The Mujtahids and the British Residents, 1842-1856

As the Shi‘i clerics moved into public office in the 1840s, they became increasingly identified with a regime constantly threatened by the expansionist designs of mid-nineteenth-century British imperialism. As government servants in the judiciary, the ulama came into conflict with British administrators who wished either to annex Awadh or to rule it by proxy. Many of the high ulama had investments in British government securities, and so hardly acted in a consistently anti-British fashion. Their disputes with the British focused on structural matters, such as the shape of the alliance with Calcutta and the degree of influence the Europeans would have over Awadh affairs.

Under Amjad ‘Ali Shah the trend was toward decentralization in the countryside, where great landholders often rebelled, loyal tacalluqdars lending their private armies to fight the recalcitrant ones.^[43] The British perceived this segmentary political system as anarchy, but the Awadh elites felt their realm to be in good order. Since the British Government of India had set limitations on the Awadh army and in any case would make immediate demands on any revenue realized beyond the normal, no administration had any impetus to attempt to impose more order.

In some ways Amjad ‘Ali Shah surprised the British resident, who had heard of his fierce Shi‘ism. When the resident placed the crown on the new monarch's head, he informed the king that past governors-general had objected when Awadh rulers proposed to entitle themselves ghazi (fighter for the Faith). Low reported that the "King replied, that as he is—and 'he thanked God for it' (that, was the expression he made use of) under the protection of, and entirely dependent upon the British Gov't, he saw the impropriety of his having such a word as Ghazee on his seal."^[44] The following year the astonished resident, Shakespear, wrote that Muharram had passed without major incident, though most in Lucknow had expected a clash, given the new monarch's unyielding Shi‘ism. On the contrary, Amjad ‘Ali Shah took measures to prevent communal riots.^[45] Whatever his personal sentiments, he had too often seen governors-general warn the Awadh government that they were prepared to take it over to present them with an excuse like public disorder in his own capital.

Amjad ‘Ali Shah, at first compliant with British wishes, eventually came into strong conflict with the resident over policy. At the beginning of his reign he offered to put Rs. 1,000,000 into another 5 percent loan to help out with the Afghan and Sikh operations. Ironically, the gradual conquest of the Punjab caused a diplomatic tiff. The news of the capture of Lahore reached

[43] T Metcalf, Land, Landlords, and the British Raj , pp 32-43.

[44] Resident to Pol Sec Govt. India, 18 May 1842, FDFC, 15 June 1842, no. 37.

[45] Off. Resident to Pol. Sec. Govt. India, 13 Feb. 1843, FDFC, 15 Mar. 1843, no. 29: Off. Resident to Sec. Govt India, 3 Feb. 1844, FDFC, 10 Feb. 1844, no. 257.

Lucknow on the tenth of Muharram, and the British wished to celebrate with an artillery salute. The king objected, but finally gave in.^[46]

The office of the chief minister became a source of contention, with Amjad ‘Ali and the chief mujtahid favoring Aminu'd-Dawlah for the post, and the resident opposing him. In 1843 the resident backed the dismissal of Aminu'd-Dawlah because of revenue shortfalls. He felt that the chief minister had been retained on the advice of the king's courtiers and of Sayyid Muhammad Nasirabadi. Only shortly before the monarch reaffirmed Aminu'd-Dawlah in office, "the High Priest's opinion was applied for as to the selection of a new minister, five names being sent to him, two of which (Moonawaroodawlah and Mooeenoodawlah) were given at length and the other three merely denoted by an initial letter."^[47] The resident grew so dissatisfied with the faults he perceived in the Awadh administration that he bluntly informed Amjad ‘Ali Shah that he did not intend to be present at the annual coronation ceremony that year. The king reacted with shock and asked for advice. The resident suggested that he reappoint Sharafu'd-Dawlah to the chief ministership, but Amjad ‘Ali Shah declared that this candidate's adherence to the Sunni branch of Islam "was in itself an insuperable bar to his reappointment."^[48]

The British resident, appalled at what he perceived as the disorder in the countryside and the shortfall in revenue, dismissed the Awadh government's innovations in the judicial sphere as a waste of money and a means for the deputy chief minister, Sa'idu'd-Dawlah, to mete out summary justice.^[49] Ironically, the British would later accuse the government of Awadh of lacking a judicial system. Awadh certainly possessed a functioning judiciary, however colored by communalism, at several levels of its administration. Indeed, the mujtahid judges clashed with the resident on several occasions.^[50]

With Sleeman's arrival in Lucknow as resident, conflict with the Awadh government reached a high point, and the mujtahids were drawn into these disputes. One disagreement concerned the trial of Muhammad Husayn Khan, the governor (nazim ) of Bahraich. He became indebted to Ramdut Pandey, a banker and agricultural capitalist in the district, to the amount of Rs. 80,000.^[51] What happened thereafter remains murky to this day. The gov-

[46] Resident to Pol Sec Govt India, 5 Sept 1842, FDFC, 19 Oct 1842, nos 110-117; Ardistani, "Al-hisn al-matin" 2 143; Mashhadi Savanih , p 384

[47] Off Resident to Govt India 25 Feb 1845. FDFC. 28 Mar 1845. no 110, sec also Ramasahaya Tamanna, Afdalat-tawarikh (Lucknow; Matbac-i Tamanna'i. 1879), p 94. For the polintics of tins period, see Ahmad, Two Kings .

[48] Off. Resident to Sec Govt India, 29 Sept 1845, FDFC, 99 Nov. 1845, no. 186

[49] Resident to Sec Govt. India, 29 Sept 1845, FDFC, 29 Nov 1845, no. 186

[50] E g, S Muhammad Baqir resisted on putting in irons criminals the resident had promised would not be chained Resident to Sec. Govt. India, 21 Apr. 1847, with end, FDFC:, 11 Dec. 1847, nos. 131-134.

[51] For British-Awadh relations m this period, see John Pemble, The Raj, the Indian Mutiny, and the Kingdom of Oudh, 1801-1859 (New Delhi Oxford Univ Press, 1979), ch 4; the committed account of Mirza Ali Azhar, King Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh (Karachi. Royal Book Company, 1982), and Devi Sinha, British Relations with Oudh , chaps 14 and 15; on provincial administration and on Muhammad Husayn Khan, see Fisher, "The Imperial Court," pp. 169-200.

ernor's detractors charged that he lured the Hindu banker to his camp, pressed him for more money, and when Pandey refused, killed him to escape the previous debt. His defenders said that Pandey himself was in arrears, and when the governor pressed him to settle his accounts he became violent and had to be killed in self-defense. The inescapable fact of the dead banker in the governor's tent, however, forced Muhammad Husayn Khan to surrender himself to Lucknow for trial. Reports reaching Sleeman from eyewitnesses among the banker's retinue stated that the governor's men cut the defenseless Hindu down and that the governor helped finish him off with a sword.^[52]

Any issue impugning the fairness of Awadh's administration immediately became grist for the British mill, aiding their quest for more control over the country. Vajid ‘Ali Shah sought to defuse the matter by having Sayyid Muhammad Nasirabadi, with his reputation among Shi‘is as a paragon of integrity, try the case. Sayyid Muhammad, according to his biographer, "repeatedly refused owing to his farsightedness and his friendship for the English Government."^[53] Kashmiri wrote that only when Nasirabadi received informal assurances from the governor-general that the British had no objections to his proceeding did he consent to conduct an investigation.^[54] If true, this indicates that Sayyid Muhammad had his own lines of communication to Calcutta, circumventing the resident, and that he felt confident any judgment he made would be upheld.

Sayyid Muhammad, after hearing many depositions, rejected the testimony of three eyewitnesses from Pandey's retinue that Muhammad Husayn Khan and his attendants murdered the capitalist, on the grounds that they contained minor discrepancies. He did, however, order that Pandey's goods, plundered after the killing, be returned to his family. Sayyid Muhammad's biographer noted that it would have been impermissible to make a believer pay blood money for the murder of an infidel.^[55]

Sleeman, furious at the decision, fired off a letter to Vajid ‘Ali Shah demanding custody of the three men accused of murder, saying persons of influence had shielded them. He then wrote Governor-General Dalhousie in Calcutta, criticizing the acquittal and charging that it had been engineered by the chief minister. He noted that "the Mujtahid himself, his son and brother hold high & lucrative Offices, and almost all the members of his

[52] Report of the Rajah of Balrampoor to Magistrate of Goruckpooi, 13 ,red 14 Jan 1851 and Deposition of Sudhun Lal, Agent of the late Pandey, before the Resident, 12 Sept 1851, FDFC, 24 Oct. 1851, nos. 186, 187, Sleeman, Journey 1 · 130-35

[53] Kashmiri, NujumT . 1:252.

[54] Ibid

[55] "Decision of the Mujtahid," end, with King of Oudh to Resident, 6 Sept 1851, FDFC, 24 Oct. 1851, no 183, Kashmiri, Nujum T . 1 252.

family enjoy stipends at the pleasure of the Sovereign & his Minister for the time being, & the present Minister has certainly been an accessory to this murder after the fact."^[56] The resident noted (correctly) that even had the chief mujtahid found Muhammad Husayn Khan guilty of killing a Hindu, he would not have punished him.

The governor-general replied that he agreed with Sleeman's assessment, but since the British Government had itself requested the governor's trial in Awadh courts, it could not very well insist on a retrial in the British judicial system. Moreover, it seems that Dalhousie had in mind a better use for the incident. He instructed Sleeman to protest the acquittal to the king and to add "that such acts as these are rapidly filling up the treasure of the King's misgovernment, which His Majesty has been already warned must end in the entire subversion of his kingly power."^[57] Sayyid Muhammad's decision assumed a disproportionate importance in that it gave substance to an image, already formed in Calcutta, of corruption in high places and tyrannical government. Vajid ‘Ali Shah defended the integrity of the chief mujtahid, who he said had passed a death sentence on one of the chief minister's servants in a murder case.^[58] He neglected to say, however, whether that case involved a Hindu as well, or was an inter-Shi‘i affair (a quite different matter). Sleeman clashed with Sayyid Muhammad on several other issues as well while he was resident.^[59]

The Awadh administration in the 1840s and 1850s fought off increasing British demands for control. The Shi‘i ulama, as judges in state employ or clients of notable patrons in government, joined the fray on the side of the Awadh monarchs. They lobbied to have their favorites installed in high posts and attempted to carry out their judicial duties without the resident's interference. The mujtahids' insistence on implementing Shi‘i law, despite its relegation of non-Shi‘is to second-class citizenship, provoked a number of clashes with "even-handed" residents. In the last such major conflict, over the Hanumangarhi, the Shi‘i ulama took the Muslim side against Hindus, but the British overruled their policy recommendations. Yet investment in British bonds and collection of interest on loans to the East India Company gave many Shi‘is, including some of the high ulama, reasons to feel ambivalent toward the British.

[56] Resident to Sec. Govt. India, 20 Sept. 1851, FDFC, 24 Oct. 1851, no. 182; see also Resident to King of Oudh, 12 Sept. 1851, FDFC, 24 Oct. 1851, no. 184.

[57] Sec. Gov. Gen. to Resident, 6 Oct. 1851, FDFC, 24 Oct. 1851, no. 192.

[58] Wajid ‘Ali Shah, Reply to the Charges Against the King of Oude (Calcutta: Englishman Press, [1856]), p. 41.

[59] see Major R. W. Bird, Dacoitee in Excelsis; or the Spoliation of Oude (Allahabad: Liverpool Press, repr. 1994), pp. 94-99; Resident to Sec. Govt. India, 29 Nov. 1855, FDFC, 27 Jan. 1854, no. 91.