Azimullah Khan

Azimullah Khan Yusufzai (1830-1859), also known as Dewan Azimullah Khan, was initially appointed Secretary, and later Prime Minister (hence the prefix Dewan) to Nana Sahib. He is also known as the Krantidoot Azimullah Khan (Krantidoot is Hindi for "Ambassador of Revolution").

Azimullah Khan was involved in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, primarily ideologically, influencing important nobles such as Nana Sahib.

Azimullah was rescued as a starving Muslim boy from the famine of 1837-38 along with his mother when they were provided shelter at a mission in Cawnpore. There he learnt English but also French, no mean achievement for an Indian in the 19th century.

After working as secretary to several British officers, he was taken into the service of the Nana Sahib, adopted son of the late Peshwa Baji Rao II (died 28 January 1851), as secretary and advisor.

Nana Sahib was involved in a long drawn out appeal to the British East India Company to restore to him the £80,000 annual pension that his father (exiled to the Kingdom of Oudh) had been granted. He chose the smooth-talking Azimullah to go to England in 1853 to plead his case with the Board of Control, the British government, or anyone else who cared to listen.

In England, Azimullah was taken under the wing of Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon, an intellectual and translator whose husband was a civil servant, court functionary and the cousin of the then Prime Minister. This introduction probably came about through the philosopher John Stuart Mill, who was an official of the East India Company and had been a childhood friend of Lucie's. Azimullah lodged with the Duff Gordons at their home in Esher, and in Lucie's company may have met her friends Dickens, Carlyle, Meredith, Tennyson, Browning and Thackeray (though there is no direct evidence).

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