“Young Salar Jung is strongly of opinion that the railway scheme was pushed on with the distinct object of disordering the Hyderabad finances, and his father seems to have been well aware of its dangerous nature, though he played with it probably in order to propitiate the Indian Foreign Office, for he said to Clerk the day after agreeing to the first negotiations, ‘I have put my foot I know into the serpent’s mouth; but I shall always be able to withdraw it.’ It is, however, distinctly denied by all who knew him that he ever really approved the scheme, or intended to carry it through. The history of how it has been pushed forward by Cordery since his death is so scandalous that it is impossible to believe he should have been acting without orders. He has told me enough himself to prove that this was the case, and, although the Foreign Office missed their object of fully ruining the Hyderabad State, they have succeeded partially. It is beyond a question that had Cordery been able to persuade Lord Ripon to put off the Nizam’s coming of age for two years, and so prolonged the Regency, the finances would have been ruined past redemption. As it is, they have succeeded in this, that Lord Ripon with all his goodwill has not been able to keep his promise about the Berars, which will still remain as the perquisite of the Indian Civil Service. Cordery will leave Hyderabad, but his zeal will be rewarded elsewhere, and Lord Ripon dares not disgrace him. I could not have believed these things if they had not happened under my own eyes, and if Cordery had not himself shown me so much of his hand.
“At Kalbarga we were met by Kader Bey, the chief Talukdar, and Rustemji and Enait Ali, his subordinates, anglicized Indians all, and well informed, though uninteresting. With them we visited, in the dusk of the evening, the fort and mosque of Kalbarga, a splendid place which we at once decided would do in every respect for the university.
“13th Feb.—Went out at sunrise to visit villages, and put our usual questions. They are distinctly more flourishing than nearly any we have visited, and Rustemji, who is by no means a small believer in English systems, declares they are not exceptionally so. In one village we, for the first time, received the answer that ‘Nobody was in debt for they had enough to live upon.’ Neither do they complain much of the salt tax, though salt is dearer here than in Bellari, only saying that it used to be cheaper, that is, twelve seers instead of nine to the Halli Sicca rupee. The Hyderabad Government charged five per cent. over and above the English Government price. The assessment is about thirty per cent. on the gross produce, at which figure, too, Rustemji puts the Bombay assessment. The seed corn he calculates at from fifteen to twenty per cent., but a villager we asked put it at one in twelve. I strongly advised these revenue men to advocate a reduction of the assessment, which they agreed would bring ryots in from British territory, and pay in the end. They thought fifty years assessments would pay, too, on these lines.
“Spent the day in the bungalow as it was very hot, and at half past 4 o’clock went on to Bombay, after having instructed two of the Mulvis of Kalbarga in my ideas, and gained their support for the university.”
N.B.—The following is the account given me by an Indian gentleman in whom I have confidence, of the final act of the long official intrigue here described at Hyderabad, which had for its object the permanent retention of the Berar provinces by the Government of India: Twenty years after Lord Ripon’s visit, another viceregal visit was paid to Hyderabad, and the Nizam was pressed by Lord Curzon at the close of an entertainment at the palace to accord him a perpetual lease of the Provinces for the Indian Government, and the Nizam, in deference to his guest, verbally consented. In the morning, however, he would have recalled his promise, and it was only on compulsion, and on threat of deposition, that he signed the treaty laid before him as a binding document by the Resident. The form of a lease was chosen to evade Lord Ripon’s honest assurances at the time of the installation, and there are many precedents for the subterfuge. The Nizam, my informant added, refused for four days to take food after this occurrence.
CHAPTER X
BOMBAY
“14th Feb.