HYDERABAD is a city in the heart of the Indian peninsula. Today, it is known as the country’s IT capital, covering an area of 250 square miles with a population of 11 million. In 2022, the city’s first women’s university, the Telangana Mahila Vishwavidyalayam, was established inside a building that was also a first of its kind: the erstwhile British Residency. This deserves to be much better known.
In its present form, the Residency was created under the terms of the Subsidiary Alliance Treaty signed in 1798 between the East India Company and the Nizam of Hyderabad, the ruler of the Deccan region. This treaty, a hugely important milestone in establishing the company’s control over various Indian princely states, formalised an existing arrangement whereby an envoy or Resident should be permanently attached to the Nizam’s court. Accordingly, the Nizam allocated a large house on a 63-acre site just north of the walled capital city of Hyderabad and across the River Musi for the purpose.
In the first decade of the 19th century, this building metamorphosed under the direction of the flamboyant James
