Indian royalty in Victorian times
BOOK EXPLORES SUBCONTINENT RULERS VISITING ENGLAND IN HISTORIC MAGAZINE ‘CARICATURES’
‘There was often a tinge of racism’
A NEW book by the London-based social historian, Dr Kusum Pant Joshi, has focused on the caricatures and mini-biographies of 13 prominent Indians which appeared in a weekly Victorian magazine called Vanity Fair.
The publication was subtitled, “A Weekly Show of Political, Social and Literary Wares”.
Joshi’s book, called Selective Inclusion? African & Asian celebrities in London's ‘Vanity Fair' magazine (1868-1914), has been published with help of the National Lottery Heritage Fund by the South Asian Cinema Foundation. The latter is run by the author’s husband, Lalit Mohan Joshi, who intends making a documentary based on the book.
It shines a light on the complex relationship between Britain and India.
Among the Indians featured in Vanity Fair – not to be confused with the American fashion magazine of the same name – were a number of maharajahs. They were known society figures in London who were often received by Queen Victoria, Empress of India.
The royal houses of Patiala, Jodhpur, Baroda and Cooch Behar all made the cut, as did the Aga Khan III, who was born in Karachi in 1877 and sent to Eton and Cambridge so he could have an English education.
Duleep Singh, the last Sikh maharajah who was made to gift the Kohinoor diamond to Victoria when he arrived in England as a boy of 15, was also included. His caricature portrays him, accurately, it has to be said, as a rotund, balding gentleman, far removed from the idealised concept of the Sikh warrior.
But his biography did not tell the story of the how British usurped his kingdom, cruelly separated him when he was a small boy from his mother, made him convert from Sikhism to Christianity, and later prevented from returning to India when he showed signs of becoming rebellious as a grown man.
Another Indian who featured in Vanity Fair was the legendary cricketer Prince Ranjitsinhji, the first non-white player to represent England in a Test series against the old enemy, Australia. He is depicted wearing his trademark silk shirt, buttoned down to his wrist.
The Indian royals believed that British rule would never end and therefore went out of their way to express loyalty to Victoria and their political masters. When independence finally beckoned, they generally sided with the British, realising that once the Raj ended, there would be no room for the princely order in the new, egalitarian India.
Vanity Fair, which was essential reading among the British upper classes, often commended the Indian royals for their unswerving “loyalty” to the crown.
The magazine also featured the first Tory MP of Indian heritage, Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, a Parsi who was elected from Bethnal Green North East in London in 1895. This was a long time before the likes of Keith Vaz made their appearance in modern Britain in 1987.
Sometimes, the caricatures appeared to make fun of their subjects, while their biographies were more positive. On some occasions, it was the other way around – the biographies had a tinge of racism and reflected the superiority complex of the British while the caricatures themselves were inoffensive.
A total of 2,300 caricatures appeared between 1868, when Vanity Fair was founded, and 1914, when it ceased publication. They were mostly of “royalty, politicians, administrators, military officers, theatre artists, actors, scientists, writers and literary figures, scholars, lawyers, sportsmen, religious heads and businessmen”.
Joshi, who has been helped by a team of researchers, examined copies of Vanity Fair at the British Library. Her unusual and evocative book focuses on the 28 African and Asian personalities, 13 of them Indian, that appeared in the publication.
The author received helpful “guidance” from John Eade, professor of anthropology and sociology at Roehampton University. He said the caricatures and accompanying texts appeared “when British imperial and global expansion was at its height. It shines a much-needed light on how visiting celebrities of African and Asian descent were represented to British society, and the workings of race, class and gender before the cataclysm of the First World War.”
Speaking to Eastern Eye, the author gave an overview of the Indians in her book. She said: “Some our volunteer researchers looked at some of the caricatures and felt very incensed. ‘Why have they made us look ridiculous, especially Mansur Ali Khan, the Nawab Nazim of Bihar, Bengal and Orissa?’
“Rajinder Singh of Patiala, for example, was made to look like a buffoon, a real stick insect. This was unfair, because he wasn’t like that at all. He was quite a good-looking, very slim person.
“But some of the portraits are close to reality. Salar Jung, who was the Diwan (prime minister) of Hyderabad, is very positive. However, very often they cannot resist making a nasty and racist kind of remark in the biographies.
“(Thomas Gibson) Bowles, who was the founder editor, wrote almost all the biographies while he was at Vanity Fair. Leslie Ward, who drew under the name ‘Spy’, was prolific as a caricaturist. The biographies are sometimes tinged with a kind of superiority complex.”
The foreword to the book has been written by Lyn Innes, emeritus professor of postcolonial literatures, University of Kent, Canterbury. She is also the greatgranddaughter of Mansur Ali Khan, who on April 16, 1870, became the first Indian to be featured in Vanity Fair.
Innes writes: “He is portrayed as a small and unprepossessing man, distinguished by his large turban, oriental slippers and robes, and especially by his somewhat unspectacular spectacles.”
But she adds: “The caricature, by Alfred Thompson, is accompanied by the relatively sympathetic caption, ‘A Living Monument of English Injustice’, and biographical sketch explaining the British government’s mistreatment of the Nawab and his ancestors.
“The Nawab had just been presented to parliament, having come to England to petition the Queen and parliament for the restoration of the rights and moneys promised in 1757. Despite the sympathetic caption and account of his illtreatment, the Nawab was offended and annoyed by the caricature, which certainly contrasted with the regal portraits of himself and his ancestors back in his palace in Murshidabad.
“His secretary sought to mollify him by explaining that only the most important people were chosen as subjects for cartoons in Vanity Fair, and that he should consider his presence in the magazine an honour.”
She goes on: “Although several books about Vanity Fair's caricatures have been published over the past 70 years, none of them give more than very brief acknowledgement to the presence of Asian and African celebrities, unless they happen to be sportsmen. The timely publication of Selective Inclusion? African & Asian Celebrities in London's ‘Vanity Fair' magazine (1868-1914) at last draws attention to these significant visitors and residents from beyond Europe. In so doing it recovers a lost history of British political and social interaction with Asians and Africans, giving them a fuller and more human context and background.
“Furthermore, this book will encourage greater understanding of the history of cartoons and the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which they placed their subjects.”
Selective Inclusion? African & Asian celebrities in London's ‘Vanity Fair' magazine (1868-1914), by Dr Kusum Pant Joshi, has been printed in India. Copies available from the South Asian Cinema Foundation which has published the book.