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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Fair Dowdy and I'm playing a chocolate boarding and

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Speaker 1: we've talked a lot in the past six months. We've

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Speaker 1: done a few episodes, I should say on Britain in

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Speaker 1: India and the relationship between the two countries. And a

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Speaker 1: subject that comes up a lot is the difficulty we have,

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Speaker 1: or the difficulty many people have had in reconciling British

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Speaker 1: ideals and colonial British action. They just don't always mesh up. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Especially notable are some British attitudes. In the luxhmi By

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Speaker 1: episode that we did recently. Sir Hugh Rose, the man

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Speaker 1: whose forces finally defeated this Indian joan of arc, also

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Speaker 1: called her remarkable for her bravery, cleverness and perseverance. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this personal admiration combined with a policy of suppression

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Speaker 1: can seem really really strange when you look back at it,

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Speaker 1: But perhaps no one epitomizes it better than Queen Victoria herself.

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Speaker 1: She's sort of the ultimate in combining admiration with suppression,

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Speaker 1: and on the one hand, she's all for imperialist expansion.

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Speaker 1: When she officially becomes embrass of India in eighteen seventy six,

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Speaker 1: she's just over the moon, and at that point it

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Speaker 1: is just a title change pretty much. She's been effectively

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Speaker 1: in charge for quite some time. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: she also falls completely head over heels for Indian culture,

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Speaker 1: especially the culture that's imported directly to her by her

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Speaker 1: favorite servant, her Moonshi or teacher, a man named Abdual Kareem,

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Speaker 1: and he's often called the Indian John Brown. Yeah. To

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Speaker 1: understand that reference, though, we'll have to provide a little

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Speaker 1: background for you on Victoria's life. When twenty four year

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Speaker 1: old Abdual Kareem showed up in London, Victoria was in

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Speaker 1: her late sixties, and she was in a good place,

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Speaker 1: celebrating her golden jubilee and finally reassuming the busy schedule

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Speaker 1: of an active monarch. Yeah. So Victoria had, of course

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Speaker 1: assumed the throne as an eighteen year old, sheltered girl.

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Speaker 1: She had been raised in this close isolation by her

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Speaker 1: mother and her mother's conniving companion, Sir John Conroy, and

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Speaker 1: the plan those two had was to create a monarch

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Speaker 1: that was so utterly dependent on her mother. By extension,

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Speaker 1: Conroy would have the sweet position as regent. It didn't work,

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Speaker 1: and as soon as Victoria became queen she shook off

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Speaker 1: her early influences and went about choosing her own. First

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Speaker 1: her prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, who she relied on a lot,

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Speaker 1: and then at twenty her cousin Albert, whom she married.

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Speaker 1: And if you've seen we were joking about this earlier,

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Speaker 1: if you've seen young Victoria, you know this part of

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Speaker 1: the story. Maybe something will revisit in greater detail at

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Speaker 1: some point, much requested, but just to give you a

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Speaker 1: background on where Victoria is coming from. Yeah. So she

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Speaker 1: and Albert had nine children, and in her constant state

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Speaker 1: of pregnancy and child bearing, Victoria handed over a lot

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Speaker 1: of her power or to her husband. She was happy

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Speaker 1: with them, though, she wrote once without him, everything loses

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Speaker 1: its interest. So when Albert died quite suddenly in eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty one, the forty two year old Victoria went into

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Speaker 1: a very deep depression. And she had dealt with depression

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Speaker 1: throughout her life. She had postpartum depression after the birth

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Speaker 1: the most most of her children, but this was different,

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Speaker 1: she wrote, quote those paroxysms of despair and yearning and longing,

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Speaker 1: and of daily nightly longing to die for the first

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Speaker 1: three years never left me. So her people were okay

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Speaker 1: with this deep morning for a while. After all, it

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Speaker 1: was the respectful, respectable thing to do for a Victorian woman,

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Speaker 1: for Victoria herself. But eventually it just became too much.

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Speaker 1: She wasn't doing her job, she was never around, she

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Speaker 1: was never at functions, she was just missing. I think

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Speaker 1: I even found a political cartoon from the time, which

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Speaker 1: is the British lion sitting behind the throne which is

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Speaker 1: completely empty. The crown is there and it's wondering where

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Speaker 1: the Queen is because she's just gone. And you may

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Speaker 1: have to post this one on a blog or something,

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Speaker 1: so from there it's oversimplifying both victorious personal feelings and

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Speaker 1: her rule a little bit. But basically two things happened

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Speaker 1: to finally draw her out of this depression. One was

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Speaker 1: her interest in imperialism, and the other was her interest

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Speaker 1: in her husband's former gilly and that was John Brown,

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Speaker 1: who was Scottish and he became her close friend in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four until his death in three And there's

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Speaker 1: been a lot of debate about the precise nature of

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Speaker 1: Victorian relationship another movie, another potential podcast. I think definitely,

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Speaker 1: and I mean she was called Mrs Brown, and she

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Speaker 1: scandalized her court by staying alone with John Brown in

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Speaker 1: her Scottish cottage, and it caused a lot of talk. Definitely,

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Speaker 1: but it's certain, regardless of how far their relationship went,

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Speaker 1: it's certain they were very, very close. And she went

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Speaker 1: into deep morning after his staff too, and after her

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Speaker 1: own death, which happened about twenty years later, she had

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Speaker 1: her servant secretly add to her coffin not only mementos

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Speaker 1: from Albert, who she was still in mourning four years later,

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Speaker 1: but a photo and a handkerchief and a lock of

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Speaker 1: Brown's hair. So definitely, John Brown played a pretty major

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Speaker 1: role in Victoria's life. But by eighteen eighty seven, four

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Speaker 1: years after Brown's death, Victoria was once again a fully

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Speaker 1: active monarch. Her her low point in popularity had come

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Speaker 1: around eighteen seventy and it had been steadily on the

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Speaker 1: uptick since then, But by eighteen eighty seven she was

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Speaker 1: fully reformed. She was more popular than she had been

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Speaker 1: in a long time, and the year conveniently marked her

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Speaker 1: golden jubilee, which is fifty years as the reigning monarch. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so she had a lot of people in from all

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Speaker 1: over to celebrate with her, including some Indian royalty, and

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Speaker 1: so Victoria wanted to Indian servants to wait on them,

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Speaker 1: and that's how she first met Abdual Kareem. And Kareem

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Speaker 1: was a twenty four year old from Aga and he

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Speaker 1: had been recommended to Victoria by his superior officer at

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Speaker 1: the jail where he worked as a clerk. So the

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Speaker 1: first thing he does when he gets to London is

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Speaker 1: toward the city visits the zoo. He also visits Madam

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Speaker 1: Tussau's which is just in everything. Now. I feel like

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Speaker 1: wax is the new exclamation. I thought cross dressing was

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Speaker 1: the new exclamation after we did all those Women's History

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Speaker 1: Month episodes. But maybe we just have a lot of

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Speaker 1: new themes. Yeah, we'll see what comes out on top

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Speaker 1: in the end. So after he does this little tourist

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Speaker 1: thing in London, he meets up with the Queen. Her

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Speaker 1: first impressions of him are well exhibited. I think in

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Speaker 1: this quote she says, the one Mohammed books, which is

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Speaker 1: the other one. It's very dark with a very smiling expression,

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Speaker 1: and the other much younger called Abdul Kareem, is much lighter,

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Speaker 1: tall and with a fine, serious countenance. His father is

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Speaker 1: a native doctor at Agra. They both kissed my feet,

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Speaker 1: So there you go. I guess a good first impression

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Speaker 1: from Victoria. She likes them. She calls him back later.

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Speaker 1: And we don't know much else about Mohammed. We do

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Speaker 1: know that within the year Kareem had graduated way above

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Speaker 1: waiting tables. He was sampling curry with the Queen, which

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Speaker 1: became one of her dining favorites. And he was teaching

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Speaker 1: her Urdu and Hindi and she really loves it too.

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Speaker 1: She's up in years, but she completely throws herself into

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Speaker 1: her studies trying to master these languages, and eventually even

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Speaker 1: produces a thirteen volume Hindustanding diary. And I'm just gonna

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Speaker 1: give you the description from the royal website where you

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Speaker 1: can actually see a one picture of a page from

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Speaker 1: these diaries, because it's really hard to understand the translation

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Speaker 1: process that abdual Kareem and Victoria worked out. So here

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Speaker 1: we go. It is thought that Queen Victoria wrote the

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Speaker 1: English text at the bottom, that Abdul Kareem then wrote

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Speaker 1: the middle section with the English text put into the

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Speaker 1: correct word order for the too standing translation in the

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Speaker 1: Hindustani words below in English script, and that finally the

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Speaker 1: Queen wrote the text in or Do characters, so lots

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Speaker 1: of languages going on help with grammar and vocabulary and guessing.

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Speaker 1: I know. He also made her a phrase book with

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Speaker 1: with simple everyday sort of phrases copied out in an

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Speaker 1: anglicized version, so she could just look it up and

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Speaker 1: be able to say what she needed to to whatever

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Speaker 1: print she was talking with. But Kareem still doesn't have

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Speaker 1: an official position, even though he's clearly with her quite

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Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, So after a year, he thinks his

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Speaker 1: work is too menial considering his experience in India and

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Speaker 1: he wants to go home. So Victoria doesn't want that

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Speaker 1: to happen, and so she promotes him to official Munshi,

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Speaker 1: an Indian clerk to the Queen. So he's basically her

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Speaker 1: personal secretary at that point and her personal teachers still

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Speaker 1: and her personal teacher, so it's high rolling for him

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Speaker 1: from there on out. He starts mingling with the big

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Speaker 1: wigs on his annual trips to India. By eighteen ninety

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Speaker 1: he is servants of his own by eighteen nine one,

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Speaker 1: and he's allowed to carry a sword and wear traditional dress. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and he brings over his family to Victoria's concerned that

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Speaker 1: he might miss his wife back home in India, so

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Speaker 1: he brings her over. I think he brings his nephew

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Speaker 1: over eventually. And they're given cottages that each of Victoria's estates,

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Speaker 1: and of course, when we say cottage, that is an understatement.

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Speaker 1: There lavishly decorated, lovely homes. He even gets his own

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Speaker 1: cottage at Balmoral name for him Kareem's Cottage, or at

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Speaker 1: least that's Victoria's nickname for it. And his father notably

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Speaker 1: becomes the first to smoke hookah at Windsor Castle, which

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Speaker 1: was kind of a big milestone because Victoria did not

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Speaker 1: like smoking at all in her presence. Yeah, so she

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Speaker 1: kind of embraces his family, and though she refuses to

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Speaker 1: confer knighthood on Kareem, she grows closer and closer to him.

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Speaker 1: She writes some several letters a day, signing some with

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Speaker 1: quote your loving mother or your closest friend, or with

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Speaker 1: kisses according to the BBC. She also both friends his

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Speaker 1: wife and offers him advice on the couple's inability to

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Speaker 1: have children, So getting really personal here. Yeah, And she

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Speaker 1: sends him a Christmas tree in eighteen nine three and

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Speaker 1: also seeks out his advice too, so she's not just

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Speaker 1: getting into super personal husband and wife business, but she's

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Speaker 1: asking him about Indian affairs and his opinions. And it's

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Speaker 1: this last point that really drives her family in the

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Speaker 1: court crazy, and it frustrates some of her people in

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Speaker 1: government in India too because as a Muslim Indian, Korean's

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Speaker 1: opinions tend to decide with his own people and not

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Speaker 1: everyone in India under Victoria's government thought that was a

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Speaker 1: very good idea. But Victoria's family wasn't just upset about

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Speaker 1: his influence in her politics. They're also upset just by

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Speaker 1: how close they are, the sixtiesomething year old woman and

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Speaker 1: this young Indian man in his twenties, and especially when, surprise, surprise,

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Speaker 1: they too spend a night together in the same Highland

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Speaker 1: cottage that Victoria would visit with John Brown. This just

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Speaker 1: did not seem okay to the Royal family at all.

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Speaker 1: It's a little fishy. So it comes back to them,

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Speaker 1: I guess when Victoria dies. When she dies, her family

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Speaker 1: they do follow her wishes and they allow Kareem to

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Speaker 1: serve as one of her principal mourners, but as soon

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Speaker 1: as it's over, her son now Edward the Seventh, fires

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Speaker 1: Kareem and orders that the records of their relationship, kept

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Speaker 1: both at his UK and Indian homes, be destroyed. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but we don't want you to think that this is

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Speaker 1: solely related to the relationship of Victoria and Abdual Kareem,

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Speaker 1: because it's actually in keeping with the general revisionism that

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Speaker 1: Victoria's children practice after her death. For instance, her daughter

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Speaker 1: Beatrice copied out and edited the decades and decades of

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Speaker 1: journals kept by by Victoria. She had kept journals since

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Speaker 1: she was a girl, and her daughter literally copied them

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Speaker 1: all out, taking out the part she that were inappropriate painstakingly, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean she even cut out images and things in

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Speaker 1: case them in the new versions. Again on the on

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Speaker 1: the Royal website, there are some copies of documents related

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Speaker 1: relating to Victoria's life, and one of them is the

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Speaker 1: diary entry right before she got married, so probably nothing

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Speaker 1: would have been too scandalous in that. And you can

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Speaker 1: see a little cut out where Victoria has sketched a

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Speaker 1: profile of herself in her wedding headdress, and I guess

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Speaker 1: Beatrice has felt the need to preserve the little picture,

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Speaker 1: but altered the text and copy it out herself. So

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Speaker 1: in a similar fashion, they took the material from her

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Speaker 1: time with Kareem and sort of destroyed all ever watched it. Right,

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Speaker 1: But there was still enough evidence left to know that

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Speaker 1: Victoria had had a very close relationship with this Indian

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Speaker 1: teacher of hers. For one thing, those Hindustani journals kept

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Speaker 1: at Windsor Castle, they were still there, although they hadn't

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Speaker 1: been translated at all until recently. And letters Victoria wrote

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Speaker 1: to other people that mentioned Kareem. Yeah. For instance, she

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Speaker 1: wrote a letter to her daughter Vicky saying that Kareem

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Speaker 1: was a very strict master but a perfect gentleman, so

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Speaker 1: they couldn't really control every word that had gotten out

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Speaker 1: about him. And also since this was such a gossipy

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Speaker 1: topic around court, there was there were plenty of records

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Speaker 1: about this close friendship between the monarch and this man, right,

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Speaker 1: so there was enough information floating around out there for

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Speaker 1: author Sharbani Bassu to write a book about it. Write

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Speaker 1: a book about the relationship between Victoria and Kareem I

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Speaker 1: should say. And while she was an India promoting this

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Speaker 1: book about Victoria and Kareem, she was contacted by a

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Speaker 1: surviving member of Kareem's family who read about the book

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Speaker 1: in a local paper. It turns out that after Kareem's

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Speaker 1: death in nineteen o nine, the family had managed to

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Speaker 1: keep some of his memento safe, including a diary covering

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Speaker 1: the ten year period between Victoria's golden and diamond jubilees.

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Speaker 1: So since seven they had to this hidden in Pakistan.

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Speaker 1: So Bossu traveled to Pakistan and studied the diaries and

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Speaker 1: the photo from Victoria that was signed in Urdu and

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Speaker 1: other keepsakes, and updated her book because clearly this was

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Speaker 1: good information to to have and to add to the

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Speaker 1: whole thing. There wasn't a bombshell, It wasn't like some

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Speaker 1: sort of confessional letter that would really make this whole

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Speaker 1: story scandalous. But the new information did mean that the

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Speaker 1: story made international news. I mean, we mentioned a BBC article,

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Speaker 1: It was all over the papers in March, because I

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Speaker 1: don't think people, or at least people had forgotten how

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Speaker 1: close Victoria was to this young man. Yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: mean even though it didn't reveal anything new, it at

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Speaker 1: least added more information, like more evidence to the store,

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Speaker 1: I think, yeah, and and just interesting facts about it too.

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Speaker 1: We have more quotes, and I mean, I think the

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Speaker 1: picture signed in the language she struggled so hard to

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Speaker 1: learn is is really interesting. But I also sort of

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Speaker 1: have a listener request of myself, and I know that

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Speaker 1: some of you are really up on Victorian Indian policy,

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Speaker 1: and I'm just curious about any specific instances where Kareem's

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Speaker 1: influence might have been seen in government, because if that's

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Speaker 1: what her family and people in her government were so

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Speaker 1: worried that he would just have too much power and influence.

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Speaker 1: Is there anything that we can look at and say that,

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Speaker 1: well that might have traced back to him in some way. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so right to us. If you know anything, we'll give

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Speaker 1: you the email in just a minute, but before that

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Speaker 1: we're going to do some list for mail. So this

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Speaker 1: email is from Chris and he wrote, Hi, Sara and Dablina.

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Speaker 1: I just listened to your podcast on the Oneida group

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Speaker 1: and was a little disappointed that Charles Guiteau, McKinley's assassmin

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Speaker 1: didn't make an appearance before turning his attentions to politics

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Speaker 1: and violence. He was actually a member of the Oneida community,

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Speaker 1: and despite their free love attitude of c only, no

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Speaker 1: one wanted to use a trysting room with him. According

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Speaker 1: to some sources, he was so unpopular that he earned

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Speaker 1: the nickname Charles get Out. He left in a huff

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Speaker 1: even tried to sue noise, as I recall, and many

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Speaker 1: people think it was in large part over his sexual rejection.

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Speaker 1: I remember when I first heard about this, thinking that

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Speaker 1: if only he'd been more popular in bed, he probably

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Speaker 1: never would have shot anyone. Anyway, I love the podcast,

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Speaker 1: and even though we all learned about ministory, I think

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Speaker 1: he should do a presidential Assassin series. There are definitely

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Speaker 1: enough weird facts about the assassination that we've either forgotten

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Speaker 1: or never heard about, like Guta's Unaida connection. And actually

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Speaker 1: I did see this, and I knew if Skara Vowel

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Speaker 1: has a new book out to or I guess it's

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Speaker 1: one of her older books that mentioned this connection to Anida.

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Speaker 1: I just I was actually thinking of saving it if

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Speaker 1: we ever drew Well, now we haven't Astraditions podcast every

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Speaker 1: now and then, there's a fact that I'll keep in

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Speaker 1: my back pocket for some dreamy future. Podcast will do. Oh,

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Speaker 1: that's a good idea that one. Okay, this could also

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Speaker 1: it sounds like become a stuff mom never told you podcasts?

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Speaker 1: I think can sexual rejection drive you to murder? Maybe

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Speaker 1: we'll go suggest that to Molly and Kristen after we

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Speaker 1: get out of here. But thank you Chris for your email.

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Speaker 1: I couldn't resist it because of your mention of the

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Speaker 1: trysting room. But um, pretty pretty interesting stuff. So if

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Speaker 1: any of you have any great stories like that additions

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Speaker 1: to previous podcasts or future podcast we love getting these

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Speaker 1: entries from you. Guys do a lot of the work

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Speaker 1: for us. UM write us at history podcast at how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or you can look us up

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Speaker 1: on Twitter at Miston History or on Facebook. And you

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Speaker 1: can also look up our blogs, right, Sarah, you sure can.

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Speaker 1: We are at www dot how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and that's of other topics, visit

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,

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Speaker 1: click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner

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Speaker 1: of our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has

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Speaker 1: a ride. Download it today on iTunes. M