William Dalrymple - White Mughals

I began work on this book in the spring of 1997. Over the five yearsand many thousands of miles of travelsince then, innumerable people have been incredibly generous with their hospitality, time, expertise, advice, wisdom, pictures, editing skills, bottles of whisky, family papers, camp beds and cups of tea. They range from the nameless Sufi in a tomb in Bijapur who was kind enough to wave a peacock fan over me while I sat writing notes in the shade of his shrine, through to the best Biryani cook in Hyderabad (hes called Salim and you can find him in the dhaba facing the Chowk Masjid), to the old shepherd in Bidar who led me up a cliff face to show me the best view of the necropolis of Ashtur. Then of course there are the historians who explained the intricacies of Company, Maratha or Nizami politics, and the large number of very patient librarians in India and Britain who put up with my incessant manuscript queries. Perhaps most important of all, I should mention the descendants of James Achilles and Khair un-Nissa Kirkpatrick who, while choosing to remain anonymous, let me have unconditional access to their unique archive.

I would also like to thank the following by name:

In the UK: Bob Alderman, Charles Allen, Chris Bayly, Mark Bence-Jones, Richard Bingle, Richard Blurton, Jonathan Bond, Anne Buddle, Brendan Carnduff, Lizzie Collingham, Patrick Conner, Jeremy Currie, Jock Dalrymple, Philip Davies, Simon Digby, Alanna Dowling, Jenny Fraser, Sven Gahlin, Nile Green, Charles Grieg, Christopher Hawes, Amin Jaffer, Rosie Llewellyn Jones, Wak Kani, Paul Levy, Jerry Losty, John Malcolm, Sejal Mandalia, Peter Marshall, Gopali Mulji, Doris Nicholson, Henry Noltie, Alex Palmer, Iris Portal, Kathy Prior, Addie Ridge, Mian Ridge, Mahpara Safdar, Narindar Saroop, Ziaduddin Shakeb, Nick Shreeve, Robert Skelton, Fania Stoney, Allegra Stratton, Susan Stronge, Fariba Thomson, David and Leslie Vaughan, Philippa Vaughan, Brigid Waddams, Lucy Warrack, Theon Wilkinson, Amina Yaqin and the late Mark Zebrowski. Particular thanks are due to Mary-Anne Denison-Pender of the wonderful Western & Oriental Travel, who covered much of the cost of my various peregrinations around the Deccan, and also to the Scottish Arts Council whose generous travel grant covered a long research trip to the Delhi National Archives.

In the US: Indrani Chatterjee, Sabrina Dhawan, Michael Fisher, Bob Frykenberg, Durba Ghosh, Navina Haidar, Ali Akbar Husain, Maya Jasanoff, Omar Khalidi, Elbrun Kimmelman, Karen Leonard, Nabil Matar, Gail Minault, Eleni Phillon, Robert Travers, Sylvia Vatuk, Stuart Cary Welch and Peter Wood.

In India: Javed Abdulla, Mohamed Bafana, Rohit Kumar Bakshi, Pablo Bartholomew, V.K. Bawa, John Fritz, S. Gautam, Zeb un-Nissa Haidar, Elahe Hiptoola, Mir Moazam Husain, S. Asmath Jehan, Bashir Yar Jung, J. Kedareswari, A.R. Khaleel, Nawab Abid Hussain Khan, Pradip Krishen, Jean-Marie Lafont, Narendra Luther, George Michell, Jagdish Mittal, Sarojini Regani, Arundhati Roy, Laeeq Salah and Prita Trehan. I would especially like to thank Bilkiz Alladin for her generosity in sharing her Khair un-Nissa research, and also Nausheen and Yunus Jaffery for their help with Persian and Urdu sources.

David Godwin and Giles Gordon both worked incredibly hard in pushing this book forward. For their energy and enthusiasm many, many thanks. My different publishers have all been full of good adviceRobert Lacey, Helen Ellis, Arabella Pike and Aisha Rahman at HarperCollins; Ray Roberts and Paul Slovak at Penguin Putnam; David Davidar at Penguin India; Paolo Zaninoni at Rizzoli. Most of all I would like to thank Michael Fishwick, who has been as frank, funny, generous and wise in his guidance with this, our fifth book together, as he was with our first, In Xanadu, which he took on some sixteen years ago now.

Olivia has, I think, found living in a mnage trois with Khair un-Nissa a little more trying than she did previous cohabitations with Byzantine ascetics, taxi-stands full of Sikh drivers and the courtiers of Kubla Khan, but she has borne the five-year-long ordeal with characteristic gentleness and generosity. To herand to Ibby, Sam and Adama million thanks and much, much love yet again.

I would like to dedicate this book to Sam and Shireen Vakil Miller for their constant affection and friendship, first in Delhi and then in London, over the course of more than a decade; and to Bruce Wannell whose incredibly wide-ranging scholarship and wonderful translations from the Persian have done more than anything else to make this book quite as unfeasibly long as it is.

WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
Pages Yard, 1 July 2002

The British Residency complex that James Achilles Kirkpatrick built in Hyderabad, now the Osmania Womens College, is recognised as one of the most important colonial buildings in India, but its fabric is in very bad shape and it was recently placed on the World Monuments Funds list of One Hundred Most Endangered Buildings. A non-profit-making trust has now been set up to fund conservation efforts. Anyone who would like more information, or to make a donation, should contact Friends of Osmania Womens College, India, Inc., a tax-exempt 501(c)3 not-for-profit organisation aimed at restoring the Osmania/British Residency buildings and site:

James Dalrymple Papers, Mss Eur E330

Elphinstone Papers, Mss Eur F88

Fowke Papers, Mss Eur E6.66

Gardner Papers, Mss Eur C304

Kirkpatrick Papers, Mss Eur F228

Memoirs of William Prinsep, Mss Eur D1160

Strachey Papers, Mss Eur F127

Edward Stracheys Diaries, Mss Eur F128

Sutherland Papers, Mss Eur D547

GE Westmacotts Ms Travels in India, Mss Eur C29

Home Miscellaneous 464, Report of an Examination instituted by the direction of his Excellency the most noble Governor General, Fort St. George 7th Nov 1801

Home Miscellaneous 743, The Affairs Of Messrs Wm Palmer & Co, Extract From Bengal Pol Cons 7th Oct 1825

Bengal Wills 1780-1804, L/AG/34/29/4-16

Madras Inventories, L/AG/34/29/185-210

Bengal Regimental Orders, IOR/P/BEN/SEC

Bengal Political Consultations, IOR/P/117/18

Warren Hastings Papers, Add Mss 29,172, Vol. XLI, 1790

Anderson Papers, Add Mss 45,427

Brit Mus Egerton MS 2123

Wellesley Papers, Add Mss 13,582-

Russell Correspondence, Ms Eng Letts C155-7, C174, D150, D151

Palmer Papers, Ms Eng Lit C176

Ms Bodley Or. 430

Kennaway Papers, B961M, ADD/F2

Kennaway Files

Palk Files

De Boigne archive

Gardner Papers, NAM 6305-56

The Will of Lieut Col James Dalrymple, Hussein Sagar, 8 December 1800: GD135/2086

Papers of Alexander Walker, NLS 13,601-14,193,