Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Fair Dowdy and I'm playing a chocolate boarding and
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot in the past six months. We've
Speaker 1: done a few episodes, I should say on Britain in
Speaker 1: India and the relationship between the two countries. And a
Speaker 1: subject that comes up a lot is the difficulty we have,
Speaker 1: or the difficulty many people have had in reconciling British
Speaker 1: ideals and colonial British action. They just don't always mesh up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Especially notable are some British attitudes. In the luxhmi By
Speaker 1: episode that we did recently. Sir Hugh Rose, the man
Speaker 1: whose forces finally defeated this Indian joan of arc, also
Speaker 1: called her remarkable for her bravery, cleverness and perseverance. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this personal admiration combined with a policy of suppression
Speaker 1: can seem really really strange when you look back at it,
Speaker 1: But perhaps no one epitomizes it better than Queen Victoria herself.
Speaker 1: She's sort of the ultimate in combining admiration with suppression,
Speaker 1: and on the one hand, she's all for imperialist expansion.
Speaker 1: When she officially becomes embrass of India in eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: she's just over the moon, and at that point it
Speaker 1: is just a title change pretty much. She's been effectively
Speaker 1: in charge for quite some time. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: she also falls completely head over heels for Indian culture,
Speaker 1: especially the culture that's imported directly to her by her
Speaker 1: favorite servant, her Moonshi or teacher, a man named Abdual Kareem,
Speaker 1: and he's often called the Indian John Brown. Yeah. To
Speaker 1: understand that reference, though, we'll have to provide a little
Speaker 1: background for you on Victoria's life. When twenty four year
Speaker 1: old Abdual Kareem showed up in London, Victoria was in
Speaker 1: her late sixties, and she was in a good place,
Speaker 1: celebrating her golden jubilee and finally reassuming the busy schedule
Speaker 1: of an active monarch. Yeah. So Victoria had, of course
Speaker 1: assumed the throne as an eighteen year old, sheltered girl.
Speaker 1: She had been raised in this close isolation by her
Speaker 1: mother and her mother's conniving companion, Sir John Conroy, and
Speaker 1: the plan those two had was to create a monarch
Speaker 1: that was so utterly dependent on her mother. By extension,
Speaker 1: Conroy would have the sweet position as regent. It didn't work,
Speaker 1: and as soon as Victoria became queen she shook off
Speaker 1: her early influences and went about choosing her own. First
Speaker 1: her prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, who she relied on a lot,
Speaker 1: and then at twenty her cousin Albert, whom she married.
Speaker 1: And if you've seen we were joking about this earlier,
Speaker 1: if you've seen young Victoria, you know this part of
Speaker 1: the story. Maybe something will revisit in greater detail at
Speaker 1: some point, much requested, but just to give you a
Speaker 1: background on where Victoria is coming from. Yeah. So she
Speaker 1: and Albert had nine children, and in her constant state
Speaker 1: of pregnancy and child bearing, Victoria handed over a lot
Speaker 1: of her power or to her husband. She was happy
Speaker 1: with them, though, she wrote once without him, everything loses
Speaker 1: its interest. So when Albert died quite suddenly in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one, the forty two year old Victoria went into
Speaker 1: a very deep depression. And she had dealt with depression
Speaker 1: throughout her life. She had postpartum depression after the birth
Speaker 1: the most most of her children, but this was different,
Speaker 1: she wrote, quote those paroxysms of despair and yearning and longing,
Speaker 1: and of daily nightly longing to die for the first
Speaker 1: three years never left me. So her people were okay
Speaker 1: with this deep morning for a while. After all, it
Speaker 1: was the respectful, respectable thing to do for a Victorian woman,
Speaker 1: for Victoria herself. But eventually it just became too much.
Speaker 1: She wasn't doing her job, she was never around, she
Speaker 1: was never at functions, she was just missing. I think
Speaker 1: I even found a political cartoon from the time, which
Speaker 1: is the British lion sitting behind the throne which is
Speaker 1: completely empty. The crown is there and it's wondering where
Speaker 1: the Queen is because she's just gone. And you may
Speaker 1: have to post this one on a blog or something,
Speaker 1: so from there it's oversimplifying both victorious personal feelings and
Speaker 1: her rule a little bit. But basically two things happened
Speaker 1: to finally draw her out of this depression. One was
Speaker 1: her interest in imperialism, and the other was her interest
Speaker 1: in her husband's former gilly and that was John Brown,
Speaker 1: who was Scottish and he became her close friend in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four until his death in three And there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of debate about the precise nature of
Speaker 1: Victorian relationship another movie, another potential podcast. I think definitely,
Speaker 1: and I mean she was called Mrs Brown, and she
Speaker 1: scandalized her court by staying alone with John Brown in
Speaker 1: her Scottish cottage, and it caused a lot of talk. Definitely,
Speaker 1: but it's certain, regardless of how far their relationship went,
Speaker 1: it's certain they were very, very close. And she went
Speaker 1: into deep morning after his staff too, and after her
Speaker 1: own death, which happened about twenty years later, she had
Speaker 1: her servant secretly add to her coffin not only mementos
Speaker 1: from Albert, who she was still in mourning four years later,
Speaker 1: but a photo and a handkerchief and a lock of
Speaker 1: Brown's hair. So definitely, John Brown played a pretty major
Speaker 1: role in Victoria's life. But by eighteen eighty seven, four
Speaker 1: years after Brown's death, Victoria was once again a fully
Speaker 1: active monarch. Her her low point in popularity had come
Speaker 1: around eighteen seventy and it had been steadily on the
Speaker 1: uptick since then, But by eighteen eighty seven she was
Speaker 1: fully reformed. She was more popular than she had been
Speaker 1: in a long time, and the year conveniently marked her
Speaker 1: golden jubilee, which is fifty years as the reigning monarch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so she had a lot of people in from all
Speaker 1: over to celebrate with her, including some Indian royalty, and
Speaker 1: so Victoria wanted to Indian servants to wait on them,
Speaker 1: and that's how she first met Abdual Kareem. And Kareem
Speaker 1: was a twenty four year old from Aga and he
Speaker 1: had been recommended to Victoria by his superior officer at
Speaker 1: the jail where he worked as a clerk. So the
Speaker 1: first thing he does when he gets to London is
Speaker 1: toward the city visits the zoo. He also visits Madam
Speaker 1: Tussau's which is just in everything. Now. I feel like
Speaker 1: wax is the new exclamation. I thought cross dressing was
Speaker 1: the new exclamation after we did all those Women's History
Speaker 1: Month episodes. But maybe we just have a lot of
Speaker 1: new themes. Yeah, we'll see what comes out on top
Speaker 1: in the end. So after he does this little tourist
Speaker 1: thing in London, he meets up with the Queen. Her
Speaker 1: first impressions of him are well exhibited. I think in
Speaker 1: this quote she says, the one Mohammed books, which is
Speaker 1: the other one. It's very dark with a very smiling expression,
Speaker 1: and the other much younger called Abdul Kareem, is much lighter,
Speaker 1: tall and with a fine, serious countenance. His father is
Speaker 1: a native doctor at Agra. They both kissed my feet,
Speaker 1: So there you go. I guess a good first impression
Speaker 1: from Victoria. She likes them. She calls him back later.
Speaker 1: And we don't know much else about Mohammed. We do
Speaker 1: know that within the year Kareem had graduated way above
Speaker 1: waiting tables. He was sampling curry with the Queen, which
Speaker 1: became one of her dining favorites. And he was teaching
Speaker 1: her Urdu and Hindi and she really loves it too.
Speaker 1: She's up in years, but she completely throws herself into
Speaker 1: her studies trying to master these languages, and eventually even
Speaker 1: produces a thirteen volume Hindustanding diary. And I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: give you the description from the royal website where you
Speaker 1: can actually see a one picture of a page from
Speaker 1: these diaries, because it's really hard to understand the translation
Speaker 1: process that abdual Kareem and Victoria worked out. So here
Speaker 1: we go. It is thought that Queen Victoria wrote the
Speaker 1: English text at the bottom, that Abdul Kareem then wrote
Speaker 1: the middle section with the English text put into the
Speaker 1: correct word order for the too standing translation in the
Speaker 1: Hindustani words below in English script, and that finally the
Speaker 1: Queen wrote the text in or Do characters, so lots
Speaker 1: of languages going on help with grammar and vocabulary and guessing.
Speaker 1: I know. He also made her a phrase book with
Speaker 1: with simple everyday sort of phrases copied out in an
Speaker 1: anglicized version, so she could just look it up and
Speaker 1: be able to say what she needed to to whatever
Speaker 1: print she was talking with. But Kareem still doesn't have
Speaker 1: an official position, even though he's clearly with her quite
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, So after a year, he thinks his
Speaker 1: work is too menial considering his experience in India and
Speaker 1: he wants to go home. So Victoria doesn't want that
Speaker 1: to happen, and so she promotes him to official Munshi,
Speaker 1: an Indian clerk to the Queen. So he's basically her
Speaker 1: personal secretary at that point and her personal teachers still
Speaker 1: and her personal teacher, so it's high rolling for him
Speaker 1: from there on out. He starts mingling with the big
Speaker 1: wigs on his annual trips to India. By eighteen ninety
Speaker 1: he is servants of his own by eighteen nine one,
Speaker 1: and he's allowed to carry a sword and wear traditional dress. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he brings over his family to Victoria's concerned that
Speaker 1: he might miss his wife back home in India, so
Speaker 1: he brings her over. I think he brings his nephew
Speaker 1: over eventually. And they're given cottages that each of Victoria's estates,
Speaker 1: and of course, when we say cottage, that is an understatement.
Speaker 1: There lavishly decorated, lovely homes. He even gets his own
Speaker 1: cottage at Balmoral name for him Kareem's Cottage, or at
Speaker 1: least that's Victoria's nickname for it. And his father notably
Speaker 1: becomes the first to smoke hookah at Windsor Castle, which
Speaker 1: was kind of a big milestone because Victoria did not
Speaker 1: like smoking at all in her presence. Yeah, so she
Speaker 1: kind of embraces his family, and though she refuses to
Speaker 1: confer knighthood on Kareem, she grows closer and closer to him.
Speaker 1: She writes some several letters a day, signing some with
Speaker 1: quote your loving mother or your closest friend, or with
Speaker 1: kisses according to the BBC. She also both friends his
Speaker 1: wife and offers him advice on the couple's inability to
Speaker 1: have children, So getting really personal here. Yeah, And she
Speaker 1: sends him a Christmas tree in eighteen nine three and
Speaker 1: also seeks out his advice too, so she's not just
Speaker 1: getting into super personal husband and wife business, but she's
Speaker 1: asking him about Indian affairs and his opinions. And it's
Speaker 1: this last point that really drives her family in the
Speaker 1: court crazy, and it frustrates some of her people in
Speaker 1: government in India too because as a Muslim Indian, Korean's
Speaker 1: opinions tend to decide with his own people and not
Speaker 1: everyone in India under Victoria's government thought that was a
Speaker 1: very good idea. But Victoria's family wasn't just upset about
Speaker 1: his influence in her politics. They're also upset just by
Speaker 1: how close they are, the sixtiesomething year old woman and
Speaker 1: this young Indian man in his twenties, and especially when, surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: they too spend a night together in the same Highland
Speaker 1: cottage that Victoria would visit with John Brown. This just
Speaker 1: did not seem okay to the Royal family at all.
Speaker 1: It's a little fishy. So it comes back to them,
Speaker 1: I guess when Victoria dies. When she dies, her family
Speaker 1: they do follow her wishes and they allow Kareem to
Speaker 1: serve as one of her principal mourners, but as soon
Speaker 1: as it's over, her son now Edward the Seventh, fires
Speaker 1: Kareem and orders that the records of their relationship, kept
Speaker 1: both at his UK and Indian homes, be destroyed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we don't want you to think that this is
Speaker 1: solely related to the relationship of Victoria and Abdual Kareem,
Speaker 1: because it's actually in keeping with the general revisionism that
Speaker 1: Victoria's children practice after her death. For instance, her daughter
Speaker 1: Beatrice copied out and edited the decades and decades of
Speaker 1: journals kept by by Victoria. She had kept journals since
Speaker 1: she was a girl, and her daughter literally copied them
Speaker 1: all out, taking out the part she that were inappropriate painstakingly, right,
Speaker 1: I mean she even cut out images and things in
Speaker 1: case them in the new versions. Again on the on
Speaker 1: the Royal website, there are some copies of documents related
Speaker 1: relating to Victoria's life, and one of them is the
Speaker 1: diary entry right before she got married, so probably nothing
Speaker 1: would have been too scandalous in that. And you can
Speaker 1: see a little cut out where Victoria has sketched a
Speaker 1: profile of herself in her wedding headdress, and I guess
Speaker 1: Beatrice has felt the need to preserve the little picture,
Speaker 1: but altered the text and copy it out herself. So
Speaker 1: in a similar fashion, they took the material from her
Speaker 1: time with Kareem and sort of destroyed all ever watched it. Right,
Speaker 1: But there was still enough evidence left to know that
Speaker 1: Victoria had had a very close relationship with this Indian
Speaker 1: teacher of hers. For one thing, those Hindustani journals kept
Speaker 1: at Windsor Castle, they were still there, although they hadn't
Speaker 1: been translated at all until recently. And letters Victoria wrote
Speaker 1: to other people that mentioned Kareem. Yeah. For instance, she
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to her daughter Vicky saying that Kareem
Speaker 1: was a very strict master but a perfect gentleman, so
Speaker 1: they couldn't really control every word that had gotten out
Speaker 1: about him. And also since this was such a gossipy
Speaker 1: topic around court, there was there were plenty of records
Speaker 1: about this close friendship between the monarch and this man, right,
Speaker 1: so there was enough information floating around out there for
Speaker 1: author Sharbani Bassu to write a book about it. Write
Speaker 1: a book about the relationship between Victoria and Kareem I
Speaker 1: should say. And while she was an India promoting this
Speaker 1: book about Victoria and Kareem, she was contacted by a
Speaker 1: surviving member of Kareem's family who read about the book
Speaker 1: in a local paper. It turns out that after Kareem's
Speaker 1: death in nineteen o nine, the family had managed to
Speaker 1: keep some of his memento safe, including a diary covering
Speaker 1: the ten year period between Victoria's golden and diamond jubilees.
Speaker 1: So since seven they had to this hidden in Pakistan.
Speaker 1: So Bossu traveled to Pakistan and studied the diaries and
Speaker 1: the photo from Victoria that was signed in Urdu and
Speaker 1: other keepsakes, and updated her book because clearly this was
Speaker 1: good information to to have and to add to the
Speaker 1: whole thing. There wasn't a bombshell, It wasn't like some
Speaker 1: sort of confessional letter that would really make this whole
Speaker 1: story scandalous. But the new information did mean that the
Speaker 1: story made international news. I mean, we mentioned a BBC article,
Speaker 1: It was all over the papers in March, because I
Speaker 1: don't think people, or at least people had forgotten how
Speaker 1: close Victoria was to this young man. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: mean even though it didn't reveal anything new, it at
Speaker 1: least added more information, like more evidence to the store,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, and and just interesting facts about it too.
Speaker 1: We have more quotes, and I mean, I think the
Speaker 1: picture signed in the language she struggled so hard to
Speaker 1: learn is is really interesting. But I also sort of
Speaker 1: have a listener request of myself, and I know that
Speaker 1: some of you are really up on Victorian Indian policy,
Speaker 1: and I'm just curious about any specific instances where Kareem's
Speaker 1: influence might have been seen in government, because if that's
Speaker 1: what her family and people in her government were so
Speaker 1: worried that he would just have too much power and influence.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that we can look at and say that,
Speaker 1: well that might have traced back to him in some way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so right to us. If you know anything, we'll give
Speaker 1: you the email in just a minute, but before that
Speaker 1: we're going to do some list for mail. So this
Speaker 1: email is from Chris and he wrote, Hi, Sara and Dablina.
Speaker 1: I just listened to your podcast on the Oneida group
Speaker 1: and was a little disappointed that Charles Guiteau, McKinley's assassmin
Speaker 1: didn't make an appearance before turning his attentions to politics
Speaker 1: and violence. He was actually a member of the Oneida community,
Speaker 1: and despite their free love attitude of c only, no
Speaker 1: one wanted to use a trysting room with him. According
Speaker 1: to some sources, he was so unpopular that he earned
Speaker 1: the nickname Charles get Out. He left in a huff
Speaker 1: even tried to sue noise, as I recall, and many
Speaker 1: people think it was in large part over his sexual rejection.
Speaker 1: I remember when I first heard about this, thinking that
Speaker 1: if only he'd been more popular in bed, he probably
Speaker 1: never would have shot anyone. Anyway, I love the podcast,
Speaker 1: and even though we all learned about ministory, I think
Speaker 1: he should do a presidential Assassin series. There are definitely
Speaker 1: enough weird facts about the assassination that we've either forgotten
Speaker 1: or never heard about, like Guta's Unaida connection. And actually
Speaker 1: I did see this, and I knew if Skara Vowel
Speaker 1: has a new book out to or I guess it's
Speaker 1: one of her older books that mentioned this connection to Anida.
Speaker 1: I just I was actually thinking of saving it if
Speaker 1: we ever drew Well, now we haven't Astraditions podcast every
Speaker 1: now and then, there's a fact that I'll keep in
Speaker 1: my back pocket for some dreamy future. Podcast will do. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a good idea that one. Okay, this could also
Speaker 1: it sounds like become a stuff mom never told you podcasts?
Speaker 1: I think can sexual rejection drive you to murder? Maybe
Speaker 1: we'll go suggest that to Molly and Kristen after we
Speaker 1: get out of here. But thank you Chris for your email.
Speaker 1: I couldn't resist it because of your mention of the
Speaker 1: trysting room. But um, pretty pretty interesting stuff. So if
Speaker 1: any of you have any great stories like that additions
Speaker 1: to previous podcasts or future podcast we love getting these
Speaker 1: entries from you. Guys do a lot of the work
Speaker 1: for us. UM write us at history podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or you can look us up
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Miston History or on Facebook. And you
Speaker 1: can also look up our blogs, right, Sarah, you sure can.
Speaker 1: We are at www dot how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and that's of other topics, visit
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