The Red Taj of Agra

Millions of people visit the Taj Mahal of Agra every year, making it one of the most ticketed monuments in the world. This monument of love draws tourists to itself like a magnet.

However, almost all visitors to Agra who visit the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort barely give a second glance to any of the other ruins of the City.

Many of the visitor are also not aware that apart from the Taj of Shahajan, there is another smaller Taj in Agra. But unlike its big brother, this structure is located right in a cemetery.

By the way, even the cemetery is one of the oldest of its kind in India. It was the Mughal Emperor, Akbar, who gave permission for the cemetery almost five centuries ago.

This is the Roman Catholic Cemetery of Agra and it was permitted to come up in 1550. A majority of the graves here date back to the 16th and 17th centuries and almost all of them belong to European travelers and explorers.             

Surprisingly, the graves are given a Mughal touch and they closely resemble Islamic tombs. One of the most distinguishing and elaborate tombs is the mini Taj here.

This Taj here is built by a woman for her husband. The husband was Colonel John William Hessing, a Dutch soldier and trader. He had come to India from Ceylon (which then was under the Dutch) sometime in the late eighteenth century. He participated in the battle of Kandy in 1765.

He was a native of Utrecht in Holland and was born in 1739.  He served under the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1784 and the Marathas. He later joined the service of  Mahadaji Scindia and accompanied him to Pune in 1792. He fought several battles under the French General Du Boigne.

On Mahadji’s death in 1794, he came to Agra which was held by the Marathas. He was made Commandant of fort and its Maratha garrison in 1799. He died here on July 21, 1803. The fort was captured by British same year.

His tomb is built of red sandstone. Therefore, it is also called the Red Taj.  It has arched doorways and niches. It also has a dome. The carvings are intricately done. There can be mo doubt that it was modeled entirely on the Taj, albeit on a much smaller and less grander scale.

The Taj here has no inlay or mosaic decoration and the ornamentation is exclusively in carving on the exterior. However, the building has perfect balance and symmetry. The only way you can recognise this building as Christian is by the sign of the Cross atop it.

The cenotaph inside has a long inscription about Hessing’s life. The tomb stands on a square platform.

Nearby is another impressive structure. This is an eight side tomb of an Englishman called Francis Ellis. It is constructed of buff sandstone and is eight-sided, with pointed arches on all sides and a dome at the top. Ellis died in 1868.This tomb too is surrounded by the tombs of his family members.

This grave is surrounded by smaller graves belonging to the family members of Ellis. They all died in India and all the family is buried here.

The tomb of General Perron, a French national, which is pyramidal in shape, can be seen north of Hessing’s Taj. Perron was an  adventurer who, like Hessing, made a name for himself in the service of the Scindias. His four children who died in 1793-94 are also buried here.

Perron was a  sailor in the French navy and his earlier name was Pierre Cuillier. He jumped ship, changed his name to Perron and made a name for himself in the service of the Indian rulers. He also built his own army.

There are other interesting graves too. There is the grave of Jerome Veronio, an Italian, who  is believed (wrongly) to have actively participated in designing the Taj Mahal of Shahajan. He died in 1640. You can also see the graves of  the traveller Thieffan Thaler,  the self-styled English Ambassador to the Mughal court, John Midenhall who died in 1614 A.D and Francis Corsi who died in 1635 A.D.

The grave of Hortenzio Bronzoni, an Italian jeweler, who worked on the Great Mogul Diamond  and was fined by the Emperor for damaging the jewel during cutting, is also here.

Another intriguing structure is the tomb of the Tantric Baba, an Armenian national. The tomb has a crucifix carved on it along with the large skull.Since skulls are revered in Tantricism, locals and Tantric followers flock to the tomb and pray to the Baba.

The cemetery has about 80 graves belonging to the Armenians, most of them merchants. They had come to Agra in the mid-1500s at the invitation of Emperor Akbar.

Akbar even permitted the Armenians to set up their own colony in Agra. He even took an Armenian woman as one of his Queens and appointed another as a court doctor.

This is perhaps the oldest Christian cemetery in north India.

Though Agra was a Mughal centre, Christians regarded it as a blessed place and people brought the dead here for burial at this cemetery.

Today, the cemetery is a protected site. It is situated on the eastern extension of the Mahatma Gandhi Road near the Civil Court of Agra. The Taj of Hessings can be seen from the Delhi-Agra road itself.

The only Catholic Queen of India

She started her career as a nautch girl and by the time she died she was not only counted among the richest Indian but was also the Empress of an Indian principality. Even though her rags to riches story is the stuff of legends, she has a special place in Indian history.

Her inheritance was so huge and so enormous that it is still being disputed today, almost a century after her death. An astute Queen, her services were even fondly remembered by a Mughal Emperor who called her his daughter.

She ruled over her province in such a manner that even the British East India Company considered her a threat to its territorial ambitions. The British apprehensions were not misplaced as she played a key role in the political and military developments of the 18^th and 19^th century.

But what sets her aside from all rulers, male or female, is that she is perhaps the one and only Catholic ruler of  India. This is a rare distinction as India has been ruled by a plethora of Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain and even Sikh rulers but no Christian ruler.

This Queen could lay claim to being the only Catholic ruler of India. She is also the only Queen to have written a letter to the then Pope.

Born a Muslim as Samru Farzana Zeb-un-nisa in 1753, she started her career as a dancing girl. She was of Kashmiri descent. Her guile and charm made her the ruler of Sardhana, a principality near Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.     

But when she became the ruler, her name was Begum Joanna Nobilis Sombre (1753–1836), a converted Catholic Christian.

This is how her story unfolds.

Samru Farzana was staying in Rohilkhand near Bareilly and Walter Reinhardt Sombre, a 45-year-old European mercenary, came to the red light area. Fate brought him in touch with Farzana, then a small and beautiful girl of 14, and he took her away with him. This was sometime in 1767.

Walter was a mercenary and he had come to India to make a fortune. He called himself a soldier of fortune and he travelled from Lucknow to Rohilkhand, then to Agra, Deeg and Bharatpur and back to the Lucknow.

Walter became the Governor of  Agra. He had built a powerful mercenary Army. Subsequently, the Mughal emperor, Shah Alam, the second, allowed him to rule from the principality of Sardhana.

Unfortunately, Walter did not live long and he died on May 4, 1778.

His wife, Samru, then buried her husband in his favourite city of Agra. She took over his mercenary army and succeeded as the ruler of Sardhana

Samru Farzana’s career then took an upward turn. She became the head of a professionally trained mercenary army, consisting of  both Europeans and Indians. She was not even five feet in height but she was an excellent horse rider and a battle-scared veteran. Word soon spread that she was a witch who could kill enemies just by just throwing her cloak at them.

Her principality yielded £90,000 per annum. She managed to retain her Independence even as other Kingdoms around her fell to the British.

She ruled her principality well and she emerged as a powerful figure in the period.  Her support was even acknowledged by Shah Alam, the second, the Mughal emperor.

The palace built by her in Sardhana near Meerut soon became the centre of political activity. Shah Alam regarded Farzana as his daughter. He did so because the Begum had saved Delhi from the Sikh invasion in 1783.

The Sikhs, with an army of  30,000 under Bagel Singh, had camped near Tiz Hazari. Farzana negotiated with the Sikhs and they went back to the Punjab after receiving gifts from the Mughal Emperor.

In 1787, she again came to the help of Shah Alam when he was trying to  put down a rebellion by Najaf Quli Khan. Farzana fell on Khan with just 100 soldiers and the rebel sought her good offices to make peace with the Mughal Emperor.

A grateful Shah Alam bestowed special honors on Farzana at the royal court and declared her “his most beloved daughter”. He also confirmed the estate at Sardhana, which was the subject of a dispute with Louis Balthazar also known as Nawab Zafaryab Khan, another son of her husband, by his first wife, Badi Bibi.

It was on May 7,  1781, that Begum Samru Farzana was baptized Joanna Nobilis, by a Roman Catholic priest.

She built at church at Sardhana which still exists. It is now known as the Bascilica of Our Lady of Graces. During March and November thousands of people turn up to bless the Begum and pray to the Virgin Mary.

In the church is a letter that she wrote to Pope Gregory XVI, She is the only Queen from India to have written such a letter.

Soon, Farzana became a devout Christian. However, she did not impose any religion on her subjects. Soon she became the cynosure of all eyes, particularly after her conversion to Christianity.

Her husband’s  European officers and associates like Le Vassoult, a Frenchman, and George Thomas,  an Irishman courted her.

 When rumours spread that Farzana had married Le Vassoult in 1793, her mercenary troops mutinied and Le Vassoult died of self-inflicted wounds.

When Lord Gerard Lake, Commander-in-Chief of the British troops in India, met the Begum in 1802, he took Farzana in his arms and kissed her. This act enraged her soldiers but the quick witted Samru defused a potentially dangerous situation by saying  that it was only “the kiss of the Padre to a repentant child”.

Though a ruler, she did not have anyone who she could call her friends except Begum Umdaa of Sardhana. This was because society then did not take kindly to nautch girls. Yet, Umdaa became friends with Farzana. After the Begum married and settled down at Meerut, Farzana still found time to visit her.

Since she was a Muslim before conversion, she was denied to be buried at the Sardhana Church but a monument for her tomb was allowed in her honour. It was then that Begum Umdaa  gave land for her cremation from her property which is now situated near the NAS College, Meerut

The Catholic Queen died in January 1837, at the age of 85. Her inheritance was assessed at 55.5 million gold Mark in 1923 and 18 billion deutsch mark in 1953  

Farzana built a palace in Chandni Chowk, Delhi on land gifted to her by Akbar Shah, son of  Shah Alam. The building still stands and it is now owned by the State Bank of India.

Another palace in Gurgoan fell prey to encroachment and disappeared sometime around 2008.

Today, Sardhana has many buildings constructed during her tenure. It is 85 miles from Delhi and 13 miles from Meerut. Even today, Sardhana is known for the church that Farzana built.