The White Mughal : Love and Betrayal in India

[Music] in the center of the indian city of hyderabad there lies this extraordinary building within the walls of this perfect palladium villa i stumbled across a story that challenged everything i thought i knew about the british in india james achilles kirkpatrick the east india company representative at the court of hyderabad had apparently converted to islam he married a beautiful local noble woman and apparently he became a double agent i found that james once intent on conquering india was instead conquered himself this passionate love affair between a high-ranking east india company officer and a mughal princess came during a period of religious and ethnic tolerance that has been wiped from the history books beneath the familiar tale of the british conquest of india i began to uncover a more intriguing and surprising story the indian conquest of the british imagination [Music] my research is revealed that many merchants and soldiers who settled here fell so in love with their adopted country that they shed their britishness like an unwanted skin immersing themselves completely in indian culture becoming white mughals but this moment of cultural hybridity and renaissance was also a time of looting and empire building and for james kirkpatrick and cara nissa their love had to prevail in a time of war [Music] in may 1841 a party of guests arrived to take tea at swallow field a grand english mansion in the berkshire countryside when entering the front door one of the women of the party saw something that caused her to burst into tears up on the staircase instantly recognizable was a george chinnery portrait of two children in oriental dress the woman in tears was kitty phillips nay cut patrick and she hadn't seen the picture since she sat for it 35 years earlier in madras the picture showed kitty and her brother wearing hyderabadi caught dress her brother gazes confidently out the viewer but his little sister has an expression of infinite sadness and vulnerability brought up in england an evangelical christian kitty until now had been cut off from her indian past but the portrait brought back half-forgotten memories of a previous life when she'd been known not as kitty cut patrick but as nuremnessa begum the light among women the lady of high lineage a mogul princess to find out more about kitty's origins i traveled to the southern indian city of hyderabad in the late 18th century hyderabad was a wealthy and dynamic place which controlled the world's greatest diamond mines situated high on the deccan plateau it was a key strategic location in the heart of india it was to these streets in 1795 that kitty's father james kirkpatrick arrived as a young man he was already a high-flying officer who had proved himself in battle against the sultanate of mysore my first stop was the salah zhang museum in hyderabad where they had recently rediscovered an early portrait of james painted in his first few years in the city and here he is here's our hero james kirkpatrick he would have been about 29 30 young man for the job and what a good looking guy he is if you're going to have the romantic lead this is the bad isn't he james's employer the east india company was probably the most aggressive and ruthless corporation in world history it was transforming from a mercantile business trading silks and spices into a colonial power in its own right with its own private army james would rise to the role of the resident the equivalent of ambassador and it was james's job to make sure that his rivals the french didn't win in the battle for influence in hyderabad the century-long war for global dominance between britain and france was escalating and several indian rulers looked to france as a potential liberator from the british stranglehold james was almost tailor-made for the job of winning hearts and minds in hyderabad he was born in india but educated in england and he had a foot in both camps in this picture of him at 16 james looks every bit the british officer he was yet his first language had been tamil and later he became fluent in persian and hindustani he wrote urdu poetry dressed in indian clothing and even grew indian style mustachios at this moment of cultural renaissance in india a number of the merchants and officers who settled here fell in love with their adopted country they copied indian habits and embraced local customs they became white moguls when i researched further at the british library i found that james cutpatrick had shared the details of his own life as a white mogul professional and personal in candid letters to his elder brother william the kirkpatrick papers had recently been bought by the india office records and there were nearly 100 files newly cataloged a lot of the more interesting passages were in code and eventually i found a transcription over one of the passages it was a simple number letter correspondence and in james's decoded letters i found compelling evidence of a great scandal in hyderabad which would threaten to overwhelm him [Applause] the heart of political power in the old city was the chao mahala palace if an incomer was to succeed they needed to win the favor of the man who'd been on the throne for 35 years nizam ali khan was a muslim of mughal descent ruling a mainly hindu population by brilliant diplomacy he'd established a prosperous state at this pivotal position in south central india as his letters recorded james's success with nizam was the envy of british diplomats in other cities like calcutta and madras the people at madras i'm told are at a loss to conceive by what magic i always continue to work my ends at this darbar i will inform you in a few words that it consists merely in treating old nizzi with a great deal of respect and deference humoring him in all his innocent whims and wishes typical of his courtesy was to send to calcutta for a warm quilt when the cold weather set in as he said the old man feels the chill you have no idea how kindly these marks of attention are taken by him i may truly say that by such attentions i have gained his warm heart james's diplomatic talents didn't end with his kindness he genuinely enjoyed life in hyderabad and admired its culture he was a man who knew how to enjoy himself fortunately so did the nazam to get an idea of the sort of man nizamalikan was you only have to know that he abolished his father's morality please and instituted instead a ministry called the office of the lords of pleasure the job of this extraordinary ministry was to provide lavish court entertainment from music and poetry recitals to dance displays the court dancers were admired as much for their poetic talents as their other skills they were privy to all the court gossip and were happy to sell this information james skillfully exploited this trade setting up a remarkably efficient network of spies he made sure he was fully absorbed socially into hyderabad's society mixing freely with the nobleman he hunted with trained cheetahs and afterwards would organize performances of the city dancers james increasing absorption into mughal society meant he avoided this sort of mistake made by other more clumsy british diplomats he was somebody that azam felt he could trust and he was a frequent and welcome visitor here at the champala palace but despite winning the respect and even the affection of nazan and his ministers he was still as far as ever from his main goal the ousting of the french newly arrived at the east india company headquarters in calcutta was the ambitious new governor general richard wellesley unlike james he had little respect for indian culture or people he wanted to use the east india company and its massive private army to add india to the british empire richard wellesley is a part of a family of very talented and ambitious aristocratic officers and his mission is to eliminate french threats within the subcontinent and to assert the primacy of the east india company as the leading territorial power but the french were led by a charismatic general michelle raymond by lending mercenary troops for his local wars raymond had cultivated the nazaam of hyderabad it was now vital for james's career that he satisfy the new east india company demands voiced by governor general wellesley the french must be dealt with by james no matter what the cost he opened secret treaty negotiations with nizam that the british would support him unambiguously in any future conflict if only he would disband his french mercenary army but then something else happened near the old french garrison lies the tomb of general raymond nobody knows who was really responsible but with negotiations ongoing raymond was found dead in his bed one morning with all the evidence pointing to the use of a slow acting poison for many years thereafter the nazam on the anniversary of raymond's death used to send a box of charoutes and a bottle of beer to the tomb in memory of his old ally [Music] but with their charismatic leader gone and disciplined slipping in the french garrison james kirkpatrick was quick to take advantage of the situation finally on the 1st september 1798 the nizam signed the treaty negotiated by james the french garrison was to be disbanded and four battalions of british troops stationed in hyderabad [Music] the nizam took himself away to the fortress of golconda leaving the rival europeans to sort it out but he invited the british in without inviting the french to leave [Music] the citadel here was nizam ali khan's refuge of last resort and in times of political crisis such as now he retreated here and locked the gates behind him [Music] on the morning of october the 22nd 1798 the french garrison on the banks of the river mussi awoke to find themselves surrounded james watched anxiously from the residency on the other side of the river within a few hours the largest french force in india nearly 16 000 men laid down their arms and surrendered without a single shot being fired james watched the whole thing through his spyglass from the roof of the residency behind us and wrote to his brother william that it was the finest site he had ever seen james's hyderabad treaty with nazam was a triumph and his political career was guaranteed governor general wellesley was delighted but of unquestionably greater importance for the course of james's life were the victory celebrations that took place afterwards it was here that he first met heron nissa this noble princess came from one of the leading hyderabadi families she was a persian origin and a saeedah directly descended from the prophet himself only one portrait of her survives and in her expression you can see beneath the innocence a strength that might be interpreted as defiance in a less serene face [Music] with only the painting and james's letters to go on i tried to look deeper i knew that she was already engaged to someone else and any relationship with james could only cause a major scandal with the men of her family certain to disapprove so why did she do it i wondered why did she take such a colossal risk were there any surviving manuscripts which gave her point of view or that of her own family after months of research in hyderabad i was wandering through the metal workers bazaar looking for presents to my family when i had an extraordinary stroke of luck this is mommy buffner hello i had got chatting to the owner of this bookshop when i told him what i was working on he said he had something to show me previously undiscovered first person testimony from 200 years ago is hard to find yet here from a pile of manuscripts he produced an old persian book which turned out to be the 600 page autobiography of a cousin of hair and and niece included his thoughts on the affair and when was this written probably before 160 years first time in hyderabad what's interesting is he doesn't blame kirkpatrick for the scandal which engulfs his own life he blames the women he says patrick is a man of honor a fine poet he's built a beautiful garden the person he blames uh is kearney's mother sharafunissa and he said that she has been infected by what he calls the immorality of hindu india falling in love in the 18th century for a young muslim woman would have been risky she's uh 15 she probably lives her whole life cloistered in the harem if you want to break an engagement in the 18th century and you're a muslim woman from a respectable family you can't just say i'm not in the mood to get married you have to have another option lined up and so i think i think this is maybe the way out of that in this story the big mystery is why in a strict muslim persian shia family karen niece's mother encouraged her to start a relationship with kat patrick if sharafunisa thought she was saving her daughter from an unhappy marriage she may have been encouraged by examples of successful marriages between british officials and indian women as i sifted through the record searching for examples i came across references to someone sharing my own surname it soon became clear that not only did i have an ancestor who lived in india but that he himself had married an indian woman from hyderabad lieutenant colonel james dalrymple who according to this inscription commanded the honorable east india company's forces serving with his highness the nazam this guy dalrymple turns out to be a very similar figure to kurt patrick he was also married to a local noblewoman a ashir called mooty begum the daughter of the wab of missouli patam from the coast and a cousin of mumtaz who's buried in the taj mahal it was obviously a very affectionate marriage dharmpal left instructions that the inscription on his tomb be repeated in persian so his wife could read it but this strain of anger indian blood had been entirely wiped from my family records in the years following his death and i had no idea about it but now derimpl comes into this very story he was ordered to confront a man whose captive he had once been tipu sultan the tiger of mysore he was the french-backed enemy of both the nizam and the british and true to the hyderabad treaty colonel the rimple led an anglo-indian force to war but crucially with him went the male members of karen lisa's family he sent off a massive force to attack tipu in his island fortress at srirangapatnam and with that force went bakar ali khan the nizam's paymaster and keronissa's grandfather this left the coast clear at home for cair's mother sharafu nissa to completely rewrite plans for her daughter's future one evening sharaf and karen nissa paid a visit to the women's quarters of the british residency ostensibly to call on family friends their real purpose was quite clear especially to cut patrick himself in a letter to his brother he described the meeting that i did safely past the fiery ordeal of a long nocturnal interview with the charming subject of the present letter he reassured william that he had not succumbed and that he'd been careful to honor his position i managed to abstain from the tempting feast i was manifestly invited to but eventually he says after two weeks of this i must have been something more or less than a man to have held out any longer so basically he's saying it's her fault what could a boy do and he ends the letter saying back off i must therefore entreat you dear will to spare me if possible the pain of any further discussion of this and of course in that matter his wishes were not granted but william's opinion was the least of his worries one very interested party who had remained in hyderabad was the prime minister an astute and brilliant politician called aristoja he saw james's secret affair as the perfect opportunity for blackmail perhaps aristojah could even turn james to act not just in the british interest but that of aristocha himself soon after the victorious army had returned to hyderabad two local newsletters were published making shocking accusations they claimed that james kirkpatrick had forced kerenessa to sleep with him in a brilliant strategy the machiavellian arrested job had actually leaked the gossip in order to catch out james when lord wellesley heard the allegations he asked the prime minister to investigate james was summoned to an interview his job and future in india now in the hands of arista jar the very man who planted the rumors in the first place if he chose to help the minister persuade wellesley to sign various treaties helpful to hyderabad then he could keep kerenessa if he chose to resist then sadly the minister would have no option but to confirm all the charges and he would lose both care and his job there was in fact no real choice it was checkmate according to a hyderabadi chronicler writing at the time james promised aristoja to strive for the best interests of your government and obey all your orders as long as i am resident in other words to become a hyderabadi double agent with these assurances aristo john now confirmed james's innocence in the affair to wellesley he had james in his pocket yet james was sure that the two countries interests were the same that by building an alliance between the british and the mughals of hyderabad he was serving keronis's interest too james had survived but he hadn't been entirely honest with lord wellesley he had admitted to tell him the crucial fact that he was in fact sleeping with karen nissa following further family complaints in hyderabad he was advised to stop seeing her and by the summer it looked as if the whole thing had blown over but the situation was actually about to get a great deal more complicated for care was pregnant with james's child james was now in serious trouble he had promised to end the affair and it was now obvious that he had not kept his word moreover under islamic law as a christian he was not permitted to marry kerenica but her grandfather felt she had been dishonored and sought an abortion then james showed how far he would go to prove his love for this woman he decided to convert to islam haranese's family withdrew their objections and in a secret ceremony in january 1801 kerenessa and james were married when two months later care gave birth to a son james wrote on a tiny scrap of paper which still survives on wednesday the 4th of march at about 4 o'clock in the morning a son was born to me in the city of hyderabad his mother from a dream she had wishes him to be named to which i mean to add that of saab alam which means little lord of the world but governor general wellesley's intolerant attitudes meant that prospects were increasingly grim for the kind of enlightened white mughal that james represented he was now married with a young child but to his masters in calcutta he still claimed that he had cut off all relations with karen nissa james even had to keep his brother in ignorance as william had recently been employed as wellesley's personal secretary but james is reticence to reveal his mixed race marriage was a reflection of the new racism of the wellesley regime james wrote privately of wellesley oceans of blood and treasure have been wasted in his pretended plan of general pacification which was a mere pretence for the general subjugation of india any interracial relationship was frowned upon by james's superiors nisa and their son remained the family home in the old city as he felt unable to move them into the residency but he was not the only victim of wellesley's new racist agenda i love this picture this is i think one of the most charming images of a family group to survive from the entire indo-british encounter it shows general william palmer the resident in pune and his mughal wife faizbuck she was karen niessa's best friends and just as the two women form a bond so do the two men and they share in their correspondence their misgivings about wellesley's nakedly hostile attitude to indians palmer was a relic of a more tolerant age when he and fives were married 15 years earlier such an interracial liaison would have been unremarkable but now things were different at the same time as care becomes pregnant wellesley sacks palmer because he's got a mughal wife and because he has a sympathy with indian culture but despite his troubles james was still committed to make all he could of life in hyderabad his legacy is this remarkable building the residency and it says much of the value that the nizam put on his new british alliance that he funded its construction to james's own conception it's a women's college now and somewhat faded but judging from his letters it was an achievement of which he was hugely proud it remains one of the very greatest buildings in india it used to be thought that it was designed by the hyderabad military architect samuel russell but it's very clear from patrick's letters that he in fact knocked it together himself in his spare time with the assistance he says of mastery architects from madras now mastery architects basically master builders they're indians so this perfect british looking palladian mansion sitting here in the middle of hyderabad is in fact like everything else in patrick's life an anglo-indian collaboration despite the fate of his friend william palmer james could not tolerate living apart from keronissa he had genuinely become a family man he finally decided to bring her to live in the residency in the summer of 1801 the reason he later gave for taking this politically risky decision was that he did hearken to the voice of nature pleading eloquently in the engaging form of a helpless and innocent infant he missed his little boy james built them a mughal style zanana or women's quarters in the residency grounds known as the rang mahal or palace of colours it was later described as a very elegant and highly finished specimen of hindustani architecture i love this painting depicting the women arrayed around the fountain of a decany pleasure garden on a hot afternoon i imagine that james and zanana would have been sat in a garden very much like this with a veranda whose walls and ceilings were gilded with great taste indeed it was painted by the nizam's court artist venkatchelum who was a good friend of kirkpatrick's the detail is at light especially the three women dancing and the others gossiping while the musician plays her sita sadly today only the entrance gateway to cair zanana survives she may have been a secret from the government in calcutta but this senator was a measure of his commitment to his young wife already unpopular for his mughal lifestyle james now uncovered systematic embezzlement among the british military and relations between the residency and the garrison deteriorated further james very honorably exposed the corruption and was immediately grasped to calcutta by the embezzlers his marriage to care was exposed when lord wellesley discovered that he had been lied to for two years he was not surprisingly hopping mad 900 miles away in calcutta governor general wellesley fumed that james's behavior was an outrage upon the general principles of normality and that he had debauched the granddaughter of bakarali he launched an immediate inquiry in what must be one of the most sexually explicit manuscripts to survive from the east india company witnesses to the affair are asked incredibly detailed and intimate questions about what passed between care and james and to read it is slightly an easy sensation you get like opening cut patrick's bedroom windows and peering in all the most intimate details are recorded when and where sex took place the pregnancy james's last minute intervention to prevent an abortion there's also cut patrick's incredibly romantic declaration that whatever the results of this investigation he was determined not to desert this woman or her offspring these are moments when the whole remoteness of history evaporates these are immediately recognizable and human and familiar situations the inquiry concluded that james had been lying to his superiors for over two years he faced an almost certain dismissal and would have been forced to leave hyderabad in disgrace in the end it was his brother william who took the rap he had been ill for some time and had now decided to resign he told wellesley that james had shared all the relevant information that it was he who had failed to pass it on in other words it was william's fault not james this did the trick wellesley acquitted james and announced that he had resolved to continue him in the station he has filled with so much credit in this portrait painted shortly afterwards james's thinning gray hair and tired expression betray the stress he'd been living under for so long henceforth he takes refuge in domesticity and his beloved wife and his little son and now a daughter born in the middle of this latest trouble nora nissa begum the lady of light the little lady of high lineage james was now comfortably established his diplomatic skills have brought peace to his station and a grateful nizam had set him up in a building that befitted the success this picture shows a state visit by the nizam's court to the completed building the somewhat busty sphinxes were later torn down by his prudish successors and replaced with a pair of suitably dull lions but james's political legacy was more secure the treaties he had negotiated ensured hyderabad never suffered a military confrontation with the british and it remained a sovereign state for the next 150 years the followers five years of real domestic bliss the children were brought up as hyderabadi muslims they spoke persian they went to all the sheer ceremonies in the old city they ate indian food they wore indian clothes they did not mix with the other children of the residency but they did mix with the aristocratic families from the old city and it's as if there's little island of the old city of hyderabad erected here in the rang mahal in the middle of the british residency james continued to have grave misgivings about the way wellesley was running things from calcutta but he only voiced these privately in his letters to his friend general palmer things however were about to change to his advantage ever since he arrived in india governor general wellesley had seemed unable to accept that he was actually employed by a mercantile enterprise instead his aggressive policy of expansion had turned the company into empire builders at vast expense what lord wellesley in his arrogance had forgotten was that the east india company was ultimately a business his extensive wars across india and his extravagant building projects such as the massive governor general's house behind me had left them 30 million pounds in debt the directors had had enough using the excuse that he turned his office into despotism they had him sacked the new governor general was lord corn wallace a man after james's own heart kirkpatrick had endured five years of hostile investigations into his public attitudes and his private life now he hoped you'll be different he'd been out of touch with lord wellesley and his incredibly aggressive imperial ideas but lil con wallace announced that he wanted justice moderation and above all he wanted peace james was profoundly pleased by this new appointment but his pleasure was tinged with personal sadness in hyderabad the light of the world little saab alam was now four years old hera nissa had always known that her children would be sent away to be educated in england but it was an idea to which she was instinctively and bitterly opposed james and karen nissa meant to travel with the children as far as the port of madras but james was struck down with a fever and care remained behind in hyderabad to nurse him on the 9th september 1805 little sab alam and sar begum set off to madras james and care would never see their children again in madras the children were to have their portrait painted by the anglo-irish artist george ginnery while chinery was at work on this picture a letter arrived from the new governor general in calcutta law commonwealth wanted patrick to go and brief him on the diplomatic situation but at this crucial juncture cut patrick's big moment he's lying upstairs with severe rheumatism and terrible hepatitis he hasn't left his bedroom for a month but he knows he has to go so he holds on his uniform he gets onto his horse and he heads off down the coast road to madras through pouring monsoon rain he had hoped to see his children off in madras but they sailed the day before he arrived his fever was now worse and he was sufficiently worried to write a will dividing his now considerable fortune between his children and beloved wife karen nissa he then boarded a ship for calcutta james sailed up the hoogly river on the evening of october the 7th 1805. at the keysight he was taken off the ship on a stretcher and carried to the house of his niece he was now critically ill he slipped in and out of a coma a week later he died he was only 41. the same evening he was buried here in park street cemetery just before he passed away he heard the news that lord khan wallison whom all his hopes of a new era in india were penned had died too the journey that killed him had been in vain [Music] but what of heroinisa what happened to her after her husband the love of her short life had died james's death meant that in all likelihood she would never see her son and daughter again [Music] i had been researching this for four years scouring libraries and archives for an answer to this question but it seemed as if there was no one who thought it's sufficiently important to record her fate she had been edited out of the official documents but following a lead to james's executor henry russell the vane cocky assistant at the residency i found a single letter that revealed the final chapter of the story in the autumn of 1806 karen nietzsche who had previously never left hyderabad took an extraordinary decision from muslim woman and traveled to the other end of india to grieve at her husband's graveside [Music] calcutta was at the peak of its golden age but it was a very different place to hyderabad in the punishing humidity of the monsoon hair found a city governed by the british from white stucco palaces lining the streets and the riverbanks bewildered in this alien environment she consoled herself with the painting of her two children that she had carried all the way from madras initially karen nissa is in deep mourning she spends her days near her husband's grave but after a year or so she returns to life and at the center of that new life is her husband's ambitious former assistant henry russell russell was in calcutta to settle the business of james's will and was probably the only other person in the city that garanisa knew his correspondence became filled with references to care and they're clearly spending a great deal of time together this young vulnerable woman who had suffered such a series of tragic misfortunes is drawn in by russell's attentions she had this picture made in russell's house it did not do justice to her beauty russell felt soon afterwards they became lovers but care had made a dreadful mistake henry russell is a very different man from james kirkpatrick he's definitely social climber in a way that james kirkpatrick is not and my guess is that henry russell saw her as a vehicle towards some kind of social mobility which worked for him eventually they set off on the long journey back to hyderabad but news reached them our route that after taking up with another british suitor care was not welcome in her home city with nowhere to go she found a house in a mosquito ridden backwater called missouli patam and there she waited for russell to join her but russell had other plans shortly afterwards he married an anglo-portuguesers and too ashamed to tell care face-to-face he sent his brother instead like madame butterfly care wasted away by 1808 karen nissa was permitted to return to hyderabad henry russell had now become the resident himself and was living in her old home but the pair did not meet then five years later he received a brief note from his former lover it simply said that she was dying for once russell rose to the occasion he allowed her back to the zanana where she had once been happy there was no obvious reason for her condition he said she just turned her face to the wall and she died on the bed where she'd once given birth to her daughter the little lady of high lineage she was aged only 27 years old [Music] her mother sharafa nissa was at her bedside to the end russell wrote you cannot imagine anything so distressing as the grief of the old lady she was quite wrapped up in her daughter and seems to feel that the only object she lived for was taken from her karen nissa most excellent of women had the saddest of lives in a society where women had few choices she had risked everything to be with the man she loved this fiery passionate woman died of a broken heart [Music] a quarter of a century later on the staircase of henry russell's swallow field house kitty kirkpatrick the girl in the painting dried her tears all this time she believed herself forgotten by her indian family but this encounter with the painting was to set her on a new trail the name of henry russell meant nothing to kitty since arriving in england when she was three she had been forbidden all contact with her indian family russell was not there at the time but he later claimed to have been given the portrait by care and promised to leave it to kitty in his will the picture was just one part of the loot with which he returned from india he had a master fortune far in excess of his salary and resigned from his post just as he was about to get sacked for corruption kitty smelled a rat and began to investigate russell in the course of her research she discovered that her grandmother sharafa nissa was still alive the moving letters she then wrote to sheraff are still in the possession of david vaughn kitty kirkpatrick's great great great grandson so this is kitty writing to her grandmother how dreadful it is to think that so many many years have passed when it would have done my heart such good to think that you loved me i often think of you and remember you and my dear mother too i often dream that i am with you in india and that i see you both in the room we used to sit in i can well recollect her cries when we left her and i can see now the place in which she sat when we parted and her tearing her long hair what worlds i would give to possess one lock of that beautiful and much loved her and she ends the letter this wonderful ending will this reach you and will you care for the letter of your grandchild my own heart tells me that you will may god bless you my own dear grandmother your affection daughter how wonderful there's a tremendous ending isn't it so this is mother and daughter kitty and the gorgeous gorgeous image of keronissa and kitty has the same eyes in the same eyebrows and the same center party yes a muslim woman in a zenana yeah and uh evangelical christian torquay is such different worlds and yet they're almost the same person physically several months after kitty wrote her grandmother's reply arrived at her home above the town it had been written in persian and dictated to a scribe it was sprinkled with gold dust and delivered in a velvet bag all these years her grandmother had kept a lock of her mother's hair and now she sent it with her letter but despite the two women exchanging letters for several years their planned reunion never took place and sharafanis had died without ever seeing kitty again their worlds were not moving together they were in fact moving further apart [Music] james kirkpatrick and the other white mughals attempted to bridge these two worlds and to some extent they succeeded in doing so but embarrassed victorians erased this period of fusion and hybridity from the history books and even today we still have rhetoric about clashing civilizations [Music] as the story of james and care shows east and west are not irreconcilable and never have been only bigotry racism prejudice and fear drive them apart but they have met and mingled in the past and they will do so [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Dr. Sanjib Malik

Views: 17,581

Keywords: The White Mughal : Love and Betrayal in India, William Dalrymples, Mughal princess of Hyderabad

Id: N2APTHmjGTI

Length: 46min 8sec (2768 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 19 2022