Word Finder - nizam

definition

The hereditary sovereign of Hyderabad, a former state of India.

French regiments guarded and overawed the nizam of Hyderabad.

The imprudent conduct of the Madras authorities had irritated beyond endurance the two greatest Mussulman powers in the peninsula, the nizam of the Deccan and Hyder Ali, the usurper of Mysore, who began to negotiate an alliance with the Mahrattas.

He signed a blank treaty of peace with the Mahrattas, who were still in arms, reversed the action of the Madras government towards the nizam, and concentrated all the resources of Bengal against Hyder Ali.

The present chiefs are descended from Momin Khan II., the last of the governors of Gujarat, who in 1742 murdered his brother-in-law, Nizam Khan, governor of Cambay, and established himself there.

This large tract, extending from the Arabian Sea on the west to the Satpura mountains in the north, comprises a good part of western and central India, including the modern provinces of the Konkan, Khandesh, Berar, the British Deccan, part of Nagpur, and about half the nizam's Deccan.

At the close of the war with Tippoo Sultan in 1792, these territories fell to the share of the nizam of Hyderabad, by whom they were ceded to the British in 1800, in return for protection by a force of British troops to be stationed at his capital.

In consolidating his empire and subduing contending factions he was ably assisted by Nizam ul-Mulk, his vizier, one of the most eminent statesmen in early Mahommedan history.

After a temporary arrangement of terms with the raja of Vizianagram the old feud broke out again, and the Bobbili chief was forced to take refuge in the nizam's country.

Under the original settlement concluded by the treaties of 1853 and 1860 the revenues of the province were assigned primarily for the maintenance of the Hyderabad contingent, such surplus as accrued from year to year being made over to the nizam, while the province itself was administered in trust by the government of India through the resident at Hyderabad.

In spite of a treaty signed with the British in this year, Mudhoji in 1817 joined the peshwa, but was defeated at Sitabaldi and forced to cede the rest of Berar to the nizam, and parts of Saugor and Damoh, with Mandla, Betul, Seoni and the Nerbudda valley, to the British.

In time of war, it is completed by all troops not serving with the nizam, the redif class I.

Allowing for certain battalions unformed, there are altogether 309 nizam battalions; 20 separate chasseur battalions, of four companies each; 4 special chasseur battalions stationed on the Bulgarian frontier - total, 333 battalions in the first line.

The nizam cavalry is incorporated with the first six ordus, one cavalry division of 3 brigades of 2 regiments each being appointed to each ordu.

He had been disappointed that the command of the large contingent of the nizam was given to Colonel Arthur Wellesley; and when after the capture of the fortress the same officer obtained the governorship, Baird judged himself to have been treated with injustice and disrespect.

He died in 1504 and his direct descendants held the sultanate of Berar until 1561, when Burhan Imad Shah was deposed by his minister Tufal Khan, who assumed the kingship. This gave a pretext for the intervention of Murtaza Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar, who in 1572 invaded Berar, imprisoned and put to death Tufal Khan, his son Shams-ul-Mulk, and the ex-king Burhan, and annexed Berar to his own dominions.

By the partition treaty of Hyderabad (1804) these ceded territories in Berar were transferred to the nizam, together with some tracts about Sindkhed and Jalna which had been held by Sindhia.

By a treaty of 1822, which extinguished the Mahratta right to levy chauth, the Wardha river was fixed as the eastern boundary of Berar, the Melghat and adjoining districts in the plains being assigned to the nizam in exchange for the districts east of the Wardha held by the peshwa.

Meanwhile the misery of the country was increased by the reckless raising of loans by the nizam's government and the pledging of the revenues to a succession of great farmers-general.

At last the British government had to intervene effectively, and in 1853 a new treaty was signed with the nizam, under which the Hyderabad contingent was to be maintained by the British government, while for the pay of this force and in satisfaction of other claims, certain districts were "assigned" to the East India Company.

In 1860, by a new treaty which modified in the nizam's favour that of 1853, it was agreed that Berar should be held in trust by the British government for the purposes specified in the treaty of 1853.

Thousands of cultivators who had emigrated across the Wardha to the peshwa's dominions, in order to escape the ruinous fiscal system of the nizam's government, now returned; the American Civil War gave an immense stimulus to the cotton trade; the laying of a line of railway across the province provided yet further employment, and the people rapidly became prosperous and contented.

From 1820 to 5825 Sir Charles (who succeeded his brother in the baronetcy in 1822) was resident at the court of the nizam, and afterwards was summoned in an emergency to his former post at Delhi.

Hyder Ali now began to occupy the serious attention of the Madras government, which in 1766 entered into an agreement with the nizam to furnish him with troops to be used against the common foe.

Wheat grows as far south as Patagonia, and as far north as the edge of the Arctic Circle; it flourishes throughout Europe, and across the whole of northern Asia and in Japan; it is cultivated in Persia, and raised largely in India, as far south as the Nizam's dominions.

He, however, like his father Alp Arslan, was indebted for his greatest fame to wise and salutary measures of their vizier, Nizam ul-Mulk.

In the war with Tippoo Saib the 33rd was attached to the Nizam's contingent; and Colonel Wellesley commanded this division in the army of General (Lord) Harris.

In these critical circumstances Wellesley was charged with "the general direction and control of military and political affairs in the territories of the Nizam, the Peshwa and the Mahratta states and chiefs."

The Nizam, now in the possession of the nizam of Hyderabad, is supposed to weigh 277 carats; but it is only a portion of a stone which is said to have weighed 440 carats before it was broken.

The Victoria, 180 carats, was cut from an octahedron weighing 4572 carats, and was sold to the nizam of Hyderabad for £400,000.

In 1739 the Mahommedans finally yielded to the demand of the Mahrattas for a fourth of the revenue, and in 1760 the Nizam of the Deccan ceded Burhanpur to the peshwa, who in 1778 transferred it to Sindhia.

It is believed that the far-famed diamonds of Golconda actually came from the sandstone formation which extends across the south-east borders of the nizam's dominions into the Madras districts of Ganjam and Godavari.

These were - (1) the Adil Shahi dynasty, with its capital at Bijapur, founded in 1490 by a Turk; (2) the Kutb Shahi dynasty, with its capital at Golconda, founded in 1512 by a Turkoman adventurer; (3) the Nizam Shahi dynasty, with its capital at Ahmednagar, founded in 1490 by a Brahman renegade; (4) the Imad Shahi dynasty of Berar, with its capital at Ellichpur, founded in 1484 also by a Hindu from Vijayanagar; (5) the Barid Shahi dynasty, with its capital at Bidar, founded about 1492 by one who is variously described as a Turk and a Georgian slave.

Another scion claiming the same high descent lingers to the present day near the ruins of Vijayanagar, and is known as the raja of Anagundi, a feudatory of the nizam of Hyderabad.

The Carnatic, or the lowland tract between the central plateau and the eastern sea, was ruled by a deputy of the nizam, known as the nawab of Arcot, who in his turn asserted claims to hereditary sovereignty.

Wellesley first addressed himself to the nizam, where his policy prevailed without serious opposition.

The French battalions at Hyderabad were disbanded and the nizam bound himself by treaty not to take any European into his service without the consent of the British government - a clause since inserted in every engagement entered into with native powers.

One British army marched into Mysore from Madras, accompanied by a contingent from the nizam.

The reckless conduct of the Madras government had roused the hostility both of Hyder Ali of Mysore and of the nizam of the Deccan, the two strongest Mussulman powers in India, who attempted to draw the Mahrattas into an alliance against the British.

The diplomacy of Hastings won over the nizam and the Mahratta raja of Nagpur, but the army of Hyder Ali fell like a thunderbolt upon the British possessions in the Carnatic. A strong detachment under Colonel Baillie was cut to pieces at Perambakam, and the Mysore cavalry ravaged the country unchecked up to the walls of Madras.

Sir Eyre Coote, the victor of Wandiwash, was sent by sea to relieve Madras with all the men and money available, while Colonel Pearse marched south overland to overawe the raja of Berar and the nizam.

Within a year Hastings was succeeded had dethroned, while the rest was partitioned between the nizam and the British.

The Mahrattas had been the nominal allies of the British in both their wars with Tippoo, but they had never given active assistance, nor were they secured to the British side as the nizam now was.

The Bhonsla raja forfeited Orissa to the English, who had already occupied it with a flying column, and Berar to the nizam, who gained a fresh addition by every act of complaisance to the British government.

That year also saw British administration extended to the Berars, or the assigned districts which the nizam of Hyderabad was induced to cede as a territorial guarantee for the subsidies which he perpetually kept in arrear.

In the last-mentioned capacity he highly distinguished himself by the manner in which he gave effect to the difficult measure of disbanding the French corps in the pay of the nizam.

In 1789 it was ceded by Tippoo to the nizam, and in 1800 the nizam ceded the district of Anantapur with others to the British in payment for a subsidiary British force.

Salabat Jang, the son of the nizam ul mulk Asaf Jah, who was indebted for his elevation to the throne to the French East India Company, granted them in return for their services the district of Kondavid or Guntur, and soon afterwards the other Circars.

But the latter left them under the administration of the nizam, with the exception of the town and fortress of Masulipatam, which were retained by the English East India Company.

Hereupon the fort of Kondapalli was seized by the British, and on the 12th of November 1766 a treaty of alliance was signed with Nizam Ali by which the Company, in return for the grant of the Circars, undertook to maintain troops for the nizam's assistance.

By a second treaty, signed on the 1st of March 1768, the nizam acknowledged the validity of Shah Alam's grant and resigned the Circars to the Company, receiving as a mark of friendship an annuity of £so,000.