The queen of Oude.

Note: In these conversations we shall henceforth suppress the formula of evocation, which is always the same, unless its answer presents some particularity.

What were your sensations upon leaving the terrestrial world?

Answer. – Because I am still disturbed, it is impossible for me to explain them.

Are you happy?

Answer. – No.

Why are you not happy?

Answer. – I long for life… I do not know… I feel a bitter pain from which life would deliver me… I would wish that the body might rise from the tomb…

Do you regret having been buried among Christians, and not in your own country?

Answer. – Yes, the Indian earth would weigh less upon my body.

What do you think of the funeral honors rendered to your remains?

Answer. – They were not much, for I was queen and not everyone bowed before me… Leave me… they force me to speak, when I do not wish you to know what I now am… I assure you, I was queen…

We respect your rank and only insist that you answer with the purpose of instructing ourselves. Do you believe that your son will in the future recover his father's States?

Answer. – My blood will reign, to be sure, since it is worthy of it.

Do you attach to this reinstatement of your son the same importance you gave it when incarnate?

Answer. – My blood cannot mingle with that of the people.

What is your present opinion on the true cause of the revolt of the Indies?

Answer. – The Indian was made to be master in his own house.

What do you think of the future that is reserved for that country?

Answer. – India will be great among the nations.

It was not possible to record on your death certificate the place of your birth; can you now tell it to us?

Answer. – I am a queen sprung from the noblest of the bloods of India. I think I was born in Delhi.

You, who lived in the splendors of luxury, surrounded by honors, what do you think of all that today?

Answer. – That I had a right to it.

Did your terrestrial rank contribute to your having another, more elevated one, in that world where you now are?

Answer. – I continue to be queen… let slaves be sent to serve me!… But… I do not know… it seems to me that they little concern themselves with my person here… and yet I… am always the same.

Did you profess the Muslim religion or the Hindu one?

Answer. – Muslim; I was, however, powerful enough to occupy myself with God.

From the point of view of human happiness, what differences do you note between your religion and Christianity?

Answer. – The Christian religion is absurd; it says that all are brothers.

What is your opinion regarding Muhammad?

Answer. – He was not the son of a king.

Do you believe that he had a divine mission?

Answer. – What does that matter to me?

What is your opinion concerning the Christ?

Answer. – The carpenter's son is not worthy to occupy my thoughts.

What do you think of that custom by which Muslim women shield themselves from the eyes of men?

Answer. – I think that women were born to dominate: – I was a woman.

Do you envy the freedom enjoyed by European women?

Answer. – What could such freedom matter to me? Are they served, perchance, on bended knee?

What is your opinion on the condition of woman in general, in the human species?

Answer. – What do women matter to me! If you spoke to me of queens!

Have you reminiscences of incarnations prior to the one you have just left?

Answer. – I should always have been queen.

Why did you come so promptly at our call?

Answer. – I did not wish to do so, but I was forced. Do you perhaps think that I would deign to answer you? Who are you beside me?

And who forced you to come?

Answer. – I myself do not know… though there must be no one greater than I.

In what place do you find yourself here?

Answer. – Near Ermance.

Under what form do you present yourself here?

Answer. – Always queen… and do you think I have ceased to be one? You are little respectful… know that it is not in this manner that one speaks to queens.

Why can we not see you?

Answer. – I do not wish it.

If it were granted to us to behold you, would we see you with your ornaments and jewels?

Answer. – Certainly.

And how is it explained that, stripped of all that, your Spirit retains such trappings, especially the ornaments?

Answer. – It is because they have not left me. I am as beautiful as I was, and I do not understand the judgment you form of me. It is true that you never saw me.

What impression does it cause you to be among us?

Answer. – If I could avoid it… They treat me with so little courtesy… I do not wish to be treated thus… Call me Majesty, or I will answer no more.

Did Your Majesty understand the French language?

Answer. – Why would I not understand it? I knew everything.

Would Your Majesty like to answer us in English?

Answer. – No… Will you not, then, leave me in peace?… I wish to go away… Leave me… Do you think I am subjected to your whims?… I am a queen, and not a slave.

We beg only that you answer two or three more questions.

Answer of Saint Louis, who was present: Leave her, the poor disturbed one. Have compassion on her blindness, and may it serve you as an example. You do not know how much her pride suffers.

Observation. – This conversation offers more than one lesson. In evoking this fallen majesty, now in the tomb, we did not expect answers of great depth, in view of the kind of education of women in that country; but we thought to find in this Spirit, if not philosophy, at least a truer sentiment of reality and healthier ideas about the vanities and grandeurs of the Earth. Far from it: in her the terrestrial ideas retained all their force; it is pride, which has lost nothing of its illusions, that struggles against its own weakness and that must, indeed, suffer much from its impotence. Foreseeing answers of another nature, we had prepared various questions which became without object. These answers are so different from those we expected, as well as from those present, that one could not see in them the influence of an extraneous thought. Moreover, they bear so characteristic a mark of personality, that they clearly attest the identity of the Spirit that manifested. One might rightly be surprised to see Lemaire, a man degraded and stained by every crime, manifest, in his language from beyond the tomb, sentiments that denote a certain elevation and a rather exact appreciation of his situation, whereas in the queen of Oude, whose rank ought to have developed her moral sense, the terrestrial ideas suffered no modification. The cause of this anomaly seems easy to explain. However degraded he was, Lemaire lived in the bosom of a civilized and enlightened society, which had reacted against his coarse nature; he had absorbed, in spite of himself, some rays of the light that surrounded him, and that light caused to be born in him thoughts stifled by his abjection, but whose germ nonetheless did not cease to subsist. It is otherwise with the queen of Oude: the environment in which she lived, the habits, the absolute absence of intellectual culture, all must have contributed to maintaining, in all its vigor, the ideas with which she had been imbued from infancy; nothing came to modify that primitive nature, over which prejudices retained all their dominion. APPENDIX.

n THE TRAJECTORY OF THE QUEEN OF OUDE.

Sônia Zaghetto.

There are stories that, by their engaging content and their precious lessons, become emblematic. One of these stories is in the book Heaven and Hell, in the chapter that gathers the experiences of hardened Spirits. Among those obstinate beings, of stony heart, few compare to the Queen of Oude. Proud, wearied with everything that was not her dynastic tradition, possessor of an enormous contempt for spiritual values, she is a character that makes an impression. The history of this Spirit, her glory and tragedy, make the reading of her dialogue with Allan Kardec all the more enriching. In the eighteenth century, the European countries sought new markets that would consume their industrialized products and where they could obtain raw materials at low cost. India was one of the focal points of attention. With the creation of the East India Company, England obtained the monopoly of Indian commerce, overcame the Franco-Portuguese competition and, a century later, occupied practically the entire country. Practices such as the confiscation of rural properties and the levying of extortionate taxes inspired yearnings for freedom. Without a central authority and divided among rival kingdoms, India reacted with the “Revolt of the Sepoys” (native soldiers employed by the East India Company). England crushed the rebellions and intensified the imperialist expansion. Kingdoms of maharajas and nawabs were taken. Among them the kingdom of Oude (Awadh or Oudh), governed by the nawab Wajid Ali Shah. The Queen-mother of Oude, Malika Kishwar, was a legitimate purdah nasheen lady, a lady who lived according to the most rigid Muslim customs. In public she was always covered by the traditional veil and no one was permitted to gaze upon her figure. In the audiences she granted, she was isolated by heavy curtains and a secretary transmitted her answers to the interlocutor. Like the other ladies of her lineage and religion, she received a refined education and grew up surrounded by luxury and riches, in complete seclusion in the zenana, a construction within the palace to which only women had access. Men, only the direct relatives: husband, parents and children. A descendant of the Mongol emperors who occupied India, she was the daughter of the nawab Hisam ud-din Khan, of Kalpi. Her mother was Queen Vilayati, daughter of the famous nawab As’adat Ali Khan. By marriage she became Begum (first and principal wife) of King Amjad Ali Shah, of Oude, situated where today is the State of Lucknow, in the north of India. One of the most prosperous Indian kingdoms, Oude was annexed to the East India Company in 1856 and the entire royal family, which included the King's 148 wives and 40 children, was transferred to Calcutta. The nawab Wajid Ali Shah, an enthusiast of the arts — chiefly of music, dance and poetry — was accused of being an inattentive administrator, without control over the finances of the kingdom and more interested in pleasures. The Queen-mother traveled to England to intercede with Queen Victoria in favor of the restitution of her son's kingdom. She disembarked living up to the fame of extraordinary wealth of the Indian kings: with the pomp of spectacular jewels, a retinue that included two princes and hundreds of servants, precious fabrics and an impressive collection of titles: Janab-i-Aliya Malika-i-Kishwar Khanum, Mukhtar Aliya, Fakhr uz-Zamani Nawab Taj Ara Begum Sahiba. “Janab-i-Aliya” means something like “Her Royal Highness”. “Malika” is the Arabic term for Queen. “Khanum” is the feminine of Khan, a Mongol title. “Fakhr uz-Zamani” means “glory of her age”. Nawab and Begum together in a single title correspond to the identification of a wife of royalty. “Taj Ara” means “ornament of the crown”. She was received with great honors by Queen Victoria, but England was a constitutional monarchy and Victoria had no power to intervene in the case. To aggravate the situation, while the Queen of Oude was in Europe, the great rebellion of 1857 against the British presence in India broke out. Wajid Ali Shah and his wives were directly involved. This first uprising for independence drenched the country in blood. Even the most resistant, like the legendary Lakshmi, Rani of Jhansi, were decimated by the English, and her defeat further reduced the possibilities of the kingdoms recovering their autonomy. The Queen of Oude remained in England for a year. On the return voyage, during a stopover in Paris, on January 23, 1858, she died as a result of a sudden illness. She was 58 years of age. There are several versions for the death. Some point to cholera, others to depression. A month later, her son, General Mirza Sikandar Hashmat, also died and was buried beside his mother. In a gesture of provocation to England, France granted the Queen of Oude a Head of State's funeral. The burial procession passed through the streets of Paris and became one of the most commented-upon and reported events in the country. Malika Kishwar was buried in the Muslim area of the Père-Lachaise Cemetery, in the 85th division, a few meters from where the tomb of Allan Kardec is located today. Of her imposing tomb only the foundation remains today. A drawing at the site shows the opulence of the original monument. Attentive to the facts of his time, Allan Kardec evoked the Queen in the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies and published the conversation in the Revue Spirite of March 1858 and, later, in Heaven and Hell. He evoked her on two other occasions without noting significant changes. The dialogue between the Queen and the Codifier is revealing. She informs that she is disturbed, that she longs for life (“I feel a bitter pain from which life would deliver me”), but demands to be treated as Majesty. Nothing seems to satisfy her in her aspirations to power; death does not yet make her reflect on her attitude before life. This is what is deduced from her answer when Kardec asks about the honors rendered to her on the occasion of her funeral: “They were not much, for I was queen and not everyone bowed before me…” The exclusivism of royalty is well translated in the Queen's answers: “My blood cannot mingle with that of the people.” Her attachment to material passions is explicit in the contempt for the figure of Jesus (“The carpenter's son is not worthy to occupy my thoughts”) and, even being Muslim and observant of the customs, she did not allow religion to overcome social position (“I was powerful enough to occupy myself with God”). Not even the prophet Muhammad merits a warm comment from her (“He is not the son of a king”). One can understand her contempt even for the freedom won by the women of the West (“What do women matter to me! If you spoke to me of queens…”) if we consider that she was the principal lady of her court and her political power was tremendous.

“My blood will reign, to be sure, since it is worthy of it”; she said to Kardec, but this aspiration was never realized. The Queen's daughter-in-law, Hazrat Mahal, became a symbol of the resistance to English imperialism, but Wajid Ali Shah and his children died in exile. In 1858, the British Parliament transferred the administration of the country to the Crown and in 1876 the English government, led by Benjamin Disraeli, proclaimed Queen Victoria Empress of India. The English dominion extended until August 15, 1947, when, not pride and war, but the peaceful resistance and non-violence of Mahatma Gandhi bent the resistance of the British and proclaimed the independence of the great Indian homeland.

This section title, formerly named “Particular evocations,” was renamed by Allan Kardec “Conversations from beyond the tomb,” and beginning with this number of the Spiritist Review received the title “Familiar conversations from beyond the tomb.”

[1] Translator's note: See Heaven and Hell, by Allan Kardec – Second Part, chapter VII – Hardened Spirits. [Aúde or Oude was an ancient kingdom of India, cradle of the Aryans; today a section of the united provinces of Agra and Aúde (Uttar Pradesh). Its capital is Lucknow, between the Ganges and the Himalayas.]

[2] The trajectory of the Queen of Oude — REFORMADOR publishes the unpublished history of one of the most impressive characters of the book Heaven and Hell, which this month completes 140 years since its release. (Reformador/August 2005.)