The Last Mughal Read online

  THE LAST MUGHAL

  THE FALL OF A DYNASTY, DELHI, 1857

  WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

  To my beloved Ibby

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Reviews of The Last Mughal

  Maps

  Dramatis Personae

  Introduction

  1 A Chessboard King

  2 Believers and Infidels

  3 An Uneasy Equilibrium

  4 The Near Approach of the Storm

  5 The Sword of the Lord of Fury

  6 This Day of Ruin and Riot

  7 A Precarious Position

  8 Blood for Blood

  9 The Turn of the Tide

  10 To Shoot Every Soul

  11 The City of the Dead

  12 The Last of the Great Mughals

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  Bibliography

  Footnotes

  Notes

  A Note on the Author

  By the Same Author

  List of Illustrations

  Imprint

  Reviews of The Last Mughal

  From the British reviews:

  ‘A book as important as it is impressive’ Diana Athill, GuardianBooks of the Year

  ‘A moving and totally engrossing account’ New Statesman Books of the Year.

  ‘Dalrymple writes with a brio rare among academic historians. Here is history almost novelistic in its vividness, wonderfully embodying both our closeness to, and radical distance from, the past. Alone among his peers, Dalrymple is producing the kind of work that, in scale, ambition and style, is like an oriental version of Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ Scotsman Books of the Year

  ‘A natural-born storyteller, Dalrymple recounts the dramatic history of Mughal Delhi before, during and after the 1857 Indian mutiny with such brio and passion that it is impossible not to be won over’ Sunday Times Books of the Year

  ‘Informed throughout with poignant awareness of contemporary events. His final words are a bleak warning, and one can only hope that The Last Mughal finds its way onto the bedtime tables of current world leaders’ Lucy Moore, Daily Mail

  ‘Easily Dalrymple’s most ambitious, compelling and unusual book. Here are the stories of real people who populated those tumultuous times – heroes and villains, saints and debauches… The Last Mughal is Dalrymple’s saddest and loveliest work to date’ Elle

  ‘An exhaustive, deeply informed and compelling new book, bulging with scholarship. The strength of this book lies in the breadth of its quotations from unpublished primary sources. In deploying his material, Dalrymple shows he has the two essential gifts of the historian: a grasp of detail and an ability to see the big picture’ Sara Wheeler, Daily Telegraph

  ‘A magnificent, multi-dimensional book which shames the simplistic efforts of previous writers’ David Gilmour, Spectator

  ‘A riveting account… The animating spirit of the book is Delhi itself’ Economist

  ‘A terrific retelling of the event that ended Zafar’s reign – the Indian mutiny of 1857, “The Raj’s Stalingrad.” He has found a wonderful treasure trove of documents at the Indian National Archives and thanks to these rich sources The Last Mughal brims with life, colour and complexity, and it will make the most jingoistic reader think again about the effects of British rule on India … This is an outstanding book, distinguished by its painstaking research, narrative flair and imaginative sympathy. Dalrymple writes with a burning anger, but never loses sight of his obligation to the reader. The result is one of the best history books of the year’ Evening Standard

  ‘Thanks to an understanding of India gained during a twenty-year familiarity with Delhi, and an indefatigable pursuit of primary sources, Dalrymple has produced a finely balanced account of the greatest armed challenge faced by any European power during the 19th century, and of the bloodthirsty revenge the British exacted on those who dared to rise up against them’ Financial Times

  ‘Dalrymple is an outstandingly gifted travel writer and historian who excels himself in his latest work. One of its many merits is that it calls upon hitherto unpublished Urdu and Persian material in Indian archives to tell the story from an Indian as well as a British perspective. This is an angry book as well as a very good one’ Max Hastings, Sunday Times

  ‘Brilliantly nuanced … Dalrymple has here written an account of the Indian mutiny such as we have never had before, of the events leading up to it and of its aftermath, seen through the prism of the last emperor’s life. He has vividly described the street life of the Mughal capital in the days before the catastrophe happened, he has put his finger deftly on every crucial point in the story, which earlier historians have sometimes missed, and he has supplied some of the most informative footnotes I have ever read. On top of that, he has splendidly conveyed the sheer joy of researching a piece of history, something every true historian knows’ Geoffrey Moorhouse, Guardian

  ‘Much more than a retelling of the 1857 Uprising, Dalrymple’s sumptuously sourced and beautifully composed narrative follows the downfall of the Mughal dynasty, and celebrates the perishable elegance of its culture in early 19 century Delhi’ Boyd Tonkin, Independent

  ‘What marks out William Dalrymple out among other contemporary historians of India is his relish for the subject. His love of the country permeates every page of this new book … His research has been prodigious, his enthusiasm is infectious and he is an incomparable guide. Dalrymple writes with great verve, clarity and style’ Sebastian Shakespeare, Literary Review

  ‘Brilliant on the repetitive cycles of history, unashamedly drawing parallels with today, combatative on the origins of religious fundamentalism, The Last Mughal is a passionate and angry book, fuelled equally strongly by a love of India and a hatred of misrepresentation and repression’ Nicola Barr, Guardian

  ‘Diligently researched and densely informative … Dalrymple’s work laments the loss of an elegant tradition, a celebration of what was lost, the tone changing from epic to elegy and back’ Aamer Hussein, Independent

  ‘A skilfully written, impeccably researched history’ Observer

  ‘The Indian rebellion of 1857-8 and the deposition of the last Mughal Emperor were events of epochal importance. William Dalrymple tells this dramatic and tragic story with literary elegance, erudition and a wealth of new material’ C.A. Bayly, Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge

  ‘William Dalrymple brilliantly evokes the tense equilibrium on the eve of the Indian Mutiny, and with pace and panache, leads us to the explosion … Dalrymple’s towering achievement in providing almost hourly detail lies in his sources. Drawing widely on Persian and Urdu manuscripts, he narrates the chaos through memoirs, letters, official reports and a sweeping understanding of Indian and Muslim cultures. Dalrymple tells the story of the British retribution with anger and horror’ Michael Binyon, The Times

  ‘Dalrymple builds an urban narrative as evocative as Richard Cobb’s depiction of Revolutionary Paris … There is so much to admire in this book – the depth of historical research, the finely evocative writing, the extraordinary rapport with the cultural world of late Mughal India. It is also in many ways a remarkably humane and egalitarian history A splendid work of empathetic scholarship … few reinterpretations of 1857 will be as bold, as insightful, or as challenging as this’ Times Literary Supplement

  ‘No previous book has delved so deeply into the history of Delhi in those days, nor painted such a vivid portrait of the late Mughal court’ Mike Dash, Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Excellent – Dalrymple’s best book. Not only is it a fascinating biography of Zafar, it is a portrait of this crumbling city that Dalrymple
clearly knows inside out, and confirms the author’s position as the foremost expert on India of his generation’ Geographical

  ‘Mesmerising gripping and beautifully written’ Good Book Guide

  From the Indian reviews:

  ‘Narrative history at its very best… a gripping story seen through the eyes of the Britons and Indians who were caught up in the maelstrom. At the same time the book provides larger insights into the nature of the uprising … Dalrymple’s account is both evocative and sensitive’ Swapan Dasgupta, The Telegraph

  ‘Dalrymple is one of the greatest historical writers of our time, and this book will surely go down as his best so far’ Asian Age

  ‘Extremely well researched and vividly imagined, with a keen sense of drama and a perceptive grip of character. An entire period comes alive – atmospheric and immediate, elegiac, tragic and a thumping good read’ First City

  ‘Dalrymple narrates the story of Delhi’s capture and fall with a rare humanity, a zest that is infectious, and in a prose that is handsome, sure-footed and flowing with breezy purpose’ The Hindu

  ‘A compelling, vivid account of the 1857 resistance … A powerfully vivid and tactile retelling’ Hindustan Times

  ‘Dalrymple brings out the poignancy and pathology of a Mughal Lear with the ease and élan of a master storyteller … In The Last Mughal, history is human drama at its elemental best’ India Today

  ‘Monumental … sympathetic and very accomplished. The Last Mughal will remain a book with lasting value for three reasons. Firstly, it a vivid portrait of a remarkable man who lived through a fascinating period of history. Secondly, it is the most meticulous work as yet on 1857 in Delhi. And finally it is proof once again of Dalrymple’s ability to write history in the most gripping manner’ Pavan K Varma, DNA

  ‘History at its archival yet lucid best. Dalrymple combines meticulous research with a wonderful writing style. He captures the zeitgeist of both pre– and post-1857 brilliantly. More than anything else he has produced a book that is not just about the past, but that has contemporary significance as well. If only other Indian historians – both at home and abroad – emulated him, history would be both educative and evocative, both enlightening and entertaining’ Hindu Books of the Year

  ‘[The Last Mughal] shows the way history should be written: not as a catalogue of dry-as-dust kings, battles and treaties but to bring the past to the present, put life back in characters long dead and gone and make the reader feel he is living among them, sharing their joys, sorrows and apprehensions … Dalrymple’s book rouses deep emotions. It will bring tears to the eyes of every Dilliwala’ Khushwant Singh, Outlook India

  From the US reviews:

  ‘Deeply researched and beautifully written … A riveting and poignant account of the events of 1857 in Delhi’ Nation

  ‘An original, important contribution to the controversies of 1857’ Booklist

  ‘Dalrymple excels at bringing grand historical events within contemporary understanding’ Tobin Harshaw, New York Times Book Review

  ‘William Dalrymple’s captivating book is not only great reading, it contributes very substantially to our understanding of the remarkable history of the Mughal empire in its dying days, and also to the history of Delhi, of India, of Hindu-Muslim collaboration, and of Indo-British relations in a critically important phase of imperialism and rebellion. It is rare indeed that a work of such consummate scholarship and insight could also be so accessible and such fun to read’ Amartya Sen

  From the Australian reviews:

  ‘An extraordinarily detailed and highly readable portrait of the last tragic months [of Mughal Delhi]. It is also a lament for a lost Islamic civilisation at its most tolerant and pluralistic… Dalrymple brings the Uprising alive from Indian and British perspectives … A monumental work that breaks new ground in the study of one of the most important episodes in Indian history. Its lessons about the dangers of aggressive Western intrusion and interference in the East are as pertinent today as they were 150 years ago’ John Zubrzycki, The Australian

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  1. THE MUGHALS

  THE MUGHAL IMPERIAL FAMILY

  The Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II (1775–1862)

  The elderly Mughal Emperor – eldest but not favourite son of the Emperor Akbar Shah II – was a calligrapher, Sufi, theologian, patron of painters of miniatures, creator of gardens and a very serious mystical poet, but by the 1850s he held little real day-to-day power beyond the still potent mystique attached to the Mughal dynasty and was in many ways ‘a chessboard king’. Though he was initially horrified by the rough and desperate sepoys who barged into his palace on 11 May 1857, Zafar ultimately agreed to give his blessing to the Uprising, seeing it as the only way to save his great dynasty from extinction. It was a decision he later came to regret bitterly.

  The Nawab Zinat Mahal Begum (1821–82)

  Zafar’s senior wife, and his only consort to come from an aristocratic background: when they married in 1840 she was nineteen while he was sixty-four. Having toppled her rival Taj Mahal Begum from the position of favourite wife and provided a son in the shape of Mirza Jawan Bakht, she worked single-mindedly to have her son – the fifteenth of Zafar’s sixteen boys – declared heir apparent. Zafar was widely regarded to be completely under her influence, but during 1857 the limits of her power over him became quickly apparent.

  Taj Mahal Begum

  The beautiful daughter of a humble court musician, Taj presided over the celebrations that accompanied Zafar’s accession to the throne in 1837 as his favourite wife and the head of his harem. Taj’s fall began when Zafar married the nineteen-year-old Zinat Mahal in 1840. By 1857 she had been imprisoned for a suspected affair with Zafar’s nephew, Mirza Kamran, and remained bitterly alienated from both Zafar and Zinat Mahal.

  Mirza Fakhru – aka Mirza Ghulam Fakhruddin (1818–56)

  When Zafar’s eldest son, Mirza Dara Bakht, died from a fever in 1849, the British assumed that Zafar’s next son, Mirza Fakhru, would succeed him as heir apparent. Mirza Fakhru was a talented and popular poet and historian, but under the influence of Zinat Mahal Zafar tried unsuccessfully to block his appointment as heir apparent in favour of Zinat’s fifteen-year-old son, Mirza Jawan Bakht. Mirza Fakhru died in 1856, probably from cholera, but Palace gossip attributed the death to poisoning.

  Mirza Mughal (1828–57)

  Zafar’s fifth son, by a sayyida [descendant of the Prophet] of aristocratic birth named Sharaf ul-Mahal Sayyidani who was a senior figure in Zafar’s harem. Mirza Mughal rose to prominence at court as a protege of Zinat Mahal after the disgrace of Mirza Fakhru in 1852 and was appointed qiladar (fort keeper). After the death of Mirza Fakhru in 1856 he was the oldest of Zafar’s surviving legitimate sons, and may at this point have made contact with the discontented sepoys in the Company’s army. Certainly from 12 May onwards he became the principal rebel leader in the royal family, and worked with great industry to keep the Delhi administration running amid the chaos of the Uprising and siege.

  Mirza Khizr Sultan (1834–57)

  Zafar’s ninth son, the illegitimate child of a Palace concubine. Aged twenty-three in 1857, he was renowned for his physical beauty and had some capacity as a poet and marksman, but after throwing in his lot with the rebels in 1857 he did little to distinguish himself and ran away in fear from the battle of Badli Ki Serai, so causing a panic among the rebel troops. During the siege he earned himself a reputation for corruption, and is frequently criticised in the sources for making arrests and collecting taxes from the town’s bankers without authority to do so.

  Mirza Abu Bakr (d.1857)

  Mirza Abu Bakr was the eldest son of Mirza Fakru and Zafar’s oldest surviving legitimate grandson; he was also the principal badmash or ruffian in the imperial family. Within a few days of the outbreak Mirza Abu Bakr began appearing in petitions and complaints to the Emperor, accused of whoring and drunkenness, whipping his servants, beating up watchmen and casually attacking any policem
an who tried to rein him in. He took nominal charge of the rebel cavalry, looting Gurgaon and various suburbs of Delhi before leading the disastrous expedition to Meerut which ended in the rebel defeat at the Hindan Bridge on 30 and 31 May.

  Mirza Jawan Bakht (1841–84)

  Zafar’s favourite son, and the only child he had by Zinat Mahal. Though he was the fifteenth of his sixteen male offspring Zafar was determined to try to make him heir apparent. Spoilt and selfish, Mirza Jawan Bakht had few supporters other than his parents and took little interest in his studies. During the Uprising he was kept away from the rebels by his mother, who hoped that after the sepoys’ defeat her son’s succession would be assured.

  Mirza Ilahe Bakhsh

  Father-in-law of Mirza Fakhru, grandfather of Mirza Abu Bakr, and one of the leaders of the pro-British faction in the Palace, both before and after 1857. He was in close contact with William Hodson throughout the siege, and was instrumental in persuading Zafar to surrender after the fall of the city. In the weeks that followed he was responsible for identifying which of his relatives had sympathised with the rebels and, having guaranteed his own life at the cost of that of most of his family, including his own grandson, he became known as the ‘Traitor of Delhi’.

  THE EMPEROR’S HOUSEHOLD

  Hakim Ahsanullah Khan

  A highly intelligent, wily and cultured man, the Hakim was Zafar’s most trusted confidant and was appointed to be both his Prime Minister and personal physician. Before 1857 the Hakim had an uneasy relationship with Zinat Mahal, but they made common cause during 1857, uniting against the rebel army and opening communication with the British. When his letters were discovered by the rebel sepoys they tried to kill him, but he was protected by Zafar. The Hakim continued to press Zafar not to commit himself to the rebel cause, and to surrender himself to the British, but when he ultimately did so the Hakim betrayed him, providing evidence against his master at his trial in return for his own pardon.