Tonk. No, that’s no metallic Martian settlement invented for a science fiction bestseller; it is but a dusty district capital in Rajasthan. Alienation, however, has always come easy to the town’s inhabitants. Two centuries ago, the Tonk district was the only Muslim princely state to have been part of the 23-state-strong Rajputana agency, but lately the riches-to-rags story of Tonk’s nawabs has come to seem significantly starker than that of their many Hindu counterparts. Their havelis now wear a paint-peeling, derelict look, once-opulent chandeliers play host to nesting birds and the unusually large pillows they like to lean on are as tattered as the sprawling mattresses on which they are spread.
The most telling evidence of their fall from grace is perhaps the protracted legal battle that Tonk’s former royals have had to fight. Embittered by the uncharitable disposition of many a state government, some 570 nawabi descendants have pursued a single court case since 1989 to get themselves a respectable khandani stipend. In July this year, victory finally came their way—the Supreme Court decreed that each legitimate member of the Anjuman Khandaan-e-Ameria (a registered society in Tonk comprising all individuals with nawabi blood) be given an allowance. A princely sum of Rs 100 per month.
Though Sahabzade Akhtar Jung was once entitled to only Rs 11.65 per month, this eight-fold hike has not made him any less resentful. “They have taken our land, our privileges; is this lollipop all we deserve?” When reminded that the SC order is retrospectively effective from 1989 and that he could expect an attractive five-digit cheque in arrears soon, Jung sheepishly says, “Ramzan ke mahine main, yeh toh bas Id ki saugat hai (It’s the month of Ramzan, this is just an Id blessing).”
Paradoxically, this self-identifying sahabzada also doubles up as the cpi(m) district secretary here. Jung sifts through a scrapbook to show off pictures that have him and Prakash Karat in the same frame. He boasts of being arrested ten times over, of having been left in the forest by annoyed police authorities on 20 different occasions. “They have never agreed with my Marxist ways, but I am proud that I am a comrade. I have direct contact with the politburo.” And in the same breath, he goes on to add, “My ancestors were all nawabs, I have politics in my blood.” The royal Marxist then points to a polished rifle that hangs threateningly on his wall. In a tone that can only best be described as a roar, he explains, “This gun is from the olden days. I have it because I am the only true descendant. You see, all these fakes that claim to be nawabs, they are all illegitimate children of mistresses that my ancestors liked to keep on the side.”
It soon becomes clear that the objects of Jung’s undisguised ire are the residents of Mubarak Mahal, a one-storey condominium that looks less like a palace and more like a bunch of tenements built around a sunlit courtyard. In its front room sits the 79-year-old Yakub Ali Khan, the only living son of Tonk’s fourth ruler, Nawab Muhammad Ibrahim Ali Khan. He reminisces, “I had about 60 siblings. There were those of us who came from legitimate mothers and then there were the ‘love children’. Before 1947, there would be ten people who’d flock around me if I had an ache in my finger, now I feel fortunate if there are a couple of visitors who come by on Id.” Khan breaks the train of thought to feed himself some paan from a carefully embroidered gold betel box that seems a bit out of place in an otherwise bleak room. “It’s all I have left,” he says without any obvious hint of regret. “I had to sell all my other possessions—jewellery, clothes—when we fell on bad days. I bought myself a bit of farmland nearby and that has kept me and my son going.”
When his weakened knees allow him to travel, Khan makes for an interesting portrait of nawab as farmhand (see pic). As we accompany him on the 20-minute trip to his lands, some of Tonk’s older residents notice him and respectfully raise their hands. Pleased at the sudden recognition, he smiles and remembers his days at Mayo College, Ajmer. “My brother, Masoom, and I were both being schooled there together in the 1930s. Masoom was a great athlete and the captain of Mayo’s cricket team. It so happened that a local team from Tonk came over for a friendly cricket match and was defeated by Mayo. My stepbrother, Saadat, who was the reigning nawab in those days, was furious. He ordered that we both leave Mayo instantly and come back home. I was only 13 and that was the end of my education.”
Saadat Ali Khan’s cousin, 72-year-old Saberunnisa, laughs when she hears this familiar story of aristocratic hotheadedness. But her own childhood memories of life among the cash-rich nawabs have more to do with processions of elephants, horses and cannons. “On Saadat’s birthday, we would all dress up in yellow. There’d be people throwing flowers from the balconies. We would swing and sing and dance. Once we lost all that, we didn’t know how to live or what to do.” Abdul Rafeh Khan, 77, firmly believes that he is the best possible manifestation of such helplessness. He clutches his neck, rubs his chest furiously and occasionally howls when he speaks. “They took away my land, it measured 700 bighas. I would have been a feudal lord today, but I am now starving for a rupee.” Khan says he didn’t even have the money to give his deaf and mute son a minimal education, “and even if I did send him to school, how would it matter?” But he does regret that his virtual illiteracy denied him a government job; unlike many of his relatives who, for all their nawabi pretensions, have taken up petty sarkari posts or become medical clerks.
The aggrieved senior citizen disagrees with his cousins’ claim that their battle for an allowance has all along been a fight for respect and tradition. “For me, it has always been a fight for survival,” he counters. Khan says that the impending cheque from the Tonk collector will go a long way in helping him pay for his daily needs. He giggles endearingly when asked about how much of the allowance will be spent on his only indulgence—the dye he uses to blacken his hair.
Legend has it that when Tonk’s first nawab, Muhammad Amir Khan, a one-time Afghan adventurer and deal-maker with the British (like so many of those who were to later call themselves nawabs), threw a wedding party in the early 1800s, the guests—the other Rajasthani royals and British officials—were treated to a rare sight. As the lids of varied platters were uncovered, birds came flying out of them. Shujaat Ali Khan, a storehouse of such anecdotes, still enjoys keeping pigeons perched on his arm. He concludes, “Now all of us nawabi birds have become caged in penury. Government policy treats everybody equally, but if someone is born a nawab, what can he do about it?” Moving on, it seems, would be far too plebeian a choice.
