THE LAST MUGHAL: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857 (SIGNED BY AUTHOR)

On a dark evening in November 1862, a cheap coffin is buried in eerie silence. There are no lamentations or panegyrics, for the British Commissioner in charge has insisted, ‘No vesting will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Mughals rests.’ This Mughal is Bahadur Shah Zafar II, one of the most tolerant and likeable of his remarkable dynasty who found himself leader of a violent and doomed uprising. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj’s Stalingrad, the end of both Mughal power and a remarkable culture. 150th anniversary of the Great Mutiny, the uprising that came close to toppling British rule in India, Dalrymple presents a brilliant, evocative exploration of a doomed world and its final emperor, Bahadur Shah II, descendant of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. Bahadur, more familiarly known as Zafar, was a reluctant revolutionary: the mutinous sepoys who had murdered every Christian in … More Delhi proclaimed him their commander, an honor he hadn’t sought. British besiegers took the capital in September 1857, followed by massacre, purges and destruction. Zafar died five years later in penury and exile. Dalrymple (White Mughals ), however, is primarily concerned with compiling a portrait of the Delhi he [Zafar] personified, a narrative of the last days of the Mughal capital and its final destruction.” In this task