The First Indian Who Travelled To Britain and Wrote About It

By Anwarul Islam, President, Diversified Educational Foundation

‘The wise men of Vilayet say that the acquisition of worldly wealth is necessary to make life pleasant and easy while education increases one’s knowledge and wisdom and enables one to show the right path to those who seek advice. Worldly riches ought not to be squandered on luxurious living, on fine clothes, choice cuisine and dishes… as wealthy noblemen of Hindustan are wont to do.”- Mirza Ihtishamuddin, from his book Wonders of Britain in 1766.

Mirza Shaikh Ihtishamuddin was born in the Nadia district of present day West Bengal, India in the year 1730. He came from a family of minor officials who had been serving the Muslim Nawabs of Bengal.

Ihtishamuddin started his career there as a Munshi or scribe.  He later served as Munshi to East India Company and was present at the East India Company camp in the 1764 Battle of Baksar. The Battle would establish the de facto suzerainty of the East India Company in India.

Ihtishamuddin entered in the service of Shah Alam II after the Battle of Baskar. At that time, the Emperor was in Allahabad, not in Delphi, which was the traditional seat of the Mughal emperors. Delhi was occupied by a confederate of rival Mughals and Marathas.  The Emperor was trying to find an ally who could restore him to Delphi. He thought of co-opting the efficient military muscle of the East India Company for this cause, but Robert Clive, the head of the Company was not willing to oblige.  So the Emperor sent a team of emissaries to the court of King George III with a court missive. Ihtamuddin was selected as the presenter of that royal message. This was reason of his trip to the Vilayet.

The word Vilayet is Arabic in origin and used in Persia to mean a province or a region. In India it took a very special meaning, referring to the countries of Western Europe, specially the Britain.  Ihtishamuddin had another member in his entourage by the name of Captain Archibald Swinton and a retainer.  However, the trip was doomed to failure from the onset. Robert Clive did not like the possibility of direct contacts between the monarchs. He intercepted the letter and asked Mr. Swinton not to share that fact to Ihtishamuddin until they reached Vilayet. In truth, there was no mission—only a voyage. It was not all waste, however, because Ihtishamuddin’s travel experiences became a book which could be called the first of its kind: a book by an Indian for the Indians.  It gives a rare window to the events of that time as seen by an Indian.

Ihtishamuddin was not the first Indian who travelled to Vilayet. Many Ayas and Lashkars from India made their ways to Vilayet starting at the early days of the Company.  Ihtishamuddin was, however, the first person who wrote about the experience.  To our delight, his writing has survived.

Ihtishamuddin’s group started their journey in 1766 and returned in 1768. His manuscript was penned down in 1785.  Ihtishamuddin arrived in Vilayet as a very disappointed person when he found that he did not have a mission to work on, so he stated writing about his observation about Britain and its people. 

“The English had never seen an Indian Munshi before, but only lascars from Chittagong and Jahangirnagar [what is known today as Dhaka], and were consequently unacquainted with the clothes and manners of an Indian gentleman. They took me for a great man of Bengal, perhaps the brother of a nawab and came from far and near to see me. Whenever I went out, a broad crowd accompanied me and people gazed me in wonder.”

The situation would change eventually. Ihtishamuddin noted that “within a couple of months, everyone in the neighborhood became friendly. The fear which some had felt vanished completely and they would now jest me familiarly.”

He admired the sophisticated navigational charts and compasses of the ships, the street lights of London, water wheels, watches, and the low cost entertainment accessible to the masses. Above all, he admired the printing press and its role in dissipating knowledge to the mass.

He visited the British Museum and the great Madrasa at Oxford.  Seeing all these, he observed that with the knowledge of science and technology the Vilayet would reorganize their own society for the better and would use that technology to gain an edge over other nations. And as we now know, after two and half centuries, his prediction was very prescient.

Then there was the crucial observation we started with as the quote. That short paragraph underscores the very idea of modernity which would set the Western world apart from others.  Education—and the knowledge and insight which humans gain through education—should be used to discern  right from wrong; for an individual, for society, and for the country at large. Understanding the relationship between education and the world at large is the purpose of education. At that point, education becomes knowledge and helps us charter a better world. When that connection is lost, education remains a pedagogical exercise. Many degree holders are enshrined in record books but they fail in their purpose of betterment of the world around them.

Across the Atlantic and across the English Channel, a revolutionary storm would gather, ushering in a new way of organizing the state and the society.  Society would be established based on “virtue and talent, not on birth and wealth.”  The concept of the “natural rights of man” came to be discussed in political discourse and a blueprint of an egalitarian society was drawn. Mass education would be the cornerstone of that new society. Political institutions were oriented to include all, and ushered in the modern era in human affairs. The modernity of thought which swept across the Western world was confined there only and was not extended to ‘others’.

Itishamuddin’s motherland would be taken over a new type of occupier unlike the ones India had ever seen. Political change would come, but only to serve the rulers and those aligned with the rulers. A dangerous nexus would be established between the ruling class and the so called educated people that would choke the life blood out of the majority of the denizens, especially to those who are at the bottom rung of a severely stratified society.  The real modernity of thought would escape the subcontinent and the misery of masses would be a fixture of daily lives with no real end in sight.

Itishmuddin’s solution to political upheaval in India was to have a strong Emperor in Delhi. He never thought of the democratic political institutions and social egalitarianism—which would take root in America, and later in Europe—as an alternative form of governance. In that respect he missed the undercurrent of Western thoughts which he sensed but did not imbued himself in it.

Most of Itishmuddin’s contemporaries in India misread the East India Company’s intentions. Europeans were thought of as temporary occupiers who would leave after a few years—when they were satisfied with their plunder. But now we know that, that was not to be the case. Through the British occupation, Indian society went through a transformation towards a gradual but irrevocable degeneration.  Indian society would became fractious during the 190 years of British rule.  On the top of the Aryan class structure, a new class of power elites were spawned based on ingrained privileges and nexuses to sustain those privileges.  A complex and hate-filled society was left on its own devices when the colonizer was done in India. The children of the so-called European Enlightenment over saw the creation of one of the most unjust societies for the autochthons.  And, instead of having human equality as the professed principle, Islam in India found itself conforming to the social norms established by others and succumbed to the practice of ritualistic hair splitting and mindless polemics.

Like the elites of 18th century, even today, the elites of the sub-continent only pay lip services to democratic principles and wouldn’t commit to the idea of egalitarianism and respectfulness towards others, which are essential for the proper functioning of the democratic institutions of any kind.

A footnote:  Two copies of the original manuscript still exist: one in the British Museum and the other in the Khoda Baksh Libray, Bankipur, Bihar, India. The original manuscript was never published as a book; later it was translated and published as books in Bengali, Urdu and English.

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