Amar Farooqui, professor of history at the University of Delhi, has left uncovered no aspect of the colourful yet tragic life of Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, writes RV Smith
Zafar and the Raj
Author: Amar Farooqui
Publisher: Primus, Rs 850
It might sound like an exaggeration, but is nevertheless not wrong to surmise that Bahadur Shah Zafar has hogged more limelight than even Babar and Humayun, the two founding fathers of the Mughal dynasty. Contemporary interest in the last Mughal emperor is such that several treatises have been written on him. However, Amar Farooqui, professor of history at the University of Delhi, has come out with a book, Zafar and the Raj ,that seems to take the cake with its account from pre-1800 to 1862 and after. Abu Zafar, the elder son of Akbar Shah Sani, was born to his concubine, a dancing girl, Kallu Bibi, who as the name suggests, was dark complexioned and probably not a Muslim. The name was later changed to lal Bibi to give it a better connotation. No wonder his father did not like him and preferred Mirza Jawan Bakht, born to his favourite queen Mumtaz Mahal II. Though Farooqui does not say so, Akbar Shah was under the impression that Zafar was gay and not fit to be his heir apparent (wali-ahad).
Born in 1775, he was probably as old as Mumtaz Mahal since his father was barely out of his teens when he was born. However Abu Zafar, known to the inmates of the Red Fort as “Abban”, was liked by the majority of those who constituted the harem, the general public and also the British, who did not much care for the brash and insolent Mirza Jahangir Jawan Bakht. Incidentally, the latter had on some occasions ridiculed his elder brother and then went on to insult even the British resident, Archibald Seton, at whom he fired at the fort and as punishment, was exiled to Allahabad. Though he came back to much rejoicing and the institution of the annual Phool Walon Ki Sair (the festival of flower-sellers) on the insistence of his doting mother, his subsequent behaviour annoyed even Akbar Shah with the result that the prince was sent back to Allahabad, where he died due to excessive drinking. However the insinuation in gossip that Zafar had an eye on Mumtaz Mahal, seems to be a falsehood, which might have been fanned by the queen herself to discredit her handsome step-son, both in the eyes of his father and others.
Raja Rammohun Roy’s activities on behalf of the emperor in England were seen by Zafar as being aimed at denying him the right of being accepted as the heir apparent. later the Raja’s son Radha Prasad Roy and Prince Salim were also seen by him as working against his interests in Delhi. Prof Farooqui may have the bias of a historian but what his research bears out is a very interesting and lucid account of Zafar’s life. More literate and intellectually better endowed than his father, he owed his grooming to grandfather Shah Alam, who saw in the young Zafar the promise of an enlightened prince. He spent 83 years of his life in the city in good health, except for a pain in the legs for which he was treated by Chiman lal (killed in 1857). It might surprise some to know that Shah Alam too was a poet who wrote under the pseudonym Aftab (sun or sunshine) while Zafar meant victory or triumph.
Zafar’s first ustad of poetry was Shah Nasiruddin, who later went away to the Deccan. The two others after him were the poets Ishq and Beqarar, only after whom Zauq became the emperor’s ustad, followed by Ghalib. About Ghalib too the book has a lot to say, including some incidents not generally known, and of the romantic life of the beautiful Vazir Khanam, mother of Ustad Daagh Dehlvi, the great poet who died in 1905.
Farooqui gives us a good insight into the state of Delhi at the time of Shah Alam, his blinding by Ghulam Qadir, Mahadji Scindia’s revenge, the Battle of Delhi fought at Patparganj, lord lake’s entry into the capital, John Fraser and his murder, and Thomas Metcalf’s appointment as the British resident. There are also some little known facts about the mutiny of 1857, the arrest of Bahadur Shah, his trial and banishment to Rangoon. The old and infirm emperor spent more than four years there as an invalid, coughing away and keeping his wife Zinat Mahal and son Mirza Jawan Bakht awake. Compare this with his life in Delhi, where he went on horseback even at the age of 80 to hunt on the Jamuna bank. In the fort he engaged in diverse activities such as writing ghazals, getting dynasty portraits painted, playing chess, watching buffalo, ram and cock fights, taking part in religious festivals, presiding over mushairas and teaching youngsters the art of shooting with a fowling piece.
No aspect of Zafar’s life seems to have been left uncovered, including his refusal to grant an audience to Governor General lord Auckland in 1838, just as his father had declined to meet lord William Bentinck in 1831. All in all, a good read but unfortunately it lacks illustrations, except for Dewan-e-Khas on the cover made by Faiz Ali Khan for Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s masterpiece Asar-us-Sanadid in 1847, some 10 years before the mutiny. Pages and pages of printed matter without pictures do make a book look bland, but even so what it contains is worth reading.
Incidently, Zafar’s grandson, Mirza Jamshed Bakht survived till the age of 60 in Rangoon as an English-educated gentleman. He died in 1921 when the non-cooperation movement against the Raj had been launched by Mahatma Gandhi in India. It was more than 20 years later that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose visited the emperor’s grave to pledge the country’s freedom, for which Zafar had fought in vain.
The reviewer is a noted chronicler of Delhi
