Chandu Lal

Chandu Lal governed the state of the Asaf Jahi Nizams Sikandar Jah and Nasir-ud-daula for more than thirty years. For most of that time he held only the post of peshkar, deputy to the minister. Campbell writes that he “actually governed the affairs of the State for 34 years”.¹

Family and rise

Campbell’s account of the family of Kishen Pershad traces it to Raja Todar Mal, Akbar’s minister of finance. A descendant, Rai Mulchand, came to the Deccan with Asaf Jah.² Under Asaf Jah he and his successors held the office of karrora, head of the customs and excise.²

Chandu Lal, born in 1766, was the son of Rai Narain Das.² He was brought up by his uncle Rai Nanak Ram, head of the customs.² He held a junior post in that department and later became karrora himself, but soon resigned.² When Mir Alam became minister in 1804, he employed Chandu Lal in various offices of trust, and in 1806 made him peshkar.²¹

The real minister

After Mir Alam’s death in 1808, Campbell says, Chandu Lal “became the real Minister of the Nizam’s Government, Munir-ul-Mulk being Dewan in name only”.² The treaty collection of 1909 says the Nizam made Munir-ul-Mulk minister on condition that the state’s affairs “should be conducted through the agency of one Chandu Lal”.³⁴⁵

It calls him “a staunch supporter of British interests”, under whom a regular army disciplined by British officers was organised.³⁴⁵ In 1813 he raised two battalions, armed and clothed like the Company’s troops, to replace a corps that had mutinied.³⁴⁵ This was the start of the force later known as the Hyderabad Contingent.³⁴⁵ After Munir-ul-Mulk’s death in 1832 he became sole administrator.¹

The same work admits that “various views have been taken of Chandu Lal’s character”. It concludes that he was “the only person that could be found at Hyderabad capable of carrying on the administration”.⁴ Campbell prints a sketch by Sir Henry Russell, Resident from 1811 to 1820.² Russell describes a man well educated, of quick talents and “indefatigable” (tireless) industry, who did “everything for himself”.²

Each day, Russell writes, Chandu Lal ended his work near midnight with an hour of music, poetry and learned conversation.² Russell thought he was convinced “that the Nizam’s power can not support itself”, and so held faithfully to the British alliance.²

Debt and resignation

In his last years the state sank into debt to bankers and to the British treasury, and the pay of the Contingent fell into arrears.⁵ Mudiraj’s Pictorial Hyderabad (1929) says Chandu Lal applied to the Company for a loan of a crore of rupees.⁶ He offered territory yielding seventeen lakhs a year as security.⁶ Unable to cope with the finances, he resigned on 6 September 1843.⁵

The Imperial Gazetteer also dates his resignation to 1843, and Campbell’s list of ministers agrees.⁷¹ Campbell’s family sketch says he retired on a pension of thirty thousand rupees a month and died on 15 April 1845. It prints the year of his retirement as 1845.² Mudiraj says he died eighteen months after he retired.⁶

Campbell says his generosity “passed into a proverb”. He was paid by a commission on the revenue that averaged nearly three lakhs a year.² Yet he “was always out of pocket”, because of the help he gave to the people who came to him from all over India.² His descendants kept the hereditary post of peshkar. In Campbell’s day it was held by Kishen Pershad, the son of the only daughter of Chandu Lal’s grandson Narain Pershad.¹⁸

Footnotes

1. A. Claude Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 127 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 317 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

3. C. U. Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads, Vol. IX (1909), p. 6 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Aitchison, Treaties, Vol. IX (1909), p. 7 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. Aitchison, Treaties, Vol. IX (1909), p. 8 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

6. K. Krishnaswamy Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad, Vol. I (1929), p. 67 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. Imperial Gazetteer of India: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 17 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

8. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 319 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩