Bhopal Princely Servants: Some Documentary Evidences

Abstract

The study is based upon documents from the National Archives of India and its Bhopal Branch, which offer us valuable information about the servants of the Bhopal princely family. Those men and women, Muslims and Hindus and of various castes, worked to sustain the lavish lifestyle and comfort of the rulers. A few of them were slaves; however, the majority were hired free persons. Almost ignored by other sources, they come out of the darkness in the palace documents, especially those referring to the visit of the Viceroy to Bhopal in 1891: To impress the visitors, the ruling family ordered all servants to dress in uniforms, which created many problems, at the same time disclosing important details about the princely domestics. As employees of the Bhopal government, the servants had to serve European visitors of a lower rank for whom special guesthouses were maintained. Who and how had to pay, reward and punish the servants was an important matter which concerned both the Bhopal rulers and their visiting British suzerains. The relations between the princely families and their servants subsisted within the framework of patriarchal tradition, where servants were usually perceived as subordinate members of an enlarged family.