Posted on: 12 November 2012

The Emperor Bahadur Shah
Delhi, 1855 - 1858

Europeanised in its full-face portraiture and modelling, this sadly gazing nobleman is the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II (r.1837-1858). Like his father, seen in the previous painting [LI118.33], he ruled India in name only, and his domains hardly reached beyond the Red Fort. Already an old man when he came to the throne, he had spent much of his life in the pursuit of Urdu poetry. For his nominal leadership of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, he was deposed by the British and died in exile.

© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford


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. कितना है बदनसीब 'ज़फ़र' दफ़्न के लिए, दो गज ज़मीं भी न मिली कू-ए-यार में।

this is so touching and beautiful....

Popular street saying in his time in the streets of Delhi - "Khalak Khuda ki, Mulk Shehanshah ka aur, Hukum Company Bahadur ka". The pain could be see in the eyes of 'Zafar' here in this painting.

Mr.Trivedi,another saying, dripping with sarcasm, popular during during Zafar's time was: "The Kingdom of Shah Alam, extends from Delhi to Palam."

Read 'The Last Mughal' by William Dalrymple. It is horrifying, to say the least, to see how the British treated him and Indians, at that time. No apologies or reparations have been offered by the British for their atrocities and the looting of India.

There will be no apologies or reparations by the British Govt. for acts of a British trading company. The Control of India Office was set up after the end of the Mughal dynasty. The capture of Delhi in 1857 was the last occasion when the Prize-Agents functioned and this kind of organised "looting" was stopped by the British Government.

A verse by Bhahadur shah Zafar' "ujaraey lutaeroun nae wo qaser us kae/jo thay dekhnay dikhaney kae qabil

"Na ghur hai na dur hai ,raha ikk Zafar hai/Faqut hal e Dehli sunanae kae qabil"

Mohd. Rafi and composer S. N. Tripathi immortalised two pieces of his poetry in the 1960 film "Lal Qila" - www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pNTLOZup2c (from which I have quoted the last two lines in the comment above ) and www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTzp2H86q64