For three years of my life, six days a week, I travelled
from my home in the Ballygunge area in the South of Calcutta, to Park Street
(now Mother Teresa Sarani), in the heart of the city, to attend college. And
yet, for those three years, it never occurred to me to peep inside the high
walls that stood just opposite the college, on the corner of Park Street and
Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road (previously Karbala Road). Some time in the last few
years, one of the two wooden gates of that compound collapsed, revealing a vast
unkempt lawn, and a grand building in a truly deplorable state. This ruined
building is Murshidabad House, once home to the family of Mir Jafar Ali Khan
Bahadur, known to Bengalis simply as Mir Jafar, the archetypal traitor.
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| Murshidabad House today |
Post the Nawaab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daula’s sack of
Calcutta, a retributory force of the East India Company’s men under Robert
Clive faced off with the Nawaab on the battlefield of Plassey. The Nawaab
vastly outmanned and outgunned the Company, but for the Company it was a
no-contest, since Mir Jafar, commander of the Nawaab’s armies, had been
convinced to come over to the Company’s side. The traitor held his forces back,
or so the story goes, and the Nawaab was defeated, caught while attempting to
flee, and slaughtered. Mir Jafar was installed in his place as the first puppet
ruler of Bengal under the East India Company. Except for a small period, this
was a position he held till his death in 1765. He was succeeded by his second
son, Najmuddin Ali Khan, then his elder son Najabat Ali Khan, then his fourth
son Ashraf Ali Khan, then Mubarak Ali Khan, another son by a wife known as
Babbu Begum. Several generations and a whole lot of primogeniture later, we end
up with Sayyid Wasif Ali Mirza Khan Bahadur who was born in 1875 and crowned
Nawaab of Murshidabad (the title Nawaab of Bengal had been abolished in 1880)
in 1906.
Wasif Ali Mirza breathed his last in this house on the 23rd
of October 1959. By then his estates had been taken over by the Government in
response to his having run up a debt of some 19 lakhs. His son Waris Ali Mirza
was the last to hold the title of Nawaab of Murshidabad and there has been no
clear successor to the line since his death in 1969. It is difficult to say
exactly when the house on 85 Park Street came up, though it’s colonnaded
verandahs and plain columns with ionic capitals would seem to suggest some time
in the 1850’s. Since 1931, when the property was taken over by the government,
it has been in a state of limbo, slowly decaying and collapsing. Parts of the
cornice and roof have caved in, much of the marble railing at the front is
gone, but inspite of all the squalor, there are people still living inside.
Journalist Soumitra Das was able to locate Afshaan
Meerza, who was related to the royal family by marriage, and apparently still
lives there. A few of the Nawaab’s staff members live on the premises with
their extended families. Chickens and children run around in the backyard,
expensive cars are sometimes seen parked on the front lawns, and local kids
often play football within the premises. There are saree embroidery workshops
and some other businesses also operating from within the premises. With the help
of the families who had taken up residence in the building, me and my friend
Amartya entered the ground floor through a rear door, and found vast, empty
rooms, once obviously plush and richly decorated, but now bare, silent, and
covered in a thick layer of dust. Where has all the furniture gone we ask? It
has mostly been carted off or sold by them, we are told. Who this “them” is, we
can only guess.
Around 2007, G.M. Kapur, head of the Calcutta chapter of
INTACH had attempted to get the building restored, but so far his efforts have
come to naught. Can Murshidabad House be saved? Or will it make way for yet
another garish, modern, boring commercial complex? Only time will tell.
- by Deepanjan Ghosh
SOURCES
A Jaywalker’s Guide to Calcutta – Soumitra Das
Built Heritage Today – INTACH
INTERIORS OF MURSHIDABAD HOUSE SHOT BY AMARTYA SAHA
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