Alif Khan II (Nawab of Kurnool)

Alif Khan was the Nawab of Kurnool when the state passed from the Nizam’s protection to the East India Company’s.¹² The Kurnool manual spells his name Aluf Khan and gives the main account of his reign.¹² Muhammad Burhanuddin’s history of the Carnatic and Kurnool (1905) prints translations of the letters he received from the Nizam and the Governors-General.¹² See the Nawabs of Kurnool.

Succession, 1792

According to the Kurnool manual, Munawwar Khan died in 1792.¹ He passed over his second son, Hasan Ali Khan, as unfit to rule, and named his third son, Alif Khan, to follow him.¹ Alif Khan had just come back from the war against Tipu at Srirangapatna (then Seringapatam).¹

Hasan Ali Khan held Velgodu as his jagir (land grant).¹³ He gathered a band of Boya kattubadis (armed retainers) and raided the country round Gadivemula.¹³ Alif Khan marched against him.¹³ Hasan Ali fled across the Nallamalai hills to Hyderabad, “and was not heard of afterwards”.¹³ Alif Khan pulled down the towers of Velgodu and took its iron gates to the fort of Siddapur.¹³ See Ranmast Khan (Munawwar Khan).

The Nizam questioned why Alif Khan had taken the throne ahead of his elder brother.³ Alif Khan sent an uncle with letters to the courtiers at Hyderabad.³ When the Nizam went to war with the Marathas, Alif Khan “marched with 1,400 horse and joined him at the battle of Kardla (A.D. 1795)”.³

In that battle the first attack on the Maratha horse was “favorable to the Patan cavalry”, but the Nizam was defeated.³ The Nizam then confirmed Alif Khan as Nawab, after Alif Khan promised money to his elder brother.³ He “also received a killat from Tipu Sultan” (a robe of honour).³ But he always resisted the Sultan’s right to levy tribute, and the Nizam encouraged him in this.³ See Kharda.

The Company, 1800–1804

The Mysore partition treaty of 1799 gave the Nizam a share that included the “Kurnool Peshcush”.⁴³ This peshkash (yearly tribute) was rated at 66,666 pagodas a year, the amount Haidar had fixed.⁴³ In 1800 the Nizam handed it to the Company with the rest of his gains.⁴³

Burhanuddin prints the Nizam’s letter to “Nabob Muhammed Aluf Khan Bahadur”.² It says the tribute “has been transferred to the Honorable East India Company in accordance with the treaty of Mysore in lieu of the pay of the English troops”.² It adds that “it is desirable that you should likewise be obedient to the said Company”.² Kirkpatrick wrote in 1811 that by the treaty of 1800 Alif Khan was “placed, in a certain degree, under the protection of the East-India Company”.⁵

The Kurnool manual says the Nawab denied “any right of tribute acquired by virtue of the late Mysore partition treaty (no such right having existed under the Mysore Government)”.³ But he agreed to pay a voluntary peshkash of a lakh of rupees.³

In July 1803 Alif Khan sent his troops under his brother Anwar Khan to join General Wellesley at Gulbarga.³⁶ The foot soldiers were too badly equipped to be of use.⁶ The horsemen guarded a convoy of rice from Hyderabad to the army.⁶

In 1804, after many letters, the tribute was fixed at “one lakh and twenty-five thousand Gadval rupees for the first eight years and one lakh afterwards”.⁶ He also had to supply 500 horse and 500 foot soldiers.⁶ The payment was worth 87,500 rupees in the Company’s money, and it “was continued with cheerfulness”.⁶ Burhanuddin prints Lord Wellesley’s letter of 29 October 1804, which set out these terms.⁷⁸ It told the Nawab to write in future through the Governor of Madras.⁷⁸

The heir

The Kurnool manual says that Alif Khan had six sons, and the sixth, Ghulam Rasul, was his favourite.⁶⁸ In 1810 Lord Minto, then at Madras, agreed to address the boy as Nawab and Bahadur.⁶⁸ He allowed a seal to be cut in the boy’s name.⁶⁸

Alif Khan took this as permission to name the boy his heir.⁶⁸ He went on “using the British name in support of his proceedings, and confined his eldest son, Munauwar Khan, the rightful heir”.⁶⁸

Chaplin, the Collector of Bellary, was sent to explain the mistake.⁶ The Nawab then began to gather military stores in the forts of Yerraguntla, Nandyal, Panem and Gani.⁶ A small force marched from Gooty on 19 December 1813 and reached Kurnool on the 27th.⁶ Munauwar Khan “was at once released and placed under the guardianship of his uncle”.⁶ See Gooty and Ghulam Rasul Khan.

Government

The manual says that Alif Khan kept his promises to the British “with great accuracy and precision”.⁶ But “his general administration of the country was one of tyranny and oppression”.⁶ He divided the country into small jagirs and gave them in advance to the people he owed money.⁶

Chaplin described this system in 1813.⁶⁹ He wrote of “one jaghiredar ousted to make room for another in rapid succession”.⁶⁹ Each holder tried to make the greatest possible profit “and to fleece the people to the utmost during the short and precarious period of his tenure”.⁶⁹ He put the revenue, with the relatives’ jagirs, at “little less than twelve lakhs of rupees”.⁶⁹

In 1810 Colin Mackenzie’s agents took down an account of farming from a village accountant.¹⁰¹¹ It describes the village leases and rates “in the time of Alif Khan, father of the last Nabob”.¹⁰¹¹ It ends by saying that “these rules were not regularly observed by the Nabobs”.¹⁰¹¹

Death, 1815

Alif Khan died in 1815.⁹ One of his younger sons, Muzaffar Khan, then seized the fort.⁹ He shut out the eldest son, Munawwar Khan, whom the Company accepted as heir.⁹

A force from Bellary besieged the fort, which about 4,000 men held.⁹ The guns opened fire on 14 December.⁹ The next day the fort “surrendered at discretion, without the loss of a man to the assailants”.⁹ The shells had fallen among some 600 horses, trapped by the flooded Tungabhadra.⁹

Munawwar Khan then ruled for eight years.⁹ He ended his father’s tax on the inamdars (holders of rent-free land), and he died in 1823.⁹

Footnotes

1. Narahari Gopalakristnamah Chetty, A Manual of the Kurnool District (1886), p. 36 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

2. Muhammad Burhanuddin Siddiqui, The Carnatic & Kurnool, their Last Muhammedan Rulers (Madras, 1905), p. 66 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

3. Chetty, Kurnool District (1886), p. 37 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸

4. C. U. Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads, Vol. IX (4th ed., 1909), p. 63, partition treaty of Mysore, Schedule B (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. William Kirkpatrick (tr.), Select Letters of Tippoo Sultan (1811), Appendix G, p. lxi (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

6. Chetty, Kurnool District (1886), p. 38 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²²

7. Burhanuddin, The Carnatic & Kurnool (1905), p. 67 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

8. Burhanuddin, The Carnatic & Kurnool (1905), p. 68 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

9. Chetty, Kurnool District (1886), p. 39, quoting Chaplin (1813) (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

10. Chetty, Kurnool District (1886), p. 43 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

11. Chetty, Kurnool District (1886), p. 44 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³