Posted on: 11 February 2010

Bahadur Shah II, the ex-King of Delhi, May 1858.
By Robert Tytler and Charles Shepard
This rare portrait of Bahadur Shah, Emperor of Delhi from 1837-57, shows him in captivity in Delhi awaiting trial by the British for his support of the Uprising of 1857-58. It was, apparently, common practice for Europeans to visit the ex-king in captivity. One of these, William Hodson's wife, describes seeing him as he is portrayed in this photograph, reclining on a bamboo charpoy and smoking a hookah. Although there was considerable agitation for his execution, a promise had been made on his surrender that his life would be spared, and he was shortly afterwards sentenced to permanent exile.


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Many years ago, I met a gentleman in Karachi who claimed to be 110-yr old. He told me that there was much agitation against Bahadur Shah's banishment to Burma. All along the road from Delhi to Kanpur, there were small crowds of people protesting against his deportation but he was under heavy European guard all the way. The royal family was travelling in a group of slow bullock carts and transported first to Kanpur, then on the Ganges to Allahabad and Calcutta. Then, after a second trip upstream to give him a last glimpse of India, he was put on a steamer and shipped to Rangoon. This cleared the way for the British to proclaim Queen Victoria as the Empress of India. I never found any reference to these protests by the Indian people against his expulsion in any book on the so called 'mutiny'. This is the problem with history being written by the victors.

This indeed has to be the most heart rendering image.... after the glory of Mughal rule, this was the Mughal Emperor...