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Bahadur Shah II
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Abu Zafar Sirajuddin Muhammad Bahadur Shah Zafar , also known as Bahadur Shah or Bahadur Shah II ; 24 October 1775 7 November 1862) was the last of the Mughal emperors in India, as well as the last ruler of the Timurid Dynasty . He was the son of Akbar Shah II by his Hindu wife Lalbai. He became the Mughal Emperor upon his father's death on 28 September 1838. Zafar was his nom de plume (takhallus) as an Urdu poet.
dur Shah presided over a Mughal empire that barely extended beyond Delhi's Red Fort.
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Abu Zafar Sirajuddin Muhammad Bahadur Shah Zafar , also known as Bahadur Shah or Bahadur Shah II ; 24 October 1775 7 November 1862) was the last of the Mughal emperors in India, as well as the last ruler of the Timurid Dynasty . He was the son of Akbar Shah II by his Hindu wife Lalbai. He became the Mughal Emperor upon his father's death on 28 September 1838. Zafar was his nom de plume (takhallus) as an Urdu poet.
As emperor
Bahadur Shah presided over a Mughal empire that barely extended beyond Delhi's Red Fort. The British were the dominant political and military power in 19th-century India. Outside British India, hundreds of kingdoms and principalities, from the large to the small, fragmented the land. The emperor in Delhi was paid some respect by the British and allowed a pension, the authority to collect some taxes, and to maintain a small military force in Delhi, but he posed no threat to any power in India. Bahadur Shah II himself did not take an interest in statecraft or possess any imperial ambitions.
Bahadur Shah Zafar was a noted Urdu poet. He wrote a large number of Urdu ghazals. While some part of his opus was lost or destroyed during the Indian Rebellion of 1857-1858, a large collection did survive, and was later compiled into the Kulliyyat-i Zafar. The court that he maintained, although somewhat decadent and arguably pretentious for someone who was effectively a pensioner of the British East India Company, was home to several Urdu writers of high standing, including Ghalib, Dagh, Mumin, and Zauq (Dhawq).
Events of 1857
As the Indian rebellion of 1857 spread, Sepoy regiments seized Delhi. Seeking a figure that could unite all Indians, Hindu and Muslim alike, most rebelling Indian kings and the Indian regiments accepted Zafar as the Emperor of India., under whom the smaller Indian kingdoms would unite until the British were defeated. Zafar was the least threatening and least ambitious of monarchs, and the legacy of the Mughal Empire was more acceptable a uniting force to most allied kings than the domination of any other Indian kingdom.
When the victory of the British became certain, Zafar took refuge at Humayun's Tomb, in an area that was then at the outskirts of Delhi, and hid there. British forces led by Major Hodson surrounded the tomb and compelled his surrender.
Numerous male members of his family were killed by the British, who imprisoned or exiled the surviving members of the Mughal dynasty. Zafar himself was exiled to Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar) in 1858 along with his wife Zeenat Mahal and some of the remaining members of the family. His departure as Emperor marked the end of more than three centuries of Mughal rule in India.
Bahadur Shah died in exile on 7 November 1862. He was buried near the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, at the site that later became known as Bahadur Shah Zafar Dargah. His wife Zeenat Mahal died in 1886.
In a marble enclosure, adjoining the dargah of Sufi saint, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki, at Mehrauli, an empty grave or Sardgah marks the site, where he had willed to be buried, as did his previous Mughal predecessors, Akbar Shah II, Bahadur Shah I (also known as Shah Alam I) and Shah Alam II, he unfortunately was not so lucky, though talks of bringing back his remains here, have been raised in the past, from time to time
Legacy
Modern Pakistan views him as the last vestige of the Muslim state within India before its fall to the British, only to be resurrected with the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Modern India views him as one of its first nationalists, someone who actively opposed British rule in India. In 1959, the All India Bahadur Shah Zafar Academy was founded expressly to spread awareness about his contribution to the first national freedom movement of India. Several movies in Hindi/Urdu have depicted his role during the rebellion of 1857. There are roads bearing his name in New Delhi, Lahore, Varanasi and other cities. A statue of Bahadur Shah Zafar has been erected at Vijayanagaram palace in Varanasi. In Bangladesh, the Victoria Park of old Dhaka has been renamed as Bahadur Shah Zafar Park.
Family
Bahadur Shah Zafar is known to have had four wives and numerous concubines. In order of marriage, his wives were:
- Begum Ashraf Mahal
- Begum Akhtar Mahal
- Begum Zeenat Mahal
- Begum Taj Mahal
Zafar had 22 sons, including:
- Mirza Fath-ul-Mulk Bahadur (alias Mirza Fakhru)
- Mirza Mughal
- Mirza Khazr Sultan
- Jawan Bakht
- Mirza Quaish
- Mirza Shah Abbas
He also had at least 32 daughters, including:
- Rabeya Begum
- Begum Fatima Sultan
- Kulsum Zamani Begum
- Raunaq Zamani Begum (possibly a granddaughter)
Most of his sons and grandsons were killed during or in the aftermath of the rebellion of 1857. Of those who survived, the following three lines of descent are known:
- Delhi line -- son: Mirza Fath-ul-Mulk Bahadur (alias Mirza Fakhru); grandson: Mirza Farkhunda Jamal; great-grandchildren: Hamid Shah and Begum Qamar Sultan.
- Howrah line -- son: Jawan Bakht, grandson: Jamshid Bakht, great-grandson: Mirza Muhammad Bedar Bakht (married Sultana Begum, who currently runs a tea stall in Howrah).
- Hyderabad line -- son: Mirza Quaish, grandson: Mirza Abdullah, great-grandson: Mirza Pyare (married Habib Begum), great-great-granddaughter: Begum Laila Ummahani (married Yakub Habeebuddin Tucy).
<---Descendants of Mughal rulers other than Bahadur Shah Zafar also survive to this day. They include the line of Jalaluddin Mirza in Bengal, who served at the court of the Maharaja of Dighapatia, and the Toluqari family.
Epitaph
Zafar was an accomplished Urdu poet and calligrapher. The following famous poem (Lagta Nahin Hai Ji Mera) () was written by Bahadur Shah Zafar as his epitaph; this is an English translation.
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My heart is not happy in this despoiled land
Who has ever felt fulfilled in this transient world
The nightingale laments neither to the gardener nor to the hunter
Imprisonment was written in fate in the season of spring
Tell these emotions to go dwell elsewhere
Where is there space for them in this besmirched (bloodied) heart?
I had requested for a long life a life of four days
Two passed by in pining, and two in waiting.
The days of life are over, Its evening of death,
Now I can sleep without any stress forever in my tomb
How unlucky is Zafar! For burial
Even two yards of land were not to be had, in the land (of the) beloved.
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In his book, The Last Mughal, William Dalrymple states that according to Lahore scholar Imran Khan, this verse (and the equally popular Na kisi ki aankh ka noor hoon) may not written by Zafar and do not appear in any of the works published during Zafar's lifetime. While he was denied paper and pen in captivity, he was know to have written on the walls of his room with a burnt stick.
Another verse reads:
See also
External links
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