1938

​

S. H. Askari. “An unpublished Persian letter of Mir Qasim” in Indian Historical Records Commission Proceedings of Meetings, Vol. XV (1938), pp. 134-146.

 

Here, Professor Syed Hasan Askari offers a short summary and full translation of a hitherto-unpublished letter by Mir Qasim (former Nawab of Bengal, r. 1760-1763) to British East India Company officials in Calcutta. The letter was probably written in 1776, a year before his death. Mir Qasim’s role in the post-Plassey transitional phase of early Company rule in Bengal will be well-known to many readers. He had replaced his father-in-law, the puppet ruler Mir Jafar, in the Nawabi after the latter had been bankrupted. After initially proving a tractable British ally, he eventually organized an army to resist the expanding British presence in eastern India, and in 1664 led a combined Mughal and Awadhi army to confront the British at the doomed Battle of Buxar. The letter, written many years after this defeat, seems to seek to resurrect his good graces in the eyes of the British, offering various excuses for his behavior at various junctures. For those interested in the details of this period, Prof. Askari notes that the letter introduces a great deal that is news, including accusations against Mir Jafar, including the possibility that he had incited Mir Qasim’s deputy, Samru, to massacre English prisoners held at Patna. In sum, Prof. S. H. Askari provides his readers a detailed and sympathetic translation from the Persian original and contributes an important new documentary perspective on an axial moment in South Asia’s transition to colonial rule.

 

Keywords: Economy, debt, finance, mutassadi, Bengal, British East India Company, Calcutta, Battle of Plassey, Battle of Buxar, Mir Jafar, Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daula

 

Posted: February 28th, 2020 

​

​

​

S. H. Askari. “Raja Ramnarain – part I & II” in The Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. XIV (1938), pp. 74-95.

 

These are the first two of a four-part study of Raja Ram Narayan, who became the deputy governor (naib subadar) of Bihar in the 1750s, serving Nawab Aliwardi (r. 1740-1756) Siraj-ud-Daula (r. 1757) of Bengal. This first part of Professor Syed Hasan Askari’s study focuses on the teasing out details of the early life of Ram Narayan, and in setting the stage for Ram Narayan’s remarkable career. Prof. Askari outlines the political history of the 18th century, sketching it in the gloomy, chaotic, and violent overtones that matched the historiographical consensus of the era. Yet, as Prof. Askari takes pains to underline, there were exceptions to this pattern. Despite the disruptions of the era, he comments that this “son of the soil” of Bihar, who apart from a career in government and administration, was also a talented poet, had chosen for himself an apt pen name (takhallus): “Mauzun,” ie “well-measured.” Although Ram Narayan’s early history is difficult to ascertain, we know that he was a Srivastava Kayasth, probably born around the period of 1714-1719, and was likely the son of Rangalal, who had served the Nawab of Bengal, Aliwardi Khan (r. 1740-1756). We know that Ram Narayan also began to work for Aliwardi Khan in his teens, after studying Persian and Arabic. By the 1740s, as Prof. Askari highlights, Ram Narayan was writing a number of official letters on behalf of his employer, and was eye witness to numerous key events in the region, including wars with Safdar Jang of Awadh, the Rohilla Afghans, and Maratha forces.

 

Keywords: Bihar, Raja Ram Narayan, Ramnarain, Siraj-ud-Daula, Sirajuddaula, administration, 18th century, Mughal, Bengal, Aliwardi Khan

 

Posted: March 10th, 2020 

​

​

S. H. Askari. “Raja Ramnarain – part III” in The Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. XIV (1938), pp. 757-778.

 

Professor Syed Hasan Askari begins the third part of his study of Raja Ram Narayan by noting that if the Hindu officials of Bengal had often (in 19th and early 20th-century historiography) been accused of corruption, greed, and their purported role in selling out the indigenous government of Bengal to the British East India Company in this period, then the Hindu officials of Bihar (amongst them Raja Ram Narayan) were their counterpoint. In this third part of Prof. Askari’s study, Raja Ram Narayan is held up as a virtuous example of good governance, doubly notable in an era when much of the subcontinent was considered to be in a state of disorder. Focusing on the period after 1752 when Ram Narayan was appointed as deputy governor, Prof. Askari focuses on Ram Narayan’s attention to detail, the numerous descriptions available in his letters describing the small affairs of government and his proposals for improvement, as well as Ram Narayan’s ability in administering the frontiers, particularly the Bhojpur region. Although Prof. Askari does not directly challenge prevailing wisdom about the so-called “dark period” of the 18th century, the evidence he presents for an efficient and just administration under Raja Ram Narayan at least seems to complicate that narrative, and in its broad import supports the kinds of arguments made by historians in more recent decades (Muzaffar Alam, Andre Wink, Christopher Bayly, Seema Alavi, Juan Cole, Richard Barnett) that the 18th century was a far more complicated and in some places prosperous era than formerly imagined.

 

Keywords: Bihar, Raja Ram Narayan, Ramnarain, Siraj-ud-Daula, Sirajuddaula, administration, 18th century, Mughal, Bengal, Aliwardi Khan

 

Posted: March 10th, 2020 

​

​

Prof. Syed Hasan Askari. “Fresh Light on Shaikh Ali Hazin and his tours in Eastern Hindustan” in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. II (1938), pp. 382-388.

 

This brief article attempts to set out a timetable for the well-known Persian poet Shaikh Ali Hazin during his time traveling in eastern India in the middle decades of the 18th century. The article begins with a brief examination of Hazin’s character, his good and less good traits, and his at times dismissive attitude towards his adopted home in India. Prof. Askari makes note of some of Hazin’s respected fellow poet-friends, including Azad Bilgrami and the poet-politician Raj Ram Narayan Mauzun, the latter of whom about Prof. Askari wrote several studies. The article, although brief, offers a number of useful pieces of information: it highlights the existence of 40 letters written by Hazin to Ram Narayan (a pupil of Hazin), it identifies the date at which Hazin left Delhi (1748) during a period of growing instability in the city, finds that he travelled first to Akbarabad (Agra) before going to Benares, then on to Bengal where he planned to depart for the Holy Cities. After some time, forever, he appears to have abandoned that plan and returned to Patna and then to Benares, where he set up residence for some years. His letters during his years in eastern India betray his sense of living in exile from Delhi, living “…in a corner of the desolate Azimabad (Patna)”.

 

Keyword: Hazin, 18th century, Bihar, travel, intellectual networks, poet networks, Delhi, Ram Narayan, letter collection, Persian

 

Posted: March 16th, 2020

​

​

 

Syed Hasan Askari. “Dastur-ul-Imla – A Collection of Letters of Historical Interest” in Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. XXIV, Pts. I-II (1938), pp. 173-188.

 

Professor S. H. Askari begins this article by painting a picture of a library in advanced decay. He has us imagine the deteriorating mansion in Patna, its library where only a few years previously “heaps” of books had laid in ruin. Now only a few rotting manuscripts remain. The Dastur al-Imla, the text under consideration here, is one of the few amongst them still legible. This is a letter collection primarily consisting of letters by Raja Dhiraj Narayan, the deputy governor of Bihar (r. 1765-1772) to an array of key officials associated both with inland governments and with the British East India Company, as well as a few letters written by other individuals. The letters are addressed to figures such as Siraj-ud-Daula, Mir Jafar, Shitab Rai, various British East India Company officials, members of the Benares, Awadh, and Delhi governments, and others. They also include a number of farmans, parwanas, hisb al-hukms, and other official documents which relate to the affairs of the period. The most valuable letter (which Prof. Askari has written about elsewhere) is one written by the former governor of Bengal, Mir Qasim, to Company officials in Calcutta, seeking to resurrect his reputation. Other letters, which Prof. Askari focuses primarily on here, examine events relating to the affairs of the Purneah expedition, a key episode in the run-up to the Battle of Plassey (1757). In these letters, Prof. Askari underscore evidence indicating that Hindu officials based in Bihar such as Raja Ram Narayan were not part of the conspiracy against Siraj-ud-Daula’s government in Calcutta. This is a topic that Prof. Askari returns to in a separate article the following year.

 

Keywords: British East India Company, Bengal, Bihar, Battle of Plassey, Siraj-ud-Daula, Mir Qasim, Mir Jafar, Raja Ram Narayan, insha, Calcutta, Ram Dhiraj Narayan

 

Posted: March 27th, 2020 

 

​

​

1939

​

Syed Hasan Askari. “Some unpublished letters of Raja Ramnarain relating to Shah Alam’s invasions of Bihar” in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 3 (1939), pp. 979-1001.

 

This article offers a window into an unusual document, the Dastur al-insha, consisting of a collection of correspondence from and to Raja Ram Narayan (Ramnarain), the naib subadar or deputy governor of Bihar (1752-1761). These letters (more than 50) focus on Shah Alam’s campaigns (described here as “invasions”) of Bihar in 1759-61, but also shed light on the movements and interests of other groups active in this region – amongst them French, Maratha, and British forces. A handful of letters written to and from Mir Jafar and Shuja-ud-daula, two well-known players in the early history of British East India Company expansion in Bengal, likewise make this manuscript quite valuable. The main focus of Professor S. H. Askari’s engagement here, however, is to draw out details of the conflict between “Mughal” forces led by Prince Ali Gohar (Shah Alam II) versus the regional Bihar-based government, still nominally affiliated with the Mughal throne if practically autonomous. This article is perhaps most interesting for its reflection on Prof. Askari’s own historical perspective, writing in Patna as a Bihar-based historian, and interested in teasing out a Bihar-centric historiographical narrative in an era when, much as today, Bihar has all too often been dismissed as marginal.

 

Keywords: Bihar, Mughal, Shah Alam II, British East India Company, eighteenth century, historiography, Shuja-ud-daula, Mir Jafar, Raja Ram Narayan, correspondence, insha

​

Posted: February 25th, 2020

​

​

Mr. Syed Husan Askari. “Historical contents of a newly discovered Persian manuscript” in Indian Historical Records Commission, Vol. XVI (1939), pp 179-187.

 

In this short article, Professor S. H. Askari outlines the contents of an insha or epistolary collection, compiled by a certain Lala Sheodyal of Bhawarah, pargana Danwar, district Shahabad, in Bihar. Askari estimates that the manuscript was compiled on or after 1792. Before beginning his summary, Prof. Askari paused for a moment to praise the genre, which, he notes, were frequently fascinating historical troves. On this particular occasion, he found the manuscript divided into several parts, which included a short romance, the Qissa-i Raz o Niyaz (the tale of Kunwar Sen and Chandramati, authored by Gopichand Lekhori ‘Dabir’), followed by some brief historical accounts of Aurangzeb’s expeditions against the Rajputs, his son Akbar’s rebellion, and a few brief references to the events of the Deccan wars of the late 17th century. Following that, the text included several other portions. Amongst them was the Balmakund nama, a collection of letters by the munshi of Sayyid Abdullah Khan Barha (the elder Sayyid brother). These letters were subdivided into parts based on the mansab rank of their recipients. Professor Syed Askari here has done the enormous favor of identifying who their recipients might have been. Another section includes letters mainly between the officials Raja Ram Narayan and Nawab Ahmad Khan Quraishi, both governing officials in Bihar in the late 18th century. Their letters primarily concerned the affairs of southern Bihar, with an emphasis on security and order. Finally, the manuscript (and the article) concludes with a section of “comparatively unimportant” letters – but even amongst these, notes Askari, were a handful of some interest, including some written by Alivardi Khan, the nawab of Bengal (r. 1740-1756) and his associates.

 

Keywords: Insha, Bihar, Aurangzeb, 17th century, 18th century, epistolary collection, romance, qissa, Deccan, Sayyid brothers, Barha

 

PSHA-HP Reviewer's Comments: The middle name should be Hasan instead of Husain as it was an unintentional typographical error when the research article was published by IHRC in 1939.

​

Posted: February 29th, 2020

​

​

​

​

S. H. Askari. “’The rise and fall of Muhammad bin Tughlaq’ by Agha Mahdi Husain (review)” in Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. XXV (1939), pp.72-76.

 

Professor Syed Hasan Askari provides here a glowing review of a recent Ph.D. thesis submitted at the University of London in 1935, describing the reign and social conditions of Muhammad bin Tughluq (r 1325-1351). Prof. Askari is particularly enthusiastic about Dr. Husain’s conclusion that under Tughluq, Hindus had the right of legal redress, freedom of religion, and even enjoyed patronage by the sovereign. Dr. Husain’s book similarly argued (in sympathy with more recent scholarship) that many of the king’s conflicts in fact involved his fellow Muslims, amongst them the ‘ulama classes and even Sufi saints. Prof. Askari’s main critique, not surprising in light of his familiarity with Sultanate-era poetic sources, is that Dr. Husain relied too heavily on a single poetic source, failing make use of the many other valuable versified texts of the era.

 

Keywords: Tugluq, Delhi Sultanate, 14th century, book review, religious policy

​

Posted: March 17th, 2020 

​

​

​

S. H. Askari. “Humayun Badshah by S. K. Banerji [review]” in Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Studies, Vol XXV, Pt. I, (1939) 68-71.

 

Professor Syed Hasan Askari here offers a review of a study by Dr. S. K. Banerji focusing on the early history of the Emperor Humayun (r. 1526-1540, 1555-1556), dating up to the era of his defeat against Sher Shah Suri of Bihar, which resulted in his long exile in Central Asia. The book, a revised version of a dissertation submitted in 1935 at London University, appears in Prof. Askari’s view to have been a broadly reliable and workman-like account, covering in detail the early phases of the “gifted and unfortunate” king’s life. Prof Askari finds particular cause for praise in Dr. Banerji’s argument that the Gujarati sovereign Sultan Bahadur Shah (r. 1534-1536) has yet to receive the attention he deserves, both for his effective military strategies and for his policies, which won him the broad-based support of his subjects.

 

Keywords: Mughal history, book review, 16th century, Bahadur Shah, Gujarat, Sher Shah Suri, military policy

 

Posted: March 17th, 2020

​

​

S. H. Askari. “Ram Narain (IV)” in Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. XV (1939), pp. 13-37.

 

Here, Professor Syed Hasan Askari addresses the question of whether Raja Ram Narain, the deputy governor of Bihar, had played a role in the conspiracy to remove the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daula (r. 1756-1757) from power. This debate, as Prof. Askari underscores, is of tangential relationship to the better-known story of Siraj-ud-Daula’s short reign and his defeat. That episode, which includes Siraj-ud-Daula’s ejection of the British East India Company from Calcutta, the so-called ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ episode, during which some British captives died, the Company’s conspiracy with indigenous elites such as the Jagat Seth banking firm and Mir Jafar, and Siraj-ud-Daula’s abandonment and defeat on the battlefield, are well-known to historians and Indian school children alike. Rather, Prof. Askari’s interest here is whether Raja Ram Narain played any role in the conspiracy to remove Siraj-ud-Daula, as was suggested in several near-contemporary sources. This article argues not. Relying on a handful of letters between Raja Ram Narain and Jagat Seth, as well as Ram Narain’s temporary deputy in Patna while he was away on tour, Dhiraj Narain, Prof. Askari comments that Raja Ram Narain seems to have been entirely innocent of the plot unfolding. He seems never to have been taken into confidence by the Seth family, or by other key conspirators in Calcutta such as Durlabh Ram. This article speaks to Prof. Askari’s patience in unfolding even the most detailed facets of South Asian history in pursuit of a clearer vision of the broad landscape. 

 

Keywords: Bengal, British East India Company, Siraj-ud-Daula, Raja Ram Narayan, Mir Jafar, Robert Clive, Battle of Plassey, Bihar

 

Posted: March 24th, 2020 

 

​

​

S. H. Askari. “The Bengal Revolution of 1757 and Raja Ramnarain” in Journal of Indian History, Vol. 18, 1939, pp 352-370.

 

This early article on the deputy governor of Bihar, Raja Ramnarain, part of a series of articles written by Prof. Askari around this time on the topic, seeks to make sense of Ramnarain’s behavior in light of his social and political context. The Article first offers a summary of relevant historical accounts before turning to a series of letters written by Ram Ramnarain and addressed to his brother, Dhiraj Narayan. A selection are presented in translation alongside Prof. Askari’s commentary, outlining their likely significance particularly in the period after the defeat of Siraj-ud-Daulah and the rise to power of the British-backed nawab of Bengal, Mir Jafar. Throughout this article, Prof. Askari appears to be trying to make sense of the complex motivations of Ram Ramnarain —what motivated his apparent readiness to make terms with East India Company officials? Should we understand him as having been self-serving or honorable in his actions? The study offers a remarkable contrast with Prof. Askari’s later (1944) article on Ram Ramnarain’s role in post-Plassey affairs (J. of Indian History, Vol. XXIII, no. 1), in which we can see how Prof. Askari’s ideas had evolved as his understanding of Ram Ramnarain’s motivations had become increasingly nuanced.

 

Keywords: Raja Ramnarain, Bihar, 18th century, 1757, Battle of Plassey, British East India Company, letter collection, biographical history, Mir Jafar, Mughal

 

Posted: May 23rd, 2020 

​

​

1940

​

S. H. Askari. “An unknown phase of Mughal-Koch relations (based on a newly discovered Persian ms.) in Indian Historical Records Commission Proceedings of Meetings, Vol. XVII (1940), pp. 139-148.

 

This article draws historians’ attention to an epistolary collection titled the Matin Insha, compiled by Anchit Rai sometime around 1700. The bulk of the 70+ letters were written by the military commander (faujdar) Ali Quli Khan to the imperial court, and describe events in a region known as Koch (or Cooch) Bihar (in present-day northern Bengal) under the governorship of the Mughal prince Azim-us-Shan in the late 17th century. The letters offer readers a clear portrait of a territory only nominally under imperial governance. Ali Quli Khan’s letters are replete with complaints about “turbulent” locals, zamindars “intriguing” with the enemy, and “Afghan malcontents.” As Professor S. H. Askari points out, the prominence of Afghans in these letters points to the continued significance of anti-Mughal Afghan interest groups in eastern India a century and a half after Afghan dreams of sovereignty were dashed in northern India. Professor Askari offers a sample translation of some of the more representative or interesting letters, with topics focusing mainly on the issues discussed above, as well as the challenge, overseen in part by Ali Quli Khan himself, of replacing locally circulating currencies with Aurangzeb-era Mughal coinage.

 

Keywords: Kuch Bihar, Mughal, zamindars, rebellion, Indo-Afghan, Bengal, Ali Quli Khan, administration, 17th century, Aurangzeb

 

Posted: February 28th, 2020 

​

​

Syed Hasan Askari. “Maharaja Kalyan Singh, Ashiq: The last native governor of Bihar” in Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. XXVI (1940), pp. 7-34.

 

This article offers a biography of Maharaja Kalyan Singh, the last Indian governor of Bihar, drawing largely on materials available in the Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh, and from a private collection of poetic and literary texts preserved by the descendants of Kalyan Singh’s family in Patna. Although Prof. S. H. Askari’s account makes clear that Kalyan Singh embroidered his own resume, was an incompetent governor, and boldly cozied up to British East India Company officials in pursuit of personal status and comfort, Professor Askari’s biography is nevertheless humanely sympathetic; it seems Prof. Askari acknowledges the constraints of the era in which Kalyan Singh lived. The article (which in some areas parallels the contents of a 1941 article on the Khulasat), takes its readers through Kalyan Singh’s youth in late Mughal Delhi, through to his shift to the eastern provinces where his father, Shitab Rai,was a powerful political figure. It traces the manner by which the British Company seized the revenue powers of Bihar’s government between 1770-1772, eventually removing Shitab Rai from the Diwani and replacing him with a Company official. When Shitab Rai became ill and died a few months later, the British took the opportunity to ‘award’ the young Kalyan Singh with his father’s formal titles, making of him in the process a creature of the Company. The article then traces Kalyan’s Singh’s governing mis-steps, oversights, and inattention to duty, eventually resulting in his utter bankruptcy. Eventually in the era of Cornwallis (Governor General from 1786-1793), Kalyan Singh travelled to Calcutta where he begged to be awarded a stipend. He remained there for 24 years till his death in 1822, on an annual stipend of 18,000 rupees.

 

Keywords: Bihar, Kalyan Singh, Cornwallis, Nawab, Diwani, Shitab Rai, tarikh, East India Company, 18th century, colonialism

 

Posted: March 6th, 2020

​

​

Syed Hasan Askari. "Nawab Munir-ud-Dowla Nadir Jung, a Minister of Shah Alam” in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 4th Session (1940), pp. 275-283.

 

In this article, Professor S. H. Askari examines the role of the Persian nobleman Munir-ud-Dowla Nadir Jung, who served the Mughal king for 14 years as his most trusted counsellor. Munir-ud-Dowla served as a vehicle for communication between Shah Alam (r. 1760- 1806) and an array of key actors in late-18th century northern India – the British East India Company, the Rohilla chieftains, the Afghan king, Shah Abdali (also known as Ahmad Shah Durrani, r. 1747-1772), and the Nawab of Awadh. Munir-ud-Dowla began his career while Shah Alam was still the prince Ali Gohar, who fled rebelliously into eastern India in 1759 in an attempt to establish a stronghold in Bihar and Bengal. The prince had little military success in eastern India but became embroiled in the rise of British East India Company power also underway in this region at the time. In the meanwhile, the Afghan king Shah Abdali occupied the capital at Delhi, deposing the Mughal king and ensuring Shah Alam’s coronation. Shah Alam remained in exile in eastern India until 1761, when Munir-ud-Dowla negotiated with Shah Abdali the terms of Shah Alam’s return to Delhi. The remainder of the article traces Munir-ud-Daula’s central role in negotiations with the Rohilla powers in 1763, his critical role in the lead-up to the Battle of Buxar (1764) when he secretly carried messages of the Mughal emperor’s friendship with the British. These secret reassurances critically undermining the tripartite alliance between Mir Qasim of Bengal, the Nawab of Awadh, and the Mughal emperor, but ensured an alliance thereafter between the emperor Shah Alam and the ascendant British Company.

 

Keywords: 18th century, Mughal empire, Shah Abdali, Munir-ud-daula, Muniruddaula, Shah Alam II, British East India Company, nobility, Rohilla, Battle of Buxar

 

Posted: March 10th, 2020 

​

​

​

S. H. Askari. “S. H. Hodivala’s Studies in Indo Muslim History” in Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol XXVI (1940), pp. 252-257.

 

Here Professor Syed Hasan Askari offers a brief and generally favorable review of Dr. Hodivala’s critical commentary on Elliot & Dowson’s well-known History of India as told by its own Historians. The original 19th-century 8-volume project, as Prof. Askari notes, remained in the mid-20th century a much-used resource for historians (the translations continue to be widely used in the subcontinent even today). However, the translations are riddled with translation errors and questionable interpretations. Prof. Hodivala’s critical review attempts to serve in part as an Errata, and in part as a reevaluation of some of Elliot and Dowson’s interpretations. Dr. Askari, using a handful of “generally correct” and old manuscripts available in his local “village library” sat down to examine Prof. Hodivala’s work. He found it largely satisfactory, although noted a handful of places in which Hodivala’s work had overlooked various points. In some cases, he found the manuscripts under his review to be clearer more accurate than either of those studied by Elliot and Dowson or by Hodivala. Because Prof. Askari believed that not all historians would be able to access the original Persian and Arabic manuscripts, he felt scholars should not approach Elliot and Dowson’s translations without Prof. Hodivala at their side. No doubt Prof. Askari would agree, however, that best of all is to rely on the original Persian or Arabic text.

 

Keywords: historiography, Hodivala, Elliot & Dowson, colonial history, translation, Persian, Arabic, Indo-Persian

 

Posted: March 11th, 2020 

​

​

​

S. H. Askari. “Verelst’s Rule in India. By Dr. Nandalal Chatterji, MA., Ph.D., Indian Press, Allahabad, 1939” in Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol XXVI (1940), p. 178-183.

 

This brief review article examines Dr. Nandalal Chatterji’s study of Henry Verelst’s short-lived tenure as the second Governor of Bengal, between 1767-1769. While his governorship has often been ignored in the historiography, both Prof. Chatterji and Prof. Askari believe that although brief, his period of rule was important for understanding early British East India Company policy as it expanded its influence inland. The book covers topics related to economic policy, relations with the “country powers” such as the Bhonsles of Nagpur and Orissa, the Nawab of Awadh, the Mughal emperor, and the perceived threat of Shah Abdali. The book also examines a handful of campaigns and negotiations, particularly those relating to the rulers of Nepal. Prof. Askari is largely complementary in his review of the book, however in some places it is clear that Prof. Askari had his doubts about the overall tone of the study. At one point he observed that Prof. Chatterji was too sympathetic to “his hero,” whose “obvious shortcomings” were clearly apparent even to Chatterji. Still, Prof. Askari ends the review by noting that “we agree with the author’s view that Verelst’s tender regard for the suffering of riots of Bengal mark him as a high-minded administrator in advance of his time.” If this review itself is read as a historical document, one can perceive the struggle and hesitation of mid-century Indian historians, still living under a colonial regime, to articulate a critical historiography of India’s colonial period.

 

Keywords: 18th century, Bengal, East India Company, British, Verelst, Governor, Nandalal Chatterji, Chatterjee, historiography, colonial era, British India

 

Posted: March 13th, 2020

​

​

​

Syed Hasan Askari. “Sources of the History of the Nawabs of the Carnatic III. By S. Muhammad Husayn Nainar (review)” in Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. XXVI, Pt. II, June 1940, pp. 283-285.

 

This is a brief and cautiously favorable review of S. Muhammad Husayn’s translation of Muhammad Karim’s Sawanihat-i Mumtaz (c. 1837) by Professor S. H. Askari. The Sawanihat itself is a chronicle of the history of the Wala Jahi court at Arcot between approximately 1794-1801, an era when the British East India Company held a firm grip over much of southeastern India, strengthened in 1799 by their victory over Tipu Sultan of Mysore. Prof. Askari compliments Muhammad Nainar’s translation, finding it a “fairly faithful rendering” with a useful glossary. At the same time, Prof. Askari takes issue with the assertion, made in the translator’s preface, that the Sawanihat serves as a window into an era when the Carnatic was beginning to “lose its Muslim identity” in favor of “alien culture and ideas.” For Prof. Askari, this conclusion seems an altogether too narrow and inflexible a perspective, seeming to suggest that the chronicle itself offers answer to its translator-critic. Prof. Askari points out that the text is rich with depictions of celebrations, gatherings, travel, and the elaborate domestic and courtly life of the Wala Jahi royal family.

 

Keywords: Review, Karnatak, Carnatic, Wala Jahi, Sawanihat-i Mumtaz, British East India Company, Arcot, Madras, Tipu Sultan, Mysore, South India, 18th century, 19th century

 

Posted: March 22nd, 2020 

​

​

​

S.H. Askari. “Bihar in the Time of Akbar (i), (ii)” in Bengal, Past & Present: Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society, Vol. 59 & 60, (1940 & 1941) & Collected Works of Prof. S.H. Askari - Medieval Bihar: Sultanate & Mughal Period, by Professor Syed Hasan Askari, Volume 4, (1990). pp. 98-134.

 

This extensive article by Professor Syed Hasan Askari, offers a detailed study of the political history of Bihar during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605). In particular, it traces the slow conquest of a region that had become a hotbed for Afghan resistance to the Mughals. Prof. Askari opens the article by noting that earlier studies of Mughal-era Bihar had made serious errors in basic political chronology, and so one of its most crucial services is to offer a reliable timeline of governorships, major battles, and implementation of imperial administration. For scholars interested in Afghans in India, the article offers crucial insight into their networks across the Bihar and Bengal countryside, as well as their relationship with soldiering communities such as the Ujjainiyas, and the Mughals’ slow process of wearing away those networks and appropriating connections with the Ujjainiyas for themselves. Prof. Askari does scholars a great service by his close reading of available sources – his footnotes illustrate the detail with which he has studied and cross-referenced the events he lays out here. Where possible he reads across multiple manuscript copies and highlights discrepancies, anomalies (reference to a kohistan or ‘hill country’ in a region without hills), mistranslations by figures such as Beveridge, and useful explanation regarding obscure phrasing in Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama.

 

Keywords: Bihar, Sur, Lodi, Afghan, Akbar, Muzaffar Khan, Said Khan, Mughal, confederacy, 16th century, borderland, Bengal

 

Posted: March 29th, 2020 

​

 

 

​

​

​

1941

​

Syed Husain Askari. “Bihar in the 1st Quarter of the 18th Century,” in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 5 (1941), pp. 394-405.

 

Observing a shortage in the scholarship on early-18th century Bihar, this article offers an overview of the political history of the region beginning in the last two decades of the 17th century and carrying through to the 1730s. The article relies largely on better-known sources including Persian histories by Khafi Khan, Kamwar Khan, Shivdas Lakhnavi (Sheo Das in the text), as well as Mirza Muhammad, Murtaza Hussain Allahyar Bilgrami, and others. Professor S. H. Askari also draws upon English and Dutch records. Finally, Professor Askari endeavors to highlight another manuscript which he had discovered in the Alamganj neighborhood of Patna, which contained some yāddāsht (memorandums) of the Mughal government during this period (the mss is not named, Professor Askari merely refers to its owner). Professor Syed Askari’s summary largely follows the expected trajectory for a study written during this period – orderly government giving way to rising disorder. The article begins with the seemingly exemplary governorship of the Mughal prince Azim-us-Shan, then pauses to examine in some detail the governorship of the future emperor Farrukhsiyar and his early relationship with the Sayyid Barha, Hussain Ali Khan (whose role as a kingmaker in later years would make him notorious). Later, Professor Askari examines the bloody history of Mir Jumla’s governorship in 1715, including the violence enacted on the population by Mughal soldiers. The article concludes with a survey of apparently rising disorder from the Ujjainiyya Rajput community and the growing influence of the British. Professor S. H. Askari’s article offers a laudable close reading of the sources.

 

Abstract Author’s Review Note: However, as more recent scholars such as Muzaffar Alam have shown, anxieties expressed by contemporary Mughal sources often disguised a more optimistic economic reality, in which up-and-coming groups and regional elites successfully fought for a greater slice of the political pie during this period, contributing to the fragmentation of the Mughal Empire.

 

Keywords: 18th century, Bihar suba, Patna, Mir Jumla, Ujjainiyya, economy, political history, Farrukhsiyar, Husain Ali Khan Barha

​

PSHA-HP Reviewer's Comments: The middle name should be Hasan instead of Husain as it was an unintentional typographical error when the research article was published by IHC in 1941.

​

Posted: February 25th, 2020

​

​

​

S. H. Askari. “A Critical study of Kalyan Singh’s Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh” in Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. XVII (1941), pp. 340-358.

 

Here Professor Syed Hasan Askari examines the Khulasat al-Tawarikh, a late 18th-century Persian chronicle written by the Bihar-based officer, scholar, and poet Kalyan Singh, a member of the Sakhsena Kayasth community. Kalyan Singh’s father had been a key figure in negotiations during the 1760s between the Nawab of Awadh, the British East India Company based in Calcutta, and the Mughal Emperor in Delhi. Professor Askari’s summary here serves as a warning to the unwary historian: Despite the text’s seeming promise, he states that the Khulasat seems to have been composed not so much in order to preserve an accurate historical record, but rather to win over a British audience who Kalyan Singh may have hoped would reward his family by preserving or reinstituting their influence and property. Professor Syed Askari spends several pages in highlighting what he sees as the most important portions of the Khulasat, particularly those sections in which Singh described important negotiations between Indian and British actors. Askari then raises a number of concerns about the reliability of those descriptions, pointing out at various points that Kalyan Singh must have been little more than a child (and thus is claims to have played an outsized role in negotiations were absurd), or (in an otherwise apparently accurate and detailed account of a battle scene) highlighting the fact that other sources recorded Kalyan Singh as having secretly taken up negotiations with the British, a detail he had conveniently forgotten. Finally, Professor Askari notes that in many places, Kalyan Singh either copied or closely paraphrased the well-known chronicle by Ghulam Hussain Khan, the Siyar al-Mutakherin.

 

Keywords: Eighteenth century, Awadh, British East India Company, Khulasat al-tawarikh, historiography, chronicle, Kayasth

 

Posted: February 28th, 2020 

​

​

​

Syed Hasan Askari. “Muzaffarnama and its Author - A study” in Journal of Historical Research, Aligarh, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1941), pp. 121-139

 

Prof. Askari argues that the Muzaffarnama, written in the late 18th century, is the most detailed and best contemporary history of the Nazims of Bengal. The author, Mirza Karam Ali Khan, was born in 1735 and spent his life in courtly service both in Bengal and Bihar, serving at various points Raja Ram Narayan, the deputy governor of Bihar, Alivardi Khan (r. 1740-1756) and Muzaffar Jang, the titular ruler of Bengal (1760s). Prof. Askari finds one of the most valuable aspects of the Muzaffarnama to be the author’s thoroughgoing commitment to honesty, even at the risk of appearing overly critical. Prof. Askari describes him as a “true historian,” suppressing bias and rejecting partisanship even when writing about his own patrons. Noting for example that the author was no great fan of the British East India Company, Prof. Askari points out that the author did have some British friends. The article offers an overview of the Muzaffarnama, its contents, and the author’s merits, and would be a useful resource for anyone interested in 18th-century Bengal, Bihar, or the rise of British East India Company power in India at this time.

 

Keywords: Bengal, Bihar, 18th century, Alivardi Khan, Muzaffar Jang, Mirza Karam Ali Khan, Mir Qasim, Mir Jafar, Raja Ram Narayan, British East India Company, historian

 

Posted: September 18th, 2020 

​

​

1942

​

Syed Hasan Askari. “A Copy of Dastur-ul-Amal” in Historical Records Commission Proceedings of Meetings, Vol. XVIII (1942), pp 178-188.

 

This article examines the first part of an unusual manuscript, likely to have been written by an unnamed Hindu Kayasth with close connections to the official and scribal community in Bihar’s regional government in the latter decades of the 18th century. Like other texts of this genre (which typically included administrative, financial, and gazetteer-like features), the Dastur represented itself as offering a complete overview of all of the Mughal subas (provinces). Most interesting for Professor S. H. Askari and for most readers of this text, however, was the anonymous author’s more detailed study of Bihar’s geographical, financial, and political conditions. Professor Askari comments that the text included an unusual section detailing the suba’s main aristocratic families – the so-called “rajas and zamindaris” of Bihar. It also provided a description of the key routes between Patna (Azimabad), Lucknow, and Balrampur, giving the reader valuable insight onto countryside, people, and landscape of the author’s time period. Another interesting section delved into corrupt practices in Bihar in the 18th century, particularly the practice of forging seals on imperial grants of various types. The Dastur, Professor Askari notes, provides a unique insight into the economy of corruption, even describing certain families in the region who made a hereditary practice of this ‘art’ (of sorts). Askari concludes his study of the Dastur with a translated sample of a section describing the political history of Nepal.

 

Keywords: Dastur al-amal, Patna, 18th century, Bihar aristocracy, gazetteer, Nepal, forged seals, corruption, administration

 

Posted: February 28th, 2020

​

​

Syed Hasan Askari. “A contemporary account in Persian of the Mutiny of 1857-58” in Indian Historical Records Commission, Vol XIX (1942), pp 100-105.

 

Here, Professor S. H. Askari introduces his readers to an Anglo-Indian author of Persian and Urdu verse named Francis Godlieu Quins “Fraso,” who had written a first-hand account of the 1857 Rebellion in northern India. The manuscript, held in the collection at Khuda Bakhsh Library, appears to have been written between a period dating May 15th 1857 through May or perhaps July of 1858 the following year. Prof. Askari notes that in large measure, the narrative follows the standard account of events in this period –references to the greased cartridges, ground animal bones in the flour used to feed soldiers, imprisonment of troopers, the rise of Indian regiments and Meerut, etc. Later events in Delhi and in the rebels’ downward turn of fortune, similarly, follow familiar lines. Prof. Askari notes that a few minor variations in the text should not be enough to dismiss its value. What is of greatest interest in Quins’ story is his personal experiences. He offered safe housing to a great number of European refugees from the city of Delhi during this period, for which he was attacked by Indian rebels who ransacked his home and chained and beat him and his wife. In return for this humiliation later, Quins noted, European forces took their revenge upon the rebels. One of the rebel leaders, Shah Mull, was decapitated and his head placed on a sphere, a tactic which, Quins concluded approvingly, had “good effect.” Quins concluded his text by warning the British against the Hindu and Muslim populations alike, both of which, he argued, needed to be kept from mischief by stern and even violent governance. Prof. Askari’s outline of this manuscript offers an unusual window into an Anglo-Indian’s experience of the Rebellion.

 

Keywords: 1857, Rebellion, mutiny, Anglo-Indian, Delhi

 

Posted: March 11th, 2020

​

​

​

Syed Hasan Askari. “Some Unpublished Letters of Raja Ram Narain” in "Bengal, Past & Present: Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society. Vol. 62 (1942), pp. 54-71

 

This article examines a letter collection preserving some of the correspondence to and from Raja Ram Narayan, the deputy governor of Bihar (1752-1761), whose character and political biography are the topic of several other studies by Prof. Askari. The letters examined here are particularly worthy of interest for Prof. Askari, for whereas many of the letters given English-language gloss and published elsewhere were to or from representatives of the British East India Company, these were between Indian leaders, thus lending a more dimensional perspective to late-18th-century politics in the region. The letters mainly focus on the three invasions of Bihar by Shah Alam, while some also refer to the invasion of Shah Abdali (Durrani). The letters that Prof. Askari finds most interesting are translated, either in full or in part, and the bulk of the article is given over to these translations.

 

Keywords: 18th century, British East India Company, Bihar, Shah Alam II, Mughal, Benares, Awadh, Oudh, Miran, Bengal, Raja Ram Narayan, Abdali, Durrani

​

Posted: September 26th, 2020

​

1943

​

Syed Hasan Askari. “Bihar during the first quarter of the 17th century (Bihar in the first quarter of 17th century)” in Proceedings Volume, Indian History Congress, Vol. 6 (1943), Collected Works of Prof. S.H. Askari - Medieval Bihar: Sultanate & Mughal Period, Volume 4 by Professor Syed Hasan Askari. (1990), pp. 135-140.

 

This brief article by Professor S. H. Askari, offers an useful overview of the key episodes of the political history of Bihar in the early 17th century. Prof. Askari describes the formation of the Mughal suba of Bihar as a separate unit from Bengal. He also offers a chronology of governorships in the region from the later decades of Akbar’s reign (1556-1605) through that of Jahangir (r. 1605-1627), and highlights some of the most important events of each era. Finally, he highlights Bihar’s central importance in imperial politics as he outlines its place in the princely conflict between Parvez and Khurram (later known by his regnal name, Shah Jahan).

 

Keywords: Bihar, Mughal, suba, Akbar, Jahagir, Shah Jahan, governorship, subadari, Bengal

 

Posted: March 28th, 2020

 

 

Syed Hasan Askari. “Political Significance of Hazin’s Career in India” in "Bengal, Past & Present: Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society", Vol. 62 (1943), pp 1-10

 

This article picks up on a topic Prof. Askari broached several years previously, examining the career of the Iranian poet Shaikh Ali Hazin, who arrived in Indian in 1733 and died in Benares in 1760, having spent the last decades of his life resident in Patna and eastern India. This article focuses primarily on a collection of letters written by the poet to several well-known figures in North Indian politics during the period. Prominent amongst them are letters to Raja Ram Narayan, the deputy governor of Bihar and himself a poet, who was also Hazin’s student. Other letters were addressed to figures such as Sirajuddaula, the former governor of Bengal. These letters describe affairs in Delhi and in eastern India, including Maratha incursions, civil war in Delhi, and negotiations and conflict with the British. Correspondence with Raja Ram Narayan in particular highlight the poet’s close friendship with the Hindu politician. The article provides useful insight into rare correspondence from the middle decades of the 18th century, and affords Prof. Askari’s usual eye for detail and sympathy with his subject.

 

Keywords: Bihar, Shaikh Ali Hazin, Raja Ram Narayan, Sirajuddaula, Marathas, letter collection, insha, poetry, Persian, 18th century, British East India Company, friendship

 

Posted: April 21st, 2020 

​

​

​

Syed Hasan Askari, A newly discovered letter of Shah Alam to George III, in Proceedings Volume, Indian Historical Records Commission, Vol 20, 1943, pp 47-49.

 

This short article describes a letter written by the Mughal emperor Shah Alam to the British king, George III, in 1779. The letter is part of a collection known as the Mifta-i-Khazayen. The article describes the emperor’s frustration with the British East India Company for failing to pay the Bengal tribute—a sum totaling in the crores of rupees. The emperor continues with critiques of Lord Clive and of (Archibald?) Swinton, whom Shah Alam describes as faithless misappropriators. The letter also points to British administrative failings, the declining yields in the provinces they control, and the failure to halt corrupt English agents’ corrupt dealings. The article, written in 1943 only a few years before independence, is notable for its choice of topic and for the relish with which Prof. Askari summarizes Shah Alam’s observations.

 

Keywords: Shah Alam, 18th century, British East India Company, letter collection, Lord Clive, Archibald Swinton, Bengal tribute, Mughal, King George III

​

Posted: May 25th, 2020 

​

 

​

​

​

 

​

1944

​

Khan Sahib Syed Hasan Askari. “Bihar in the time of Shahjahan” in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 7th session (1944), pp. 348-360.

 

This article outlines the political history of Bihar suba during the reign of Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1657). The paper is organized in a straightforward fashion, making note of the key aspects of each succeeding governorship. Professor S. H. Askari gives most careful attention to the first two governors of the era, namely Saif Khan (governor between 1628-1632) and Abdullah Khan (1632-1639), before offering more summary accounts of a handful of governors that followed. One of the most interesting things about this article is the manner in which Professor Askari is able to highlight the fashion by which the position of governorship (subadari) facilitated movement between regional and imperial circles and helped shape a larger imperial culture. For example: Professor Askari notes how under Saif Khan’s regime, several so-called “sons of Bihar” rose to prominence on an empire-wide stage. Two “Hindi” poets were made famous for their talents, while others found accolades on battlegrounds far from home.

 

Abstract Author’s Review Note: This argument fits quite readily in with more recent scholarship, for example Munis Faruqui’s "Princes of the Mughal Empire" or Allison’s Busch’s "Poetry of Kings", both of which rely on a ‘rotational’ model of government, in which Mughal policies that promoted regular movement of officials around the empire helped manufacture an incorporative shared elite culture.

 

Keywords: Bihar, subadari, governorship, 17th century, succession war, Shah Jahan, Jahangir, Mughal culture

 

Posted: February 29th, 2020

​

​

Sayyad Hasan Askari. “Raja Ram Narain and the Post-Plassey Affairs” in Journal of Indian History, Vol. XXIII, Issue 1 (1944), pp. 19-39.

 

Prof. Askari begins this article by pointing out that in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Plassey (1757), the British became, not without reason, convinced that the deputy governor of Bihar was not necessarily their ally. They were sufficiently worried about Ram Narayan, in fact, that they quickly formed a conspiracy to try to politically isolate him. The remainder of the article is taken up in explaining how it transpired that, by early 1758, Major General Clive had become convinced that Raja Ram Narayan “was the cause of the predominance and domination of the English” in the immediate post-Plassey period, and was, moreover, a reliable ally and efficient leader. Prof. Askari teases out a complex narrative which hinges around the untrustworthy and incompetent character of Mir Jafar, the British Company’s chosen creature and titular governor of Bengal. Drawing on contemporary chronicles as well as British and Hindustani correspondence, Prof. Askari is able to show how Raja Ram Narayan, initially disinclined to engage closely with Bengali politics on account of his distrust for Mir Jafar, who had usurped the position formerly held by his former masters, Nawab Aliwardi Khan and Nawab Shujauddaula, is gradually forced to understand that his political survival depends on his good relationship with the British. In fostering such a relationship, Raja Ram Narayan was able to weaken his rival, Mir Jafar’s ties to the British.

 

Keywords: Plassey, British East India Company, Mir Jafar, Ram Narayan, Bihar, Bengal, Aliwardi Khan, Shuja-ud-daula, Shujauddaula, 18th century

 

PSHA-HP Reviewer's Comments: The first name should be "Syed" instead of "Sayyed" as it was an unintentional typographical error when the research article was published in JIH in 1944.

 

Posted: March 11th, 2020

 

 

Mr. Syed Hasan Askari. “Munshaat-i Husaini, A collection of Browne’s Correspondence” in Proceedings Volume, Indian Historical Records Commission, Vol. XXI, (1944), pp. 52-54

 

This brief 3-page article by Professor S. H. Askari, offers an overview of the contents of an unbound and undated manuscript held by the Khuda Bakhsh Library, which contains some 227 letters from Major James Browne of the British East India Company, and various Indian leaders – amongst them the Mughal emperor, several Rajput rulers, and high-ranking leaders and officials in courts from Benares to Awadh, Mathura, Panjab, and other north Indian centers. The letters, dated beginning in 1782 and ending in 1784, offer a fine-grained portrait of affairs, including conflicts with the Jats, and negotiations between the Delhi court and various Rajput leaders, including Ranjit Singh of Bharatpur. They follow Major Browne as he moved between a number of North Indian cities and sought to shape inland courtly politics to benefit Company interests.

 

Keywords: Major Browne, 18th century, Shah Alam, Mughal, Delhi, Rajput, Lucknow, Jat, Sindhia, travel, British East India Company

 

Posted: March 22nd, 2020 

​

1945

 

Syed Hasan Askari. “Bihar in the time of Aurangzeb” in Journal of Bihar Research Society, Vol. XXXI (1945), pp. 243-261.

 

This article examines the strategic significance of the suba of Bihar in the late 17th century. Professor S. H. Askari states that between Akbar’s period, when it was incorporated into the empire, until the last years of Aurangzeb’s reign, the region remained “absolutely independent” from its neighboring province of Bengal. It was only after it fell under the governorship of Azim-us-Shan late in Aurangzeb’s reign that fell under the administrative shadow of Bengal. The bulk of the article concentrates on the military and political machinations of high-ranking Mughal officials and royal household members. It begins by examining the governorship of prince Shah Shuja, and his endeavor to make the region into a stronghold during the succession war—eventually decided in favor of Aurangzeb. Imperial campaigns led first by Mir Jumla and then by Daud Khan Quraishi, which ran through Bihar and continued onwards into Bengal in pursuit of Shah Shuja, may have indirectly contributed to the growing administrative entanglement of the two regions. For scholars interested in the details of the military campaigns in the east and of the succession struggle between Aurangzeb, Dara Shukoh, and Shah Shuja, this article offers a careful outline of Bihar’s role in these important events.

 

Abstract Author’s Review Note: This article offers an interesting correspondence with recent work by Jos Gommans, who, in "Mughal Warfare", underscored the importance of geopolitics in Mughal history, outlining a number of what he described as “nuclear zones” where actors might consolidate regional power in pursuit of influence or even dominance at the imperial center. While Gommans located one of these nuclear zones in Bengal, Bihar’s place directly along one of the main imperial “high roads” to Bengal, in combination with Bihar’s importance as a major military recruitment center for the empire, affords it similar strategic significance.

 

Keywords: Bihar, subadari, governorship, 17th century, nuclear zones, succession war, Aurangzeb, Shah Jahan, Shah Shuja, Dara Shukoh, Bengal, Mughal culture

​

Posted: February 29th, 2020

​

​

Khan Sahib Syed Hasan Askari. “Majmua-i Yusufi: A newly discovered work of the historian Yusuf Ali Khan” in Indian Historical Records Commission, Vol. XXII (1945), pp. 45-48.

 

This brief article examines a newly discovered work (preserved in the library of Nawab Jabir Ali Khan of Husainabad) of the historian Yusuf Ali Khan, son of Ghulam Ali Khan. Yusuf Ali Khan was also responsible for several other titles, including the Waqa‘i-i Mahabat Jang and the Hadiqat-us-Safa. In three pages, Professor S. H. Askari highlights the importance of this manuscript for interested readers – noting the author’s description of his shared itinerary, alongside Mir Qasim, from Murshidabad to Patna after Mir Qasim’s defeat at the Battle of Buxar (1764). Yusuf Ali Khan offered a careful description of geography, people, dates, landscape, and other details. The author also provided a number of key details relevant to anyone interested in the reign of emperor Shah Alam II (r. 1760-1806). Also present in the manuscript’s pages were descriptions of affairs in Calcutta, Benares, and elsewhere in eastern India between AH 1174-1180 (1761-1766 CE).

 

Keywords: Bihar, Bengal, tarikh, Mir Qasim, Shah Alam, Buxar, Ghulam Ali Khan, Calcutta, Benaras, Beni Bahadur, geography

 

Posted: March 6th, 2020

​

​

​

​

Khan Sahib Prof. S. H. Askari. “Movements of Nizam Ali and the Marathas (Nov, 1773-June 1774)” in Proceedings Volume, Deccan History Congress  (1945), pp. 408-416.

 

Even today, late 18th-century Deccan history receives very little by way of scholarly attention. This was all the more so in the 1940s, when Professor Syed Hasan Askari decided to turn his gaze to a little-known work, the “Waka-i-Iqbal” (probably Waqā‘i’-yi Iqbāl), composed by Qazi Faiz al-Haqq in pargana Pipari, Aurangababd. The text, written on behalf of one of Nizam Ali Khan Asaf Jah II (r. 1762-1803) of Hyderabad’s chief military ministers, describes a short period of time between Nov 1773 and June of 1774, during which Nizam Ali Khan engaged the Maratha Peshwa of the period, Rathunath Rao (r. 1773-1774) in a series of military confrontations. One of Prof. Askari’s primary ambitions in this study is to push back against the common assumption that Nizam Ali Khan was a weak and incapable leader who had sat idly by as the British Company swallowed up much of the southern subcontinent. And indeed, in this unusual manuscript, we are treated to a far more muscular vision of Nizam Ali Khan. According to Faiz al-Haqq, Raghunath Rao, who had seized power in a coup, engaged in a series of “disturbances”: plundering and burning villages, bothering agriculturalists, and other forms of trouble-making along the Maratha-Hyderabad border. The Nizam, according to this version of events, successfully reasserted the rule of law, protecting the inhabitants of the countryside and emerging victorious from a string of confrontations. Prof. Askari’s useful summary of this manuscript serves as a resource for anyone seeking develop a better understanding of this understudied period.

 

Keywords: 18th century, Deccan, Hyderabad, Marathas, Peswha, Raghunath Rao, Nizam Ali Khan, Asaf Jah II, frontier, borderland

 

Posted: March 19th, 2020 

​

​

​

Syed Hasan Askari. “Durrani-Rajput Negotiations 1759-61”, in Proceedings Volume Indian History Congress, Vol. VIII (1945), pp. 257-269

 

This article focuses on a manuscript, probably compiled at the end of the 18th century, which includes records of Jaipur state. It includes a number of letters relating to the state’s negotiations with the court of Ahmad Shah Durrani, who organized several invasions of northern India. Prof. Askari argues that the correspondence preserved in this manuscript demonstrates that Durrani was not merely raiding India, but rather sought during his 1761 campaign (in which he and affiliated forces defeated a Maratha-led army at Panipat) to establish Durrani political supremacy in the northern subcontinent. Prof. Askari is also interested in exploring the warm relationship between Rajput polities and the Durrani court. At issue here is Rajput-Maratha antagonism – Rajput kingdoms including Jaipur-based Kachhawahas saw themselves as under threat from the expanding Maratha empire to the south. Along with other northern powers such as the Rohillas, Rajputs went so far as to invite Ahmad Shah Durrani to remain in India as a means of protection; in exchange, Durrani sent a number of warm missives promising the Rajputs greater honor and prominence than they had received under the Mughals. This is a prime example of Prof. Askari’s faithfulness to his sources, regardless of prevailing political winds. During an era of high nationalist feeling, he insisted on tackling sources that told a more complicated story in which Rajputs, commonly perceived as proto-nationalist heroes, in this case embraced a Central Asian, Muslim invader against their fellow Hindu rivals in the Deccan. The article is useful for the insight it affords regarding the period of Durrani’s invasion, but also with respect to Rajputs’ complex political strategies after the fall of Mughal power in the early 18th century.

 

Keywords: 18th century, Ahmad Shah Durrani, Rajput, Jaipur, Kachhawaha, Marathas, Panipat, Rohilla, Mughal, Delhi

 

Posted: September 18th, 2020 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

​

 

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​