Abdul Karim: On Her Majesty's Service (Queen Victoria, The Empress of India) Blog 47 nguptatravelscrapbook.blogspot.com 18/06/2025

Abdul Karim: On Her Majesty's Service (Queen Victoria, The Empress of India)

Blog 47 nguptatravelscrapbook.blogspot.com 18/06/2025

Osborne House

Some years ago, I found a book titled Victoria and Abdul by Shrabani Basu, which I read with great interest. I then watched a film sharing the same title, directed by Stephen Frears, in 2017. The film did not generate much public interest in the untold story of Queen Victoria and her Munshi, Abdul Karim. A few days ago, I visited The Osborne House, East Cowes, Isle of Wight, and was captivated by the repeated portraits and illustrations of Abdul Karim in the famous Durbar Hall of Osborne House, which is dedicated to Empress Victoria and her established love for India. 

Why the title of Empress of India?

The Empress Of India

In 1877, the conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India. This title was a gesture to link the monarchy further with the empire and bind India closer to Britain. Queen Victoria retained the title until she died in 1901.

Why was interest generated in Abdul Karim, an Indian-origin worker in the Royal Household of Queen Victoria, for writers and filmmakers to write a book followed by a film named Victoria and Abdul?

Let's share Abdul Karim's remarkable story of his Rise and Fall!

Who was Abdul Karim? 

Hafiz Mohammed Abdul Karim

To a layperson, the name doesn't evoke even the slightest recall. History books do not mention him. In the UK, all that remains of him is mentioned in the Queen's Hindustani journals, circulars, and gossip in archival media reports, among other scanty sources. At the Durbar Hall of Osborne House in East Cowes, Isle of Wight—designed to highlight Queen Victoria's relationship with and understanding of India—hangs his portrait, a regal picture of a man decked up in all the finery of royalty. This is a story, tucked away in a remote corner of history, of a man so close to Queen Victoria that the entire royal Household was consumed by jealousy. 

Current Interiors of Darbar Hall, Osborne House

There was gossip and smearing, and many drew parallels between him and the Queen's previous personal assistant, John Brown, whose relationship with the Queen is highly speculated about today.

The 24-year-old Muslim Indian man, Abdul Karim, defied all odds and ascended from a mere housekeeper to the Queen's Munshi, becoming her closest confidant. His life journey, marked by resilience and perseverance, is a testament to the human spirit. His rise to elite circles sparked jealousy and conspiracy among the other royal Households. However, his downfall was as swift as his meteoric rise. His records were destroyed after the Queen's death, a deliberate act to erase his influence and memory. He was then deported and eventually died in his hometown, Agra, diagnosed with diabetes. The destruction of his narratives made it challenging for chroniclers to piece together his life and understand his proper role in Queen Victoria's Darbar in the UK.

Darbar Hall

The 2017 British-American comedy-drama Victoria & Abdul, directed by Stephen Frears, brought a fraction of the colonial past to the forefront. Yet Abdul Karim's mystery persists, leaving us with more questions than answers. His story is captivating and cryptic, intrigues historians and fans alike, sparking curiosity to uncover more about this intriguing person.

The gardens of Osborne House

Abdul Karim was born in Agra, India, in 1862 to Sheikh Mohammed Waziruddin, a hospital assistant. Aged 24, Karim was sent to London in 1887 to serve the royal Household as a part of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee celebrations. Karim immediately took to the Queen due to his charming mannerisms. An Indophile, the Queen wanted to learn more about India. She immediately chose Karim to teach her Hindustani language ( combining Hindi and Urdu ), a written and spoken language.

Karim proved to be a good taskmaster to the Queen. 'Karim would write a line in Urdu, followed by a line in English and then a line in Urdu in Roman script. The Queen would copy these out,' writes London-based journalist and author Shrabani Basu, in her 2010 memoir, Victoria & Abdul. 

A few weeks into her classes, the Queen noted in her journal: 'Am learning a few words of Hindustani to speak to my servants. It is of great interest to me for both the language and the people. I have naturally never come into real contact before.

This was the beginning of the Queen's unlikely relationship with Karim. The Queen's affection for the man is evident in her Hindustani Diaries, especially her correspondence with him. She often signed her letters as 'Your loving mother' or 'Your closest friend'. So important was he to her that when he voiced his desire to go back to India, on account of being unhappy with his 'menial' role as a servant, she wrote to him: 'I shall be sorry to part with you for I like and respect you, but I hope you [will] remain till the end of this year or the beginning of the next that I may be able to learn enough Hindustani from you to speak a little. I shall readily recommend you for a post in India which could suit you and hope you can come and see from time to time in England.'

The peak of Karim's career came when, in August 1888, he was conferred with the title of Munshi Hafiz, becoming the Queen's official Indian clerk. The Queen held dear her Urdu lessons and mentioned missing them every time Karim went to India on leave. This was also a time when resentment against the man had set in, not just among other royals and British staffers but also among Indians. The surprise and disdain were visible, especially when Karim began to accompany the Queen on her vacations. In Queen Victoria and the Discovery of the Riviera, Nelson writes about Queen Victoria's holidays to the Riviera and the inclusion of Abdul Karim in her sojourns: 'To the surprise of the Court she soon installed Abdul Karim in John Brown's room at Balmoral. He became even more hated than Brown had been. When Abdul Karim fell ill on one occasion, the Queen visited him several times a day and stroked his hand… In 1892, Abdul Karim's name appeared for the first time in the Court Circular list of those accompanying the Queen to the Riviera.' It is also believed that Karim himself took on a new position with much vanity. 

Indian Manuscripts in Durbar Hall, Osborne House 

Karim is also said to have driven the Queen towards Indian politics. 'As he provided her with information about the insecurities of the Muslim minorities, the Queen wrote lengthy letters to the viceroy about the issues Karim raised. She felt her discussions with Karim helped her get a feel of the pulse of Indian affairs, as she was getting the native's view of the British administration and its effects,' writes Shrabani Basu in her book Victoria and Abdul. 

In 1890, the Queen wrote to the Viceroy of India, Lord Lansdowne, and the Secretary of State for India, Lord Cross, to provide a land grant for Karim in India, much to their embarrassment. Lord Lansdowne was uneasy about the request since there was no precedent for such a grant being given to an Indian attendant. Land grants were usually only given in recognition of long military service. The grant was subsequently given to Karim in the suburbs of Agra. He had also begun to feature in Court Circulars, which often labelled him 'the Queen's principal Indian secretary'. 1893, Karim's wife and mother moved to England, and the family moved to Frogmore Cottage, Windsor. Back home, Abdul's father, Waziruddin, was included in the New Year Honours list by the viceroy and conferred the title of Khan Bahadur.

Display of Silver royal gifts 

In 1900, the Queen suffered a severe bout of illness and passed away on January 22nd, 1901. 'Once the coffin was arranged, [her physician Sir James Reid] called in the family and members of the Household to see the Queen. The Munshi was summoned at the very end,' writes Sherbini Basu. With the Queen's death, it was all over for Karim. The Royal household quickly got rid of all forms of correspondence between the Queen and Karim, including Karim's diaries and stories, as ordered by her successor, Edward VII. He was unceremoniously sacked and deported. At his grave in Agra, an Indian journalist named Saxena reiterates the story with an addition: "He came back a pauper. He didn't have much before he died." His house, Karim Lodge, no longer exists. He died in 1909 with no children but his wife and nephew Abdul Rashid by his side.

Exotic gardens of Osborne House

Basu published the first comprehensive study of Karim's life. In 2001, she was at Osborne House when she saw a portrait of a 'handsome young man in a reflective mood, holding a book in his hand', painted by Austrian artist Rudolph Swoboda. 'He looked more like a nawab than a servant. The artist seemed to have captured the Queen's romantic vision of the subject,' writes Basu in Victoria & Abdul. With no personal records, Basu's journey was long and arduous. "The whole journey took me four years. Since the letter[s] had been destroyed, I had to piece together the story from different sources," she says, "I used Queen Victoria's Journals and her Hindustani Journals. I used the private papers of her Household. I went to Scotland to meet the family of her personal physician and used his diaries. I referred to the letters of the Viceroys and the secretary of state for India, and newspaper sources of the day."

Gardens of Osborne House 

Shuttling between Agra—where the Regional Archives possessed a handful of documents related to Karim's property, taxes and expenditure—and Windsor, she recreated, for the first time, the larger-than-life journey of 'Queen Victoria's ustad'. The release of the book also brought out the descendants of Karim— the daughter of Abdul Rashid, Begum Qamar Jehan, reached out to Basu—and also, for the first time, Karim's only existing personal journal. "Finding these was like finding gold dust. No one had seen them for over a hundred years. The journal is in his voice, which is so important. It gave me an insight into his early life and his impressions of England. Many details there were very interesting and helped me complete the picture," says the author whose book gave birth to Frears' film.

Even as the mainstream media, both Indian and Western, pick up the story, India-based journalist Saxena asserts that Agra didn't embrace it when he wrote extensively about Karim two decades ago. "I was the first to highlight Karim and the appalling condition of his grave. My story faced considerable backlash from the Christian and Anglo-Indian communities," he states. In stark contrast, Basu claims her book elicited no such negative response. "I knew the public would be fascinated by the story. The book received outstanding reviews:" She insisted that the public would be fascinated by the story. 

The words written on Abdul Karim's gravestone in Urdu, in Agra, India.

The faded Gravestone of Abdul Karim in Agra 

This is the last resting place of

Hafiz Mohammed Abdul KarimHee is now alone in the world

His caste was the highest in Hindustan

None can compare with him

Even Empress Victoria was so pleased with him

She made him her Hindustani Ustaad

He lived in England for many years and let the river of his kindness flow 

flow through this land, and he finally finds eternal peace in this resting place.

The inscription also notes that he was a CIEVO (Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire).

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