The Last Mughal

After the White Mughals and City of Djinns, the third book by William Dalrymple, which I have just finished reading, is The Last Mughal. And yet again, I have been rewarded with a thoroughly satiating, enjoyable & of course, hugely informative, read. It is painstakingly researched history served akin to an interesting story – complete with a thrilling plot, fleshed out characters, detailed atmosphere and background, and an end full of pathos.  

The Last Mughal is a heart-rending account of the historical events in Delhi during 1857, when emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar of the once mighty Mughal emperor made one last attempt to reclaim its fast fading glory from the British, by riding on the crest of Uprising of the Indian sepoys employed with the East India Company.

In absence of a strong leadership and a cohesive and sustained attack, however, the initiative of the rebels was soon lost, leading to the British company giving a final death blow to the Mughal empire. Bahadur Shah Zafar was deported with his family like an ordinary criminal to another British colony Rangoon, where he died unknown some years later. It was after this that the British became the undisputed masters of the whole of India for the next century or so. Interestingly, let me also put, it seems the idea of India actually took a shape after this.  

The Last Mughal is as much a story of the city of Delhi as it is of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor.  The renowned author Khushwant Singh is right when he says in his appreciation of the book that it would “bring tears to the eyes of every true Dilliwallah”.

William Dalrymple has this rare ability (for a historian, that is) of bringing empathy to not only the human characters but also to the city, as an organic being, a living pulsating whole of people. With  insightful interpretations of volumnious notes, and riding on a beautiful language, he has created the Delhi of yore as also the detailed sequence of events beautifully. 

There are two Delhis, in fact. One is the Mughal Delhi of Lal Qila, Ballimaran, Paharganj et al, engrossed in its mushairas, mehfils, kabootarbaazi, bazaars and the like. The other is English Delhi, a sort of a little English town the Company were trying to recreate in and around the Metcalfe House, Ludlow Castle, Civil Lines, Flagstaff Tower etc, with their chhota haaziri and Sunday Mass and breakfasts. And both of them, although living side-by-side, are miles apart in their living styles. (Chapter 3 "An Uneasy Equilibrium" consists such a beautiful juxtaposition of their daily lives, which I would like to serialise for your reading pleasure sometime soon).  

Along with all this empathy, Dalrymple succeeds in maintaining a complete objectivity as a historian towards all the principal casts of characters, which puts lots of things in perspective.

While strongly recommending this book, I would go so far as to say that it is time the "dry-as-dust" history books in our educational curriculum were replaced with such elegant narrative history, so that an entire generation could understand its historical coordinates more meaningfully.