The Last Mughal

by William Dalrymple

  The owner, a Tilanga, argued back and unsheathed a sword. There was some jostling and raised voices, until some other Tilangas came [to help their comrade] and hit the barqandaz until he was bleeding then they took him into their custody. The Tilangas are meant to be royal servants. If this goes on then it will be impossible to maintain order and discipline104

  On another occasion, a policeman tried to stop a group of sepoys from running a protection racket in Gali Qasim Jan: ‘They take bribes for all the stolen goods that pass,’ reported the local thanadar (police station chief) to the kotwal,

  and if they are paid they let them be, but whoever does not give them a bribe is greatly harassed by the guards. Whenever the barqandazes of this police station who are posted there object, they abuse and threaten them. Recently it has got worse: they have begun arresting whomever they cannot extort money from, and now they are saying we should all withdraw from the police station and stop interfering with them.105

  For all the weakness of Mirza Mughal’s administration, Zafar realised he did possess one trump card he could play in order to try to bring some pressure on the sepoys: non-cooperation. His first glimpse of the power he wielded in this way was on 14 May, when the sepoys had disregarded his orders about moving out of his beloved Moonlight Garden, the Mehtab Bagh. Seeing this, Zafar had gone into his private apartments and, ‘distracted and perplexed, shut himself up, refusing audience to all’. Before long some of the sepoys began moving out of his garden and into what was left of the cantonments to the north of the city.

  Observing the effect of this, Zafar issued an edict a week later, threatening to remove himself from the city altogether, and go off into retirement in Mecca if the plundering of his people did not cease. It was the same threat he had made to Sir Thomas Metcalfe five years earlier. This time it worked. Baqar covered this development approvingly in the Dihli Urdu Akbhar:

  It is announced that hearing of the state of ruin and plunder being faced by the population, and the chaos and anarchy that reigns throughout the city, His Exalted Majesty has issued an edict stating that the soldiers are harassing both the population and the loyal servants of State, and making all their lives impossible: ‘Earlier the firangis issued orders as they pleased to our dear subjects, and the population was always worried and harassed by the English soldiers. Now you Tilangas are causing even more grief and trouble with your plundering. If this continues, then these must be the Last Days. I have no love for the throne or for money, and give notice that I will proceed into retirement towards [the Sufi shrine of] Khwaja Saheb [in Mehrauli], and all the subjects of his Majesty too will accompany their ruler and go with him. Hence I plan to migrate towards the Ka’ba and the Haram Sharif of Mecca, there to spend the rest of my days in prayer, repentance and remembering the Almighty.’

  It is said that when this announcement was read, all present in the Durbar became tear-filled. Let us pray that God Almighty, the provider of all aid, will create a situation in which the city is brought to order. This will give relief to the people and also remove the furrows of worry and apprehension from His Majesty’s brow …106

  It was not to be. Instead, on 19 May, there were signs of a potentially yet more damaging division. That morning, one of the more Orthodox mullahs of Delhi, Maulvi Muhammad Sayyid, set up a standard of jihad in the Jama Masjid, in an apparent effort to turn the Uprising into an exclusively Muslim holy war. Zafar immediately ordered it to be taken down ‘because such a display of fanaticism would only tend to exasperate the Hindus’.

  The next day, the 20th, just as news came that the Delhi Field Force was collecting in Ambala, the maulvi turned up at the Palace to remonstrate with Zafar, claiming that the Hindus were all supporters of the English, and that a jihad against them was therefore perfectly legitimate. At the same time a delegation of Delhi Hindus also turned up at the Fort, angrily denying the maulvi’s charge. Zafar declared that in his eyes Hindus and Muslims were equal and that ‘such a jihad is quite impossible, and such an idea an act of extreme folly, for the majority of the Purbia soldiers were Hindus. Such an act would create a civil war and the results would be deplorable. The Holy War is against the English. I have forbidden it against the Hindus’.107

  At this point in the Uprising, Zafar seems to have succeeded in silencing the jihadis. But eight weeks later, when large numbers of ‘Wahhabi’ mujahedin had collected in the city from all over northern India, it would prove far more difficult.

  7

  A PRECARIOUS POSITION

  On 23 May, just as General Anson was finally setting off from Ambala, a rider in ragged Hindustani dress approached the perimeter pickets of the British camp in Karnal and demanded entry. When challenged as to his name and business, the man replied that he was Sir Theophilus Metcalfe. The guards just laughed. The Assistant Magistrate at Delhi had long been presumed dead; indeed, report had it that his head was displayed on a pole outside the Ajmeri Gate. But the stranger’s remarkable claim turned out to be true: it was indeed Theo, and he had been on the run for nearly two weeks.

  For the first few days after the outbreak, Theo had been sheltered on the roof of the zenana of Bhura Khan Mewati in Paharganj, and had been well looked after and fed; in the evening, he and Bhura Khan used to walk out in the direction of Delhi and watch the burning buildings and, on one night, a display of fireworks celebrating the return of Mughal power. All this time, Theo had expected to hear of the arrival of British troops from Meerut to restore British rule. But on the morning of the fourth day, 14 May, with no sign yet of their arrival, Bhura Khan told Theo that he had heard that he had been tracked to his hiding place, and that if he remained the house would be attacked and the whole family murdered. Bhura Khan begged him to move to another place, which he would provide for him. According to the memoir of Theo’s sister Emily,

  In the dusk he took Theophilus to a kunker [limestone] pit, out of which material was taken for road making, in which was a small cave. He provided him with a native sword [tulwar] and a pistol, as Bhura Khan said he would be likely to be followed and attacked. The entrance to the cave was small, and Sir Theophilus felt he was equal to dealing with one man at a time. Either that night or the next, he heard footsteps and voices outside, and awaited the appearance of his assailant. There was sufficient light for him to see a man’s figure in the entrance, so he sprang on him and cut him down with his tulwar.1

  Knowing now that his hiding place had been discovered, the following morning Theo sent a message to his friend Muin ud-Din, now Zafar’s kotwal, asking for assistance to travel to Jhajjar, where the Nawab was an old friend of the Metcalfe clan. Muin ud-Din had kept in discreet contact with Theo, warning him that there seemed no likelihood of a speedy resolution to the crisis, as both had previously assumed, and ‘that whatever must be, would be’. Now he responded by sending ‘a good horse, and some money … with advice how to travel … It was arranged that Sir Theophilus should be dressed as a native soldier, and should be called Shere Khan, by which name henceforward he passed in all our communications’.

  The next day Muin ud-Din received a formal receipt of the money from Jhajjar.2 Muin ud-Din assumed that Theo would be safe with the Nawab of Jhajjar since the two were old friends. Like Muin ud-Din’s own Loharu clan, the Nawabs of Jhajjar had risen to power as a result of supporting the British, initially against the Marathas at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Nawab and the Metcalfes also had the common bond of shared tastes: both were enthusiastic patrons of the Company School paintings of the family workshop of Ghulam and Mazhar Ali Khan. While Sir Thomas had commissioned Mazhar Ali Khan to paint the monuments of the town both in his Dehlie Book and in his magnificent panoramic scroll of the city, the Nawab had commissioned Ghulam Ali Khan, who was probably Mazhar’s uncle, to paint a series of pictures of his court, one in light summer dress, another with the members of his durbar wrapped in winter shawls; he also commissioned a picture of himself lion hunting and another wonderful image of himself riding around his coun
try garden on his pet tiger.3

  Yet for all this, the Nawab did not greet Theo as expected. On arrival at the palace of the Nawab, Theo

  at once demanded an audience as a friend. The Nawab sent back to ask his name, which he gave. He dismounted and was shown into a small room to await his audience. He was kept waiting some time, and then sent a message, to which the Nawab sent an answer, saying he was welcome to the shelter of his home, but that he could not see him.

  During the afternoon several messages passed between them, Sir Theophilus expressing surprise that his friend should treat him in such a neglectful manner. Ultimately the Nawab sent his sarishtadar [secretary] with a letter in which he said he could not possibly see Sir Theophilus or keep him in the house as he would be attacked by the King of Delhi if he sheltered any Europeans, but that he would provide him with a horse and a guard of two soldiers to show him the way back to Delhi.

  As the Nawab was perfectly aware that Sir Theophilus knew the way to Delhi as well as his soldiers did, it was evident that they were to be sent for no friendly purpose. However, finding that he could get nothing else, Sir Theophilus accepted the offer. The pony provided for him was not his own good pony, but a wretched tat which could go no pace. He made the soldiers ride in front of him, to show the way as guides, and under cover of darkness, he turned his pony off the main road, into the sandy jungle and got away as fast as he could in the direction of Hansi. His pony was soon knocked up from fatigue and he had to walk day and night, sleeping in the jungle and eating chuppatties and drinking milk given him by villagers on the road. He heard these people discussing how the Europeans (sahib log) had been killed and the government transferred to the King of Delhi.

  The following morning, Theo had to leave the shelter of the jungle and return to the high road. He had been walking for some time, when

  he heard the sound of some horsemen riding in haste, and looking back saw two sawars in the Nawab’s uniform approaching so rapidly that they would shortly overtake him. He felt convinced that he was the object of their pursuit, and the only chance of shelter was in a village that he was approaching, and which he had not intended to run the risk of entering.

  He had, however, no other choice, and was certain that at this hour of high noon, its inhabitants would be taking their siesta inside or in some shady nook in the streets, wrapped in their long robes, concealing their faces from the heat … Sir Theophilus followed this example and was fortunate enough to take his place among a group of recumbent sleepers. A few minutes later the sawars came, and demanded loudly to be informed where the Englishman was in hiding, but no answer came, since everyone was asleep. One of the sawars then pricked with his lance the man lying next Sir Theophilus, and repeated the enquiry.

  The sleeper, indignant at this rude awakening cursed the sawar and said that no Englishman had passed that way. The soldiers hastened on and when the sound of their galloping had died away, [Theo] crept out of the village as secretly as he had entered it, and hastening back to the jungle remained in hiding till, at a late hour, he had the satisfaction of seeing his pursuers return home, balked of their prey … [Several days later] he arrived more dead than alive at Hansi.4

  In Hansi, Theo made straight for the mansion of another family friend of the Metcalfes, and here he had more luck than in Jhajjar. Alec Skinner was the oldest surviving son of Colonel James Skinner, ‘Sikandar Sahib’, and the eldest of Elizabeth Wagentrieber’s numerous brothers. The Skinners’ sprawling Georgian house at Hansi was the mansion her father had built as his principal country seat, and from where in happier days Sikandar had run both his irregular cavlary regiment and his stud.

  In the event, however, Theo stayed with the Skinners only one night. The Uprising had not yet spread to Hansi, though the town was tense, and trouble was imminently expected. Instead of resting, as soon as Theo heard from Alec that General Anson was on his way to Karnal, he borrowed a horse and set off at dawn, riding without stopping until he arrived at the British camp. The following day news arrived that the troops in Hansi had broken out in mutiny a few hours after Theo had left; his host and his elderly Muslim mother had had a near-miraculous escape, fleeing through the desert to Bikaner on the back of a single racing camel.

  Theo was exhausted and embittered by his ordeal; and his nerves were worn to the point of breakdown. Sir Thomas had always considered Theo unstable and something of a loose cannon; what followed was to prove him right. For Theo was disgusted by what had happened to him and what he had seen; certainly his friends and colleagues soon came to be anxious that the angry, nervy and haunted look that he had when he arrived at Karnal never left him until the end of the Uprising. In the meantime he set out to even the score, as he saw it, and to make sure that those who failed to help him, or murdered his friends or members of his household, were strung up and dealt with, inside or outside the law. As his friend Charles Saunders later put it, ‘Metcalfe was so maddened with revenge against the Mahometans, that he seemed to have a personal animus fomented by the sight of what he had suffered, and the defection of those whom he had trusted and befriended …’5

  The following morning Theo wrote to G. B. Thornhill, secretary to the Lieutenant Governor in Agra:

  Sir,

  I have the honour to inform you that I have reached Kurnul via Hansi from Delhi and although my health is not very good, I write to beg that the Lt Governor will allow me to accompany the force and the Commander in Chief to Delhi in some official capacity: and I trust what local information I possess of the Delhi town and district may be of service to Government … I shall be happy at all times to serve where I can be of best use, but after eight years connection with Delhi, I naturally, in this great emergency, flatter myself that so long a connection will ensure me employment there.

  I have the honour to be, your obedient servant

  T METCALFE6

  In due course Theo’s petition was granted; but as subsequent events were to show, it would have been much better for everyone if his request had been turned down.

  Theo was not alone. All over Hindustan, troops, dacoits, tribesmen and refugees were all on the move, and by no means all of the latter were British. A couple of days behind Theo, for example, on the same road, was the great Urdu literary critic Hali.

  After having been tracked down by his family while he was studying at the ‘very spacious and beautiful’ madrasa of Husain Bakhsh, Hali went back with them to Panipat, which lay a little south of Karnal, on the Grand Trunk Road. A year later, in 1856, his wife gave birth to an infant son, and Hali realised he must now find a job. He went alone to the administrative centre of Hissar, a few miles from the Skinners’ house at Hansi, and though he had no connections or references, eventually found a job in the Deputy Collector’s Office. He was still working there when the Uprising broke out.

  After a combination of mutinous sepoys – led by the future British spy Brigade Major Gauri Shankar Sukul – and Mewati tribesman rose up, murdered the collector, and marched off with the treasury to join Zafar’s army at Delhi, Hali had little choice but to set off, ‘taking his life in his hands’, and return home to Panipat. On the way he was seized by Gujars and robbed of his horse. Walking the rest of the way, begging for food, he arrived home with so bad a case of dysentery, and so raddled by exposure, that despite being treated by a celebrated hakim, he was sick for more than a year, and suffered for the rest of his life from a weak stomach, chest and lungs.7

  Edward Vibart’s party suffered just as badly. After having fled Metcalfe House less than an hour before it was attacked and burned, they wandered onward trying to find a place to ford the deep Yamuna canal. To their alarm, they realised that the only way to do so was to double back and cross just below the cantonments. In the hours after darkness fell, this was the most dangerous place in Delhi: the rebel sepoys had congregated there to vent their rage on the Company by looting, destroying and burning down every British bungalow. ‘With beating hearts, we crept along the canal-bank,’ remembered V
ibart in his memoirs,

  and gradually approached the flaming cantonments; but although the forms of numberless marauders were distinctly visible in the act of plundering the adjacent bungalows, we passed on unobserved, and, to our inexpressible relief, found the ford we were in search of without a soul in the immediate vicinity.

  We at once prepared to cross over, hoping to place some three or four miles between ourselves and cantonments ere morning broke. It was found not quite such an easy matter, however, to get the ladies across, as the water was considerably deeper than we anticipated, and on my going in to lead the way, I found the water breast-high.8

  The group wandered on by the waning light of the moon through a thorny uncultivated plain. The ladies were unused to walking, and by now their feet were blistered and bleeding. More worryingly, Mr Forrest was beginning to behave oddly after his severe shock at the explosion of the magazine earlier in the day: he was beginning to lag badly behind, occasionally disappearing altogether. By dawn the refugees had gone no more than three miles from the cantonments, and were becoming increasingly aware that the only weapons they had between them were two old regimental swords and a doublebarrelled fowling piece. Having made their way to some scrub jungle, they all lay down among the brushwood and, worn out with fatigue, began to drowse. ‘I was just on the point of dropping off to sleep,’ wrote Vibart, ‘when suddenly someone shook me by the arm, exclaiming the sepoys were upon us.’