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Salar Jung II (Mir Laik Ali Khan)

Minister of Hyderabad from 1884 to 1887, eldest son of Salar Jung I. After his father's death in 1883 he served as joint administrator with Raja Narendra Pershad and secretary to the Council of Regency, and when Mahbub Ali Khan took full powers on 5 February 1884 he was made minister at about twenty. He put down an Arab riot in 1884, but court intrigue and his own indiscretions, as his contemporaries put it, led him to resign in April 1887. He died on 7 July 1889, aged twenty-seven, leaving an infant son, later Salar Jung III.

Head-and-shoulders portrait of a young man with side-whiskers in a white cap and embroidered coat.
Head-and-shoulders portrait of a young man with side-whiskers in a white cap and embroidered coat. · A. Claude Campbell (ed.) (opens in a new tab) · Public domain

Mir Laik Ali Khan, known as Salar Jung II, was minister (diwan) of Hyderabad from 1884 to 1887. He was the eldest son of the great minister Salar Jung I.1 He took office at about twenty, beside a Nizam of eighteen, and left it after three years.23

Early life

A. Claude Campbell’s Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898) says he was taught first by an English tutor and then at the Nobles’ School in Hyderabad.4 He knew Persian well and could make speeches in English.4 Before he took the title Salar Jung, he visited England with his brother, Mir Saadat Ali Khan.4 There, Campbell says, he met members of the royal family and leading nobles.4

After his father’s death, 1883

Salar Jung I died on 8 February 1883.5 The young Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan was still a minor.5 The Government of India sent Sir Steuart Bayley to arrange the government with the Resident.5 They made Raja Narendra Pershad (the Peshkar, or deputy minister) and Mir Laik Ali Khan joint administrators.5 A Council of Regency was also formed, and Laik Ali became its secretary.5

K. Krishnaswamy Mudiraj’s Pictorial Hyderabad (1929) adds that Laik Ali was then nineteen.6 The Peshkar was told to hand most of the actual work to his young colleague and guide him.6 In October 1883, Campbell says, the Nizam gave Laik Ali the titles Munir-ud-daula and Salar Jung.4

Minister, 1884–1887

The Viceroy, Lord Ripon, installed Mahbub Ali Khan with full powers on 5 February 1884.2 Laik Ali Khan was appointed minister that day.2 Campbell describes how the Resident placed his chair at the durbar so that everyone understood the Government of India wanted him as sole minister.7 The Nizam then gave him the robe of office.7

Mudiraj notes the doubts this raised.2 A minister of twenty beside a ruler of eighteen, he says, might look like a way for the British to keep their own influence.2 But he also says the choice honoured the father and kept his policy going.2 Sir Khurshed Jah, a leading noble, had urged the appointment, with older men to advise him.8

Campbell describes one test of the young minister.7 In October 1884, on the last day of Muharram, followers of an Arab chief, Sultan Nawaz Jung, fought the city police.7 Several policemen were killed and wounded, and the Arabs took over the police stations.7 Salar Jung warned the chief in writing and sent troops to help the police.7 The Arabs withdrew.7 A commission found Sultan Nawaz Jung guilty, fined him a lakh of rupees and banished him from Hyderabad for a time.7

Resignation and death

Campbell says the good relations between Salar Jung and the Nizam broke down.3 He blames “partly … Court intrigue and partly … the young Minister’s indiscretions”.3 The Resident and the Viceroy tried to smooth things over.3 In April 1887 he resigned.3 Mudiraj gives the same reasons.2 The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 records only that Sir Asman Jah followed him as minister in 1888.9

He went to England soon after.3 In August 1887 Queen Victoria made him a Knight Commander of the Indian Empire (K.C.I.E.) at Osborne.3 He died on 7 July 1889, aged twenty-seven.3 He left a son only one month old.3 Campbell names this grandson of Salar Jung I as Mir Yusuf Ali, aged eight in 1898.10 Mudiraj’s list of ministers shows a Salar Jung III as minister from 1912 to 1914.11 He calls him a grandson of the great Salar Jung.12 Elsewhere he names the head of the family in his own day as Nawab Yusuf Ali Khan, Salar Jung.13

Footnotes

  1. Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad (1929), p. 217 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  2. Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad (1929), p. 218 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  3. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 34 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  4. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 32 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  5. A. Claude Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 14 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  6. K. Krishnaswamy Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad, Vol. I (1929), p. 153 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  7. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 33 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  8. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 47 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  9. Imperial Gazetteer of India: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 19 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  10. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 43 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  11. Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad (1929), p. 180, “Prime Ministers of Hyderabad (Deccan)” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  12. Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad (1929), p. 226 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  13. Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad (1929), p. 174 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

Photos

References

Sources (3)
  1. A. Claude Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam's Dominions, Being an Exhaustive Photographic History of the Hyderabad State, Deccan, India (opens in a new tab), C. B. Burrows, Bombay, 1898, pp. 14, 18, 31–34, 43, 47. [Public domain]
  2. K. Krishnaswamy Mudiraj, Pictorial Hyderabad, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Chandrakanth Press, Hyderabad (Deccan), 1929, pp. 153, 174, 180, 217–218, 226. [Public domain]
  3. Government of India, Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Hyderabad State (opens in a new tab), Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1909, pp. 19. [Public domain]

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