UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Writing the Inter-Imperial World in Afghan North India ca. 1774 – 1857 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Naveena Naqvi 2018 © Copyright by Naveena Naqvi 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Writing the Inter-Imperial World in Afghan North India ca. 1774 – 1857 by Naveena Naqvi Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Nile Spencer Green, Co-Chair Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Co-Chair Drawing upon the writings of service professionals, including soldiers, scribes, legal officials and petty bureaucrats, Writing the Inter-Imperial World in Afghan North India (ca. 1774 – 1857) is a study of perspectives on political and social change during the transition to colonialism. From 1774, as the East India Company conquered the semi-autonomous Rohilla state and introduced new administrative measures, service professionals—who were key mediators of changes in governance—were faced with a choice: should they implement, actively resist or escape this development? Departing from historiography that has seen such figures through the eyes of the Company archive, this dissertation seeks to investigate how they documented their encounter with incipient modes of colonial rule. In a range of original works, comprising Persian and Urdu memoirs, biographies, chronicles and poetry, they elaborated their ii circumstances within and beyond the former Afghan principalities, reflecting on the regional frontiers that were constantly shifting in their lifetimes as an older skein of imperial provinces was being eroded. My dissertation argues that through their writings these figures generated a political discourse centered on distinctive conceptions of regional and imperial politics, history, service, and customary law. This discourse continued to echo in the provinces through the nineteenth century, even as the history of these actors was obscured by the rise of colonial and nationalist modernity. iii The dissertation of Naveena Naqvi is approved. Michael David Cooperson Nile Spencer Green, Committee Co-Chair Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Committee Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv Table of Contents Introduction… 1 Chapter 1. Taking Note: Scribal Authority in Afghan North India I. Introduction… 32 II. Inshāʾ-yi Hosh Afzā: Letters from a Qaṣba under Siege 2.1 The Munshī and Mughal Decentralization… 37 2.2 Yatīmī’s Letters on Administration in Sahaswān… 40 2.3 Epistles on Etiquette and Correct Behavior… 44 2.4 Yatīmī’s Views on Political Unrest and Ethnic Identity… 46 III. The Kawāʾif al-Sair: A Munshī’s Notes on the Qaṣbāt of Kaṭehr 3.1 The Rohilla War (1774) and the “Ecumene” … 51 3.2 The Circumstances of Aḥmad Alī’s Journey… 55 3.3 History, Antiquarianism and the Written Record… 60 3.4 On the Spectrum between the Mughal Safarnāma and the Colonial Gazetteer… 66 3.5. Aḥmad ‘Alī and ‘Ibrat (Lesson) from the Past… 68 IV. Conclusion… 71 Chapter 2. Bureaucrat Memoirists at the Twilight of the Ancien Régime I. Introduction… 74 II. Looking West: Mediating an ‘Encounter’ between Mughal and Durrānī Royalty 2.1 ʿAbbās ʿAlī Khān’s Context… 77 2.2 From Rāmpur to Kabul with a Runaway Prince… 84 2.3 A Hindustāni Wakīl in the Durrānī Court… 87 III. Looking East: Servicemen and the East India Company in the Rohilla Territories 3.1 Interregional Diplomacy: Lineages of Service and Education… 93 3.2 ʿAbd al-Qādir Khān: Muslim Scholars and the Company in the Nineteenth- Century… 103 3.3 From Āzarbāijān to Rāmpur: Family, Teachers, and Genealogies of Service… 106 3.4 The Scholars of Rāmpur in Times of Khudsarī… 110 v IV. Conclusion… 116 Chapter 3. Soldierly Histories: The Written World of Military Service I. Introduction… 119 II. Sources of Soldierly Histories 2.1 Āfrīdī’s Collected Works… 123 2.2 Waqāʾiʿ-yi Holkar and the Amīrnāma… 131 III. Community and Honor in the Military Labor Market 3.1 Piṇḍārīs and the East India Company… 137 3.2 Honor and Community in the Risāla, Amīrnāma and Waqāʾiʿyi Holkar…140 IV. Genealogy, Ethnicity and Independent Soldiering… 148 V. A Soldierly Service Ethic in the Military Labor Market… 156 VI. Conclusion… 162 Chapter 4. Writing Custom and Mediating Law under the Company Sarkār I. Introduction… 165 II. Colonial Conquest and Regional Legal Regimes 2.1 Anglo-Muhammadan Law and Afghān Custom… 169 2.2 Regional Functionaries: Interpreting Law in the Ceded Territories… 174 III. Qānūn-i Khāndān-i Rohillahā: A Canon for the Rohilla Family 3.1 ʿAṭaʾ-yi Sulṭānī: The Curse of the Royal Gift… 185 3.2 ʿUrf, Sharīʾa, Women and the Company’s Legal Regime… 190 3.3 Karīmullah Khān’s Petition: Persianate Documentation and the Legal Regime… 200 IV. Conclusion… 202 Conclusion… 205 Bibliography… 209 vi Maps and figures 1. Map of Aḥmad ʿAlī’s Journey through Rohilla Afghān Territories… 60 2. A Map of the Journey undertaken by ʿAbd al-Qādir Khān’s Family from the South Caucasus to India, c.1730 -1800… 107 3. A Tabular Representation of the List of “Afghān” and “Hindustānī” Scholars… 112 4. A page from the glossary, Āfrīdī Nāma… 129 5. A painting depicting Amīr Khān at the far-right corner as Yashwantrāo Holkar’s servant… 146 6. The Nasabnāma on the flyleaf of the Qānūn-i Khāndān-i Rohillahā… 190 7. A page displaying signatories to a fatwā’ pertaining to the inheritance of the Bangash family… 192 vii Transliteration Style Sheet • I have modified the IJMES system of transliteration for Persian to incorporate diacritical marks that indicate retroflex consonants in Indic words. • I have prioritized original orthography as found in primary sources, over pronunciation. • I have used Arabic plurals for Arabic words used in Persian; in all other instances, I have used Persian forms of singular and plural nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. q ق r ر ʾ ء k ک/ك ṛ ڑ b ب g گ z ز p پ l ل zh ژ t ت m م s س t ٹ n ن sh ش s ث h, e ه ṣ ص j ج w, ū, o, au و ż ض ch چ ī ي ṭ ط ḥ ح y, e, ay ے ẓ ظ kh خ ʿ ِ -i, yi ع d د gh غ ḍ ڈ f ف z ذ viii Acknowledgements Since enrolling in the History PhD program at UCLA I have accumulated a heavy debt of gratitude to the many individuals who helped steer me to completion. Having finished my dissertation, it is an honor to be able to offer them these thanks. Through the pre-PhD years, the history classes that I took as a BA and MA student in Delhi University with Shahid Amin, Arup Banerji, Sunil Kumar, Anshu Malhotra, Dilip Menon, Shivshankar Menon, Upinder Singh and Rohit Wanchoo, introduced me to a world of critical thought and historical inquiry. As a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University, I took a transformative class with with Neeladri Bhattacharya on historical methods. I also had numerous enriching discussions with Lakshmi Subramanian and Tanika Sarkar about the social history of music in Rampur and Calcutta in the late nineteenth century, the subject of my MPhil research. Under their guidance, I began what later become a profund attachment to the world of archives and libraries. I felt less alone in this new-found practice in the company of my fellow-researchers at JNU, Meghna Chaudhuri, Mekhola Gomes, Par Larson, Anandaroop Sen, and Charu Singh, among others. Taken together, over the course of a BA, an MA and an MPhil in History, I slowly discovered historical research, aside from being all-absorbing, was grounded in friendship. At UCLA, I have been fortunate to have had two co-chairs who mentored me as I found my way to a subject of inquiry. Nile Green patiently read every chapter in multiple drafts, printing all of them out and writing detailed comments on the last page, pushing me towards more clarity and skilfull use of my materials. I also learnt from him that one never has an idea until it is down on paper and how to overcome the fear of imperfect prose. How he guided me and remained so accessible to me as he juggled multiple research projects will always be something I remember with tremendous gratitude. On days that I rewrote my prospectus from ix scratch or solicited feedback on chapters, Sanjay Subrahmanyam offered comments and was there to speak with me encouragingly and always with characteristically extensive references to works that I had not previously considered or was unaware of. He has illustrated through his own career how to be ambitiously imaginative as one goes about excavating the past. I hope to do some justice to the example of erudition he set in my own career. Besides my co-chairs, it was a privilege to have Bin Wong and Michael Cooperson on the dissertation committee. Bin Wong read and discussed chapters of the dissertation at various stages with me and frequently offered helpful comments. Michael Cooperson made important suggestions at different junctures before I undertook research and after I wrote the chapters. At UCLA, I also benefitted from the warmth and encouragement of other faculty and staff members who nurtured a sense of community amongst graduate students. Latifeh Hagigi, Vinay Lal, Elizabeth Leicester, Muriel McClendon, Sumita Mitra, Hadley Porter, Teofilo Ruiz, Eboni Shaw, Kamarin Takahara and Stefania Tutino were wonderfully helpful at important moments in my career as a scholar. My peers and colleagues in Los Angeles were unswervingly generous and supportive through classes, research travels and drafting chapters. At different stages of the program, Ceren Abi, Sam Anderson, Jorge Arias, Reem Bailony, Roii Ball, Sohaib Beg, Arnon Degani, Joshua Herr, Suleiman Hodali, Pauline Lewis, Marena Lin, Vivian Lu, Naveed Mansoori, Nana Osei-Opare, Michael O’Sullivan, Michelle Quay, Kathryn Renton, Shana Roth-Gormley, Guillermo Ruiz Stovel, Nir Shafir, Sahba Shayani, Terenjit Singh Sevea, Pallavi Sriram, Eoghan Stafford, Madina Thiam, Levi Thompson, Sarah Walsh, Marjan Wardaki, Angie and Sam Wight, Murat Yildiz, and numerous others, listened to me ramble about my research ideas and shared my struggles and joys as I continually adjusted to life as an aspiring historian of South Asia living in California.