THE YOUNG SERVANT WHO SCANDALISED VICTORIA’S COURT
A new book and film reveal the controversial relationship between the elderly monarch and the orderly she showered with gifts and made her personal secretary
IT WAS the relationship that the Royal Family was desperate to cover up: Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim, the Indian servant less than half her age, adored one another. Their habit of sharing daily private moments scandalised princes, prime ministers and potentates alike. “I am so very fond of him,” Victoria wrote privately. “He is so good and gentle and understanding all I want and is a real comfort to me.”
But more than a century later, the movie Victoria And Abdul, coming to screens in September with Dame Judi Dench playing the Queen, finally blows the lid off her controversial and long-hidden affection for the man who became her most trusted companion.
“Queen Victoria was very lonely, depressed and tired as she celebrated 50 years on the throne and Abdul Karim reinvigorated her,” reveals Shrabani Basu, whose book Victoria And Abdul inspired the movie, which features Ali Fazal as the Queen’s servant.
“They grew very close. Abdul became her friend, teacher, confidant and adviser. There was an affection between them and the royal household hated it.”
The pair were worlds apart: the monarch of the British Empire and the Indian prison pharmacy assistant’s son. Yet their extraordinary friendship is revealed in palace archives and Abdul’s recently discovered journal, adding to the new edition of Basu’s book, published last week.
“Victoria had been lonely since the deaths of her husband Prince Albert in 1861 and of her Scottish gillie John Brown in 1883. There was a void in the Queen’s life when she met Abdul, who was sent as a gift from India to celebrate the Queen’s golden jubilee in 1887.”
A handsome, 6ft tall 24-year-old with a black beard, in scarlet tunic and white turban, Abdul was intended to be Victoria’s orderly, catering to the needs of visiting Indian princes. Serving her breakfast at Windsor Castle, Abdul knelt and kissed the Queen’s feet and locked eyes with 68-year-old Victoria, who was smitten.
“He was young and full of energy and charm, captivating Victoria with exotic tales of India, its festivals and rivalries between Hindus and Muslims,” says Basu. “He told her stories of India’s maharajas and Mughal emperors, of Indian history and his own observations.
“Within months he was cooking her curries and, soon after, became her ‘munshi’, or teacher. She wanted to speak with maharajas in their native tongue and asked Abdul to teach her.”
ABDUL was “a very strict master and a perfect gentleman”, Victoria wrote. For 13 years she studied daily, learning to read, write and speak Urdu. “Victoria felt Abdul understood her better than anyone and she trusted him completely,” says Basu. “They discussed the most intimate details of their lives.”
She advised Abdul on pregnancy, childbirth and even his wife’s gynaecological issues.
Over time, the adoring Queen increased Abdul’s responsibilities, making him her personal secretary, putting him in charge of her growing entourage of Indian servants, even taking him pheasant shooting.
Victoria was besotted – some would say obsessed – with Abdul, showering him with gifts. “The Queen gave him land in India, grand titles and honours, a cottage at each of her palaces and his own carriage on the royal train next to hers,” says Basu.
She gave him the grand title Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim and there was no longer any question of him waiting tables. She seated him at events with the Royal Family and equerries – not the servants.
When apart, Victoria wrote to Abdul every day, signing her letters “your dearest friend”, “your true friend” even “your dearest mother”. In their later years together, Victoria signed in Urdu.
At Balmoral she gave him the room that had once belonged to John Brown, the much-loved gillie who was also the subject of wild rumours during his lifetime. And one winter she and Abdul spent the night alone in Balmoral’s secluded Widow’s House on the banks of Loch Muick, where she had once hidden away with Brown.
Abdul also advised her on Indian issues and the woes of the Muslim minority, which drew Victoria increasingly into Indian politics, much to the chagrin of the prime minister and the Indian viceroy.
His rise in the palace was swift. Abdul was awarded the Eastern Star and made a Commander of the Victorian Order. Victoria had Abdul painted by royal portraitists, allowed him to carry a sword and wear his medals at court. She also brought his wife and family to England.
She kept his photo beside her dressing table and common gossip held that they were lovers. But Victoria’s affection toward “a mere servant” engendered loathing among her family and advisers.
“The royal household abhorred Abdul, deeply suspicious of his influence over the Queen,” says Basu. “Everyone hated him except for Victoria. She defended her ‘dear munshi’ relentlessly.”
Prime minister Lord Rosebery, the Prince of Wales, daughters Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice and Beatrice’s husband Prince Henry were among many expressing dislike of him to the Queen.
“The royal household saw him as a foreigner and a commoner,” says Basu. “But Victoria had none of the class snobbery of those around her, who were jealous of Abdul’s relationship with her.”
Royal physician Sir James Reid told Victoria that he had even “been questioned as to her sanity”.
Victoria raged that her son Bertie – later Edward VII – and the royal household had all “behaved disgracefully”. “She wrote to Bertie, ordering him: ‘You are to be courteous to the munshi and will respect him,’” says Basu. “Victoria enjoyed a fight and relished defending Abdul.”
Realising that Abdul might be ostracised by the royal household after her death, Victoria gifted him large landholdings in India.
Her concerns soon proved prescient. While Abdul was the last person to see her body alone when Victoria died in 1901, aged 81, at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, and walked with the principal mourners at her funeral procession in Windsor, as the Queen feared he was soon being victimised.
WITHIN days of her interment Abdul was awakened by a banging on his door. “The king had ordered a raid on his house, demanding he hand over all the letters Victoria had written to him,” says Basu.
Postcards and letters from Balmoral, Windsor and the royal yacht were duly thrown on a bonfire outside Abdul’s home at Windsor and shortly afterwards King Edward VII asked him to pack his bags and return to India.
Abdul retreated home, a wealthy landowner of status – but died only eight years after Victoria, in 1909, aged 46.
“He died of a broken heart, I’m convinced,” says Basu. “To him she had been more than the Empress of India and Queen of England.
“She had been a friend, a mother and an inspiration.”
The palace did everything it could to erase all memory of Abdul, even raiding his widow’s home in India looking for royal correspondence. But Basu’s book and Judi Dench’s movie guarantee that their touching and unlikely relationship will not be forgotten.