Many of us dream of what all we would do if we had a lot of money but there once lived a man with unimaginable wealth but who chose to live like a pauper. He was the Nizam of Hyderabad. His meanness was legendary. He hoarded wealth but was not inclined to seek gratification from his material possessions although women were his weakness. Driving into town in his decrepit Model T Ford to mourn at his mother’s tomb, if he happened to spot a beautiful young girl, she would be whisked off to his palace harem while grieving parents looked on helplessly.
This last great survivor of a Mogul dynasty did not look regal or royal and reminded the British of a snuffly clerk too old to be sacked. Born in 1886, he ascended the throne in 1911 and ruled over 16 million people in a State the size of Italy in the dusty Deccan. As a young man, he was a handsome fellow and a great dandy, especially in his brocade jackets encrusted with rubies, diamonds and pearls. But even in his early days, he was careful with his money and many of his suits came from Burtons, the 50 shilling tailors at a time when he had an estimated £100 million in gold bullion and silver, and £400 million in jewels. His annual income during Hyderabad’s heyday in the 1930s was said to be worth £2 million.
However, after Independence his fortune gradually diminished in value when the Indian government seized his treasure and introduced taxes on wealth, gifts and expenditure although his privy purse was tax free. His income was reduced to £312,000.
Thousands of servants were at his beck and call, 38 were entrusted with the task of dusting the chandeliers while the rest did mostly nothing except grind walnuts. It was rumoured that he sold one of his father’s women for `30, wore the same greasy fez for 30 years and kept his white suit on in the bath, steaming it up to save on laundry bills. Once someone suggested that he buy a new shawl to which the Nizam replied, “My budget is only `18 whereas a good one would cost 20 rupees”.
He liked to see his concubines’ children on his birthday and once he ordered that the garland round the neck of son No 30 be removed and taken to the bazaar after the party and sold for half the price. He loved to drink champagne which tended to be fusty since it was stored under the roof in the blistering heat.
After Independence, the Nizam became even more eccentric, shuffling round the backstreets of Hyderabad in disguise with his trademark muffler round his mouth. At one time, he was supporting as many as 14,200 dependants, most of whom were parasites with no direction in life such as the children of his concubines. An opium addict, he survived on a quota of about 11 grains a day but he also ensured that all the women in his harem were given the same so that everyone could be on a high together.
It was too good to last. The enormous drain on the huge trust funds that he had established exacerbated by the demands of his multitudes of dependants at a time when the Indian government was clamping down firmly on princely incomes brought the old Nizam down to his bony old knees. Many did not believe the old man and laughed when he said that he was broke. Indeed, it was difficult to gauge as to how much of his problem was real and how much they were eccentric ramblings of a wealthy miser.
He became a withdrawn pathetic figure and was well-aware of the humiliation for Hyderabad, which despite its mainly Hindu population had always regarded itself as the leader of Islam. He was reduced to knitting his socks, sleeping on a humble charpoy, surviving on rice and lentils and bargaining with shopkeepers over the price of a soft drink. A pet white goat chewing on a turnip was his steady companion. In 1956, he took the decision to disinherit his decadent eldest son and appointed his grandson, Prince Mukarram Jah as his heir.