Ragged princelings queue for pennnies and remember glory days

LETTER FROM INDIA:FOR THE scions of the nawabs or noblemen of the old kingdom of Oudh in India's northern Uttar Pradesh province, the first day of each month is a nostalgic flashback to their glorious past.

On this day, several hundreds of these hereditary pensioners, called wasiq-e-dars, or endowment holders, gather their tattered dignity and threadbare clothing and flock to the faded glory of the Picture Art Gallery in Lucknow, Oudh's former capital, 300 miles southeast of New Delhi, to collect their pensions in a ceremony dating back to the mid-17th century.

As their names are announced, each wasiq-e-dar proudly marches up to the wasiqa officer to accept his meagre pension, ranging from Rs1.06 to Rs569 (€0.013 to €9.11) from the trustees of the more than 340-year-old endowment fund.

"I have to spend more than Rs100 just to collect this amount, which will give me nothing but satisfaction that I am being recognised as a member of one of India's most distinguished royal families," Naseema Raza, who receives Rs121.81, says.

"The money means nothing to the wasiq-e-dars,most of whom live in abject poverty," Anwar Rizvi, a descendant of a local princely Muslim family says. It's the ritual that is priceless and they would not give it up for anything, he added.

Some wasiq-e-dars, like Nurul Hasan and his brother Zahurul, travel all the way from Britain once a year at great expense to collect their endowment of Rs30 a month, merely for the honour of receiving it.

What matters most to them is that for one day each of them is officially acknowledged a nobleman, descended from illustrious rulers like Wajid Ali Shah, the last Oudh king.

Wajid, known as much for his poetry and dancing as for his licentiousness, was exiled to Calcutta by the East India Company in 1856, in what many local historians claim as one of the most treacherous betrayals by the greedy British during their occupation of India.

Most, if not all pensioners are unemployed, or eke out miserable existences as tonga or horse cart drivers, kebab makers or at best, small shopkeepers. Before and after the ritual, these nawabs for a day strut around the Gallery's unkempt gardens, preening themselves as if still a part of the opulent and profligate Oudh court, only to return to their wretched lives after receiving their paltry gratuity.

Oudh was one of the richest north Indian kingdoms in the 17th and 18th centuries and a repository of Muslim culture, poetry and cuisine. Its nawabs were considered the most stylish, urbane and indolent of all Indian rulers, their wealth permitting them a lifestyle that included endless gatherings of poets and intellectuals alongside erotic burlesques by professional dancing girls and extensive bacchanalian orgies lasting days.

The monthly disbursement of pensions dates to the mid-17th century, when Bahu Begum, wife of Shuja-ud-daula, one of Oudh's early rulers, pledged cash and jewellery with the British East India Company to ensure monthly stipends in perpetuity for hundreds of retainers, scores of her husband's legitimate and illegitimate offspring and their descendants.

Subsequent Oudh nawabs and rulers of smaller principalities also pledged varying amounts in trust with the East India Company. These endowments eventually accrued to the British government, which formally inducted India into its empire in 1858, a year after the Sepoy Mutiny which threatened British rule in India. After independence in 1947, they passed to the Indian government.

With an endowment fund of around $10 million around the mid-19th century and annual disbursements of over Rs1 million - a vast amount for the period. The 3,000-odd wasiq-e-darslived well.

Some even set up mini-courts in the style of their flamboyant ancestors in rambling mansions across Lucknow, some of which still survive.

But by the end of the century however, mismanagement, corruption and ceaseless litigation resulted in significantly lower monthly disbursements. Despite this, however, many wasiq-e-darsmaintained a facade of grandeur by borrowing large sums at extortionate rates of interest from money lenders.By the 1940s a majority of these royal pensioners had become paupers.

Feeble efforts last year, the 150th anniversary of the 1857 mutiny, by some wasiq-e-darsto lobby the provincial administration to not only re-evaluate their pensions but also to officially acknowledge their historical legacy proved unsuccessful.

Local historians and antiquarians, however, maintain that these Muslim noblemen remain a link to India's past splendour and need nurturing till they eventually fade away.