White Mughals is the romantic and ultimately tragic tale of a
passionate love affair that crossed and transcended all the cultural,
religious and political boundaries of its time.
James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of the
Nizam of Hyderabad when in 1798 he glimpsed Kahir un-Nissa--'Most
excellent among Women'--the great-niece of the Nizam's Prime Minister
and a descendant of the Prophet. Kirkpatrick had gone out to India as an
ambitious soldier in the army of the East India Company, eager to make
his name in the conquest and subjection of the subcontinent. Instead, he
fell in love with Khair and overcame many obstacles to marry her--not
least of which was the fact that she was locked away in purdah and
engaged to a local nobleman. Eventually, while remaining Resident,
Kirkpatrick converted to Islam, and according to Indian sources even
became a double-agent working for the Hyderabadis against the East India
Company.
It is a remarkable story, involving secret assignations, court intrigue,
harem politics, religious and family disputes. But such things were not
unknown; from the early sixteenth century, when the Inquisition banned
the Portuguese in Goa from wearing the dhoti, to the eve of the Indian
mutiny, the 'white Mughals' who wore local dress and adopted Indian ways
were a source of embarrassments to successive colonial administrations.
William Dalrymple unearths such colourful figures as 'Hindoo Stuart',
who travelled with his own team of Brahmins to maintain his temple of
idols, and who spent many years trying to persuade the memsahibs of
Calcutta to adopt the sari; and Sir David Ochterlony, Kirkpatrick's
counterpart in Delhi, who took all thirteen of his wives out for evening
promenades, each on the back of their own elephant.
In White Mughals, William Dalrymple discovers a world almost
entirely unexplored by history, and places at its centre a compelling
tale of love, seduction and betrayal. It possesses all the sweep and
resonance of a great nineteenth-century novel, set against a background
of shifting alliances and the manoeuvring of the great powers, the
mercantile ambitions of the British and the imperial dreams of Napoleon.
White Mughals, the product of five years' writing and research,
triumphantly confirms Dalrymple's reputation as one of the finest
writers at work today.
