The curious case of Carnatic: The last nawab of Arcot (d. 1855) and Persian literary culture

While the nineteenth century is a period that generally witnessed Persian’s longue durée of decline in post-Mughal South Asia, it is also one in which Persian literary culture reconstituted itself in multiple ways that allowed participants to remain invested in its production. This article focuses on one such environment in the nineteenth century—the court of the last Nawab of Arcot (d. 1855). It highlights the development of Persian literary culture at Arcot, its promotion by the last Nawab through an exclusive Persian poetry society and the personal clashes and poetic rivalries that beset debates around Persian poetry. It demonstrates how Persian literary culture not only remained an important part of the Arcot court’s cultural milieu but also how its poetic debates remained connected to larger issues vexing poets elsewhere in the Persianate world, in particular around the questions of ‘who speaks for Persian’ and ‘what constitutes the Persian canon’.