queen on her tours of Europe and to her meetings with other royals and prime ministers.

During a holiday to India in 1890, Abdul Karim recalls how "as Munshi to the Great Queen Empress, I called on the Viceroy Lord Lansdowne" and was invited to his 'durbar' or court.

By the following year, the Munshi had his own servants in the royal household and by the end of 1893, the Queen had sent him a Christmas tree and given him his own horse-drawn carriage and driver.

He records how the queen began introducing him to key figures in her government and the empire, including William Gladstone and Sir Mortimer Durand, the architect of the 'Durand Line' border between today's Pakistan and Afghanistan. He recalls how he was ordered to brief the Secretary of State for India on the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

But as his influence grew so too did resentment within the royal family itself and among her household staff.

By 1897, Fritz Ponsonby, her assistant private secretary, had written to Sir Henry Babbington-Smith, the Viceroy's private secretary asking for information to discredit him.

"The Queen insists on bringing the Munshi forward, and if it were not for our protest, I don't know where she would stop. But it is no use, for the Queen says that it is 'race prejudice' and that we are jealous of the poor Munshi," he wrote.

Comparisons with John Brown, Victoria's devoted Highland ghillie, were later made after Victoria spent a night with Abdul Karim at Glassat Shiel, the isolated Loch Muick cottage she once shared with Brown but had not visited since his death.

But despite the innuendo, Abdul Karim's 'autobiography' records only a platonic relationship which his descendants describe as 'maternal' – Victoria was 42 years his senior.

When Victoria died in January 1901, the future King Edward VII and daughter Princess Beatrice finally had their revenge on the man whose influence they resented. They ordered the Munshi's son to bring out all the papers in front of their cottage at Osborne and made a bonfire of them in front of him.

The bad feeling between Victoria's Munshi and the new King is revealed in a letter from his private secretary to Abdul Karim in the week's following Victoria's death.

It reveals Abdul Karim's feeling that he had been discriminated against and denied honours given to members of the royal household junior to him.

"His majesty desired me to write to tell you he was sorry that you should have written to him complaining that you had not been promoted to a higher grade than you now hold in the Victorian Order. I am further to remind you that in addition to the Victorian Order you have had a companionship of the Indian Empire. His majesty is therefore at a loss to conceive what cause you have for any 'disappointment," his secretary wrote.

The Munshi's great grandson, Javed Mahmood, 63, said he had been portrayed as "a social climber who was having some sort of illicit relationship with her, but it was like a mother and son relationship. She became an Indophile in part because of her affection for him. But the prejudice of her family percolated down to Victoria's staff," he said.