The Last Mughal

by William Dalrymple

  Here you saw a group fumbling among mysterious boxes in search of jewels, there others laden with stuff of various kinds – pictures, books, guns, pistols, anything that took their fancy. Some tried the sweetmeats and sherbets, others, less lucky, took long steep draughts of what seemed some right royal drink – and alas turned out to be medicine, and found out, too late, that the old King has a passion for pharmacy, and kept large supplies close to the royal elbow.

  We did not find a soul in the private apartments, and as to the plunder, the greatest part was the merest trash, and there was nothing whatever of any value. I picked up in the King’s private pavilion a perfect new air cushion which Kate [Maisey’s wife] now has in her janpan or hill litter. That was the only thing I looted at Delhi, but this little souvenir, however, I was determined to keep, and I told the Prize Agent [Edward Campbell] so. The men at last began to quieten down from sheer fatigue and were collected by the officers. A deputation was sent to report the capture of the palace to the General.79

  That evening, as British soldiers danced jigs inside the Jama Masjid and as the Sikhs lit victory fires next to the mosque’s holy mihrab, General Wilson and his headquarters staff moved in from St James’s Church to the Fort’s Diwan i-Khas, where a dinner of eggs and ham was eaten (‘I wonder what the genius loci thought of this,’ pondered Fred Maisey). The general proposed a toast to Queen Victoria: ‘The Queen, God Bless Her’.80 Later a telegram was sent by one of his officers to Lahore, proudly announcing that ‘Our struggle has ended here. The widespread rebellion of mutinous Bengal army has received a complete defeat in Upper India. The days of Clive and Lake are again revived among us’.81

  The news was also brought to Nicholson, who lay gasping and clinging on to life in his tent on the Ridge, attended by his great Pathan manservant and bodyguard. When Neville Chamberlain went to visit him to bring him the news he found him ‘helpless as an infant, breathing with difficulty, and only able to jerk out his words in syllables at long intervals, and with pain’. He was, however, still well enough to fire a shot from his pistol through the side of the tent to shut up his irregular cavalry, who had gathered in vigil outside his tent.82

  When told that the city was now in British hands, he replied, ‘My desire was that Delhi should be taken before I die, and it has been granted.’83

  He died three days later, and was buried beneath a marble plinth plundered for the purpose from Zafar’s beloved Moonlight Garden, the Mehtab Bagh.

  While the Palace was being stormed, and toasts to Queen Victoria proposed, elsewhere in the city some of the worst massacres of the entire Uprising were taking place. The struggle may have ended for the British, but for many of the inhabitants of Delhi the worst trials were only now beginning.

  In the morning, the British had swept around the city walls, capturing the Lahore and Ajmeri gates, and the Garstin Bastion. At the same time Hodson and his irregular cavalry rode around the outside of the city walls to the large sepoy camps outside the Ajmeri and Delhi gates, so finally encircling the city. They were deserted except for some ‘sick and wounded [sepoys] who could not walk’, who were immediately put to the sword. Their corpses were left with the litter of the camp debris – ammunition, clothes and plunder as well as ‘their drums, band instruments, bedding, cooking pots etc, and all their luxuries’, which had been abandoned in their flight.84

  Soon afterwards, the order was given to ‘clear’ the area around Delhi Gate. Edward Vibart was one of those who took part in the massacre that followed. ‘I have seen many bloody and awful sights lately,’ he wrote to his Uncle Gordon in a letter that oscillated between bloody bravado and flashes of awareness at the horrors he was committing. ‘But such a one as I witnessed yesterday please God I pray I never see again.’

  The regiment was ordered to clear the houses between the Delhi and Turkman Gates, which are the two gates that we have to hold, and the orders were to shoot every soul. I think I must have seen about 30 or 40 defenceless people shot down before me. It was literally murder and I was perfectly horrified. The women were all spared, but their screams, on seeing their husbands and sons butchered, were most terrible.

  The town as you may imagine presents an awful spectacle now … heaps of dead bodies scattered throughout the place and every house broken into and sacked – but it is the [ordinary] townspeople who are now falling victims to our infuriated soldiery.

  You can easily fancy with what feelings I visited all my old haunts yesterday, I went to all the old remembered places, and almost [succeeded in] imagining that nothing had taken place; but on looking around, the delusion was soon expelled for the marks of cannon and musketry were to be seen on all sides, telling but too well the mortal conflict that had been raging here not long before. A little further on you would come across a heap of dead bodies in the last stage of putrefaction, or some old woman in a state of starvation, and you could not help wondering how you could ever delight in bloodshed and war. And a few yards further on still some [of our] drunken soldiers would reel past, exciting your pity not unmixed with disgust. Wherever you go, you see some unfortunate man or other being dragged out of his hiding place, and barbarously put to death.

  Heaven knows I feel no pity – but when some old grey bearded man is brought and shot before your very eyes – hard must be that man’s heart I think who can look on with indifference. And yet it must be so for these black wretches shall atone with their blood for our murdered countrymen – my own father and mother – sister and brother all cry aloud for vengeance, and their son will avenge them. Yes! He shall be seen in the fight, and shall never shrink [from bloodshed,] for God have given him both strength and courage.85

  Worse still was the slaughter in Kucha Chelan, where an estimated 1,400 Delhiwallahs were cut down. Here Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan had attempted to resist the plundering and had shot dead three British soldiers who had climbed over his haveli wall and entered his zenana. Their companions went back to get the rest of their regiment, and returned with a field gun with which they blew the haveli apart.

  There followed the mass murder of everyone in that quarter of the city. After the British and their allies had tired of bayoneting the inhabitants, they marched forty survivors out to the Yamuna, lined them up below the walls of the Fort, and shot them. Among the dead were some of the most talented poets and artists in Delhi, for Kucha Chelan was famous for being the most intellectual muhalla in the city. ‘They were well-known and well-off people, men who were the pride of Delhi,’ wrote Zahir Dehlavi. ‘They had had no parallels in their own day, nor will we ever see their like again.’

  For example, there was Miyan Amir Panja-kash, the great calligrapher, who had no one comparable to him on this earth. Then there was one of our greatest poets, Maulvi Imam Bakhsh Sahbai and his two sons, and Mir Niyaz Ali, the celebrated story teller of Kucha Chelan. About fourteen hundred people of that Muhalla were killed. Some were arrested and taken through the Rajghat gate to the river side and there were shot. The bodies were all thrown into the river. Meanwhile many of their women were so disturbed by what they saw that they left their homes with their children and jumped into the wells. For months afterwards, all the wells of Kucha Chelan were stacked with dead bodies. My pen refuses to describe this further.86

  One survivor was Qadir Ali, a nephew of the poet Sahbai who lived with him in Delhi, and who in his old age told the story of his escape to the Delhi historian Rashid ul-Khairi. ‘Delhi was like the Place of Judgement,’ he said, ‘and prisoners were being shot rather than hanged.’

  The soldiers readied their guns. Just then a Muslim officer came to us and said, ‘Your death is imminent. There are guns in front of you and the river behind. So those among you who can swim should jump in the river and escape.’ I was a good swimmer, but Mamun Sahib [Sahbai] and his son, Maulana Soz, had never learned the art. I could not bear to save my life and leave them behind, but Mamun Sahib urged me on, so I jumped in the river and swam away. I kept looking back, and after I had gone fifty or
sixty yards, I heard the gunshots and saw the line of people falling dead.87

  Zahir Dehlavi had another, more personal loss that day. His father-in-law, who had quietly sheltered three Englishwomen throughout the siege, felt confident that the women would guarantee his safety, and so stayed on in the city after the rest of the family fled. But he was gunned down by looting Englishmen regardless, alongside his son and two servants.88

  That night, while the officers feasted in the Diwan i-Khas, the plundering of the city continued. One officer who was aware of what was happening was Major William Ireland. ‘The Sikh soldiers had dreamt of carrying away jewels and treasures that would make their families rich for ever,’ he wrote. ‘General Wilson had promised that the plunder of the city should, when realized, be distributed to the army … So guards were placed at all the gates, who seized everything that was attempted to be passed through, [but] the Sikhs were not so easily foiled.’

  They got bullock wagons to be driven at night to the walls, and dropped their booty down to their friends below. Many women, too, were seized and carried away by them. It was not till the spoils of Delhi were seen passing up the Punjab, that the news of its capture was fully believed in the great Musalman cities of the North West … Many of the citizens were shot, clasping their hands for mercy. It was known, too, that a large proportion had wished us well. Helplessness ought to be respected in either sex, especially in those who have never done us wrong. It is as unmanly for an officer to drive his sword through a trembling old man, or a soldier to blow out the brains of a wounded boy, as to strike a woman.89

  By the morning of the 21st, reports began to reach Zahir and his family in the Ice House that all the pro-British loyalists at court who had stayed behind in the city, confident of good treatment, had nevertheless been murdered by the British. Among these was Mir Haidar Ali, one of the leading figures in the pro-British faction at court. Realising that anyone who had any connection with the court was now regarded as a legitimate target, Zahir understood that it was time that he and his brother separated from the rest of the family, and fled to safety. ‘We heard that the spies who had been supporting the English were now continuing to work as informers, helping them to loot and kill and find people to hang, for which they received two rupees for each name …’

  Nawab Hamid Ali Khan told my mother that he did not feel safe with my brother and me living in the Ice House. He said, ‘send them away, they should go to where ever they can feel safe. These people [the British and their informers] will not leave anyone alive who has been connected with the court.’ So I respectfully said to my father ‘It is true: we should leave, and you will have to bear with our separation and permit my brother and me to go. We will go wherever God takes us. I am particularly concerned about my brother’s safety since he has been working for the Royal Army, and the British will never spare him. If God wills to keep us alive then we will come back and find you.’

  I then took a few thin pieces of silver and lined them in my shoes, between the top and the sole, and put two pieces in the fold of my pyjama string. I tied a dupatta around my waist, and took a stick in my hand. My wife, who was very shy, was weeping quietly. She had just lost her father and her brother, and now her husband was going too. As I was leaving, I whispered in her ear that she was now in the care of God: ‘If I survive, I will come back for you, but if I am killed then please forgive me.’ So saying, I called on the name of the Almighty and strode out towards the shrine of Khwaja Sahab [in Mehrauli].90

  Zahir had hardly gone more than half a mile when he saw a troop of cavalry coming towards them. ‘On reaching us they surrounded us and said they wanted to see what we were carrying. They did not find anything but one fellow took off my turban and carried it away. I then tied the dupatta from around my waist on my head, a little later another bandit saw it, and came and took it away too.’

  It was the inauspicious beginning of what would be an entirely nomadic life for the next five years, wandering the roads of northern India, hiding and avoiding British patrols. Although he returned several times to Delhi, he was never again able to make it home, and survived as best he could by trading in horses, and travelling from court to court where his skills in calligraphy and Urdu poetry assured him at least some food and shelter.

  On the night of the 20th, General Bakht Khan stopped at Humayun’s Tomb and tried to persuade Zafar to accompany him to Lucknow, where he intended to continue the resistance. Again it was Hakim Ahsanullah Khan who convinced Zafar to stay: ‘“Recollect that you are the King,” he said. “It is not right for you to go. The army of the English mutinied against their masters, fought with them, and have been utterly routed and dispersed. What has your Highness to do with them? Be of good courage, the English will not regard you as guilty.” With such words he restrained the King from accompanying the army in its flight.’91 Mirza Mughal, meanwhile, was persuaded to stay by the devious Mirza Ilahe Bakhsh.92

  That night, Mirza Ilahe Bakhsh came into Delhi and told Hodson where Zafar and Mirza Mughal were sheltering, possibly at the instigation of Zinat Mahal and Hakim Ahsanullah Khan.93 He also informed Hodson that Zafar had with him ‘the state jewels and property lists of the same’.94 Hodson promptly went straight to see Wilson and asked for permission to go and capture Zafar, arguing that ‘victory would be incomplete if the king and his male relatives were allowed to remain at large’. Wilson at first said the enterprise was ‘too dangerous’, but under pressure from Hodson and Neville Chamberlain allowed Hodson to go if he took his own men and did not require a large force, adding, ‘don’t let me be bothered with them’; if Hodson wanted to go he could do so at his own risk, but would have to manage the whole business himself.95

  On the morning of the 21st, ‘a royal salute at sunrise proclaimed that Delhi was once more a dependency of the British crown’.96 But the captured city – the ancient capital of Hindustan, the great Mughal metropolis – was now a desolate city of the dead, except for parties of drunken British looters. Major William Ireland, a consistent critic of the brutality of his own colleagues throughout the campaign, was horrified by the sight of the ‘liberated’ city. ‘The desolation of the great city was eloquent of the miseries of war,’ he wrote. ‘Save in the immediate vicinity of the houses in which soldiers were quartered, all was silent and deserted.’

  There were no merchants sitting in the bazaars; no strings of camels or bullock wagons toiling through the gate; no passers-by in the thoroughfares; no men talking by the doors of the houses; no children playing in the dust; no women’s voices from behind the screens. Household furniture of all kind was lying in the streets.

  The spectacle was made only more melancholy by traces of recent inhabitants. The ashes were still black in the hearths, and domestic animals were roaming up and down in all directions in search of their late possessors. The houses were here and there burnt or shattered by cannon shot, and the fragments of shells scattered about, with rotten corpses now and then to be seen, half eaten by crows and jackals. The merchants had stuck to their shops to the last, and had been driven out only by the bombardment and the report of the fierce doings of our soldiers.97

  Lieutenant Edward Ommaney of the Guides, an Urdu and Persian scholar who knew something of the history of the city, was also aghast at what he saw as the sun rose. ‘The whole city is depopulated,’ he wrote.

  One only sees now and then, a body of sixty or so men and women going along the street to one of the gates, to leave the place; barring this, not one of the sepoys or the city people are seen. Our men may be seen in the empty houses, looting, and that is all. Of the 150,000 inhabitants, the whole nearly have left. Even when Nadir Shah conquered the city, this was not the case.*98

  Soon afterwards, William Hodson sent off Mirza Ilahe Bakhsh accompanied by his ‘Chief Intelligencer’, Maulvi Rajab Ali, and a small escort of Punjabi irregular cavalry; Hodson set off himself from the Fort towards Humayun’s Tomb with a second body of cavalry, around fifty strong, ‘after a brief interval
’.99 It was an expedition that he hoped would not only complete the restoration of his reputation in the army, but also put his name permanently in the history books.

  Everything had now been arranged. The moment had come to arrest and bring back as his captive the man many of the British were now convinced lay at the heart of the whole rebellion, the spider at the centre of the web.

  11

  THE CITY OF THE DEAD

  Hodson’s plan for the capture of the King got off to an inauspicious start.

  As Maulvi Rajab Ali and Mirza Ilahe Bakhsh approached Humayun’s Tomb, they were ambushed by a party of jihadis, and four of their escort of horsemen were badly wounded. They wheeled around and fled back towards Delhi; but coming across Hodson after a short distance they were persuaded to continue with their mission, since the attack ‘appeared to be the act of fanatics and not due to the King’s party’.1

  On arrival, Hodson hid in some ruins, out of sight of the gateway of the tomb, and sent in his understandably nervous negotiators, Rajab Ali and Ilahe Bakhsh. They were attended by a small armed escort of fifteen men from Hodson’s Horse, led by a Sikh risaldar (cavalry commander) named Sirdar Man Singh. Hodson gave orders that the maulvi was to direct the negotiations. He was instructed to pass straight through the large and unstable rabble of refugees, shahzadas (princes), courtiers, hangers-on and jihadis who had taken shelter within the walls of the garden tomb. When he reached Zafar, he was ‘to say to the King that if he came out quietly and gave himself up, I [Hodson] would ensure his safety, but if he ventured to leave the tomb, I had command of the entrance and would shoot him and his attendants without mercy’. For two agonising hours nothing happened. Hodson was just about to assume that his envoys had been murdered when,