The Nizam who craved to join the Indian Army

Credit: Special Arrangement

Credit: Special Arrangement

Credit: Special Arrangement

Credit: Special Arrangement

Credit: Special Arrangement

Credit: Special Arrangement

Credit: Special Arrangement

The end days of the eighth Nizam of Hyderabad and patriarch of the Asaf Jahi family, Mir Barkat Ali Khan Walashan Mukarram Jah Bahadur (6 October, 1933-14 January, 2023), were spent peacefully in his self-effacing Istanbul residence.

In a place of his choice, comfortable and presenting a scenic view, the Turkish house is a far cry from his abode back home in Hyderabad the Chiran Palace. Chiran sits amid a 398-acre estate which is now the KBR Park, lying at the intersection of posh Banjara and Jubilee Hills, where the Telangana's who's-who go for their morning jog.

The titular Nizam's other addresses of grandeur in Hyderabad include the imposing Falaknuma Palace, leased out and functioning as a five-star luxury hotel, spread over 32 acres on a hillock, run by the Taj Group, and the beautiful Chowmahalla, a stone's throw away from the iconic Charminar.

“Prince Mukarram Jah was a man of simplicity. That he had built the Chiran, a modern, (villa like) version of a palace, in the sixties, then far from the city also shows his love for nature,” a close friend of the family tells DH on the condition of anonymity.

Simple living was what Mukarram chose but it was not the vision his grandfather Mir Osman Ali Khan, the seventh and the last Nizam with immense power ruling a vast expanse in the Deccan now spread over three states, had for him when he was a youngster.

Superseding his sons Azam Jah, the Prince of Berar, and Moazzam Jah, the Nizam anointed his grandson Mukarram Jah as his successor in 1954.

Mukarram Jah is the son of Azam Jah, the son of “the richest man on the planet” then, and Durru Shehvar, daughter of Abdul Mejid II, the last Caliph of the Ottoman empire. Muffakham Jah is his younger brother.

“The seventh Nizam thought, as a descendant of two great bloodlines, Mukarram would have wide acceptability as the leader of the Muslim world,” says Mir Ayoob Ali Khan, a Hyderabad-based senior journalist and scholar on the Nizam era.

Another version is that the Nizam was disappointed in his two sons and saw his grandson Mukarram as the person most fit to succeed him.

Mukarram was schooled initially in Hyderabad, then at the Doon and his later education was at Harrow, London. He underwent military training at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

He was “better educated, better brought-up, not giving into the pomp and sycophancy that characterizes the royal regimes, courts.”

But the scenarios changed. The Nizam had to accede his dominions to the Indian Union in 1948, a year after the Indian independence from the British. Though vastly limited in power, influence, the Nizam title's aura remained high in Hyderabad circles, until 1971 when the Indira Gandhi government abolished the Privy Purses and withdrew the recognition given to the erstwhile rulers and their successors.

Till he was alive, the seventh Nizam annually received a sum of Rs 50 lakh free of all taxes for his privy purse.

Mukarram's elevation to the Nizam's gaddi (seat of power) took place in 1967, a few weeks after the demise of Mir Osman Ali Khan on 24 February 1967. His succession, inheritance of properties including the Nizam title, was challenged in the courts by close family members including his aunt Ahmadunnisa Begum.

Mukarram's love for nature, besides the manifest desire to distance himself from the darbar-palace wrangles, family feuds and courtroom battles, took him to faraway Australia. Moving there in the early seventies after the privy purse negation, “with the money he could gather selling off some jewellery etc,” Jah bought a vast sheep ranch north of Perth along the coast, said to be the size of a smaller European country.

The venture was not successful and in mid-nineties he moved to Turkey, his matriarchal link. He was born in Nice, France.

A man of energy, exuberance and eager ideas

Mukarram was a man full of energy, exuberance and a lot of eager ideas. His special interest was in automobiles, aircraft, earth-movers etc heavy machinery.

“He had this ambitious plan of opening an automobile manufacturing unit to make people's cars, on the lines of Volkswagen. Plans were submitted to the central government and discussions were held with Sanjay Gandhi too,” says Syed Inam-ur-Rahman, a Hyderabad researcher chronicling the Nizams.

Much earlier, PM Jawaharlal Nehru saw him fit to be a diplomat and later Indira Gandhi saw him as a potential vice-president candidate, “and conveyed the same to him too.”

“In the sixties he led a diplomatic delegation to Iraq. But he turned down Nehru's offer to become a full time diplomat, an envoy to the Muslim nations.”

“Mukarram Jah, who was a colonel in the Hyderabad army by virtue of his birth and became a second Lieutenant by his Sandhurst training, was very keen to join the Indian Army but Pandit Nehru dissuaded him,'' Inam-ur-Rahman says.

Mukarram had married five times. His first wife Princess Esra (Birgen) Jah, given the general power of attorney by Mukarram, is credited for the restoration of the majestic Chowmahalla and Falaknuma palaces.

Mukarram's visits to Hyderabad were rare and the last one is said to be over a decade ago.

Upon arrival from Turkey, Mukarram Jah's body was kept at the Chowmahalla Palace for the public to pay respects. On January 18, the titular Nizam was laid to rest as per the traditions and Telangana government's full state honours at the Asaf Jahi family tombs in the Mecca Masjid near Charminar.

Two days later, Mukarram and Esra's eldest son Mir Mohammed Azmat Ali Khan Azmet Jah, was made the successor, to head the 299 year old Asaf Jahi dynasty and “for all symbolic, ceremonial, titular and ancillary purposes.”

Azmet Jah (62), born and studied in the UK, is a professional photographer, who worked with Steven Spielberg, Richard Attenborough among other stalwarts and for a few Hollywood flicks.

The simple ceremony in the coronation hall of the Chowmahalla Palace anointing Azmet Jah was attended by immediate family members, trustees, well wishers etc.

However, much like his late father, Azmet Jah is already facing disapproval of some of the Nizam's descendants like Nawab Mir Najaf Ali Khan, Mukarram Jah's cousin, who is challenging his ascension to the gaddi.