The Last Mughal

Mirza Mughal’s attempts to act as a co-ordinating Commander-in-Chief had only very limited success.

What was never discussed was whether the Company was legally empowered to try Zafar at all. For though the government took the position that Zafar received a pension from the Company, and was therefore the Company’s pensioner and thus subject, the actual legal position was considerably more ambiguous. While the Company’s 1599 charter to trade in th

Their failure to establish a well-governed “liberated area” or Mughal realm from which they could draw tax revenue, manpower and, most of all, food supplies ultimately proved the Delhi rebels’ single most disastrous failure.

Mirza Abu Bakr] experiencing for the first time the effects of a bursting shell, hastily descended from the roof of the house, mounted his horse, and galloped off with his escort of sawars far into the rear of the position, not heeding the cries of his troops. A general stampede then took place.

Occasionally, however, when some particular passage was read, the dull eyes would light up, and the bowed head would be raised in marked attention for a few moments—only to relapse into a state of listless indifference…His son appeared more animated, and laughed and chatted with his father’s attendant without appearing at all embarrassed.123 Before

Ommaney was disgusted to see that, as in Paris during the Revolution, large numbers had gathered to watch the entertainment provided by the executions. The Chowk, he noted, was “crowded with officers and Europeans.” “How transient seems this life,” he wrote in his diary that night, “when one sees a man so quickly part with it: a few moments and the

[The King] was called ungrateful for rising against his benefactors. He was no doubt a weak and cruel old man; but to talk of ingratitude on the part of one who saw that all the dominions of his ancestors had been gradually taken from him until he was left with an empty title, and more empty exchequer, and a palace full of penniless princesses, is

Baqar understood that behind the anarchy there lay a fundamental problem of authority. While there was clearly a certain amount of collusion and communication between the different regiments prior to the outbreak, each regiment had mutinied individually, had come to Delhi under its own steam and, once there, looked to its own subahdars for leadersh

But while Zafar was certainly never cut out to be a heroic or revolutionary leader, he remains, like his ancestor the Emperor Akbar, an attractive symbol of Islamic civilisation at its most tolerant and pluralistic. He was himself a notable poet and calligrapher; his court contained some of the most talented artistic and literary figures in modern