File 3142/1903 'Hedjaz Railway' [‎102v] (211/488)

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No. 95, dated Hyderabad Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. , the 16th June 1906.
From—The Hon^ble Mr. C. S. Batley, C.S.I., I.C.S., Resident at Hyderabad,
To—The Secretary to the Government of India, Foreign Department, Simla.
In acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Holland's letter No. 2233-E. B., dated
the 29th May 1906,1 have the honour to report that, so far as my present informa
tion goes, the members of the Central Committee of the Hedjaz Railway Fund, if
they exist at all, are persons of no importance. The only one of whom anything
is known is the so-called Honorary Secretary, Mulla Ahdul Kayyum. This
gentleman who was formerly Talukdar of the Lingsugur District, attracted
attention in the year 1900 by his obstruction of plague operations and by
■writing exceedingly offensive letters. An enquiry was ordered into his conduct
and the Minister, Sir Vikar-ul-TTmra, proposed to Sir David Barr that he should
be severely repremanded and transferred to another district where he would be
under more immediate supervision and that his promotion should be stopped for
two years. Sir David Barr considered the punishment suggested to be wholly
inadequate and expressed his opinion in the following reply :—“I do not wish to
make any suggestion as to the punishment which Mulla Abdul Kayyum should
receive, but I must remark that if an officer in the service of the Government
of India holding an appointment of the same position and importance as that
held by Mulla Abdul Kayyum, had written the documents which he has written
and now has the temerity to defend, he would most assuredly have been sus
pended from his appointment from the date on which his misconduct was
brought to notice and on his admission of being the author of such false,
malicious, insubordinate, and treacherous documents I have no hesitation in
saying that the Government of India would have deemed it necessary in the
interests of the public service to dispense with his services,^ Mulla Ahdul
Kayyum appears to have been removed from the Nizam’s service, on receipt
of this letter. He was reported in the following year to be collecting money
for the Hedjaz Railway in the stations of the Hyderabad Contingent, and about
the same time, he, as “ Secretary of the Railway Subscription Committee, ”
asked Sir David Barr to become patron of the Committee. Sir David Barr
sent the letter containing this request to the Minister, whom he desired to
1 ? f ^ m i¥ U u la Abdul Ka W um thafc ’ though sympathising with the desire
ot the Muhammadan Community for Railway communication with the
Hedjaz, he was unable to accept the office of Patron of a Committee formed in
the capital of His Highness* Dominions.
3. l am not sufficiently aware of the present attitude of the Porte to say
vdiether it is desirable to withhold a reply to the request which has been
addressed to His Excellency the Viceroy. In view, however, of the fact that
the possibility of hostilities between Great Britain and the Porte has unquestion
ably exercised the Muhammadans of India to some extent, that there is a
section of the Muhammadan Community which is inclined to regard the
Sultan as the Khalifa of Islam, and that certain ill-disposed persons are appar-
ently using the name of the Sultan as a means of exciting disaffection, I venture
respectfully to advise that a reply be sent in the terms proposed in Mr.
Holland s letter. It would be easy to misrepresent the omission of a reply as
an act of intentional discourtesy due to a want of sympathy with a project,
however unworkable, which is intended to facilitate an act of piety incumbent
on orthodox Muslims, and, of those who hear of it as such, few, if any, will be
aware that the body bearing the high-sounding appellation of the Central
Committee of the Hedjaz Railway Fund consists only of a Secretary of indiffer
ent character and, possibly, a few entirely insignificant persons.
No. 2848-E. B., dated Simla, the 6th July 1906.
From—E. V. Gabriel, Esq. Under Secretary to the Government of India in the
r oreign Department,
To-MitLvi Audbl Kavvcm, Honorary Secretary to the Central Committee, Hedias
Railway hnnd, Hamedia Hotel, No. 132, Lower Chitpore Road, Calcutta,
or Hyderabad-Deccan. *
-I™ t0 ack ?. owl ^getbe receipt of your letter No, 493, dated the
10th March 1,KJ6, requesting His Excellency the Viceroy to become the Patron
of an Association formed by the Muhammadans of Hyderabad under the
designation of the Central Committee of the Hedjaz Railway Fund
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