HISTORY OF NIZAMS

1. Context

The mortal remains of Mukarram Jah, the titular eighth Nizam of Hyderabad, will be kept at Hyderabad’s Chowmahalla palace on Tuesday (January 17) for the public to pay respects.

Nawab Mir Barket Ali Khan Walashan Mukarram Jah Bahadur passed away in Istanbul at 89.

2. Key points

• Chosen the heir of his grandfather Mir Osman Ali Khan, therichest man on the planet, Mukarram Jah first saw the power of his family end as Hyderabad merged into India and most of the seventh Nizam’s fabulous fortune disappeared under the weight of infighting, debts, legal troubles, and inept handling.
• Osman Ali Khan had left behind 104 grandchildren, so Mukarram Jah was no stranger to court battles over property and inheritance.
• One such battle involved a sum of £35 million, the governments of India and Pakistan, and was eventually settled by a UK court.
• The story of this court battle was known as the Hyderabad funds case and of the eighth Nizam himself.

3. The Hyderabad funds case

• On September 20, 1948, a day after Hyderabad’s forces had surrendered to India, Nizam’s finance minister, Moin Nawaz Jung, transferred a sum of £1,007,490 and nine shillings to the account of Pakistan’s High Commissioner, Habib Ibrahim Rahimtoola, without first taking Nizam’s consent. This money lay in the National Westminster Bank in London.
• In 1954, India sued for the return of the money, but the case stayed, with Pakistan claiming sovereign immunity.
• The bank then said it would keep the money until the Nizam, the government of India and Pakistan decided among themselves whom it belonged.
• In 2013, Pakistan broke sovereign immunity by going back to court for the sum, which by now, accumulating interest, had increased by 35 times.
• The legal battle went on for six years, with Pakistan claiming that money was sent because the Nizam wanted Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, to procure weapons for them to fight off Indian troops.
• These weapons were bought and dropped off in Hyderabad by a British pilot, Frederick Sidney Cotton, in 35 trips from Karachi, claimed Pakistan, and thus, the money was payment for services rendered.
• In 2018, the government of India and Nizam’s grandsons Mukarram Jah and brother Mufakkam Jah decided to fight the case jointly.
• A year later, in 2019, the UK High Court ruled in favor of India and Nizam’s heirs, granting them the entire £35 million.
• Experts have pointed out that India and Pakistan case was about much more than money.
• Several times in the 70 years it took to resolve the case, there had been attempts to settle it out of court, but the ties between the two nations made that impossible.
• In his 2017 book ‘The People Next Door T C A Raghavan, who was posted in the High Commission at Islamabad twice, first as Deputy High Commissioner and later as High Commissioner, wrote about the case, “For Pakistan, the issue is of Hyderabad’s forced accession following a military intervention when its ruling Muslim prince wanted independence and a closer relationship with Pakistan.
• The fund thus represents that symbolic relationship. For India, equally, principle issue , the possible claim can Pakistan have to the funds of the erstwhile Hyderabad state?”
• For Mukarram Jah, the case could have meant many things, but the financial aspect could not have been insignificant, as his estate hemorrhaged money and his expenses developed sinkholes, from his sheep farm in Australia to his many divorces and alimony payments.

4. History of Mukarram Jah

• Mukarram Jah was born on October 6, 1933, in France, to Prince Azam Jah and Princess Durru Shehvar, the imperial princess of the Ottoman Empire.
• He was educated in the Doon School in Dehradun and later at Harrow and Peterhouse, Cambridge.
• He also studied at the London School of Economics and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
• On April 6, 1967, he was coronated as Asaf Jah the Eighth after the death of Mir Osman Ali Khan in February 1967.
• Chosen as heir over his father Azam Jah, Mukarram did not show much interest in managing and preserving his vast estate.

• He also inherited a vicious financial wrangle, with far too many competing claims and legal cases on the various properties.
• Barely six years later, Mukarram fled to a sheep farm in Australia, leaving the estate and his headaches in the hands of deputies and devoting his own time to the great love of his life tinkering with old automobiles.
• However, things went from bad to worse, as Mukarram swindled by those he trusted and jewelry and heirlooms pilfered.
• The sheep farm had to sold off to settle his debts, and Nizam then moved to Turkey.
• In the 2000s, matters improved somewhat, with Nizam’s first wife, Princess Esra, returning to Hyderabad and introducing some order into the mess there.
• Chowmahalla and Falaknuma palaces have been restored latter is now run by the Taj Group.
• However, family tiffs and troubles never ended for the Nizam.
• Even in the Hyderabad funds case, after the UK high court order, some of his cousins claimed that as Mukarram was merely the titular Nizam, he could not be considered the heir to the sum deposited by the seventh and actual Nizam and that money should distributed among all the descendants.

For Prelims & Mains