Malika Kishwar Bahadur Fakr-ul-Zamani Nawab Taj Ara Begum (1803 – 24 January 1858), also known as Janab-i-Alia, was Queen Mother of the last king of Awadh in northern India. The chief consort of the tenth nawab of Awadh, Amjad Ali Shah, her son Wajid Ali Shah succeeded his father when she was widowed in 1847. When British officials announced their intent to annex the Kingdom of Oudh, she met with General James Outram in Lucknow to plead their case. In 1856, she travelled to England with one of her sons and grandson and met with Queen Victoria in 1857. After the intervention of France, she was given permission to leave England, but died three days after arriving in Paris. She is buried in a grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Early life and marriage Malika Kishwar Taj Ara Begum was born in Lucknow in 1803. She was a descendant of Mughal court poet and minister Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan of Delhi. Her father was Hasin-ud-din Khan of Kalpi. Her mother was Vilayati Begum, a daughter of the sixth Nawab of Awadh, Saadat Ali Khan. Well-educated, Malika Kishwar could read and write Persian and Arabic, and prioritised the education of her children and other dependents. Malika Kishwar married Amjad Ali Shah during the reign of Ghazi-ud-Din Haidar, the seventh Nawab and first king of Oudh. Her husband became the tenth nawab and fourth king of Awadh, from 1842 to 1847. He was the most religiously devout of the Shia Muslim nawabs, and as chief consort, she did not have a role in political matters during her husband's reign.
Deeply religious herself, Malika Kishwar remained in purdah all her life, surrounded by women and served by female servants and eunuchs within the royal enclosures and gardens of Lucknow before the fall of the kingdom. She preferred to hire servants of the Shia faith, and refused the service of maids who had been brought to her palace against their will. According to historian K. S. Santha, she was the only queen of Awadh to host female durbars. Malika Kishwar welcomed women of all backgrounds and listened to their grievances, and received their petitions and gifts.
Her children with Amjad Ali Shah included his successor Wajid Ali Shah, his younger brother Sikandar Hashmat Bahadur, and at least one daughter. She was said to have been closest to her son Sikandar Hashmat. The king had two more sons including his eldest, Mustafa Ali Khan, with a concubine, and his youngest son Sulaiman Qadr. Like royal wives before her, Malika Kishwar struggled to accept her husband's relationships with other women, including his affair with a maidservant and his marriage in November 1846 to a grocer's teenage daughter who received the title Sultan Mahal.
Malika Kishwar was widowed in her mid-forties. Following the death of Amjad Ali Shah in 1847, she spent many hours reading the Quran, and rejected physical comforts such as sleeping in a bed.
Reign and overthrow of son
On 13 February 1847, Malika Kishwar's son Wajid Ali Shah became the eleventh nawab and fifth king of Awadh at the age of 25. He began to consult his mother in political matters such as appointing high-ranking officials. She helped him navigate court intrigue, advising him to marry the daughter of minister Ali Naqi Khan whom she did not trust.
Disapproving of her son's licentious behaviour, she famously convinced him to divorce eight of his mut'ah wives, citing local Hindu tradition which considered the snake mark on their bodies to be bad luck. They included Begum Hazrat Mahal, whom Malika Kishwar disliked. While some of the wives later returned to the zenana or inner quarters after performing a ceremony to negate their bad luck, others including Hazrat Mahal refused and remained estranged.
Although British officials complained about Malika Kishwar's "interference", Colonel William Sleeman, the British resident in the royal court, recommended that she be consulted in nominating members of a Regency Council of Awadh, in the event that Wajid Ali Shah suddenly died.
Annexation of Awadh
At the end of January 1856, British military forces proceeded from Cawnpore to Lucknow as General James Outram sought to carry out the annexation of Awadh. The decision had been made by the Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie, with the backing of the Court of Directors of the East India Company and the British government. Lacking sufficient military strength to oppose the 12,000 British troops advancing toward the capital, King Wajid Ali Shah ordered his army to stand down.
General Outram accepted Malika Kishwar's request for an interview on 1 February 1856, speaking to her through a curtain and an interpreter, in an attempt to persuade her to convince her son to sign the annexation treaty. She, in turn, tried unsuccessfully to plead the case for remaining an independent British protectorate. On 4 February 1856, Outram had an audience with Wajid Ali Shah and was met with indignation. The king refused to abdicate. Three days later, Outram issued a proclamation deposing the king and taking over administration of the state on behalf of the East India Company.
On 13 March 1856, the deposed king and his family left Lucknow for Cawnpore, arriving in Calcutta two months later. Historian Rosie Llewellyn-Jones suggests that Malika Kishwar likely urged her son to make the difficult journey to Calcutta, despite being discouraged by British authorities to do so. While in Calcutta, Wajid Ali Shah appointed his friend Captain Robert Wilberforce Bird, a former assistant resident at court in Awadh with family ties to the East India Company, to travel to London to lobby members of Parliament, the company's court of directors, and the British press on his behalf. When Malika Kishwar learned that Bird had demanded an advance of £17,000, she barred Bird from seeing the king, insisting that he would not sign the money transfer and instead offering to send him a smaller sum of money via intermediaries. Bird openly expressed his anger and departed for England.
Mission to England
Journey from Calcutta
On 15 June 1856, the Governor General of India learned that Malika Kishwar had secretly left Calcutta at night with her son Sikandar Hashmat, the former commander-in-chief of Awadh, and her grandson Prince Hamid Ali, the heir apparent. The royal party was on a mission to England to see Queen Victoria and petition for the reinstatement of Wajid Ali Shah as ruler of Awadh. Accompanying them were Mary Ann and John Rose Brandon, a former gardener at the royal palace in Awadh, who had helped Wajid Ali Shah, his family, servants and courtiers to leave Lucknow for Cawnpore two months prior via horse-drawn carriages. Wajid Ali Shah had originally planned to make the journey to England himself, but had decided to remain in Calcutta. The official reason given was that he was too unwell to travel such a long distance. Historian Llewellyn-Jones suggests that there were also diplomatic reasons behind his decision to send his mother in his place, including avoiding a loss of face if restoration of the kingdom were refused by the British.
The group, including an estimated 70 staff, had private use of a steamer which took them down river to board the SS Bengal, which transported them to the port of Suez. While disembarking in Suez, a eunuch who had been entrusted with a case containing jewels worth £50,000, including a necklace intended as a gift for Queen Victoria, somehow let it slip into the Red Sea. Divers were hired to search for the jewels to no avail. According to K. S. Santha, it was regarded as a deliberate theft. From Suez, they travelled overland on closed carriages to the Mediterranean Sea. From Alexandria, they were transported on the Peninsular and Oriental Company steamship SS Indus, arriving in Malta on 10 August and finally in Southampton on 20 August 1856.
Arrival in Southampton Crowds of people gathered near the dock at Southampton for the highly anticipated arrival of the royal party of Awadh (spelled by the British as "Oude"). The question of how to shield Malika Kishwar from public view posed logistical challenges, but in the end she was carried, veiled, in a sedan chair. The entourage headed directly to the Royal York Hotel, which they took over for ten days.
Curious members of the public crowded the high street near their hotel, leading The Globe to comment that "it is one thing to show hospitality to ladies and gentlemen in distress, and another to convert them into a spectacle". On 23 August 1856, the Princes held an afternoon levee. Among the guests received by the royal family that day were "the mayor, an earl, a countess, three ladies, two baronets, and an admiral". According to The Globe, the mayor of Southampton Richard Andrews shook hands with a female hand through a curtain, thought to be that of the Queen of Oudh.
Following the Princes' levee, about 30 ladies of Southampton were presented to the Queen Dowager of Oudh. The Illustrated London News reported that the Queen sat on a sofa attended by eight ladies, "dressed in splendid shawls", with her hair "cut rather short, and brushed back over the head à la Chinoise", and with "two massive earrings" but no other jewellry around her head. Mary Ann Brandon was the interpreter.On 30 August 1856, the royal entourage of 110 people departed Southampton for London on specially reserved train carriages. As they took horse-drawn carriages to the station, their servants waved back at the crowds which once again lined the streets. At Southampton Terminus station, which the stationmaster had refused to close to the general public, the eunuchs stood guard while servants held up calico sheets, forming a corridor through which Malika Kishwar could alight from the closed carriage to cross the platform and board the train unseen. Residence in London
After arriving at Waterloo station in London on 30 August 1856, Malika Kishwar and the royal entourage of took up residence at Harley House in Marylebone. The free-standing house was on the north side of Marylebone Road, enclosed by a brick wall with a side entrance to Regent's Park. It was rented for them by John Rose Brandon for £550 a year. One of the most senior officials accompanying the royal party was the king's legal representative Maulvi Masih-uh-din Khan, a former employee of the East India Company, fluent in English, Persian, and Urdu. In total, there were more than 100 staff including the king's aide-de-camp; the queen mother's chief of household staff, chief eunuch, and medical advisor; the heir apparent's bodyguards, medical advisor, and tutor; the general's own staff; and many other servants.