Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER III

Con­tin­ua­tion of Mahur­rum.--Con­se­cra­tion of Ban­ners.--Dur­gah at Luc­know.--Its ori­gin ex­plained.--Re­gard­ed with pe­cu­liar ven­er­ation.--The Nuwaub vows to build a new one.--Its de­scrip­tion.--Pro­ces­sion to the Dur­gah.--Na­joomies.--In­flu­ence pos­sessed and prac­tised by them.--Eu­nuchs.--Anec­dotes of some hav­ing at­tained great hon­ours and wealth.--Presents be­stowed up­on them gen­er­al­ly re­vert to the donor.--Rich at­tire of male and fe­male slaves.

Af­ter the Tazia is brought home (as the tem­po­rary ones are from the bazaar on the eve of Mahur­rum, at­tend­ed by a cer­emo­ni­ous dis­play of per­sons, mu­sic, flags, flam­beaux, &c.), there is lit­tle to re­mark of out-​door pa­rade be­yond the con­tin­ual ac­tiv­ity of the mul­ti­tude mak­ing the sa­cred vis­its to their sev­er­al Emaum-​baarahs, un­til the fifth day, when the ban­ners are con­veyed from each of them in solemn pro­ces­sion, to be con­se­crat­ed at the Dur­gah[1] (lit­er­al­ly trans­lat­ed, 'The thresh­old' or 'En­trance to a sanc­ti­fied place').

This cus­tom is per­haps ex­clu­sive­ly ob­served by the in­hab­itants of Luc­know, where I have had the priv­ilege of ac­quir­ing a knowl­edge of the mo­tives which guide most of their pro­ceed­ings; and as there is a sto­ry at­tached to the Dur­gah, not gen­er­al­ly known to Eu­ro­pean vis­itors, I pro­pose re­lat­ing it here, as it par­tic­ular­ly tends to ex­plain the rea­sons for the Mus­sul­mauns con­vey­ing their ban­ners for con­se­cra­tion to that cel­ebrat­ed shrine.

'A na­tive of In­dia--I for­get his name--re­mark­able for his de­vo­tion and holy life, un­der­took the pil­grim­age to Mec­ca; whilst en­gaged in these du­ties at the “holy house”, he was vis­it­ed with a prophet­ic dream. Abass Ali (the stan­dard-​bear­er and re­la­tion of Ho­sein) ap­peared to him in his dream, com­mand­ing him, that as soon as his du­ties at Mec­ca were ful­filled he should, with­out de­lay, pro­ceed to Kraabaal­lah, to the tomb of Ho­sein; di­rect­ing him, with great pre­ci­sion, how he was to find the ex­act spot of earth where was de­posit­ed the very Al­lum[2] (ban­ner) of Ho­sein, which he (Abass Ali) had, on the great day of Kraabaal­lah, car­ried to the field. The man was fur­ther in­struct­ed to pos­sess him­self of this rel­ic se­cret­ly, and con­vey it about his per­son un­til he should reach his na­tive coun­try, when he would be more ful­ly di­rect­ed by the or­der­ings of Prov­idence how the rel­ic should be dis­posed of.

'The Had­jee fol­lowed all the in­junc­tions he had re­ceived punc­tu­al­ly; the ex­act spot was eas­ily dis­cov­ered, by the im­pres­sions from his dream; and, fear­ing the jeal­ousy of the Arabs, he used the ut­most pre­cau­tion, work­ing by night, to se­cure to him­self the pos­ses­sion of so in­es­timable a prize, with­out ex­cit­ing their sus­pi­cion, or at­tract­ing the no­tice of the nu­mer­ous pil­grims who thronged the shrine by day. Af­ter sev­er­al nights of se­vere labour he dis­cov­ered, to his great joy, the met­al crest of the ban­ner; and con­clud­ing the ban­ner and staff to have moul­dered away, from their hav­ing been so long en­tombed in the earth, he cau­tious­ly se­cret­ed the crest about his per­son, and af­ter en­dur­ing the many vi­cis­si­tudes and pri­va­tions, at­ten­dant on the long jour­ney from Ara­bia to In­dia, he fi­nal­ly suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing Luc­know in safe­ty with his prize.

'The Nuwaub Asof ood Duo­lah[3] ruled at this pe­ri­od in Oude; the pil­grim made his ad­ven­tures known to him, nar­rat­ing his dream, and the cir­cum­stances which led to his gain­ing pos­ses­sion of the crest. The Nuwaub gave full cre­dence to his sto­ry, and be­came the hold­er of the rel­ic him­self, re­ward­ing the Had­jee hand­some­ly for his trou­ble, and gave im­me­di­ate or­ders for a small build­ing to be erect­ed un­der the de­nom­ina­tion of “Huzerut Abass Ali Ke Dur­gah”,[4] in which the crest was safe­ly de­posit­ed with due hon­ours, and the for­tu­nate pil­grim was ap­point­ed guardian with a lib­er­al salary.

'In the course of time, this Dur­gah grew in­to great re­pute amongst the gen­er­al class­es of the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion, who, ven­er­at­ing their Emaum Ho­sein, had more than com­mon re­spect for this tri­fle, which they be­lieved had been used in his per­son­al ser­vice. Here the pub­lic were per­mit­ted to of­fer their sac­ri­fices and obla­tions to God, on oc­ca­sions of im­por­tance to them­selves; as af­ter the per­for­mance of the rite of cir­cum­ci­sion in par­tic­ular, grand pro­ces­sions were formed con­vey­ing the youth­ful Mus­sul­maun, rich­ly at­tired, at­tend­ed by mu­sic, &c. and of­fer­ing presents of mon­ey and sweet­meats at the shrine which con­tains their Emaum's sa­cred rel­ic. On these oc­ca­sions the beg­gars of ev­ery de­nom­ina­tion were ben­efit­ed by the lib­er­al­ity of the grate­ful fa­ther, and the of­fer­ings at the shrine be­came the prop­er­ty of the guardian of the Dur­gah, who, it was ex­pect­ed, would deal out from his re­ceipts to the ne­ces­si­tous as oc­ca­sions served.'

This cus­tom is still ob­served, with equal ven­er­ation for the shrine and its de­posit; and when a la­dy re­cov­ers from the per­ils at­ten­dant on giv­ing to her hus­band's house a de­sired heir, she is con­veyed, with all the pomp and pa­rade due to her rank in life, to this Dur­gah, at­tend­ed by her fe­male rel­atives, friends, do­mes­tics, eu­nuchs, and slaves, in cov­ered con­veyances; in her train are gen­tle­men on horse­back, in palkies, or on ele­phants, to do hon­our to the joy­ful event; the Guardian's wife hav­ing charge on these oc­ca­sions of the ladies' vis­its; and the Guardian, with the gen­tle­men and all the males, guard­ing the sanc­tu­ary out­side; for they are not per­mit­ted to en­ter whilst it is oc­cu­pied by the ladies, the eu­nuchs alone hav­ing that priv­ilege where fe­males con­gre­gate.

Re­cov­ery from sick­ness, preser­va­tion from any grievous calami­ty, dan­ger, or oth­er event which ex­cites grate­ful feel­ings, are the usu­al in­duce­ments to vis­it­ing the Dur­gah, with both males and fe­males, amongst the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion of Luc­know. These re­cur­rences yield am­ple stores of cash, clothes, &c. left at the dis­pos­al of the Guardian, who, if a good man, dis­pers­es these char­ita­ble do­na­tions amongst the in­di­gent with a lib­er­al­ity equal to that of the donors in their var­ious of­fer­ings.

The Dur­gah had grown in­to gen­er­al re­spect, when a cer­tain reign­ing Nuwaub was af­flict­ed by a se­vere and te­dious ill­ness, which baf­fled the skill of his physi­cians, and re­sist­ed the pow­er of the medicine re­sort­ed to for his re­cov­ery. A con­fi­den­tial Na­joom[5] (as­trologer), in the ser­vice of his High­ness, of great re­pute in his pro­fes­sion, ad­vised his mas­ter to make a vow, that 'If in the wis­dom of Di­vine Prov­idence his health should be re­stored, he would build a new Dur­gah on the site of the old one, to be ded­icat­ed to Abass Ali, and to be the shrine for the sa­cred de­posit of the crest of Ho­sein'. The Nuwaub, it ap­pears, re­cov­ered rapid­ly af­ter the vow had been made, and he went in great pomp and state to re­turn thanks to God in this Dur­gah, sur­round­ed by the no­bles and of­fi­cers of his Court, and the whole strength of his es­tab­lish­ment ac­com­pa­nied him on the oc­ca­sion. So grand was the spec­ta­cle, that the old peo­ple of the city talk of it at this day as a scene nev­er equalled in the an­nals of Luc­know, for splen­dour and mag­nif­icence; im­mense sums of mon­ey were dis­tribut­ed on the road to the pop­ulace, and at the Dur­gah; the mul­ti­tude, of all class­es, hail­ing his eman­ci­pa­tion from the couch of sick­ness with deaf­en­ing cheers of vo­cif­er­ous ex­ul­ta­tion.

In ful­fil­ment of his vow, the Nuwaub gave im­me­di­ate or­ders for erect­ing the mag­nif­icent ed­ifice, which now graces the sub­urbs of Luc­know, about five miles from that part of the city usu­al­ly oc­cu­pied by the Sovereign Ruler of the province of Oude. By virtue of the Nuwaub's vow and re­cov­ery, the be­fore-​re­spect­ed Dur­gah has, thus new­ly built, in­creased in favour with the pub­lic; and, on ac­count of the ven­er­ation they have for all that con­cerns their Emaums, the ban­ners which adorn the Tazias of Ho­sein must be con­se­crat­ed by be­ing brought to this sa­cred ed­ifice; where, by the con­de­scend­ing per­mis­sion of the Sovereign, both the rich and the poor are with equal favour ad­mit­ted, at that in­ter­est­ing pe­ri­od of Mahur­rum, to view the crest of their Lead­er, and present their own ban­ners to be touched and thus hal­lowed by the, to them, sa­cred rel­ic. The crest is fixed to a staff, but no ban­ner at­tached to it; this is placed with­in a high rail­ing, sup­port­ed by a plat­form, in the cen­tre of the build­ing; on ei­ther side splen­did ban­ners are ex­hib­it­ed on these oc­ca­sions.

The Dur­gah is a square build­ing, en­tered by flights of steps from the court-​yard; the ban­ner of each per­son is con­veyed through the right en­trance, op­po­site the plat­form, where it is im­me­di­ate­ly pre­sent­ed to touch the revered crest; this is on­ly the work of a few sec­onds; that par­ty walks on, and moves out to the left again in­to the court-​yard; the next fol­lows in rapid suc­ces­sion, and so on till all have per­formed this du­ty: by this ar­range­ment, con­fu­sion is ob­vi­at­ed; and, in the course of the day, per­haps forty or fifty thou­sand ban­ners[6] may have touched the Emaum's con­se­crat­ed crest. On these oc­ca­sions, the vast pop­ula­tion of Luc­know may be imag­ined by the al­most count­less mul­ti­tude, of ev­ery rank, who vis­it this Dur­gah: there is no tax levied on the peo­ple, but the sums col­lect­ed must be im­mense, since ev­ery one con­sci­en­tious­ly of­fers some­thing, ac­cord­ing to his in­cli­na­tion or his means, out of pure re­spect to the mem­ory of Ho­sein.

The or­der of pro­ces­sion, ap­point­ed by each no­ble pro­pri­etor of ban­ners, to be con­se­crat­ed at the Dur­gah, forms a grand spec­ta­cle. There is no ma­te­ri­al dif­fer­ence in their count­less num­bers; the most wealthy and the mean­est sub­jects of the province make dis­plays com­men­su­rate with their abil­ity, whilst those per­sons who make the most cost­ly ex­hi­bi­tions en­joy the great­est share of pop­ular favour, as it is con­sid­ered a proof of their de­sire to do hon­our to the mem­ory of Ho­sein and Hasan, their ven­er­at­ed Emaums.

A de­scrip­tion of one, just pass­ing my house, will give you a gen­er­al idea of these pro­ces­sions,--it be­longs to a rich man of the city:--A guard of sol­diers sur­rounds four ele­phants on which sev­er­al men are seat­ed, on pads or cush­ions, sup­port­ing the ban­ners; the staffs of sev­er­al are of sil­ver,--the spread hand, and oth­er crests, are formed of the same met­al, set with pre­cious stones. Each ban­ner--they all re­sem­ble--is in the shape of a long scarf of rich silk, of bright florid colours, em­broi­dered very deep at the ends, which are fin­ished with gold and sil­ver bul­lion fringes; it is caught to­geth­er near the mid­dle, and tied with rich gold and sil­ver cords and tas­sels to the top of the staff, just un­der the hand or crest. The silks, I ob­serve, are of many dif­fer­ent colours, form­ing an agree­able va­ri­ety, some blue, pur­ple, green, yel­low, &c. Red is not used; be­ing the Soonies' dis­tin­guish­ing colour at Mahur­rum it is care­ful­ly avoid­ed by the zeal­ous Sheahs--the Soonies are vi­olent­ly op­posed to the cel­ebra­tion of this fes­ti­val. Af­ter the ele­phants, a band of mu­sic fol­lows, com­posed of ev­ery va­ri­ety of Na­tive in­stru­ments, with drums and fifes; the trum­pets strike me as the great­est nov­el­ty in their band; some of them are very long and pow­er­ful in their ef­fect.

Next in the or­der of pro­ces­sion I ob­serve a man in deep mourn­ing, sup­port­ing a black pole, on which two swords are sus­pend­ed from a bow re­versed--the swords un­sheathed glit­ter­ing in the sun. The per­son who owns the ban­ners, or his deputy, fol­lows next on foot, at­tend­ed by read­ers of the Musseeah, and a large par­ty of friends in mourn­ing. The read­ers se­lect such pas­sages as are par­tic­ular­ly ap­pli­ca­ble to the part Abass Ali took in the af­fair at Kraabaal­lah, which is chant­ed at in­ter­vals, the pro­ces­sion paus­ing for that pur­pose.

Then comes Dhull Dhull,[7]--the name of Ho­sein's horse at Kraabaal­lah;--that se­lect­ed for the present pur­pose is a hand­some white Arab, ca­parisoned ac­cord­ing to the old­en style of Ara­bia: due care is tak­en to rep­re­sent the prob­able suf­fer­ings of both an­imal and rid­er, by the bloody horse­cloth--the red-​stained legs--and the ar­rows ap­par­ent­ly stick­ing in sev­er­al parts of his body; on the sad­dle is fixed a tur­ban in the Ara­bi­an style, with the bow and ar­rows;--the bri­dle, &c. are of very rich em­broi­dery; the stir­rups and mount­ings of sol­id sil­ver. The horse and all its at­tire are giv­en af­ter Mahur­rum, in char­ity, to a poor Syaad. Foot­men, with the af­thaadah[8] and chowrie[9]--pe­cu­liar em­blems of roy­al­ty in In­dia--at­tend Dhull Dhull. The friends of the fam­ily walk near the horse; then ser­vants of all class­es, to fill up the pa­rade, and many foot-​sol­diers, who oc­ca­sion­al­ly fire singly, giv­ing to the whole de­scrip­tion a mil­itary ef­fect.

I have seen many oth­er pro­ces­sions on these fifth days of Mahur­rum--they all par­take of one style,--some more splen­did than oth­ers; and the very poor peo­ple pa­rade their ban­ners, with, per­haps, no oth­er ac­com­pa­ni­ment than a sin­gle drum and fife, and the own­er sup­port­ing his own ban­ner.

My next let­ter will con­tain the pro­ces­sion of Mayn­dhie, which forms a grand fea­ture of Mahur­rum dis­play on the sev­enth night.

P.S.--The Na­joomee are men gen­er­al­ly with some learn­ing, who, for their sup­posed skill in as­trol­ogy, have, in all ages since Mahu­mud's death, been more or less court­ed and ven­er­at­ed by the Mus­sul­maun peo­ple;--I should say, with those who have not the fear of God stronger in their hearts than the love of the world and its van­ities;--the re­al­ly re­li­gious peo­ple dis­coun­te­nance the whole sys­tem and pre­tend­ed art of the as­trologer.

It is won­der­ful the in­flu­ence a Na­joom ac­quires in the hous­es of many great men in In­dia;--wher­ev­er one of these idlers is en­ter­tained he is the or­acle to be con­sult­ed on all oc­ca­sions, whether the re­quired so­lu­tion be of the ut­most im­por­tance, or the mer­est tri­fling sub­ject. I know those who sub­mit, with a child­like docil­ity, to the Na­joom's opin­ion, when their bet­ter rea­son, if al­lowed to sway, would de­cide against the as­trologer's pre­dic­tion. If Na­joom says it is not prop­er for Nuwaub Sahib, or his Be­gum, to eat, to drink, to sleep, to take medicine, to go from home, to give away or ac­cept a gift, or any oth­er ac­tion which hu­man rea­son is the best guide to de­cide up­on, Na­joom has said it,--and Na­joom must be right. Na­joom can make peace or war, in the fam­ily he over­rules, at his plea­sure; and many are the hous­es di­vid­ed against them­selves by the wicked in­flu­ence of a bad man, thus ex­er­cis­ing his crafty wiles over the weak­ness of his cred­ulous mas­ter.--So much for Na­joomee; and now for my sec­ond no­tice of the Eu­nuchs:--[10]

They are in great re­quest among the high­est or­der of peo­ple, and from their long so­journ in a fam­ily, this class of be­ings are gen­er­al­ly faith­ful­ly at­tached to the in­ter­est and wel­fare of their em­ploy­er; they are much in the con­fi­dence of their mas­ter and mis­tress, and very sel­dom be­tray their trust. Be­ing fre­quent­ly pur­chased, whilst chil­dren, from the base wretch­es who have stolen them in in­fan­cy from the parental roof, they of­ten grow up to a good old age with the fam­ily by whom they are adopt­ed; they en­joy many priv­ileges de­nied to oth­er class­es of slaves;--are ad­mit­ted at all hours and sea­sons to the zeenah­nahs; and of­ten, by the lib­er­al­ity of their pa­trons, be­come rich and hon­ourable;--still 'he is but a slave', and when he dies, his prop­er­ty re­verts to his own­er.

In Oude there have been many in­stances of Eu­nuchs ar­riv­ing to great hon­our, dis­tinc­tions, and vast pos­ses­sions. Al Mauss Ali Khaun[11] was of the num­ber, with­in the rec­ol­lec­tion of many who sur­vive him; he was the favoured Eu­nuch of the House of Oude; a per­son of great at­tain­ments, and gift­ed with a re­mark­ably su­pe­ri­or mind, he was ap­point­ed Col­lec­tor over an im­mense tract of coun­try, by the then reign­ing Nuwaub, whose coun­cils he ben­efit­ed by his great judg­ment. He lived to a good old age, in the un­lim­it­ed con­fi­dence of his prince, and en­joyed the good will and af­fec­tion of all who could ap­pre­ci­ate what is valu­able in hon­est in­tegri­ty. He died as he had lived, in the most per­fect res­ig­na­tion to what­ev­er was the will of God, in whose mer­cy he trust­ed through time, and for eter­ni­ty. Many of the old in­hab­itants speak of him with ven­er­ation and re­spect, declar­ing he was the per­fect pat­tern for good Mus­sul­mauns to im­itate.

An­oth­er re­mark­able Eu­nuch, Af­frine Khaun,[12] of the Court of Oude, is well re­mem­bered in the present gen­er­ation al­so,--the poor hav­ing lost a kind bene­fac­tor, and the rich a sen­si­ble com­pan­ion, by his death. His vast prop­er­ty he had willed to oth­ers than the sovereign ruler of Oude (whose prop­er­ty he ac­tu­al­ly was), who sent, as is usu­al in these cas­es, to take pos­ses­sion of his es­tate, im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter his death; the gates were barred, and the heirs the Eu­nuch had cho­sen to his im­mense wealth had tak­en pos­ses­sion; which I am not aware was dis­put­ed af­ter­wards by the reign­ing Nuwaub, al­though by right of the Mus­sul­maun law, the Nuwaub owned both the slave and the slave's wealth.

This ac­counts, per­haps, for the com­mon prac­tice in the high­er cir­cles of the Mus­sul­maun pop­ula­tion, of heap­ing or­na­ments and rich­es on favourite slaves; the wealth thus ex­pend­ed at one time, is but a loan in the hands of safe keep­ers, to re­vert again to the orig­inal pro­pri­etor when­ev­er re­quired by the mas­ter, or no longer of ser­vice to the slave, who has nei­ther pow­er to be­stow, nor heirs to ben­efit from the prop­er­ty he may leave when he dies.

I have fre­quent­ly ob­served, among the most ex­alt­ed ladies, that their fe­male slaves are very of­ten su­perbly dressed; and, on oc­ca­sions of mar­riage cer­emonies, or oth­er scenes of fes­tiv­ity, they seem proud of tak­ing them in their suite, hand­some­ly dressed, and rich­ly adorned with the pre­cious met­als, in arm­lets, ban­gles, chains, &c.; the la­dy thus adding to her own con­se­quence by the dis­play of her at­ten­dant slaves. The same may be ob­served with re­gard to gen­tle­men, who have men-​slaves at­tend­ing them, and who are very fre­quent­ly at­tired in cost­ly dress­es, ex­pen­sive shawls, and gold or­na­ments.

[1] _Dar­gah_, '(sa­cred) door-​place'.

[2] '_Alam_. For il­lus­tra­tions of those ban­ners see Hugh­es, _Dic­tio­nary of Is­lam_, 408 ff.; Mrs. Parks, _Wan­der­ings of a Pil­grim_, ii. 18.

[3] Asaf-​ud-​daula, el­dest son of Nawab Shu­ja'-ud-​daula, on whose death in 1775 he suc­ceed­ed. He changed the seat of gov­ern­ment from Faiz­abad to Luc­know, where he died in 1797, and was buried in the Imam­bara. He is prin­ci­pal­ly re­mem­bered for his lib­er­al­ity. The mer­chants, on open­ing their shops, used to sing:

_Jisko na de Maula, Tisko de Asaf-​ud-​daula_. Who from Heav­en nought re­ceiveth, To him Asaf-​ud-​daula giveth.

[4] Mr. H.C. Ir­win in­forms me that the Dar­gah is sit­uat­ed on the Crom­melin Road, rather more than a mile south-​west of the Mach­hi Bhawan fort. It was here that Nawab Sa'adat 'Al'i, on his ac­ces­sion, vowed that he would re­form his ways--an in­ten­tion which was not re­al­ized.

[5] _Nu­ju­mi_, 'an as­trologer'; '_ilm-​i-​nu­jum_, 'as­trol­ogy, as­tron­omy'.

[6] The num­bers are great­ly ex­ag­ger­at­ed.

[7] Dul­dul was the name of the Prophet's mule which he gave to 'Ali. It is of­ten con­found­ed with Bu­raq, the As­syr­ian-​look­ing gryphon on which he al­leged that he flew to Mec­ca.

[8] _Aftab­gir_, 'a sun-​screen'; see p. 47.

[9] _Chaunri_, the bushy tail of the yak, used as a fly-​flap­per.

[10] Writ­ing in 1849, Gen­er­al Slee­man re­marks that Dom singers and eu­nuchs are the vir­tu­al rulers of Oudh.--_A Jour­ney through Oudh_, i, in­trod. lxi, 178.

[11] Al­mas ['the di­amond'] 'Ali Khan, known as Miyan ['Mas­ter'] Al­mas, ac­cord­ing to Gen­er­al Slee­man, was 'the great­est and best man of any note that Oude has pro­duced. He held for about forty years Miyan­ganj and oth­er dis­tricts, yield­ing to the Oude Gov­ern­ment an an­nu­al rev­enue of more than eighty lacs of ru­pees [about £850,000]. Dur­ing this time he kept the peo­ple se­cure in life and prop­er­ty, and as hap­py as peo­ple in such a state of so­ci­ety can be; and the whole coun­try un­der his charge was dur­ing his life­time a gar­den. He lived here in great mag­nif­icence, and was of­ten vis­it­ed by his sovereign.' (Ibid., i. 320 f.). Lord Valen­tia more than once speaks high­ly of him (_Trav­els_, i. 136, 241). He al­so notes that the Nawab was anx­ious­ly watch­ing for his death, be­cause, be­ing a slave, un­der Muham­madan law his es­tates re­vert­ed to the Crown.--See N.B.E. Bail­lie, _Di­gest of Moohum­mu­dan Law_ (1875), 367 f.

[12] Afrin Khan, 'lord of praise', Mr. Ir­win in­forms me, is men­tioned in the _Tarikh Farah­bakhsh_ (tr. W. Hoey, 129) as en­gaged in ne­go­ti­ations when Nawab Asaf-​ud-​daula, at the in­sti­ga­tion of War­ren Hast­ings and Haidar Beg, was at­tempt­ing to ex­tort mon­ey from the Nawab Begam.