In the 18th century Bengal in the Indian subcontinent became a trans cultural center with various European communities working here along with the natives. The history of hookah culture from the late 16th century till the late 19th century is quite interesting and now in India hookah culture is almost gone and was banned by the Indian government soon after independence as it would promote infectious diseases. Hookah smoking dominated the cultural life of the Muslim population during the Mogul rule and this newly discovered Nawabi culture was not prevalent among other religious groups like the Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, etc. Hookah smoking gained currency in the middle of the 17th century in Bengal with the arrival of East India company - a mercantile trading company that had established a settlement in Calcutta close to the Hooghly river.
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| English man Ochterlony smoking hookah. Alamy |
Above: British Resident David Ochterlony (1758-1825), in Indian dress, smoking a hookah and watching a nautch(dancing girl) in his house at Delhi, painting, c. 1820 - Image ID: T6DF56
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| English officer in Bengal smoking hookah. bonhams.com |
Above image: AN ENGLISH OFFICER, CAPTAIN LYONS OF THE BENGAL INFANTRY, SEATED SMOKING A HOOKAH, WATCHING NAUTCH GIRLS PERFORMING, WITH A RETINUE OF INDIAN MUSICIANS AND SERVANTS. CALCUTTA, BY AN INDIAN ARTIST, AFTER AN ORIGINAL PAINTING OF 1801 BY CAPTAIN CROCKATT OF THE BENGAL ENGINEERS, CIRCA 1810-12
In 1722 Sadat Khan, a Persian nobleman, founded the Nawabi dynasty of the Awadh. He began his career as a local Nawab or an agent of the Mogul ruler, for some time. Later when the Moguls became very weak politically Sadat broke away from the Delhi ruler to function independently. This led him to found an autonomous kingdom called Awadh (also Ouadh; part of present day Uttar Pradesh). The vast revenue from Bengal region that was supposed to go to Delhi, filled the Awadh coffers. When Nawab Shuja-ud-daula took over the reins as the third ruler in 1754, the kingdom became enormously rich at the ''expense of the Delhi court''. Thus Lucknow became the capital of Awadh and prospered between 1775 and 1856.
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| Hookah, gettyimages.in |
In Lucknow, now the capital city of UP, hookah smoking became a social etiquette particularly among the nobles of the court and the rich; it gained them social status during stately dinners and in places where the courtesans used to dance before the nobility. In the social life or cauldron the association of hookah and courtesans gave them a new social dimension - a symbol of dignity and politeness. This pushed hookah smoking on a pedestal from the level of mere pleasure objects.
Hookah smoking, as a mark of of prestige and social culture gradually caught up with the elite the members or Amirs of the court of Siraj-ud-daulah and the rich Bengali business community. When the English company was trying hard to consolidate its profitable ventures in Bengal, being greedy and grasping, they never paid the customs duty or taxes to the ruler, throwing the trade agreements to the dust-bin. The arrears snow-balled into a big mass. This wanton breach of trade treaties with the ruler by the arrogant British traders resulted in many skirmishes and raids by the Nawab's army. Confrontations were immediately followed by negotiations by the English company's officers to pacify those from the Nawab's court. During intense negotiations and mediation to resolve and narrow down the differences, hookah smoking eventually became a necessity - part and parcel of business dealings and a social nicety. For the English negotiators and mediators adhering to hookah smoking as an important social courtesy became part of protocol to engage in long deliberations with the Muslim noble men over matters related their trading operations..
Through intriguing, manipulations and down right impropriety EIC since the arrival of Robert Clive from Madras fresh from English victory at Arcot (in Tamil Nadu) to recapture from Nawab Siraj Ft. William, Calcutta , had gained an upper hand using the dissident members in the court of Nawab to their advantage. The successful handling of the Battle of Plassey, the battle of Buxar -1764 and later the Allahabad treaty saw EIC become the Master of Bengal and later a proxy government for the British Crown. The British government openly allowed the EIC to use the military muscle to run its business in India. After the annexation of Bengal, the flow of revenue from Bengal alone so vast it boosted the British economy to a dizzy height from a mere 3 GDP (India's GDP was 23 then).
The persistent social and political contact of the officers of the English company in Bengal with the rich natives made them become hooked to the culture of Hookah smoking. Hearty meals were positively followed by the hookah and brandy- pawnee in most of the stately homes.
The Dutch traveller, John Splinter Stavorinus, mentioned about a dinner at the residence of the governor of Calcutta in 1769; the hookah session that was followed went well past midnight. William Dalrymple, a British historian dealt with at length the love of hookahs among the East India Company officers and cited the example of the fourth baronet, Sir Thomas Metcalfe: "Certainly he was a notably fastidious man, with feelings so refined that he could not bear to see women eat cheese ..... His one concession to Indian taste was to smoke a silver hookah. This he did every day after breakfast, for exactly thirty minutes.
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| Hookah smoking dreamstime.com |
Retired British army official Thomas Williamson’s mentioned in The European in India (1813) report that many European parvenus (those with humble origin) became slaves to their hookahs. Williamson’s accounts were illustrated with engravings by Sir Charles D’Oyly (his Tom Roe series), a British painter and official. illustrated Williamson's account in his engravings. The series featured several scenes of hookah-smoking in private or in public. Paintings by the Italian painter Francesco Renaldi feature Bengali women of fashion smoking the hookah.The great Indian rebellion of 1857-58 changed the concept of hookah smoking among the British. What was seen as a symbol of oriental grandeur and pleasure became an object of abomination with negative aesthetics. After the Great Revolt the hookah smoking had begun to decline.
In 1770s and 1780s to some British writers ''hookah'' was an 'emblem of British integration into Indian culture as well as of their supremacy'. British diplomat Philip Dormer Stanhope in his Memoirs mentioned that writers with an annual income of just 200 pounds a year had hookah burdars, perhaps to establish the British racial superiority and britishness
with the employment of the hookah burdar (hookah bearer), smoking became a ritualistic expression of native subjugation and administrative status. British diplomat Philip Dormer Stanhope wrote in his Memoirs mentioned that even writers whose salaries did not exceed £200 a year employed hookah burdars.
"http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Prateek_Transformations27.pdf
Dalrymple, William. The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857. London: Bloomsbury, 2007. Print.
http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Prateek_Transformations27.pdf
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