Sa’adat Khan
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This article was written in 1939 and has been extracted from
HISTORIC LUCKNOW
By SIDNEY HAY
ILLUSTRATED BY
ENVER AHMED
With an Introduction by
THE RIGHT HON. LORD HAILEY,
G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E.
Sometime Governor of the United Provinces
Asian Educational Services, 1939.
Sa’adat Khan
I732-I739
IN 1705 A PERSIAN LAD NAMED Muhammad Amin set forth with his father and brother from Persia to seek fame and fortune in Hindustan. A Saiyid by birth, he claimed to be a direct descendant of the Prophet himself. He came to Delhi where he attracted the notice of the Emperor of Delhi, Muhammad Shah, then much harassed by the activities of two obstreperous brothers, Abdullah and Hussein Ali Saiyids of Barhi.
Muhammad Amin, through his ability and business acumen, soon gained power and influence at the court, having been instrumental in assisting the Emperor to overcome the brothers. As a reward, he was given the rank of Burhan-ul-Mulk. In 1720 he became Governor of Agra with the title of Bahadur Jang, when he also assumed the name of Sa’adat Khan.
His executive ability and ambition made him an excellent ruler. In 1732 he was made Governor of Oudh. There he did all in his power to encourage agriculture, at the same time repressing with a stern hand those who threatened to become uncomfortably strong. A forceful and far-sighted ruler, he was also a great warrior. He slew Bhagwant Singh, the Kichi of Fatehpur, in single combat. Even when his long thick beard was white with the passing of years, in battle he was always to be seen wherever the fight was hottest, spurring his men to victory.
He spent much of his time at Delhi in close communication with the Emperor. He built himself a fort at Ajodhya, near Fyzabad, gradually encouraging the state of Oudh to become self-supporting. In time he was able to declare its independence from the Mogul Empire.
Sa’adat Khan decided to visit Lucknow, then called Lakshman Kila, but he met with organised opposition from the Sheikhs, a celebrated and powerful family, several of whom had at one time or another been selected as governors and resented the advent of one with greater authoritative powers. He therefore approached the Akbari Darwaza at the outer city wall. His entry barred, he was obliged to pitch has camp outside the town.
He decided on a ruse. He invited all the Sheikhs to a great banquet and when the feasting was at its height he slipped away and entered the city, taking precautions against possible ejection. Over the main gateway the Sheikhs had hung a drawn sword, beneath which they made visitors bow in token of submission. This sword Sa’adat Khan removed. With it went the power of the Sheikhs. Inside the city were various palaces. Two of these, the Panch Mahal which was five storeys high, and the Mubarak Munzil, or ‘Beautiful House,’ Sa’adat Khan rented, although it is a moot point whether the owners ever received any payment from him.
He built several more palaces and gardens in Lakshman Kila, a name he altered to Machhi Bhawan “The Fish Fort,” to commemorate the Imperial edict which allowed him to assume the now famous fish badge. Beyond the walls of the fort he built Ismailganj, which has since been demolished. Gradually the whole became known as Lucknow, a corruption of Lakshman Kila.
The Nawab-Wazir, as Sa’adat Khan styled himself, was a noble looking man of fine physique, whose flashing eyes brooked no nonsense from his followers. His administrative skill procured him great riches with which to purchase magnificent jewels. He wore upon his head-dress an aigrette mounted upon a superb spray of diamonds. His aquiline nose smelt out any treachery which threatened him. His skin, rippling over the sturdy muscles, was fair. He had tact, ability and courage, but he was cruel and treacherous.
In 1739 he betrayed his benefactor, the Mogul Emperor, to ‘Nadir Shah, joining forces with the latter in Delhi, where he became Wazir of the Delhi Empire the same year. He did not live long to enjoy the fruits of his treachery, for he was poisoned a few months later, either by his enemies, or by his own hand in a fit of remorse. He died in Delhi, where he was buried.
His ally, Nadir Shah, bled him of many large sums of money. In spite of this Sa’adat Khan left his successor a well-filled treasury containing nearly fifteen crores of rupees.
Sa’adat Ali Khan
1798—1814
Oudh Was In A Bad Way. Money had run through Asaf-ud-Doulah’s fingers like water. After his death matters continued in the same way during the four months when Wazir Ali sat feebly upon the throne, with no thought for anything but debauchery. Then came Sa’adat Ali Khan, half-brother of Asaf-ud-Doulah.
But matters did not improve. Sa’adat Ali had possibly inherited that same strain of extravagance which had earlier been shown by his brother. Or, perhaps, sudden, access to luxury, a title, and the semblance of wealth, however unsubstantial, went to his head. At any rate, life at the court of Lucknow continued as before.
Ever more pressing and more insistent became the bills and notes of promise. So loud were the voices shouting for payment that they eventually reached the ears of the King himself. Troubles gathered thick and fast about Sa’adat Ali, until he knew not what to do. His troops were useless. There were continual and mutinous mutterings from the sepoys displeased at the abrupt departure of Wazir Ali who had included the army in his distribution of money not his to give.
Sultan Tippu of Mysore and his ally Zaman Shah were turning their thoughts and their armies towards the boundaries of Oudh. Sa’adat Ali looked in his distress to the strongest person he could think of—the Governor-General, Lord Wellesley. The latter declared that the Nawab’s army must be disbanded and replaced by the Company’s troops. The Nawab in his terror gladly agreed, but, as his fears abated, tried to back out of the agreement.
Lord Wellesley stood firm, however, and the place of the unruly rabble was filled by twelve battalions of infantry and four regiments of cavalry, costing fifty lakhs a year to maintain. This increased the annual payment due to the Company to 126 lakhs a year. The Governor- General proposed a scheme whereby the exclusive civil and military government of the state should be transferred to the Company. The Nawab flatly refused to consider this. Rather than be a figurehead, a useless puppet, he would abdicate. The alternative was to cede to the Company territory to yield a substantial part of his revenue.
Finally, in 1801, after much discussion, an agreement was reached whereby Sa’adat Ali Khan should hand to the Company certain of his lands which became known as the Ceded Provinces and which formed the beginnings of the present province of Agra. In addition, the fort of Allahabad was to be used as an arsenal by the Company’s troops.
The solemnity of the proceedings went deep into Sa’adat Ali’s heart, for he made a pilgrimage to the sacred Dargah of Hazrat Abbas in Lucknow. There he made a solemn vow before the shrine to abstain from all indulgence and debauchery of the flesh, and to give his whole attention to the right governing of his country. This vow he kept, and no sovereign of Oudh has conducted the Government with as great ability as he did for the remaining fourteen years of his life.
His portraits show him to be portly, tall and with several chins. He was clean shaven save for a small ferocious moustache. His nose was straight and aquiline and large ears protruded on either side of a wide head illuminated by suspicious-looking hazel eyes. His head-dress was formed of rolls of costly material tightly wound into a sort of hat. He wore a long brocade robe, beneath which soft and full silken trousers fell over his gold shoes with their curved points. About his waist was twisted a broad sash. He carried a long curved scimitar sheathed in purple velvet, the hilt studded with precious stones. Round his neck he wore two or three rows of enormous jewels.
Sa’adat Ali Khan had spent his youth in Calcutta surrounded by Europeans. He had assimilated many of their ideas and methods. Some say that he spoke English perfectly ; others that he could understand, read and write, but not pronounce. In any case, his devotion to, and admiration for, the Company were strong and continued throughout his life. He set about introducing reforms with a right good will. He reorganised the collection of revenue. He made large grants of land to worthy aspirants. He took pains to protect the agriculturists. In spite of his economies, he lived in a manner befitting a King. In 1805 a. lady described his usual way of living.
He kept a table which, both in appointments and in the fare provided, could vie with any belonging to men of rank in England. There were three separate dishes provided for each course. That at the upper end of the table was cooked by an English cook ; that in the centre by an Indian ; and that at the lower end was prepared by a French chef. The Nawab owned a set of Worcestershire china, complete in every detail, for dining-room, bedroom and bathroom.
He and his retainers did not gauge the function of every unit of the sets, with the result that a certain article of bedroom furniture was placed upon the dinnertable filled with milk. The Nawab, knowing that his English guests liked that beverage, could not fathom why they touched none.
Except when he gave splendid and lavish banquets, Sa’adat Ali lived sparingly. His personal habits were frugal and economical, so that he earned a somewhat unjust reputation for parsimony and miserliness. But he gained an entirely new character during the latter and greater part of his reign as being the best administrator and the most sagacious ruler that Oudh had ever seen : a character which stood out the more sharply against a background of the lavish extravagances of his brother , the former Nawab.
Gradually he developed Lucknow towards the east and although “the city of Lucknow, excepting the Nawab’s palaces, is neither so large nor so splendid as that of Benares,” it was he who built the cantonment of Mariaon across the river, his favourite shooting box of Dilkusha, the imposing structures of the Moti Mahal, the great Chaupar stables (Lawrence Terrace), and many other structures which are still preserved to-day.
He himself lived in the Farhat Bakhsh which he purchased from General Claud Martin. As early as 1801 he established a reserve treasury which grew to fourteen crores of rupees at his death.
In 1814, the last year of his reign, Lord Hastings honoured him with a visit. The royal apartments were unpretentious yet they conveyed an air of comfort. Breakfast, in those days a meal to which guests were often invited, was held in a spacious house built in the Saracenic style and protected from the fierce sun by commodious awnings. The meal consisted of tea or coffee, pilau, Indian dishes and ices.
Dancing girls entertained the guests during the meal. The King’s father had insisted that Sa’adat Ali Khan should never touch intoxicants. From the quality of the liquor kept, it seemed fairly certain that the father’s wish was respected. For all his sensible ways, the Nawab had one or two idiosyncrasies. For instance, he refused to repair the noble old stone bridge spanning the Gumti, saying that should he mend it in any way it would cause his death within the year. Similarly, in 1810 he ordered from England an iron bridge, the first of its kind to reach India, but for some reason he refused to erect it and it lay by the side of the river, still in the packing cases in which its sections had travelled from England, for nearly forty years.
Presumably Sa’dat Ali preferred to keep the reins of government within his own grasp, for his little son who had certainly not reached years of discretion was proclaimed Chief Justice. In this capacity he had to escort honoured guests to the Royal banquets. On one occasion the lady whom he came to squire kept him waiting. It was late in the evening, after a hot and tiring day, and the poor child fell asleep in the ante-room. Promptly his attendant gentleman woke him up, took him aside, and whipped him soundly for committing so gross a breach of ceremonial observance.
On July 11, 1814, Sa’adat Ali Khan died by poisoning, aged about sixty. His remains lie in the larger of the two domed mausoleums near Aminabad. Beside him, beneath the lesser edifice, lies his chief wife, Kurshaed Zadi.
Actually when he died the site where he now lies was occupied by his son’s palace, but the son, Ghazi-ud-Din Haider, who succeeded him, declared that it was only meet that, as he had taken his father’s place, his father should have his. Whereupon he pulled down his palace to build his father’s tomb upon the spot.
Sa’adat Ali left behind him nine sons. One died in the same year as his father, but an Oudh paper dated 1837 shows that at that time five of them were still alive in spite of the cruelties of their great-nephew, the notorious Nasir-ud-Din Haider, to whom nothing gave more delight than to torment the aged, the infirm, and the helpless.
