The Object as Gift: Practices of Gift Exchange in Awadh in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This paper examines rituals of gift exchange in the North Indian state of Awadh in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. It draws parallels between the gifting practices of the Nawabs and the English East India Company and examines how specific objects were selected to perform the role of gifts. It explores the practice of gift exchange where objects emerged as sites on which power was asserted, subverted and contested. In studying gifts, the aim is to delve into the institutional and ceremonial significance attributed to objects which made them the site of diplomatic encounters. The range of objects that were brought within the lexicon of gifts, and the power struggles that marked this process, inform the discussion. In exploring these themes, the paper addresses the larger question of how objects were imagined by political powers and the multiple ways in which meanings were added onto and erased from objects over the course of their circulation as gifts.

Keywords:

• Circulation
• diplomacy
• gift
• knowledge
• object
• value

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Richard Barnett, North India between Empires: Awadh, the Mughals and the British, 1720–1810 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980): 246.

2. The economic and political independence of Awadh can be gathered from the expenditure incurred for its military forces. In addition to using sophisticated arms, more than 50,000 regular troops were maintained on a stipend of ₹25 per month and gentleman troopers were paid as much as ₹80 per month: Christopher Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988): 53–56.

3. See Barnett, North India between Empires; Michael Fisher, A Clash of Cultures: Awadh, the British and the Mughals (New Delhi: Manohar, 1987); Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and Punjab, 1707–48 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013).

4. Barnett, North India between Empires, 250.

5. Fisher, Clash of Cultures, 2.

6. There was a debate on the nature, form and limits of the expression of sovereignty between the Nawab and the EIC, but the Nawab’s ‘pretensions to universal sovereignty came at a time of shrinking political power’: Ibid., 122–30.

7. M.B. Hooker, ‘The East India Company and the Crown, 1773–1858’, Malaya Law Review 11, no. 1 (1969): 1–37.

8. The Mughal emperor in Delhi asserted his status as the paramount power in India until the middle of the nineteenth century. He addressed the EIC and the Awadh Nawabs as his feudal vassals in royal letters, diplomatic envoys and ceremonies: see Margot Finn, ‘Material Turns in British History: II. Corruption: Imperial Power, Princely Politics and Gifts Gone Rogue’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 29 (2019): 1–25; 12–14. The contestation between the EIC, the Nawabs and the Mughals for ‘power’, and not ‘sovereignty’, continued until the 1857 Uprising, since the EIC was a mercantile operation until the transfer of power to the British Crown in 1858. It was only after the establishment of crown rule that Britain assumed sovereignty in the Indian subcontinent. According to the Charter of 1833, the Governor General in India was a representative of the crown, but in no capacity was the EIC or the Governor General in possession of sovereign status. For the Awadh Nawabs, the assumption of independence or sovereign status in 1819 vis-à-vis the Mughal emperor had little implication, since the display of symbols of sovereignty—inheritance of titles, reformation in land and revenue and appointment of officers—was mediated and stymied by the EIC: Fisher, Clash of Cultures, 126–28.

9. Robert Travers, Empire of Complaints: Mughal Law and the Making of British India, 1765–1793 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022): 6.

10. Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000): 8–15.

11. Ibid., 10.

12. Douglas Haynes, ‘From Tribute to Philanthropy: The Politics of Gift Giving in a Western Indian City’, The Journal of Asian Studies 46, no. 2 (1987): 339–60; 339.

13. Kim Siebenhuner, ‘Approaching Diplomatic and Courtly Gift-Giving in Europe and Mughal India: Shared Practices and Cultural Diversity’, The Medieval History Journal 16, no. 2 (2013): 530–46.

14. Ibid.

15. Zoltan Biedermann, Anne Gerritsen and Giogio Riello, ‘Introduction’, in Global Gifts: The Material Culture of Diplomacy in Early Modern Eurasia, ed. Zoltan Biedermann, Anne Gerritsen and Giogio Riello (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018): 1–33; 4.

16. Ibid., 11.

17. Ibid., 14.

18. Paula Finland, ‘Afterword: How (Early Modern) Things Travel’, in The Global Lives of Things: The Material Culture of Connections in the Early Modern World, ed. Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello (London: Routledge, 2015): 241–46; 244.

19. P.J. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1976): 214.

20. A. Berriedale Keith, ed., Speeches and Documents on Indian Policy, 1750–1921 (London: Oxford University Press, London, 1922): 45–46.

21. Finn, ‘Material Turns’, 6–9.

22. Ibid., 8.

23. C.M. Naim, ed., Zikr-i Mir: The Autobiography of the Eighteenth Century Mughal Poet Mir Mohammad Taqi ‘Mir’ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007): 121.

24. Ibid., 124.

25. See Sujit Sivasundaram, ‘Trading Knowledge: The East India Company’s Elephants in India and Britain’, The Historical Journal 48, no. 1 (2005): 27–67.

26. Foreign Department, Miscellaneous, no. 276, 1786, NAI.

27. Guido van Meersbergen, Ethnography and Encounter: The Dutch and English in Seventeenth Century South Asia, Series: European Expansion and Indigenous Response 35 (Leiden: Brill, 2021): 188.

28. I.B. Banerjee, ed., Fort William—India House Correspondence and Other Contemporary Papers Relating Thereto (Public Series), 1789–92 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, Government of India, 1974): 296.

29. Faiz Bakhsh, Tarikh i Farah Bakhsh, in Memoirs of Faizabad, Vol. 1, trans. William Hoey (Lucknow: New Royal Book Company, 1889) 87.

30. Ibid., 87.

31. Hastings had been successful in ensuring that Shuja-ud-Daula signed the Treaty of Allahabad with the EIC; however, the debt incurred by Asaf-ud-Daula was much larger. Hastings visited the Nawab in Lucknow to ensure that he paid his arrears to the EIC. Hastings’ demand to Asaf-ud-Daula ultimately led to a violent clash between Bahu Begum and her son. Asaf-ud-Daula, with the help of his ministers Murtaza Khan and Haidar Beg Khan, ultimately spearheaded the plunder of Faizabad and the Begum’s properties. The Begum paid Asaf-ud-Daula 30 lakh rupee siccas in cash, 70 elephants, 860 bullock carts, a huqqa that cost ₹70,000, a saddle with gold mounting worth ₹17,000, 40 chambals which were inlaid with precious stones, jewellery, cloth and tents worth ₹80,000 Rs: K. Srinivasa Santha, Begums of Awadh (Varanasi: Bharati Prakashan, 1980): 30–50.

32. Bakhsh, Tarikh, 87.

33. Ibid., 88.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. ‘“Treasury of the World”: Jeweled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals’, Metropolitan Museum, 2001, accessed February 9, 2024, https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2001/jeweled-arts-of-mughal-india.

37. See Christiane Hille, ‘Gems of Sacred Kingship: Faceting Anglo-Mughal Relations around 1600’, in The Nomadic Object: The Challenge of World for Early Modern Religious Art, ed. Christine Göttler and Mia M. Mochizuki (Leiden: Brill, 2017): 300–02.

38. Naim, ed., Zikr-i Mir.

39. Nicholas Dirks, The Scandal of Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008): 90.

40. Hastings admitted to having consented to the Nawab’s request for the confiscation of the Begums’ treasure since there was evidence of the Begums’ support of Chait Singh (the vassal of Banaras), who had rebelled against the EIC. He also argued that the Begums had no real claim over the treasure that they had appropriated as their own after the death of Shuja-ud-Daula: Dirks, Scandal of Empire, 112.

41. Natasha Eaton, Mimesis across Empires: Artworks and Networks in India, 1765–1860 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013): 193.

42. Hille, Gems of Sacred Kingship, 293.

43. Nuruddin Muhammad Jahangir, The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999): 180–81.

44. Natasha Eaton, ‘Between Mimesis and Alterity: Art, Gift, and Diplomacy in Colonial India, 1770–1800’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 46, no. 4 (2004): 816–44; 818.

45. Ibid., 818.

46. Stewart Gordon, ‘Introduction’, in Robes of Honour: Khil’at in Pre Colonial and Colonial India, ed. Stewart Gordon (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003): 135.

47. Eaton, Mimesis across Empire, 178–80.

48. ‘A Brief Abstract of the Case of Ozias Humphrey Portrait Painter Respecting His Transactions at the Court of Oude’, Cases of Ozias Humphrey and Mr Paul at Lucknow, Wellesley Papers, Add. MSS 13532, British Library: 1–2.

49. Natasha Eaton, ‘Coercion and the Gift—Art, Jewels and the Body in British Diplomacy in Colonial India’, in Global Gifts: The Material Culture of Diplomacy in Early Modern Eurasia, ed. Zoltan Biedermann, Anne Gerritsen and Giogio Riello (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018): 266–90;285.

50. Ibid., 286.

51. Ibid., 290.

52. ‘A Letter to the Deputy Secretary to the Government in the Political Department from the Resident at Lucknow’, Foreign Department, Political, January 8, 1830, no. 54, NAI.

53. Ibid.

54. ‘A Description of a Breakfast Meeting between the Resident and the King of Oudh’, Foreign Department, Political, February 1, 1834, no. 37, NAI.

55. Baksh, Tarikh, 23.

56. ‘Copy of Letter Addressed by the French Ambassador to the Earl of Aberdeen Requesting that the British Resident at Lucknow May Be Instructed to Cause Some Presents from the King of France to the King of Oude, Now Lying in Chandernagore to be Forwarded to Their Destination’, Foreign Department, Political, no. 65, June 11, 1830, NAI.

57. Ibid.

58. ‘Translation of an Official Note from His Majesty the King of Oude to Colonel Low, Resident at Lucknow’, Political Department, November 9, 1842, no. 71–72, NAI.

59. Ibid.

60. Political Department, November 9, 1842, no. 71–72, NAI.

61. Biedermann, Gerritsen and Riello, ‘Introduction’, 18.

62. Ibid., 14.

63. ‘A Letter from the Secretary of the Governor General to the Resident of Lucknow’, Foreign Department Political, May 15, 1847, no. 61– 62, NAI.

64. ‘A Letter from the Resident at Lucknow to the Secretary to the Government of India’, Foreign Department, Political, December 31, 1847, no. 1263, NAI.

65. Viscount George Valentia, Voyages and Travels in India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia and Egypt in the Years 1802, 1803, 1805 and 1806 (London: W. Bulmer and Co., 1809): 104.

66. Ibid.

67. ‘A Letter to the Deputy Secretary to the Government in the Political Department from the Resident at Lucknow’, Foreign Department, Political, January 8, 1830, no. 54, NAI.

68. ‘A Letter from the Resident at Lucknow to the Secretary to the Governor General’, Foreign Department, Political, January 7, 1831, no. 14, NAI.

69. Ibid.

70. Ibid.

71. ‘Translation of the Description of Gifts Sent to the King of England by the Nawab of Awadh with Colonel Dubois and Mr. Paton’, Foreign Department, Political Proceedings, April 6–20, 1835, NAI.

72. Ibid.

73. Emily Hannam, ‘Georges, Nawabs and Nabobs: A “Very Splendid” Collection Is Formed’, in Eastern Encounters: Four Centuries of Paintings and Manuscripts from the Indian Subcontinent, Royal Collection Trust, accessed February 9, 2024, https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/publications/eastern-encounters/chapter-2.

74. See Charles Stewart, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Library of the Late Tippoo Sultan of Mysore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1809), for a comparison on book cultures in the subcontinent.

75. ‘Translation of the Description of Gifts’.

76. Michael D. Calabria, The Language of the Taj Mahal: Islam, Prayer and the Religion of Shah Jahan (London: Bloomsbury, 2021): 40.

77. Alam, Crisis of Empire, 10.

78. Catalogue of a Valuable Collection of Books (London: Sotheby’s and Co., 1839): 62–64.

79. Hannam, ‘Georges, Nawabs and Nabobs’.

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid.

82. Ibid.

83. Ibid.

84. The Nawab proposed the following gifts: to the ‘Artillery and Regiment present at the coronation—Rs. 2000; to the Companies on Guard at the Palace, night of the coronation and two following days—Rs. 2000; His Majesty is likewise desirous of presenting Lieutenant Nicolson and Billiard of the 23^rd N. I who were on duty with the above companies with one shawl and roomal each and to Fuzzul Hoosain one of the Residency Chobdars who was directed by me to remain with the Companies on Guard…His Majesty also wishes to give him a shawl as a reward for his useful services’: ‘A Letter from the Resident (Richmond) to the Secretary of the Governor General’, Foreign Department, Political, February 27, 1837, no. 179–80, NAI.

85. ‘A Letter from Captain Paton (Acting Resident) to the Secretary to the Government of India in the Political Department, Fort William’, Foreign Department, Political, March 17, 1835, no. 50, NAI.

86. ‘A Letter to the Political Secretary to the Government of India from the Resident at Lucknow’, Foreign Department, Political, February 1, 1841, no. 66, NAI.

87. Nicholas Thomas, Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture and Colonialism in the Pacific (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991): 31.

88. Biedermann, Gerritsen and Riello, ‘Introduction’, 24.

89. Ibid., 27.

90. Ibid.

91. ‘To Extraordinary Durbar Charges Incurred in the Month of December 1837…at Mr Secretary Macnaghten’s Visit to the King of Oude on the 29th December 1837’, Political Progress, February 14–28, 1838, Serial no. 819, NAI.