Rajas Nawabs - National Museum, New Delhi · Nawab of Bengal by the British East India Company. Mir...

Rajas Nawabs & Firangees

History is a long chain of chance encounters. A war, opening for trade, journey of

discovery. Men who seem to be alienated by distance, language and religion

suddenly run into each other forming friendships and discovering affinities. In a

fascinating game of mirrors they dazzle and enchant each other never to be the

same again. This is the link that often united the Indian rajas or nawabs and the

French mercenaries who came to “explore new opportunities in India”. As it was

said in those days, in the second half of the 18th century, the likes of René

Madec, Claude Martin, Jean-Baptiste Gentil and Benoît de Boigne offered their

expertise on war to the powerful of the country.

Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons

French accent to Awadh sun

The Mysore awakening

The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad

The European eye in Indian Art

A Pantheon on Paper

An Ethnographic Glance

The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

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Builder, philanthropist, educationalist,

military man ad perhaps the Frenchman

with the most lasting signature in India.

As the tide of history turned, he took up

employment with the British, first in Fort

William, then in the Survey of Bengal.

In 1776, Asaf-ud-Daula made him the

superintendent of his military and

political officer. The shift to Lucknow

gave him the chance to participate in the

building of an Indian city as co-chief

architect.

Claude Martin

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Travancore Castle The Battle of Colachel (1741) not as

famed as Plassey or Buxar is the only

18th Century battle where an Indian

force defeated a European power

terminating the Dutch colonial

ambitions for good. And from its

aftermath, an odd partnership

blooming. Marathanda Varma, raja

extraordinaire and Eustache de Lannoy,

a French man from the Flemish

borderline now remembered for his

abiding role as the white helmsman of

Travancore’s army

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Anizham Thirunal Marthanada Varma

1705-58Monuments can tell a story about the man.

Here was a king born without a kingdom,

without an army. A nominal royalty cut down

to size by the complex forces of history. Rival

colonial navies vying for the seas. The core

disintegrating into near anarchy, power

largely snatched by an unruly feudal

confederacy, each Nair noble a law unto

himself. When he exited from the stage.

Marthanda Varma has given to the world

something called Travancore, a precise

diagram of power drawn on rebellious paper.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

A Brief French Dawn Mir Qasim was appointed the

Nawab of Bengal by the British

East India Company. Mir Qasim

appeared in history as a semi tragic

figure. The ill fated faced the

Battle of Buxar in 1764, making it

the real turning point in India’shistory. Mir Qasim too found

himself opposing their tax-free

trading soon enough: the practice

virtually depleted the already debt-

ridden Nawabi of Bengal. As a

mark of rebellion, he decided to

grant equal free trading rights to

other traders.

Mir Qasim soon shifted his capital

upcountry from Murshidabad to

Munger, Bihar — a fastness

secure from the British navy —and made India’s last stand in a

seeming grand alliance with

Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh and

Shah Alam II, the Mughal

emperor.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Little Napoleons In IndiaFrench officers in Indian service united

& commanded soldiers from different

communities imparting knowledge of

European military science in tactics and

armaments. Consciously instilled esprit

de corpse, precision rehearsal, military

etiquettes, advance weapons,

regimental customs, etc. It was all this

that enabled French-trained brigades

and units such as the Cipayee units of

Francois Martin in Pondicherry and

several other parts of the country to

prevail against and decimate their

opponents.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Benoit de Beigno- The son of a

merchant opted for a martial life.

Starting as a soldier in the Irish

regiment of Louis XV. After audiences

with various Indian princes it was

Mahadi Shinde who offered him a job

to train two infantry battalions. By the

end of his career as General for the

Maratha confederation, de Boigne led

an army of 1,00,000 troops organised in

European fashion- including a daring

ambulance corps, and pensions for the

families of those killed or disabled in

battle.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Jean-françois Allard Jean-François Allard’s military biography

passes through some high points in history.

Twice injured while serving as quartermaster

with Neapolitan dragoons in Spain, a passage to

Persia after the historic French defeat of 1815,

and then Lahore in 1822. Ranjit Singh was at

the height of his power. Along with Jean-

Baptiste Ventura (1794-1858). He trained the

Fauj-i-Khas, recruiting European officers and

reorganising the troops in line with the French

system. He married a princess from Chamba,

learnt and wrote poetry in Persian, and pursued

his love of numismatics.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Antoine Louis PolierAn ambit that took in everything from

a scholarly life to a military one, and a

civilisational one, so to speak, Polier

was one of those who ‘went native’with both depth and aplomb. Born to a

family of French Protestants who had

migrated to Switzerland, he sailed to

India at the age of fifteen to meet a

wealthy uncle who died before his

arrival. Penniless, he started working;

first for The East India Company in

Calcutta as an engineer and

cartographer, before Shuja-ud-Daula’sAwadh offered a new home.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

A French Accent To The Awadh SunEighteenth century India is often spoken of as

anarchy. A time and place of face and

dissoluting – and eventually, bondage. The

sound of one of the greatest empires of history

cracking, the clangour of newly ambitious

powers, the approaching footfalls of a different

kind of empire. But flux is not anarchy without

grammar: a new order lurks within its womb.

This is also a time and place of rich encounters

of a new modernity of cultural efflorescence. It

was chessboard in ferment, the moving pieces

criss crossing in straight and diagonal lines.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

The Mysore Awakening -A Pride

LionsMysore arrived on the map, so to

speak, almost with a sudden force

and will of history. A small state

under the Wadiyar dynasty, it was

the sheer puissance of Hyder Ali’smilitarism that transformed it in the

mid-eighteenth century. A

formidable, feared power that posed

a challenge to the Marathas, the

Nizam and the British, a strong

French presence was integral to its

evolution as a military machine.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Chevalier De LalleeMonikered as ‘Rustam Jang’ in India,

Lallée was born to a family of old

nobility in Savoie, Alps. The familiar

career arc took him to Pondicherry.

Taken captive during his return, he

lost all his property and suffered a

two-year imprisonment in London:

an event that saw him develop “arelentless hatred against England”.

He was back in 1765, turning a

freelancer when the French

company’s privileges in India were

abolished.Previous Home Next

Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Shivaji’s Lagatees- The Poona Canopy

Beginning with their fabled defiance of

Aurangzeb, the Marathas billowed out from

their cragged north Deccan home to become

the biggest power in 18th c India. Unlike their

localised peers elsewhere, the Marathas

attained their new power as a confederacy —a loose, disaggregated coalition with an

imprint far beyond their original mountain

fastnesses of Poona. The French were there

with them, it took the British protracted

efforts to break the network. Once it was

done, India was theirs.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Pierre François Cuillier- PerronGeneral Perron came to be seen as one of

the biggest threats to British expansion with

both the Maratha state of Gwalior and

Mughal emperor Shah Alam II under his

sway. Setting sail for India in 1780, he first

found service with the Rana of Gohad, then

under Benoît de Boigne. An active part of

the Maratha victory against Hyderabad at

Kardla in 1795, he succeeded de Boigne as

the commander-in-chief of Mahadji’ssuccessor Daulat Rao Shinde heading

24,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry and 120

guns.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

The Begum Of Sombre- Love, War &

A Little EmpireIf ever a moment is to be sought

where Europe and India flowed into

each other under a cusped Mughal

archway, search not in the grand

durbars of Shahjahanabad or

Awadh. Wander instead into the

alleyways of Mughaliana, its dusty

penumbral zones; waltz right into

the transgressive story of Begum

Samru.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Begum Samru and her eclectic list

of European lovers, including her

German-speaking beau, Walter

Reinhardt ‘Sombre’, who she was

named for. History here overflows

its embankments — its roll-call of

big names and dates — to colour

itself with mofussil charm and all

the aroma of a fabled romance.

Bharatpur, Sardhana, Gurgaon…from the plasmatic periphery of

empire, the story mounts a war

horse and travels right up to the

mahals of Chandni Chowk.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Hyderabad- The Pearl Necklace

Winnowed out from the lees of empire left

behind by Aurangzeb, a little Golconda

gem…. Signs of urban renascence abounded in

18th century India — Baji Rao I’s Poona,

Marthanda Varma’s Travancore, and Asaf-ud-

Daula’s Lucknow. But Hyderabad’s Nizamate

was different. Turani Mughal nobility at the

heart of it; then Afghans, Telugus, Marathas.

And in the formative years, before formal

British suzerainty, the French. ‘MonsieurRaymond’, with his forlorn tomb in ‘Moosa

Ram Bagh’, is part of that geography.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Nawab Nizam Ali KhanHis father Qamaruddin aka Nizam-ul-

Mulk, inaugurated the Asaf Jahi dynasty

his master Aurangzeb’s imperious

designs on the Deccan through a tactful

combination of war and diplomacy. It

was during the 41-year rule of his fourth

son Nizam Ali Khan, who took over

after some inter-regnal chaos, that the

seat of power shifted from Aurangabad

to Hyderabad. Officially acknowledged

as the Subedar of the Deccan by Mughal

Emperor Shah Alam II.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

The Long Passage- Early French

TravellersIndia was on the edge of the known world

for Europe during Hellenistic and Roman

times. Overland, or beyond the Red Sea.

Indeed, the subcontinent was almost as far

as one could dream of travelling till the

end of the Middle Ages. European travel

accounts to the East read like picaresque

epics and depicted wonders. Travellers

sought to impress the readers with stories

of fantastic wealth, exotic humans &

strange creatures.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

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HinduismTo Jean-Baptiste Gentil goes the credit

of acquiring not only the first albums

of Indian paintings but also

illuminated manuscripts, mainly in the

field of Hindu devotional poetry with

collections of hymns to Siva, to the

Goddess, to Vishnu, and several

copies of the illustrated Bhagavad

Gita. He always made judicious

choices on the basis of the advice

given by his entourage of courtiers

and scholars. These were translated

from the Persian translation

commissioned in 1650 by Dara

Shikoh.Previous Home Next

Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

The European Eye In Indian ArtFrom the end of the 16th century, the

well-defined artistic policy of

Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-

1605) concentrated all Indian

painting activities in the core of the

imperial studio. There, under the

direction of two Persian painters

called Mir Sayyid ‘Ali and ‘Abd us-

Samad, painters tried to establish a

typical Mughal style. In that frame,

if Indian and Persian arts are still

important, Western paintings and

engravings.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Gentil: The Image CollectorJean-Baptiste Joseph Gentil, who

came to India in 1752 as an ensign

in the French infantry and rose to the

rank of a colonel, spent 12 fruitful in

Faizabad under Shuja-ud-Daula. It is

here that he assembled most of his

albums of paintings. Today, the

majority of his collection is

preserved in the Department of

Prints & Photography of the

Bibliothèque Nationale while two of

his albums are with the Victoria and

Albert Museum and the British

Library.Previous Home Next

Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Previous Home Next

Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

A Pantheon On PaperAmong the artworks in the South Indian

style in old French collections, there figure

two albums of paintings by a Brahmin,

named Swami or Sami, in the late 18th

century. These contain iconographies of

Hindu deities as well as depictions of India

lifestyle. Though not quite the work of an

expert artist, the albums reveal an embedded

knowledge of Indian religion, mythology

and customs. The aquarelles are executed in

on laid paper, probably of French origin, for

a French patron from the region of Madras.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

An Ethnographic Glance By the early 19th century, the European way

of representing India begins to undergo

various transformations. Until then, they had

lived – at least during their stay – the Indian

way. Trying to meld into the landscape in

their choice of abode, attire, food, learning

languages, and yes, even marrying here.

During the first decades of the 19th century,

this begins to change. In building spaces, the

bungalow – originally, the ‘house of Bengal’– becomes a white colonial mansion, distinct

from the hut or the palace.

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Previous Home Next

Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

For the European nations engaged in global

domination, making inventories of local flora was

of strategic importance. A French surgeon in

Chandernagor, Nicolas L’Empereur (c.1660-

1742), spent over three decades, from 1690s to the

mid-1720s, making a gigantic manuscript herbal

which he entitled Ellemans botanique des plante

du Jardin de Lorixa, leur vertu et quallite, tans

conus que celle qui ne le sont pas, avec leur fleur,

fruis et grainne [The Botanical Elements of

Odisha, all their Virtues and Qualities along with

their flowers, fruits and seeds]. Of its 14-volumes,

two carry written descriptions of plants from

eastern India, the remaining 12 hand-painted are

exclusively made up of paintings executed by

indigenous artists.

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Jarddin De LorixTravancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

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The Madras Print- Two Lines Criss

CrossingIf empire was still in its laboratory stage in the 18th century the Madras

province was its most vital petridish- alive with possibilities of all kinds.

In a complex lattice pattern of local power. Over laid with waxing and

waning Mughal and Maratha prints, there began appearing strong

European motifs: Dutch, English, French etc. Before the seven years war

many seas away cast its shadow on the proxy battleground of India,

decisively Anglifying them, several lines and lives intersected on that

kaleidoscope. Among them, two soldiers of fortune- Yusuf Khan and

Antoine Marchand. Their graph passed through fidelity and betrayal, and

unrequited ambition- and finally a place in an alternate history book of

what ifs.

Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

Born a Hindu, he fled home and converted to Islam after a

tumultuous youth. The search for life-chances takes him to

Pondicherry, and likely service with governor-general Jean

Law. Here, he meets Antoine Marchand before leaving in

hazy circumstances, enlists as a sepoy . A trickier task:

reining in the fanatic governor Mand Khan aka Barkatullah

and restoring order. He is nifty at the job. Barkatullah is

expelled; and the Polygars, chieftains who ran a parallel

dominion over Tamil country, quelled. But his very success

— fiscal independence, ties with French adventurers —now makes him the object of the Nawab’s distrust. The city

falls after fierce resistance. Yusuf Khan, betrayed by close

associates, including Marchand, is hanged; his body

dismembered and scattered over south India. Only a folk

legend survived.

Yusuf Khan

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Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

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Antoine Marchand His last, futile ambition was to get the Crown’s permission to head a “Brigade Marchand” under an Indian nawab. Born

humble, in a family of canvas weavers, Marchand is still shy

of 25 as he sails for India, chasing his martial dream. A

stormy personality is soon evident: by 1760, we see him

captured for inciting French prisoners to escape. On parole,

he takes refuge with the Dutch at Nagapattinam: a career in

freelance soldiering is being born. In Tranquebar, Marchand

tries to take over Karikal with 300 men, and is asked to

leave. During the siege of Madurai, Marchand is first an able

ally, then a deserter who assists in his capture and hanging.

Prison, release, and failed overtures to Hyder Ali mark his

last India years.

Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

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LES INDES ORIENTALES Travancore

French dawn

Little Napoleons



The Begum of Sombre

Hyderabad


A Pantheon on Paper


The Madras Print

Map of India (1751)

THANK YOU

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