Atma Ram (politician)

Atma Ram was a Hindu minister in Afghanistan during the 1820s and 1830s. A native of Peshawar, he held the office of Diwanbegi in Kunduz under Murad Beg. He was said to have dominated trade between India and Turan in this period. A tax farmer, he purchased the right to collect taxes on the Kabul–Bukhara caravans. Unusually for a Hindu in an Islamic state, he was even permitted to own Muslim slaves.[1]

Lithograph of Atma Ram in Peshawar, circa 1847

There is a coloured lithograph of Atma Ram based on the work of James Rattray at the time of the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–1842).[2]

References
  1. Scott Cameron Levi, The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade, 1550–1900 (Brill, 2002), pp. 162–163.
  2. "Atmaran, Hindoo of Peshawar". Retrieved 15 July 2023. 'Atmaran, Hindoo of Peshawar' is the title of a coloured lithograph made by E. Walker (d. 1882), based on the work of James Rattray (1818-1854), who was based in Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan war (1838-1842). Atmaram was a Hindu from Peshawar in modern northern Pakistan, who had become the 'minister' of a local Muslim and Uzbek ruler in northern Afghanistan, Mohammad Murad Beg of Kunduz.
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