(The Sun): BRITAIN is set to go Diamond Jubilee crazy as the Queen marks 60 years on the throne.
But just over a century ago the same celebration for her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, was nearly derailed by her scandalous relationship with an Indian manservant.
In fact Her Majesty became so infatuated with tall, handsome Muslim Abdul Karim that senior royal advisers plotted to have her declared insane just days before her Jubilee unless she halted a controversial plan to knight him.
The young waiter — he was just 24 — had begun serving the Queen’s table in June 1887 after being sent to London as a “gift” from the Indian outpost of her empire.
He soon began bewitching her with romantic tales of mysterious India, and cooking up delicious curries for her in the royal kitchens.
But royal biographer Jane Ridley believes Abdul’s striking looks also helped to draw in the Queen.
She says: “Victoria always had a great appreciation of male beauty so when she saw these gorgeous clothes, sashes and turbans kissing her feet, how could she resist?”
Categories: Behaviour, Culture and Traditions, Documentary or movie, Europe, Interesting Facts, UK
Hafiz Munshi Mohammed Abdul Karim – CIE, CVO; was born in 1863 and died in 1909.
He attended to the Queen in last fifteen years of her reign.
***************************************************
The Most Outstanding Aspect of his Stay at the Royal Household is that:-
He “TAUGHT URDU” to Queen Victoria and that is how SHE was able to ACCESS THE ORIGINAL TEXT OF URDU BOOKS; most relevantly including “TUHFAE_QAISERIA”; the Book in Roohani Khazain Volume 12; written by Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian – The Promised Messiah a.s., INVITING QUEEN VICTORIA TO ISLAM – in 1897 at the auspicious occasion of her Golden Jubilee’s Commemoration.
The Ceremony of her Golden Jubilee was held in London on June 20, 1887; wherein 50 European Kings, Princes and Royal Households were invited.
***************************************************
Mohammed Abdul Karim was born near Jhansi in British India in 1863.
In 1887, Victoria’s Golden Jubilee year, Abdul Karim was one of two Indians selected to become servants to the Queen.
His father, Haji Mohammed Waziruddin, was a hospital assistant stationed with the Central India Horse, a British cavalry regiment. Abdul Karim had one older brother, Abdul Aziz, and four younger sisters. He was taught Persian and Urdu privately, and as a teenager travelled across North India and into Afghanistan.
Abdul Karim worked as a vakil (“agent” or “representative”) for the Nawab of Jawara in the Agency of Agar. After three years in Agar, Karim resigned and moved to Agra, to become a vernacular clerk at the jail. His father arranged a marriage between Karim and the sister of a fellow worker.
In 1886, 34 convicts travelled to London to demonstrate carpet weaving at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in South Kensington. Abdul Karim did not accompany the prisoners, but assisted Jail Superintendent John Tyler in organizing the trip, and helped to select the carpets and weavers.
When Queen Victoria visited the exhibition, Tyler gave her a gift of two gold bracelets, again chosen with the assistance of Karim.
The Queen had a longstanding interest in her Indian territories and wished to employ some Indian servants for her Golden Jubilee. She asked Tyler to recruit two attendants who would be employed for a year.
Abdul Karim was hastily coached in British manners and in the English language and sent to England, along with Mohammed Buksh.
Abdul Karim and Buksh arrived at Windsor Castle in June 1887. They were put under the charge of Major-General Dennehy and first served the Queen at breakfast in Frogmore House at Windsor on 23 June 1887.
Queen Victoria appointed him her “Indian Secretary”, showered him with honors – “CIE” and “CVO”; and obtained a land grant for him in India.
The Queen described Abdul Karim in her diary for that day: “The other, much younger, is much lighter [than Buksh], tall, and with a fine serious countenance. His father is a native doctor at Agra. They both kissed my feet.”
Five days later, the Queen noted that “The Indians always wait now and do so, so well and quietly.”
On 3 August 1887, she wrote: “I am learning a few words of Hindustani to speak to my servants. It is a great interest to me for both the language and the people; I have naturally never come into real contact with before.”
On 20 August 1887, she had some “excellent curry” made by one of the servants.
By 30 August Karim was teaching her Urdu, which she used during an audience in December to greet the Maharani Chimnabai of Baroda.
The close relationship between Abdul Karim and the Queen led to friction within the Royal Household, the other members of which felt themselves’ to be superior to him. The Queen insisted on taking Abdul Karim with her on her travels, which caused arguments between her and her attendants.
After the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, King Edward VII, returned Abdul Karim to India and ordered the confiscation and destruction of the Munshi’s correspondence with Victoria.
Munshi Mohammed Abdul Karim subsequently lived quietly near Agra, on the estate that Victoria had arranged for him, until his death at the age of 46.
Munshi Mohammed Abdul Karim died at his home, Karim Lodge, on his estate in Agra in 1909. He was survived by two wives, and was interred in a pagoda-like mausoleum in the Panchkuin Kabaristan cemetery in Agra beside his father.
In 1905–06, George, Prince of Wales, visited India and wrote to the King from Agra, “In the evening we saw the Munshi. He has not grown more beautiful and is getting fat. I must say he was most civil and humble and really pleased to see us. He wore his C.V.O. which I had no idea he had got. I am told he lives quietly here and gives no trouble at all.”
On the instructions of Edward VII, the Commissioner of Agra, W. H. Cobb, visited Karim Lodge to retrieve any remaining correspondence between the Munshi and the Queen or her Household, which was confiscated and sent to the King.
The Viceroy (by then Lord Minto), Lieutenant-Governor John Hewitt, and India Office civil servants disapproved of the seizure, and recommended that the letters be returned.
Eventually the King returned four, on condition that they would be sent back to him on the death of the first wife of Munshi Mohammed Abdul Karim.
Following Links will help for further details:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/empire/episodes/episode_66.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Karim_(the_Munshi)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Indian_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Victorian_Order