Then, in 1857, Zafar’s flourishing capital became the center of an uprising that reduced his beloved Delhi to a battered, empty ruin. Deprived of real political power by the British East India Company, Zafar nevertheless succeeded in creating a court of great brilliance, and he presided over one of the great cultural renaissances of Indian history. Although Zafar’s Mughal ancestors had controlled most of India, the aged Zafar was king in name only.
Dalrymple writes that he was a mystic, a talented poet, and a skilled calligrapher. He was born in 1775, when the British were still a relatively modest and mainly coastal power in India. At the book’s heart are stories of the forgotten individuals tragically caught up in one of the bloodiest upheavals in history the author likens it in both importance and savagery to the siege of Stalingrad during World War II - a fight to the death between two powers, neither of which could retreat.īahadur Shah Zafar was the last Mughal emperor, and a direct descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur, of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan.
The author has done an excellent job of crafting a spellbinding, well-annotated narrative that captures the charm of old Delhi and tells the story from a neutral perspective.Ĭalled the Mutiny by the British and the First War for Independence by Indians and Pakistanis, Dalrymple provides a context for modern audiences so that they can understand what actually happened and why the consequences were so disastrous for old India. That dark day in Indian and British colonial history and the events leading up to it are the subject of William Dalrymple’s award-winning book, “The Last Mughal” (Penguin Viking 580 pp $20, 695 Indian rupees).
Delhi’s inhabitants had been slaughtered and raped and the city was in ruins. 7, 1858, more than three centuries after Babur rode into Delhi and established the Mughal Empire, Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor, left Delhi on a bullock cart bound for exile in Rangoon.
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