 Until the publication of Frederick Ponsonby 's memoirs in 1951 , there was little biographical material on the Munshi . Scholarly examination of his life and relationship with Victoria began around the 1960s , focusing on the Munshi as " an illustration of race and class prejudice in Victorian England " . Mary Lutyens , in editing the diary of her grandmother Edith ( wife of Lord Lytton , Viceroy of India 1876 – 80 ) , concluded , " Though one can understand that the Munshi was disliked , as favourites nearly always are ... One cannot help feeling that the repugnance with which he was regarded by the Household was based mostly on snobbery and colour prejudice . " Elizabeth Longford wrote , " Abdul Karim stirred once more that same royal imagination which had magnified the virtues of John Brown ... Nevertheless , [ it ] insinuated into her confidence an inferior person , while it increased the nation 's dizzy infatuation with an inferior dream , the dream of Colonial Empire . " 
