From soldier to spectacle: Africans and the langar procession in Hyderabad

In this article I explore the role of Africans in the Nizam of Hyderabad’s armed forces at the end of the nineteenth century. In particular I focus on their representation in newspaper and eye-witness accounts during their participation in the annual langar procession in Hyderabad city. Tens of thousands of local Hyderabadis as well as Britons and other foreign guests witnessed this procession that involved thousands of individuals drawn from the Nizam’s military members. I argue that by this time Africans in Hyderabad city had transitioned from active soldiers in the Nizam’s forces to a form of spectacle. Accounts of Africans reveal the ways in which their racial identity marked them as different from their Indian counterparts and how they embodied a kind of spectacle that was consumed by both Indians and Britons alike during the procession.