Know Your City: From Shiraz to Bengaluru, a Persian trader’s legacy

In Karnataka, these would have been the early days of the Bangalore Cantonment. Tipu Sultan had only been recently defeated, and Mysore was far from a stable province. In this context, the British cavalry would certainly not have turned down quality mounts.

Several homes and buildings – possibly close to a hundred, as historian Dharmendra Kumar stated, were built by Asker, some at Ali Asker Road between Cunningham Road and Infantry Road, as well as Richmond Town. (Express photo by Jithendra M)

While their journey was not entirely smooth (they seem to have been detained at one point on suspicions of espionage), Agha Aly Asker managed to set himself up as a well-known trader in the city, known to the influential sections of Indian and British society alike. Some of the horses were stabled near the original racetrack of the Bangalore Turf Club near Agram, while he is also reputed to have had stables in areas like today’s Arab Lines and Johnson Market.

While Asker already came from a fairly wealthy family, his success in India enabled him to branch out into property and building. An estimate of how far he had come is the fact that he once tried to purchase the building that became the Raj Bhavan for the sum of Rs 28,000. (It was finally purchased in 1862 for the Government by Commissioner Lewin Bowring). One may appreciate the scale of what this would have meant in the 1860s when comparing the rent on the building before it was sold – Rs 200 a month. Several homes and buildings – possibly close to a hundred, as historian Dharmendra Kumar stated, were built by Asker, some at Ali Asker Road between Cunningham Road and Infantry Road, as well as Richmond Town.

While Asker is said to have had a good rapport with high British officials such as Sir Cubbon, he was also known to the Mysore royals. As Dharmendra Kumar noted in a talk at the Bangalore International Centre in 2019, “Mummudi Krishnaraja Wodeyar had lost the throne… developed a great fondness for Aly Asker. The letters that he wrote to the British requesting them to restore his kingdom would never reach the East India Company office in Madras… Aly Asker offered to personally deliver the letters on horseback and post them.” As Syeda Mirza also noted in the same event, the Farsi language would have been a unifying point here – Mummudi Krishnaraja Wodeyar would have been a fluent speaker, while higher British officials would have also learnt the language.

His descendants have continued to hold positions of distinction in India – but the most famous of them is still none other than Sir Mirza Ismail, who famously served as Dewan to King Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar and left an extensive mark on Bengaluru and Karnataka.