Who was Mukarram Jah, titular 8th Nizam of Hyderabad who was India’s richest man till 1980s, owned 6 palaces?

The titular 8th Nizam of Hyderabad, Mukarram Jah, passed away on Thursday (January 12, 2023) at the age of 89. The heir to the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad, Mukarram Jah was the grandson of the last reigning Nizam of Hyderabad Mir Osman Ali Khan. Born to one of the wealthiest Royal families of pre-Independence India, Mukarram Jah was the richest man in the country till 1980s like his grandfather. 

Jah was born in France to Nizam Osman Ali Khan’s son and heir Azam Jah and Princess Durru Shehvar, who was the imperial princess of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire and daughter of the last Ottoman Caliph Abdulmejid II.

He was educated at the famous Dehradun boarding school Doon School as well as prominent schools in England’s London and Cambridge. Mukarram Jah was also an alumnus of London School of Economics. Jah was a good friend of India’s first Prime Minister Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru. In 2010, the titular Nizam had revealed that PM Nehru had wanted him to become his personal envoy or the Indian ambassador to a Muslim country. 

Mukarram Jah’s net worth is noted to have been around $1 billion. From being India’s richest man till the 80s, his net worth decreased after giving up some assets during divorce settlement in the 1990s. Nevertheless, he was the owner of some iconic buildings including the Falaknuma Palace which is now a luxury hotel run by Taj hotels and the Chowmahalla Palace which is now a museum. 

Apart from Falaknuma and Chowmahalla, Mukarram Jah also owned the Nazri Bagh Palace, Chiraan Palace and Purani Haveli in Hyderabad and the Naukhanda Palace in Aurangabad. Jah married a total of five times, first to a Turkish noble woman. He reportedly divorced her as she did not want to move from Hyderabad palace to a sheep station in the Australian outback as he wished. He then married a former BBC employee and air hostess. He married his third wife, Miss Turkey Manolya Onur in 1992 after the death of his second wife. He married twice more to a Moroccan woman and a Turkish woman.

His full stylised name is: His Exalted Highness Prince Rustam-i-Dauran, Arustu-i-Zaman, Wal Mamaluk, Asaf Jah VIII, Muzaffar ul-Mamalik, Nizam ul-Mulk, Nizam ud-Daula, Nawab Mir Barakat 'Ali Khan Siddiqi Bahadur, Sipah Salar, Fath Jang, Nizam of Hyderabad and Berar.

READ | Who was KD Jhadav? First post-independence athlete to win individual medal in Olympics