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Avadh is claimed to be among the most ancient of Hindu
states. According to popular legend, Ramchandra of Ayodhya, the hero of the
Ramayana, gifted the territory of Lucknow to his devoted brother Lakshman
after he had conquered Sri Lanka and completed his term of exile in the
jungle. Therefore, people say that the original name of Lucknow was
Lakshmanpur, popularly known as Lakhanpur or Lachmanpur.
The city of Ayodhya itself, forty miles away from
Lakshmanpur, was reported to be full of great riches: "Its streets, well
arranged, were refreshed with ceaseless streams of water ~ its walls,
variously ornamented, resembled the checkered surface of a chess-board. It
was filled with merchants, dramatists, elephants, horses and chariots. The
cloud of fragrant incense darkened the sun at noonday: but the glowing
radiance of the resplendent diamonds and jewels that adorned the persons of
the ladies relieved the gloom!.." (Ramayana).
The ancient metropolis of Ayodhya was situated on the banks
of the Ghagra, a river as wide as the Ganges at Chunar and its extensive
ruins can still be seen. There is no record of when and how Ayodhya came to
be deserted or allowed to decay : the legend is that Rama ascended to
heaven, carrying with him all the population of the place. So large had the
city been that Lakshmanpur was described as its suburb!
Taking a descent through the mists of time we alight upon
Ayodhya again in the record books of the Emperor Akbar. It is a prodigious
descent in time -from fifteen centuries before the Christian era to fifteen
centuries after. Incredibly though, not much is known about the history of
Avadh during this time. We know that after the conquest of Kanauj by the
Afghans at the. end of the twelfth century, Avadh submitted to the Sultan of
Ghazni, and so became part of the empire of Delhi. Avadh then as- serted its
independence for a while under a Muslim ruler, but he was over- thrown by
Babur, and Avadh became a subah or province of the Moghul empire.
As
the Moghul power declined
and the emperors lost their paramountcy and they became first the puppets
and then the prisoners of their feudatories, so Avadh grew stronger and more
independent. Its capital city was Faizabad.
Of all the Muslim states and dependencies of the
Moghul empire, Avadh had the newest royal family. They were descended from a
Persian adventurer called Sadat Khan, originally from Khurasan in Persia.
There were many Khurasanis in the service of the Moghuls, mostly soldiers,
and if successful, they could hope for rich rewards. Sadat Khan proved to be
amongst the most successful of this group. In 1732, he was made governor of
the province of Avadh. His original title was Nazim, which means
Governor, but soon he was made Nawab. In 1740, the Nawab was called
Wazir or vizier, which means Chief Minister, and thereafter he was
known as the Nawab Wazir. In practice, from Sadat Khan onwards, the
titles had been hereditary, though in theory they were in the gift of the
Moghul emperor, to whom allegiance was paid. A nazar, or token
tribute, was sent each year to Delhi, and members of the imperial family
were treated with great deference: two of them actually lived in Lucknow
after 1819, and were treated with great courtesy.
Achieving a certain degree of independence from the
Moghuls in Delhi did not, unfortunately, mean that the Nawabs could rule
entirely as they pleased. They had merely exchanged one master for another.
The British, in the form of the East India Company based in Calcutta, had
long looked with predatory eyes at the wealth of Avadh. Excuses for
interference in the province were not hard to find. The most catastrophic
from the Avadh point of view came when Shuja-ud-Daula invaded Bengal, and
actually briefly held Calcutta. But British military victories at Plassey in
1757 and Buxar in 1764 utterly routed the Nawab. When peace was made, Avadh
had lost much land. But the enemies became friends, on the surface anyway,
and the Nawab Wazir was extolled in the British Parliament as the Chief
native allay of the East India Company in all India.
The Nawabs surrendered their independence little by
little over many years. To pay for the protection of British forces and
assistance in war, Avadh gave up first the fort of Chunar, then the
districts of Benares and Ghazipur , then the fort at Allahabad; all the time
the cash subsidy which the Nawab paid to the Company grew and grew.
In 1773, the fatal step was taken by the Nawab of
accepting a British Resident at Lucknow, and surrendering to the Company all
control over foreign policy. Soon the Resident, however much he might defer
ceremonially to the Nawab, became the real ruler.
Asaf -ud-Daula, son of Shuja-ud- Daula, moved the
capital from Faizabad to Lucknow in 1775 and made it one of the most
prosperous and glittering cities in all India. Why did he move? On a whim,
it is said, because he wanted to get away from the control of a dominant
mother. On such a thread did the fate of the great city of Lucknow depend!
Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula was a generous and sympathetic
ruler, an inveterate builder of monuments and a discriminate patron of the
arts. He built the Bara Imambara with its intricate bhul-bhulayya and
adjoining mosque, primarily to create employment for his subjects during a
time of drought. The Rumi Darwaza also testifies to his architectural zeal.
His son, Wazir Ali, was the one who most regretted his
grandfather's ac- ceptance of a British resident at Lucknow. In 1798, the
Governor-General removed him from the throne, on the excuse that there was
doubt as to whether he was a true son of Asaf-ud- Daula, but more probably
because he was displaying tendencies to independence. They put Asafs
brother, Sadat Ali Khan, on the throne. Sadat Ali Khan, though economical in
fiscal management, was nevertheless an enthusiastic
builder and commissioned many
grand palaces, including Dilkusha, Hayat Baksh and Farhat Baksh, as well as
the famous Lal Baradari. Hereafter the dynasty had to look to Calcutta
rather than to Delhi to settle the succession.
The
assassination of a British Resident in 1798 in Benares by the deposed Wazir
Ali gave further excuse for interference, and Lord Wellesley (brother of the
Duke of Wellington) was just the man to exploit it. By the treaty of 1801,
the Nawab had to give up his own army, and pay heavily for a British-led one
in its place. The southern doab (Rohilkhand) was ceded, and the
remainder of the district of Allahabad and other areas became part of
British India. In thirty years, Avadh had lost half its territory to the
British.
The
Nawab demanded in return for these concessions that he should have a free
hand in governing his remaining territory, unchecked by the advice or
interference of the British. But in this, he was badly handicapped by the
fact that he had to rely on British troops to enforce his orders. Wellesley
had another trick up his sleeve: a clause of the treaty by which the Nawab
under- took to establish a system of administration "by the advice of and
acting in conformity to the counsel of the officers of the Honourable
Company" which should be conducive to the prosperity of his subjects. It
seemed a harmless clause, but was to be the means by which the British
eventually annexed Avadh.
Thus,
from 1819 onwards, things ran their course in Avadh. Sadat Ali being
gathered to his fathers, Ghazi his son, sat on the musnud, the
throne, and took the cognomen "ud-Din", implying Defender of the Faith. He
was formally invested with the title of King by the British, though
ironically the proclamation of kingship coincided with a period of almost
complete dependence on the British. He lent two millions of rupees to the
British feringhee for the Nepal War, and at its close got the Nepalese Terai
~ a marshy forest extending along the foot of the Himalayas -in liquidation
of half the debt. Some might have thought it a poor bargain, but in fact the
Terai eventually produced some very valuable timber.
Ghazi-ud-Din
was a good monarch, responsible for much building and public works of all
kinds, and he paid due attention to the administration of justice. He built
the Mubarak Manzil and Shah Manzil as well as Hazari Bagh, in whjch he
introduced Lucknow society to the sport of animal contests for the first
time
However,
his son Nasir -ud-Din who succeeded to the throne, had an attachment to the
English, not founded upon those things the English would like to be admired
for -justice, liberty, democracy -but upon their dress, their eating habits
and, more unfortunately, the drinking -habits of the more disreputable
element of English adventurer with whom he surrounded himself.
Nasir
-ud-Din, despite such a temperament, was a popular monarch, who was
responsible for the construction of an astrological centre, Tarunvali Kothi.
Equipped with sophisticated instruments, it was entrusted to the care of a
British astronomer. When he died there was another disputed succession and
the British insisted on Muhammed Ali, another son of Sadat Ali, being
enthroned. Muhammed Ali was a just and popular ruler and under him, Lucknow
regained its splendour for a brief spell. He was however sorely troubled by
rheumatism. He died in 1842 and his son Arnjad Ali succeeded, a man more
inclined towards matters religious and spiritual, leading to the neglect of
governance. He was succeeded by Wajid Ali Shah, poet, singer, avid patron of
the arts and lover of Lucknow. Of him it was written, "He is entirely taken
up in the pursuit of his personal gratifications. He has no desire to be
thought to take any interest whatever in public affairs and is altogether
regardless of the duties and responsibilities of his high office. He lives
exclusively in the society of fiddlers, eunuchs and women: he has done so
since his childhood, and is likely to do so till his last." ('The Private
Life of an Eastern King' by William Knighton.)
This
portrait of Wajid Ali Shah was used to justify British annexation of Avadh.
If the charges of mismanagement levied against Wajid Ali Shah were true, the
British were as much responsible for this as the Nawab. They were more in
control of the administration and finances of Avadh since the 1780's
than the Nawab. In addition, Avadh had been impoverished by the incessant
cash demands of the British on the Nawab.
The
excuse at last came for the British to invoke that clause of the 1801
Treaty. And the Governor General in 1856, Lord Dalhousie, was just the man
to do it. Avadh was annexed, Wajid Ali Shah shipped off to virtual
imprisonment in Matiyaburj in Calcutta and, though this was not on the
British programme, the stage set for the greatest rebellion to date against
their power in India.
One
of Wajid Ali Shah's wives, the Begum Hazrat Mahal, remained in Lucknow, and
when the Mutiny came in 1857, she put herself at the head of those fighting
for freedom.
The
Begum never did surrender, she died in Nepal in 1879.
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