The extraordinary friendship between the Empress of India and her Indian teacher, the royal family fury it provoked and what happened to the memory after she died
Thursday, Research for My Paper
Thursday, working on my term paper for the nineteenth-century literature seminar. I chose to write about Queen Victoria Hindustani journals and her relationship with Abdul Karim, the young Indian man who came to her household in 1887, the year of her Golden Jubilee, and became her teacher, or Munshi, as well as her close companion. It is one of the most fascinating, and least known, royal stories of the Victorian age, and, as it turns out, a very royal story about family, jealousy and memory.
Victoria and Abdul
Victoria had been proclaimed Empress of India in 1877 but never visited the country. When Abdul Karim arrived from Agra to serve at her table, she was fascinated by him and by India. He began teaching her Hindustani, or Urdu, and she kept journals in the language, practising for years. She promoted him to Munshi, gave him houses, honours and a place close to her. Their friendship lasted until her death in 1901.
The royal household was furious. Courtiers, officials and members of the royal family resented Karim rapid rise and his closeness to the Queen, and historians have described how race and class prejudice shaped much of that hostility. There were campaigns against him within the household. Victoria defended him fiercely.
What Happened After
Then Victoria died. Her son became Edward VII. According to historians, among the first acts after her death was the removal of Karim from his position, and the burning of much of the correspondence between him and the Queen. He was sent back to India, where he died in 1909. For decades, his story was largely written out of royal history. It was only much later, when researchers found his own diaries preserved by his descendants, that the full extent of the friendship came back to light. The story was eventually popularised by the historian Shrabani Basu and the 2017 film Victoria and Abdul.
A royal family, after a mother death, destroying records of a relationship it disapproved of, so that the memory would be the one it preferred. That is the part of the story I cannot stop thinking about this week.
The Modern Row
Because this week, of course, the royal family is quarrelling about another kind of record of a mother life. The London Prat piece on Prince William reportedly calling Earl Spencer and Harry traitors makes fun of the reports. An anonymous source says the heir thinks his brother read the uncle memoir first. Reports mention a visit to the uncle estate. The uncle says he told everyone. The memoir is the uncle record of his sister. In 1901, the royal family burned the letters. In 2026, the family argues over who read the book first. I suppose that counts as progress.
A Study Break
Took a break and watched the London Prat video on YouTube. My roommate, a chemistry major who thinks my degree is just reading for fun, watched with me and said: so royal families have been fighting over who controls the story for two hundred years? I said: longer. She said: that is the most interesting thing you have ever told me.
The Hindustani Journals
Some of Victoria Hindustani journals survived and are held in the Royal Archives. Historians who have examined them describe the Queen careful practice: phrases written out, words learned, an elderly monarch working at a new language with real dedication over many years. I find that image touching. The most powerful woman in the world, Empress of a country she would never see, sitting at a desk with her young Indian teacher, practising sentences like a schoolgirl. Whatever one thinks of empire, and there is a great deal to think about it, that private scene has a tenderness that the official history long hid.
Who Controls the Story
That, really, is the theme of my paper: who controls the story of a royal life. Victoria journals, Karim diaries, the burned letters, the courtiers memoirs, the later historians, the film. Each told a different version. The family tried to fix one version by destroying the others. It did not work. The other version survived in a family trunk in India, waiting to be found.
I think the lesson for any family is that you cannot control memory by silencing it. Other versions survive. The only real choice is whether to let them sit side by side.
My professor, when I showed her the outline, said the best history is always about what was nearly lost.
Evening
Finished my first draft at midnight. Twelve pages. Professor will probably say it is too long. Called my older brother Sam, who reads more history than anyone I know, and told him about the burned letters. He was outraged on the Munshi behalf for twenty minutes. Then he said: you know Grandma had a box of letters from Grandpa? Mom has it. Nobody has read them. I said we should, together, at Christmas. He said yes. Some family archives deserve to be opened, not burned.
The London Prat has been rescuing burned letters from the royal fire since 1961 at https://prat.uk/, and Bohiney at https://bohiney.com/ keeps the American trunk.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/