But today's Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or the Ambani-Adanis of the neighboring country have been shocked by the abundance of wealth and wonder of Nawab Osman. He was the last Nizam of Hyderabad.
Osman Ali Khan's net worth was $236 billion. In Indian currency which is about 25 lakh crore! In the chest of the subjugated Indian subcontinent, this Nawab gave his wealth to the powerful British of that era.
That said, he should not be thought of as an open-handed person. The Nawab who ruled Hyderabad for 37 years from 1911 to 1948 earned a reputation as a miser. Osman was one of those who did not want to be a part of India when the country became independent. Let that be another story. This article is about his wealth.
The book 'Freedom at Midnight' written by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre claims that Nawab Osman's wealth in 1947 was Tk 25 lakh crore. Which no one in the world had at that time.
It is said that he had a golden vessel. There were so many dishes that 200 people could sit and eat in those dishes. Although he himself did not eat gold or expensive dishes!
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Like the wealth of the Nawab, the story of his avarice has become a myth. It is said that he was so miserable, that when a guest came to his palace, he would give pleasure to the cigarette left by them. The clothes were also not very fancy. He rode around in crumpled old clothes. But his splendor was dazzling.
Ramchandra Guhar's famous book 'India After Gandhi' also talks about this amazing contrast. Cars line up one after the other at Nawab's garage. Lots of Rolls Royce cars. At least 50 Rolls Royces are known. But despite having so many cars, he used to go out with a vandalized car of 1918 model.
He was also very skeptical. He was always afraid that someone poisoned him and killed him. And so there was a man who tasted all his food. No food was ever served to him, which the gentleman had ever tasted. The story of his miserliness and skepticism on the other side of the abundance of such riches has created a wonderful myth.
But his wealth story is undoubtedly the most famous. Let's go back to that story. Among which the most talked about Jacob diamond. He used this diamond bigger than Kohinoor merely as a paperweight. The price of which is 1 thousand crores.
In fact, Mehbub Ali Khan, the father of the sixth Nizam Osman of Hyderabad, could not bear this Hirata. He used to call it 'Manhus Hira' i.e. lost diamond. So he used it in his chatty. Later Osman opened it and started using it as a paperweight.
It can be thought! At around 185 carats or 40 grams, the diamond is the fifth largest polished diamond in the world. Although Osman's father bought it very cheaply. Alexander Malkon Jacob, the previous owner of the diamond, sold it for Tk 25 lakh (Indian Rupee) as no buyers were found. After that he became practically penniless.
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Died in 1921 in absolute poverty. Much later, in 1995, the central government bought the diamond from the Nizam's trust. The precious diamond is currently in a vault of the Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai.
Anyway, back to Nizam. No matter how many accusations of miserliness there were against him, he meditated on charity. He gave money to build many mosques and temples. He stood by the country during the India-China war in the sixties.
At that time, the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri called upon the rich to come forward to save the country which was economically broken. Responding to that request, the Nawab donated 5,000 kg of gold. But the nature of miserliness was still there. He informed that although he was donating gold, he was not donating the chest in which it was being sent. They should be sent back!
Osman died in 1967 at the age of 80. But the myths created around him are still unsolved. There are no shortage of stories about rich people around the world. Among those stories, it is virtually impossible to forget the flash of Nawab Osman's opulence.
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