'Would we suffer like this if Zafar had surrendered?': I-Day lament of last Mughal's descendants
The Red Fort, once the seat of Mughal power, is now a stage for the modern Indian state. Yet the descendants of the very monarch who made his final stand against British rule during the Revolt of 1857 now live a life of obscurity and deprivation. Sultana Begum's life is one of faded grandeur, reduced to poverty, marked by betrayal—both from the state and from those who claim to speak for justice, faith, and heritage.
Sultana's late husband, Mirza Muhammad Bedar Bukht, was the great-grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar. After the fall of Delhi in 1857 and the subsequent execution of Zafar's sons, the British exiled the emperor to Rangoon, where he died in captivity. Bedar, still a young man in colonial Burma, was smuggled back to India with the assistance of Piare Mian, his maternal grandfather and guardian hailing from Lucknow. It is widely believed that this operation took place under the protective vision of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who saw the surviving bloodline of Zafar not as a relic of monarchy, but as a symbolic embodiment of resistance. Netaji ensured Bedar's safety and shelter during a time when the British sought to erase every trace of the Mughal line.
For decades, the family lived under assumed names, moving between cities and hiding in plain sight. Only after Independence in 1947 did Bedar reveal his true identity, expecting that the new Indian state would honour the memory of his forefather's sacrifice and legacy. That hope, like many others, would eventually erode.
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