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Abhimanyu Kumar and Aletta André, "The House of Awadh: A Hidden Tragedy" (HarperCollins India, 2025)
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- [00:04]
Aletta Andre
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- [00:27]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Learn more@WhatsApp.com this episode is brought to.
- [00:31]
Aletta Andre
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- [01:26]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:30]
Nicholas Gordon
Hello, I'm Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review of Books podcast, done in partnership with the New Books Network. In this podcast we interview fiction and nonfiction authors working in, around and about the Asia Pacific region. Begum Wilayat Mahal, the self proclaimed heir to the House of Hawad, has fascinated journalists and writers for decades. She claimed she was Indian royalty, descended from the kings of Awad, a kingdom annexed by the British in 1856. She spent a decade in the waiting room of the New Delhi train station, receiving journalists intrigued by the image of Indian royals in cramped conditions. Then her family was granted use of a rundown 14th century hunting lodge in Delhi. None were seen in public again. Both during Wilayat Mahal's life and after her death, journalists have tried to figure out whether her story was true, most famously by a 2019 feature by the New York Times that picked apart the family's story. Now, in their book the House of A Hidden Tragedy, Aletta Andre and Abhimanyu Kumar dig into Begumwilayat Mahal's past, chasing down leads in India and Pakistan to fully explore this story. Aletta Andre is a Dutch historian and journalist who has covered South Asia for Dutch international media since 2009. Abhianyu Kumar is an Indian poet and journalist with a wide experience covering politics, arts, culture and minority issues. Aletta Abhimanyu, thank you so much for coming on the show today to talk about your book, the House of Awad A Hidden Tragedy. Before we talk about the book, I do want to kind of get into the popular view of Begum Wilayat Mahal and her story and how her life has traditionally been covered by the Indian and the international press. I know her staying in the New Delhi railway station has kind of broken down into the popular conscious a little bit, but kind of what's the popular view of this tale?
- [03:21]
Aletta Andre
Yeah, well, it has changed a bit over the years, but I would say in the early years when she had just arrived at the railway station, the Indian press started out quite factual in a way, reporting. Okay, she is here. She says she is the descendant of Wajid Ali Shah. But at that time we realized there were a lot of old kings and princes around making similar kind of claims. So there were multiple similar stories in the press. So they didn't initially go completely crazy about it. But international press, when they picked up, they were very, I think, charmed. It was a kind of old world charm that was attached to the story. Here is a queen, you know, she's from a different time, a time before India became a republic, before the modern age kind of set in. And they were also sympathetic to the complaints that she had and the claims that there's an injustice done to the House of Avets, to the old kingdom and to me and to my palaces. They were sympathetic to that. But over the years that changed a bit and it became more kind of, you know, an eccentric person to look at from outside. Someone who's not part of society, who doesn't fit in. And I think the Indian and international press became more aligned on that.
- [04:54]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Yeah, I agree with Alita. I would say also that as India became more Hindu nationalist in the last 10 years, you know, especially the last three years before Ali Raza died, because he was having some issues with the, with the right wing press as well. And their approach has been totally different. Even after his death, the way they reported his death and the way they reported about the Mahal, that has been totally, radically different from anything that has been done in the past. There is an incident described in the book also when a channel with right wing sympathies barged into the Mahal and also got the police involved and tried to sort of persecute them, right?
- [05:42]
Aletta Andre
A little, yeah. They, they described them as more suspicious. You Know the police was needed to, to come inside. Suspicious things was, were going on in there, although they were not specifically defined. But yeah, that, that happened in 2015, I think.
- [05:57]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Yeah. And, and there their identity as royalty, or for some not being royalty, that, that was still more important, but there became. Their being Muslim became more important I think later on.
- [06:10]
Nicholas Gordon
So you know what, what prompted you to, to write this book and to dig into this story? I expect it must have been quite difficult to really dive into the family history. What claims were true, what claims were not true? Like why did you want to really kind of investigate this story?
- [06:32]
Abhimanyu Kumar
I would say that there was a sense somehow that there's some deeper, there are deeper concerns behind what seemed like a very eccentric person personality and what seemed like bizarre antics. And as we got into the project, we saw that it transcends issues of individual identity and that it kind of was. Her life was a critique of how there are gaps in the narratives of liberal democracy or post colonialism, which again, paradoxically, identity can come in because, but, but in the sense that if you have multiple identities it becomes difficult to fit you in into any narrative. So that's what kind of happened with her.
- [07:19]
Aletta Andre
Yeah, yeah. When we first tried to report on it, that was actually mainly Albini who was working for a Delhi based newspaper at the time. Ali Raza was still alive, he was still living in multimahal. And maybe it was just like a curiosity of what moves people to make this kind of life choice, to live at the edge of society, to not be in it, but be out it. And later when he died and we went to Maltra Mahal and we found a lot of things that they left behind, from phone numbers to newspaper articles to their own writings and their take on history. You also then it really opened up wide and told us there is more to it and there's such rich lives and human beings behind this facade of what they showed to the media that we decided to follow those leads without knowing where they would take us.
- [08:23]
Nicholas Gordon
So what did Begum Wilayat Mahala and her children actually claim? Who did they claim to be and how were these claims received by the Indian government?
- [08:33]
Aletta Andre
Well, they claim to be the descendants of King Wajid Ali Shah and one of his many wives. But his most famous wife called Hazrat Mahal. Hazrat Mahal has this nickname, the Rebel Queen. She was the leader of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 which was after the kingdom of Awadh was annexed by the British. That was a trigger for this rebellion which he was Leading from Lucknow and Velayad, she claimed that, yeah, she was a descendant of a daughter of Hasrat Mahal, which has not been recorded in history. So it's really hard to check that claim as well. And it's why her claim was rejected by other descendants of Wajid Ali Shah, because they say she is not in any of the. You know, Vajid Ali, he wrote his own autobiography. He mentioned many wives, he mentioned all his children, but he never mentioned his daughter, for example. She's also not in the kind of family tree because she claimed her descendants through all these women that came after this daughter. And so that's not recorded in a family tree. And as for the Indian government, when she appeared on the scene in the 1970s, that was not a time that was very welcoming towards royalty anymore. There was, until 1971, there was privy purse, it was called. It was a pension for the former royal families who had given up their status to become part of the independent Indian republic. But under Prime Minister Indira Gandh, Indira Gandhi, this was abolished. And it was also political, very restless time. A year after the April, the emergency was announced. So it was not something. It was not the kind of protest also. The way she was protesting, it was considered a nuisance, basically, also by the railway authorities. But in Lucknow, in the capital, the former capital of Awad, the government, the local authorities, they were sympathetic to her because she claimed her descendancy from Hasrab Mahal and they believed it and they invited her and they investigated and they did show sympathy from that side.
- [11:11]
Nicholas Gordon
You mentioned kind of the, the, the history of, of kind of the kingdom of Awad, you know, how it got swallowed up by the British Empire? You know, could you, could you tell us a little bit more about the history behind the King of Awad and its history as an. Well, first as an independent kingdom and then how it got annexed by the British.
- [11:30]
Abhimanyu Kumar
So Wajid Ali Shah was never a favorite of the British, you know. And Awadh was founded in 1722 by Sadat Ali Khan, who was asked by the Mughals to take control of the region. And he succeeded and his dynasty then continued. And at some point, you know, it was the kind of autumn of. It was a kind of autumn of Muddha. Mughal Empire and other provinces were also breaking away and becoming independent kingdoms like Bengal and Hyderabad. The same way, Awad also became much more independent, although they used to have relations with the Mughal authority as well. But ultimately Wajid Alisha was the last king who was deposed by the British from the dynasty. And The British tried to present him in popular culture which kind of stayed, you know, I mean, had a long staying value as a debauch and as effeminate. But if you read the books from the time and you know, and written later as well, many books were written after 1857 as well, which was, which was because he was deposed, an important reason for why the mutiny took place. So he also was very secular, he was reform oriented, he was a generous king. And you know, there were many reasons that people felt so betrayed when he was deposed. His Hindu and Muslim subject. So he was an exceptional king, I would say an exceptional personality, a poet, a dancer. Yeah. And I think he didn't fit in, into, you know, the colonial idea of masculinity was very rigid, which the colonial idea of masculinity was, you know, you had to be either an explorer or an adventurer or an engineer. These were the creator of worlds. But he already had a world to his at his disposal which he made thrive and made flourish. So he didn't fit in that English idea of masculinity and he didn't need to and which the British couldn't stomach, basically so deposed him.
- [13:45]
Aletta Andre
I think he was into arts, poetry, theater. But yeah, when Awad was annexed, it was considered unjust. But also until today, what Abhimanyi was saying, that that image of the Nawabs with Ajit Alisha on top of everyone else being unfit rulers, that has actually continued into independent India. And we also found in archive archival sources where other descendants of the king were asking for some personal things such as study grants, for example, but also they asked for a monument in Lucknow and these kind of things so we could see in the replies of the Indian government that they were not sympathetic to Allat and their rulers. So that image has continued. And even until today when you hear the politicians of the ruling party, bjp, which is also the ruling party of the state of Uttar Pradesh where Awad used to be, when they speak about the Nawabs, it is in a very negative sense. And there is a belief amongst Muslims in Lucknow that this is also one of the reasons why the monuments of that time are in a very bad state, actually very badly maintained, which is also the fate of the palaces that Wilayat was claiming to be hers.
- [15:22]
Nicholas Gordon
So let's go back to talking about Wilayat Mahal and again, it feels like the most well known part of the story is her living in the New Delhi railway station, kind of being being waited on by servants and decking out the waiting room in royal finery. I mean, those sort of images that kind of made it through into the press, you know, how did she end up there? And what was their life like when they kind of squatted there for a decade?
- [15:49]
Aletta Andre
Yeah, it is most well known because that's the time that she was visible also. People could visit her, you could go there and see her. Whereas when they lived in Multimore hall, they kind of disappeared into the forests. And yes, journalists were able to visit her sometimes, but it was very rare. Why she went to the railway station? Actually, we are not sure. She never said. It seems like it was hardly ever asked, like, why did she choose the railway station as a place? Yeah, I was coming to that. Later on we found out that her father worked for the railways and so maybe she had that kind of connection with, with the railways that she chose it as a place. But it's not. I mean, she never said it as such and it wasn't asked to her at the time. And yes, so they lived there in a waiting room. It was a first class waiting room. And Abi, in fact visited the specific place with Qasim, who we found and met a few times. He used to work as a servant for them in the railway years as well as the early Mottram hall years. And he showed you the room?
- [17:00]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Yeah, I, I think they were not left with any options. So coming to the railway station was not really much of a choice, but a lack of choice out of which, I mean, this was the last thing that they could do because their father had connections with the railway, was an employee. So probably she thought that, you know, this was still 75 and that some of those old ties would also coexist with the, with new modernity that had come along with independence, although it didn't work out that way because the railway people of course tried to throw her out. And her father was a Muslim, this was a Hindu India, so she was left without a choice. That's one thing. Yes, I saw the room with Kasim, he took me there. He said Indira Gandhi also visited them there and they lived there for 10 years. Writers used to visit them, like Ann Morrow, the writer who wrote this book on India's royalty, which we mentioned in our book, also visited her there. You know, they always had a dispute, running dispute with the railway authorities though, who tried to kick them out. This old trade union leader, railway train union leader, also told me that which is there in the book that, you know, people tried to throw them out but they somehow carried on. Kasim met them there itself. So the railway station was quite important for them. And then, yeah, also, I think Ali Raza had these visions or oral hallucinations later, you know, where he could hear trains going. And later on we thought that, you know, I mean, if you spend 10 years on a railway station, I mean, it is going to impact you in quite certain way.
- [18:41]
Aletta Andre
Yeah, yeah. The announcements, where the record train goes, the bells, the horns of the train, like to hear that day in, day out, that had some impact. And they also felt harassed by goons. They were complaining and they were suspecting that the railway authorities actually, you know, sent them to make their life more difficult than it already was. So they had a roof above their head. It was a singular room, but they didn't feel safe there ever. But they had that. That's also one of the reasons why they kept dogs. Famously. They kept many dogs, Dobermans, Labradors, um.
- [19:16]
Nicholas Gordon
And then eventually they end up at. At this hunting lodge, Mal Malche Mahal. And it seems like for. In reading kind of the history that Indira Gandhi was kind of like, just give him something. Just get him. Get him out of there. But kind of first, like, what's the history behind, behind this, this hunting lodge and when, When. When Willi Ad Mahal moves there? I mean, what's life like? It doesn't seem like it's a very pleasant. It was a very pleasant place to live.
- [19:45]
Aletta Andre
Yeah, not at all. There was also in the early years, someone who visited from, I think, Archaeological Survey of India, who came running out of there because he saw snakes and bats. There were no windows. They had these kind of metal rosters that you could close the largest windows with. And that was a remainder of an artist residency that had been in Walter Mahal the decades before they moved in, or in the 60s, in fact, which we also found out about. So, yeah, that was the only form of protection they had against nature. But, yeah, it was always cold and there were jackals, bats. They also enjoyed. They enjoyed the peacocks and the deer coming by. So that was some enjoyment of nature, was there, but there was no water. You know, they tried to dig a hole in the ground to, to reach groundwater, and it didn't work out because it's such rocky territory. And then at some point they got some electricity on and off with help from the nearby ISRO Indian Space Agency station that is there, and they're right next door. They got some help with a telephone line on which we called Aliraza in 2015. I think he picked up also. So that worked. But, yeah, it was definitely tough and it was also questioned initially why it was given to them. So it was never theirs, it was theirs to use, but it was never theirs as a position. Somebody also asked us, I mean Indira Gandhi, we're still not sure why she gave it because she also know she had, you know, in, in 1970s it was emergency, she could have thrown them in jail also. You know, why, why did she not do that? According to some senior politicians in Lucknow that we spoke, they said like, you know, that she got, she had sympathy for her woman to woman in a way. And maybe she, maybe she understood that, that there was a trauma there and, and, and, and she had to take care of her in some minimal way that she could. And this turned out to be the way because this is the only thing they accepted. It was the thing that came closest to a palace of some kind. Despite all its extreme inconveniences.
- [22:25]
Abhimanyu Kumar
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- [22:43]
Nicholas Gordon
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- [22:47]
Abhimanyu Kumar
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- [22:57]
Nicholas Gordon
So as you investigate kind of this story, I mean, their connections to Kashmir, their connections to Pakistan and I wonder if you might kind of explain kind of what these, like how the story of Wilayat Mahal connects to, well, connects to Pakistan and connects to Kashmir and how you were able to kind of uncover that part of the story.
- [23:22]
Aletta Andre
I think they already knew for a long time that there was a Kashmir connection somehow. Right? Yeah, because they had written it themselves like in the papers that they had written about their own family history. They had written that they had a palace in Kashmir and it was gifted to them by India's first Prime minister, Nehru, and that it had burned down and that's why they had come to Delhi in the 1970s. And there is some truth to this at least. I mean, we saw the house. It was not a palace exactly, but it was a large house that has now become a school in Kashmir where they lived for many years. And there was a fire there. It didn't burn down. They continued living there after the fire. But yes, there was a fire and they suspected somebody had set the fire on purpose. So again, they didn't feel safe in that environment. But yeah, so Kashmir was very interesting because Kashmir is the place where she wanted to Relocate to. After coming back to India from Pakistan and again to Pakistan, she had moved after Partition, and before that she was living in Lucknow, which used to be the capital of Awad. And all of this was fairly early on reported. When she arrived at the railway station in 1975, Hindustan Times, 1 of the national newspapers in India, they visited her. And she told them this whole journey that after petition, they went to Pakistan. In Pakistan, her husband died. After that, she petitioned the Indian government to return to Kashmir because they have family links in Kashmir, but there they couldn't stay because of rumors that were following them. There were rumors that impacted Pakistan. Her husband had been involved with the assassination of Pakistan's first prime minister in 1951. And those rumors were indeed there until today in Pakistan. We heard them also from the people we ended up meeting in Kashmir, their former neighbors, for example, or their former schoolmates of the children that we met there. And so from there they came to Delhi again with the ultimate purpose of maybe returning to Lucknow to. To those palaces to make the circle kind of round. So, yeah, that's the short answer. And partition is the key to all of this. Partition is also why so many people made the move from India to Pakistan. Later we found out through family that we met of hers based in Pakistan, that she also had her roots there in Lahore, which is now Pakistan, used to be, of course, undivided India, and its effect very near to the border of India. So she was born there, her husband was from around there, and both her husband as well as her father had their roots in Kashmir. So they are again part of a history of countless of Kashmiri people that migrated to Lahore. And Sialkot is another town in Pakistan where many Kashmiris migrated to in the time it was a Hindu kingdom. And there were not enough jobs for them, and they were discriminated. So, yeah, ultimately the family history goes back to both Kashmir and Lucknow because her mother traced her roots back to Lucknow, her father to Kashmir, her husband to Kashmir. Then through her husband's job, they ended up in Lucknow. Partition. They chose Pakistan, or her husband, rather, made the choice for Pakistan because he could get a good job there, being a civil servant. And she also really threw herself into the life in Pakistan, as we found out. She was a political activist in her own right. She was not just a housewife, she was a political activist. She took up the cause of Kashmir, which in the early years after partition, it immediately became a conflict between India and Pakistan. But there was a very real possibility of it getting solved through plebiscite and she activated. She, she, you know, she protested for that. And yeah, after her husband died, she. She continued to be an activist in Pakistan until she kind of. That. That caused her to get into trouble with the authorities, and that caused a bit of her downfall there and which probably contributed to her decision to want to move back to India.
- [28:10]
Nicholas Gordon
What was actually the thing that potentially got her in trouble in Pakistan, the.
- [28:15]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Thing that got her into trouble in Pakistan can be seen from a couple of angles. There's not one thing, I mean, I would say a couple of aspects to that. One was her identity as a Kashmiri who was active for Kashmir's, you know, independence also, because the options on the table were not just accession to Pakistan or staying with India, but this has always been that outlier option that kind of probably actually paradoxically stops Kashmir from being independent because the options by the two powers is always either come to us, come one of us. But. So, yeah, so she wanted, I think, that option also on the table, and Pakistani authorities didn't want that. That's one reason. The other reason is clear because. Quite obvious, because her husband became a suspect in the assassination of Liakat Ali Khan. And thirdly, yeah, these two are the most important.
- [29:23]
Aletta Andre
I mean, there was. There was a triggering incident, of course, which was reported by the press at the time. She confronted the prime Minister during a public speech of his, and it was on Kashmir. So the moment he mentioned Kashmir in his speech, she was there present, and she stood up and she said, you know, he hasn't done anything for Kashmir. And she created disturbance and kind of insulted him. It was on Pakistan's Independence Day, and she was arrested for it. So that was the beginning of the end for her, because after that, before that, there were many articles about her being active. She was a treasurer of one organization, the president of another. And after 1954, in which this incident happens, she got arrested. The court decided that she had to go to a mental institution. Her car got impounded. That was reported at some point. And after that, she kind of disappeared from the public view. Later, we understood from one of her relatives that she probably stayed in Pakistan because her. As long as her father was still alive. But after he also passed, that is when she decided to appeal to the Indian authorities. And why they decided that she had the right to come back is also still a bit of a mystery. But she wrote to them that she got in trouble with the authorities for her views on Kashmir and probably in India. They thought, okay, if Pakistan doesn't like her for her views of Kashmir, then she's probably on our side. They took that wrong conclusion because, in fact, she wanted independence for Kashmir and she had connections in Kashmir from her and her husband's political life before partition. She had connections with the politicians there because they were all very active in Lahore before partition, where, again, her family was from. And, yeah, her own family. I mean, she had a good relationship with her father, but her own family otherwise was also not sympathetic to the kind of activist she was. Because when, you know, when she was arrested and when it came down to it, it's likely that her family supported the court's decision of her being sent to a mental institution, whereas some newspaper reports. And we also suspect that it was rather a way of silencing her than actually treating her for an actual mental condition.
- [32:13]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Yeah. So the slapping turned out to be the most immediate reason, but it still took her quite a few years to leave Pakistan after that, I think she was just, in a way, she ran out of options there. If you. If you're going to slap the Prime Minister, your life is going to be difficult in a country, especially Pakistan as a woman. Shia.
- [32:32]
Aletta Andre
Yeah.
- [32:33]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Kashmiri.
- [32:34]
Nicholas Gordon
What's your. What's your conclusion on. On Begum Willyat Mahal's story? Kind of at the end of this research project, you talk to several people who, I mean, disagree, who basically disagree with a lot of her claims, say they're untrue. There are other kind of claims that seem a bit more. A bit more possible, but kind of. What's your sense of her story at the end of this research project? How true was her story? And, you know, it's an audio podcast. You can't see Beep doing air quotes around the word truth, because I know you have thoughts about truth in this case, but kind of after going through this whole process, kind of. What's your conclusion?
- [33:18]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Yeah, so I think we deliberately don't want to get into the. We see it as a trap. Maybe you could put air quotes there. We see it as a trap. We see this whole binary as, you know, hurting her in death as much as it hurt other things, hurt her in life. And we want her to have something like, you know, I mean, and I think, at least by removing that binary, so we. We think that binary will never work in her favor whether she was. Whether she was royalty or not. This very question obscures the other fact of which other identity she had and her other achievements. If we decide to discuss only whether she was royalty or not, then we are automatically saying that her being a feminist in Pakistan or being an activist for Kashmir was not the most important thing. Let us first decide whether she is. So we. We don't. We don't agree to that binary reading. The framing. We think the framing is problematic.
- [34:16]
Aletta Andre
Yeah. Also, I mean, of course, we did follow leads. You know, we did ask the question. And there are some things in her story, as written, for example, in the book that Sakina wrote about their family history, there are some details that are completely. That cannot be true. For example, she claims, she says in there that her mother, that Velayat was born in a specific palace in Lucknow, but at the time when she was born, you know, that that palace was already a museum, I think, you know, so, you know, and we followed all those leads and we researched and we checked, okay, what is approximately the year that she could have been born? And, you know, so there are certain details of her story that are definitely not true. But we always were of the opinion that, you know, other. Other writers have taken the approach that if it's not true, then it must be a lie. So we don't see it like that. If it's not, if, you know, if certain details are not true, doesn't mean that there's not a kernel of truth. And there is a kernel of truth and through the details that might not be correct to get through that kernel of truth. That is the story, you know, what is the story that she tried to tell? What is the injustice that is done to the house of Ovid that she was always emphasizing on? How does that relate to the injustice being done to her in her own life? And how does that relate, again, to the whole traumatic history of Partition and so many other women whose stories have not been heard? So we also set out, when we started the research of this book, we didn't know what we would find out about the truth about her royal ancestry or not. We wanted to find out who she was as a human and who Sakina and Alidaza were as human beings. And we found out so much about that that we haven't read anywhere else before. Like in Kashmir, you know, we met neighbors who had such fond memories of playing with these kids. We met a neighbor who had a, you know, who probably had a massive crush on Sakina because he got emotional when he saw her photo. And we heard stories about Wilayat swimming in the lake and. And we found out so much more about her activism and her position in her family and what is true and what is not true about her royal ancestry. We want to leave that as A spoiler for people who want to read the book. Everything we found out about it is in there. There's definitely a kernel of truth, but that's not the main point.
- [37:04]
Nicholas Gordon
I would.
- [37:04]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Sorry, just a little bit. I would still add that certain details not being true or false. I would say certain details because of the distance of history are no more verifiable also. So. Yeah, and. And that's the only correct adjustment or something. I mean, clarification I would like to make to what Alita said. But other than that, again, I would reiterate that. That framing does our injustice.
- [37:32]
Nicholas Gordon
You know, I might want to add, you know, one more question. You know, you think about. About this story and. And it harkens back to, you know, a time when. When India was, you know, I think was more diverse, was more diverse, was more complicated politically. You know, all these different. All these different kingdoms and princely states, which is a history that we've covered several times on this show and you've referenced. Kind of the story kind of takes on, you know, it takes on different shades of relevance kind of as Hindu nationalism starts to rise, as kind of different stories about India come to the fore. You know, how do you kind of see this story of kind of Begum Willing and Mahal kind of, again, kind of given these. Given the current political conversation in India.
- [38:27]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Yeah, I think that's an interesting question. And perhaps there was more space for somebody like her before, with her eccentricities and identity, even if it was in a corner of the city in a dilapidated palace. But as the Hindu nationalist juggernaut has come, who's to a great extent whose khayzaw the is to kind of homogenize things, probably the space for somebody who is so much more of an other is not there anymore in India.
- [38:59]
Aletta Andre
But it's also. It was always difficult for her to identify, to really fit into a certain identity, I think, because she had so many. And after. After partition, it was also important for India and Pakistan to define themselves as independent nations. And in Pakistan, she played a very active part as part of this women's movement too. Like, how are we going to define Pakistan and an Islamic nation? And the role of women in there? And for example, also the question of polygamy was debated by the women's organizations there. And she was actually the second wife of her husband, for example, of these things were relevant for her also. But being a child of a Sunni father and a Shia mother, that was already a very difficult identity for her within her own family. Then being a Kashmiri in the Time of partition, where Kashmir was so much in between of those two countries at a difficult. Different layer of difficulty than, you know, being an ambitious woman in what ultimately was still a very conservative society was also difficult. And being a single mother entering a new place with gossiping neighbors is of course very difficult. Then, as someone who relates to Kashmir, but also really longed for Lucknow, a place where she also lived and where she traced her ancestry and where she was very happy, it was also difficult.
- [40:37]
Abhimanyu Kumar
No source of income.
- [40:39]
Aletta Andre
No source of income. But where do you belong? So the question, where are you from? Is for many people in South Asia, very difficult to ask. Answer did a singular answer. But for her that was very true. And to shape your own identity in that kind of context must have been very hard. And she kind of felt that identity kind of fell through. She couldn't place herself anywhere. But you're correct that in the two days in the. The powers in the center are trying to steer the nation's identity in even more uniform direction. Yeah. And that left no sympathies for her. But even I think in the 80s there were already some accusations towards Indira Gandhi, that she must have given her the monument to appease the Muslims.
- [41:42]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Yeah. These complaints of an Islamophobic nature were present then as well.
- [41:47]
Aletta Andre
Yeah, that's also there. And those accusations came again after Ali Raza died and more stories came out. Then again those stories were published as well.
- [41:59]
Nicholas Gordon
So I think this is a great place to end our conversation with Abhimanyu Kumar and Aletta Andre, authors of the House of Awad A Hidden Tragedy. Aletta Avhimanyu, I have two final questions for you, which are where can people find your work? Not just this book, but all of your work. And what's next for you? What do you think the next project might be?
- [42:21]
Aletta Andre
Great questions. Well, I mean, House of Awed is widely available online, of course, in India. You can find it in physical stores, hopefully. When I visited India last in June, it was actually sold out in some stores as well. But it's widely available online all over the world. On Amazon, for example. I don't know that's a brand name, but yes, you can find it in all the different regions, so to say. As of. For my other work, I have one other book, but it's very limited audience because it's written in Dutch. It's a Dutch novel for youth daughter Inija Fitzger. It's called the Girl who Cycled Through India. It's based in Covid times in India and it's available in in the Netherlands hobby has multiple other works that might be available online. Also poetry books from before, he said.
- [43:23]
Abhimanyu Kumar
What is the next?
- [43:24]
Aletta Andre
Yeah, he was also asking for from before poetry titles. Milan in the Sea.
- [43:31]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Notes, Notes from the Interlang. Yeah, I had a piece about the lynching lichings in India.
- [43:36]
Aletta Andre
Yeah.
- [43:36]
Abhimanyu Kumar
But I am looking into something else altogether now. We are based in Europe, as you know. Now we live in the Netherlands and I am looking into Indian revolutionaries who were operating out of Berlin during the first World War.
- [43:51]
Nicholas Gordon
So you can follow me, Nicholas Gordon on Twitter at Nick R I Gordon. That's N I C K R I G O R D O N. You can go to asiareviewbooks.com to find other reviews, essays, interviews and excerpts. Follow them on Twitter ookreviewsasia booksreviews plural and you can find many more authorities at newbooks network and newbooksnetwork.com we're on all of our favorite podcast apps, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Rate us, recommend us, share us with your friends, support us Interviewing those writing in around and about Asia. Next week, join us for an interview with Steven C. Mercado, author of Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons How Noborito Scientists and Technicians Served Second World War and the Cold War. But before then. Aletta Abhimanyu, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
- [44:37]
Aletta Andre
Thank you so much for having us.
- [44:39]
Abhimanyu Kumar
Thank you. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.