The author brings to life very vividly an extremely important period of Delhi - the turbulent times of 1857, labeled the Mutiny by some and an uprising by others. When the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II gave his support to a rebellion among the Company’s own Indian troops, it gave the Mutiny legitimacy and turned it into an uprising against the British.
The book fleshes out the principal characters of the Mughal imperial family. One can quite sympathize with Zafar’s vacillations. He was a calligrapher, Sufi theologian apart from being a poet; but had virtually no power to rule. By May 1857 Zafar was already 82 and probably in no position to understand the consequences of a failure. He was also incapable of keeping the mutineers under control.
Zafar’s wife Zinat Mahal and her son Mirza Jawan Bakht are also important players in the conspiracy. Zinat Mahal plotted with the British and against the Mutineers to ensure that her son succeeded as heir. The palace intrigues and the lives of the British in Delhi are narrated with such skill that the reader feels that he is participating in their lives.
One can feel the scorching summer of Delhi on May 11 1857 as the mutineers made their way to the emperor in the Red Fort. One can visualize the intense longing for the hills and holidays of the British to escape the Delhi summer, probably unaware of the intensity and critical nature of the situation.
The fear and anxiety of the British is palpable when the mutineers have trapped them. They are outnumbered and have to flee. Theo Metcalfe (also called the ‘one-eyed Metcalfe’ because he used to wear an eye patch over his inflamed eye) was a key player in trying to save the British community during the uprising. He survived to only emerge as a ruthless leader of lynch mobs.
The author illustrates dramatically the confusion, panic and chaos of Delhi during the time of the uprising. Delhi society is split between the elite Hindus and Muslims who were worried about hosting the desperate and violent sepoys and the workers of lower classes especially the Muslim weavers and Punjabi merchants who whole heartedly supported them.
Other prominent Delhi-ites like Ghalib, Munshi JiwanLal (who was a munshi or clerk to Theo Metcalfe), and the thanedar of Paharganj Muin ud-din Hussain Khan (who helped save Theo’s life) come alive in the book. The author sees 1857 and the fall of the Mughal dynasty as the end of Indo-Islamic culture.
Readers will find the familiar joys of William Dalrymple’s writing – the breathtaking accuracy of observation; the apparently casual narrative that turns out to have led inexorably to some inescapable juncture, the disarming directness of expression; the author's ability to captivate us immediately and draw us gradually into strange, intense, lingering states of mind; the penetrating social vision; the inimitable blend of cool scrutiny and profound empathy.
But The Last Mughal is not only every bit as beautiful and substantial a work as Dalrymple’s readers might hope for; it is also a work of originality. The author has used previously untranslated Urdu and Persian manuscripts and the records of Delhi Courts, police and administration during the siege to weave the account. This is a book that I will return to again and again to savor and relive Delhi during that tumultuous time.
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