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The Mughal Empire has been a controversial topic in the country for ages, with Mughal emperors like Aurangzeb being accused of ethnic cleansing of the local Hindu population, forced religious conversions, and razing of hundreds, if not thousands of Hindu temples. The Mughals ruled India for nearly 300 years, and had rulers who are still beloved by a majority of Indians, such as Akbar, Shah Jahan, and Bahadur Shah Zafar– and those that that are reviled for their cruelty, like Aurangzeb.
While the Mughal rule had considerably weakened and its influenced waned due to the impact of the British colonial rule in India, Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor, stood as the last remnant of the once-powerful empire that ruled India for nearly three centuries.
By the time of the 1857 revolt– India’s first war of independence– Bahadur Shah Zafar did not wield any real power, and only served as a titular ruler, even as those at the helm of the revolt proclaimed him as the undisputed emperor of India.
The British crushed the revolt with an iron fist, and later captured Delhi’s historic Red Fort, which was the residence of Bahadur Shah Zafar.
On September 17, 1857, Bahadur Shah Zafar fled the Red Fort, but three days later, he was arrested by the British at Humayun’s tomb, where he had taken refuge.
Thus, September 20, 1857 became the last day of the once-mighty Mughal empire in India.
According to historians, Bahadur Shah Zafar had taken refuge in the Purana Quila in Delhi, but the British, under the leadership of Major Hudson, breached the fort and captured him, and forced him to surrender, thus officially marking the end of Mughal rule in India.
Following Bahadur Shah’s arrest, the British rounded up the rest of Mughal princes and princess and shot them in cold blood.
The British sent Bahadur Shah Zafar to Burma (now Myanmar), where he was imprisoned in Rangoon (now Yangon), and died on November 7, 1862, marking the end of the Mughal dynasty. The last Mughal emperor was laid to rest near the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon.
Meanwhile, the last remnant of Mughal dynasty, Sultana Begum, who is purportedly the great-granddaughter-in-law of Bahadur Shah Zafar, lives in abject poverty in dilapidated slum on the outskirts of Kolkata.
Sultana, 60, whose royal lineage is now a distant memory, lives a small two-room hut with her family in Kolkata’s Howrah, and uses public street taps for washing and shares a kitchen with neighbors, according to reports.
Sultana Begum’s ruin started with the passing for her husband, Prince Mirza Bedar Bukht, in the 1980s, and since then, she has been surviving on a meagre monthly pension of Rs 6000, and raised her six children in utter poverty.
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