“I shall do all in my power to shew you how highly I prize the convincing proofs you give me of your devotion and attachment to Sir Alexander Burnes while alive, and of your veneration for his memory now that he is no more. Believe me, dear Sir. Your faithful friend, J. Burnes” – this is an excerpt from a letter from James Burnes of Montrose, the father of Sir Alexander Burnes, to Munshi Mohan Lal during his travels to Scotland in the 1840s.
As an Anglicised Indian with a knowledge of Persianate administration and culture, Lal was recruited for a British political mission to Central Asia, led by Sir Alexander Burnes. Burnes would be assassinated in Kabul in 1841 during the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-41), while Lal would be imprisoned. Although Lal received little support from the British administration to secure his release, he escaped prison, and continued to advance British interests. He successfully negotiated the release of British prisoners in exchange for ransom, borrowing against his own credit to secure sums to buy support for the British in the region. Upon his return to India in 1843, however, Lal found little recognition for his services.
Lal’s travels to Britain, including his travels within Scotland, were undertaken to personally deliver valuable papers belonging to the late Burnes to his father in Montrose, and to have his services in Kabul acknowledged by the Court of Directors of the East India Company. Following his return from Britain, Lal would never be employed by the British again. Furthermore, the British vetoed the repayment of the debt he had undertaken on their behalf in Kabul. He would die in relative obscurity in Delhi in 1877.
In Scotland, Lal was photographed by the Edinburgh based Hill and Adamson, who were pioneers of early Scottish photography. The photographs were made using an early technique of photography, called the Salted Paper Print method, invented by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1840.
To learn more about Mohan Lal, see: Michael H. Fisher, “Mohan Lal Kashmiri (1812-77), An Initial Student of Delhi English College”, in The Delhi College: Traditional Elites, the Colonial State, and Education before 1857, edited by Margrit Pernau (Oxford University Press, 2006).
Credit:
Mohan Lal, Travels in the Panjab, Afghanistan and Turkistan: To Balk, Bokhara, and Herat, and a Visit to Great Britain and Germany, 1846.